ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF

Welcome all to DJ In Finance !!!

This has been something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I’m finally doing the damn thing !!!

DJ In Finance is my documentation on my road of trying to achieve financial freedom. I'm hoping you guys will see what I learn and will be able to take something from it and apply it to your life. I’m a DJ, and I’ve been doing it for about 12 years now. I want to build a home and community where my friends and acquaintances can have a judgement free zone to become more financially literate.

My Situation

I’ve always been fairly good with managing my money, but everything changed when I bought my condo five years ago. I was super excited and then reality hit me. At the time, my credit wasn’t the greatest at 680, so my Mom helped me by investing in the condo. She invested 2% and having her name on the title with an 800 plus credit score, helped me with getting a good rate on my mortgage. Also, I’m self employed and didn’t fill my taxes for the last seven years. I ended up having to pay back the government $20,000 that year.

In order for me to qualify for a mortgage, I had to pay back all the money owing to the government. I was renting an apartment at the time, so I moved back home so I could pay down the debt faster.

At the time, I was only DJing 3 times a month and working full-time as a merchandiser for Canada bread. I picked up as many extra merchandising shifts as possible and was working 7 days a week.

So after one whole year of hard work and no life, I was finally debt free. Owed no one any money and saved a decent amount as well.

However, life threw me another curve ball. Three of them in particular.

As well as neglecting my taxes, I also avoided going to the dentist for seven years. When I went to finally get my teeth cleaned, I had a cavity so bad, I would need a tooth implant.

Even though I was paying back all my back taxes, I forgot to pay my taxes monthly for the current year. Business and personal taxes. So I had to pay that lump sum amount.

And finally, the closing on my one bedroom 650 square foot condo.

After paying for these three events, I had 1,500 to my name. Even though I consider myself a strong minded and confident person, I must admit I was a little depressed.

Working seven days straight, having no life, and I was back to square one.

But in all honesty, I had no one to blame but myself. I was paying for my prior mistakes and that was the truth.

I had to learn to be better with my money and anticipate certain things, and that’s when the learning started.

Starting to learn and educate myself about financial literacy

After all these events, it made me want to learn and understand how money works.

Why are certain people better off financially? Can you learn to be good with money? How can I save my money better? Is there a system or program I can use to be better with my money ?

Asking myself these questions, I started typing them on YouTube and started watching some videos. I really consumed a lot of information. I found that Dave Ramsey was at the top of a lot of my searches. Got good insight and guidance from his channel.

One video / podcast that made it easy for me to understand the concept of money, was an episode on The School Of Greatness podcast by Lewis Howes. He had financial expert David Bach on, and for some reason his concepts and theories were easy to comprehend.

David really broke it down and it was clear as day to me. His latte factor and automation concepts were very easy to follow. With the latte factor, he gets people to realize that you don’t need a lot of money to get started, and for the price of a latte, you can set yourself on the path to financial freedom. With his automation concept, he explains how to have a system that saves money automatically, so you don’t have to worry about it from day to day.

He has more great information as well, but those two concepts really stood out to me. I started consuming a lot more of David’s interviews, even bought his Latte factor book, and started implementing his ideas immediately.

Getting Blood In The Game

So after consuming all this information, saving a four month emergency fund, it was time to start investing.

In December of 2018, I downloaded the app Yahoo Finance and started making my lists of stocks and ETFs that I potentially wanted to buy. On March 1st, 2019 I purchased my first 3 stocks using my Questrade account that I opened a week before.

I remember it like it was yesterday and I was so excited to finally get some blood in the game.

One of my good friends who has been investing a lot longer than me, was always on my case to start. Always saying “It’s time to get some blood in the game.”

I bought 5 shares of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VFV), 10 shares of Dollarama (DOL.TO) and 20 shares of Husky Energy (HSE.TO).

Since I started Investing

Since my first purchase, I’ve been consistently putting $100 - $150 a week in my portfolio with Questrade. I use a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) to do my investing. I’ve also opened up a TFSA account with Wealthsimple as well. My goal for that portfolio is to be a dividend paying one. I only invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Exchange Trading Funds (ETFs) that pay monthly dividends.

When I see a big opportunity though, I do deposit more money to take advantage of it. The two biggest ones were Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB). I took the money from my dream car account to do so.

After investing for about 2 years come March 2021, I’ve found that the investing style that works best for me in purchasing ETFs. With reading a lot of blog posts, watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts, It seems that the most effective and easiest way to invest for me.

We’ll get into more detail in this blog, but in short, I’ve seen so many examples of individuals creating wealth and achieving financial freedom through simple ETF investing. It creates great diversification as well as making it easy and straightforward. Most people usually can’t pick stocks to outperform the market, so it’s just easier to invest in the whole market itself.

Learning About Managing Money

Managing my money and tracking expenses, has been simple but yet the most impactful change for me. Being organized with my finances and creating budgets, has given me a high level of calmness. It’s great knowing what’s coming in and out every month.

David Bach’s automation system has been the biggest help for me in this area.

Income Adjustment Due To Covid

Due to the pandemic, my income has gone down about 30-40%. Not being able to DJ and do what I love has been difficult.

My savings rate a month used to be 45%-50% but has dropped to 35%-30%.

Even when everything was normal and I was DJing 2-4 nights a week, I still worked 30 hours a week at my merchandising job. At times I would want to quit, but I’m grateful that I didn’t. To make up some of the income that I've lost Djing, I’ve been doing Uber Eats. Not an ideal situation, but in these crazy times, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Conclusion

I’m super excited about taking this journey to become financially free.

I feel a lot of people think that it’s unattainable to create wealth and live out their financial dreams. It’s one of the reasons I’m starting DJ IN FINANCE. Once I started learning about personal finance and investing, it was clear to me that the people who are well off financially, are playing by a different set of rules.

For most of us, we weren't taught about money at a young age. It wasn’t a common conversation around the dinner table. Growing up, I just saw that the lack of financial stability, really affected my family and still does till this day.

I’m late to the game, but by running the numbers and making certain choices, I know i’ll be able to reach my financial goals.

For the 80s babies like me, I hope you realize that it’s not too late. I’m hoping that by following my journey, you’ll get an understanding about money and investing, and realize that it’s not as complicated as people make it seem.

You guys ready !?!?!?!?