In October, I was featured in the business section of a prominent Canadian newspaper. The article was about me as a young investor, and I feel really proud about getting selected to do the interview. It seemed surreal because they got a photographer out and everything. My mom was really proud of me, and even now I get stopped and asked by friends and even strangers, if it was me they saw in that newspaper a few months back. :) I know some of my long-time Canadian readers have read that article, and if you have, I would appreciate you keeping it on the DL. This is the first time I've ever mentioned a link between me and that article, and I would love to keep it that way.

Anyway, when I first met J, he had read the article ... which is how he came to find out that I wrote this blog. He's also read the WSJ article about me.

But he promised that he wouldn't visit this blog until I was ready to show it to him myself, and I trust him when he says that. It's just too strange for me at this point for such a new person in my life to know all my financial details. Isn't that weird? I'm willing to share everything with complete strangers all over the world, but I won't share it with my BF.

It's not like I have anything to hide, but we have completely different takes on personal finance. While I'm heavily involved in tracking my spending, planning for the future, and taking pride in watching my net worth grow (although the past few months, it's been on the decline), he's more of a free spirit with his money. Not that it's a bad thing. Money is made to be enjoyed. I don't know too much about his personal financial situation, but I do hope he'll be open about it and share. I would never judge him, because there's a lot that can be learned from anyone. He's been a property owner before, so I find that really fascinating. I hope to learn more about that when the time comes.

I guess it's that I don't want him to feel like time is running out with my EF. I don't want him to treat me differently, knowing that I have a limited amount of money available to me, instead of a steady stream of income that comes with, you know, having a job. He knows I have my freelancing work, my PT income, and EI (if it ever gets processed ... it's taking forever!) ... but just having the visual graphs on my sidebar I think would be too much. For him to know exactly, to the penny, how much money I have. Nope. Not going to happen right now. I think I would feel differently once I get a full-time job, and those sidebar graphs are going in a positive directly, instead of steadily declining.

But I do want to show him eventually. I think it's important, since this blog and finance, investing, property ownership - it's really who I am nowadays. At first, it was just a hobby - a way to get out of debt and keep myself accountable for my actions ... but it's a complete way of life now, and I really enjoy it.

He's expressed an interest in learning more about investing and money management, so I'm kind of excited to talk to him about it. :) But there's no way I'm going to push it. He said that he's "intimidated" by me, because I have a handle on my finances ... but I feel like it's just a sham ... without this blog and all of your help, I wouldn't know anything about anything.