[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome to happy time happy money podcasts and today we have Liz Enriquez. Liz is a personal finance educator that teaches Canadians how to manage their money and invest them. Hi welcome Liz.

[00:00:25] Liz Enriquez: Hi, thanks for having me.

[00:00:27] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. Always we, I love to started from where is your story? Where, how did you start it to work with money and supporting people on investing money?

[00:00:42] Liz Enriquez: So I started helping people manage their finances and really learn about money in 2018.

[00:00:49] Listening to podcasts and then I realized that there was a lot of people who didn't know the basics of saving and budgeting and investing. And so that's when I started really creating this a business, but before it was a blog and the blog was doing really well. I was getting people asking me lots of questions.

[00:01:08] I was getting people who wanted to know how I saved up money and how I bought a house and how I was investing and how I bought more real estate. And so that's when I started sharing more and then my businesses was born.

[00:01:25] Viktoriia Miracle: Nice. So tell us more about like, how are you doing what you're doing?

[00:01:33] Liz Enriquez: Yes. So I really share my story a lot online and the reason I do that is because I never went to school for personal finances. So I actually have a geography degree and I wanted to be some sort of eco warrior saving the world, you know, encouraging recycling.

[00:01:50] And I did that for a while, but I realized that I really love my side hustles. So my first side hustle was social media management and I loved making my own schedule. I liked being able to work with clients and before that I was working with government. So there was a very different kind of style working.

[00:02:10] And I really gravitated more towards that entrepreneurial style of working versus working for a government organization. So when my side hustle was making more money part-time than my actual full-time job. That's when I realized, okay, clearly I know how to run a business. I know how to get clients. And so I was doing my first side hustle, which is social media management.

[00:02:33] And then I started in adulting, which is my personal finance brand, but I really loved promoting how to make more money, how to save more money, like, so I completely let that become my full-time job. So I'm kind of all over the place, but I also really like that. That's just my personality like if I'm interested in something I'm going to go forward and make it successful.

[00:02:55] And right now this is what I'm really interested in passionate about. So hopefully this lasts for a long time, but if I find another passion and I make that into a career, I'm okay with that as well.

[00:03:05] Viktoriia Miracle: Yeah. That's like go getters. You know, it's entrepreneurial mindset. Once you, you just left something, you started crewing from it and share, and it's super cool.

[00:03:15] I love entrepreneurs. What is the number, number one mistake that people make when they're are starting, when they're wanting to have more money, but they can't?

[00:03:30] Liz Enriquez: Yeah, I think there's a few mistakes, but a common one is just being scared of either a lot of people are just scared that they don't think they know enough. And they're like, oh, I don't know I'll never be able to get more money. I'll never be able to save and right away the moment you think like that, it just shuts off any possibility of potentially growing, because there's no point of either working more. If you think that you're never going to be able to get money. Yeah, it's just, that's the number one mistake is that money mindset of thinking that you're not smart enough.

[00:03:58] You're not good enough. No one wants to hire you. That is not productive. So I work with a lot of clients to kind of get them over those hurdles and those barriers to have more positive money mindset. And then from there we can build systems that are going to bring them more money and help them save more and be more effective.

[00:04:17] Viktoriia Miracle: Mm, love that. So how, how you start to save more money?

[00:04:22] Liz Enriquez: The number one thing I usually recommend people is to do a money audit. So this is looking at three months or six months of your expenses and your income and seeing, okay, how much am I spending on average? Or how much am I spending each month? And how much am I doing?

[00:04:38] If you're making more than you're spending, you're in a good position, but if you're spending more than you're making, then we need to do some more deeper evaluation regardless of your situation. We can always look to see, okay, what, how much are you eating out a month? And can you cut back on that? So that's one way to save money.

[00:04:56] What about subscription service is like, do people really need six different streaming services or three different streaming services? You know, so if you're looking to save money, Look deep into what are you currently spending on and where can you make some adjustments?

[00:05:12] Viktoriia Miracle: So, and how do you start investing money? Like what do you do and where do you go?

[00:05:18] Liz Enriquez: This depends. So it's a little different between Canada and the states, but for the most part, you open up some sort of brokerage account. So this for us in Canada, it's the TSA or the RSP. Those are the two more popular ones because they have tax advantages in the states.

[00:05:36] There's the 401k, the Roth RI and you know, a few different combinations of that. So once you figure out which of these accounts makes the most sense for your personal situation, then you can start investing. So one of the most popular things is to buy a few broad index funds or some ETFs that may make the S and P 500.

[00:05:57] That's kind of the beginner friendly way of investing. It's the same for Canadians and Americans. Also there's some things called all-in-one funds or robo-advisors, so those are definitely some easy ways to start investing. And then if you want, and if you're more comfortable, that's when you can get into the individual stock picking, but you definitely don't need to start with stocks when you're beginning to invest.

[00:06:23] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. So the number one advice, don't start with individual stocks, unless you really understand that at least the beginners of investment and ETFs and bonds and all that.

[00:06:36] Liz Enriquez: Yeah, and also you need to understand your risks. So if you have maybe $50,000, cause you've been saving really well and or maybe you got an inheritance and you're like, let me just try a thousand dollars with stocks, that might be an okay strategy for you, but if you've worked so hard and you saved up $5,000 in the last five years, and this is like all your money and you're like, I'm going to throw it all into this one stock that I saw, because it might do well, like that's extremely high risk. And so you weigh your risk and your risk analysis to be like, okay, is this a good decision?

[00:07:13] And yeah, most times if you're starting off, it's better off to do a broad investment strategy.

[00:07:20] Viktoriia Miracle: Love that. Awesome. So, last question that I ask everyone in this podcast, and it's not really question, it's fill in the blank sentence. If you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:07:35] Liz Enriquez: Ambitious.

[00:07:35] Viktoriia Miracle: Yes, entrepreneurs are very ambitious. Awesome. Well, share with us. I know you have an amazing gift for.

[00:07:46] Liz Enriquez: I have a lot of freebies in my Facebook group, personal finance for retaining millennials. You can go find them on, on your website.

[00:07:55] Viktoriia Miracle: Yes. Awesome. So if you're listening or watching to this episode, just scroll down and you will find a link to a page where you will find every link that we mention in everything that we mentioned in this episode.

[00:08:08] And if you like this episode send message to Liz or me. I'm always happy to hear your feedback and we are thriving on feedback. Thank you so much for coming Liz and they give so much for listening or watching this episode and I'll see you tomorrow.