[Summer Cool Off Series] A Chat With Jessica Moorhouse | HMM 60

EPISODE 60

[INTRO MESSAGE]

[00:00:08.0] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Her Money Matters Podcast, the podcast to help you take control of your finances. Join your host, motivational money coach, Jen Hemphill, as she shares with you practical, simple money insights into real life stories by women like you.

Let’s get to it!

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:26.0] JH: Hello, hello. Thanks so much for joining me today. This is wrapping up the summer cool off series that we’ve been having this month and next month, we’ll start off with a new theme, but I’ll tell you about that at the end of this episode because I’ve got another great guest lined up for you that I know you will absolutely love.

I wanted to make the final reminder, final being the big hit here that the enrolment for the Fearless Money Sisterhood is opening soon and if you want the power of community to help you not only gain the confidence you need to master your finances, get on the wait list. You can find this at jenhemphill.com/fearless.

It just takes one to two minutes to make sure that it’s a right fit for you and if it, I just encourage you to put your name and e-mail so you can be among the first to know, get early access to the community, some free training for only those on the wait list and special pricing. I’m telling you, it is worth your while to be on the wait list if you are really interested in this program or even remotely interested.

So let me tell you what you’ll learn about in today’s episode. You’re going to learn how our guest managed to go to college with only having to take out a $5,000 school loan and that is in Canadian dollars. You’ll also going to learn the leap of faith that moved her and her husband to Toronto with no job and very little money and you’ll going to learn about the story behind her $250 leather jacket purchase and what resulted from it.

So let me share with you a little bit about Jessica. Jessica Moorhouse has been blogging about personal finance for over four years at jessicamoorhouse.com and let me add to this that this is an award-winning blog. She is also the host of the Mo’ Money Podcast and having gone through many ups and downs throughout her personal finance journey, she wants to help others understand how they can take control of their lives by taking control of their money.

So let’s go ahead and meet Jessica.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:03:08.9] JH: Welcome Jessica to the Her Money Matters Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

[00:03:13.0] JM: I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:16.3] JH: Well, I’m really excited to talk to you just because well, one you’re a fellow podcaster like myself and I feel like we have so much in common just listening to your story, reading about you, we have so many similarities. So it’s just going to be really, really fun talking to you. So are you ready to dive in?

[00:03:37.2] JM: I’m ready. Let’s do it.

[00:03:38.4] JH: Perfect, so I wanted to know more about how you grew up around money. It always fascinates me to listen to people’s stories about how they grew up, what they saw, what they experienced that helped shape them later on in life.

[00:03:53.9] JM: Sure. Well money has shaped my life definitely since childhood. My parents, they got married really young in their 20’s and they were broke and they didn’t know what they were doing. They started a family very early and because of that, we didn’t have a lot of money at the beginning and so even when I was in school, I was very aware that I didn’t have as much money as some of my friends not to say that we were poor or anything.

I mean, my god, we still lived in the suburbs and I got everything I needed but we never went to Disneyland because we could never afford a trip like that. If we went on a summer trip, we would rent a van and then go someplace, I’m from Vancouver, so we’d just travel some place in British Columbia like Penticton or something like and go camping or whatever and so because of that, it was always apparent like, “You know what? I don’t always want to live like this.”

Not that it was a bad life at all. I had a great childhood but I always wanted to see where I could go. My parents always used to kind of say, “No, we can’t afford that, we can’t afford that,” and I just wanted to not have to say that when I was an adult. I wanted to see how I can make a change and so I have always been pretty frugal and just conscious of my money. I started working pretty early. I know when we talked offline, you said that you started babysitting when you were very young.

I also started babysitting on middle school. On my first real job at a fast food restaurant, it was terrible, terrible job but it helped me make some money when I was 15 and then I’d never stopped working since then. I’ve always had a job when I was in high school and then university and then now, I work full time and I have my personal business on the side and so I’m just a hustler.

[00:06:01.3] JH: I hear you. So you mentioned your parents talked about not having money and couldn’t afford things, did they give you any money advice on growing up?

[00:06:13.6] JM: Well they definitely said, “Don’t start a family super young. If you can, delay it.” And then they also didn’t have the opportunity to go to university. They both went to a technical college and so they got certificates but because they didn’t got degrees, they weren’t able to necessarily take their careers to a certain level and so they always really put that as an important thing when I was growing up and I have two sisters as well.

So the university and graduating with a degree was very, very important in my family and also debt. Somehow we never had, again, we were a middle class family but luckily, we didn’t actually have any debt besides I guess our mortgage. We never had huge credit card debt or anything like that. So I did learn from that and that we definitely lived within our means and that is something that I have continue to do as an adult and I’m really grateful for that.

[00:07:15.1] JH: That’s perfect. Now, you talked about being frugal. Share with us what do you do as far as being frugal?

[00:07:23.3] JM: Well, I guess it helps that I’m not a big lover of shopping. If I have to go get something new for my wardrobe, it’s more like a task not like, “Oh yay, I got to go to the mall.” I hate the mall, it’s really busy and I usually just like to go in and out and get what I need. So that does help me not really enjoying the act of shopping, but I think I am a bit of a money hoarder and I don’t like to spend my money. Because I have been working since I was 15 and I know I work really hard for my money and so it’s really hard for me to let it go.

[00:08:03.2] JH: I hear you. I have been there as well for sure and with college, tell me about your college because you mentioned no debt, right?

[00:08:14.9] JM: Yeah.

[00:08:15.0] JH: So tell me about your college experience what you did? I want to hear that.

[00:08:20.3] JM: For sure, so I didn’t have money to go to school. My parents didn’t save when I was a kid and so I knew if I wanted to go to a university and get a degree to better my career down the line, I needed to pay for it myself, which I am proud to say that I did. I did get a little bit of help in my last year from my family but in general, I paid for the whole thing myself, which is a heartbeat.

[00:08:53.5] JH: No, that is definitely something to be proud off because that is not easy. So tell me how did you pay for it because you lived at home right?

[00:09:04.5] JM: I lived at home so that was a choice to save money because I knew I couldn’t afford to go to a school and live on campus or rent a place. I also chose a university that was very close to my parents’ house. Luckily, it was a very good university and it had the program that I wanted to go to so that was helpful. But yeah, I lived with my parents and I took the bus to school every day and I worked for a couple of years in high school to save up for the university.

And also was lucky enough to get entrance scholarship, so that paid for my first year of university. So that was very helpful and then I worked honestly like 20 to 30 hours a week when I was in university. So I worked every weekend and I also took five years to do my degree instead of four. Part of it was because I did one year of university and then I applied for the specific film program that’s a four year program so I actually was in school for five years.

But it was also great having that five years instead of that cadence four years because I had more time to work and save that to pay for my education. Though I will be honest, I did take out a student loan in my last year. It was only $5,000 and honestly, most of it went to my, like I said I was in a film program. So for our last year, our major project for the entire year is a short film, a graduation short film and so that costs a lot of money and it cost me $5,000 to make it.

Mine was actually one of the cheapest ones because I was very money conscious. Lots of people spent $10 grand on their films. I didn’t graduate without any debt but just a very tiny amount of debt and I paid it off pretty quickly too.

[00:10:48.8] JH: That is nothing in comparison to the normal.

[00:10:51.3] JM: Yeah, yeah. I’m very thankful that I was able to wait until my last year to take out a student loan.

[00:10:58.0] JH: Right, well that’s awesome. That is beautiful, thank you for sharing that and tell me, you’re married so I’d love to know how you manage your money in your home. Are you the money manager, the one as far as that pays the bills? Tell me a little bit about that?

[00:11:18.1] JM: Well, so yeah my husband and I we’ve been married for almost three years. We’ve been together for nine and I think we lived together for I believe two years before we got married and so it’s definitely changed how we managed money when we were just dating and living together and then being married, which was interesting because I didn’t really expect that to happen but just our priorities changed and when we’re living together, everything was separate. We kept everything separate.

So all of our joint bills, we will just basically pull all of our receipts or look at where the bills were coming up and at the time, my husband was the one who physically paid the bills and he would e-mail me what I owed and then I would e-mail transfer him the money and then he would pay it off. It was not the best system. It got it done but it was a lot of work actually just keeping tabs on everything. Now that we’re married, we made the choice to be separate but together.

So we have a joint checking account for all of our bills and so we have all of our regular bills and so we put the exact same amount into the account every month and then we do have some joint investments but otherwise, I have my own checking and savings accounts and my investments and he has his own. So we have joint money so we could work towards our same goals and we also can pay off our bills and it’s kind of split down the middle so we’re both taking responsibility for that.

But then we also have that kind of freedom where we can’t get mad at each other for like, “Oh why did you buy that?” It’s like, “Well, it’s my money,” and we talk about money a lot. So if he did buy something very expensive, we live in a very tiny apartment so I would definitely know and there is no place to hide anything in this apartment. So we definitely have a good system I think of trust and just independence but also that togetherness where we’re working towards something together.

[00:13:27.3] JH: That’s beautiful because I know a lot of people, as far as when they’re married or they’re trying to figure out should we joint accounts? Should we keep things separate? And I think it’s always really important to look at your dynamics, your personalities because I think you do have to have some sort of independence and if you have those everything joint, which is fine, I know that’s how we do it but we also have our own allowance if you will.

Where it’s like no questions asked, I’m not going to ask him where he spent his money on and he’s not going to ask me. This is our guilt free money, no questions asked to do as we please. So I think that’s beautiful and so I know you had a conversations with your husband all the time around money, which I think is fabulous because I think that’s so important. But can you tell us a little bit about what kind of tools do you use? Do you use a spreadsheet? Are you more traditional in terms of paper and pencil? Tell us a little bit about that?

[00:14:34.5] JM: We’re definitely a spreadsheet person and even though we are kind of separate but together in terms of our budgeting, I am the person that is the money manager just because I like doing it and he doesn’t like doing it. That’s kind of the main thing so I always make sure that I’m always monitoring our money every month. I also take an account of how much money is in every account so we can look month by month in a spreadsheet.

I’m a very big spreadsheet fan to see what’s gone up, what’s gone down and so we can look at the whole year and see where we start and where we are now, which is kind of cool and he would never do that because he just doesn’t like spreadsheets and math and nothing like that and I like doing that. So that’s kind of how we do it.

[00:15:21.1] JH: You were going out again?

[00:15:22.5] JM: Yeah but again, when it comes to budgeting and also our dynamic is I work a full time nine to five, I get that paycheck every two weeks but my husband is a freelancer. So his income is very up and down and he doesn’t really know how much he’s going to make until he’s either doing his taxes at the end of the year or he’ll have a better idea halfway through the year like, “Okay, I think this is what my income is going to be for the year.”

So that’s definitely something that’s interesting in our lives just because I like structure and I can structure my money but when it comes to his and that’s also part of the reason I think we do the separate but together because pooling our money together and his income being so, you can’t really predict, it would have been just a headache for me. So I’m like, “You can just deal with that on your own and budget what makes sense for you and I’ll just budget on my own.” But spreadsheets are my go-to.

[00:16:27.7] JH: I hear you. Well I was going to ask well how do you budget with that or your tricks of the trade of doing that? So it’s just with his income fluctuating, there’s certain portions that he’s “responsible for” that he know that no doubt in his mind he can take care of with what he makes.

[00:16:45.3] JM: Exactly. Yeah, he always has an idea and every year just because he’s a freelancer, he’s a music engineer and so every year his client base gets bigger and he does make more money but still that specific number he doesn’t know. So how he budgets it’s a little bit more like he just monitors his day to day spending and if there is a big purchase, we’ll talk about it and see, “Do you really need more speakers? I don’t think so.” So his is just a little more fluid versus mine which is a bit more structured where I get myself “this is how much I can spend every week on myself” and so forth.

[00:17:28.4] JH: Perfect and I know we talked about your college experience and you having to pay for it yourself, would you say that is your proudest money moment or do you have another one you want to speak about?

[00:17:42.5] JM: That was one of my proudest, but I’d say my proudest right now is the big thing that has happened in our lives was a couple of years ago, we made a really big and risky decision to quit our jobs and sell everything we owned and move from Vancouver to Toronto because we wanted to really jumpstart our careers. I knew that what I want to do, it would take me a little while longer to get to that point in Vancouver and there’s just a lot more going on in Toronto.

So we made a big leap, moved here to see if we could really jumpstart our careers and we’ve been here for three years and it’s absolutely paid off. I almost doubled my income, my husband has also increased his income quite a bit and gotten a different clientele based that he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have had we stayed back in Vancouver and we did this with not knowing anybody in town.

We had a sublet for the summer at this apartment. But otherwise after two months, we have to find our own place. We had no income coming in. I had a little bit from blog income, but it was tiny and we basically just had our emergency fund to keep us afloat and we had to figure out how to make money real quick.

[00:19:01.6] JH: Right that is definitely determination at its’ finest.

[00:19:05.2] JM: Yeah, it’s definitely like survival mode at its core.

[00:19:09.8] JH: That is awesome and how about let’s talk about your worst purchase or maybe your worst money spent. What would you say that would be?

[00:19:19.8] JM: Luckily, I don’t have a huge worst purchase but there are times where I’ll buy something — several years ago we went to Portland and what’s great about Portland is they don’t have sales tax and also at the time, the Canadian dollar was I think on par with the American dollar. So when we went shopping and there’s no tax, I’m like, “Oh my gosh!” And everything is so much cheaper in the States compared to Canada. I felt like I kid in a candy store.

So I think I went a little bit crazy and bought a few things that I normally wouldn’t buy. So I bought myself this really nice at the time I thought was a really nice leather jacket and it was normally $500 but it was on sale for $250 and I’m like, “Wow, this is such a good deal.” So I bought it. I never wore it and I’m so mad at myself. I’m so mad at myself, it just hung in my closet. Once in a while I will try it on and I’m like, “Do I still like this? Do I still like this?”

I think the last time I brought it, I even brought it to Toronto because I’m like, “Maybe I will try it down in Toronto, maybe it was more of a Toronto jacket?” And I never wore it. I brought it back home to Vancouver and I showed it to my little sister. I’m like, “Do you like this? Is this a cool jacket?” She’s like, “No,” and she’s kind of a fashionista. She’s like, “No, that’s not a cool jacket at all,” and I’m like, “Damn it! What a waste of money.”

[00:20:32.4] JH: That is funny, yeah. We all have those, that one purchase that we make that we’re like, “Why did I do this?”

[00:20:40.1] JM: I was so confident when I bought it too and then I just couldn’t do it.

[00:20:44.9] JH: Yeah who knows what we think in that moment right? Was that maybe an impulse purchase?

[00:20:49.7] JM: It was definitely an impulse purchase and I think it was the fact that I thought I was getting such a good deal. It would be dumb not to buy it and then I’m like, “Oh please, no! That’s what they want you to do.”

[00:20:59.8] JH: Yes, those businesses know what they’re doing when their marketing to you I’d tell you.

[00:21:04.7] JM: I know, I bought right into it.

[00:21:07.4] JH: Oh that’s funny and who would you say influenced you the most in the area of money?

[00:21:12.8] JM: In my personal life or just anyone?

[00:21:16.3] JH: Yeah in general.

[00:21:18.2] JM: In general? Well I definitely credit my parents. They did talk about money fairly openly and also my older sister. I’ll give her credit because she was the one who actually got me into reading personal finance blogs and introducing me to that world because she was starting to do that when she finished university and was looking into that stuff and then I just got hooked.

But outside of that, I read a lot of blogs, I read a lot of books, there are so many people out there. I'd say one of the people that I keep going back to, she's really big in Canada is Gail Vaz-Oxlade and she is an author and she also has lots of reality shows and she’s just kind of a “give it to you straight” kind of woman which I actually like and yeah, she's awesome.

[00:22:12.11] JH: Awesome and so she also writes books and stuff?

[00:22:17.10] JM: Yeah she's an author and she’s had lots of different shows about money. You’ve got to check them out because I binge watched all of them I’m pretty sure when I first moved out of my parent’s house and I didn’t have cable but I had internet and could watch all of her past TV shows on the channels’ site and there’s one called ’Till Debt Do Us Part and it’s about couples that are married and they’re in debt and they need some help.

[00:22:44.3] JH: Oh that would be interesting. I’m going to have to look her up.

[00:22:47.4] JM: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

[00:22:49.0] JH: Oh and I’d be sure to put that in the show notes as well and is there one favorite money book that you have from her or maybe from another author?

[00:22:59.5] JM: You know, I’ll say one of my all-time favorites and it was the first personal finance book that I’ve read that just blew my mind. It just really changed how I really perceived money and how to manage it was again, this is a Canadian book but it actually the most popular or the highest selling book in Canada. It’s called The Wealthy Barber.

[00:23:26.7] JH: I have heard of that.

[00:23:28.7] JM: Yeah, definitely check it out. So it’s by David Chilton and he also has another book called The Wealthy Barber Returns, the sequel and it was the first book I read and it just blew my mind. It was all about — what was great is it’s not just a how-to book but it is written in a fictional form where there’s characters and they’re at this barber shop talking about financial situations and you kind of feel like you’re in there hanging out with them, so it’s pretty cool.

[00:23:57.9] JH: Yeah because now that I think about it, how I have heard about this book is from another interview I did for the podcast and she was also Canadian, our Canadian neighbor as well. So yeah, I was like, “I think it was her, I think it was Kelly.” So that’s interesting. That’s awesome and tell me, I know you use a spreadsheet for your finances. Do you have any favorite money related app that you completely love?

[00:24:24.7] JM: Yes, so I used to be a big fan of Mint and I got a lot out of that and it was actually really good because me and my husband use that for a bit when we just put both of our accounts in there. So I could see what kind of money he had and he could see what money I had, which was nice to put it all out there and I think that was actually one of the first things that we did when we got married. We both knew what was going on in our finances because we talked about it.

But it was a big reveal like, “Wow, this is really intimate. You’re showing me the numbers, okay.” So definitely like that app and I’ve been trying this new strategy for just tracking my daily spending because I have been realizing, “I think I am buying my lunch too much at work. I really need to see how much I’m spending per day,” if I am buying a coffee or whatever at work because I work in a building where there’s essentially a mall on the first floor and it gets very dangerous if you just want to go for a walk at lunch.

Then you’re like, “Oh, I’ll just treat myself to this,” and so I’ve been using this app called One Receipt, which is more used for just tracking your receipts. So you can link it to your e-mail. So if you get a digital receipt e-mail to you, it will track it. There’s also a part of it that you can take a photo of your receipt and then it will digitize it and log it for you. The only thing is it doesn’t have a total, which I think I’m going to contact them to see if they can put it in there because it would be so handy if you can see a total amount spent or something. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

[00:26:02.0] JH: Right so it doesn’t add it up.

[00:26:05.0] JM: No but it’s just a way to archive all of your receipts. So whenever someone would say or a cashier would say, “Would you like a receipt?” I’d be like, “No, thank you. I don’t want the paper to recycle.” But I’m like, “No, I should take the receipts.” So A, I have that moment where I have to look at how much I just spent and then doing that extra step where you’re taking a photo of it and really looking at it and it’s in that app forever.

It really doesn’t just show you a total. It will break down like if you went to the grocery store, it will log every item you bought on that list, which is great and sometimes when you’re looking at your credit card bill, you’ll be like, “What did I buy there?”

[00:26:42.8] JH: Right, so it basically takes, once you take the picture, it doesn’t add up the numbers which would be fabulous with that. But it will, let’s say you went to Target here and you went and got some groceries and on that same shopping trip you bought some clothes. So it will say groceries and clothes? It will separate like that?

[00:27:07.4] JM: Yeah, well the great thing is you can tag it. So you can actually create a tag like personal expenses, business expenses and then there’s different categories. So yeah, if you went to target and you got maybe some groceries but then also some housewares stuff or whatever, I think you could choose to put it in different categories. But then it will also shows you exactly all the items you bought too just so you have an idea.

[00:27:35.4] JH: Interesting. So it’s called One Receipt?

[00:27:37.1] JM: One Receipt, yeah. I want to do something with it but I’m not sure if it’s the right app but I am trying to figure out just a better strategy for me to track my spending.

[00:27:47.0] JH: Right, no that’s awesome. I’m going to have to check that out. That’s perfect. Well this has been fabulous Jessica. I appreciate you being here and I definitely encourage you if you’re listening right now, which you are to check out her podcast. I will definitely put a link to her podcast and her website in the show notes. But Jessica, you know this podcast is all about keeping things simple. How would you finish this sentence, Her Money Matters because ____.

[00:28:26.1] JM: Well, the first thing that pops into my mind is Her Money Matters because she works so hard for it whether at a job or a stay at home mom, no matter what, you are working hard for that money, so take care of it.

[00:28:42.2] JH: Perfect, I love that. Again Jessica, this has been such a treat. It’s been so much fun talking to you and I hope we connect again soon.

[00:28:52.1] JM: Absolutely, thanks for having me.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:28:55.1] JH: Wasn’t she awesome? I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed chatting with her. I don’t know if you’ve been able to piece together why I feel we’re just so similar but if not, no worries. I’m going to tell you in a little bit why I feel we’re just like so similar and that was one of my take aways just in talking to her, just confirmed how similar we are and then I had another take away so I’m going to share that with you.

But I want to give some recognition and a quick shout out like I always do. This time to Marcie who is a part of our Her Money Matters community and I know it can be intimidating joining a new group, full of strangers and on top of that, it can even be more intimidating talking about money to a group of strangers but Marcie jumped right in and was very transparent on her money challenges and being aware and so transparent tells me a lot Marcie. It tells me that you are ready to make a change because you are aware of your challenges and that you are open to learning. So I am excited to see you grow. I’m excited to see the progress you make and to prosper with your finances.

So why do I think Jessica is like another version of me, or why do I think she’s so similar? So we seem to share a similar story from our upbringing and our parents’ view of money to our determination to do different. Then we also went to college while living at home so that was another similarity as well, our frugalness as well. So I just wanted to share that tidbit. If you hadn’t been able to piece that together or maybe there are some bits and pieces that I haven’t shared like living at home while going to college and those type of things.

My other take away is that I just really loved her confident explanation of how they manage their finances. As a couple, they have goals that they wanted to achieve together but they also have separate accounts for separate purposes. Some argue that in a marriage, everything should be done as a couple, right? And to a certain extent, I can see why and I agree. But I also know, as I’ve mentioned before and I probably beat this up too much, but personal finance is a journey.

It’s a rinse and a repeat process. It’s ever evolving and just because you and your spouse are separating your accounts now, doesn’t mean that it’s going to be like this always. You have to do what feels right in your marriage. You have to do what’s right at that particular point in your marriage and things evolve and change and who knows what will happen in the future. So I just thought that I love that confidence about her and how she explained that.

So that is a wrap for today. Next month’s theme is all about different life situations and how money comes into play with that. So I have various interviews lined up for you to listen to and there’s no solo episodes. It’s just going to be pure interviews in the month of August, so I have some great ladies lined up for you to get to know and introduce to you. From a mom who has some children in the autistic spectrum, to a woman that recently got a divorce, to a woman who recently lost her husband.

And, I also have a woman that I’m interviewing that is going to be talking to the single ladies. So for you, the single woman, I know you’ve been waiting for this. I haven’t done a show about it just because I’m not single, so I don’t feel like I can talk about money. I can tell you and teach about money but from that perspective, it just doesn’t do you justice for me to talk about it just like with the other situations, right? So looking forward to next month in August, look for those interviews and that is it.

So I want to thank Jessica for joining us, for just being so transparent and sharing such a great story. You can check out the show notes on where to find her and more at jenhemphill.com/60 and don’t forget if you’ve been eying the Fearless Money Sisterhood, now is the time to get on that wait list and you can do that at jenhemphill.com/fearless.

So I’ll talk to you next Thursday.

[END]