Secret Life of a Broke Personal Finance Guru

Our family was featured in a national newspaper as the picture of fiscal responsibility. A few months later we were drowning in debt, and I realized we were looking at everything dead wrong.

Illustrations by Jesse Zhang | Story edited by Farah Mohammed

On a warm spring day in March 2015, I fluttered around our family home with nervous energy. In one hour, I had a phone interview with Canada’s largest newspaper, The Globe and Mail. As a budding freelance writer, I had pitched the story of my family’s downsizing journey, hoping to get my first big assignment. Instead, one of Canada’s most well-known finance reporters would be calling to interview me. Six months earlier, my husband and I, used to going against the grain in many ways, had chosen to leave our trendy home with natural sunlight, cherry-wood cabinets and fossil gray carpet, and move into an underground abode without a speck of color or luxury. The trade-off: We could finally afford diapers.

To pass the time before my interview, I read Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball to my two daughters. From my position, cocooned in their room, I had a view of the window that framed the feet of visitors walking down the steps toward our apartment.

“Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball, so no one can see me because I’m so small,” I read aloud, my 1-year-old and 3-year-old curled into the crook of my arms, the words foreshadowing my own future emotions.

As I read, I noticed a familiar set of shoes passing by the basement-level window, and the kids and I raced to the front door.

“You’re home early!” I beamed at my husband, Daniel, tossing our youngest into his arms, excited about the chance to prepare for the interview. But Daniel stood eerily still, holding our 1-year-old daughter, while our 3-year-old clung happily to his leg.

“What’s wrong? Are you OK?” I asked, noticing beads of perspiration on his forehead.

He told me we should sit down, steering me to the couch, the tension between us escalating.

“Your brother Jason died. He had a heart attack. I’m so sorry.”

I could feel my entire life changing with his words.

My middle brother, Aaron, had phoned Daniel at work, to make sure that he would be home to tell me the news. Numb, I called Aaron. He answered, and the gravel in his voice made me fall apart.

I cried hot, dripping tears. I asked questions you don’t anticipate asking: Why did it take so long to tell me? Would there be an autopsy? How long was he gone before someone found him? And then I finally asked him the question I’d been dreading, not wanting to sound selfish or unfeeling: “What am I going to do about my interview with The Globe and Mail?”

“It’s an opportunity of a lifetime,” Aaron reassured me.

By the time we ended our call, I had 15 minutes to pull myself together.

I splashed my face with cold water, rubbing away the tears and mascara stains. I brushed my teeth. The phone rang. “Brianna speaking,” I said, my voice even.

And for the second time in under an hour, my world tilted, my stomach went to mush, and my life changed forever.