Fiona Smith, Founder of Millennial Money Woman | How to Quit Your Job & Become a Millionaire

Welcome to success story the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business. Hosts in the HubSpot podcast network act as on-demand mentors for entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups offering resources, practical tips and inspirational stories. Listen, learn and grow with the HubSpot podcast network at hubspot.com slash podcast network. Today, my guest is Fiona Smith, aka a millennial money woman. Fiona holds her masters of science degree in personal finance and personal financial planning and has co-founded not only her own business but a local charitable nonprofit community teaching financial literacy to young professionals. She's dedicated her life teaching and mentoring a younger generation in personal finance. So she gained knowledge and practiced financial habits from a very young age. She purchased her first house at 23 has no debt co-founded several organizations and is well on her way to being a million there and multi-million there. Her brand has grown showcasing the need for what she teaches to the point where she has been asked to be a regular contributor for Forbes. She's also been featured in Forbes in Vez Overlow budgets are sexy and a variety of other financial publications and outlets. Her website the millennial money woman.com was listed as a top 50 personal finance blog and is currently one of the fastest growing finance blogs globally. She's also racked up an enormous social following on the same topic. Today we spoke about a few different personal finance things. So first of all we spoke about financial education and literacy why the system is broken and what we can do to fix it. We spoke about how quite literally anybody can become a millionaire. We spoke about the mindset of the rich and how you can apply that to your life. We spoke about frugal living tips that allowed her to invest over 70% of her income. Then we also spoke how life changing events like the pandemic actually allow people to start their own business. Now she used the pandemic as a net positive for her own business. So we really went through a couple different tips and strategies, but also some mindset things that I think will be very valuable if you are still working in nine to five and you're trying to break away and start your own business. And then we also spoke about how she grew her own business. So she grew it through social. She grew a highly successful website. So technically it's just a blog and we're going to speak about her strategy for how she creates content and how she gets engagement and how she used her social as well as how she writes articles that still draw tons of traffic. She again in the past year has created a massive social following and a blog that is growing faster than blogs that have been around for 10 plus years. So she breaks down her strategy for that. Anyways, this is Fiona Smith. She is the millennial money woman grew up in a immigrant first of all. So not English was not his first language had a mother no father in a household very poor and probably one of the worst parts in the city. All right, thanks again for joining me today. I'm sitting down with Fiona Smith, aka the millennial money woman. She holds her masters of science degree and personal financial planning and as co founded local charitable nonprofit communities teaching financial literacy to young professionals hence the name. She has dedicated her life to teaching and mentoring a younger generation in personal finance, fiscal responsibility entrepreneurship subjects. She never felt that she learned growing up. And I think that many of us can say that that's something that we didn't really cover in our education because she gained knowledge and practiced healthy financial habits and finance habits. She purchased her first house at 23 has no debt minus her mortgage. She co founded this community. She's well on her way to becoming a millionaire very, very soon. Her brand has grown showcasing the need for what she teaches to the point where she has become a regular contributor for Forbes. She's also been featured in in Vez over low budgets are sexy and a variety of other financial publications. Now it lets her website the millennial money woman calm was listed as a top 50 personal finance blog and is currently one of the fastest growing personal finance blogs globally. Thank you very much for sitting down. That's quite a that's quite a resume and it's good work that you're doing. I don't think anyone can can debate that but I'm very curious about your story. So how did this all come to be? You may go ahead. Now I was going to say and and and one point that I think will have to address that at some some throughout the show your brand that you've built transcends regular people's perception of what a brand is and that's why if you're if you're watching you have you have the pink hair you have the glasses and this is what you've built out over past I guess I don't know how many years but I'll also want to dive into that and why this is your brand and how it's working. What is your brand and how it's worked for you then anyway so go ahead. Absolutely well first of all I wanted to say thank you so much for having me Scott on your podcast on your production. This is a true honor so thank you and I'll go ahead and definitely share how I started. I think honestly I'm going to rewind here a couple of decades almost back to when I was about 10 years old and it actually started with my grandparents who were absolute heroes in my eyes. They worked together to build a small family business nothing fancy but they worked every single day you know they were mom and pop shop entrepreneurs. Unfortunately when they were about 70 years old you know just about to head into retirement they had some pretty poor financial planning issues so you know long story short they lost everything they ever worked for and more and they ultimately had to work basically until they passed away. So I saw that you know hands on and I think as a young child especially when you see something like that happening it will definitely have an impact on you and some people you know they might shy away others they might be curious and want to explore more like why did this actually happen and how can you prevent that. And I was that person I wanted to figure out number one why did they end up not retiring and why why did they lose their business their money everything and I think that was kind of the seed that started my curiosity and my adventure into finance and then ultimately entrepreneurship which is what you know caused me to build the millennial money woman in the first place. So did you ever you know going back you said you had a master's of science in personal financial planning which is a great degree person I didn't even know that existed so that's incredible that even is offered but besides that after your degree did you have a quote unquote job or did you go right into this. Great question so yes I did have a job in corporate America I worked there I mean gosh probably 12 15 hours a day worked on weekends too I mean you guys probably know the story it's a lot of work it's cup wrote and it was in finance so obviously since I had my master's degree it's not always you know fun like I think the media likes to portray you know when you work really hard really long you're rewarded with a lot of money and you know I don't think that was really good. It's really necessarily the case always especially for me because you feel like your freedom is taken away and I think especially for young millennials like myself for instance and like you two Scott you know freedom is definitely something that we want or I think most of us want and by freedom I don't just mean money I also mean time being able to do the things we want to do something that fulfills us something that has purpose for our lives. And the ultimate I guess switch that what caused me to decide okay I'm done serving my time in corporate America and it's time to really pursue what I want to do was the pandemic. And so in March or actually May of 2020 that's when I pulled the trigger and I started the blog and I mean it's been literally a whirlwind it has been super difficult I mean like I'm not kidding when I say I work probably over 120 hours a week it was ridiculous. But still is ridiculous but it is absolutely my passion I love every second and and I really see that it's making a positive impact and that's you know that's the beauty of it all. And your first steps into entrepreneurship so you started the millennial money woman dot com blog did you quit and start or was this like building the blog while you're still working. Yeah great question so number one I did my industry research first while I was still working in corporate America so something I definitely recommend if anyone has you know the vision to start a company. It would probably be a good idea to first do your industry research maybe shadow a couple of industry experts right on their day to day job see if that's something that you truly enjoy doing because the worst thing that can happen is you end up quitting your job and then you start your research and figure out oh my gosh it's actually not what you like to do. And the reason why I'm saying this is actually one of my mentees in my nonprofit that's what he did he was I think like 28 or 29 years old he was in corporate America I think he was earning like 130 140 thousand dollars a year in a job he hated. And one day he decided to pull the trigger quit and then do the industry research build a company and unfortunately you found out too late he didn't like it and he had to start all over again in a job he didn't like and that's very unfortunate but it's a lesson to be learned and so to answer your question long story short I did my research first and I decided yes this is what I want to do then I quit and then I poured 110% effort into this blog. And this blog because if you're quitting your job and you're putting 110% effort and you know you're working a lot and that's something also that's a that's a point that I've heard a lot from different entrepreneurs and I've also experienced it myself like when you go into your own thing it better be something you love because you're going to dedicate way more hours and you would for a job right so so now you have a blog. What's the what's the actual business is it mentoring is it consulting is it I think you obviously if you have enough traffic you can make ad revenue there you can sell courses you can teach so what's what is what is what you do now. Definitely so number one it's focusing on affiliate marketing so like you said a lot of it is actually through traffic now I've been very fortunate that my blog and I think my brand has. Taken a hold very fast and it's been able to drive I think traffic faster to my website than perhaps other websites and I think partly that's probably due to my brand and the way I use social media platforms which has been a huge incentive I think for a lot of audience members to come to my blog so social media for me in particular Twitter. Has definitely helped drive a lot of number one revenue and number two just audience and feedback and I use a lot of feedback from my audience like I email them I talk to them over zoom etc. To figure out what do they like what do they not like and how can I actually improve my blog and the products and services that I provide. So that being said blog is number affiliate traffic I guess is the first thing that drives money the second thing is I released a book actually how to get rich from nothing and that has definitely gone well so far knock on wood and that has definitely been like another little you know cherry on top I guess on top of the affiliate marketing and then on top of that also on Twitter in general I provide. I'm affiliated with a couple of different services out there and that they have done actually very well and that has also helped drive traffic but those are my three main sources and I do plan to actually expand into further territory next year my plan is to go into probably YouTube and try to expand in that sense yet. Yeah. Finally YouTube you got a really healthy CPM on finance YouTube and if you're teaching you have the stuff right you know you know what you people need to learn and that's I think that's a lesson in it of itself of course so for people that are listening for affiliate marketing of course you can always sell your own product but this is another way that some people start to make money as a side hustle. If they have the exposure they have the brand they have the traffic you can have other great products that you've added and you're making sure that those products are good and you can sell them to your audience and you just get you know you get you get revenue off that you get a revenue share based on you know there's somebody purchase it or whatnot so that's a great way to easily make some you know side money and especially have that brand but also you're not going to get that brand from nothing like you have to build that you know looking at your site. You know it's funny you have a background in finance but you have a you have a really really strong edge on on how to market yourself but also how to create content that's useful right that's extremely useful for people and that's really what that's what marketing is at the end of the day walk me through because and actually sorry I don't like doing double questions but I'm going to do a double question because I there's two things that are on top of mine I don't want to forget the second so firstly has your business completely replaced. The money that you are making in corporate yet two years later and secondly after you answer that I'm curious for your content what is your content strategy that you have used to build your Twitter your blog generate traffic and how did you how did you think through your content strategy. Yeah great question so to answer your first one has my revenue from the blog and the service etc has that actually matched equal or exceeded what I earned in corporate America the answer is no it has not however as an entrepreneur. I think we're able to see very early on in terms of is there actually birth potential and the answer at least for for my situation is absolutely 100% yes. I was able to see not only my email subscriber list I think within the first four months I grew my email list by over 1000%. I mean it's just exploded with Twitter yeah it was it was mind blowing I was not expecting that either with Twitter for example which is my main social media platform right now at least. I was able to grow it to 4000 followers within a couple of months but it's nothing impressive and I was actually losing a lot of followers so I figured okay I need to figure out how to reposition my strategy and this probably flows into your second question content creation. How am I able to actually deliver the value that my audience is looking for so I not only gain my audience engagement but also increase my followership right. And I was able to reposition myself by providing actionable advice I think my audience really likes having key bullet points and I didn't have that before I had just kind of like platitude you know in general stuff. A lot of the platitudes on Twitter is horrible. I got so many yeah you got it so many and from there I was able to create what's known as a thread on Twitter which are kind of like stories but they actually provide it's like a small blog post kind of condensed into a couple of tweets all together that's what a thread is. And I think that's kind of helped me number one like gain the trust and number to increase my my reach astronomically so again thinking from that entrepreneurial level I was able to increase my impressions from I think 80,000 to over 5 million within like two months and I mean it's just gone up from there and that was like last year in November December so. And then money wise to it that I was definitely not earning at all what I was earning in my corporate job but I would say it increased by 600% within just one month and it increased again by another 200% so yes I have an emergency savings fund which I'm certainly using here and there and I certainly recommend that for viewers who are considering transitioning over into their own business. But the beauty of it is if you have an emergency savings fund you don't have to worry about you know my gosh am I going to run out of money and I know I won't because my business it's it's just growing every single day and that's but that's because I put in the work to. Of course yeah yeah so that's smart and that's some I think that I've seen you know it's interesting that of all the social media platforms are some that if you really well honestly can make a break a business and I was just I was just curious like your strategy maybe a little bit selfishly because I also want to now I'm looking through I'm like okay after this show I'm going to start I'm going to start understanding how to break down a really good Twitter thread and start incorporating my own content strategy but regardless I think that's something that people really have to like look at the people that are doing it. Well like you figured it out you obviously and then emulate that and then you know once you have that that sort of core strategy down then it doesn't matter what the hell you're selling you sell whatever you want you do whatever I want with it. I look at like Anthony what's his face a pompliano is somebody who also just absolutely killed it on Twitter and now that's grown his newsletter that's a subscription newsletter his YouTube podcasts all that stuff. So and then I see people do it like on other socials as well but I think that for for business products like it works well on Twitter and then also you I'm sure you have a content strategy for your site as well because that's also growing so walk me through that. Yeah definitely and actually I do also want to say like in terms of content I first started thinking that Pinterest was the best platform you know in terms of pushing out number one obviously have it on my website but then pushing out the content on Pinterest. And that was probably one of my biggest failures it was I mean it just did not work for me the strategy itself like trying to publish trying to get clicks I still probably get between 400 to 600 clicks from Pinterest but it's it's I mean obviously nowhere near what Twitter is so I had to go through quite a bit of failure to realize my strengths but I think that's part of every entrepreneur's journey. So regarding content strategy on my website I try to figure out I this goes back to the feedback that I get for my audience I try to figure out what exactly is it that people who are number one millennials and number two trying to just you know get their basic ropes of finance what are they trying to do what are they trying to learn and what's stopping them from learning it on other bigger websites. And so there are a couple of things that I found out number one most websites they don't really break down financial topics into layman's terms like into plain English and you know coming from a financial background for me it makes sense but for others it's like a different language. I mean there's so many different abbreviations and finance right like RMD 401k IRA BDA like what does all that mean so my goal number one is to break down those pretty complex topics and terms into everyday English terms. And then the second thing that I found out from my audience is that a lot of you know bigger finance websites they don't necessarily use images as much and a lot of my audience at least is very visual hence also you know the colorful you know. Yeah plan I guess if you will and my pictures are designed you know it within each blog post I try to create incorporate pictures that try to break down those larger concepts into again visually appealing creations to help my audience understand finance even if there's you know a big. A big topic or a key lesson that I want them to know I highlight that I outline it in my blog post so their eyes get drawn directly to it instead of you know taking 10 paragraphs to explain that one key topic so that's like in terms of visual aspect that's kind of how I try to create my content and in actual in terms of the actual content that's just literally going to my audience asking them for feedback and advice and figuring out like okay what's new like right now obviously crypto. So currency is kind of the pot thing so I've been trying to fit you know figure out how can I write about cryptocurrency and basic English terms so I wrote a blog article about cryptocurrency I wrote a blog article about how to use coin base and literally take screenshots from clicking to get started to like every single little button I do screenshots of so no one will get confused yeah very very very smart. I'm sorry I mean to cut you off there is there is more to the content strat no I just I was just thinking through like it's just so simple I'm scanning through your blog as we speak and it's just very like it's so it's so it's it's like a pleasant read I don't sound stupid but it's you know it's just easy to read through I'm just reading one how to make money on Twitter I'm going to read this later and no it's very good yeah no I think that there's actually a website called Hemingway I want to say I and I use them as you know it helped me in the beginning at least on my blogging journey to literally try to write like a sixth grade level or or less than a sixth grade level so you know at first I think at least in school and in college we're taught that if we you know throw in a bunch of jargon very complex technical knowledge we sound really smart which we might definitely but for you know if we have a blog and we try to market this to the everyday person especially you know millennials for example who might not have a finance background and this is totally foreign language throwing in jargon is only going to turn them off it's not going to get them glued and stuck to that so I use this resource to help me kind of you know figure out how I can you know again make it a pleasant read like you said and I love hearing that that's literally my goal to try to make it as smooth and readable as possible and and not full of jargon and not just a text wall and actually something that people like want to want to enjoy and read through okay very good so that's so that's sort of that's sort of how you built out your business like that's that's that's pretty like I don't mean to diminish it that's pretty much it but I didn't mean the negative way in like that's how you built out your content strategy your social your blog and that's what you're going to so that's you know this is just I love this is I love that this is such an easy example of how entrepreneurship this is entrepreneurship and it's not complicated it's not hiring a developer it's not being a developer it's not then vending the next Facebook like it's just you've just done something that is in line with what you love and you're making money off it and and now it's going to eventually replace a job in finance which a lot of jobs and finance pay a lot of money I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode have spot have spots CRM is the easiest tool you can ever find to align your team there are two features that you need in a CRM that optimize every activity your team does it's the ability to communicate meaning chat email et cetera messaging as well as a unified system of record your company is going to use a CRM to manage conversations with prospects and customers throughout all stages of the buyer journey and as your company grows these conversations get a little bit more difficult information make it lost communication maybe disjointed and HubSpot solves all 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pricing any company at any stage and take advantage of the various features that HubSpot has to offer starting with free and allowing for more scalability and complexity as your organization grows learn how to scale your company without scaling complexity at HubSpot.com all right let's get back to the show so it was it was incredible like I think the first time I was ever introduced to blogging was not actually in college it was when I was in my corporate job and one of my colleagues brought up a personal finance blog and this blogger had the number of how much money he was making and this was you know just a few years ago and when I saw the monthly income which at that time I think was I don't know probably 30,000 maybe something like that per month I was thinking to myself man am I in the wrong job I'm so in the wrong job and that actually started my entire journey like that was the first seed that I was like hmm maybe I should reposition myself you know into the blogging world it took a couple of years until a pandemic but you know when I saw that like you said you don't need to reinvent the wheel to become a successful entrepreneur you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands create an actual brick and mortar store you don't need that you can do it right home and the way you do and the way you do this theoretically somebody could still be doing this while they're working for a company or this could be the first thing that they do they start making money and then and then when you have steady income and you have the time and we spoke of freedom then you do whatever the hell you want then you want to be more complicated you want to do more things you want to write a book you want to do whatever you want but just get started but okay so let's go into let's go into some of the things that you teach over and some of the things that you know our core to to millennial money you brought up some really good topics that I'd love to dive into so millennial money myths what are some and because you sort of you know it's funny everything in your life has been you're sort of like living you know you eat your own dogs for so to speak you're living all the things that you teach over entrepreneurship but now let's go into the millennial portion you have you've owned your own home since 23 these are all smart things so okay let's start it off millennial money myths what are some all right let's go for it so yeah it's actually say the number one millennial money myths I've heard over and over again is that to be successful in America you have to own a home and I know it's really funny coming from a home owner but honestly I'm going to be you know totally honest about it is not all what it's out to be it's really not home ownership might not be right for you and that's totally fine like you do not need to own of you know $300,000 whatever it is at home in order to be considered you know you've made it and honestly it's because of liquidity you know again the house isn't necessarily liquid like a bank account you have super high initial costs right you talk about a preferably at least 20% down payment of your home you got inspectors fees not to mention all of the maintenance and the repair work that has to be done like I have an air conditioner that's about to go yesterday we had a pretty bad thunderstorm actually so I was really worried I turned it off I'm like no please don't hit my air conditioner the plumbing I mean I have plumbing issues too so I went through probably a couple of hours on YouTube myself you know try to save money figure out plumbing issues which is not a good site so no it's not always you know amazing and you do not need a house apartment lifestyle or condo lifestyle or whatever it is that you want is definitely okay if that's what works for your lifestyle so that's number one you don't need a house to be successful number two an excuse I often hear is that I don't earn enough money in order to invest today and I'll do it tomorrow so that is I think honestly like I said it's an excuse and the real the real reason behind it is because thanks to modern technology like investment platforms such as M1 finance you got acorns you got I think Robin Hood you got stash you know the list goes on there's something called fractional investing and what fractional investing is is that you don't need $3,000 to buy one share in Amazon you literally can have five bucks and you can already be a fractional owner of Amazon and also an apple etc etc so no you don't need hundreds or thousands of dollars to start investing you can literally start with five bucks and I'm pretty sure everyone can do that so no marks uses there and the third one that I hear very often is honestly it's about life insurance I hear that life insurance is a total waste of money and I get it because I think that life insurance has gotten a pretty bad rap over the last couple of years because of sleazy life insurance salesmen they try to push their products on you in exchange for pretty nice commissions and typically speaking though there are two types of life insurance products there's one called a term life insurance product which is like the simplest the cheapest form of life insurance and it's often recommended for millennials and then there's something called a cash value life insurance and that's kind of like an umbrella terminology which covers whole life insurance universal life the list goes on and on and what's a cash value life insurance product that's typically what's pushed onto millennials those are expensive those are permanent and typically speaking they don't match a millennial lifestyle so anyway long story short life insurance isn't always a waste of money if you have a family if you have people depending on you for income if you have a big liability like a mortgage and you have a spouse for example that might need your help down the road a term life insurance policy could actually help you can get you know half a million dollars a million dollars of death benefit for 30 bucks a month you know it's not that bad so that's the last myth that I hear very often interesting so okay so then there's so there's some myths that obviously that we're trying to educate millennials on there's also some I'm sure some mindset some mindset things that I would love for you to go into because I think that you know it's funny you you hang around with certain circles and people are are speaking about well there's you know millions of millionaires being created every single year then then you go to the average person you're like you know I can't even I can't even you know pay rent this month so how do we how do we bridge that gap how do we how do we get people to see a different future for themselves and I'm assuming mindset mindset but also like tips to get there obviously mindset is one thing but then also also actually some stuff will probably help as well definitely so yes to answer your question I think that is pretty much one of the biggest things it's the mindset that separates the successful from the unsuccessful and I like to refer to a Stanford researcher her name is doctor Carol Dweck and she I mean she has written and done so much incredible work when it comes to the mindset of successful people that space and in particular she wrote a book about the growth mindset and what is known as the fixed mindset and I'm sure you know just hearing those two words you can probably discern what they mean so growth mindset is for someone who does not believe their talents are you know fixed they can't improve person with the growth mindset is someone who loves seeing their colleagues and their peers succeed they believe in the saying that a rising tide really does lift all boats because you know if you're friend succeed they can help you succeed in turn so it's it's a completely mutual benefit so that's a growth mindset in very short in a short defined way a fixed mindset on the other hand is someone who you know is envious of successful people it's someone who believes that putting in hard work is actually a weakness because it means you don't have the natural talent to become successful it's someone who believes that wherever they are in life they can't succeed period that's it so and it's very common actually for people to have traits of both I myself was someone who had actually more traits of the fixed mindset than the growth mindset until I read Dr. Dweck's book and when I read that book I realized where I was on the scale and what I needed to do to change over into the growth mindset. So to change over into the growth mindset if you're one of those people that thinks you know you might be under the fixed mindset umbrella number one is just knowing that you have an option of changing I think just realizing that you have the choice of changing from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset it's such a huge step so that's the first step the next step is actually trying to read and learn more about what it is that a growth mindset takes you know to unlock all of those areas in keys to success in your life and the third step is actually start implementing and putting in little daily habits to enter into that growth mindset so for example here's what I did I put little sticky notes on my on my bathroom mirror so every morning I'm reminded of some of the things I need to do I need to think physically in order to enter into that growth mindset and I think there's a fantastic book out there it's called habits and it kind of you know teaches you about what you need to do in order to create a physical habit and make it automatic behavior and I think research shows that roughly around 66 days ish it takes you to actually implement specific actions to create it into a habit and that's what I did so every day reading my sticky notes making sure that you know number one I motivated number two I'm doing the things I need to do to become successful believe in myself and after 66 days about I actually started implementing all this into automatic behavior and you will literally never look back again. Very interesting. I think it's interesting coming I think it's interesting to hear you describe it only because I don't know when that shift happened in my life but I've always defaulted to a growth mindset mentality I don't really know like I never I personally never took like steps is just sort of manifested as I pushed myself to do more into and what not and it seems like now when you're in it it's hard to unpack how somebody couldn't see life that way it's difficult to shape to change your lens back but I appreciate that that's something that a lot of people struggle with and even you know the the simple steps that you took to build your own business I feel like that's something that even taking those first steps everyone's like well what what's the point it's not going to happen to me or or it seems like it's like you know. It seems like I can never get to the point where I can make enough money to support my own family or too risky or whatnot so I think that you know like I said part of it is and sorry you said rather part of it is the mindset but also like taking those small little steps once you have that mindset that almost like gives you permission to do whatever that whatever it is you have to do. I think that's what you really have to focus on and then once you have that permission you you've given yourself that permission with that growth mindset then there's really nothing that in my opinion you could ever hold you back. What do you do you have so after somebody actions on this and has and has sort of like a mindset shift towards how they how they view their life and how they view what they could potentially accomplish. What would you recommend for somebody who let's assume that somebody wants to start their own business to reinvest in themselves. You said okay you have you have a frugal living tips but is that the best way is it to save money first or is it just to start investing start a side hustle. Person has mindset locked in what do they do next to build their own thing. Perfect great question Scott so I think before even thinking about money at all it for me at least what worked well was finding a mentor. For me my mentor helped he was probably like six decades older than me very well seasoned you know executive I was very fortunate to meet him. And he taught me some of the basic steps that I would need to work and focus on in order to build a successful business down the road. So you know that includes looking at finances but not just finances figuring out how to interact with you know prospects figuring out how to you know hold myself in conversations in the boardroom whatever it is. So I think finding a mentor in your area whatever it is if it's a blog if it's actually you know building a brick and mortar business. Find a mentor who's willing to give you the time and help you literally jump ahead of the rest of the game because I personally think that mentors are the ultimate shortcut in life. They can give you so much advice and help you save time energy and money so that's number one. And then number two when it comes to money yes so I would I would probably recommend at starting off at paying off high interest debt so like credit card debt right so I mean definitely don't live with high interest debt. The second thing then is yes focusing on investing in the stock market for example. I'm so I'm a big believer in just investing in low cost index funds so very passive I you know yes I do know a lot more stock market terminology but for my own personal purposes I just do a dollar cost averaging strategy which is automatic. You know a set amount of money over a very long period of time for me it's going to be like four five six decades you know down the road investing and sticking to that strategy that's my ultimate plan but I think it even boils down to simpler terms it's just quite simply spend less than you earn. And I think you know it becoming a millionaire or a hundred thousand error whatever the goal is in your personal life it really just comes down to spend less than you earn it's that simple and anything that go ahead and I was going to say where did where do people where do people spend and waste the most money. Oh yes I think number one is cars especially newer cars. I just don't like off just thinking maybe yeah she's not wrong. I mean yes cars are I myself actually I love cars I'm a big car geek I love everything about cars especially racing all of that type of stuff so I'm definitely into that. But I do know that if you want to focus on building your wealth especially in the long term it's probably not a good idea to spend money on depreciating assets now I know not all cars are depreciating assets I know that there are some luxury cars out there that probably appreciate but it probably takes a couple hundred thousand to buy them. So yes not the average Toyota that's right so definitely stay away from brand new cars I think they they depreciate the second you drive them off the parking car law actually so stay away from that the second thing that I see a lot of people over spend money on is actually subscription services. If you look through your budget and take a look at how much recurring money that comes off of your credit card for example so we're talking Spotify Netflix any other subscription service it actually adds up over the long term and what I like to do is add up your subscription services over one month so let's say it costs you 30 bucks for all of your subscription services. Okay multiply that over a year right so that's 360 and then multiply that by 10 years that's 3,600 bucks right so like if you look at it in the long term what could you do with 3,600 bucks like a lot of different things so again it's all about looking in the long term and it will change your life. Now okay so one thing so how did you how did you save okay so there's yes so you look at your subscriptions but you went a step further when you were I guess saving up this rainy day fund before you started your business you said you saved 70% of your income that's more than just canceling Netflix so how did you do that. That is definitely more than canceling Netflix so I think number one I was just very frugal when it came to you know eating I did not treat restaurants as a source of food I just totally quit eating out I actually did take on a couple of side hustles to I worked every single day for probably 5 years straight including holidays everything very long hours it was a lot of sacrifice had to say no to a lot of you know time out with my friends or whatever. No new clothes for example I had a roommate as well to pay half the bills I think roommates especially for people who are struggling in terms of finding additional income that's such a great way to find an extra source of income literally cut your living expenses in half at least you know when it comes to utilities electricity etc. And and then also cell phone bills cable bills Wi-Fi bills there are services out there like bill shark I know that's a very effective one they actually negotiate on your behalf for free at least at first to lower your Wi-Fi bills for example and yeah yeah it's really neat they do it all for free they typically have a I think a 90% success rate and then anything that they are able to lower for you you pay like I think 40% of the savings which is still totally worth it right you don't have to do anything they negotiate it for you. And then insurance like I think a lot of people like car insurance health insurance etc a lot of people don't actually shop the market. And that's something I've learned to do very well shop the market get quotes maybe change a couple of things within your car insurance quote like the liability coverage for example if you're able to drop that down or maybe change it around a little bit depending on your situation that can certainly help you save a lot of money in the in the long run too. Yeah very very smart very smart and the last thing that I wanted to dive into because this was also a very interesting point you touched on it briefly anybody can become a million there with the dollar cost averaging strategy so what does that mean. Yes great question I'm actually going to start it with the story so when I was when I was working in my nonprofit I started actually in a very small school and it was under for under privileged young girls so these were like you know six to 10 year old girls and their parents they couldn't even afford you know an alarm clock basically to get them to go to school it's it's that type of environment so definitely a place where I'm going to do it. It's definitely a place where I knew I had to give back as much as I could so the first I was a one hour long class that with maybe 16 girls or so I first asked them who here believes that they can become a millionaire the very first minute I was in this classroom and not one single hand shot up not one. And during the class during this one hour class we discussed the dollar cost averaging strategy and by the end of that one hour period I asked the same question again who here believes you can become a millionaire and every single hand shot up and it's just it's incredible I still get goosebumps thinking about it because you're able to see like helping these young kids and not just young kids now obviously talking to you in your audience as well everyone can become a millionaire. If they really put their mind to it so this goes back to your question what is the dollar cost averaging strategy it's also known as the DCA strategy and what it is that's basically fancy talk for putting a certain amount of money let's call it a hundred bucks every week automatically into an investment account for a very long period of time. So let's take a 401k for example a 401k is an employer sponsored retirement plan and if you have a 401k you typically elect a portion of your pay stub like a 2% for example of your paycheck and every time you get your paycheck a small portion goes into your 401k and is invested. You don't think about it you don't do anything you don't touch a single button it just happens automatically and that's literally what dollar cost averaging is all about. It's automatic it's a small portion of your income whatever that is and it's over a long period of time into the stock market. And if you do that for let's say 40 years 50 years even you can literally become a millionaire and I found out I think I forgot the exact number but I think it's between nine to $10 a day if you invest that for 40 years or so it can actually make you a millionaire so $10 a day down the road you can become a millionaire. I think this is great and thank you for telling the story and for introducing this over because pensions are not really a thing compared to what they used to be right. So you're not getting paid out you know a lot of people in my family work for government government you work your best years and you'll make 70% of your best salary until you die. That doesn't exist in many companies God forbid a startup right like it's or any any any company that hasn't been around for like I don't even know like maybe 30 40 50 100 years they don't offer that stuff anymore so what some companies do I think they offer like a so that's a I guess a defined benefit and there's like a defined contribution pension where you put like a 6 to 8% of your paycheck in and like the company or maybe a little bit less than the company will match it. That's at least better than nothing but many companies don't have pensions many companies have nothing many companies you just get your paycheck so the concept of investing small incremental amounts leveraging that compound interest over time even just like if you look at like like traditionally like investing in the S&P 500 like if you just invested not every year with with this kind of strategy. Regardless of whether or not it's employee sponsored or not you could still easily become a millionaire after X amount of years because that it's always net positive the S&P is never like it's gone down like for some years but I mean like over an aggregated period of time in history like it's always gone up so and then that interest just keeps compounding compounding compounding. And that's something that I remember one of my jobs one of the one of the owners of the company actually taught this over to people and it was like one of the most when I was much younger in my career and it was one of the most useful lessons that I've ever learned because again this stuff is not taught in school. Unfortunately it's not like not even I think like one class we had like I'm just thinking like high school university it was like I was like a liberal arts degree I was like I was pretty lost there was like no no math no finance nothing but you know in high school where everybody goes to high school you know but more people go to high school then then some people that go to college university but still in high school like like nothing like maybe a class on taxes maybe but nothing on this. Then I learned like trigonometry like you know like San Jose and like I don't know how to become a millionaire after grade 12 and that's an issue like I'd rather have that so this is very very smart I think I think a lot of says broken with education and what we teach and I think it's changing I don't know not anymore but I think it's changing. I hope so we need it for sure I mean like you even in my high school I learned zero zero about anything to do with finance and it's really unfortunate too because if we go at least in America you know go to college we need to know the difference between subsidized unsubsidized student loans and that you know student loans are not there to just you know redecorate your dorm room which is what happens. Yeah like unlimited meal plan right like gosh exactly exactly like it needs to be you know instilled and unfortunately at least at my in my time it was not it was not. And you know like some professions make up for it like I have a actually I was talking my brother this morning and his girlfriend is going through med school and she's like 500K in debt but like she's expecting to make that back right like she's going to be a doctor and she's going to be drawing a pretty good salary but not everybody makes like 100 150 200 K a year when they're done university like I think you know like for for many it's like you know what 30 40 50 60 maybe in your first year graduate so it's tough and then if you have that like I don't know like some colleges it's a little bit different some Canadians it's a little bit different but still it's like you know like it's expensive. It gets pretty damn expensive you get a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt after you graduate and if you're making 40 K a year you have you know maybe you're getting married maybe if kids maybe you 40 K if you're on your own you're probably not buying a house just yet but like eventually want to buy a house you know life happens car breaks down whatever like you're not paying that all anytime soon if I'm not mistaken actually Biden just did like some sort of debt or or relief for a whole bunch of student loans but still like I don't think that's everybody right so. Yeah it's it's really tough and I think and you know to your point I think that a lot of these burdens the debt burdens on millennials especially right coming out of college it's definitely shifting the entire landscape as we know it when it comes to family formation for example that's definitely put off later we can certainly see that already in the population pyramid home ownership that's also put off typically speaking later for millennials a lot of those major life milestones they're no longer happening like they used to and it's definitely I think it's definitely concerning at you know at some point especially millennials now already coming out of college entering their careers with so much debt it's it really shouldn't be this way and hopefully there's a way to change it I mean there are other countries out there that's what you're teaching is the way to change it thank you yeah I hope stability invest that's a way to change it I don't I don't think we can depend on on like I I don't know I don't want to say we can't depend but I don't want to have to depend on traditional institutions to fix this problem I rather enable people to to fix like fix it themselves yes that's that's the way I see like you know how bad it is like you know it's obviously major urban areas so New York Los Angeles San Francisco Toronto Vancouver and to be middle class in Toronto you have to be making about I think 150,000 and like don't even look at like homeownership like detached homeownership unless you're you know combining come 200 to 300 that like it's just insane like it's just not normal like a detached town home is over a million attached home is like it's like two million and like Vancouver West Coast is even worse I think Vancouver's now some of the worst homes in that has like the most unaffordable housing market in North America so much to the point where in urban areas like restaurants and brick and mortar can't even get staff because the people that work those jobs cannot afford to live anywhere within commute distance it's just like not okay and New York same San Francisco I see I saw homes in San Francisco my God like like it's like a two million dollar bungalow it's like insane it's insane it's not a nice home either like you got to you got to find other ways to make money now so this is this is some of them this is like the building blocks to be you know competitive in 2021 and beyond so I think that's why I think that's also why you know it's so great that you're doing this because I it shows you that you started this what two years ago and and you're in a top you know a top 50 personal finance blog not not enough people are teaching this obviously there's still like a huge need anyway very interesting stuff okay I wanted to ask some rapid fire like career questions from you just to pull out some lessons from your career in your life before I before I sort of you know pivot we went through a lot of stuff was there anything that we didn't go into that I forgot to ask about or that I didn't ask about that you wanted to bring up not think we covered everything we did a lot that was good that was very good okay let's go into some like rapid fire career questions okay one thing so what was the biggest misconception that you had about entrepreneurship or anybody would have about entrepreneurship and how has that changed over the past two two years that it's glamorous honestly when I first started in you know before I even quit I thought entrepreneurship is just you know 100% incredible and glamorous because you have the freedom and you get to be your own boss and to some extent I think it's true that you do get to become your own boss but everyone you know my boss is technically my audience right so I may I always have to make sure to cater to my audience so although I'm free I'm not exactly free I always need to make sure that in order to keep up I also cater to my audience so it's not glamorous there's a lot of work many sleepless nights and it's like you're married it's like a relationship right me and the blog you know there's no way I'm getting good what was the biggest challenge you've had in your career and how did you overcome it okay so I'll start in my entrepreneurial career it's just belief in myself I think in the beginning I did I did know that I could do it but I don't think I actually because I didn't see the results right away I didn't believe in myself and I always doubted myself until I actually saw the results and I think a lot of people especially in today's world of instant gratification if you don't see results within you know week one month one whatever whatever it is a lot of people tend to give up and I'm really thankful I didn't but I was definitely on the verge of feeling like you know this isn't for me I'm not seeing any results and stopping but in the end winners are made because they don't quit it's a good quote I like that quote that's very good okay what would one lesson be that you would tell your younger self I would probably tell myself to think boldly and think more critically I think when I was younger especially in school and even at university I always believed what the teachers told me and the professors told me 100% without thinking you know trying to think critically at all and I think as I grew older and actually entered you know even corporate America and especially as I started my own business I really started to think boldly and critically I was trying to figure out like okay is this fact accurate or what's wrong about it and how can I make sure that I am actually doing the right thing and I think unfortunately at least my school system and still upon me to always respect authority being the teachers right and the professors and to never question what was told and thankfully I did change out of that mold and I think that was part of my fixed mindset to growth mindset transformation but it took a while and I think I could have probably achieved a lot more had I thought more critically and boldly initially very good advice one person that has been or has had a major impact on your life who is that but also how do they impact your life what did they teach you that person is my millionaire mentor he has an incredible story I again I was very fortunate to meet him at a young age in my probably late teens so he has his story he grew up in a you know immigrant first of all so not English was not his first language had a mother no father in a household very poor and probably one of the worst parts in the city and he grew up became an employee hated being an employee never followed was fired on the spot started his own business that 26 failed two years later bank dropped everything had to move back to his mom's place and then I think it was he was 29 he started a business again and was able I think three decades down the road he sold it for several tens of millions of dollars and then he started you know startups etc etc just a serial entrepreneur so biggest lesson there is to never ever be afraid of failure and I think you know goes back to my school system at least not not that I'm trying to blame them but I was always taught that failure is something that's very bad and it always came with negative repercussions and I think that we really need to switch our mindset to say that failure is something positive you got to learn from it it just changes your trajectory for the better and I think that was the biggest piece of advice my mentor gave me very good very good what's one source that you would recommend you go check out could be a book podcast anything so there are several the first one is a book called winning by Jack Welch he is a former CEO of GE an incredible man incredible life history I think he actually co-authored it with his with Susie Welch I think it's maybe his former wife but anyway a really incredible book talks about business so if you're an entrepreneur you really want to explore the business space and become a true leader that's one of the books that I would highly highly recommend another book that I personally really liked was atomic habits it's it's an incredible book really talks about how every day you know your daily habits really truly you know compound over 10 20 30 years and they can truly determine whether or not you'll be successful or unsuccessful and I probably read through that book twice I mean probably within like a week it was so good so much information and I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in improving their lifestyle very good very good okay and then last question what does success mean to you I think success to me and that's a really good question it's the name of the show it's like a guy probably living life just on my own terms and being able to improve even if it's just half a step better than I was yesterday I don't need to be the world's richest person I don't need to be the world's most famous person I don't care about that all I care is about looking at myself in the mirror the next morning and making sure that I'm 1% better than I was yesterday and if that's in the business if it if that has to do with money whatever it is I just want to be 1% better and over the course of my lifetime I will be a much better much more successful person all round than I was when I first started this journey very good and then most importantly how do people get in touch with you website socials all that certainly so first of all definitely my website the millennial money woman dot com if you're into Twitter then you can definitely find me at the underscore m m w and then Pinterest I do still have my Pinterest account open it's the millennial money woman I'm not on it as often though as I should be probably I don't know what I will we'll we'll we'll send we'll put it all in the show knows people can go wherever they like to go and I'll go connect