My Money Journey

I remember it like it was yesterday; that feeling of getting my first salaried job, receiving my first paycheck, and thinking: wow this is what that 4 year university degree was leading to. I finally made it. I was finally an adult. The money came into my checking account, I paid my rent, and put a bit away in my savings account that earned me about 0.25% interest and that was that. For the next 3 years I didn’t stop to think about what I could be doing with some of my extra money each month. I didn’t know the stock market or investing was even an option for someone like me.

I am from a small town on Vancouver Island in Canada. I was raised by my mother. My father moved away when I was 2 and never paid any child support. My mom sacrificed a great deal to provide me with a wonderful childhood, filled with opportunity and experience. But I could tell at times that money concerned her.

I find it a fascinating exercise to think about the very first money memory you have - for me it was about orange juice. I was at my friend Emily’s house and her mom served us a big glass of Tropicana orange juice with pulp. It was delicious. As I sat sipping my glass I realised that at home we only ever had the frozen Minute Maid orange juice that we put into a jug and mixed with water. I could see at that moment that my mom’s financial situation was slightly different from Emily’s family’s. It was subtle, but it stuck with me.

We form our attitudes and feelings towards money at such a young age. These money feelings of anxiety, of abundance, of scarcity, of emotional spending, or of extreme frugality, tend to live on in us throughout our adult lives. I give my mother enormous credit when it comes to my money attitudes. While I know we didn’t have a great deal of money, I was never made to feel like we lacked for anything. She started giving me a small allowance at the age of 13 that I was to manage. If I wanted to go to the movies or buy a new sweater it had to come from this allowance. I learned about what things cost and how to make my money last. I became very good at saving.

Being good at saving is a great thing. When I found myself 3 years into my career, earning a decent living and keeping my expenses low, I was locking away a good chunk of change each month. I was proud of myself and felt encouraged as I saw my account balance increase. I’d opened a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) - which is fairly similar to a Roth IRA in the US, at my bank, not really understanding what it was, and diligently put my money into the account each month. But it turns out I was making a fatal mistake. What I didn’t know was that this money had to then be invested in something. My money was just sitting as cash for an entire year. And there’s the problem - no one tells you this stuff. Not your bank, not your university, not your high school, and in my case not my parents. I had spent a year locking away over $1200/month in my TFSA only for it to sit there in a glorified savings account. Then I got angry.

I took this anger and decided to learn all that I could. I read articles, spoke to my bank, followed creators on TikTok and Instagram and learned about all this jargon and all these rules I never knew. If I didn’t know, I wondered, how many other people don’t know? How many other women don’t know? I learned that I was missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially millions, simply by not investing. And the only person who was going to make my money work for me was me.

Little did I know that I had a few more money mistakes ahead of me. When I called my bank about my TFSA error they told me not to worry and that I could put all my TFSA money (currently in cash) into a mutual fund. They’d handle it. They asked how I felt about losing money - I said “not good”, so they put my money into a conservative mutual fund (which at my age it was not necessary to be so conservative). I handed over all my money and thought okay, I’ve done it! I am investing and someone else is handling it all for me. What my bank didn’t tell me however, is that they were charging me a 1.5% annual fee. This fee would go to my financial advisor year over year, no matter whether the market was up or down. And over time, it would actually significantly cut into my return on investment (we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars lost to fees). While it was not malicious, I realised I wanted a better option for my money.

I then opened a Wealthsimple account (a Canadian brokerage) and thought okay, I can just build my own portfolio. I don’t need my bank’s help. I started to pick my own individual stocks. I bought some Apple, some Tesla, even some Gamestop and on and on. But I found this laborious and confusing. I didn’t know how to evaluate companies or how to choose what to buy. I didn’t want to have to wake up to track the stock market every morning, I wanted this to be easy.

And then finally, I learned about ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds, very similar to Index Funds) - the perfect solution for the lazy investor.

An ETF is a basket of securities (stocks, bonds, and sometimes other assets). When you buy one ETF, you’re buying small pieces of many companies at once. If you buy VFV in Canada or VOO in the US, you’re buying the S&P 500 - the top 500 US companies - in a single purchase. ETFs are low cost, easy to buy, diversified and accessible. While the mutual fund through my bank was going to cost me a 1.5% fee, the ETFs I started to buy had a fee of only 0.03% - 0.09%, which when you run the numbers would be saving me a lot of money over time. I’d finally found an investing approach that worked for me.

Taking control of my money and actively considering my financial future was one of the best decisions I ever made. And it didn’t happen overnight, it took years. I made mistakes. I felt overwhelmed. I felt confused. But once I understood the system and automated it to work for me, money stopped feeling stressful and started feeling simple.

Today, I have a net worth of over $500,000 CAD (nearly $400k USD) at 31, not because I’m special, but because I learned the system and used it intentionally.

EMpowered Money exists to make financial knowledge accessible, human, and empowering. My goal is to help people feel calm, confident, and in control of their financial lives. I’m so happy you’re here, and I hope you stick around.

-Emma