About Lori Bamber
Lori Bamber is a freelance writer, inspirational personal finance coach and speaker, and communications advisor.
Chatelaine Magazine’s Money Expert from 2004 to February 2007, her articles now appear regularly in special reports within the Globe and Mail and Report on Business. She is a contributor to Alberta Venture Magazine, has contributed regularly to BCBusiness Magazine, and is widely quoted in publications such as Canadian Living and Today’s Parent.
Formerly, she co-hosted CKNW’s Moneyline, guest-hosted Money Talks on the Corus Radio Network, and has been a guest of radio and television programs across the country, including Marketplace, The Gill Deacon Show and CBC NewsWorld.
The author of seven books on personal finance and investment, Lori is also an inspiring keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.
A deep desire to help people achieve financial well-being contributed to Lori’s rapid climb through the ranks of the financial industry, where she worked in many areas of financial services, including tax, RRSP, RRIFs, estates, investments and financial planning. By 1996, in fact, after serving as Vice President, Operations, and Manager, Trust Services, she became the only Executive Vice President of Vantage Securities, a financial services firm with 170 advisers in Western Canada and more than $1 billion in assets under administration. And not long after, struggling to balance the demands of her career with the needs of a growing family, she realized that “having it all could, in fact, be too much.”
“I found I wasn’t alone,” says Lori. “As a society, we’re wealthier than ever before, but depression, obesity and chronic disease rates are skyrocketing. We’re staying too long in jobs that aren’t satisfying, and we’re working longer hours than is sustainable for our health and our families. No matter how much money we manage to accumulate, we worry it won’t be enough. We are always hungry for more, always unsatisfied. At the same time, we’re starved for meaning, for time — and for rich relationships with family, friends, community and the astonishing planet we inhabit.”
“We can change all of that that by changing our relationship to money.”
After resigning from “the job of a lifetime,” Lori began writing her first book, Financial Serenity, and working directly with clients as a financial adviser. In 2000, she resigned as a financial advisor, after four years of practice, to devote herself to her life’s dream and purpose, living as a freelance writer. Since then, she has written eight books, dozens of magazine articles and columns, and uncountable newspaper articles. She also works behind the scenes as a ghostwriter and communications advisor for a number of not-for-profit organizations.
“The exploration that resulted in the Financial Serenity process, which I mapped in my book of the same name, became my way of life: the means that allowed me to transition from an unsatisfying, stressful struggle to balance work and life, to the realization of my lifelong dreams and purpose. Balance is nearly impossible to achieve, but by aligning work, meaning and money, we can achieve something far better. We can achieve our richest possible life — a life that lights us up, is a source of inspiration and energy to those around us, and contributes greatly to the process of healing our broken world.” “My new dream,” she says, “is make that possible for everyone who wants it.”