Stories, Savings and Shopify with Desirae Odjick

Three years ago when Desirae Odjick, BCom/11, made it her goal to save half of her income, she started blogging about the process. That was how Half Banked, a personal finance blog for millennials, was born.

Desirae was interested in personal finance and had read the Wealthy Barber and Money Sense Magazine, but noticed that as a millennial woman she was not part of the target audience.

As she discovered that her goal of saving half her income was harder than anticipated, she also discovered that her blog was filling a gap in the market and that people were positively responding to it. Her blog evolved to share how-to content that is told through personal stories and experiences, like how she budgeted for her wedding and how to save money without giving up your lattes.

“I found people were getting value from it and that really encouraged me to keep going with it,” shared Desirae. “It’s become kind of its own business. I get to work with brands that I personally use and love and that I’m really passionate about—and share the benefits of what I like about them with my audience. It’s become a very fun business to run outside of my fulltime job. And it informed how I got my job at Shopify, because I was running a blog and that’s really what most of my job interview ended up being out.”

Desirae is a content marketer at Shopify, where she creates content for one of their blogs that supports customers in growing their businesses. With her team located in Toronto, Desirae works from home in Ottawa. Her career started as copywriter and digital marketer with a marketing agency after university. She went on to work in marketing for ConceptShare and You.i TV before starting at Shopify last year.

“I can’t say enough good things about working at Shopify. It really boils down to the people. Every single person on my team—from the small team I work with day-to-day to the larger marketing team—is so fascinating and is so knowledgeable about what they do. I learn every single time I have a conversation with any of my coworkers. My skills are growing so much just by virtue of the people I work with and the projects that I work with them on,” Desirae expressed.

The Sprott School of Business and case competitions are where Desirae’s foundational knowledge of marketing comes from. During her third year exchange trip to Australia, she missed the tight-knit Sprott community and decided she would get more involved when she returned. During her final two years at Sprott, she got involved with SBSS, was VP of SPROSH, was a peer helper at Career Services, became a teaching assistant, participated in case competitions and became co-captain at JDCC.

“The skills that I got through case competitions—especially public speaking, being able to think on my feet, not being intimidated to speak to anyone in any room with very little preparation—has been huge. It’s been truly an essential life skill,” Desirae said.

She has come back to Carleton many times to speak at Sprott classes, present during Financial Literacy Month and help coach the marketing team for JDCC.

“I got so much from my time at Carleton and my time at Sprott, from the people that I met, from the guest speakers, classes and professors. Sprott invested so much in me,” said Desirae. “Now I am in the position to share my experiences and support the next round of students.”

Stay in touch with Desirae on Instagram, Twitter or at Half Banked.