[00:00:00] Elton Bown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!

[00:00:06] Rita Burke: Well, with SpeakUP! International, we have been to Brazil, we've been to South Africa, we've been to England, we've been to Mexico, I'm not sure where we haven't been, hence the name *SpeakUP!* International. Today, however, we will be interviewing a young woman from home, from Ottawa. Katrice Bent is the founder of Katrice Justice!

This is a woman who has dedicated her life to empowering people to take control of their finances. Katrice operates her business primarily online with a strong presence on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. She offers a comprehensive range of services, including digital content, speaking engagements, educational resources, and personal personalized guidance. Katrice Bent, we welcome you to SpeakUP! International welcome, welcome, welcome! 

[00:01:15] Katrice Justice: Hi, thank you for having me.

[00:01:17] Elton Bown: Thank you for visiting us today. I find it fascinating that you're going to be with us for, The next half hour. You are an individual that our community needs helping individuals learn how to use money as a tool to get what they want. And from what I've read on your website.

You make it very easy to do. The language is very clear and very simple. Can you tell us more about your personal journey and the financial milestones that you achieved at a young age?

[00:01:55] Katrice Justice: Yeah. So I would say that the biggest. Personal finance milestone that I achieved was actually purchasing my first house at 22. So that happened last year in 2022. Basically over the past couple of years, I've been learning a lot about investing and just a lot of the different ways that money works.

So then I came up with the idea of essentially pulling my family's resources and purchasing a property together. So now we all live under the same roof. So there's my grandma, my parents, and then my niece. So a total of four generations living all together. So far so good

[00:02:31] Rita Burke: For generations living under the same roof that feels warm and fuzzy and intimate and wonderful and lovely. How does it feel to you? 

[00:02:44] Katrice Justice: It's great. There's so many different benefits just by having, the different generations like I guess the age ranges in our house is from 17 to 87 right now.

So it's a very. diverse range. And of course, my grandma makes such good food. My favorite is ackee and saltfish. So I absolutely love whenever she makes that. So it's a great benefit as well. 

[00:03:05] Elton Bown: I want your grandma to make some for me. I don't know exactly where you live, but I'm definitely want to put my knees under that table. What motivated you to develop and produce Katrice justice and share your financial knowledge? 

[00:03:25] Katrice Justice: I would say a lot of it just has to do with like my experiences growing up.

So I didn't have a perfect experience growing up where finances were concerned because. I guess you could say my parents didn't necessarily have the financial knowledge that they needed. They had good jobs, but they didn't know, how to manage their money. I saw a lot of different things growing up.

Like at some points, my TV was cut off and things like that, like when bills weren't paid. Just seeing that as a young child, I knew yeah I don't want to have to go through things like that when I'm older. So that's really what has pushed me into Just being more financially stable and then there's also just scenarios where perhaps I wanted something really badly like when I was younger, I really loved those American Girl dolls.

At the time they were like 95 USD so a little bit over 100 Canadian here. And of course if my parents were a little bit behind on bills and not going out and spending over 100 on a doll for me. So at that point I started to get creative and figure out ways to save up money and I was able to buy my own dolls through that and then yeah, it's really just carried on with me into my adult life.

[00:04:37] Rita Burke: Sounds like you've always been very focused and ambitious and analytical in the way you have lived or are living your life. Now, you have a strong online presence. Is this how you recruit most of your clients?

[00:04:54] Katrice Justice: Yeah, I would say so. I don't necessarily consider people to be like my clients because I don't consider myself like I'm not a real estate agent trying to sell you a house or I'm not like a mortgage broker trying to get you a mortgage, things like that. I'm really just, I'm trying to position myself as like a trusted ally, like someone you can come to you think your mortgage broker said something a little bit sketchy, you want a second opinion, like I'm there for things like that. Because like I said, I've owned my house for a year and a half now. So I've seen things and there's been times where I'm like I don't think so of things that I hear. So I just really want to be that, extra shoulder to lean on for people.

[00:05:34] Elton Bown: You know, it's very important that individuals have someone they can go to. And I'm not talking about someone at the bank. Because they're looking after their own things. They're not looking after the client. So it's good to have you critiqued there to help these individuals. So can you give us some examples and resources and services that you use to help individuals?

[00:06:02] Katrice Justice: So one of my biggest offerings of course, is my social media content creation. So one of the things that I. I'm looking to do is work with different brands to bring awareness to their services and things like that. And just the right fits that connect with my audience. So for me, especially as a young person who works a nine to five and owns a business.

I'm all about convenience. So I'm always looking for new companies to work with that are convenient. And then I also do speaking engagements. So I like to go to universities and high schools and speak to people who are just a little bit younger than me or around the same age and kind of share how my journey has went.

And I think I'm in a really unique position to do that right now because I like recently started from the ground up literally like from 18 to I'm now 24, like I've done the right steps to build my credit and things like that. So it's really nice being able to share that and then hopefully, inspire people to follow in my footsteps to some extent and have a good credit score themselves.

[00:07:06] Rita Burke: You seem to have a very strong passion for business. Where do you think that came 

[00:07:14] Katrice Justice: from? I think there's kind of two places where that came from. So one of them I would say is I guess genetics a little bit. My dad was also an entrepreneur. He was the type of person who was able to literally start a business from nothing like literally having zero dollars and could start up a successful business.

So I think that's part of where I get it from. And then I think my second. And for business is just the fact that I'm the type of person who likes to be able to live on my own terms and just do things on my own terms. And business is one of the things, one of the main things that allows me to do that.

[00:07:51] Elton Bown: That's definitely impressive. I'm just wondering, can you give us a few budgeting tips or examples that have been particularly effective for you and for your clients or the people that come to you?

[00:08:10] Katrice Justice: Yeah, so one of the main things that's worked really well for me over the past couple years is setting up automation. So right now I have it set up. So whenever I get paid a certain percentage of my paycheck is going right away to my savings account. Like I have a general savings account that I use for like short term things.

And then I also have a more long term savings account that I have for Bye. I call it my emergency fund, and then I also have a percentage going towards my investments. All three of those things are done pretty much before I even wake up on a payday, and that's something that's really grown over time, and now I have a five figure emergency fund just by being consistent.

[00:08:51] Rita Burke: What I'm hearing then is that in order to be financially sound and stable, one has to be consistent. Are there many people based on your experience, based on your research, are there many people who need to take control of their finances? 

[00:09:08] Katrice Justice: I think over the years it's been improving like I feel like people are starting to become more aware of their finances and I think a large part of that has to do with things just being more accessible and you know the whole social media thing.

But I do think right now we are living in very, difficult circumstances in terms of where the economy is at with the high inflation and the housing prices that are just ridiculous. So I do think for a lot of people right now, it's just not within reach necessarily, which is unfortunate. 

[00:09:41] Rita Burke: What can be done about that for young people , that housing price thing? What can be done about it as an expert in finances? 

[00:09:50] Katrice Justice: Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think one of the most important things is first to determine like Why is it that you actually want a house? Is it because, that's just what you think you should do? Or is it more do you have concrete reasons?

Because I find a lot of people It's become over glamorized in the past few years, and some extent. So I think that's like the first question to start because at the end of the day, yes, you're gonna have to either pay rent or a mortgage. But there's other ways to, build up your wealth, such as investing in the stock market.

So yeah, I just think people really need to think home ownership through before going through with it, because it is a lot more than your mortgage, there's your property taxes maintenance and just there's a lot of different expenses. 

[00:10:37] Elton Bown: Speaking of expenses, what if you have a gentleman that says he really wants to save money. He wants to save money to buy a trailer and, but he loves clothes. And when he gets near that shopping mall, he, those clothes call out to him. So he winds up spending money that he should be saving for the trailer. On a new pair of shoes or hats or coats, whatever. How do you persuade this individual to stop that habit of spending money fervently, and put it on the trailer?

[00:11:19] Katrice Justice: Yeah. So I think that one has a lot to do with the psychological aspect of things. I'm no psychologist, but I think for a person in that scenario, it's probably really important to take a step back before buying something, maybe doing like the 24 to 48 hour rule where I've heard of some people doing that, where if they want to buy something, They'll keep it in the back of their mind and then 24, 48 hours later, if they still want it done, they might purchase it.

And then also just evaluating how important is your goal to you, like, how badly do you really want that trailer and things like that. 

[00:11:55] Rita Burke: And perhaps if you have the monies to buy the trailer, because some people may not have the monies, but they still push ahead under by all means necessary to get it. 

[00:12:09] Elton Bown: Okay, I have one other scenario. People want to save money, but they have credit cards. They can go to the store. They can use their credit card to buy whatever. How do you tell these individuals that they need to take those credit cards and cut them and pay them off and just stay within their means.

This way they can get that house or that trailer or that car that they want.

[00:12:40] Katrice Justice: I would say that they really need to sit down and make a plan. The most important thing is just list out all of your debts, take into consideration how much you owe each of them, what's the interest rate on them and things like that. And that's a good way to tackle them. And then also, again, just really thinking about what is it that you want in life at the end of the day?

What is your ultimate goal? Where do you want to be in five years, 10 years financially, and just think about if your present actions are, aligned with that. 

[00:13:10] Rita Burke: Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Now, Katrice Bent, SpeakUP! International aims to inspire, educate, and inform. And there's no question that your responses and your story will do that for our listeners.

But let me ask you, what if I approached you and said I have a thousand dollars? Walk me through what you would say to me about that. What I could do with that thousand dollars to gain some kind of, dare I say, quick interest. Tell me, tell me about that. 

[00:13:50] Katrice Justice: So it really depends on the situation. I think before you do anything, one of the most important things is to determine do you have something to fall back on?

Let's say you go and spend a thousand dollars on a laptop, but then, next week, one of your tires, are you prepared to handle that? Like I think that's one of the first questions. So if you're not prepared to handle a scenario like that, I think the best thing to do would be to just set the money aside and to a high yield savings account and save it.

On the other hand, for someone like myself, where I know I have my investments going, I know I have like my emergency fund in place, and let's say I do get an extra thousand dollars, of course I could throw it back on my, investments, keep it growing, or I might want to just, treat myself, so I really think it just depends on where you are in life and what your priorities are.

So 

[00:14:42] Elton Bown: Where do you see yourself four years from now, in terms of making a positive impact on people's financial

[00:14:51] Katrice Justice: I definitely hope to see myself doing a lot more speaking engagements across Canada to promote financial literacy. And I also hope to see myself, working with brands and just really just continuing to be a trusted ally for people in navigating different financial situations.

[00:15:09] Rita Burke: Katrice, if I want to hone in a little bit on Elton's question. How do you know as a financial advisor? If you've impacted someone's life, how do you know?

[00:15:22] Katrice Justice: A lot of it has to do with like the changes that they make and then feedback. So I've actually taught my siblings how to invest. So I'm the youngest of five siblings and I was actually the first one to get into like investing. So I know that I impacted them because again, they took the actions and they started investing.

They started learning about it and. Yeah, so I know that I've impacted their life in that way, and I think that's a really positive thing to have done, and that's a large part of the reason why I started expanding and sharing this publicly now. 

[00:15:59] Elton Bown: I know that we talked about grandma and her wonderful cooking. I'm still coming over to your house. Anyway, it sounds mouthwatering. So my question to you is, can you cook? And if so, what is your favorite dish? And if you don't, what is your favorite dish outside of grandma's cooking? 

[00:16:24] Katrice Justice: So I actually don't cook very often because I live in a house with two cooks.

My grandma loves to cook. My stepdad loves to cook. And honestly, I just found over the years, I did live on my own for a portion of time and I was cooking and doing school and all of that. And I just, I don't enjoy cooking. That's my honest answer. But I would say my favorite meal outside of things that my grandmother makes would be, honestly, just a good pizza. I love pizza! 

[00:16:53] Rita Burke: So you make it?

[00:16:54] Katrice Justice: I've never made a pizza from scratch yet, but it's on my list of to do's. 

[00:16:59] Rita Burke: Wonderful. Wonderful. Now, is there a particular quotation that guides your life that you could share with us?

[00:17:10] Katrice Justice: Yeah, the quotation that guides my life is actually one that's part of my business and it's embrace the present secure the future. This quotation is very, personal to me, especially at this age, because I'm young, I want to enjoy my life. I want to travel. I like to get my nails done, my hair done, etc.

But I also know how important it is to prepare for my future. So really, with that quotation, it's just all about balance. So like I was saying, yes, I do have all my investments on autopilot and everything like that. But with that, I'm able to, feel confident when I go look at my bank account and say, Okay, let's go get my nails done.

Because I know like I have things lined up and figured out to a certain extent for my future.

[00:17:57] Elton Bown: What type of speaking engagements do you attend, speak?

[00:18:04] Katrice Justice: So I've done mostly speaking engagements at universities. So I did one at Carleton University. And then I did one for a local non profit in Ottawa called Jaku Kombi. And most of the time for these speaking engagements, I'm either talking about personal finance or I'm talking about entrepreneurship. 

[00:18:22] Rita Burke: And what was that like for you? Speaking doesn't come naturally, I believe, or it certainly didn't come naturally for me. How did you learn to be a speaker? 

[00:18:33] Katrice Justice: That's actually a really good question because I'm more of an introvert, but it's interesting because a lot of people expect me to be shy when it comes to speaking, but it's actually something that does come easily to me and it's pretty much always been like that.

[00:18:49] Rita Burke: So whenever I am put in like these speaking engagement scenarios, I actually really enjoy it and getting feedback.

[00:18:55] Elton Bown: When you make financial decisions, is that due to the hard school of knocks? And I don't know if you know what that means, but the mistakes that you've made in the past. How do you guide yourself in a way so that you're more cautious about investing your money or spending your money so that you don't find yourself in the wind, so to speak?

[00:19:18] Katrice Justice: Yeah, so I would say one of the big things For me is again, just having that emergency fund because by having that I know that I can take a little bit of risk, especially still being very young. I know that if something were to happen, especially like when I first started investing, I was into all sorts of high risk things.

[00:19:38] Elton Bown: But at the time, like I live with my parents, we were, I didn't even pay rent or anything. And, yeah, I didn't have very many expenses, so I knew that was the time to go for it and take those risks, because more risk typically, sometimes, I'm not going to say all the time but sometimes there's more rewards, so yeah.

[00:19:56] Rita Burke: Sounds like your thoughts are always focused and organized. So then, if you, we were to offer you a ticket to go anywhere in the world, Where would you opt to go and why?

[00:20:12] Katrice Justice: I would be going to Europe. It's been at the top of my bucket list for so long. And like I said, one of my favorite foods is pizza. So I'm dying to try Italian pizza.

But yeah, there's definitely a lot of places in Europe that I want to visit. Like Italy, of course Greece. Paris, France, things like that. 

[00:20:32] Elton Bown: What do you do outside of your financial assistance , financial support? What do you do? I mean, I can't see you doing this 24 seven. Your mind probably is, it's in your head 24 seven, but what do you do? That doesn't require you to think about financially assisting or supporting individuals? What do you do? Just for you?

[00:20:56] Katrice Justice: Are you talking like in terms of my 9 to 5 or?

[00:21:00] Elton Bown: Yes, it could be your 9 to 5, it could be what you do over the weekend when you're not doing, when you're not financially supporting an individual or giving guidance. 

[00:21:11] Katrice Justice: Yeah, I feel like a lot of my time is dedicated to that, but I don't even realize it just because I'm so passionate about it.

But actually my nine to five is in tech. So I actually work in tech. I work in user experience, and I've been doing that for a couple of years now. And when I'm not doing my business or working my nine to five, some of the things I enjoy is just, self care. So I really like going for facial.

They're like going to get my nails done, going to my, going to get my hair done. And of course, just hanging out with friends.

[00:21:45] Rita Burke: You mentioned tech user experience. Would you care to expand on that a little bit for us, please?

[00:21:53] Katrice Justice: Yeah, so right now I'm working in user experience and I do a lot of work for people who have accessibility issues and they're having issues using the different softwares that we have available to us. So my role is supporting them and getting those issues resolved.

[00:22:10] Elton Bown: Do you see yourself starting your own business in the tech field?

[00:22:16] Katrice Justice: It's something that I've thought of, actually, before I started Catrice Justice as the financial brand that it is now one of the big businesses that I was thinking of was more related to web design and tech, but I realized while I was planning it out and just thinking of how things would work, I knew that I wasn't going Very passionate about it.

And then this was the personal finance thing was also like an idea that I had in my head. But there was one day in particular where I knew, okay, scrap the whole tech idea and just go with finance. And it was actually last year when I was at a workshop for entrepreneurship. And They brought in someone to speak to us about finance, and I was actually one of the oldest people in this program.

Everybody else was more like the high school age. Of course, I knew all the answers to everything, especially being like a personal finance lover. And they didn't know the answers. And I don't know, just something clicked. And I just felt okay, you know what? You need to do this. You need to switch like you can, make a difference.

And ever since that day, I don't think there's been like a day where I haven't done something related to this business. Like it's just been go. And just so much more passion and enthusiasm compared to when I wanted to start the tech. So that's how I know that this is what I'm actually passionate about.

[00:23:38] Rita Burke: Wonderful. Truly amazing. Katrice Bent. Some people like traveling. Some people like shopping for clothes. Some people like going to the cottage. I like sitting on a train. I like gardening. What makes your heart sing?

[00:23:57] Katrice Justice: I would say at the moment one of the biggest things for me is just spending time with my family, especially my nieces and nephews. So I have three nieces and three nephews and I just love spending time with them. They're always making me laugh. They're so funny, everything that they do. And just, trying to steer them in the right path so that they can also have bright futures and that's really another thing that I'm very passionate about. 

[00:24:22] Rita Burke: Spending time with family, eh? 

I guess with Thanksgiving coming up, this is going to be a special time for you as well. 

[00:24:27] Katrice Justice: Yeah, of course. 

[00:24:28] Elton Bown: I know, give me some of that food! Community! I want to know how the community sees you. You have your website. It's beautifully designed. Everything is laid out perfectly. I'm sure many individuals in our communities have seen it. How has your educational program affected individuals within our community?

[00:24:52] Katrice Justice: It's been really good so far. I've received a lot of positive feedback, especially from people even outside of the community. I've had a few TikToks go viral. Some of them have over 600, 000 views. And the one that has that many views, actually, in particular, was about student loans that those of us in Ontario, like a lot of us, would have been enrolled in.

But, again, there's a lot of these companies are, like, They don't explain to us what we're actually getting into. It's just sign here. Pay us back, and things like that. I shared a tip on how I actually was able to save on interest. And then, that's the one that blew up and got over half a million views.

And people were commenting things like, Oh my goodness, thank you so much, like I really appreciate this. Because I don't understand anything that's going on the website. Just seeing things like that just really made me feel happy. Because it's nice to know that I've made an impact and I've made something.

And hopefully, improve somebody's life in some way. 

[00:25:52] Elton Bown: When you are in your zone, do you find it difficult to branch from it? So let's say you are working on a tax return workshop. Do you find it difficult to move off and do something else and then come back to your workshop that you're developing?

[00:26:13] Katrice Justice: No, I wouldn't say that necessarily, just because, again, I'm very passionate about what I'm doing, so I genuinely like doing this stuff and just coming up with ideas and creating content. 

[00:26:26] Elton Bown: When do you find your, when do you find yourself most open for ideas to come to you? Some people, it's at the middle of the night. Some people, it's first thing in the morning. What about you? 

[00:26:39] Katrice Justice: Yeah, for me, most of the time it is. Like overnight or like when I'm trying to sleep, then all of these ideas will come to me and I just have to grab my phone and write them down or just sometimes randomly in the day, things will come to me as well. And I just try and jot it down somewhere and then come back to it. 

[00:26:59] Elton Bown: Do you find it difficult to sleep when you have to work with a. Individual you're supporting and you haven't come up with a solution for them.

[00:27:09] Katrice Justice: So I haven't done too much like one to one work in that aspect in terms of giving advice and guidance. My business is only about 10 months old right now, and most of what I've been focusing on is just sharing that broad content, and then also the speaking engagement. 

[00:27:25] Elton Bown: So what is the, what are the people's response to your message?

[00:27:31] Katrice Justice: So far it's been very positive. A lot of people are very happy, especially when they see things that's just simple and easy to understand, and then also just seeing it from someone who's Like them, because, like you were saying earlier in the interview when it comes to, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, everything, at the end of the day, they are doing a job, so there is, there is like that personal gain potential, and not everybody is honest, I'm not saying they're all dishonest or anything, but I am saying like, you just, at the end of the day, you need to be in a position to know what is best for you.

In these scenarios. Yes, you can ask them for guidance and things like that. But at the end of the day you need to know what's best for you. So that's a really big thing for me. 

[00:28:16] Rita Burke: Based on what you've told us, based on what I'm hearing, you are a financial coach, you are in the tech sector, you're a family person, you're a business woman, you do speaking engagements.

I must say that I'm impressed and I'm inspired. What next for you?

[00:28:38] Katrice Justice: My focus going forward is really just to continue building out my business and building out my audience, helping more people. Like I was saying earlier, I've almost a year into business and I've really been enjoying it so far. I feel like although this year was probably one of the busiest years I've ever had in my life.

It's definitely been by far one of the best years that I've had as well. So I'm very happy doing what I'm doing and I'm super excited to see. What's to come. 

[00:29:05] Elton Bown: I think that is the most important thing is being very happy and content in what you're doing, because if it's, you're doing something that you find that you don't want to do, you're just doing it begrudgingly.

So I am so happy that you found your niche being a financial wizard. You're able to help individuals. Come out of that financial slump as it were your speaker, which I'm really impressed by just by the way that you've been communicating with us. It definitely shows that you have that map. for communicating with other individuals.

So I want to thank you very much for allowing us to have this conversation with you on SpeakUP! International. And when you go into your next chapter in life, please come back because we would definitely love to find out what you're doing. Because I know that you won't be doing what you're doing now forever.

There's something else, you're young, so there'll be something else that'll come up and Grab your attention. So thank you very much. And we appreciate your time.

[00:30:21] Rita Burke: Thank you so much, Katrice! 

[00:30:23] Katrice Justice: Thank you!

[00:30:25] Elton Bown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International! 

If you would like contact financial support person katrice Bent kindly fill out the form on Katrice's website. www.katricejustice.com/contact

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