Who are your money heroes?
The perk of being a finance journalist is having access to different people—whether it’s an economist, a financial planner or other Canadians—who share what they’ve learned from their own lives and areas of expertise. And as a service journalist who works on how-tos and explainers, there’s always that question in the back of my mind: “How can I apply this to my own life?” I take a little bit from every interview and story that I read.
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How do you like to spend your free time?
I love reading. I love writing. I like to stay active. I try to balance out mind and body activities in my free time. I want to ensure that I’m taking care of both sides of my health.
If money were no object, what would you be doing right now?
Honestly, I would love to say, “exactly what I’m doing right now.” But I think money allows us to do things, which is why we work. While I do love working, and I definitely don’t shy away from it, if money were no object, I would want to explore things that I couldn’t in my everyday life, that I can’t do while working, like travelling.
However, that said, I would probably be bored three months in and end up working again.
What was your first memory about money?
Obviously, there are things like lemonade stands or asking mom and dad for a treat, but I think the most impactful memory around money was babysitting. I worked for an amazing woman. She was a single mom, and I had a regular gig with her two kids every weekend. She paid me pretty well. Another family asked me to babysit. And they got the neighbourhood together, I guess whoever was going out with them that night, and got all their kids together. So, I ended up babysitting five kids for half the rate of my regular gig. I hard-learned the value of money and my time and stress. I never went back to that house. That was a good lesson there.
What’s the first thing you remember buying with your own money?
Magazines. I was obsessed with magazines, and I found that magazines were a better value for me as a teenage girl, because I could see different ways to wear my clothes, as opposed to going out and buying things that I saw in the mall. The amount of time I would spend with a magazine was a lot. I would read it from cover to cover multiple times. I was just so amazed with how the editors would anticipate my questions and made everything so seamless and flawless to read, whether it was learning a new skill or learning about a new trend or music group or whatever. I was just so impressed in how they answered every question before I had it. I try to be that type of editor today.
What was your first job?
I worked all through high school and university at my first “real” job. I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken. With my first paycheque, I took all my friends out for my birthday to Mother’s Pizza. It was a lot of fun, and I remember how cool it felt to be able to buy my friends dinner.
What was the biggest money lesson you learned as an adult?
I remember learning what a pension was and realizing that I didn’t have one, and that being in journalism, I probably would never have one. I saw an ad on the TTC, which is the Toronto subway, quickly explaining RRSPs. So I made an appointment at my bank where I had my bank account and my credit card, and I went in and said, “I need an RRSP. Just put gold in it.”
