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7| The Connection Between Financial, Physical, and Mental Health

Speaker: Russ Dyck

On this episode Russ Dyck, of Frame Financial, explains the connection between financial, physical, and mental health, and discusses what business owners can do to help themselves and their employees take control of their finances.


About the Guests

RUSS_Headshot

Russ Dyck holds a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation which is a formal recognition of expertise in the areas of financial planning, taxes, insurance, estate planning, and retirement planning.
After years of helping Canadians strengthen their financial situations through one-on-one coaching and workshops, he is now leading the Frame team in finalizing development of a financial wellness program to specifically help the roughly 7 million Canadian employees who are stressed by their finances.
He's lucky to have such an amazing entrepreneurial wife, Kristen, along with his two kids, Wesley & Elaina, who have the incredible ability to lighten anyone's day.


About the Host

Morgan Berna is the host of Olympia Benefits’ podcast, The Small Business Mastermind. Her background is in marketing, journalism, and broadcasting. Passionate about small business, she aims to create content that inspires and educates listeners.



Transcript:

Russ Dyck: Finances, as you know, nobody likes talking about them. Everybody wants to put on a brave face. Everybody wants to show everyone else that they're doing good. Just look at your social media…

 

[INTRO MUSIC]

 

Morgan Berna: You're listening to The Small Business Mastermind, a podcast created by Olympia Benefits to help small businesses juggle business, finance, health and wellness. I'm your host, Morgan Berna. And if you'd like to be updated when new episodes are posted, please subscribe at olympiabenefits.com/podcast.

 

[MUSIC]

 

Morgan: The connection between mental, physical and financial health is one that tends to be left out of conversations about wellness. Yet 48% of Canadians say they've lost sleep because of financial worries and 44% say it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their pay was late. While dealing with financial stress, we are twice as likely to report poor overall health, four times as likely to suffer from sleep problems, and are put at risk for more serious health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure and depression. It's a connection we can't afford to keep ignoring. That's why on this episode, I'm sitting down with Russ Dyck of Frame Financial to discuss the connection finance has with our overall well-being and strategies you can use to improve your financial health. So with that, let's jump right in to the conversation and I'll be checking in with you again at the end of the episode.

 

[MUSIC]

 

Russ Dyck: My name is Russ Dyck and I am the CEO and co-founder of Frame Financial. We're an employee wellness planning company.

 

Morgan: Russ Dyck holds a Certified Financial Planner designation which is a formal recognition of expertise in the areas of financial planning, taxes, insurance, estate planning and retirement planning. After years of helping Canadian strengthen their financial situations through one-on-one coaching and workshops, he's now leading the Frame team and finalizing development of a financial wellness program to specifically help the roughly 7 million Canadian employees who are stressed by their finances. He's lucky to have such an amazing entrepreneurial wife Kristen along with his two kids Wesley and Elena who have the incredible ability to lighten anyone's day.

 

To start I wanted to give you a bit of our background on why this topic was so interesting to bring you on for. As a Health Spending Account provider  and Wellness Spending Account provider, we've done a lot of blogging, e-books, and conversations around physical health, mental health but we've never really tied in this idea of financial health as a component of your overall wellness. So we felt like this was an interesting topic that maybe a lot of people haven't had a lot of experience with, haven't really seen that connection. Thank you for being here Russ today.

 

Russ: Great to be here.

 

Morgan: I wanted to start with, first, what would be your definition of financial wellness?

 

Russ: My definition of financial wellness is definitely just being aware of where your finances are and not stressing about them on a day-to-day basis. It's not necessarily that you're free from any financial pressures but it's the awareness of knowing what's coming up and knowing what tools you have to deal with them.

 

Morgan: This sounds like almost a sense of control even if there are things slightly outside of your control.

 

Russ: Exactly.

 

Morgan: You have a company called Frame Financial and you put a focus on the relationship between finance, mental and physical wellness. What inspired you to create this?

 

Russ: Well, I've been a financial coach for quite a few years now. The one thing that I kept encountering with people coming to me looking for help on their finances is that a.) they're already in financial difficulty and they couldn't afford the one-to-one financial coaching which is quite expensive. There’s not many tools available to people to increase their financial literacy that actually kind of provides context to what position they're in. Online there are many, many different blog, articles, videos and stuff but it doesn't really provide the context of, "Hey, this is the specific situation you're in. Here are the tools that you need to put into place to really help your financial situation". I call it an overload of content and not enough context.

 

Morgan: That's a good point. A lot of the banking apps and things show you what you have but there aren't necessarily, I guess, goals associated with it unless you research it on your own I don't know how you would know if you're in a good place unless you're working with a company. Where have you experienced or seen those relationships throughout your career?

 

Russ: Pretty much on a daily basis talking with clients. Financial health, financial wellness and physical health or mental stress is one and the same for my clients. It's the number one cause of stress in Canada, for Canadians. So, dealing with financial stress is vital for people to improve their mental health for the most part.

 

Morgan: Do you know, off the top there how many Canadians would be struggling financially, maybe just a ballpark?

 

Russ: I looked at the numbers this morning just to make sure I had it right because it's 8 million Canadians that are working that are stressed on a daily basis with their finances. I think there’s 10 million Canadians that have lost sleep over their finances, working Canadians.

 

Morgan: I think almost any of us can relate to that at some point or another. What are some of the ways that financial stress can impact our physical health?

 

Russ: Financial stress shows up much like any other type of stress. The main two types were acute stresses in the moment, boost of adrenaline, your body responds immediately but financial stress, more than likely, is chronic stress. So stress over long periods of time. It really never goes away. It can have the same impacts as any other stress where increased chances of heart attacks and stroke, it can show up as anxiety disorders or even depression if it goes untreated. It's kind of all-consuming and has a huge impact on someone's body.

 

Morgan: Yeah. When I was looking online I was seeing things like migraines being linked directly to financial stress which is not something I would have ever considered. I think about, "Oh, my muscles are being weird or the weather's weird". I don't think I would make that connection. And then, yeah, the cardiovascular disease is a big one. So, when you're working with a client and you notice them improving their financial health, do you notice any improvement in maybe their mood or any sort of mental signs they were showing to you? 

 

Russ: Definitely. In most meetings when we come across a very stressful situation talking about debt, talking about where their finances are and you start to show them like, "Here's the plan where we're going to fix this". You can see the weight just dropped off their shoulders. That's the one part of my job that I absolutely love, is seeing there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to get through this. It's not going to be a day or two. It's going to be five years possibly but we are going to put a plan in place and we're going to get through this. And I like saying "we" because I'm definitely in it with them. I see the effects on them, I see the stress on them and all I can think about is I want to help. 

 

Morgan: Yeah. You must have so many strategies in mind where you're like, "Oh if we just do this, I know that will help". For a business owner with employees, how might they be able to see those employees in the workplace that are having some financial stress? Are there any signs to look for?

 

Russ: This one's a little bit tougher because we are very good about hiding financial stress. Finances as you know, nobody likes talking about them. Everybody wants to put on a brave face. Everybody wants to show everyone else that they're doing good. Just look at your social media feed, Instagram, it's all about "Here's the best part of my life". So when employees go to work and they're stressed about finances, they are very good at hiding it. But if the employer actually looks and sees some of the symptoms, it could look like a lack of confidence--

 

Morgan: Maybe someone who's checking their phone a lot, just distracted?

 

Russ: Yeah. There are many people that look at their financial situation, try to deal with their finances while at work. There is, I think they say 3 hours per week per stressed employee. They're just focusing on trying to work on their financial situation at work. So they look at that. But then it could look at the opposite spectrum. They could be extroverted, showing off, kind of trying to overcompensate, always wanting to go for drinks, hanging out but then, could be more withdrawn. It's very difficult to actually look at any individual employee and say this action or what they're doing could be a sign of financial stress.

 

Morgan: And it's not something that, at least in my experience, is really talked about in the workplace. You get your paycheck, sometimes you're offered various benefits, maybe you're offered a plan where you can buy-in to stocks something like that but at least from what I've seen, there aren't a lot of businesses that sit employees down and talk to them about managing their finances. Not necessarily that that's their obligation but it just might be something that could be helpful when people aren't getting it elsewhere. Do you think employees are getting what they need from employers to improve their financial wellness?

 

Russ: Well, I am a little bit biased on this but I don't think that they're getting what they need but I'm not sure employers are actually trained on this kind of things either--

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: --like family and household situations that bleed over to work, employers don't necessarily want to get involved and don't have the training to get involved. Because you want to have a defined line of what is work and what is home. 

 

Morgan: Yes.

 

Russ: And I think employees kind of want that too. But on the other hand, employees actually look at business owners and managers as mentors and for business owners, your employees probably look at you saying like, "You have your finances together. I want to learn what you know in order to kind of help my own situation". So, whether you like it or not or who knows small business owners might not even have their finances all in order but that's what employees see. They see the employers are providing for so many employees and they've got a small business and that's kind of a huge deal to these employees.

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: Obviously, it's one of those ways where employers can be a mentor and whether they want to or not or kind of a spokesperson for physical money management.

 

Morgan: Yeah. And it's been interesting 'cause the conversation about workplace wellness has really been growing. I think you can look online and just see tons of blog posts. Everyone's buzzing about it but a lot of it does focus more on the exercise, physical health. Mental health is in there but it's still growing. How great would it be to have a lunchroom talk about budgeting or saving your money, that sort of thing? Maybe an opportunity as well for an employer to learn a bit more if they're having some struggles as well. For an employer, outside of doing things like paying an employee more, giving out bonuses, things that are directly financially tied to the employee, what are some things they could do to help employees and maybe themselves improve their financial well-being?

 

Russ: As you'd mention before, Wellness Spending Accounts are actually a really big deal to employees. 8 million employees in Canada are living from paycheck to paycheck. Knowing that a wellness spending account that is a little bit more flexible to help them pay for things where it improves their quality of life without having to sacrifice something else is a really big deal to them. Some of the other things is providing that unbiased financial coaching one-on-one seminars, as you said lunchtime seminars providing financial literacy programs within the business. And some of the new programs that are actually being started by Canadian companies or Calgary companies--one is Zayzoon here in Calgary, they are providing a way for employees to access earn the wages before the paycheck arrives. So it actually skips employees going to the payday lenders for high percentage fee loans which is incredible because these employees need access to the wages early. And if there's no access to those, they're going to go to the only place that will lend them money that 100 times percent on interest rates which as we've seen in financial coaching, can lead to a collapse of household finances. Another really good program being started here in Calgary is Yr Plans and they're building a program that will allow employees with student debt to pay off their student debt quicker using employee benefit money which--

 

Morgan: That's interesting.

 

Russ:--It's been really big in the States. They have a little bit higher problem with--

 

Morgan:--student debt?

 

Russ:--student debt. But in Canada, it's still the same. We're seeing a lot more millennials coming into the workplace with student debts and it's just hanging over them. So, having another way of paying those down quicker is a great way for employers to show that they really care about their employees and they're interested in helping them find solutions to increase their financial health.

 

Morgan: Yeah. And like you'd been saying finding that balance between not wanting to get to into someone's personal life, but providing them some tools and solutions that they can use without it crossing that line between business and personal life. I think that's great. 

 

Russ: Yeah, absolutely. The employers, they probably don't want to be seen as pushing like, "Hey, you guys need to do this". But if you offer and encourage and promote healthy discussions about money in the workplace, that will go a long way.

 

Morgan: Yeah. And I think helps retain employees too anytime they're feeling supported and acknowledged. What are some of the most popular areas of personal finance that you see people either misunderstanding or completely avoiding?

 

Russ: I think the number one thing, the B-word, budgeting. I don't think anybody likes budgeting. Do you like--

 

Morgan: No.

 

Russ: No, no.

 

Morgan: I do love a list so, I'm a bit of a type-A personality that will do it. But whether or not I follow it is a different story.

 

Russ: I think, what we've seen online is a very rigid form of budgeting where it's you put down a certain number every month for dining out and don't go over one penny of spending because there's no other room in your budget. That's just--it's bound to fail and it's bound to make people feel bad about their personal situations. And as a financial coach, I see so many times where a monthly budget is never cut and dry and the same every single month. It's cyclical. Every year, you're going to have some things that pop out that they're the same or over the year, the average spending over the months is going to be about the same. But for the month to month, so many things can change, so many things pop up unexpectedly where you can't control those.

 

Morgan: That's true.

 

Russ: So, just the regular budget doesn't work.

 

Morgan: Yeah. I think of all the times I write it down and then at the end of the month I'm like, "Where did it go?" [Laughter]. I had a plan.

 

Russ: [laughter] Exactly. For myself, I know when I'm working downtown Calgary, I love going out for lunches. I don't like packing my lunch.

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: But I know that it's something that I just need to keep watch on. There’s tools where if you have a certain area where you're spending a little bit more, you can create these systems which help you really be cognizant of your spending. For me, I use a prepaid visa card where it's attached to my phone.

 

Morgan: Oh, that's smart.

 

Russ: And I only put a certain amount on my card every month and that's just for kind of my lunches downtown 'cause I know that I am going to be spending that money but I know that I have to limit it. And it keeps me aware every time I spend money, it will tell me, "Oh, you only have $70 this month remaining."

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: And it's really helpful for me. Instead of trying to budget and review at the end of the month, I'm very present with how much money I'm spending.

 

Morgan: And I think a lot of us go into this place of denial where we don't want to acknowledge that we're going to be spending money on lunch. I like to go get coffees. I know I'm spending $5 or $6 on a coffee and that maybe that's crazy. But that's a good point having something like a prepaid card or you can, I guess, use your debit card too.

 

Russ: And you bring up a really good point that kind of irks me where people talk about the latte factor or millennials spending on avocado toast--

 

Morgan: Yes [laughter]

 

Russ:--where everybody's concentrating on the $2 here, the $3 here and it is important but we concentrate on those because they are daily expenses, they're easy to track, we're very cognizant of it. And then, when it comes to the big huge purchases in our lives, we just lose all ability to actually look at the numbers and say, "Does this work for us?"

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: Vehicles, house, those are the biggest things. If we concentrated more on those big purchases and understanding what we needed before we made the purchases, the little purchases wouldn't even matter.

 

Morgan: It's a good point. [Laughter] I have a lot of friends that will buy new cars and then a couple of years in really regret it. But you're right, we focus on those little daily things I think because they're easy to notice and maybe an easy one to pick on, "Well, I'm in trouble because I bought a coffee not because I bought a brand new car". Interesting. 

 

Russ: And it makes us feel good when we're like, oh, we're denying the coffee today because it's going to help our financial situation where in reality, it's going to have a very little impact over the lifetime. If you stop drinking coffee or buying coffee over your lifetime, oh that would be a huge impact. But is that reasonable? Absolutely not. Do you enjoy that coffee? Does it improve your quality of life? Then buy the coffee.

 

Morgan: Yeah, interesting. Are there any other areas that people misunderstand quite a bit or avoid?

 

Russ: Budgeting is the big one, but I think a lot of people just avoid having conversations with each other, friends, family, even spouses about the money situation. They let it build up, build up, build up. And then, when it's too late, then that's when they start opening up and that causes a huge amount of stress for all parties involved. Usually, when it's built up for a long period of time, it's past the point of being fixable. We've actually seen that the number one cause of divorce in Canada is money issues and arguments over money. If those conversations were being held earlier in relationships before marriage and then even on a monthly basis of just checking in of, "Hey, this is where we're at. Here are our goals. This is what we need to do this month", would go a long way. I always link financial health to physical health almost directly where if you want to improve your financial health, it's much like wanting to improve your physical health. You need to put in that time week after week. You can't skip going to the gym for ten years and then decide, "Okay, let's fix it tomorrow".

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: It's not going to happen. It's that weekly check-in, monthly check-in. Keep working on it.

 

Morgan: Why do you think that we avoid checking in? Do you think that we're just not taught what we should be or that resources just aren't easy to find maybe?

 

Russ: I think it's all of the above. We're definitely not taught about money in our education systems the way we should be. Or it's not a focus. I'm not saying that we need to just focus on the money but I know a lot of people don't have meaningful conversations even with their parents about financial situations. Even for myself, I've only recently had money conversations with my parents. I didn't grow up rich but I didn't grow up poor. And I think my parents wanted to shield us from any of the bumps along the way. So, it just seemed very constant. But, I actually don't know. I don't know how my parents managed their money. I still don't know how much they make or made in the past. I didn't know until I was in university how much living expenses and groceries were and that was a little bit of a surprise.

 

Morgan: [laughter]

 

Russ: As much as--it is kind of-- I wish they would have taught me about it. The trial by fire that I got while I was in university was a great lesson. You learned lessons when you make mistakes and definitely, I made a ton of mistakes.

 

Morgan: You probably saw a bit of a lifestyle dip. 

 

Russ: Absolutely.

 

Morgan: I know when I would run out of money on my dining hall card, I have a couple of weeks still left in the semester and I'd be like, "Wait a minute [laughter] I'm doing something wrong". Let's talk about how about a couple of financial tips we could give to listeners to improve their financial wellness.

 

Russ: The number one suggestion I would have for anybody is just start opening up about money and finding someone you can confide in and you will have to take that leap of faith to start talking about money. It's not going to be fun. It's going to be super stressful but I promise you if you find someone that you can trust, you will feel so much better after talking about money and having that open dialogue. Now, this doesn't mean talking money to everybody because money discussions are still a huge taboo. There was an interesting study down in the States where they said people were more willing to talk about religion, politics and their romantic relationships before they would talk about money.

 

Morgan: Yeah, I'd believe that.

 

Russ: Yeah [laughter]. So, just starting to have those open conversations with someone you trust. And then, starting with bite-sized goals with your finances. A lot of people look at their retirement goal as something to focus on where that can be a huge goal. Talking to someone in their early thirties, the retirement number they should be aiming for is probably north of $2,000,000. But if you look at starting small, having those small savings goals or $100 a month, $50 a month putting into an investment account and just letting it sit in compound, that adds up a lot over time. Investing your money is going to do most of the heavy lifting for you so you don't have to stress about it. Especially, if you're in your 50s, you don't have to worry about coming up with that money all at once.

 

Morgan: Yeah. We had some good tips particularly for retirement savings on our accounting episode and particularly for business owners that may be taking dividends.

 

Russ: Once you kind of really figure out what your goals are, start doing that review on a weekly basis, whether it's just by yourself looking at your accounts, looking at your checking accounts, talking to your spouse about it. When you're starting to look at a weekly basis you're starting to look at what might come up this next week. So you can start planning for it in advance. And then once you start planning for the week, you can start planning for the month. And then when you start planning for the months ahead, you can start planning for the year ahead. And when people can get to the planning one year out, I see a huge shift. Because there are so many things that happen on a yearly basis. Since Christmas was just a month or so ago, that's one of the biggest conversations that I'm having with my clients right now is looking at how much did you spend on Christmas?

 

Morgan: Yeah.

 

Russ: It was quite a bit, but was it about the same as you did the year before and the year before that? Okay, so we have 10 months before Christmas. Why don't we take that number that you think is a pretty good estimate that you think you're going to be spending in December of this next year coming up divide it by the 10 months. That's the amount of savings you should be putting aside for your Christmas spending. And then, when Christmas comes, it's guilt-free spending. You've already done the heavy lifting. You don't have to spend the money and then worry about the credit card bill that's coming in January.

 

Morgan: Yes.

 

Russ: Where they talk about blue Monday when the credit card bills come.

 

Morgan: Yeah. January is a pretty miserable month for a lot of people.

 

Russ: That one tip will make January a great month hopefully.

 

Morgan: Yeah. A fresh start to the New Year instead of starting the New Year off with, yeah, a big bill.

 

Russ: Exactly.

 

Morgan: That's great. Did you have any others?

 

Russ: Just back to managers and small business owners, just be open to discussing money situations. I'm not saying really get into people's business but allow employees to come to you if they have issues where they just need to let something off their chest. They do see small business owners as confidants and mentors. So, if small business owners could show that they're open to having these money conversations and showing, “Hey!” even teaching employees about how the physical management of the business applies to their employees is huge. It's a great learning opportunity to show employees here's how what you do in the business affects the business' bottom line and makes the business more successful is a great opportunity for small business owners to teach those little bits of financial literacy in a way that will help their business overall.

 

Morgan: Totally. Any position I've had where I've been involved in the budgeting, it really helps put into perspective what my role is and help me see what else I can bring because that brings ideas too but it's a good point that it also helps you with your own financial situation just learning those little bits and pieces here and there of how it all works and seeing numbers.

 

Russ: Because I do feel employees don't have a good sense of what their contributions on a day to day basis, how those affect the company's physical situation. So, if small business owners and managers were a little bit more open kind of, "Hey, you see how this project came in. This project will increase our margins by blah blah blah blah blah". I don't want to go into details but definitely having those conversations would be a great learning opportunity for employees on physical management and money management.

 

Morgan: What do you think about the way that money management is getting gamified?

 

Russ: I actually don't really like the gamification of money management. The one thing that we've seen with gamification, it makes things easier for people to comprehend and they don't actually think about their finances as much or on a deeper level. I can't specifically talk about any one app that's doing this gamification. I know that there are so many coming out on the marketplace but by allowing people to gamify their money management, it's really doing them a disservice by really having deeper conversations about what are your goals, why are you doing this, does this provide value? I think there can be a good mix of hey, here's a simpler or a more immediate way of just showing where you're at. But I think we need more deeper conversations with money.

 

Morgan: Yes. We need to still be getting the knowledge even if we're going to be using something simpler.

 

Russ: Exactly.

 

Morgan: Do you want to talk a little bit about what you do at Frame Financial and suggestions you have for people to get that deeper learning?

 

Russ: Frame Financial is an online tool that employers can use as their financial wellness program. It kinds of spans the gamut from just having a knowledgeable place, a library of financial literacy topics, videos and information where employees can just pull up something they need on-demand. But it also goes into financial wellness webinars. There is one-on-one coaching. We try to cover all the aspects of it. And the one thing that we're really proud of is we actually have some algorithms that can create financial plans that are personalized for your employees. They can punch in their information and actually look at how they're doing for their goals and what are some specific ways that they can help their financial situation. The other thing that we're really proud of is we brought on a behavioral scientist to help us develop, looking at what are some people's mindsets and different drivers and then starting to figure out the best way to, I would say, drip out the information to people. Some people like drinking from the fire hose and getting all the suggestions all at once. And I can see some people are definitely "Okay, just give me one I need to do now and when I'm done that, give me the next step". So looking at those things where we can figure out what is the best way to provide the information to people based on their own mindsets and experiences and behaviors.

 

Morgan: That's very cool.

 

Russ: Yeah. I'm such a behavioral finance geek that I definitely see the value in it. It's weird--financial behaviors are so weird just because our mind is so good at doing gymnastics. They kind of convince us what we need because it always comes back to the lizard brain of," Hey, just give me good food, give me shelter and keep me happy, give me endorphins" wherein our modern world, most of the stuff that we need to do is not the pleasant stuff. Or the stuff that we should be buying or should be doing with our money isn't the fun stuff.

 

Morgan: It hurts me to spend money on my car even when I need to, but I will go out and buy new clothes every week [laughter] like it's nothing. 

 

Russ: Yup.

 

Morgan: And I’ll have it in my mind where I'm not going to do it or I'm going to set a certain limit and it's very interesting how quickly that goes out the window. My brain's like, "No, this is going to make you happy. Go for it". [Laughter]

 

Russ: Yeah. That rush of endorphins. Actually, that's one of the symptoms of financial stresses, buying things or eating unhealthy comfort foods is one of those things that a financially stressed person will do to just make themselves feel better instantly because the financial stress part of it, they can't make it go away from just doing something instantly. But they can ease their pain by buying something or eating something that’s comforting. The other thing I like about behavioral economics is taking down the barriers, making it as easy as possible to get help, seek help or get enrolled into a program is the number one thing. If there’s too many barriers, people will just give up. Even if it's simple as signing a piece of paper and faxing it in, that might be a barrier that some people will just give up on. Not that it's hard, it's just another thing that they have to do and there’s other things that take priority over that.

 

Morgan: What do you think about things like online retirement calculators?

 

Russ: I know that they are readily available. A lot of people kind of rely on them and business owners kind of point to them as like, "Hey, we do financial literacy and financial wellness. They can use these calculators". But the thing is, they're readily available because they're just back of the napkin calculations. And it doesn't, as I said before, it doesn't provide any context to someone's actual situation, their money situation. I actually don't like the online calculators that are readily available right now just because it can lead people down into a false sense of security or relying on it to say, "Okay, well that's what I need. That's all, I'm good to go" when there are so many other things that are all involved and interconnected where just punching a number into a calculator and giving you, "Okay, this is how much you need". That's only part of the story.

 

Morgan: Even earlier, you said 2 million and I've done those calculators and they've told me 1 million. So, I'm going to be a million short [laughter]. That's a big deal.

 

Russ: Well, one of those calculations is based on age. What age you're going to be retiring at? What is your lifespan? A lot of those calculators are basing retiring at age 60 and living to age 88 or 90. But as we've seen, there are so many advancements in health care that are we going to be living to 90, 80, 60? 60 is a little bit short but, is there a possibility that we're living to a 120? If that's the case, will our $1,000,000 in retirement savings get us to age 120? No, absolutely not. And our CPP and OAS benefits, our Canadian Pension Plan Benefits is only going to provide so much for us in retirement. We definitely need retirement savings to help cover the gap.

 

Morgan: What would you suggest people do instead of going to these quick-fix calculators?

 

Russ: I am biased, but I definitely believe going to talk to an unbiased financial coach or financial advisor and spending a little bit of money to get some advice that is personalized will go a long way. And the value that you will spend on that will be definitely made up in the next five years of improving your financial situation by implementing the changes that these people have provided for you based on your situation.

 

Morgan: And then you'll find a way to keep those lattes. [Laughter]

 

Russ: Exactly. Always find room for the lattes and avocado toast.

 

Morgan: Oh, avocado toast is so good. [Laughter]

 

[OUTRO MUSIC]

 

Morgan: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Small Business Mastermind. I hope you enjoyed or chat with Russ and that you got some helpful information for understanding that connection between financial, physical and mental wellness. If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, simply visit olympiabenefits.com/podcast where you'll see a subscribe button. Simply click that, enter your email and you'll be notified anytime a new episode is posted. We have lots of great episodes coming up and I can't wait for you to hear them. Thank you so much again for tuning in and I'll be chatting with you very soon.

 

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