Episode 48: Is $100,000 Enough For A Comfortable Life?

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In this week’s podcast episode, we explore essential concepts that challenge the way we perceive wealth and financial planning. The first big idea revolves around the evolving nature of money’s value over the past three decades, highlighting how traditional savings might no longer suffice in our financial world of rapid inflation and money printing. In particular, we also delve into the deceptive impact of inflation, revealing how it can trick us into a false sense of financial security while eroding our wealth silently. The episode emphasizes the pursuit of both financial and time freedom, suggesting that a strategic restructuring of our finances can help us achieve a balanced life that provides both financial stability and the freedom to follow our passions.

Creating a personal financial blueprint takes center stage as we stress the importance of aligning priorities with our unique circumstances and aspirations. It’s not just about saving or investing; it’s about crafting a solid plan that aligns with our long-term goals. Lastly, the episode guides listeners on how to move from ideas to action in their investing journey. Dreams and aspirations are vital, but the hosts emphasize the need for practical steps and strategies to turn these aspirations into a reality.

The overarching message here is to adopt a new mindset regarding wealth accumulation, focusing on preparing for the future in a world of constantly evolving financial landscapes. The episode encourages a holistic approach that integrates long-term planning, risk management, and the strategic use of investment tools to hedge against inflation. By considering these five fundamental concepts, listeners gain valuable insights to navigate the complex world of finance and embark on a path to secure their financial future and achieve their goals.

What you’ll learn:

• How much the value of money has changed over the past 30 years;
• How inflation has tricked us into thinking that we’ve “made it” when in reality, we’re losing more of our wealth;
• How we can restructure our finances to live a life that provides us financial and time freedom;
• How to align your priorities to create your financial blueprint; and,
• How to move from ideas to action to get your investing journey started.

Resources:

• Dig into our Ultimate Investment Book List
• Book a Discovery Call with us so we can help you overcome your current struggle and take the next step in your financial journey
• The Real Group Windsor Real Estate Team
• Canadian Wealth Secrets Ontario Mortgages
• Canadian Wealth Secrets Wealth Planning
• Download our Wealth Building Blueprint

Opportunities, Services, and Consulting:

For those interested in being considered for potential Joint Venture (JV) opportunities, reach out to us here.

Contact Matt if you’re Buying or Selling Real Estate in Windsor or Essex County!

Reach out to Jon if you’re looking for an Ontario Mortgage, Ontario Mortgage Refinance or a HELOC in Ontario.

Get in touch with Kyle to begin your journey through his Canadian Wealth Planning System.

Check out the work Jon and Kyle do assisting mathematics educators and district leaders.

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00:00:00:06 – 00:00:19:02
Matt Biggley
You either have to spend less and that’s definitely no fun and pretty hard to do because of course, one of the benefits of so many of these jobs is you get some significant time off. And so time off with no money to travel. That reminds me of like having a poor retirement. It sounds awful. So you either have to spend less, which to me is no fun, or you have to make more.

00:00:19:04 – 00:00:50:05
Matt Biggley
And that’s what this podcast is all about. How can you make more? How can you create more income opportunities? How can you generate more money? How can you create some assurances that as you age and as you progress and as you get to the point where you want to wind down your working career, you will have enough money to enjoy the time that you’ll then have and as part of my own personal beliefs, how can I leave something behind as a legacy for my children so that when inflation continues to take its toll on the future, my kids will have a leg up on everyone else.

00:00:50:05 – 00:01:08:19
Matt Biggley
And that’s where the messages of so many of our episodes about how to go about investing and how to get started are critical.

00:01:08:21 – 00:01:15:09
Kyle Pearce
Welcome to the Investing Teacher podcast with Kyle Pearce, Matt Biggley and John Orr.

00:01:15:09 – 00:01:23:22
Jon Orr
Get ready to be shot as we share successes and failures encountered during our real life lessons. Learning how to build generational wealth from the ground up.

00:01:24:02 – 00:01:28:05
Matt Biggley
Welcome investment students to another episode of the Investing Teacher podcast.

00:01:28:05 – 00:01:57:06
Kyle Pearce
Well, well, well, my friends, we are back here today and the topic of the day, it sort of stems from a conversation we were having as a group and we were just chatting about income, We were talking about some conversations we’ve had with will say, nameless invested student clients around what they’re earning and how they’re feeling. It seems that everyone’s feeling the pinch and actually it’s sort of made us think back and kind of go, What’s happening out there?

00:01:57:06 – 00:02:18:03
Kyle Pearce
We know inflation’s happening. I’m sure everybody’s aware of this, keenly aware that things are changing. COVID aid and all the money printing has led to prices to rise, and we’re dealing with all of this uncertainty right now. But ultimately, it really had us thinking about when kind of digging into what is enough to actually live on.

00:02:18:03 – 00:02:37:10
Jon Orr
I think that you had found an article that would that directed you to kind of think about this and do some research. But it got us thinking, too, is is $100,000, is that enough money to make a comfortable life? Is that what the ideal has been for me? I think when you heard that number, you’re like, that will be more than enough.

00:02:37:10 – 00:03:00:05
Jon Orr
It’s a great number. That’s a great number. And I think for some reason and I can’t explain it, maybe it’s one of those anchoring moments in your life. I don’t know. It’s probably similar to how you hear a song and you remember that time of that moment. For some reason, when I hear a dollar amount for a salary, I’m often brought back to when I was an early teenager back to 1993, and when I heard my.

00:03:00:05 – 00:03:03:06
Kyle Pearce
Dad’s second album was just released.

00:03:03:08 – 00:03:04:07
Matt Biggley
I think.

00:03:04:09 – 00:03:22:11
Jon Orr
Yeah, I think I was in grade eight or nine. So I heard my dad, who is a teacher, state his salary and he said 60,000, like he had made $60,000, which I think was the going top tier rate of a teacher back in 93. And for some reason it has pegged me to say that’s the right amount of money.

00:03:22:14 – 00:03:24:05
Jon Orr
It’s almost like my mind has.

00:03:24:06 – 00:03:25:13
Kyle Pearce
Been like wiped.

00:03:25:13 – 00:03:48:00
Jon Orr
Away that inflation exists. It carries forward because when I made $60,000 when I was a teacher, I was like, Man, that’s awesome. But I made it pretty much quickly. Within the first few years of teaching and getting to the top tier on the category scale, not not, say, the yearly scale, your experience scale, but once you got to category four on your scale, it was like there’s close to $60,000 pretty quickly.

00:03:48:00 – 00:04:08:21
Jon Orr
And I remember thinking that that was it. I made it. I’ve got the right number. And then every year after that, it went higher and higher and higher. And I still think 60 K is the right number. And actually in reality, if I had worked until my retirement date, which would have been 2036, rates burned in my mind, 2036, if I had taken my pension, it would be 60.

00:04:08:21 – 00:04:26:01
Jon Orr
Okay, so for some reason it’s still there, Peg that that’s the right number to live a life of comfort, of being able to provide for your family. But guys, when I finished teaching, Hunter K was where we were, and I still think that that sounds like so much money, but I don’t know. We’re going through some digging today.

00:04:26:01 – 00:04:28:04
Jon Orr
I was like, I don’t think it’s the right amount of money anymore.

00:04:28:06 – 00:04:58:24
Matt Biggley
Yeah, okay. Sounds like it was the Holy Grail. You’ve made it the proverbial six figure salaries. Right? Exactly. Maybe that’s it. Teachers, police officers, nurses. A lot of people in public service are making this much money. And what’s so crazy is this article from the Globe was saying that roughly 10% of Canadians make six figures or above. So this kind of sounds insane to say is $100,000 enough because the vast overwhelming majority Canadians are making $100,000 or more.

00:04:59:01 – 00:05:19:23
Matt Biggley
And so what is happening there? I do think our audience is largely made up of people who may fit this profile. And so I think this is really about exploring the perception versus the reality of this $100,000 holy Grail. And as we unpack this and as we think about both our current and future financial goals, it’s really it’s about wondering, is this enough?

00:05:20:00 – 00:05:48:03
Matt Biggley
And it’s not going to be all bad news, even though the picture I think we’re going to paint here is pretty bleak. One for those. We live in Windsor, Essex, which is incredibly affordable compared to many parts of the country. So we’re going to paint a I think, a bleak picture based on these numbers. But there’s hope and the three of us coming from this world of education and teaching and making this six figure salary and leaving it behind for something that I think is so much better, both financially as well as with our lifestyles.

00:05:48:03 – 00:06:08:22
Matt Biggley
So my first wonder to you guys being our human calculators, our math crunchers, is if we have $100,000 gross salary, what does it actually look like? What’s our take home? What’s our net from that for, say, a typical let’s take a teacher or can any of these other professions that are going to have similar benefits, defined benefit, pension plans, those types of things.

00:06:09:00 – 00:06:10:02
Matt Biggley
What does it look like?

00:06:10:04 – 00:06:43:11
Kyle Pearce
We’re going to dig into that. But before we do something that popped into my mind and this was unplanned, this was completely unplanned, is a script name off script. But Matt, you had said something about teachers and police officers, and right away what popped into my mind, I don’t know if you guys were thinking it too, but right, if you know and you are from Ontario, you know, this thing called the Sunshine List and this list here in Ontario, I don’t know if it happens in other provinces, but I know here in Ontario they do.

00:06:43:11 – 00:07:10:04
Kyle Pearce
And basically the Sunshine List is this list that is published every year to show any public sector workers who earn over $100,000. And the year that I went on to the Sunshine List, someone said, like, Kyle, you’re on the sunshine list. I was like, What does that even mean? I had no idea. But more importantly, like, what popped into my mind was, I’m going back and I’m thinking about John and your $60,000, right?

00:07:10:04 – 00:07:24:15
Kyle Pearce
You’re saying like, that was your number? You said 1993 for that number because we’re human calculators. And really Microsoft Excel is kind of my biggest help in that endeavor. So it’s not just on that totally geeky for sure.

00:07:24:15 – 00:07:27:12
Matt Biggley
You are in 93, you are still in 2023.

00:07:27:12 – 00:07:49:08
Kyle Pearce
I totally am. I totally am. So what we did was we actually looked at the data and basically over any 20 year period, if you actually think about inflation, it’s typically around 4%. Now, of course, it can go way high, like in the eighties went way high for a while. It’s way high right now. It’s always reported lower than the reality to, which is something that’s hard to really navigate.

00:07:49:08 – 00:08:07:22
Kyle Pearce
Right, Because they get to decide what the basket of goods is and they take things in and put things out. But anyway, that 4% is the average over pretty much all 20 year period. So that’s kind of a good number. Even though the government and the Fed in the U.S. and the Bank of Canada are trying to aim for this 2% number.

00:08:07:22 – 00:08:27:19
Kyle Pearce
Right? They actually want the money supply to inflate. They do want a little bit of that because that means they get more money. Right. Like think about that. You get pushed into higher tax brackets. Right. So the tax brackets didn’t go down as your salary went up. Right, John, you hit that 60,000 fast and the government was exactly as I planned.

00:08:27:20 – 00:08:54:11
Kyle Pearce
Right, John, You get to pay me more money now. Congratulations. Oh, and by the way, everything costs more, too. So when I look back and I was like, when did the sunshine List even begin? And the Sunshine List began in 1996. So what Pearl Jam’s third or fourth album or something like that? Sir John, you were talking 93 and 60, 65,000, and now we’re in this place where the Sunshine List.

00:08:54:15 – 00:09:19:16
Kyle Pearce
What hasn’t changed on the sunshine list is this $100,000 benchmark. So think about that for a second. Back then, 60,000 actually was and you said the Mac salary for teachers, I think in 93 was around 65,000. In Ontario, $65,000. That was a big gap between this sunshine list. And now it’s like all teachers, once they hit the top of the grid, are on the sunshine list.

00:09:19:18 – 00:09:40:05
Kyle Pearce
Right. And a lot of people, like all teachers, are paid too much or police officers are paid too much. But in reality, if we were to take that number from 93, like you said, we use 65,000 because that was the max teacher salary in Ontario and you actually used 4% as inflation on average each year. By the time we hit, I just turned 40.

00:09:40:05 – 00:09:41:17
Kyle Pearce
John, you’re what, 42?

00:09:41:18 – 00:09:43:05
Jon Orr
43, 43.

00:09:43:05 – 00:09:52:17
Kyle Pearce
So John’s 43 you would need in order to replace that $65,000 salary. That was the number you had in mind. And you’re like, That’s a good salary.

00:09:52:17 – 00:09:54:11
Jon Orr
That was my dad. So yeah, it’s amazing.

00:09:54:11 – 00:10:25:04
Kyle Pearce
Well, in today’s dollars, assuming 4% inflation every year, by the time you are 43, which is now, you’d need $210,000 to have the same buying power, the same purchasing power. Now, if you want to go some people like like 4%, that’s too high. Whatever. Let’s put it down to 2% for a second. It’s still 117,000. And I think 2% is way conservative in terms of what inflation actually looks like in context.

00:10:25:06 – 00:10:50:08
Jon Orr
If I think about my 1993 self, when I viewed my dad’s salary at 60 K and I compare it to my salary when I finished teaching, my dad would have felt so much richer that I felt basically, if it was a 4%, it should be double to him. It was feel like if he’s living in today’s time, he felt like it was he’d made 210,000 worth of buying power versus my 100,000 worth of buying power.

00:10:50:08 – 00:10:51:02
Jon Orr
That’s crazy.

00:10:51:04 – 00:11:17:10
Kyle Pearce
Yeah. And I want to go even further. I’m doing this on the fly as we’re talking in my magical spreadsheet here. And I just want you to think about this for a second. Think from like the fact that back in 96, okay, so you said 93, but 1996 is when the Sunshine List came out and it was to expose public sector workers so you could see any name that was earning more than 100,000.

00:11:17:10 – 00:11:42:23
Kyle Pearce
That was by I think it was the Mike Harris government. It says if inflation goes up 4%, John, right now that list, if it actually inflated, if the number inflated like your salary did, it would be 324,000. Right? So like when you think about that in the differences, right, it’s almost like the sunshine list is silly now and then if we look at it at 2%, it’s 181,000.

00:11:42:23 – 00:12:07:00
Kyle Pearce
So we’re talking maybe some superintendents, not all superintendents or the directors of certain districts or maybe I don’t know what police chiefs and so forth earn. But when you really think about that, the fact that the Sunshine List kept their no, no, 100,000, they kept it static for the last call it 30 years, and yet inflation has grown salaries.

00:12:07:06 – 00:12:24:12
Kyle Pearce
Our salaries have not kept up with inflation, but yet the sunshine number, that benchmark has not grown either. I mean, ultimately you’re going to have essentially, if they don’t change something pretty soon, you’re going to have fast food employees that are going to be on the sunshine list. Right. But I guess they’re not public sector, so who knows?

00:12:24:14 – 00:12:53:22
Jon Orr
It’s hard to think about. My dad had so much more buying power than I have, so I’m thinking about how that has in context of is $100,000 the right amount of money to live that comfortable life? Because I still think that many people think so. Like you said, call the six figures and now we’ve just got one piece of data that says if $100,000 on the sunshine list in 96 compared to now is 310, now it’s almost like is 310 the right amount of money to give that super comfy life to $100,000 back then?

00:12:53:22 – 00:13:12:00
Jon Orr
So I think there’s a case here, but I mean, let’s dig into some of the numbers. Matt brought up the idea, thinking about let’s look at $100,000 as if we were making that now, which teachers at the top end their salary are. And let’s now compare it to what some of the average costs are and see where does our budget fit in with?

00:13:12:00 – 00:13:41:05
Jon Orr
Let’s say we make $100,000. That probably means what we’re going to take home between 65 to $70000 after tax, after pension contributions, after all of that, maybe 60 K around that, after you take off all the deductions and planning for because I had a pension pulled off rate for my salary. So I remember thinking 60 K was my take home when I did some number crunching right there and that’s the money you have to spend on all the things, right?

00:13:41:05 – 00:14:15:09
Jon Orr
All the things. So it’s like, okay, if that’s the number, then do we have enough to kind of like not only pay for your family because $100,000 actually, like you guys said, is the 90th percentile. But when you look at stats can it’s the 90th percentile. If you’re close, if you’re between 35 and 44. So it’s like by age and then your income kind of peaks at between 45 and 55/90 percentile in Canada at 45 to 55 is like 130 K But I mean, you’re still in good shape there.

00:14:15:09 – 00:14:37:09
Jon Orr
So it’s kind of like what are we spending on for our families? If I got a car payment, if we got mortgages, like I want to understand that is 100 K enough to have all of that and be able to save for retirement, but also a good retirement and maybe like there’s a ton of people like we get calls all the time reaching out to us about investing in real estate, investing in JB partnerships.

00:14:37:11 – 00:14:49:04
Jon Orr
A lot of these folks are wondering is like, can I retire early, make 100 K year? Do I have enough to retire early? So is 100 K enough to pay for everything and be able to plan for early retirement?

00:14:49:06 – 00:15:14:22
Kyle Pearce
Yeah, it’s definitely becoming more and more of a challenge, as you can imagine. Right. And we dug up all kinds of numbers here and of course that makes my heart sing. However, it also makes it a little sad when you see John after you consider, let’s say, taxes on 100 K and then say it’s a pension contribution or let’s say you’re paying around ten 12% of your pay to put into your own pension.

00:15:14:22 – 00:15:39:21
Kyle Pearce
Right. Let’s assume that that’s happening. You’re left with maybe 60,000 low sixties after all of that. Right. So your marginal tax rate is 37,000. Here’s the crazy part. So the average tax rate for someone who earns 100,000 in Ontario and it’s similar in other provinces but not exact, but the average tax rate ends up being around 22 and a half percent.

00:15:39:21 – 00:16:05:22
Kyle Pearce
Doesn’t sound bad, but the marginal tax rate is 37.91%. So call it 38%. And that means that even if you want to go out and earn more money, if you do it and it’s not, say, protected in some way, say a corporation or some sort of other structure, you’re losing essentially 40% of every extra dollar you earn to the government.

00:16:05:22 – 00:16:31:08
Kyle Pearce
So some people who earn 100,000, let’s say they go pick up a shift somewhere. They want to be a waiter or they want go bartender. They want to do anything, assuming they’re claiming as they’re supposed to, quote unquote, claiming those tips. They’re giving $0.40 of every dollar to the government. Right. As you get to that level, every extra dollar you earn, you’re giving more of it away, which is also not super exciting.

00:16:31:10 – 00:16:50:01
Kyle Pearce
On the other end when we look at the cost of everything. So if you think you got 60 K left to spend, that’s $5,000 per month. And then we start to look at some of these average payments here. Matt, you had pulled some of these numbers here. What were some of these averages that you were seeing? I remember the car payment.

00:16:50:01 – 00:16:59:01
Kyle Pearce
One kind of blew my mind because I don’t have a car payment rate now, and I hate buying cars personally, but the average you said kind of blew my mind. Take us through some of these people.

00:16:59:01 – 00:17:20:12
Matt Biggley
So $813 is the average car and that’s a seven year loan as well, Ed, to $13. I know we bought a van. This would have been in 2020 and ours is a little 550 bucks for our Chrysler Pacifica. I’ve got another car that I was able to buy through my business and this has been a point in a number of our episodes.

00:17:20:12 – 00:17:46:14
Matt Biggley
When we make salaried income, there’s some benefits, but there’s also some challenges and we’ve alluded to those in some other in other episodes about why owning a business is is preferential. So in my case, our family car is owned personally by my business. Vehicles don’t do the business. That’s a benefit of owning the business. So $813 per month of that $5,000, call it $600 a month if you drive a more modest vehicle.

00:17:46:14 – 00:17:56:00
Kyle Pearce
And that means that half of people are paying more than that. Right? You half are paying under that. Right. And half are paying more than that. Right. Or that would be the media.

00:17:56:04 – 00:17:57:05
Jon Orr
That’s the media. Media.

00:17:57:05 – 00:17:59:01
Kyle Pearce
Oh, there was the hot dog.

00:17:59:01 – 00:18:00:01
Jon Orr
All my gosh.

00:18:00:02 – 00:18:04:18
Kyle Pearce
Nomadic nature. I know. She’s I’m so rusty.

00:18:04:20 – 00:18:26:05
Matt Biggley
It pegged groceries at about $350 per person. John was saying for his family of four, he’s about 1200 a month. So call it $400 a person for groceries that need it doesn’t count for restaurant meals for your morning coffee run. That is just straight groceries. So call that per person 400 bucks a month, 1200 bucks a month on groceries.

00:18:26:07 – 00:18:49:18
Matt Biggley
Let’s talk maybe mortgage payments. We’ve got a mortgage broker with us here, John. Like so the average house price in Windsor, Essex. And again, keep in mind, we are one of the most affordable places in the country where you’d want to be, where you want to live. I’m sure there’s spots that may be cheaper, but we were $530,000 was the cost of the average house in Windsor, Essex in the month of October 2023.

00:18:49:20 – 00:19:10:07
Matt Biggley
I’m going to estimate or I’m going to guess that most teachers live in houses that are more money than this, more money than the average here, because I would surmise that teachers are certainly not only in the highest 10% of income earners here in Windsor, Essex, but probably even more so, John, if you had to estimate what a payment would be on this House, what would it look like?

00:19:10:09 – 00:19:32:00
Jon Orr
Well, I think maybe a better number, right, is do not think about buying this house outright now, because if I’m making if I’m a teacher or if I’m making 100 K, it’s taken me 12 years to get to that spot to reach top the category. It’s likely that we bought a home or you bought a home lower than that value and your mortgage payment is probably lower at this point.

00:19:32:00 – 00:19:57:01
Jon Orr
Now, if I had to refinance or if we needed to buy another home and we didn’t have any equity, we’ve built only 20% equity, then we can talk about what that calculation might look like. But what we did instead was we looked up the average mortgage payments across Ontario, and I think we had some data from 2019 and it was like around 2000, between 1500 and $2,000 a month in mortgage payments.

00:19:57:01 – 00:20:17:07
Jon Orr
So that kind of takes into account that you may have bought your home ten years ago or five years ago or even one year ago or today. And that’s where your mortgage payment is coming from. So so that might be a little bit more realistic to think about in terms of a person who’s making 110. Because realistically, if I bought a brand new home today, it’s likely that I already had a home.

00:20:17:09 – 00:20:36:14
Jon Orr
Well, especially you’re in your forties, two fifties, and you’re making 100 K you’re as a teacher, then you’ve got built up some equity in the home prior to move or port over into the new home. So there’s that. But again, if you put let’s say you put 20% down and current rates, Wolf, current rates are high, right, guys?

00:20:36:15 – 00:21:01:04
Jon Orr
Current rates are anywhere between 5.8, 5.7, depending on your credit score. So an average rate right now, if you look at that 6.5% and you put 20% down on say, that 530 K home and you had no more equity, let’s say you’re a first time home buyer, then you’re looking at 2600 bucks a month in mortgage payments. So that’s going to eat up a good chunk of your l’ue.

00:21:01:04 – 00:21:14:11
Jon Orr
Now, that’s the reality of people Think about this, guys. If I’m not a 100 K year earner and I’m a new teacher and you’re thinking about getting buying your first home, you’re not even making 100 and K and now your mortgage payments 2600 bucks.

00:21:14:13 – 00:21:46:22
Kyle Pearce
It’s insane. I got to say, if it’s $60,000 and we’re talking about a single income, So that’s one thing. Maybe you have two incomes coming in, Maybe you double that if that person also makes 100. But let’s assume a single income for a second. That’s $5,000 a month. If you were to come into the market for the first time right now and you were at the top of the grid and you’re making that hundred thousand, you’re giving up more than half of the money that you have coming into your bank account every month for that mortgage.

00:21:46:24 – 00:22:14:18
Kyle Pearce
And then you’ve got 2400 bucks. You might have a car payment or not. Right. So let’s call it what, that 600 bucks left. Now, you talked about groceries, which are 400 a person or so. So now you’re at 1200. This money is just disappearing very quickly. You’re now down to 1200. And we haven’t talked about, say, property taxes, say property insurance, same auto insurance, say life insurance.

00:22:14:18 – 00:22:17:22
Kyle Pearce
If you actually are concerned about the uncertainties of life.

00:22:17:22 – 00:22:19:06
Jon Orr
Eating out phone bills.

00:22:19:06 – 00:22:47:10
Kyle Pearce
Yeah, I didn’t realize how crazy inflation is crushing us just in general in Canada. When you think that 100,000 we did this episode to really answer this question and I don’t think we were answering it as we go, but I’m starting to recognize that this is crazy when you think about that. I feel blessed that I guess we got into the housing market when we did because it’s definitely going to pose a challenge for some other people out there.

00:22:47:10 – 00:23:02:23
Kyle Pearce
So I wonder, what could we suggest for those who are listening, who may not have a residence yet? They’re looking to invest. They want to get into the real estate market. What are some things we can do? Not go to Starbucks is one of them, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. And I know Matt’s not a big fan of it.

00:23:02:23 – 00:23:04:14
Kyle Pearce
What do you think, Matt? What can people do.

00:23:04:15 – 00:23:06:24
Jon Orr
That’s a big fan of Starbucks? Not cutting it out?

00:23:07:03 – 00:23:08:09
Kyle Pearce
Yeah.

00:23:08:11 – 00:23:24:00
Matt Biggley
I think this is the silver lining. This is the great message. And the three of us are living proof of this, right? It’s like you either have to spend less and that’s definitely no fun and pretty hard to do because of course, one of the benefits of so many of these jobs is you get some significant time off.

00:23:24:00 – 00:23:41:05
Matt Biggley
And so time off with no money to travel. That reminds me of like having a poor retirement. It sounds awful. So you either have to spend less, which to me is no fun, or you have to make more. And that’s what this podcast is all about. How can you make more? How can you create more income opportunities? How can you generate more money?

00:23:41:07 – 00:24:11:11
Matt Biggley
How can you create some assurances that as you age and as you progress and as you get to the point where you want to wind down your working career, you will have enough money to enjoy the time that you’ll then have. And as part of my own personal beliefs, how can I leave something behind as a legacy for my children so that when inflation continues to take its toll in the future, my kids will have a leg up on everyone else, and that’s where the messages of so many of our episodes about how to go about investing and how to get started are critical.

00:24:11:16 – 00:24:39:06
Matt Biggley
And just think about the number of people we talk to who have been stuck, who’ve been spinning their wheels and investing and inflation has continued to eat away, eat away and eat away at the income. They do have the cost now to invest in going up and up and up. So I think my big message here is to get started to think the topic of this is mindblowing that 100 grand is perhaps not enough for you to live comfortably almost anywhere in this country is pretty mind blowing.

00:24:39:06 – 00:25:00:05
Matt Biggley
And I think a call to all of you out there who have aspired to take action and start investing, to actually take that action to reach out to us for a consultation, for a call, we can get into the minutia with you and really analyze your situation. We’ve got Kyle is brilliant at this. We can start to talk to you about some of our back as episodes topics.

00:25:00:05 – 00:25:18:21
Matt Biggley
We can really help you understand which one of these strategies might relate to you. Is it real estate investing? We certainly do a lot of that. We’re going to talk in future episodes about the terrific opportunities we’ve just recently found in real estate investing. Is that the way you want to go? Do you want to be hands off and just be a money partner, a joint venture partner in a future property?

00:25:18:21 – 00:25:38:24
Matt Biggley
We’ve got options for that as well. I can feel my temperature rising as we talk about this. This is like a basis. If a hundred grand isn’t enough to live comfortably in this country, I will complain about systemic issues or things we can’t control because I’m a firm believer in your destiny is in your hand. So forget complaining about the government or this or that or the other thing.

00:25:38:24 – 00:25:41:11
Matt Biggley
Let’s focus on what you can do for yourself.

00:25:41:13 – 00:26:02:04
Jon Orr
Yeah, good message there, Matt, and good takeaway. And I think my takeaway from analyzing the data is thinking about some of the, like you said, messages we’ve shared in prior podcasts in which is about aligning your priorities. We talked about a lot of averages here when we did our average what’s our average mortgage payment, what’s our average car payment, what’s our average for groceries?

00:26:02:10 – 00:26:25:08
Jon Orr
What’s our average for going out, that kind of thing. For me, I think if you’re going to say make it in, change your comfort level so that 100 K is enough. And if you’re going to just say, I’m not going to make more money, but I’m going to restructure the money, I have to create cushion so that I can invest, that’s still doable because that’s what I did for a long time.

00:26:25:08 – 00:26:42:07
Jon Orr
I had no extra money coming in, but I did a lot of restructuring on what matters to me. And I think that’s a good question. We have to ask ourselves what really matters to you and then how do you restructure? So what you said, Matt, is important too, is hop on a call with us too, because we’ve done a lot of restructuring calls to think about what should we focus on?

00:26:42:07 – 00:27:00:01
Jon Orr
How can I restructure this? We did an episode a couple episodes ago, how should we be putting money here? Or maybe we should be actually putting some money away for our spy national security first, because that will also allow us to have some capital money. We can move to other places and we actually can use the same dollar twice.

00:27:00:03 – 00:27:14:07
Jon Orr
And so we’ve got some strategies we’ve used with people to help restructure their current financial situation, to allow them to get into real estate investing or use their money for future wealth building. So let us know about that. But I think that’s my big takeaway.

00:27:14:08 – 00:27:37:06
Kyle Pearce
I love it. I love it. I got surge of energy from Matt there is getting passionate. He’s getting insights. You know what I’m hearing in both of what you’re saying is again, I loved what I heard from Matt about this idea that you are essentially in control of your destiny, and that is 100% true. And John, you’re giving some ideas around how you can actually take control of your destiny.

00:27:37:06 – 00:28:01:19
Kyle Pearce
And I think I just want to sort of put an exclamation point behind those two ideas. If you don’t know why you want to invest or you don’t know why you want to grow some wealth or whatever it is, the reality is, is you’re not going to do it because you’re not clear enough on the why. You’re not clear on what it is that you’re trying to achieve.

00:28:01:21 – 00:28:20:13
Kyle Pearce
The reality is and I say this to people who do call in, there was one time where I said to someone, I said, It sounds like you’re living your best life right now with your current budget and it’s working for you. You don’t have anything left to invest, but it sounds like you’re doing exactly what you want to do.

00:28:20:13 – 00:28:48:12
Kyle Pearce
We always use the example of playing softball four days a week. Well, if that’s you, rock and roll. But if you’re not happy with where you’re at now, you got to prioritize. You got to think about what is it that you actually want. And then actually, when people say planning, it sounds scary. But the reality is, if I keep doing what I’m doing now and then I fast forward for ten, 20, 30 years, what is that going to do for me?

00:28:48:18 – 00:29:12:16
Kyle Pearce
And if you’re playing a game where it means you’re going to be at exactly the same level and you just hopefully will continue earning the same amount of income, but you’ve not gained any sort of assets or wealth. That’s fine. But as long as you’re aware that that’s what you’re doing right, if you want that to change, you need to look at that and you need to actually extrapolate out and say, If I keep doing this, here’s where I’m going to be.

00:29:12:16 – 00:29:33:01
Kyle Pearce
It’s not going to change on your own. You need to be well aware of it. And if you’re okay with the end goal or the result of it, then you’re in good shape. If you’re not okay with that end goal, then you need to look and you need to decide what actually brings me happiness and joy in my life now and what does not.

00:29:33:01 – 00:30:02:09
Kyle Pearce
For a lot of people, I pick on cars all the time, cars that 800 on average per month for a car payment is a lot of money, right? So it doesn’t actually bring you the amount of joy that you really thought it would bring you. It’s okay if you’re wrong. You can sell it and you can downsize or you can sell your home and you can downsize that whatever you need to do, do what you need to do and get yourself going on your plan, not on our plan, on your plan.

00:30:02:09 – 00:30:18:12
Kyle Pearce
And you can reach out to us any time so we can help you sort of come to some realization as to what your next steps are by heading to Canadian Wealth Secrets dot com forward slash discovery and you can hop on a quick call again Canadian Wealth Secrets dot com forward slash discuss very.

00:30:18:18 – 00:30:32:05
Jon Orr
Thanks everybody for listening to another episode of the Invest in Teacher podcast. We encourage you to leave a five star rating and review and also to share this podcast with your friends and family. We are on all social media so you can find us over there as well.

00:30:32:07 – 00:30:42:23
Matt Biggley
O Links, resources and transcripts from this episode can be found over on the website that’s Canadian Wealth Secrets account for slash episode 48. Again that is investor teacher dot com forward slash episode 48.

00:30:43:04 – 00:31:16:16
Kyle Pearce
All right invested students class dismissed. This is just a quick reminder that this is not not investment advice it is for entertainment purposes only you should not construe any such information or other material as legal tax, investment, financial or other advice.

00:31:16:18 – 00:31:32:13
Jon Orr
Just as a reminder, Matt is a licensed realtor in the province of Ontario with Deer Brook Realty. John is a mortgage agent with Brick’s mortgage license number. m23006803. And Kyle is a licensed life and accident and sickness insurance agent with corporate advisors and pan financial.

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