Transcription
Leanna Haakons:
It hurt. It hurt from the money side of it, and I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I had so many sleepless nights, and I was embarrassed that someone that I had trusted so much, that was a friend, that I was so close to had done this to me.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. But, you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But, it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Before we get to today's guest, I am really excited about an announcement that we are going to be making at the end of the podcast about something new that we're going to be doing here at Financial Grownup. I'm going to fill you in after Leanna Haakons' story. Stay tuned until the end. But let's talk about Leanna. She is the author of Young, Fun, and Financially Free, and a financial marketing expert. You see her all over the media. She had a great plan to buy a car, and then sell it in time to use the proceeds for tuition, but she learned a terrible lesson when a trusted friend betrayed her. Here is Leanna Haakons. Leanna Haakons, you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.
Leanna Haakons:
Thank you so much for having me, Bobbi.
Bobbi Rebell:
I am so excited to have you, first of all I love your book Young, Fun and Financially Free. You're also not just an author, you are also a financial marketing expert. You have a lot of wisdom to share with us.
Leanna Haakons:
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Bobbi Rebell:
Part of that wisdom has to do with a story, the car, your first year of college, and thinking things were going to go one way, and then there was a surprise and not so pleasant ending. Tell us what happened.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah. I call this story my school of hard knocks story. My first year of college was a lot of learning about finance, and doing that whole traditional [inaudible 00:02:14] going through school. But it was also a school and year of hard knocks in the financial, the personal financial, world. I had gone to my first year of college in Toronto, and come back to the West coast, to Vancouver, where I grew up. I needed a car for the summer. I was working at a gym, and I needed to open up the gym at 5:30 in the morning. That was before public transit was running. I needed a car to get to the gym really early in the morning. I had been working four different jobs throughout the school year to be able to save up money so I could get my first car, which was this little blue convertible with white leather interior, it was so cute, it was awesome. I was just so excited to get this car.
Bobbi Rebell:
But you had a plan for the car.
Leanna Haakons:
Yes, I had this whole plan. I worked super hard during the school year, I saved up the money, and I had this friend of mine that I'd known throughout high school for years, and he's sort of a brother to me. He had said "Well, if you save up the money, I'll buy the car for you in cash, and then you can use it throughout the summer while you're working, and at the end of the summer I'll sell the car for you, because I have this car dealership, and get the money back for you and give it to you, so you can use the money to pay for your school when you go back to Toronto in September, when you go back to school again." I said "That sounds like a great plan, because I need the money for school expenses." I thought it would all work out great. Sounded perfect.
Bobbi Rebell:
You were basically renting the car.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah, well, effectively that was the plan was supposed to be. All did not go according to plan. I ended up giving him the keys at the end of the summer, after I'd used the car. I thought it was the perfect plan. It didn't end up working out that way. This led to a series of events where I had to learn-
Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, wait, what happened? What happened? You handed back the key and he did not hand you the money, it's what I'm assuming.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah. I gave him the keys back to the car and he vanished. I never heard from him again. After-
Bobbi Rebell:
The car vanished too?
Leanna Haakons:
Of course, yeah. It had been about six or sevens weeks, and tuition was due, expenses were due, of course I was renting the apartment, the bills were coming in, I was freaking out. I ended up having to get a line of credit from the bank. I had to ask my dad to cosign for it. Some hard lessons were learned there. My dad was a big believer in not immediately bailing me out, which he could've done, but he wanted me to learn the hard lesson that you don't just give up your assets to people without having a paper trail. I had thought this person was a trusted friend of mine. I'd known him for many years. I thought he was someone that I could trust. You know what? You just don't give your keys and your assets to someone without having a paper trail.
Bobbi Rebell:
Do the paperwork. Do you know even now, years later, whatever happened to him?
Leanna Haakons:
Well, this is another story.
Bobbi Rebell:
Was there a backstory? Did he owe people a lot of money? Was he in trouble? Did he have some reason even if we don't like it? At least something happened why he did this to you?
Leanna Haakons:
Along the way, probably about eight months after the fact, he did end up giving me some excuses, lies of excuses, very, very horrible excuses thus to why. He didn't give me the money, and apparently things had happened in his family, [inaudible 00:05:25] people had passed away that were in his life, family members and whatnot, which I found out years later they were still alive. It was a total con. This person knew immediately what they were doing. I ended up finding out from the insurance company that the car was transferred to someone else the week that I had given him the keys to the car, gifted to someone else with the value of zero dollars with the same last name as him. He knew what he was doing right off [crosstalk 00:05:47]-
Bobbi Rebell:
It was deliberate.
Leanna Haakons:
It was deliberate, 100%. I found that out eventually, and I did run into him actually about three years ago or so, maybe about 10 years later. That was a showdown. I'll tell you that much.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.
Leanna Haakons:
I won't give you the details, but it wasn't pretty.
Bobbi Rebell:
Give us a little detail, now that you said that.
Leanna Haakons:
It didn't get physical, I'm not that kind of girl, but it was ugly that's for sure. But, I never got any of the money back. But it was definitely a ... it was a hard lesson for sure. I think $10,000 was around the amount that it was. When you're that young, it takes a lot of time, and a lot of hard work to save up that kind of money. It hurt, it hurt from the money side of it. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I had so many sleepless nights. I was embarrassed that someone that I had trusted so much, that was a friend, that I was so close to had done this to me. Especially when I found out months after the fact that the car had been signed over to someone else. I knew it was deliberate.
Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me, what is the lesson for our listeners?
Leanna Haakons:
There are so many ways that people can be taken advantage of, or at risk with your money, whether it's with your investment dealings, whether it's cybersecurity, identify theft, financial infidelity in relationships. There are so many ways that people need to be careful with their financial dealings. That can be within families and friendships as well as I experienced, how that all gets intertwined. There's lots of different things that you can do to protect yourself. I mentioned some of those things in my book, Young, Fun and Financially Free.
Leanna Haakons:
There's also things like FINRA's BrokerCheck. Whenever you're going to go into a new investment dealing, you're looking to working with a new financial advisor, you should go on to something called BrokerCheck, which is a FINRA program, and you can look to see whether that investment advisor has had any marks on their record, and see if there's anything on there that you should be aware of. Because you need to be your own best advocate when it comes to your financial dealings. The moral of my financial grownup story is don't ever give away your assets to anyone without having a paper trail, and that you really need to keep really good records of your own transfers, payments and passwords. You have to be your own best advocate when it comes to your financial dealings.
Bobbi Rebell:
On a lighter note, you brought a great money tip. But also an important thing that people do spend a lot of money on, and sometimes it's not necessary, you call it I think the dirty dozen?
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah. I'm a really big advocate as well that sound money decisions start with putting healthy food into your body, and making, I call it a healthy body healthy wallet decision. Spending consciously and something that they call in the healthy food world, the organic world, is their dirty dozen. There's sort of the top 12 dirtiest produce items that you purchase. If you want to be buying organic, and buying healthy food, and putting healthy food into your body, there are sort of the top 12 things that are most important to buy organic. If something like that is a priority to you, then you should be spending consciously on those items. A great way to do that is to download an app like one called Flipp, F-L-I-P-P.
Leanna Haakons:
You can download an app like Flipp and you can browse different grocery stores, supermarkets in your area and see what's on sale. Buy consciously. Make buying healthy organic food a priority, but do it smartly. Shop at a couple different stores in your area, do your research, and look at what's on sale at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or the stores in your area. Find the things that are on sale, and beware of the things like the dirty dozen fruits and vegetable that should be bought organic.
Bobbi Rebell:
What are those? Give us some examples of them.
Leanna Haakons:
Things like apples, carrots, things that you buy that you eat peel of mostly, those are the ones that have the pesticides, they're all covered in pesticides, those things you want to buy organic. Apples are always at the top of the list. Things like bananas that you take the peel off of, you don't really have to worry about as much, but you'll also notice that bananas in the stores as well, those are pretty cheap to buy organic, so you don't really have to worry about those as much. Anything that you are also cooking that you boil or something like that as well, you don't have to worry about as much because the boiling effect usually kills a lot of the pesticides. But, you can find that list anywhere, if you just google the dirty dozen, you'll be able to find that list anywhere. Then an app like Flipp can help you find organic produce, or organic meats and natural food items as well. Finding an app like that is really helpful to be able to get organic food on sale.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's talk quickly about your book, Young, Fun, and Financially Free. Thank you so much by the way, you sent me not one, but two copies, because we're going to give one away to a listener. You have to tag this episode in a post on Twitter and tag both me, I'm on Twitter @bobbirebell, and what's your Twitter handle?
Leanna Haakons:
Mine is @leannablackhawk.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Tag us both and we will pick someone within a week of the episode dropping, and we will send one of you a copy of her book. Tell me more about the book.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah. The book is a really easy read. It takes about five hours to get through, so you can do it all on a weekend. It's a nice cover-to-cover read, sort of the money 101 on anything from spending, saving, investing, insurance, just sort of an adult [inaudible 00:11:18] book 101.
Bobbi Rebell:
We need books like that.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah. You know what? When I was young and I got my first job in finance was in the stock market doing investor relations when I was 18. I was really into this stuff naturally. I started trading in individual stocks when I was 18.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah, so I really love this stuff. But you know what? Even for me, a lot of the books that I picked up, I wanted to be reading them, but even I wasn't getting through them cover to cover. I wanted to write something that people, that even if they weren't interested in this stuff naturally could read it cover to cover, get a few [inaudible 00:11:53] out of it, there's some funny money quotes in it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, there's some very fun quotes in [crosstalk 00:11:58].
Leanna Haakons:
Yeah, so I just wanted it to be light, and something that people could actually enjoy reading whether they're interested in this stuff or not, they can enjoy it, and it doesn't have to be something that they struggle to read, whether their parents or their friends are kind of forcing them, or asking them to read it or not. It's actually something enjoyable read.
Bobbi Rebell:
I enjoyed it, and I enjoy this conversation with you. Thank you for being my guest. Where can people follow you on social media?
Leanna Haakons:
I am on Twitter, @leannablackhawk, or Instagram, leanna_hawk, they can also find me on my website youngfunfree.com or at blackhawkfinancial.ca.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you so much.
Leanna Haakons:
Thank you so much for having me, Bobbi, loved the show.
Bobbi Rebell:
This story really broke my heart, because we can't through life not trusting anyone. This was someone Leanna had known for a very long time, this was someone that was part of her community. Financial Grownup tip number one, unless you are willing and financially able to part with your money, get it in writing. There are plenty of places like LegalZoom, Nolo, and Rocket Lawyer, I'll leave the links in the show notes, where you can download forms and create simple legal documents for things like selling a car, or other assets. By the way, I don't have any affiliation with any of these companies, but those are some names that you can look at, they may be a good place to start and see if they are the right fit for your needs.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Leanna talked about knowing where to spend your money on organic vegetables and fruits. I would add that you should also be thinking about what is in season and what is grown locally because it is in season. Because when something is not in seasons, they often source it from far away places around the world, because these days most of us can get any fruit or vegetable that we want any time of the year, because of being able to basically, as I said, source it from around the world. That doesn't mean that we should, the best deals and the quality often happens when we keep it simple and eat the foods that nature wants us to eat right now.
Bobbi Rebell:
In April, here are some names, ready? Artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, pineapples, radishes, rhubarb, and spring peas. I'm going to leave a link to a calendar and the article from the balance that I grabbed those names from in the show notes, it also has every month of the year so you can go through that article from the balance and look up what fruits and vegetables are best for what month of the year.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, now the time for the big announcement. We have been hearing from a lot of you wanting to share your Financial Grownup stories, your lessons, and of course creative money tips. We're going to start having one guest a month be a listener. If you want to be considered, we're going to keep it simple, see how it goes, email us at info@financialgrownup.com, info@financialgrownup.com and tell us what money story, and what money tip you would share if you were chosen. I'm so excited to hear from you guys and bring all of you our first listener guest.
Bobbi Rebell:
That is the Leanna Haakons episode of Financial Grownup. Subscribe if you have not already. Help us spread the word by sharing on social media. I am @bobbirebell on Twitter, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, and go to bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast to learn more about the show and sign up for a mailing list, so you can hear about things like how to be a guest on the show. I hope you enjoyed Leanna's story, and that we all got one step closer to being Financial Grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
