Jean Blacklock (00:01) Hello everyone, my name is Jean Blacklock and welcome to Beyond the Bank. I'm the co -founder of Delisle Advisory Group with my husband Andrew Orbach. I'm just delighted to welcome Rob Carrick here today. Rob is a columnist who really needs no introduction to the millions of readers who read his column twice a week in the widely read Globe and Mail. Rob joined the Globe in 1996 and shortly thereafter he suggested that perhaps the paper should offer more coverage on personal finance and

Not surprisingly, they took them up on that offer. And Rob has been writing on all matters business, finance, economics for close to 30 years. Today, Rob writes two personal finance columns per week, plus two newsletters and blog posts on investing. Rob also co -hosts the Stress Test Personal Finance podcast for Gen Zs and Millennials, which just completed an impressive ninth season. And Rob is the co -author or author of five books.

Most recently, How Not to Move Back in with Your Parents, The Young Person's Complete Guide to Financial Empowerment. Rob, thanks so much for making time to come on our podcast.

Rob Carrick (01:10) glad to do it.

Jean Blacklock (01:12) So Rob, I'd suggest that one reason why your writing has been so widely read for going on three decades now is your deep interest in learning about and understanding trends in all things money, including of course, your obvious keen interest in generational cohorts. So I'd like to start today with asking you about trends, changes in financial planning and wealth management that you've observed since you started writing on this topic. What's changed and what has stayed the same?

Rob Carrick (01:41) Personal finance when I started was about orgages and investing and that was about it. All the other products were kind of samey and people didn't really think much about them and I sort of linked this broadening of personal finance to the arrival of the internet and the availability of much more information for comparative purposes. And since then we've added blogs, we've added social media and there is now

Jean Blacklock (02:01) Hmm.

Rob Carrick (02:08) There are infinite channels for sharing information about personal finance and people are taking advantage. There's much more engagement because there's much more material to engage with. And of course, more people are become interested in it and more people are talking about it. And I think it's become a feedback loop of keen interest. It goes all the way down to teens.

teens have become interested in personal finance, much more so than I think they used to be. And it's filtered all the way up to seniors and retirees. But what hasn't changed is consumerism. And that is the dark force working against the greater knowledge that people are acquiring. that consumerism has been fed by social media as well. And it's like people know much more what to do with their money and how to spend it and how to save it and the importance of saving. But

They can't do it as much as they need to because they're drawn to spending.

Jean Blacklock (03:06) interesting. So going back to the different sources of advice, I'm sure if we were interviewing a physician or someone like that, they'd say the same thing, that people are much more knowledgeable because

the internet than they were

Rob Carrick (03:20) Ahem.

Jean Blacklock (03:21) years ago. I had the sense from your tone of voice and the way you said that, that overall you view that greater knowledge among people as a positive thing. Is that fair to say?

Rob Carrick (03:33) 100%.

Jean Blacklock (03:35) Okay, great. So then on the more not so positive side, you mentioned

and by that, I don't want to conclude, I don't want to judge what you're saying, but are you meaning that our spending is outpacing our savings?

Rob Carrick (03:51) Completely. You know, there's this There's this feeling that There's this feeling that we need to spend to keep up to project ourselves in in the most favorable way possible and it's You know, it's this comparative life we live because of social media We see what other people are doing they're beaming it right onto our phones and we're checking those phones so often and you know whether you call it Yolo, you only live once or

FOMO, fear of missing out. It's this feeling that spending makes us, it completes us. I think, you know, personal finances too often been about denial, about you must save, you must deny yourself. And that's a dead end. And I think the more people say that, the more people ignore it. And I think we do need to find ways of acknowledging that people want to enjoy themselves while they're saving.

If you look at the spending trends of the past 10 to 20 years, the rise of debt, the rise of lines of credit, the amount of money people are spending on houses and cars today, which of course it means massive amounts of debt, it tells me that we're spending too much. need to, we're not gonna meet our savings goals unless we ratchet it back a little bit, but I think it's a very tricky message to send.

Jean Blacklock (04:52) Yes.

Yeah, it sure is. I've heard millennials or more really Gen Z's mention the concept of, and I often get it wrong, but I believe it's soft budgeting in the sense of a bit of despair about the possibility today of ever owning a home or being able to save in the big things that their parents might have saved for. But

So saving for the trip to Japan next year or smaller chunks of savings, is that something you've heard about, Rob?

Rob Carrick (05:38) Totally. I have totally heard about it. It's a natural sense of, I wouldn't call it despair, I would call it discouragement about being able to do all these great things with your life, like owning a house and like starting a family. There's people not having kids because they can't imagine paying the costs. But I...

Jean Blacklock (05:51) Okay.

Rob Carrick (06:05) don't take that all too, too seriously. I think it's coming from young people who are just starting their lives and there's a big mismatch between what they want to spend and where they are earnings wise. And I think that gap will close. And I think that we can encourage people to consider owning a home in their thirties. I mean, I wrote a call not too long ago about how you could buy a home at age 45 and still do okay. It's not ideal, but you could still do okay. And so I would encourage these people who are soft budgeted to stick with it.

Jean Blacklock (06:29) Mm

Rob Carrick (06:33) to keep saving and to don't lose hope because if you can't do it in your 20s, do it in your 30s. mean, heck, do it in your early 40s. Most people in that group on average are probably gonna be working into their late 60s. They're probably gonna be living to their 90s or so. And there's not this idea that it all has to be done by 65 and then you jump out of the workforce. No way, you might have an extra 10 years to play with. And I say, use it. Don't despair that your 20s aren't going great. Take your time.

Jean Blacklock (06:35) Mm

Right.

Yep.

Right, I love that, that's very optimistic message. So moving back a bit then and looking a little higher up on the generations, those that were born around the Second World War and then in the decades after, which we generally refer to as baby boomers, then of course, Gen X and Millennials and Gen said, when you, and it's always risky to generalize, but when you look at those cohorts, what differences do you observe in them?

Rob Carrick (07:22) Thank

Well, the difference is I think that the boomers have this unique mix of factors working on their behalf and they are financially successful in a way that other generations haven't yet achieved and are skeptical they will ever achieve. And so there are some generational tensions. know, boomers got into the real estate market at just the right time. Yes, they had the high interest rates of the 80s and all that stuff, but that...

Jean Blacklock (07:53) Mm

Rob Carrick (07:58) That was a bubble that popped and we got, and they had 30 years of declining rates. Many decades of great stock market returns, expansion of the workforce. I think that, I think younger generations will be challenged to meet that level of affluence, but I'm not saying they can't. think it just, as I was just saying, might take them longer. And this idea, like the boomer idea would be retiring between 60 and 65. Now some boomers are finding that they don't have enough.

to retire and they're going to work longer. But I think there's still this idea of early retirement. I think that's going to be less of a thing for younger generations, but because they're not retiring early, and maybe they're retiring later, they'll have opportunities to build wealth and to be affluent and to own the things they want to own or do the things they want to do.

Jean Blacklock (08:28) Mm

Right, right. Why, I mean curious about your comment that you think later generations or young people today will maybe discard this idea of 65 as a retirement, a hard stop.

Rob Carrick (08:59) Well, I think it's going to be practical. I think I am seeing in the past couple of years, I have noticed the average retirement age in Canada creep up from like, I think it was 60, 61, and it's going, it's just like a ratchet, it's going 62, 63. It's going to keep doing that. It's, you know, the idea of retirement at 65.

was conceived at a period when people lived to like 75 or 80 if they were really lucky and so If we maintain this idea that we're going to be retired for 10 or 20 years Well, maybe retiring at 70 is a reasonable thing to do

Jean Blacklock (09:33) Right. Moving to the advisory side then, you know, in the, maybe 30 years ago, brokers wait by the phone for the client to call and say what share they want to bought or sold, you know, it was all very, very, very different. Now there's just so many different channels of advice. What is the advisor, what does the advisor today look like across banks and so on? Is that shifted a lot in your view?

Rob Carrick (09:47) you

I think that advice has seen massive, massive changes since I started. When I started writing my column, I immediately heard a lot of complaints from disgruntled advisory clients. You know, my advisor promised this, I was sold this, it didn't work out. I was sold mutual funds with front end loads and back end loads and all this complaints. And it made me realize it was primarily a sales transaction.

Jean Blacklock (10:29) Mm

Rob Carrick (10:29) It was called advisor, but really that was just a fancy word for sales of investments. And we've seen a slow, but definitely visible shift to becoming more of an advisor and a financial planner. And so I think today's ideal of an advisor is someone who manages a portfolio, but is doing much more than that. They're looking at...

Jean Blacklock (10:45) Mm

Rob Carrick (10:56) retirement readiness, they're looking at debt levels, they're looking at tax minimization, and they're starting to dip their toe into estate planning too, because we have a cohort of advisory clients, they tilt towards being 50 plus, and they have very significant estate planning issues. So that's what an advisor is. And when people tell me, my advisor charges this, is that a good deal? And I wish I could get the price down, I say, look at the value as much as the price.

Jean Blacklock (11:10) Mm

Rob Carrick (11:25) And when they can't find value, that's when they switch advisors. And I think the advisory community is right on this. There's much more talk of financial planning. They're putting financial planning software in the hands of people. And I think the advisors who are strictly about, give you a portfolio of mutual funds and we talk about it once a year, they're becoming dinosaurs. And I think over the next 10 years, that's going to become increasingly apparent. I technology lets me buy a better portfolio at half the cost.

Why would I not do that? So if you're going to be that kind of advisor, what are you doing to show value beyond just buying things for portfolio?

Jean Blacklock (12:01) Right. Well, exactly. My partner and spouse, Andrew Orbeck, is a Chartered Financial Analyst and he's long been on the page of, as he calls it, the alpha. can't really, know, study after study shows that the alpha can't really be beat. Over time, the market will do what the market does. And the advice that's offered is really, you know, you have to manage the portfolio wisely and well, but the advice is really what makes a difference.

That sort of leads us to the idea then of family dynamics and families that were, as you've mentioned it, the baby boomers have, you know, born at a good time, made a lot in their house, have done well in their jobs, are now starting to plan. What are your thoughts about how those discussions, if they're had at all, go with their adult children about their plans around estate planning?

Rob Carrick (12:36) Yeah

Well, it's interesting you asked this because a couple of months ago, I did a survey via my newsletter. It's like a free newsletter I send out to subscribers twice a week. And I invite you to subscribe. It's called Care and Call it Money. But anyway, I like, I have a pretty good active, involved, engaged readership and I can ask a question of them and get, you know, between 700 and 7 ,000 responses. And so I use that resource to ask about inheritances recently.

Jean Blacklock (13:21) wonderful.

Rob Carrick (13:25) And I said, who's expecting one? And about 75 to 80 % of people are expecting an inheritance. Many have talked about it with their parents. So these conversations are definitely happening. But there's also an interesting phenomenon of young people expecting and hoping for and even planning to have inheritances. And sometimes that's been talked through, sometimes it hasn't, but...

Jean Blacklock (13:35) Yes.

Rob Carrick (13:52) I think it's an interesting insight that I would want to pass on to boomer parents is if you haven't talked about it and you have a certain amount of demonstrated affluence, your kids may have noticed and they may be counting on it. I'll just throw another interesting little nugget from my survey in, a lot of people are expecting six figure inheritances.

Jean Blacklock (14:09) Mm

Rob Carrick (14:13) like 100 ,000 as a threshold, a substantial number are expecting that. In my column, I talked about a few reasons why you might not get quite as much as you think you might get based on longevity and the cost of long -term care and the lifestyle that boomers like to live and the increasing amount of debts that retirees are bringing into retirement with them. there's no question, there's a lot of wealth out there that is gonna trickle down. And I think the conversations have already started and the...

Jean Blacklock (14:21) Yes.

Right.

Rob Carrick (14:42) We're seeing a lot of early inheritances, money being given for home down payments and to help grandkids go to university and that sort of thing. So the money is flowing as we speak.

Jean Blacklock (14:45) Yeah.

Right. I noticed in your excellent book, I you cover from soup to nuts the various speaking to gen zed and millennials about how not to move back into the house. Great title for the book by the way. But you you speak about borrowing or asking for money for weddings, houses, the conversations around those. What are maybe two or three of your thoughts about

Rob Carrick (15:03) Yeah

Jean Blacklock (15:21) how to do, when to do that, how to do that well, and kind of guidelines as to, because all of our goals, of course, is to keep the family relations solid and friendly around Thanksgiving dinner table. What are the ways that make that a possibility?

Rob Carrick (15:35) Well, I would say for both parties, kids and parents, be mindful of the financial situation of the parents. So if you're parents, I would rule out giving. Don't put pressure on yourself. If you have a precarious retirement, if you may have certain healthcare needs that are gonna be ongoing, if you haven't saved a ton, if you've been laid off, if you've had some career setbacks, if you have just enough, save it for yourself. And if you're the kids,

Jean Blacklock (15:39) Mm

Rob Carrick (16:03) and you're observing your parents' situation, don't put the pressure on them when there's clearly, clearly barely enough for themselves. So I think it's being mindful that the first order of business is the parent's retirement and its security. And only then can we talk about it. Kids asking for money, I...

I would like to think most of those conversations would be started by the parents and I believe they probably are. I am stunned by, I'm a boomer, I'm a late boomer. I have sons who are 27 and 30 and many friends and family with kids in the same bracket. And it is such a common topic of conversation. What about your kids? What about housing? Are you thinking about doing anything? What are you doing? They wanna know. And so it's definitely on the minds of parents. I was a millennial or

Jean Blacklock (16:44) Mm

Rob Carrick (16:50) or a Gen Z, hoping for it. I might try to raise it in a subtle way, but if parents are capable and want to, they've probably already thought of it and raised it if they think it's possible. I mean, it's just so top of mind for Boomer parents.

Jean Blacklock (17:06) Right. You don't have to answer this if you don't want to Rob, but in terms of your sons, you have two sons, did you say? Two sons, yeah. Did you start early having conversations about finances? I mean, in your very public role about this, is this something that you've, it's become like a, and has that contributed to a pretty free flowing ongoing discussion?

Rob Carrick (17:12) Two sides, yeah.

Yes.

You know what? I would say it's a sporadic discussion. I I put out some guardrails. said, like when my, when both the boys were in university and they had their first credit cards, I said, never carry a balance on this thing. And if you do come and talk to me about it. but I, I mean, so I, so I, I, I thought,

Jean Blacklock (17:46) Great.

Rob Carrick (17:49) First rule is don't spend more than you have. If you can follow that rule, all the other things will fall into place. So I was pretty interventionist on that and I'm often suggesting products and things because I actually want them to test drive them for me. And sometimes I get some pickup on that, sometimes not. But you know...

Jean Blacklock (18:05) you

Rob Carrick (18:06) I'm a parent talking to my kids about life things and whether it's personal finance or other topics, they have a limited interest in my views on things. And so I might have lots of wisdom doing part to them, but they only want to hear some of it and only at some times. And I think other parents will relate to that. So yes, I think I've tried to influence them and I think I've had some success, but you know what? They haven't done everything the way I would do it, but that's life.

Jean Blacklock (18:22) Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I was interested in a, I love the suggested readings or things that you've been reading that you list after your columns. And one was the excellent newsletter, Millennial Money with Katie. And she had a very interesting point about how the 1%, the top 1 % of the millennial cohort is actually quite a bit more wealthy than the immediate millennial than the 1 % boomer.

Rob Carrick (18:52) you

Jean Blacklock (18:59) You have so much to read, you may well not have read that particular thing, but it did bring home for me the idea that like, you know, it's tempting to look at each of these generations as, this is how they are. But I think it's also important to remember that each of the generations has the different types within it.

Rob Carrick (19:19) You know, it's so true. I have never seen a time where it is less productive to generalize about anything in personal finance and how people are doing than today. You know, we talk about all the struggling households because of inflation and high mortgage rates. True, there's a lot of them and they are really suffering, but there's a lot of people throwing money around like there's no tomorrow. I mean, I know that consumer sales are starting to edge lower, but

Jean Blacklock (19:40) Yes.

Rob Carrick (19:49) I walked down any downtown street where there's some nice restaurants and you look at the window, they're full and nice cars are still selling briskly and housing market has slowed down, but it hasn't crashed or anything. And that's a supremely expensive asset. So the same applies in the different generations. You know, I heard it said that there's no millennial middle -class. They're either all sort of getting by or doing extremely well. Boomers.

We always generalize it there, just the most financially successful generation. But I think a lot are going to find out that the party is going to end at retirement. And there's just not going to be as much money as they thought there was. And I think there's going to be sort of a lifestyle reckoning coming for many people. Because you just can't keep using debt to fuel spending when you retire. Because retirees find I cannot afford the life I want if I'm spending X amount per month on debt payments.

Jean Blacklock (20:27) Mm

Rob Carrick (20:43) If there was no debt, it would be much easier. But if I have mortgage payments, if I have a line of credit payment, that is a big commitment for cash flow and I can't afford to do it all. So yeah, I agree. The generalizations are unproductive, inevitable, but unproductive.

Jean Blacklock (20:43) Hmm.

Yeah, but that's very interesting. You've opened my eyes. I really didn't think that there were many in the baby booboo generation that would be, would not have the view that you've shared so well with your sons. Like don't carry a balance, don't use debt. And yet I hear you saying that, you know, when the income source from whatever it is right now stops, yeah, the music will stop and the debt payments, the debt bills will still come in.

Rob Carrick (21:29) Here's an interesting insight on that. I was writing about a new entrant in the reverse mortgage business, which has never really taken off. There's steady growth, but it's off of such a small base that the big percentage increases aren't actually that impressive. But he told me that in their small business ramp up, all the interest is mainly come from people from retirees with mortgages who want to convert their conventional mortgage into a reverse mortgage so they can just not...

just pay it all off when they sell the house. And then I asked other providers of reverse mortgages and they said, yeah, same. So there's sort of an example of what we're talking about. People retiring with significant debts and it is cramping their style.

Jean Blacklock (22:00) Interesting.

Wow.

Right, I mean back when I was actually a practicing lawyer and doing estate planning, I mean the idea of reverse mortgages was, you know, an older couple that had a clear no mortgage at all, a big home, and if they needed money then the reverse mortgage goes on after years of not having a mortgage. So that's very interesting that you're talking about just a conventional mortgage converting over.

Rob Carrick (22:38) You know what, they are looking for ways to get out from under the monthly debt payments and home equity is a powerful tool. And I think we've been very squeamish here in Canada about talking about reverse mortgages and other ways to deploy all this equity, just basically useless wealth. And I think we're gonna see a lot more talk about that sort of thing. How to unlock your equity if you're retired and put it to work.

Jean Blacklock (22:46) Yeah.

Rob Carrick (23:04) You know, having a million dollars clear when you're 95 and moving into a long -term care home, is that preferable to maybe having that and taking the $500 ,000 and spending it on good things and then having less at the end?

Jean Blacklock (23:17) Mm -hmm. Yeah, exactly. And those homes that you mentioned, I mean, they are extremely expensive. And if a person lives a full life, maybe 200 years old, they're going to need it.

Rob Carrick (23:29) Well, they're going to need a lot of money, but the average stay, you know what, there's always talk about the cost of long -term care and it is big and it's home care which people say they want is even more expensive. But you the average stay in a long -term care home I think is 18 months. So I don't know how long these costs will have to be bored. I'm not saying that that's, don't plan to pay long -term care costs for a long time, but a lot of people don't need it for a long time.

Jean Blacklock (23:58) Right, yeah, yeah, you're being realistic. Moving on to another point where we do tend to generalize and we chat, I put this in my notes that I sent to you earlier, and that is we generalize about women to some extent, I think, and how they're not as knowledgeable, but actually the reality is that over the last decade or more, women have become...

Rob Carrick (24:12) Okay.

Jean Blacklock (24:21) as knowledgeable as men in most cases and in fact I think half of households are the money is managed by the woman. What are your comments on this?

Rob Carrick (24:30) I think that the trajectory of women in personal finance is been one of the most interesting phenomenons of the past few years. Women are more engaged. They're asking the smarter questions, I think, because they want to know the practical aspect of things. They're not concerned about the biggest, the best. They're concerned about the most practical, the most suited to them.

There's idea with men is I've got to have the best I got to make the most money gonna have the best stock the highest dividend yield the lowest rate mortgage but you know Striving for the excellence sometimes prevents you from getting to the good and I think women sort of recognize that and so I find there's a certain practicality But I will say that still most of the questions I get are from men

men of a certain, you boomer background and I would love to see more questions from women and because I find they're the questions that often generate column ideas for me because they're very practical and the men questions are all about I've done extremely well and I would like you to please validate that for me. You know, those are less fun.

Jean Blacklock (25:19) Hmm.

That's very interesting. we'll do a big call out here for women to send you notes about their questions. That's really very interesting. Let's talk a little bit more about estate planning. And in that, if you will, I'd like to talk about incompetency planning, which is becoming, in my view, increasingly interesting and in some cases contentious.

From personal experience, you were very interested in the book I wrote on state planning mistakes. So I know you're interested in this topic and you're interested in the topic of who should be your executor and how to say no to that request. So let's start there with your views on the role of an executor and just how much you don't want to do it.

Rob Carrick (26:26) Yeah, it's hard. It's hard job and it is a totally misunderstood job. So like I think a lot of seniors or not even seniors, people are doing estate planning are going and they're doing their wills and their powers of attorney and they're thinking, who's going to be my executor? And it just seems like who's going to like pick my newspapers up when I'm on vacation. And it's a lot more complex than that. and I think that there's more information being circulated now about what being an executor entails and

Jean Blacklock (26:47) that's funny.

Rob Carrick (26:56) I think most people is as good at tax them a lot in time, in stress and in knowledge about how to best handle this. mean, even basic estates are still have, know, people have many accounts now, they have many different financial involvements, more than they ever used to because of technology and know, the internet and phone apps and things like that.

You know, they have points, have all kinds of things that add to the job of the executor. I think that, you know, I think a lot of people are, you know, they're gonna think, it's hard, okay, well, I'm gonna just sort of like.

ignore that and ask my son or my daughter or my nephew or my friend to do it anyway. But I think that I think people need to put a lot more thought into who they pick for executives. And if there isn't somebody ideal and they have a substantial estate, I would encourage them to consider having a trust company do like a corporate executor do the work for them and get it done right. Pay the price and get it done right. You know, there's you know, we're

So much in finance is how much does that cost? I would never do that. But you know what? Those walls crumble and it's happening in advice like financial planners who work for a fee. They're making out like bandits and a lot of them have lineups, waiting lists. People are getting comfortable with the idea of paying for expertise and a corporate executor is not cheap. But if you have a substantial estate or if you are a

Jean Blacklock (28:20) Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Rob Carrick (28:32) Solo senior who doesn't have any family to look after this and there are people in that position Then I would strongly recommend a corporate executor like and if you can afford to do it take the load off your kids You know what? They don't want to do this. Nobody wants to be an executive. It's a terrible job and a state lawyer I once asked a little state lawyer. What should you say if? Someone asks you to be your executor. She says say no and she said it only half jokingly and I really took that to heart and

Jean Blacklock (28:44) Mm

Yes.

Rob Carrick (29:01) You know, we've got executors picked, but I'm waiting to see as, when my wife and I transition into retirement and that sort of thing, we may change our minds and take a look at a corporate executor as a present to all our ears.

Jean Blacklock (29:19) Yeah. Well, when I was in well services at BMO and in charge of the trust company, you know, I might have sounded biased when I said this, but now that I'm no longer, I say it from the sense of like that is our Andrew and I and our executor and our will, I think a corporate executor. Sure, the individuals that are actually doing the work, like anything, they're human beings and they may not be perfect, but

they're charged with a duty and if you know your beneficiaries can certainly start a claim if by chance those individuals that work for the trust company don't do what you want but overall my experience with that profession is they're very very experienced and very good at it. The other thing that I'd like to mention that I think you probably believe as well is there's a bit of a myth that the only people that charge compensation is the trust companies.

But of course, individual executors for all the hundreds of hours that they put in to do the work are equally entitled in the eyes of the law to charge exactly the same, that the tariff is the same, whether you're Rob Carrick doing it for your uncle or whether it's BMO Trust Company doing it for your uncle, it's the same fee. I think people, you know, it's like, I wouldn't charge my uncle to drive him home after a party.

Rob Carrick (30:40) you

Jean Blacklock (30:44) So we think that relatives shouldn't charge, but in this particular duty, I feel very strongly that a compensation clause in a will is really essential.

Rob Carrick (30:55) 100 % agree and I actually wrote something on that and I surprised I got a lot of pushback, know I would never take money from my poor dear old mother to ensure a state and other people sort of insinuating and that's coming that's not coming out of my chunk of the of the the will so it's but I think I would really say that if when you're when you're drafting your will Put a clause in there that my executor like do some research or ask your lawyer

Jean Blacklock (31:02) No

Rob Carrick (31:24) What customary, what is the customary compensation? And then go with that or go with a little less if you want, a little more if you want, but put it right in the will. And that's sort of coming off the top as a tax for getting this big, big job done. And I think that is one way to mitigate the job of all of this. If you're not a compensated executor,

or if there's no explicit compensation, then you probably don't know that you're entitled to money. And so you're working grudgingly for free. And if you do know and you have to go make a claim where, you know, if there aren't sufficient funds in the estate or you have certain types of beneficiaries, there might be a lot of friction there and you probably have enough friction on your hands already.

Jean Blacklock (32:03) Yes.

Exactly. I think there is friction when a person having done hundreds of hours then does make a claim for compensation. Moving on to families and the makeup of families, again, in the years you've written the column, what are your thoughts about that in the past, you know, white heterosexual families, that's who Canada was in the, every consensus shows us that that is less and less what families are all about.

have advisors as a financial community has thinking about wealth management kept up with the change in the makeup of Canadians.

Rob Carrick (32:41) Well, slowly. And I don't think they're where they need to be. And I think a lot of advisors have their client bases who are sort of an older, more traditional type of client base. And they don't really have any incentive or need to...

get their heads into the game. But I think more of the younger crowd are definitely on top of that. And I think if you're a unique, diverse sort of family and you don't see yourself reflected in an advice firm that you're going to, go somewhere else. You don't have to go and have the traditional treatment. Someone who's not aware of your unique situation, shop around. There are advisors out there who are...

Jean Blacklock (33:17) Mm

Rob Carrick (33:23) expanding their practices into non -traditional areas and you may have to go with the younger person but they are out there and they are keen to build their businesses so don't if you don't see yourself in the office that you've been referred to walk out

Jean Blacklock (33:41) Yeah, right. You've been very generous with your time and I just have a couple more questions. The first is when you see things floating around in the world that you sort of thoughts about financial planning or big ideas about wealth management, what are the ones that kind of frustrate you the most? The ones that you think really are kind of like commonly held but just don't make sense in your view?

Rob Carrick (33:47) Sure.

Well, you know, this sort of loose back to where we started at the beginning, this idea that personal finance and investing is all about sacrifice. You have to sacrifice to find the money to save and sacrifice to find the money to invest and only by, you know, cutting and slashing. And I think, you know, I can't argue that that could be successful, but it does not resonate with people. And so I think in personal finance and in financial planning, we need to think more about

not just about the spending side, but the earning side. And I've tried to write more in the past couple of years about, know, I'm not a career expert and that's not something I'll be writing a ton about, but managing your career as an asset in order to increase your earnings. You know, when there was a period, I think it was about 2022 when there was this job shortage and, you know, the narrative was every employer is desperate for people. And I thought that was a unique opportunity to...

to go and ask for a raise, get a promotion, find a better paying job. And I think we need to look for more ways of that. So I'm sort of frustrated when I hear someone say, you kids, you gotta stop buying your lattes. You know what? I think telling people to deny themselves a small pleasure like a coffee out is a proven way to turn people off. And I think we need to sort of say, you know what, spend less than you earn.

Jean Blacklock (35:32) Mm

Rob Carrick (35:32) But here's how to sort of prioritize your fun and here's how to make sure that you're going to have some money left over for saving and here's some good guidelines for saving. I think we need more balance. one of the frustrations is when I keep hearing people hammer away at this denial and sacrifice narrative and I think people are just not buying it.

Jean Blacklock (35:50) Right. So if listeners today really want to hear or read more about your thoughts on this topic, would your most recent book be the one that they would go to if they are in that cohort or

Rob Carrick (36:01) Well, would thank you for mentioning my book, but I wrote it in 2009 and I was joking the other day that if I were to do an update, I think I might say the title is rather than how not to move back in with your parents, it's how to move back in with your parents because it's happening. There's another fresh wave of people moving home and I think...

Jean Blacklock (36:18) Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Rob Carrick (36:24) We're going to see more of it. Housing is so expensive. The job market is, we've seen the best of it for the last little while, for the next little while. And I think more people are going to be doing it. So my book is a little out of date. It doesn't reflect all the latest trends, but it has a lot of good basic material for people who are moving home. to...

arrange with your parents about who covers what and that sort of thing. Also some basic finances about student loans and getting into the housing market and starting off with investing. you know, I do a twice weekly newsletter. It's called Carrick on Money. It's free to subscribe. Just Google Carrick on Money. And that is where I put my freshest, most up -to -date thoughts on everything. I have columns in the paper too, but the newsletter is free.

Jean Blacklock (36:55) Yeah.

Rob Carrick (37:04) and there's a great range of stuff for me and all the other brilliant minds of personal finance too. try to find the best content and put it in my newsletter. So I really encourage people of all ages to subscribe to that.

Jean Blacklock (37:11) Right.

And your podcast, how often do you do podcasts?

Rob Carrick (37:18) Right, well the podcast is specifically for Gen Z Millennials and it is, we just completed our ninth season. We're looking at a 10th probably to start in winter or winter, late 2024, early 2025. And you can find it anywhere there are podcasts as we like to say. It's called Stress Test.

Jean Blacklock (37:22) Yeah.

Amazing.

Rob Carrick (37:40) just Google Globe and Mail podcast stress test and you can delve through nine seasons that have covered all everything from, you know, emergency funds and being laid off to negotiating arrays and buying houses and whether it's better to rent and whether it's better to move to a far -flung cheaper city. We've covered weddings and not funerals, but all kinds of, I think personal finance is best thought of as.

Jean Blacklock (37:41) Yeah.

Rob Carrick (38:04) a very broad concept that intersects with your life in a thousand different ways and we try to do that on the podcast.

Jean Blacklock (38:08) Yeah, I so agree with you. One final question, that book that you haven't written yet, but I really hope you do, how to move back into your parents' home. What will it say? What are, for those families that are finding, especially in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, that they are moving back together, what are some of the top tips that you would feel for making that work? And I guess particularly in a financial perspective.

Rob Carrick (38:35) Parents and young people work together to come up with a little plan where young people contribute to the well -being of the household, whether through nominal rent or buying groceries and that sort of thing, and then a big -time savings plan. Because you're not paying rent,

Jean Blacklock (38:39) You

Rob Carrick (38:54) how much are you able to put away and maybe the parents give them a little guidance on how best to put that money to work. But I think the idea of moving home is it's a strategic move to facilitate saving for a home down payment or if you're not working to get your career underway. Maybe it's way to go back to school and refresh your credentials but.

I would say it's a pit stop to help. It's a pit stop. It's good analogy. Basically, you're going to get fresh tires and an engine tweak and you're going to come out faster.

Jean Blacklock (39:25) Yeah, so I'm hearing you say communication and making sure everybody's expectations are the same that you don't want the adult child thinking it's a forever deal and the parents thinking this is a couple of years so you can go and buy your own home.

Rob Carrick (39:30) I think that's really big.

You know what? In some cases, I think it will be a forever deal, but it's a win -win kind of thing of multi -generational households where aging parents and young and their kids and their grandkids are all living in the same place. And there's a little elder care. There's a little daycare and maybe neither has to afford their own place combined. They live in a duplex and it becomes affordable for both parties. think I cannot believe builders have not started to build dupe multi -generational duplexes. I think it's kind of.

Jean Blacklock (40:05) Well, they sort of are. I've kind of been picking up that in the home section recently about that. And it's very interesting. it's often cultures, know, immigrants that culturally this just really works for them. And it sounds terrific.

Rob Carrick (40:21) It's a model for everyone else.

Jean Blacklock (40:23) Yeah, for sure. You've been so good, humoured and fun and knowledgeable, Rob. I can't thank you enough. And to the listeners, please find Rob. His advice is so sound and plus he's a lot of fun to listen to. So thank you, Rob, and all the best. Hope to talk again.

Rob Carrick (40:41) Thanks, Gene, that was great questions. Really enjoyed the conversation. Bye -bye.

Jean Blacklock (40:45) Bye, have a great day.