Personal finance blogger Jordann Brown from My Alternate Life and I talk about her paying down $38,000 in debt and completely changing her lifestyle to prevent getting into debt ever again.
Long episode description:
I am so excited to share my episode with Jordann Brown from My Alternate Life. I’ve been following her blog since it started (close to the time I started mine over 3 years ago), so it was so fun to chat with her about her journey. I actually first met Jordann at the Canadian Personal Finance Conference in 2013 and she was just as sweet and friendly in-person as she is on her blog. We also hung out at FinCon 2014 in New Orleans last September, partially because we Canadian bloggers stuck together for a lot of that conference, and partially because Jordann and I are both major introverts who aren’t good at networking in big crowds.
What I think is so cool about Jordann’s story is that it’s the same story as a number of millennials out there. She went to university, graduated with a whack of debt, then expected her post-grad life to be relatively smooth sailing. I thought the same way after graduating, expecting a full-time job and an awesome apartment right out the gate. Well, that just isn’t how life goes, especially when you graduate during an economic recession. But instead of just putting her hands up and wallowing in self-pity about her situation, Jordann worked hard at turning everything around. She’s now completely debt-free and living the life she wants. Listen to the episode to find out all the details.
Jordann mentioned a few links during our conversation, so here they are below. I also wanted to include links about student debt repayment and forgiveness that may be helpful to any of you who are currently chipping away at your student loans. Note these are resources just for Canadian student loans as I don’t have much experience with student loans in the U.S. or overseas. Maybe that would make for a good future episode though. Any experts out there want to hit me up?
Blog posts Jordann mentioned
Helpful Debt Repayment Resources
Canada
British Columbia (B.C.)
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.)
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/11
In this candid episode, I share my experience moving away from my hometown and starting over in a new city, in the hopes of increasing my salary and jump starting my career.
Long episode description:
I know I mentioned in episode 1 that I wouldn’t be doing any crazy long monologue podcast episodes…but I lied. I’ve blogged about my experience moving away from my hometown and starting over in Toronto, but I just felt like since this is such a big part of who I am now — I needed to do a podcast episode about my experience as well.
I mentioned a ton of blog posts in this episode to give you a full timeline and understanding of what went down, so brace yourself for the longest list of blog post links ever!
I’m not gonna write too much more, because you really do just need to listen to the episode. I’d love to hear from any of you about your experiences, or make sure to send me your feedback in the form of a Stitcher and iTunes review! I’ll thank you by giving you a shout out and reading your review on a future episode, so thanks in advance!
My Trip to Thailand & Budget Breakdown
My Journey from Vancouver to Toronto
My New Life in Toronto
Jump Starting My Career in Toronto
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/10
Michelle Summerfield, from the personal finance blog Budget Bloggess, and I discuss the challenges of managing money after divorce, paying down debt and conquering your inner shopaholic.
Long episode description:
Michelle from Budget Bloggess was one of the first personal finance bloggers I met when I moved to Toronto over two years ago, so it was inevitable that I would have her on my podcast at some point. If you aren’t already a reader of her blog, I highly suggest it. She is super open about her struggles with debt and shopaholism, which we discuss in-depth in this episode, plus I just love her blog post series about her alter ego — Spenderella. We also got to bond over our frugal dads in this episode, and we even talk a bit about her divorce and how that influenced her debt repayment. Lots of great topics covered in this show I must say!
We both mentioned a few of Michelle’s blog posts during this episode, so here they all are. Thanks again for reading and listening, and make sure to check back here next week for episode 10. It’s a particularly special and personal episode all about my experience moving from Vancouver to Toronto.
Blog Posts Michelle Mentioned
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/9
Money blogger Tonya Stumphauzer from Budget and the Beach and I talk about going from employee to being her own boss in the entertainment industry.
Long episode description:
As I mentioned at the start of this episode, I was lucky enough to have met Tonya from Budget and the Beach a few years ago when my husband Josh and I were on our honeymoon in California. Both Josh and I were debating where to go for our honeymoon, and since we’d already done the whole Mexico resort thing a few years prior, we decided to fulfill our childhood dreams of going to Disneyland. It was beyond awesome, I’m telling you. It seriously is the happiest place on Earth.
Anywho, while we were in California, we were able to meet Tonya for some beer and tacos near Hermosa Beach. Ok, here’s the thing, when I pictured Hermosa Beach I pictured people in bikinis rollerblading along the seawall. What we ended up getting was cold, cloudy weather pretty much the whole time we were there. When I told Tonya this, she broke the harsh news to us that the locals call this time of year “June Gloom” because of the blah weather. I guess I should have done a bit more research before booking those plane tickets. Oh well, we still had an awesome time, even if we didn’t get to go for a swim in the ocean.
Ever since that meet-up, Tonya has been one of my all-time favourite American personal finance bloggers. So when I got the idea to start my own podcast, I knew I needed to get Tonya as my first non-Canadian guest. She’s just so personable and honest, and I think it definitely comes across in this episode.
Before getting to the blog posts Tonya mentions on the show, I wanted to share the first episode of her Money Stories web series. Just like me with my podcast, Tonya is going beyond her blog to share other people’s money stories and I am absolutely loving it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGuUbZyQE6g
Blog Posts Tonya Mentioned
Check Out Tonya on Youtube
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/8
Barry Choi, from the investing and travel blog Money We Have, and I talk about DIY investing through index funds and using the Couch Potato method.
Long episode description:
If you’ve been a reader of my blog throughout these 3 and half years, then you already know that I am by far no expert when it comes to investing. Not for lack of desire, but I guess when it comes to personal finance I just stick to what I’m comfortable with — saving and budgeting. That being said, I know that in order to continue to increase my net worth, I need to do a better job of investing. Right now, I’m justing investing in mutual funds in my RRSP and TFSA, but I definitely want to diversify in the future. That’s where Barry Choi comes in.
Barry has been a DIY investor for a number of years and has been writing about his experience on his blog Money We Have as well. Since I really wanted to learn more about his investing strategies, I thought he would be the perfect podcast guest for this episode.
We talk about a lot of topics, including how to get started as a DIY investor and how to implement the Couch Potato method of investing, so make sure you check out some of these handy resources Barry mentioned on the show below.
As an added bonus, I am also giving away a cop of John Robertson’s investing for beginners book The Value of Simple: A Practical Guide to Taking the Complexity Out of Investing. You may already know John from his blog Holy Potato, but Barry highly praised this book (and gave me a copy to check out), so I’m super pumped to be giving one of you lucky winners a copy too!
Resources Barry mentioned:
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/7