As a child of British immigrants myself, I naturally sympathize with those brave or desperate enough to leave their homes for opportunities in North America. Which is one of the reasons why this past year, I’ve been corresponding with an interesting blogger and former financial advisor, Alain Guillot. He also occasionally publishes his blog posts on my Findependence Hub site. His blog is simply called AlainGuillot.com.
Earning, saving and spending in Canada: A guide for new immigrants
The paradox of wealth: why saving $100,000 is difficult
Guillot writes at least one blog post a week and has 600 subscribers on his YouTube channel. He recently wrote a short book entitled The Wealth Conundrum: Navigating Money, Free Will, and Success (in press, 2024). Its subtitle explains more: “How unconventional thinking influences your financial and personal life.”
Guillot first caught my attention when I heard that he immigrated to Canada from Colombia, a place I had visited. He felt that he had no choice but to become an entrepreneur here, although the fifth chapter of his e-book is entitled “Entrepreneurs are mentally unstable people.” He wrote that the intention of the director of the film Wall Street it was to show the selfishness and evil of capitalism. However, “it had the opposite effect: many people are attracted to investments. In my chapter about entrepreneurs being mentally unstable people, I had similar anti-psychological goals. I have spoken badly about the attitude of businessmen such as praising and praising what they do.”
If that doesn’t make sense enough for you, know that he strongly believes in hedging (putting money away for rainy days), as opposed to owning speculative assets like gold and crypto, and makes the case that the first $100,000 of wealth is hard to accumulate.
From conflict to financial analysis
At first Guillot tried various hustles in Canada. He was a salsa and tango instructor, photographer and professional wedding witness. In fact, he is still involved in each of these. He wanted to become a financial advisor in Canada, but felt that he could only do justice to clients by being a service fee planner, and learned that it was difficult to make a business case with that model. He next set himself up as a financial coach, but eventually quit because he found “no one wants to listen.”
Still, he’s obsessed with money, so he’s branching out from writing about personal finance and releasing video podcasts about it.
In an extended email interview, Guillot says he left Colombia because he wanted more opportunities. If you are lucky enough to be born in Canada or the United States, you say you count your blessings: “I was influenced a lot by movies, where I used to see normal families with a house, a car and enjoying the money they earn. They could go out to restaurants, have a few drinks in a cool place and go on vacation at least once a year. For me, in Colombia, that was a fictional world. In the area where I live, people always had the problem of scarcity and poverty.”
Aiming to find a rich country, he considered Spain, England, Australia, the US and Canada. He preferred North America, as it is in the same area as Colombia, which makes communication with his family easier. “In the end, I chose Canada over America because I believed that moving to Canada would be easier. I settled in Quebec, because I was curious to learn French and English.”
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