Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 2: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 2: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is airing in mid April of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: We are just around tax Day in the United States,
Speaker 1: so appropriately we are having a financial themed episode. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be interviewing Bobby Rebel, who is the author
Speaker 1: of lawng Financial Grown Ups. She also has a company
Speaker 1: that is organized around the same concept of how you
Speaker 1: can help young adults begin their financial lives preparing for
Speaker 1: the grown up world of money and all the things
Speaker 1: they will need to know for that. So, especially for
Speaker 1: our listeners who have tweens and teens, some topics that
Speaker 1: definitely might be worth thinking about as you ponder how
Speaker 1: to help your kids build their own independent lives. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of being a financial grown up, Sarah, at what
Speaker 1: point were you actually a financial grown up? If we
Speaker 1: are at this point, I guess we are. We both
Speaker 1: have mortgages. That's like, yeah, right there, yes, you are
Speaker 1: growing up a mortgage.
Speaker 2: But I definitely feel like I was a much later
Speaker 2: bloomer to financial adulthood than you.
Speaker 1: As you're going to share.
Speaker 2: Your story in college, I would classify myself as fairly
Speaker 2: irresponsible before that, also fairly irresponsible if I had any
Speaker 2: money lying around, and I always enjoyed earning some money,
Speaker 2: but I also enjoyed spending some money, so so it
Speaker 2: didn't stick around for very long. And then I did
Speaker 2: take a trip to Europe in which I put everything
Speaker 2: on my credit card and had to be bailed out
Speaker 2: by my parents. Okay, like full disclosure, it was a
Speaker 2: very inexpensive trip, like we were staying in hostels. I
Speaker 2: don't think the grand total was anything all that crazy,
Speaker 2: but my parents did kindly bail me out but told
Speaker 2: me they would never ever ever do that again, so
Speaker 2: that I better grow up from here on out. And
Speaker 2: you know what I did, I did, I really did,
Speaker 2: because then I was an MDPHD and I lived on
Speaker 2: a like eighteen thousand dollars a year salary, and I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, this is all I have and I
Speaker 2: can't go in the negative because I have to pay
Speaker 2: my rent every month. And I actually ended up moving
Speaker 2: in with Josh after we started dating, but I paid
Speaker 2: portion of the mortgage for the house that he had, so, like,
Speaker 2: I think I became a grown up at that point.
Speaker 2: I was not good about saving, but at least I
Speaker 2: understood how, I mean, how much can you say when
Speaker 2: you're earning eighteen thousand dollars a year? Maybe Laura could,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't. But at least that was good about
Speaker 2: not allowing myself to go into the red and understanding
Speaker 2: what a budget was. And then I feel like my
Speaker 2: first couple of years of earning a real salary, I
Speaker 2: was just sort of like, I don't know, figuring things out.
Speaker 2: It seemed to me from the outset like the money
Speaker 2: was going to be infinite, and became very quickly clear
Speaker 2: that it wasn't. And so in twenty fifteen we discovered
Speaker 2: you need a budget and became really systematic about saving.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that is actually when I became
Speaker 2: a financial grown up Wow, thirty five, twenty fifteen, not
Speaker 2: that long ago.
Speaker 1: So wait, I got a pun. So Josh owned a
Speaker 1: house in med school.
Speaker 2: It was a very inexpensive house. He had worked prior
Speaker 2: to that, so he was.
Speaker 1: Right because he started it older. That's right, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there was some help there as well.
Speaker 2: That house was bought for something like one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars and then sold for like one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty thousand dollars, So it was not like it
Speaker 2: was not a fancy house.
Speaker 1: Was he renting out other rooms of it? Was it
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing? Or no?
Speaker 2: No, no, I mean how much can you spit up
Speaker 2: a house that's that size? And the neighborhood quickly didn't
Speaker 2: do so well, hence us selling it. Actually, we may
Speaker 2: have sold it for under what we bought it for,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what we do in our in
Speaker 2: our family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, real estate history. Fortunately, there are booms and bus
Speaker 1: in the younger household seems to uh there moves. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you can't always time these things to being convenient for
Speaker 1: the real estate market. I've started thinking back, like I
Speaker 1: went away for high school for my last two years,
Speaker 1: and so I had to have some way of paying
Speaker 1: for things. I actually had my own check book. I
Speaker 1: remember checkbooks for like it was, which I remember then
Speaker 1: because I wanted to get my college decision letters at
Speaker 1: my mailing address at school, and so I had written
Speaker 1: the checks for the application fees. I think my parents
Speaker 1: would put money in the account for that, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny to think. I wonder how many kids
Speaker 1: are signing their own checks to pay for their application
Speaker 1: fees for college. It's probably not that many. But yeah,
Speaker 1: my first you know, I worked in the summers in college.
Speaker 1: I got my first apartment for a summer we could
Speaker 1: do a temporary rental thing. I shared with a couple
Speaker 1: of people in Washington, d c. My so, I, you know,
Speaker 1: had apartment in nineteen I learned to cook. That was
Speaker 1: kind of fun. And then my first job after college,
Speaker 1: I had this year long internship at USA Today where
Speaker 1: my stipend for the year was something like eighteen thousand,
Speaker 1: and you know, I really my take home pay was
Speaker 1: like twelve hundred dollars a month, and I remember my
Speaker 1: rent was five hundred and eighty dollars, so you know,
Speaker 1: you had six hundred twenty bucks to play around with
Speaker 1: each month, and it was mostly fine. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a car, I was taking public transit and shopped sales
Speaker 1: at the grocery store and cooked most of my own
Speaker 1: meals and also created margin by freelancing, you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of the more I think about it, if I
Speaker 1: had really truly tried to live on just that, it
Speaker 1: would have been a lot tighter. But then I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I can write for places people are willing to pay me.
Speaker 1: And the good news about having a take home pay
Speaker 1: of twelve hundred dollars a month is that even if
Speaker 1: you're getting like three hundred dollars for something, it feels
Speaker 1: like a pretty big raise. So that was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was able to save most of that, which helped,
Speaker 1: you know, finance the move to New York City after that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I remember reading like the newspaper
Speaker 1: when I was twelve or thirteen years old, waiting for
Speaker 1: the bus and looking at the stocks and being interested
Speaker 1: in the stock market at the time. And now it
Speaker 1: would have been great if I'd actually invested then, But
Speaker 1: of course that's not something my parents knew much about
Speaker 1: at all. And the upside is that we are now
Speaker 1: having our kids do that. They get a brokerage account
Speaker 1: when they are ten, we do a match of money
Speaker 1: that they have saved up. It's a fairly sizable match
Speaker 1: multiple of what they have saved up so that we
Speaker 1: can meet the brokerage minimum. Then they choose what they're
Speaker 1: going to invest in. And I'm not sure if everyone's
Speaker 1: learning the right lessons from this. Like one child didn't
Speaker 1: want to invest in anything because there was a possibility
Speaker 1: of losing money, which I don't think is the right
Speaker 1: lesson to learn. Another child was kind of getting into
Speaker 1: the day trade idea and be like, look, I made
Speaker 1: fifty bucks today without doing anything. I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 1: that's maybe not the right lesson either. But you know,
Speaker 1: you're young, you don't have to buy index funds. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's probably good they're learning it now whatever
Speaker 1: they can be financial grown ups. Even earlier, it turns
Speaker 1: out that Disney was not a great stock to own,
Speaker 1: even if you love Disney, they was, for a long
Speaker 1: period of time, really crappy stuff tooon.
Speaker 2: I kind of feel like, if you let that experiment
Speaker 2: go on long enough, if there was one of the
Speaker 2: five kids that chose index funds, they're probably going to
Speaker 2: win and then they will all learn a good lesson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the one child is, you know, still in
Speaker 1: the whatever the brokerage random interest rate is because they
Speaker 1: refused to people's personalities come out very young. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's hear what Bobby has to say about Launching Financial
Speaker 1: Grown Ups. So Sarah and I are delighted to welcome
Speaker 1: Bobby Rebel to the program. She is a journalist turned
Speaker 1: author turned financial wellness consultant. Is the author of the
Speaker 1: book Launching Finance Grown Ups, which I know is relevant
Speaker 1: to a lot of people with kids in the teen
Speaker 1: emerging adult years. So welcome Bobby. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me.
Speaker 3: I am a listener and a big fan of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Well, why don't you introduce a
Speaker 1: little bit more about yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, again, thank you for having me,
Speaker 3: and thank you for that introduction. I am a mom
Speaker 3: of three in a blended family. I have now a
Speaker 3: twenty seven year old, a twenty four year old, and
Speaker 3: a sixteen year old. The twenty seven year old is
Speaker 3: I sort of already launched, and the twenty four year
Speaker 3: old is in the middle of launching. I would say
Speaker 3: he's out of college, had his first job, and now
Speaker 3: figuring out a pivot, and then the teenager is on
Speaker 3: the crux of getting ready to start thinking about college.
Speaker 3: He took his first practice Act recently. So I'm sort
Speaker 3: of mixed feelings because in a way, I'm sort of
Speaker 3: happy to be in the home stretch of it, but
Speaker 3: also it's hitting me hard as a parent that, wow,
Speaker 3: this phase of my life is really about to start changing,
Speaker 3: and so I'm sort of bracing for that. And career wise,
Speaker 3: I'm going through some changes as well, expanding my business
Speaker 3: beyond being an author into more financial wellness consulting.
Speaker 1: I have a company called Financial Wellness Strategies.
Speaker 3: We do workshops for companies, for schools, for parent groups,
Speaker 3: and I'm now expanding into doing some limited private consulting.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, let's talk a little bit about your journey
Speaker 1: of launching at least two financial grownups at this point
Speaker 1: a third, we hope in a couple of years. Was
Speaker 1: it a smooth flying path. Was it bumpy? Maybe you
Speaker 1: could talk a little bit about that. It was so bumpy, Laura.
Speaker 3: It was really tragic because, as we mentioned, I had
Speaker 3: been a journalist for many years and I was in
Speaker 3: the business beat, so I interviewed CEOs and talked about money.
Speaker 3: I even at one point had a globally syndicated column
Speaker 3: on personal finance topics.
Speaker 1: And yet my almost adult children.
Speaker 3: And I'm referencing the older ones at this point were
Speaker 3: one was just starting college, when was in high school,
Speaker 3: and they were not really receptive to my mini lessons
Speaker 3: about money, and I found it very frustrating. And one
Speaker 3: thing that I write about in the book Launching Financial
Speaker 3: Grown Ups is my efforts, for example, to get them
Speaker 3: to open up wrath iras.
Speaker 1: So I had kids that were good kids.
Speaker 3: They both were earning money because they liked to earn money,
Speaker 3: and which is great. Ashley was always learning to be
Speaker 3: higher and higher level as a lifeguard. She was very
Speaker 3: good at teaching, and so she was keenly aware that
Speaker 3: if she got different certifications she could make more money.
Speaker 3: And number two, Bradley was very enterprising teaching kids fencing.
Speaker 3: He eventually went to school basically recruited for fencing.
Speaker 1: You're very good at that.
Speaker 3: So these were good, ambitious kids doing their thing, and
Speaker 3: yet I couldn't get them to open up a wroth Ira.
Speaker 3: Why I was like, you guys have all this money,
Speaker 3: they weren't big spenders, and they would always yes me,
Speaker 3: and I kind of had to figure out, Okay, what
Speaker 3: is going on? And so that inspired the book because
Speaker 3: you had an educated parent, you had kids that were
Speaker 3: sort of on a good bath path.
Speaker 1: These weren't problem kids.
Speaker 3: And so I figured, well, I know, one thing I've
Speaker 3: accessed to as a journalist is experts, Right, I could
Speaker 3: tune in and ask people. I had financial therapy friends,
Speaker 3: I had parenting expert friends, and I of course had
Speaker 3: money expert friends. And so the book really taps into that.
Speaker 3: I figured I had a problem. Maybe other people did too,
Speaker 3: And I think that was proven pretty true because the
Speaker 3: book has really resonated with a lot of parents, and
Speaker 3: I should say grandparents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, what was it. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the roth Ira, because I mean, was it just that
Speaker 1: it's annoying to call customer service somewhere, It's annoying to
Speaker 1: find documents. I mean, what would you say it was?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So for the older one, she was just yesing me,
Speaker 3: and like I would always first of all, approach them
Speaker 3: at absolutely the wrong time.
Speaker 1: I learned, you know, they're walking out the door.
Speaker 3: It's it's been anything you want a kid to do,
Speaker 3: especially a teenager, if you're interrupting something that they are
Speaker 3: just they're going to say what they want to say.
Speaker 3: So they would say I'm on it. They wouldn't say
Speaker 3: I'm doing it. They would say I heard you, I know,
Speaker 3: I understand, but they wouldn't say I'm doing it. And
Speaker 3: I would give them, as you said, I would give
Speaker 3: them the name of somebody at the brokerage firm that
Speaker 3: I used to said. You can talk to a human,
Speaker 3: you can go online, you can open up with a
Speaker 3: different company. I don't care what you do. What do
Speaker 3: you need to get this done? And the oldest one
Speaker 3: looked at me and she said, but you didn't ask
Speaker 3: me about my goals and what I want to do
Speaker 3: with the money. Well, what she wanted to do with
Speaker 3: the money, Laura, was she wanted to save it to
Speaker 3: buy an apartment a down payment, and if she put
Speaker 3: it in an investment account, then she'd be risking it,
Speaker 3: and since you know, you're supposed to have a.
Speaker 1: Five year time horizon, that was not the right thing
Speaker 1: for her to do. Right. Yeah, So she didn't want to.
Speaker 3: Have a conflict with me, But in fact, I was
Speaker 3: giving her the wrong advice because I hadn't asked her
Speaker 3: her goal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so I wasn't listening to her. Actually I
Speaker 3: wasn't listening because I wasn't even asking her, yeah, whether
Speaker 3: it made sense for her.
Speaker 1: And then number two was more of a classic thing.
Speaker 3: He was just a teen who just wasn't getting around
Speaker 3: to it, and I needed to actually sit with him.
Speaker 3: And what I've done with him that's worked so well
Speaker 3: and I'm so proud of him, is generally when there's
Speaker 3: something to do, I kind of sit side by side.
Speaker 3: And this is something Julie Lythcott Haynes who wrote How
Speaker 3: to Raise an Adult Advocate, So I got this from her.
Speaker 1: I just want to give her credit.
Speaker 3: You sit with them at the computer, and the first
Speaker 3: time you sort of show them what to do, the
Speaker 3: second time you watch them do it. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean. It's a gradual progression. And I really had
Speaker 3: to sit down with him and set it up. And
Speaker 3: I'll tell you right now, he has a very nice
Speaker 3: amount of money in that roth Ira and to the
Speaker 3: point where he was able to fully fund it and
Speaker 3: then also open a non retirement Brokeridge account and so
Speaker 3: because he didn't have the goal to buy an apartment.
Speaker 3: He has done very well over the years with his investing,
Speaker 3: and we have conversations about investing.
Speaker 1: He was very critical.
Speaker 3: And I don't know when this is going to come out,
Speaker 3: but right now, in Video is in the news, and
Speaker 3: he wanted to know why I hadn't bought in Video
Speaker 3: and we had a whole conversation, and he told me
Speaker 3: about his friends that were day trading on how much
Speaker 3: his friends made one in Vidia. Point is we're having
Speaker 3: the conversations. It doesn't actually matter what I did or
Speaker 3: didn't do an investing. The point is he's asking questions,
Speaker 3: we're having conversations, and he's learning to make his own decisions.
Speaker 3: He did go and buy Nvidio. I personally thought it
Speaker 3: was overvalued. Today as of this recording, he's up.
Speaker 1: YEP could be down in another week or two. Whoever knows.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's but the moody is real, real, and he's
Speaker 3: investing it. And I don't want to say it doesn't
Speaker 3: matter what he does. I mean, if he comes to
Speaker 3: me and says an investment that I don't think is good,
Speaker 3: I'll tell him why I don't think it's good. But
Speaker 3: I also tell him I could be wrong. I also
Speaker 3: don't own any bitcoin, and right now I don't look
Speaker 3: so smart, but I don't know. But you have to
Speaker 3: let your kids make those mistakes. Investing the important thing,
Speaker 3: and they have so much time, Laura, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't want to see.
Speaker 1: Summer many many years for things to recover.
Speaker 3: Even he says his friends are day trading, you can
Speaker 3: say to a kid, well, I don't think that's the
Speaker 3: way to go, but if you think that's something interesting,
Speaker 3: why don't you take ten percent of your savings and
Speaker 3: you can day trade with that if that's what they want.
Speaker 3: Because what you really don't want to do, especially with teenagers,
Speaker 3: is create an environment where they feel you will judge
Speaker 3: them and therefore they will hide a mistake. So an
Speaker 3: example of that would be maybe they ran up credit
Speaker 3: card debt and they don't tell you because they know
Speaker 3: you would be disappointed. They know they should know better.
Speaker 3: You don't want them to run up the credit card debt,
Speaker 3: But the only thing worse than that is to hide
Speaker 3: it from you and not be able to have that conversation.
Speaker 1: So what does it mean to be a financial grown up?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've spondered this, I wonder if I am
Speaker 1: a financial grown up at this point, many years along
Speaker 1: from the teenage years, But what would you define as
Speaker 1: being a financial grown up? I think it's.
Speaker 3: Important that everyone have their own definition to some degree,
Speaker 3: but essentially it's taking responsibility and ownership of your financial life.
Speaker 1: What that means.
Speaker 3: So with kids, I like to tell them kids, I'm
Speaker 3: talking about teenagers in early twenties, I want to see
Speaker 3: the numbers.
Speaker 1: What does it cost to be you? What does a cost?
Speaker 3: As the middle child this recently, what would have cost
Speaker 3: to you if you were to do X, Y and z.
Speaker 3: Because he's figuring out career plans. Can your career plan
Speaker 3: support what you want? The lifestyle that you want? And
Speaker 3: you have to find a balance, right, If you want
Speaker 3: to live a very modest lifestyle, you can choose a
Speaker 3: career that supports that. And so it's really important for
Speaker 3: them to understand the math of their own life.
Speaker 1: And then we have to.
Speaker 3: Take a step back because sometimes we impose on them
Speaker 3: our own values and our own priorities when it comes
Speaker 3: to the lifestyle that we want to live, and we
Speaker 3: over subsidize them. In other words, they'll say, I want
Speaker 3: to do this, and I'm willing to live this way,
Speaker 3: and I'm willing to have three roommates because I want
Speaker 3: to go do this career that's very risky and I
Speaker 3: won't have enough money. We have to be careful not
Speaker 3: to interfere with that. We have to let it play out.
Speaker 3: And it is really hard. It's something that I struggle
Speaker 3: with to this day because we want to make their
Speaker 3: life easier, especially if we struggled. We relate to that,
Speaker 3: and it's sometimes harder. The more resources you have to
Speaker 3: teach a kid to be a financial grown up, it's hard.
Speaker 1: Well do you think it's in general harder than in
Speaker 1: the past? And I know, I know there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of headlines about between levels of student loans or
Speaker 1: the price of housing in certain markets, although obviously it
Speaker 1: sounds like your daughter did in fact manage to purchase
Speaker 1: a home, so she's, you know, the millennial gen z
Speaker 1: whatever is that has managed to become a property owner.
Speaker 1: But do you think, I mean, is it harder or
Speaker 1: is it not? I mean, what did you say.
Speaker 3: I do think that there are some systemic societal changes
Speaker 3: that have happened, but I also think the lens that
Speaker 3: we see things through has changed, and I think it's
Speaker 3: very interesting to observe as a society that very often
Speaker 3: we will frame it, for example, as a negative when
Speaker 3: someone moves home after college or stays home after high
Speaker 3: school if they're not going to college.
Speaker 1: And I view it.
Speaker 3: In most cases as a positive because I think it's
Speaker 3: unrealistic to stay to someone. Okay, you just graduated college,
Speaker 3: possible with debt too. You're getting your first job, hopefully
Speaker 3: your lowest paying job.
Speaker 1: Ever.
Speaker 3: You may or may not have health insurance and other
Speaker 3: benefits because the gig economy has grown so much, and
Speaker 3: because we now have the Affordable Care Act and so
Speaker 3: a lot of companies can sort of get away with
Speaker 3: not giving health insurance until kids are twenty six. So
Speaker 3: is it even realistic to set a kit up for
Speaker 3: failure to go out and suddenly be their own household? Like?
Speaker 1: Why is that considered the norm? Why isn't the norm?
Speaker 3: Hey, if it's available, to go home, regroup, create a
Speaker 3: financial foundation, as our oldest did, right she stayed home
Speaker 3: for two years. I discussed this in the book in
Speaker 3: more detail, but basically, in launching Financial Grown Ups, I
Speaker 3: explain how she moved home with a very specific plan.
Speaker 3: She wasn't a slacker like we used to call gen
Speaker 3: xers when we moved home. She was very much proactively
Speaker 3: saving to have not only the money for a down payment,
Speaker 3: to have the money for the closing costs, to make
Speaker 3: sure her credit score was high enough that she could
Speaker 3: get a good mortgage and make sure she had the
Speaker 3: emergency backup fund so she wouldn't have to ask us
Speaker 3: for money, knowing that we would be there if she
Speaker 3: did need it. I think it's really important for parents
Speaker 3: to not say we're not there for you. Let the
Speaker 3: kid know we're there for you, but we expect you
Speaker 3: won't need it. We hope you won't need it, but
Speaker 3: of course we're going to be there for you. I
Speaker 3: think that should be the norm. Let kids come home,
Speaker 3: because how else are they going to build an emergency fund.
Speaker 3: If they're living paycheck to paycheck and they're struggling to
Speaker 3: pay down student debt, which we know mathematically is higher
Speaker 3: than it was in past generations, it's not realistic for
Speaker 3: us to just kind of throw them out there to
Speaker 3: the wolves. And I also think, and we learned this
Speaker 3: in COVID, that there's a very special relationship when adult
Speaker 3: kids can live at home for a defined period of time,
Speaker 3: with a plan, with an exit strategy. I'm not saying indefinitely,
Speaker 3: because they do have to grow up, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of nice to have that relationship evolve and for them
Speaker 3: to see you. With the launch of this book, I
Speaker 3: finally learned some of the ups and downs that my
Speaker 3: parents had had financially that I had no idea and
Speaker 3: it took until now for it to come out, prompted
Speaker 3: by the book. But my parents, I think, to some degree,
Speaker 3: overshielded me because I never understood that maybe it wasn't
Speaker 3: so easy to write that check for something going on.
Speaker 3: I was oblivious as a child. Let them in the
Speaker 3: amount you feel comfortable. I'm not saying open it all
Speaker 3: up if it's not appropriate, but sometimes sharing with them
Speaker 3: that you're just not a bottomless pit of money to
Speaker 3: support whatever activity they want can be really valuable.
Speaker 1: And also just empathetic.
Speaker 3: If they understand that you didn't always have it so easy,
Speaker 3: and you struggled, and maybe you had career insecurities or
Speaker 3: whatever it may be, that really opens up a new
Speaker 3: chapter in your relationship that can be so wonderful, awesome.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we're going to take a quick ad break.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Bobbie Ravel about launching
Speaker 1: financial gurn Ups. Well, we are back talking with Bobby
Speaker 1: Rebel about how we can launch Financial grown Up, since
Speaker 1: she's been talking about how moving back home is not
Speaker 1: necessarily a sign of failure, that it can be a
Speaker 1: way to build wealth in the early years when your
Speaker 1: earnings might be low, and then you have that possibility.
Speaker 1: But let's back up a few more years. Let's talk
Speaker 1: teen years. Okay, So we have a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: who have kids in the tween and teen ages and
Speaker 1: they're saying, well, I'd like to have good financial conversations
Speaker 1: with my kids. What are some ways we can open
Speaker 1: up that topic and some good ideas for how to
Speaker 1: teach kids a little bit more about how they might
Speaker 1: handle money before they're actually going out on their own.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love this question.
Speaker 3: And the answer to your question is to ask questions,
Speaker 3: ask them, ask them what matters to them, and ask
Speaker 3: them how they feel about certain things. Right, and look
Speaker 3: for openings in whatever is going on in your daily life.
Speaker 3: So you might just put them in charge, for example,
Speaker 3: of the groceries one week, even if you're paying for it,
Speaker 3: ask them to figure out how to make a budget work,
Speaker 3: or think about ways to get them I guess to
Speaker 3: kind of extract what their goals are and what they're
Speaker 3: doing to get to those goals. So, for example, thinking
Speaker 3: about the kind of lifestyle that they want to lead,
Speaker 3: what's important to them? Do they want to live in
Speaker 3: a city, Well, what career choices would make sense for that?
Speaker 3: Or what are you interested in? Hey, what does that pay?
Speaker 3: Because now we have so much salary information available online,
Speaker 3: they can go through, well what does it cost to
Speaker 3: be me? And what is the cost it? Does the
Speaker 3: math work if I want this career?
Speaker 1: And so for.
Speaker 3: Example, I'm giving a lot of my own examples here.
Speaker 3: With our oldest she had wanted to be a teacher.
Speaker 3: She was constantly getting higher and higher certifications with their lifeguards.
Speaker 3: She was amazing with kids, a great camp counselor.
Speaker 1: But she did the math what does it cost to
Speaker 1: be me?
Speaker 3: In New York City where she wanted to live and
Speaker 3: to be comfortable and be able to go out with
Speaker 3: her friends. And she ended up switching majors in college
Speaker 3: because she wanted more income, And I think that's fine.
Speaker 3: She found something that she also loved, and she's a
Speaker 3: cybersecurity consultant now and pays better than teaching, and it's
Speaker 3: also fulfilling. And that doesn't mean that some days she
Speaker 3: won't teach. It doesn't mean maybe she won't teach a
Speaker 3: course on cybersecurity at a local college, right, So you
Speaker 3: can do that. But sometimes what you love doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be what you do for money, and I think
Speaker 3: that's an important lesson for teenagers. It's also important for
Speaker 3: parents to realize the way that they're communicating with their
Speaker 3: children and the subtle messages that they send can really
Speaker 3: have an impact. There's a theory called your money scripts.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of this? I've heard that we certainly
Speaker 1: have stories about money and our heads from our backgrounds.
Speaker 3: So the term money script actually comes from a financial
Speaker 3: therapist who's also a CFP named Brad Klants, and so
Speaker 3: people can google that and learn more about it. But
Speaker 3: he basically talks about the fact that we have unconscious
Speaker 3: beliefs about money that stem from our childhood. So I
Speaker 3: say this because I want parents to be very mindful
Speaker 3: that it's not only what you directly communicate to children
Speaker 3: and teens, it's what they're observing and basically your household
Speaker 3: culture when it comes to money and the unwritten and
Speaker 3: unsaid things that you say.
Speaker 1: So maybe you.
Speaker 3: Get a bill and you are discussing it with your
Speaker 3: partner and they overhear it, or they hear the stress
Speaker 3: in your voice, or they hear the excitement in your
Speaker 3: voice when something good happens in your career or something
Speaker 3: like that. Just be aware that they're understanding more than
Speaker 3: you might realize, and that the unconscious messages that you're
Speaker 3: sending to them that are shaping the way that they
Speaker 3: view money. And I think that's really important for parents also,
Speaker 3: especially with teenagers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean with that though, I think a
Speaker 1: question probably at least some number of our listeners may
Speaker 1: have is maybe they didn't grow up with as much
Speaker 1: resources as they now have. So whatever script they absorbed
Speaker 1: from their growing up, I mean, there just wasn't as
Speaker 1: much money around, which means that there are harder choices
Speaker 1: to make all the time. Or if their parents said
Speaker 1: we can't afford something, they actually believed it. So when
Speaker 1: they are growing up though, with more resources which children
Speaker 1: can pick up on. You know, they can google your
Speaker 1: address and see what you paid for your house, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just the level of transparency is there
Speaker 1: in a way that I think was not necessarily in
Speaker 1: the past. How can you sort of direct those scripts
Speaker 1: to recognizing that you still do have to make smart choices.
Speaker 3: I love this question and it comes up all the time.
Speaker 3: It's probably one of the most common questions that I get.
Speaker 3: There was a trend recently on TikTok called loud budgeting,
Speaker 3: and I wish I had been so clever to come
Speaker 3: up with this term. I call it peer positive peer pressure.
Speaker 3: Because kids see so much, whether it's on social media
Speaker 3: or just among their friends about different things and wanting
Speaker 3: to kind of keep up. You can't just say, well,
Speaker 3: we don't have the money for that. It's very hard
Speaker 3: to say no. So it's not a question of not
Speaker 3: having the money. It's a question of making different choice.
Speaker 3: And that's really the way to frame it for kids,
Speaker 3: and I think that's actually a wonderful way to approach money,
Speaker 3: is it's not a question of not having enough. It's
Speaker 3: a question that these are the deliberate, thoughtful choices that
Speaker 3: we make with our money. It may be simply that
Speaker 3: we're going to save it because we want to have
Speaker 3: a larger financial cushion. We want to have more money
Speaker 3: to invest. It doesn't have to be because we don't
Speaker 3: have the money for that. It's because we're choosing not
Speaker 3: to buy that one item. And I really advocate for
Speaker 3: parents not only using that with their kids, but helping
Speaker 3: their kids use that language with their peers, because when
Speaker 3: they're teenagers, so much of that push for financial things,
Speaker 3: for material things is coming from their peer group, and
Speaker 3: if they can learn to manage that peer pressure by
Speaker 3: saying I could buy it, but I'm not going to.
Speaker 3: For example, I'm going to I'm investing it. I'm buying
Speaker 3: in videos them. Right, I'm saying day trading millionaire.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly.
Speaker 3: So, like you can have your face fancy purse or
Speaker 3: whatever they're buying these days, your fancy sneakers, your golden
Speaker 3: goose sneakers for six hundred dollars or whatever they're now
Speaker 3: going for.
Speaker 1: I'm not into that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to buy one hundred dollars snakers, which is
Speaker 3: still a lot of money, and I'm going to take
Speaker 3: the five hundred bucks and I'm going to put it
Speaker 3: into the QQQ stock mark. I'm not endorsing anything but
Speaker 3: into a technology stock index, and let's see how who's
Speaker 3: got more stuff at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Whatever it may be.
Speaker 3: Right, So give them the language so that not only
Speaker 3: you're having those discussions with them, but when it comes
Speaker 3: up outside the household, they have the words to support
Speaker 3: whatever their decision may be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now when your kids went off to college,
Speaker 1: what was your financial arrangement with them, I mean, apart
Speaker 1: from whatever tuition and all that might be, which is
Speaker 1: its own discussion, but like in terms of financial support,
Speaker 1: was there still or should people think that there should
Speaker 1: be ongoing support or I mean, what point does that
Speaker 1: kind of evolve.
Speaker 3: I think that's really an individual decision and that can
Speaker 3: be influenced by many different factors. Right in my case, honestly,
Speaker 3: it was factored very much by my husband, who felt
Speaker 3: very strongly that he wanted them to focus exclusively on
Speaker 3: their studies and we did not have a huge emphasis
Speaker 3: on them quote earning their own money. That said, they
Speaker 3: were on a budget, so they did not have a
Speaker 3: bottomless pit of money. I think, as I said, that's
Speaker 3: a very personal decision. I personally, when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: my father had me have jobs in college, and I
Speaker 3: think it was really valuable, but it's important that we
Speaker 3: not make these decisions in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: If we have a.
Speaker 3: Partner or another parent involved, sometimes you have to make
Speaker 3: a compromise and do something that you can kind of
Speaker 3: both live with. Which is a delicate way of saying
Speaker 3: I didn't get my way.
Speaker 1: I think it's really good for kids to have jobs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that hasn't always happened because again, I'm not
Speaker 3: a household of one. It's not a dictatorship. We have
Speaker 3: to compromise, and he felt that was the best thing
Speaker 3: to do. But I will tell you, these are kids
Speaker 3: that we're getting very strong grades, that were doing very
Speaker 3: important work in the community. And actually, I correct myself.
Speaker 3: During the pandemic, my stepson did actually work from home.
Speaker 3: He worked for me, and he worked for a company,
Speaker 3: a company that I worked for at the time. They
Speaker 3: needed production help because I was suddenly broadcasting from home, yep,
Speaker 3: and they hired him and they really did put him
Speaker 3: to work, So he did actually have a job. So
Speaker 3: I have to correct myself. He did have a job,
Speaker 3: and he did invest that money, and again it's doing
Speaker 3: very well. He actually has proven to be a very
Speaker 3: strong investor. So I'm very proud of how he's putting
Speaker 3: that money to use. I think it, like I said,
Speaker 3: it's a family discussion, and it's also kids specific, because
Speaker 3: what works for you know, I have three kids.
Speaker 1: You have I think five? I do we have five kids?
Speaker 1: And are they all the same personality? They are not
Speaker 1: in any way the same personality at all, exactly.
Speaker 3: So I think it's really important that we have a
Speaker 3: lot of gray years when it comes to kids and people.
Speaker 1: To me as an expert, but you know what you do.
Speaker 3: You your kids are all individuals, and you, guys, you
Speaker 3: know in your heart what they need. I think jobs
Speaker 3: could be great to provide structure. I think if that's first,
Speaker 3: and also of course if there's an economic need for
Speaker 3: them to have their own spending money. I think the
Speaker 3: best thing is to have a kid have a job
Speaker 3: and that's their spending money. And if you can cover
Speaker 3: the tuition, that's great. I certainly think the jobs where
Speaker 3: you work for your tuition in part you may have
Speaker 3: a combination of grants. I think the works I think
Speaker 3: it's called the work study. I think those are amazing.
Speaker 3: They're great because those jobs are they're like the best jobs.
Speaker 3: I was always jealous of the kids that had those
Speaker 3: jobs in college, because they have all the fun jobs.
Speaker 3: You know. I was fold and closed at a store
Speaker 3: that was similar to the gap, but that was my
Speaker 3: job in college, was just working in retail.
Speaker 1: I think it really can vary.
Speaker 3: And the important thing is that your kid is aware
Speaker 3: of the value of the school you're sending them to.
Speaker 3: If you're paying all the tuition, you should show them
Speaker 3: the bills. And that is one thing I did, is
Speaker 3: I would show them every bill so that they could
Speaker 3: see how much it costs. And also I would have
Speaker 3: them get the bills and ask for reimbursement for activities.
Speaker 3: That way, they're really when they physically see the bill
Speaker 3: and they have to ask you for that sorority dues
Speaker 3: to be paid back into their account, they're aware of
Speaker 3: the cost rather than them just magically being paid. So
Speaker 3: it's all about the conversations, and it's also about what
Speaker 3: is right for each individual kid and well, and.
Speaker 1: With that, I understand from some things you've written and
Speaker 1: said that you are not a big fan of the
Speaker 1: idea of people like cutting off kids at an arbitrary age,
Speaker 1: that there's not like some point that everyone has to
Speaker 1: be fully on their own that you've seen happy families
Speaker 1: do different things at different ages. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Look, but I will say candidly that the book
Speaker 3: Launching Financial grown Ups is written in theory for parents
Speaker 3: and grandparents and adults who love them. Ages sixteen to
Speaker 3: twenty six is the range, and there is a reason
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 1: I when the health insurance goes away, right, twenty six, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's exactly that, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'd written it before the affordable character, it probably would
Speaker 3: have been twenty two, twenty three, yeah, right, But I
Speaker 3: do think that that is our society kind of has
Speaker 3: extended adolescence into the twenties at this point from a
Speaker 3: financial standpoint, where they do create this financial tie that
Speaker 3: makes sense if it doesn't cost me more money to
Speaker 3: put the twenty four year old on our health insurance,
Speaker 3: which happens to be the case right now. Why would
Speaker 3: I ever create an artificial bill to prove a point? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's silly. Yeah, And I do talk a lot about
Speaker 3: the family ecosystem and never increasing cost to prove a point.
Speaker 1: If you have a kid on your phone.
Speaker 3: Bill and they cost fifty bucks a month, but to
Speaker 3: have them on their own be one hundred bucks a month,
Speaker 3: keep them on your phone bill. They can pay you
Speaker 3: back on set up an autopay where they're hitting you
Speaker 3: with a fifty bucks a month, they could reimburse you.
Speaker 3: But by all means, don't create artificial bills.
Speaker 1: That's just silly. So funny story with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I came of age before cell phones, right, so I
Speaker 1: was always had my own plan. My little brother, who
Speaker 1: is a number of years younger than me, obviously grew
Speaker 1: up with a cell phone in his high school then,
Speaker 1: so he was on my parents' plan forever, right like
Speaker 1: into his thirties and so on. At some point in
Speaker 1: his thirties he's like, okay, this is enough, so he
Speaker 1: got a family plan and put my parents on it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I love that, so they can be on his plan
Speaker 1: now forever.
Speaker 3: But that's genius, because the point is, if it's going
Speaker 3: to be cheaper for the family ecosystem, do it right.
Speaker 3: If Netflix is allowing you five logins at any.
Speaker 1: Household, I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I haven't looked recently how they phrase it, but if
Speaker 3: I don't want to advocate anyone breaking the law, but
Speaker 3: by all means, share subscriptions. If there's a family plan
Speaker 3: that makes sense for you, and you don't have to
Speaker 3: nickel and dime your kids if it's if you're already
Speaker 3: paying and it's unlimited. You know it's up to six
Speaker 3: people in your family, Well, you don't fit in there, but.
Speaker 1: You know, so my kid is going to be on
Speaker 1: his own for his own Netflix. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is. We'll see who's the highest turner, right, But I.
Speaker 3: Told the kids I was paying for Spotify. I think
Speaker 3: the plan is up to six users. I said, you
Speaker 3: could be on my Spotify free, no problem, because it's
Speaker 3: not costing me anything more the phone plan. If the
Speaker 3: phone costs me fifty dollars more, you're paying me back
Speaker 3: the fifty dollars, right, so that they're aware of it.
Speaker 3: If they choose to not use Spotify and they want
Speaker 3: to use another one, you're not.
Speaker 1: Paying for it. You're are with the competit on your own.
Speaker 1: But it just makes sense.
Speaker 3: But as to the you know, the cutoff age, it's
Speaker 3: not about a one time cut off.
Speaker 1: It's really about.
Speaker 3: Creating an exit strategy, and that is something there's a
Speaker 3: whole chapter in the book called the exit strategy. You
Speaker 3: don't want it to go on indefinitely, and it's not
Speaker 3: about a magical age.
Speaker 1: But let's say they.
Speaker 3: Do something for a few years and then they go
Speaker 3: to a graduate school, and again something makes sense to
Speaker 3: share some expense in some way, like for them to
Speaker 3: live at home. Well, let them live at home. I
Speaker 3: got divorced very young. I'm now remarried, but I left
Speaker 3: at home for a year. I didn't even need It
Speaker 3: wasn't financial.
Speaker 1: I need to be with my parents.
Speaker 3: I was in a life change that I needed to
Speaker 3: be just with my parents. So I think it's really
Speaker 3: important that we not judge and we not have these
Speaker 3: absolute rules that different gener can't live together at different
Speaker 3: stages in life. Conversely, you might have something where you
Speaker 3: might be living with your parents because they.
Speaker 1: Need your help.
Speaker 3: Maybe you have aging parents and it's not about your
Speaker 3: financial dependence or money at all. So I love the
Speaker 3: idea of generational household. I think that that can be
Speaker 3: a blessing in the right phase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just the idea of having close relationships with
Speaker 1: your adult children. As this evolves, as adolescence does take longer.
Speaker 1: I mean there was a time when I mean my
Speaker 1: parents got married at age twenty one, so of course
Speaker 1: they're off launched on their own very young, but that's
Speaker 1: just not something people really do so much anymore. And
Speaker 1: so having those extra years where people are building their
Speaker 1: lives and you can still be a part of it
Speaker 1: as a parent, it is kind of a cool concept.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a really cool concept.
Speaker 3: And I think that you could have a whole different
Speaker 3: discussion with someone who is a different level of expertise
Speaker 3: whether these are good trends or not that people are
Speaker 3: getting married later and forming households later. But when you
Speaker 3: look back, was it the best thing that a lot
Speaker 3: of women were dropping out of college because they got
Speaker 3: married and then they never had that economic independence so
Speaker 3: that they would have it later in life when inevitably
Speaker 3: many women do need it through divorce or being widowed
Speaker 3: or whatever it may be. And was it so good
Speaker 3: for a twenty yeue year old man to suddenly have
Speaker 3: no time to sort of evolve their career where there
Speaker 3: suddenly have to be the breadwinner and it's all on
Speaker 3: them because the women couldn't work. It's a whole separate discussion,
Speaker 3: But I'm not sure these are bad trends that we're
Speaker 3: doing these things later and letting people breathe a little
Speaker 3: bit first, And one question you put.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I think is not an
Speaker 1: automatic thought for maybe women, that you need to that
Speaker 1: it's good to have the thought though, that what does
Speaker 1: it cost to be me? And that I am responsible
Speaker 1: for that? Right, yeah, because that is not historically been
Speaker 1: that whatever it costs to be you? Raising X number
Speaker 1: of kids is something that you are personally responsible for.
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know there are lots of different ways
Speaker 1: families are structured, and we're big fans of stay at
Speaker 1: home parents here at best of both worlds too. But
Speaker 1: it's good to at least go into it thinking about
Speaker 1: what resources are going to be necessary and whether you
Speaker 1: have the option of creating those resources on your own,
Speaker 1: should you need to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I should say I've had a very hybrid
Speaker 3: work experience, and I have talked about this. Most of
Speaker 3: the reason that I left being a full time journalist
Speaker 3: was because I did want to be home more with
Speaker 3: my kids.
Speaker 1: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: I look at my first book and I write it,
Speaker 3: you know, my seven year old is sleeping, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my goodness, I was so young.
Speaker 1: He was such a baby. He's said all you know,
Speaker 1: now that is oh gosh.
Speaker 3: But you know, I just wanted to be home with him.
Speaker 3: And you know, that's why I went from being a
Speaker 3: full time journalist to being an author, so that I
Speaker 3: could have this hybrid life where I could still have
Speaker 3: a career. But also it's not always just about getting
Speaker 3: the and paying for the childcare. It's also about the
Speaker 3: experience of being a parent. I've a friend who's always
Speaker 3: reminding me, don't forget it's the journey. It's the journey
Speaker 3: getting it done. And I think that's so important, and
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that you brought that up. But I
Speaker 3: do think that, especially after the pandemic, what's really wonderful
Speaker 3: is a lot of stay at home parents, whether their
Speaker 3: moms or dads, can have a more of a hybrid
Speaker 3: approach to work if they choose to. And that's really
Speaker 3: been a gift for me that now I'm talking to
Speaker 3: you from my home office versus before the pandemic, even
Speaker 3: when I worked for myself, I went into an office
Speaker 3: because of just the social pressures and the social norms.
Speaker 3: And now my sixteen year old is waiting, and when
Speaker 3: we're done, I'm taking him to his tennis lesson Excellent,
Speaker 3: It isn't that great?
Speaker 1: And then when I'm done with that.
Speaker 3: I'll come back and I'll be writing my weekly newsletter,
Speaker 3: which tends to be bi weekly sometimes because I'm not
Speaker 3: as good as your jivement, your.
Speaker 1: Time management skills.
Speaker 3: I need to get better at listening to that your
Speaker 3: morning podcast, which I love.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3: I think it's important. You made a really good point
Speaker 3: and a very important point for all of us.
Speaker 1: Well excellent. Well, so we always end with a love
Speaker 1: of the week. So I can go first, so you
Speaker 1: can think of it if you would like. But I'm
Speaker 1: going to throw out the concept of reverse ATMs, which
Speaker 1: has saved me in a few situations. So the number
Speaker 1: of places that have gone cashlests since the pandemic is
Speaker 1: kind of startling to me as a person who it
Speaker 1: likes cash and also likes to give children cash because
Speaker 1: I feel like they can use it and if they
Speaker 1: lose it, they haven't lost that much of anything. It's
Speaker 1: not a problem. But so many places are cash lists now.
Speaker 1: So I've like sent kids to amusement parks on like
Speaker 1: youth group trips and they're like, wait, I can't use
Speaker 1: my cash. I have to use a card. But most
Speaker 1: of these places now have installed machines where they're reverse ATMs.
Speaker 1: You put in the cash, get out a card for
Speaker 1: that amount, and so then you can use that. So
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a cool technology as well.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really smart and it really is
Speaker 3: a way of bridging the gap between the sort of
Speaker 3: push and pull between because people always ask me, they
Speaker 3: frame digital money as such a problem, but it's the reality.
Speaker 3: So it's important that we can sort of go between
Speaker 3: both worlds. Yeah, there, I made a pun on your podcast.
Speaker 1: Exactly, all right, what's your I love of the weak, Bobby.
Speaker 3: So my son just came back. I have a sixteen
Speaker 3: year old who goes to boarding school. He's in tenth grade,
Speaker 3: and he just came home for spring break a couple
Speaker 3: of days ago. And what's interesting is with teenagers, this
Speaker 3: could happen. I'm sure if your kid's home full time
Speaker 3: as well, but it seems like they're changing. All kids
Speaker 3: are changing constantly, but you get it in chunks when
Speaker 3: they come home from boarding school. And so he just
Speaker 3: came home and I haven't seen him in person. Well
Speaker 3: I saw him in person in New York a month ago,
Speaker 3: but still having these full conversations with him he's like
Speaker 3: this many adult. He changes and he's suddenly challenging me
Speaker 3: on things and his new thing and this is a fun,
Speaker 3: interesting thing, so people can try with their teenagers. His
Speaker 3: new phase is he is listening to these songs, rock
Speaker 3: and roll songs, kind of I don't know. He was
Speaker 3: listening to Guns n' Roses and also Hotel California.
Speaker 1: I think that's the Eagles.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't even know these songs, but
Speaker 3: I kind of know them, but I don't know who
Speaker 3: sings all of them. And he's looking at the words
Speaker 3: and sort of trying to figure out, well, what is
Speaker 3: the true meaning of this song? And apparently, for example,
Speaker 3: he told me and people can look this up. I
Speaker 3: haven't verified these yet, Hotel California is actually about materialism
Speaker 3: and the quest for more and more success in America.
Speaker 3: You can check out, but you can never leave. I
Speaker 3: guess I have no right. We're constantly striving for more.
Speaker 3: That's what he said. But the point is, I'm having
Speaker 3: these deep conversations with this manchild, this change who's sixteen,
Speaker 3: that I've never had before. He suddenly became this super intellectual,
Speaker 3: curious kid who's just like researching all these songs. He's
Speaker 3: researching David Bowie songs and I don't want to say
Speaker 3: what some of those are about, but I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: he's challenging me. It's just so interesting when your kid
Speaker 3: changes on you in a fascinating way that you didn't
Speaker 3: see coming.
Speaker 1: So that's my love. Well, and I bet he's like
Speaker 1: two inches taller than the last time you saw him
Speaker 1: as well, so that's always why.
Speaker 3: That happens too, Yes, and the ironies. And we went
Speaker 3: to the pediatrician, which he was sort of he felt humiliated.
Speaker 1: I don't know if teenage parents can understand this, because.
Speaker 3: They do have to still go to a pediatrician at
Speaker 3: age sixteen. They do, and he wasn't happy about that
Speaker 3: because you've got these like toddlers in the office because
Speaker 3: it's spring break, so the kids down here are in school,
Speaker 3: so there's no other teenager at ten am on a
Speaker 3: Monday in the pediatrician's office. But he's there with the
Speaker 3: babies that aren't in school yet. But the pediatrician clarified
Speaker 3: that they do take kids certainly until eighteen and sometimes
Speaker 3: twenty one.
Speaker 1: So anyway, pediatric and adolescent health, Yes, so Bobby let
Speaker 1: everyone know where they can find you.
Speaker 3: You can find me at Financial Wellness Strategies dot com
Speaker 3: where you can learn more about that business. You can
Speaker 3: also buy my book Launching Financial Grownups on Amazon or ideally,
Speaker 3: I'll say, at your local bookstore. But if they don't
Speaker 3: stock it because it's been out for a year, please
Speaker 3: ask them to get it. And the same thing at
Speaker 3: libraries libraries. If you don't see it at your local library,
Speaker 3: please ask them to stock it at your local library,
Speaker 3: because we always do want to support libraries.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Bobby,
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Well,
Speaker 1: we are back listening to Bobby Rebel talk about launching
Speaker 1: Financial Grownups and how we can help young adult children
Speaker 1: and teens and tweens figure out how to navigate the
Speaker 1: world of money. So this question came to Sarah. I
Speaker 1: can read it says, do I have this right that
Speaker 1: neither of you use Google Calendar or digital calendars at all?
Speaker 1: How do you schedule appointments that go on your paper
Speaker 1: planner when you go out? Do you have a different
Speaker 1: system for how and do you write down tasks like
Speaker 1: call for doctor's appointments and events like Mother's Day brunch, Sarah,
Speaker 1: are we writing on cave walls?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How far in the past are we living?
Speaker 2: I know this is kind of funny as you read
Speaker 2: the question, I'm like, the question did seem a little incredulous.
Speaker 2: I'm like, but in twenty ten, I mean, no one
Speaker 2: was carrying around a phone, so either you were using
Speaker 2: like a palm pilot or you were whipping out your
Speaker 2: lin and then that would have been weird, right, So like, anyway, yes,
Speaker 2: I bring my planner with me. I usually have my
Speaker 2: hobuonichi cousin everywhere I go. It is honestly just not
Speaker 2: that big. I mean I look at the purses and
Speaker 2: backpacks most people carry around, and there usually isn't a
Speaker 2: space for a planner. I usually carry like a kind
Speaker 2: of average sized tope bag. It has my planner, my wallets, sunglasses, keys,
Speaker 2: It's about it. But that means if I'm in an appointment,
Speaker 2: I can just turn to the day and write it
Speaker 2: down right then and there.
Speaker 1: Now, if I do happen to.
Speaker 2: Go somewhere and I don't bring it with me for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, then I just take my best guess. Like
Speaker 2: I know that usually Tuesdays and Thursdays are more flexible,
Speaker 2: and then I tell them I may have to call
Speaker 2: them a reschedule, and I email it to myself using
Speaker 2: my phone right then and there, so then I know
Speaker 2: when I'm clearing my inbox, I'll see that appointment be
Speaker 2: able to either write it in my planner if it
Speaker 2: works out or if it doesn't, be like, uh oh,
Speaker 2: I have to call and fix it. But honestly, that
Speaker 2: doesn't happen all that often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I often bring my little calendar with me if
Speaker 1: I'm in a situation where I think I might need
Speaker 1: to schedule something, and sometimes when I'm traveling, I just
Speaker 1: take a picture of the next few weeks in the
Speaker 1: little calendar. It's a pocket sized at a glance weekly calendar,
Speaker 1: and this is separate from my planner. So the calendar
Speaker 1: is where I put time specific stuff and that is
Speaker 1: for the whole year, so I can schedule stuff out
Speaker 1: as far as I need to. I buy the next
Speaker 1: year is in like September, so then I have that
Speaker 1: to schedule out for the next year for anything. The
Speaker 1: planner is where I create my priority lists for an
Speaker 1: actual week and create my daily to do list, so
Speaker 1: I have two separate things. But because of that, the
Speaker 1: calendar is quite tiny and is no bigger than a phone,
Speaker 1: so it can go anywhere if I'm worried about losing it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I take pictures of the next few
Speaker 1: weeks and then I have that on my phone so
Speaker 1: I can consult that if I happen to not have
Speaker 1: the paper calendar with me. And yeah, I've taken guesses too.
Speaker 1: It for some reason I don't have it and find
Speaker 1: I need to make an appointment, I will guess and
Speaker 1: then call back if I need to. It's really not
Speaker 1: that challenging. I haven't had anyone really look at me
Speaker 1: like I am carving on a cave wall. Maybe it
Speaker 1: could happen, but I'm okay. It works. It works. If
Speaker 1: it works, it works, I mean really in life, if
Speaker 1: something works, it works, right, Like this is a blanket
Speaker 1: productivity tip. You do not have to change just because
Speaker 1: everyone around you has.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I understand that if you're working in a major corporation
Speaker 1: you have to use Outlook for your work meetings and
Speaker 1: things like that, but you can still have your own
Speaker 1: calendar that's separate, I mean, or you can, you know,
Speaker 1: if you know roughly what your work hours are. You
Speaker 1: can have those and then schedule things outside of it
Speaker 1: on your own paper calendar if you want to, or
Speaker 1: you can have one digital calendar that's like Google and
Speaker 1: you import your stuff from work and so you can
Speaker 1: see it there. You can put your own stuff on
Speaker 1: Google and then nobody needs to know about it at work,
Speaker 1: but you have one source of truth as well, so
Speaker 1: lots of different options. Figure out what works for you
Speaker 1: and then stick with it, right. I think it's the
Speaker 1: changing that can can make people lose stuff. Well, what's
Speaker 1: been best of Both worlds? Talking about launching Financial Grownups
Speaker 1: with Bobby Rebel. We will be back next week with
Speaker 1: more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 2: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 1: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 1: work together.