Good morning. Judging by the wave of out-of-office replies in my inbox, many of you are on vacation this week. If that’s you, thanks for reading from the beach, cottage, or wherever you’re relaxing. If you’re not on vacation, welcome to the club. Today’s edition features an insightful Q&A you won’t want to miss.

A lot of young Canadians don’t know where to start with financial planning and many are too embarrassed to ask. Professional advice can be expensive, and the internet is a minefield of conflicting tips and self-styled “finfluencers” who don’t always have their followers’ best interests in mind.

One new podcast is trying to address that problem. Am I Rich Yet?, co-hosted by veteran financial adviser Rob McClelland and his 26-year-old daughter Georgia breaks down financial basics in a way that’s clear, practical and tailored to Gen Z and millennials.

In our e-mail conversation, Rob and Georgia discussed why they chose to focus on younger Canadians, the role of social media in the money conversation, and what it’s like working together as a father-daughter team. Here’s an edited version of our exchange.

Q: Let’s start at the beginning. Personally and professionally, what led the two of you to launch this podcast together?

Rob: I’d recently decided to retire based on a health diagnosis. I knew I still had a lot to give. I had experience not only as a financial adviser, but also creating podcasts. My original plan was to develop a podcast for young advisers to help them become more efficient and pass on the lessons I wish I’d learned earlier in my own career. Then, my daughter Georgia suggested that I do a podcast for millennials and Generation Z and the struggles they are having. I thought it was a great idea.

Georgia: I had just returned home to Toronto for a six-week break. I’m currently completing my master of business at the University of Sydney in Australia. On the plane ride home, I wrote down a few goals for my time off. First, continue planning out my next career move. Second, come up with a passion project to keep me busy during the downtime. It needed to be something fun, and something I hadn’t done before. After one afternoon where we had a conversation about the podcast, I knew this was it.

Q: There’s no shortage of money content out there, but a lot of it skips over the basics, such as how to actually save as a young person when everything’s so expensive. Why did you decide to focus this show on helping younger Canadians, rather than speaking to seasoned investors?

R: I have three kids who fit the profile. One who is a saver, one who is a spender, and one who is still figuring out which one she is. As an adviser, although we knew we had to help the next generation, it was always difficult to justify it financially. Unfortunately, they just don’t have enough money to pay the bills for an adviser. There is lots of content out there on more detailed strategies, building portfolios and doing planning, but less that covers the basics.

G: When we looked into what content was already out there, we realized that most of it was U.S.-focused. We saw an opportunity to create something tailored to Canadians. I knew the need was out there because I felt it myself. To test the proof of concept, I reached out to 100 people in my network who fit the demographic and asked them to send in the questions they’d ask a financial adviser. Within 48 hours, we had over 150 responses. The demand was clear, so we built the series around those questions.

Q: More young people are turning to TikTok and YouTube for financial advice. What do you make of that?

R: I think it’s a great sign that young Canadians are clearly eager to learn. The problem is, there’s no filter on that content. Some of the advice out there is solid, but a lot of it is dangerously bad. What we’re offering comes from over 30 years of experience helping thousands of people build real financial success. Not many voices on TikTok or YouTube can say that.

G: He’s right. I’ve been exposed to some pretty questionable advice on social media, but I’ve been lucky enough to have had a sounding board (my dad) to guide me away from it. We all know how powerful social media is in getting messages out − for better or for worse − and we wanted to take the opportunity to contribute to some of that good.

Q: Money isn’t always easy to talk about within families, so what’s it like being a father-daughter duo diving into this stuff every week?

R: Because I was a financial adviser, talking about money has never been that difficult for me. For both Georgia and I, I’ve found that the conversation has been relatively easy. She’s been really helpful in making sure the messaging and wording is palatable for people in her generation. Asking me to repeat things, or explain something differently.

G: Agreed. Like any two people working together on a project there were certain things we disagreed on, but I’d say as a whole we did a pretty good job at compromising and letting go of little things that weren’t worth arguing about. We had a lot of laughs. Maybe my dad would disagree …

Q: Rob, you’ve spent decades helping Canadians manage their money. But what’s something you’re learning for the first time now that you’re doing this podcast with Georgia?

R: The thing I’ve learned most about this podcast is that so much of this knowledge is in my head already. That’s what happens when you’ve done over 1,500 meetings with clients over the years. I think the other important thing is that I’ve had to simplify things for clients. It’s no different for this age group. Sometimes it does feel strange to explain what an RRSP is, but the reality is probably less than 25 per cent of Canadians could explain it. We forget that the language we use every day in our profession or from school can feel like a completely different language to someone just starting out.

Q: Georgia, you’re tapped into what your peers are going through financially. What’s the number one thing your friends are stressed about when it comes to money?

G: Housing, 100 per cent. The idea of owning real estate feels out of reach for so many of us. The prices in the cities we actually want to live in feel like this massive mountain we’ll never be able to climb. And because we’re all so connected now, if you see people your age who have managed to buy property, it’s hard not to feel like you’re already behind. That comparison creates a lot of stress, and for some people, it becomes so discouraging that they just look away from saving altogether. But that’s a myth we’re trying to challenge in our podcast.