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Slip into something more comfortable and delve into personal finance with Josh Sheluk and Colin White, experienced portfolio managers at Verecan Capital Management. Each episode demystifies complex financial topics, stripping them to their bare essentials. From investment strategies and financial planning to economic headlines and philanthropic giving, delivered with a blend of insight, transparency, and a touch of humour. Perfect for anyone looking to understand and navigate their financial future with confidence. Subscribe now to stay informed, empowered, and entertained.
Verecan Capital Management Inc. is registered as a Portfolio Manager in all provinces in Canada except Manitoba.
The Deathbinder series of articles that I did, extremely popular and it really kind of caught me off guard. The first Deathbinder story I wrote about was more an extension of the idea of it's not enough to just have the wills and powers of attorney or life insurance if your heirs don't know where to find this information.
Josh Sheluk:Welcome to the next episode of BareNaked Money. Again, we have a very special guest today, Deanne Gage. And Deanne is a reporter for Globe Advisor at The Globe and Mail. She specializes in issues pertaining to financial advice and the financial advisors that's provided. And she's been doing that for more than two decades.
Josh Sheluk:In the past, before her time at the Globe, she has been a columnist for the Toronto Star's Money Makeover column and an editor for both Forum and Advisers Edge magazines. And she's won several business reporting awards, business journalism awards in the past. So we're very happy to have her today. And we invited Deanne today, not because she's an expert at giving the advice, but because she's one of the few people that we can find out there that is frequently talking to both the financial advisors or professionals in our industry and the investors or the investing public. So she's a great way to marry those two things together and distill some of the complex ideas that we have out there about financial wealth and advice.
Josh Sheluk:So thanks so much for joining us today, Deanne.
Deanne Gage:Thanks, Josh. It was a pleasure to be here.
Josh Sheluk:So I think we'll just start maybe if you could give us a bit of a background on the time that you spent in the financial industry. What first drew you to the financial industry years ago and what keeps you interested in it?
Deanne Gage:Well, really I entered the financial journalism sphere by accident. Before that I was a technology reporter and I had a desire to write about more women's issues for consumer magazines. And I finally, at the start of my career, I got a job interview for one of the leading women's magazines in Canada. I was very excited. So when I showed up for the interview, said, Oh, that job's already been filled.
Deanne Gage:But we brought you in because we think you might be interested in writing or editing for this new startup magazine that we have. And that startup magazine at the time was called Advisor's Edge. And had had a lot of difficulty filling that position because a lot of people, they were seeing, as soon as you mentioned the word money, they went screaming in the other direction. I didn't do that. I was like, oh, okay.
Deanne Gage:Because I actually had been investing since I was a teenager. And so it didn't shock me. It wasn't really something I thought about, but I ended up getting the job and the rest is history, if you will.
Josh Sheluk:So they pulled a bit of a bait and switch on you then? Yeah. And it worked out wonderfully, I guess.
Deanne Gage:Yes.
Josh Sheluk:Yeah. So you mentioned you've been investing since a teenager. That's really interesting to me. What got you into investing at such a young age?
Deanne Gage:Well, it really started with my father. My father, I was very good at math naturally in school, as something fun to do. My father taught me about filing tax returns. He used to take a lot of his old T4s, T5s, T3s, and just for me to understand what they were and have me do filler tax forms. And when I was 17, that's the year that David Chilton's The Wealthy Barber came out, my father loved gave it to me and later for my sister to read.
Deanne Gage:So that was really sort of the start of my journey with personal finance. When I turned 18, he gave me a thousand dollars, which actually it was $10,100 dollar bills on a card. And at that age, at that time, it was like, wow, what am I going to spend this money on? But it was actually meant to open my very first investment brokerage account. So that's where that's where the money went.
Deanne Gage:That's where that started my foray into into purchasing mutual funds, equities, stocks, all that all that fun stuff.
Colin White:So what is it that you're looking for when you hear a story, idea that makes you think something would be interesting to write about or there's an audience for it? What what are there any tricks? Are there any are there any certain nuances that you look for something when you're hearing based on your background that you say, yeah, there's something I think that there's gonna be an audience for?
Deanne Gage:You know what? Everyone has a money story. Mhmm. A lot of our ideas, frankly, come from our own individual lives. For example, I wrote one thing that was always of interest to me is I'm on a street.
Deanne Gage:I have kids that are now teenagers. But most of the other, I use the word loosely, quote unquote kids are 10 years older. So that means that they're in their 20s. And on our block, up until very, very recently, no one had ever left the house, left the block. So that sort of started my thinking in terms of articles about adult kids staying at home longer with their parents than they have before.
Deanne Gage:I'm an older parent. Had my youngest daughter when I was 40 years old. And frankly, I didn't really see a lot of coverage catered to someone like myself. I'm in my 50s now. And generally when advisors talk about people in their 50s, they're talking about, oh, your kids are out of the house, you're near retirement, which very well could be true.
Deanne Gage:But statistics show that with the cost of living being what it is, or frankly, even lifestyle choices that people are having kids much later in life. But I felt that there was a bit of a disconnect in terms of the industry are sort of going with more traditional milestones, which would be get married around 25 or 30, have kids around early 30s, kids out of the house by mid 50s. But the way life is right now, that's not necessarily true for everyone anymore.
Josh Sheluk:Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned that because it seems like when I read through your writing, write about a lot of things that kind of are pushing back on the conventional wisdom or sort of the, as you kind of said, like the traditional tract, if you want to call it that. So you mentioned people having kids at a later age. Are there other things that you see in sort of people's lives or financial lives today where the trends, the demographics have changed a lot over the last call it ten or twenty years since you started in the business?
Deanne Gage:Yes, another example might be more people looking to rent versus buy. Not because buying is necessarily out of their reach, but because renting is sort of their lifestyle choice. They want the freedom to change jobs or even just houses. They don't necessarily want to be tied down right away. But you know, for years and years, and certainly I remember this even growing up as well, especially coming from a father who immigrated to this country.
Deanne Gage:Thought is, you know, you got to own property. That's how you make your money. I feel that that's changing more for sure.
Josh Sheluk:And do you think that's a last three years phenomenon where that's changing? Because as we know with investing, lot of times people kind of go where the trend is. And so the last few years has been the first few year period and like the last twenty five years where we haven't seen real estate go straight up. So has that been a last few year phenomenon that you think is following the downward trajectory of real estate prices or has that been something that you've seen for a longer time than that?
Deanne Gage:Definitely more discussion about it in the last three years as real estate got more expensive. However, I think that there has been a segment of the population that has been renting and doing it for quite a while. You know, a third of the population are renters. I just don't think there's been much coverage about it because, more it's been more sexy, if you will, to to cover a a booming real estate market. Now, obviously, right now, things are more stable.
Colin White:There's a financial reality too. There's there's a there's a great business model to be had in convincing people to spend a lot in real estate, borrow a lot of money to buy real estate. So there's a competing business model. Yes. I can tell you firsthand, making fun of investing in things, that's not a great business model.
Colin White:Talking people out of doing things, you know, even though you when you're right, you know, still, it's it's it's not gonna necessarily directly impact revenue. So there there there's a financial reality that the that the haters don't get paid as well as the champions of something. So I think it's a little bit slower to to change gears. So that I think there's the reduce the gig economy as they call it. People having shorter jobs and wanting to be a little bit more mobile to take advantage of things.
Colin White:That absolutely is a cultural thing. Still have witnessed with my own kids, which leads itself to being less interested in homeownership. And on top of that, you also have the financial reality of it getting a little less attractive and a little bit more of a barrier. So it's, you know, those two things I think are working together.
Deanne Gage:I was just going to sort of speak to another trend that I'm sure both of you could see firsthand. I was born and raised in the Maritime, specifically in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. And during COVID, I started noticing more and more Ontarians looking to relocate East, at least initially, I think it was more just to get away from the restrictions that were happening in Ontario. But as more people went down there, they realized that real estate was considerably less. And they would cash in on the real estate in Ontario and move to the East Coast and sort of pocket the difference.
Deanne Gage:And so what that allowed them to do is have no mortgage in their new house or potentially even retire earlier than anticipated. So, noticed that trend right away as I noticed some of my peers and just more and more people talking about it loosely in general. And the other thing I would hear is from my friends from back home in the Maritimes complaining about it. Because their cost of living would go up. They couldn't afford a house anymore because people from Ontario or other provinces could afford bidding wars and to pay way more than asking because in their mind, the houses were cheap.
Deanne Gage:But in the Atlantic or Maritime provinces, the incomes aren't as high and they just couldn't compete for houses anymore.
Colin White:Let me ask you a couple other or at least one other question, a little bit more, 30,000 closely, you know, what articles that you put out there that get the most traction that people comment on the most engaged with the most. A couple questions. Is there anything that surprised you as something that you put out there that was more popular than maybe you were expecting? At some point, was there any any topics of conversation, either adviser facing or client facing that you went, oh goodness. I didn't realize everybody cared this much about it.
Colin White:I didn't realize this was controversial.
Deanne Gage:Yes, for sure. The Deathbinder series of articles that I did, extremely popular and it really kind of caught me off guard. I do write about estate planning issues as part of my beat. So the first Deathbinder story I wrote about was more an extension of the idea of it's not enough to just have the wills and powers of attorney or life insurance if your heirs don't know where to find this information. So that's sort of where the death binder came into it.
Deanne Gage:A death binder is basically like a plan for when you die. Your heirs know where to find this information, and they know they learn about all your report papers, the location of it, things to keep in mind with your house, things to keep in mind with whatever you have in your life. Somebody that I quoted referred to it as a death binder, but you know, it's more sometimes it's called a legacy planner or something like that, something which, you know, I call eat your greens terminology, right? But somebody called it deathbinder. I just, I don't know, I went with that.
Deanne Gage:It just sounded kind of catchy. But I was taking a bit of a chance because I thought maybe it will scare people off because, you know, these days people don't want to use the word death, right? They want to use pass away or angels or what have you. But the first article went out and it was one of the number one articles. Congratulations.
Deanne Gage:And it was quick. And I got a slew of letters from, well, in twofold. Advisers wanted to show me theirs that they were using, that they worked on with the state planners. Consumers wanted more information on how to set one up. Yeah, or they recognized the importance to have something like that in place.
Deanne Gage:But there was a lot of fear of getting started and wanting to have all their ducks in a row. And, you know, with estate planning, it's interesting because fear of getting started is a real thing. It's hard. And it's hard. And I'm no different than my readers.
Deanne Gage:When my father passed away, I did have a number of advisors send me death binders for myself. And I tried to get started on them. I'd say I'm about I'm at the halfway mark for my family our family's death binder right now. It's an undertaking.
Colin White:Part of the issue is that it forces you and maybe to make some tough decisions because sometimes it's just not an easy decision to be made. So I have to face the fact that I love one of my kids more than the other or that one of them can't handle responsibility. Am I going to do with a family property? And you know sometimes there's no good or clean answers to any of that And where there's no good or clean answers, then you alright. Well, I'll I'll I'll worry about that on Sunday or next week or next month, and it keeps getting punted.
Colin White:So there's absolutely there's all kinds of psychological barriers to getting it done. So good for you. I've got confidence in you. I think you're gonna get through it.
Deanne Gage:I've been in executrix actually three times.
Colin White:Oh, no. I'm so sorry. I am so sorry.
Deanne Gage:What I will say about it is, I did it and it was, I will call it okay. When my father passed away nearly ten years ago, I always knew I was going to be his executrix. He prepared me pretty well. I knew where everything was. He didn't have a death binder, but I knew where to find everything.
Deanne Gage:And he's lucky that I'm just somebody that has a memory that is pretty good. So didn't, there were no questions that I had there. He was also groundbreaking, know, you may have heard of the letter of wishes. That's where you, like when you said about just choosing who to allocate money to and all of that. One of the letter of wishes sort of gets at the reasoning behind why the person makes the decisions that they do.
Deanne Gage:And the thought is that it will alleviate any family fights. My father didn't have a letter of wishes, but before he we knew he was dying, and maybe three months before he sat my sister and I down and wanted to talk through why he made the decisions that he made. It was also a forum for us to ask questions. Like, for example, my question I was kind of afraid to ask, but the forum that he put us, my sister and I, in was so warm. And so I asked, just felt, I have children, my sister does not.
Deanne Gage:I worried, even though my sister and I are very close, you know, the fact is if my children are being left things, I'm being left things and just my sister is being left things. I've worried about the inequity of of that. So we'd assess that.
Colin White:No. It's great when those conversations go well, and I encourage everybody to have those conversations because the upside is, you know, if it's gonna go sideways, it's gonna go sideways. So if you have a conversation about it that goes sideways, okay. Well, it was gonna go sideways anyway. But by having a conversation, you allow for the opportunity to make it much better.
Colin White:So in the, you know, the the accounting world or the the finance world, it's kind of an asymmetric risk. There's an upside and and not as much of a downside to it as far as making things worse. So we encourage people to have those conversations for sure. I had a a lawyer one time point out to me that he recommended against having people put their funeral instructions in their will because the will often gets read after the funeral. And there's nothing more disheartening to the family to hear your final wishes after they've already done what they've done with you.
Deanne Gage:With the readership, the one thing that comes up, and I can relate to this because I've lost people in my life. 've managed three different estates. You can be, I think what a lot of people struggle with is even, you can have all of these things in place, but when the person passes away, you have no idea what kind of mindset you're going to be in when that happens. You don't know what grief is going to look like for you until it happens. And, you know, I knew when my father died, I knew everything that I had to do, but it was hard.
Deanne Gage:I mean, some days, like when you go and you have to change the name on the, or notify the utility companies, or about the change of address, or whatever, for bills. I remember doing that for the water bill, and the woman on the phone knew my father, because he used to actually go into the place and pay. So she was devastated to find out he had died. And so she cried and I cried. And then, you know, that's all I could do for that given day, as an example.
Deanne Gage:Exploring articles about grief, the grief process. Because I feel sometimes with advisors, they're a bit clueless in when it comes to that piece of it. The people who get it, it's because they have experienced it personally, and so they are more apt to include those kinds of discussions with their clients as well.
Josh Sheluk:Just had a conversation last night actually with clients who are trying to figure out what their estate plan is going to be. And they're considering a sixtyforty split between their two children. And one of the comments in the meeting was, well, son will understand he's rational. And I said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You might be rational right now, but after a parent passes away and emotions are running high and grief is running high, said Deanne, that rationality might go out the window because you have so many other influences at that time.
Josh Sheluk:So like you said before, I highly recommended that they communicate everything ahead of time. Not to say that it's definitely gonna avoid any conflict, but more likely to avoid conflict if communicative about it.
Deanne Gage:Yeah, for sure. I mean, I would just say to any advisors listening, any work you can do in that area, I can tell you firsthand, I have many discussions with consumers who've written to me about my DeafBinder stories about this very issue.
Colin White:The issues around dealing with death and passing of grief is something that's more of a personal thing. It's not necessarily anything that's trained like there's not, you know, it's difficult to take a course on it. And the industry doesn't really do a particularly good job in the emotional side of training somebody and dealing with grief. I mean, you know, I've always found that it's important to give somebody as much time and space as they need to deal with what they need to deal with and, you know, not rush people through things. There's one group of people that, you know, really want to I need to bang out all of these things.
Colin White:I've got a to do list and this is how I'm dealing with my grief. So let's get the death binder out. Let's go through that, and that's how they're gonna express themselves. That's where their comfort is. Like, I'm in.
Colin White:Let's throw it in four wheel low. Let's grind this out for you and keep your attention on it because it's important to that person for their grieving process. And other people, I don't even wanna look at anything. Tell me anything that's absolutely urgent that needs to happen right now. Other than that, I'm just I'm gonna go take a cruise.
Colin White:I'm gonna go for a walk. And, you know, understanding that not everything has to be done immediately and that you can take time and space. So I think that there's and this is what time has taught me in dealing with many clients who've gone through things that sometimes it's absolutely as good on the death plan or let's go through. Let's take it off because that's the whole that's where the sense of dealing with things is gonna come from. And other people it's like, tell me what I need to sign and I'm I'm taken off for six months.
Colin White:I'll be back in six months. And, you know, that's that can be okay too. Just supporting people through that process.
Josh Sheluk:You mentioned DMs. There are some things, especially on the estate planning side that advisors struggle with. On your conversations with financial advisors, are there items or topics they seem to struggle with more than others?
Deanne Gage:I think that there is definitely some who struggle with family meetings. Their clients are likely to be the parents, the ones who are setting up the death binder, the wills of powers attorney in the first place. Their clients are probably not the children who are likely Gen Z or Millennial adults. And I think that a lot of them just struggle with, they don't want to bring a bunch of people into a room and maybe cause a fight or cause a situation where the clients may reconsider whether the advisor is the best fit for the family, if that makes sense.
Josh Sheluk:Can't be a comfortable thing. I know it's not a comfortable thing sometimes sitting around the table with a bunch of family members that may or may not get along, or may not have conflicts among them. But to your point, it's such an important role that we play trying to bring those two parties together. And I think what's most important is if they're having that conversation without you in the room, the chances of it going off the rails are probably much higher than having impartial professional advice or voice in the room with them.
Deanne Gage:Oh, for sure. One thing that my father did really well as well, is that every Christmas when I would come home, he made a point of making sure that I had a meeting with his accountant, with his advisor, people at the bank. And to be honest, I won't lie, I found it a bit of a chore having to go and meet these people. I didn't really have much to say to any of them. But you know what?
Deanne Gage:When he passed away, these people moved mountains for me. They were because they knew who I was. I wasn't a stranger, You know? They wanted to do right by my father.
Colin White:I used to keep a whistle on my desk when I was talking to a family about money and, you know, as a referee, I guess, like, giving everybody a chance to speak. And, you know, I actually pulled it out a few times and blew it because one person was monopolizing the conversation. And you know my job in that moment was to get everybody talking in the room. So in the right situation an advisor can play a pretty unique role and it can be very valuable if they can get through to enough factions of the family to allow everybody to speak. Because oftentimes people get entrenched a little bit in an idea and they don't know that there's a compromise they just can't see.
Colin White:And if everybody can fully express where they are, maybe there's a third idea that nobody's really thought about. And what a good adviser brings to the table is that perspective. Yeah. I've talked to two people who are in exactly the same situation you guys are, and this is what they did. And that sounds like, oh my goodness.
Colin White:We never considered that. So that perspective thing that an adviser can bring to the table, you know, for a thoughtful adviser who's paying attention and try to look for those opportunities absolutely is a value add, that that can really help move a family forward and take them out of something they thought they were entrenched in, that they really weren't like, they just weren't seeing the whole playing field.
Deanne Gage:I think advisors also struggle with their clients in terms of probate issues because the kids may say, Oh, you've gotta make the account joint with me to avoid probate, or You have to do this to avoid probate. When in reality, it may be, yes, you have to pay it, but it may be not the best focus of the time.
Colin White:I just made a just did a presentation yesterday with a local lawyer, and he he listed off the things that you're allowed to do that you shouldn't do. And that was on the list, making assets joint because he litigates the states. That's his profession. And he said that's where he spends all of his time, and there's so many ways that can go wrong. And the the problem is going back to my earlier comment.
Colin White:It's really great way to motivate somebody to do something. Like, if I wanna motivate a client to take action, you know, it's like, you know, you wanna pay a death tax because that's what how people will refer to probate. Like, no. It's like, well, I have an answer for you. Do this and you can avoid paying it.
Colin White:When in fact, you end up paying far more, you know, along the way or you end up with something that's very fragile that fractures at some point. So, again, not understanding the ramifications of that for sure. But it's very easy to motivate somebody to do something, take action, buy a product, become a client to tell them that you can avoid those kinds of things. Can I ask a completely different question that wasn't in the prep, Josh? Is can I can I go off road for for a minute?
Josh Sheluk:First.
Colin White:Yeah. Because, Dan, you alluded to something early on about the the female perspective and in the in the industry. And I am absolutely fascinated and would love to hear the secret right here and right now for the whole world to hear. What's it gonna take for more women to want to be financial advisers? Because I have failed so miserably in encouraging very, very capable people in becoming advisors.
Colin White:I don't know what I'm doing wrong. So can you please help me?
Deanne Gage:That's that's an interesting question.
Colin White:I know.
Deanne Gage:Let's see. Have you ever asked the women that you've interviewed women presumably?
Colin White:I've asked this question to everybody who's ever raised this issue with me. I've asked them to explain why because we we do have a very we have a lot of female advisers, very senior within our firm, and but we're still not where we could or should be, and I run into a lot of resistance when I'm trying to, convince is a strong word, trying to offer an opportunity to for women to to have the path into giving financial advice because I agree with the sentiment that women absolutely bring something to the table in giving financial advice that is missing in most of the financial advice giving world. But I have been absolutely flummoxed in any meaningful way to make a big big progress towards fixing the problem because I find I get a lot of resistance. What is it about the industry that women don't like? Maybe that's a better question.
Deanne Gage:I wonder if maybe they if you're in a sales environment, they're certainly not maybe going to be responsive to that. Because if it's a feast or famine type of environment, there's only a very specific type of personality that's going to be for that. I know that there were some advisors that would prefer a guaranteed salary versus not making anything in a given because they maybe have children to support or they just want that stability. You may look at things like flexibility in terms of work schedules. I know a lot of women certainly have appreciated the hybrid work environment.
Deanne Gage:I know for now to return to the office and I personally understand why it needs to be that way, but there is definitely a segment of the population who cannot make it work and have had to give up their job because of it. So I would look at the culture of your firm. I flexibility would look at of your firm. And frankly, I might even look at a lot of the women that I've met recently who are advisors, they it's a second career for them. You know, their kids are older and
Colin White:they
Deanne Gage:love helping people, but they're just kind of bored of their last career but still want to do something that makes a difference. It helps people.
Colin White:Yeah. Well, I think you kind of hit it on the head and you can say this way more safely than I can say this. But, you know, the the industry, the financial industry generally in Canada is a sales culture. And, you know, that's something that I have witnessed in my career that women are a little less comfortable with and rightfully so. So I I think that that's part of the foundation.
Colin White:And and we've again, I'm not gonna get into a very good story, but we've tried to undo that. We we do have salaries and, you know, we behave differently. But it's still finding that that talent pool that is is available to to take part in a brand new structure. So it's interesting if you ever have any more thoughts on this that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them because I'm currently trying to convince yet a couple more very intelligent, very driven individuals who would give great advice. The world would be a better place if they would be advisers.
Colin White:And I'm trying to find what it's gonna take to make them feel comfortable because I get it's daunting. You know, you walk into a financial conference somewhere and it's a bunch of finance bros. No offense, Josh. But they all, you know, they all look scary and intimidating, and I get it. But it's, you know, the the spark that ignites the plane trying to to find the women who are gonna be the vanguard that can begin to change that.
Deanne Gage:Well, know, one thing that, story that I'm sort of loosely working on is that concept is financial planning as a profession, looking at it at the post secondary level. Because frankly, if you want to be an accountant, you want to be an economist, I think most students understand the career path for that. But if you say, you won't really run into teenagers like my kid's age that say, want to be a financial planner. I'd be shocked if they even knew what it was. And part of the reason is, there's no university degree in financial planning, for example.
Deanne Gage:I wonder if you may see more women advisors if there ends up being more streams at the post secondary level since there's more women attending post secondary.
Colin White:Yeah, no, look, absolutely. And you make a very good point as I challenged the CFP senior leadership, you know, because I think part of the problem in that world is the vast majority of CFPs are in sales roles. And, you know, it's it's not like you're making a living as a financial planner. You know, you're making a living as a salesperson, and the CFP gives you credibility. So as long as they're beholden to an a membership group that is of that certain I think they're gonna struggle to separate it into.
Colin White:And I agree with you. I think it it it just should be something that's post secondary that it does deserve to be put on a higher pedestal and currently, that's that's not really the case. And I'm I'm not sure what the path is from here to there. I'm not sure how whether something, you know, we need to launch something that's different that runs in parallel and then gradually replaces or whether there's some kind of moment in time where we can begin to move the needle. Yeah.
Colin White:No. I agree with you. I support you. I would contribute to the article and read it and and share it around. That would be a wonderful thing if we could turn financial planning into a true profession and give us some of the hallmarks of some of the other professions.
Josh Sheluk:But, yeah, I wanna ask about one of your more recent articles, but is it too soon to talk about the Blue Jays?
Deanne Gage:Well, yeah, it's very sad what happened. I was in shock but the Jays aren't really my team but I cheered for them and I was so sure they had it, but they just couldn't close. So it was really unfortunate.
Josh Sheluk:Yeah, I'm still in mourning for a little bit, but I'll put that aside for a moment because the article that you wrote about was people splurging on tickets for the Blue Jays specifically. But I think you could reapply that same principle for a variety of things, whether it's sport tickets or concert tickets or a trip or a new car or whatever it is, splurging for something. And I think the interesting concept there was that in life where we have finite financial resources, there are trade offs, there are financial trade offs that need to be made. So I'm curious if you've come across a framework or a specific specific way to look at these financial trade offs that you think is particularly effective for people when making these spending decisions?
Deanne Gage:I wouldn't say that I have a particular protocol per se, but what I would say is that because it's so dependent on the individual, right? And like the article said, the memories of being able to go to something like a fall classic, especially taking your kids, which it's priceless. But at the end of the day, you also Actually, to wait
Josh Sheluk:it was like $3,500 a ticket, so not exactly priceless.
Colin White:It was priced at market.
Deanne Gage:Priceless in terms of family and friend memories, if you will. But yes, it's certainly not something I would be looking to spend because, well, the Jays aren't my team anyway. But sports to me is interesting because I used to talk to people about this, know, do you feel cheated if they lose? Like you spent $3,500 maybe you were expecting a win. Do you feel cheated if it doesn't go your way?
Deanne Gage:At least with the concert, you know you're getting the experience of hearing your favourite singer or band live. It's not quite the same in my view. But in terms of trade offs, I think you just have to kind of look at your budget and say, what are you prepared to give up to afford the $3,500 Now, if you're in a situation where that $3,500 is your mortgage payment, childcare or something like that, it's probably not a good idea. But if it's maybe your vacation fund or part of your vacation fund, maybe that is a trade off that you're willing to make.
Josh Sheluk:Just trading one discretionary expense for another, I think is a little bit easier to stomach than trading maybe a non discretionary necessity or something that is going to last three hours and might have a variable outcome. So that's an interesting way. I think, Colin, what you talk about a lot is like how many more years are you willing to work for this thing? And in this sense, maybe it's not number of years that you need to work, but I do think when there's sort of big ticket items that you're thinking about or big expenses, it's thinking about it in that way, how many more years are you willing to work or how much harder are you willing to save to kind of compensate for what you're doing I think is an interesting way to think about it. And you did write about that in the article as well.
Colin White:As I always point out to people math is going to math. You know, you can have all the justifications in the world I'm creating memories for a lifetime. This will be something that my grandkids hear about. Mhmm. Yeah.
Colin White:Great story. Math is gonna math. Like, there's, you know, there's still math. And no matter how exciting it is, there's gonna be math. So the nice practical conversation you guys just had about trading things off, that that's that's fair for most people.
Colin White:And, you know, frankly, our economy counts on people being a little bit, you know, overzealous with spending because that's what keeps the economy growing. We don't want everybody to be savers. If everybody started saving and doing what they should with their money right now, the economy would collapse. So we don't want that. So we need to have a certain diversity, shall we say, in the way people look at things.
Colin White:And that's what, you know, helps the planet to actually function. But whenever somebody starts talking about how much they deserve something or how hard they worked or, like, I just say math. You you can talk all you want, but math, you know, math doesn't care. Math is just gonna keep mapping. And at the end of the day, that's you know?
Colin White:And then Josh pointed out, they're they're trade offs. You can't make legit trade offs. You just I try to encourage people to be aware of them while they're making them rather than wake up one day and go, shit. I still have to work. Well, dude, like, you were the one who bought the extra car.
Colin White:Like like, go back and talk to that guy. Like, that was the guy that put you here. Like, don't you shouldn't be surprised that you're here. And that's kind of what we fight against. We don't want people to be surprised by where they end up financially.
Josh Sheluk:Another recent article, Deanne was about retiring alongside friends. And I think this is something that almost everyone struggles with is like, when is the right time to retire? Do you think, do you feel that in your conversations when people retire, they have a good sense of what that retirement is going to look like and whether they're truly prepared for it?
Deanne Gage:I'm not sure. I think it really depends on the individual. I will say that when I wrote that article about retiring with friends, that idea came about as an idea, sorry, as a way of possibly combating loneliness. Loneliness is a real issue in retirement, statistics have shown. And perhaps if you and a friend work together on your financial goals, you could retire together.
Deanne Gage:So at least there'd be somebody in retirement who's not your spouse who you could lean on for something to help fill the schedule of your day.
Colin White:Well, that's a great idea. And, you know, you're right. Lonely purpose, loneliness. I mean, there's the the going into retirement is a very difficult thing. I always encourage people to retire to something, not from something.
Colin White:Retire, like have something big enough that you're going to rather than something you're leaving. You know, if you frame it that way, you can start to maybe make some better decisions for yourself.
Deanne Gage:Yes. And on a personal note, I'm I I travel with a really good friend of mine that I've known since journalism school. We travel together on our milestone birthdays and take a short trip. And during the last one that we had, she said, you know, Deanne, I consider you part of my retirement plan. I'm like, what do you mean?
Deanne Gage:And she goes, well, in my retirement, I hope that we can spend some time traveling because we just a very similar mindset of we expect from a trip and all of that. We always have great time. So I never really thought about it that way. But of course our friends are part of our retirement plan. So this is sort of the next step.
Deanne Gage:If you're part of your retirement plan, then are there goals that you can set together so you're retiring at the same time?
Josh Sheluk:Wonderful idea. One of the reasons why I kind of pushed back on this FIRE movement because if you retire at 40 and all of your friends are still working, what are you gonna do with yourself? Colin said, you really need a purpose. You really need a point to life. You can't just go to the gym for eight hours a day or whatever it is that makes you tick.
Josh Sheluk:So that's one I've always kind of struggled with conceptually is how it might work even if it works financially.
Deanne Gage:The thing about the FIRE movement is, a number of them are still working. They're running blogs or they're running little side hustles. I know that they may not deem it as working, but it is. It is something that they're doing that is filling the time. Is a purpose.
Deanne Gage:Send me retire and I call it
Josh Sheluk:maybe. Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. That makes total sense. So you talked to a lot of financial advisors, Dan, as we covered at the outset. When you're talking to an advisor, maybe this will help our audience to try to get some sense for what they should be looking for an advisor.
Josh Sheluk:But when you talk to an advisor, what helps you determine whether this is a credible trustworthy well advised source of information?
Deanne Gage:I think it starts with accreditation. That's just entry level standard that I have or the Globe has. We prefer people that have earned a designation. It's a start. The other thing for me is I'm looking for people who are candid.
Deanne Gage:I'm looking for people who have something to say. Like Colin, when he just mentioned, it's about the math, math, math. And in my mind, I'm like, yes, that's a good quote. I'm not looking for people who are just going to give me the same old, same old, even though the same old very well may be true. Stick with your plan.
Deanne Gage:Stay invested, I'm looking for people that have something different to say or a different way of saying it. For me, I'm always looking to speak with as many different voices as possible. So in my stories, you're always going to see women advisors quoted. You're going to see people of different diversities quoted. For And the reason why I do that, besides giving everyone a chance to share the perspective, is I want my articles to reflect Canada.
Deanne Gage:I want them to reflect different point of views because that's who we are as a country. So everyone's money story is different and I want my articles to reflect that as much as possible.
Colin White:So, yeah, this is a question Josh asked our guests from time to time, and I'm really, really interested in to hear what your answer is going to be to this because you you've kind of immersed your professional career in the financial world, and you've dealt with advisers. You've dealt with with the general public. And I suspect that somewhere in there, there are frustrations about, you know, why peep why people can't get it. Like, why are we doing some of the same stupid things over and over again? So I wanna give you the magic wand, the magic wand of power.
Colin White:And you can wave the magic wand, and you can fix either one attribute or one issue in the industry or one preconceived notion. You can fix one thing. If you were going to fix one problem that frustrates you endlessly in in all of your conversations that you think is intractable. But I've given you the power of magic now. So magically, you're gonna fix this one problem.
Colin White:What problem would you choose to fix?
Deanne Gage:I wish that all advisors were planning based versus sales based. Now I am not anti sales by any mean. Products are needed to implement the plan, but I would like the focus to be more on the plan itself and the products to be seen as a tool. One of the problems that I have personally sometimes in the industry is I have people every day who email me hoping that I'm going to tout one product, write an article about a particular product. I have people emailing me about, for example, UL insurance being a be all and end all for all people, which is not true.
Deanne Gage:I have people who email me wanting like wanting my contacts. So like they're using me as a prospect. Can you quote me so like I'm quoting you, if I'm quoting sources, it's because I feel you have something interesting to say about the topic that I'm writing about. But there is a segment of advisors who want me to just use them in terms of for their own marketing purposes, if that makes sense. Can you put in a good word for me with your friends and the people you know that I'm a good advisor?
Deanne Gage:Insulted that you would email me about that. Yes, this happens. This does happen.
Colin White:I want to congratulate you on I think this is the most effective use of unlimited power that I have ever witnessed because you that is truly an intractable problem that you've chosen to solve, and that is worthy of the magic wand that has been bestowed upon you because, you know, you're you're trying to fight against human nature and greed a little bit. And, I wholeheartedly endorse your your your use of the magic power, and I would bestow it upon you a second time if if we could actually, you know, bring that to fruition. But you you just hit on the cornerstone of of exactly our frustration with the world. Sales has become the dominant part of the process rather than the service. You can make a fine living at this if you eat by servicing first.
Colin White:And because, yes, people need products and stuff needs to happen. But if you start with one of the things that we always talk about, if you're gonna talk to a good adviser and you sit down in front of them, their first question is gonna be how can I help? You know, a good adviser is gonna ask questions questions and listen to the answers and form a conversation rather than walking into, here are the top three stocks you should put in your TFSA or, you know, here's here's how here's how life insurance works for you. Or, you know, if they walk through with a solution or a product, then you're in trouble. If they walk in with questions and they spend the first half hour of the conversation doing nothing but ask questions, then, you know, you have a bit of a chance to get somewhere.
Colin White:So I commend you that Josh, is this the best use of the magic power that we've witnessed on Bare Naked Money?
Josh Sheluk:I think it is. I think it is. I think you hit the nail on the head, Colin. It, it truly is. It's an industry wide, Canada wide, probably worldwide problem note that, you just solved with the use of your magic wand, DeAnso congratulations.
Colin White:Catherine, that's gonna come with some kind of an award. So we're gonna have to bestow upon her like a special, knighthood of some description. So we'll have to work on that.
Deanne Gage:Your your ladyship.
Colin White:There we go. See?
Josh Sheluk:Yeah. It's it would it probably should be like a like a belt or something that she gets to keep the belt until somebody else can can can take the belt from her with a better with a better better use of the magic wand. So I didn't have any more questions for you, Deanna. I don't know if you had anything else that we didn't ask about that you would like to share that you would like to talk about, or even since you're the rapport, you can ask us a question too, if you wanna run it that way.
Deanne Gage:What is what do you think is the biggest issue facing your clients right now that you're working on?
Colin White:Fear and anxiety. You know, that the the world creates far more fear and anxiety than is warranted. And the the biggest struggle we have is on keeping people grounded and and focused on what matters. You know, the last five years, you can go through the global pandemic to inflationary spike, to interest rates spike, to geopolitical issues. They've all been tragic, but economically, the world's okay because economically the world is is very resilient.
Colin White:And the amount of stress and anxiety, the general population, including many of our clients feel about how uncertain they feel the world is right now continues. I think probably my whole career has been the same thing. There's always been a disproportionate level of anxiety and fear that's not really warranted. Things are not more uncertain now than they've ever been. And people say that, like, every year.
Colin White:Like, this is more uncertainty than we've ever faced. No. It isn't. Now there's many, many times in recent past where things have been more uncertain than they are now, but that feeling's real. Like, factually, you can dispute, but the feeling is real.
Colin White:And with the proliferation of the more radicalized news sources and people's ability to get into echo chambers and, you know, build up these anxieties or these beliefs, that to me is is is the the biggest struggle, but I think that's pretty always been the biggest struggle. Josh, I don't know if I've missed anything because you you have a different perspective than I.
Josh Sheluk:Yeah. I I think that's a good one if you're if you're probably asking about what is the most far reaching at the moment, but I think it's appropriate that we spend so much time on this conversation about estate planning because I think it is everybody's struggling with some of the questions and conversation that we had today and figuring out how they want to pass money on, what the most effective way is to do it, how to avoid the so called death taxes. All of these things come up all the time. Just as we talked about, just writing a will for people is extremely difficult. Like there's the number of people that definitely, definitely, definitely need a will that don't have one is just incredible.
Josh Sheluk:It's astounding. So whatever reason, estate planning is this almost insurmountable mountain that we need to get up and we need to do a better job of it. And I think a lot of people have just so many questions or challenges with it. So I think it's pretty pervasive at the moment. Deanne, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Josh Sheluk:I think you've provided a ton of great insights about the issues that are facing advisors, issues that are facing individual investors and individual Canadians today on the financial side. And that's all we're trying to do here is shed light and open up the conversation around those issues that people are dealing with on the financial side of things. So again, thanks so much for joining us today. It was incredibly insightful and we're very happy to have you along.
Deanne Gage:Thanks for having me. I had a great time.
Kathryn Toope:Advice. And if their answers leave you with more questions than confidence, it might be time to seek advice that aligns with your best interests. Contact us. No strings attached. You can find us at annoyingthecompetition.com.
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Kathryn Toope:Thank you for listening, and let's continue to challenge the norms of the financial services industry together.