Teaching Kids About Money #061

who shops there. Yeah, and what I love recently, man, is that they specifically sent me an email that was targeting the fact that you could specifically spend money from your f s A You're Flexible Spending account or your h s A your health savings account. You can use that money to buy z Any eyeglasses, any eyeglasses really, yeah, obviously any eyeglasses. But the fact that Zenny, I mean it was just frugal eyeglasses coupled with tax advantage, healthcare

savings accounts. I mean just all that sort of marrying together made me extremely happy. I love Zenny, dude, I've been rocking them for like six years now. Yeah. So I personally don't wear eyeglasses, but if I did, Oh, your eyes are perfect, blah blah blah. I mean, I've got a perfect vision. I could probably fly a fighter jet or something like that. I'm not gonna do it, but prefer to podcast. Actually, I think you're too tall. I think you have you have to be like a

certain height. Oh that's a good point. Yeah, And you're so tall you'd pass out because the g's all the blood and rush out of your head and you'd be those guys passing out, just crashing into the ocean way to crush my dreams. Thanks, thanks for that. But I might as well get eyeglasses now too. Then I've been pretending this whole time that I had a good vision. I thought you had a chance. Yeah. So, but Zenny

is awesome and they have the cheapest eyeglasses around. And there was an article recently in the l A Times by consumer writer David Lazarus, and man, he's just like a great writer if you want to follow consumer issues. And so he recently wrote about why eyeglasses cost so much in the United States, And it's because there's this major company that owns pretty much all of the major frame manufacturers lens manufacturers, and they also own actually a

lot of the eyeglass shops as well. Like yeah, and so there looks it's two companies combined, but initially it was called just Luxotica, and then they acquired another lens company, and so ultimately there's this sounds like a monopoly to me. Yeah,

there's this monopoly cartel. And when it comes to eyeglasses in our country, and the only way around it is to buy online with companies like Zenny Optical or Warby Parker, and Warby Parker is a little more expensive than Zenny, and Zenny actually has I think, from what I've seen, pretty much almost as cool frames as Warby Parker for a fraction of the cost even of Warby, but Warby is awesome too. But either way you go, that's how

you're gonna save money on eyeglasses. There's a recent discussion in our Facebook group that you can find if you search how to money just asking about cheap eyeglasses and Zenny man just keeps getting brought up by everybody because they are one of the best ways to save And if you go to the traditional route to get eyeglasses, man, you're gonna spend way too much. But I guess at least the bright side is you're taking out of your health savings account, right, That's right. And a quick tip

for folks as well. A lot of times people complain that the glasses don't fit them super well when they come from Zenny, right because they're just getting shipped from overseas and there's not a technician someone there in the store that's fitting them to your face. And here's the deal. When the glasses are that inexpensive, and we're talking under twenty bucks, sometimes ten or even six dollars, do not be afraid to hit those glasses with a hair dryer.

Almost all the glasses I've received from Zenny, I've modified slightly, and you just heat them up with a hair dryer and very slowly, obviously, like you don't want to just like blast it and have your plastic frames start like blistering. Right, it's a bad look. But you get them soft enough slowly over time, and you can kind of bend the bridge in a little bit so it fits your face

a little bit more. If if maybe the arms aren't curling around your ears enough like you want them to, you heat that up and so you soften the plastic a little bit and that allows you to bend it. Obviously, there's a little bit of metal in there as well to add to add a little bit of sturdiness. But you would never think to do that with two ray bands that you got from sung Glass, Hut or prol

Vision wherever. But when you get a cheaper pair like that, I didn't hesitate at all because I thought, what am I gonna lose? Like six bucks? That's exactly what I'm gonna lose six or six dollars. That's the way to get a much better fit. And honestly, that's pretty much all they do in store as well. They just have these heated beads sort of thing that they sort of dip the glasses in and it gently warms it and

then they just bend it. So, yeah, if your glasses from Zenny aren't fitting your face really well, hit it with a hair dryer and just slowly start bending it a little bit, and before you know, you're gonna have a pair of glasses that fits you very very well. That's so awesome, dude, I love I love that. D I y your eyeglasses, buy them super cheap, and then bet them to fit your face yourself, all right, Like I think people, especially when it's so cheap, really, what

do you have to lose? Yeah? Exactly, And I would know again, I would never have thought to have done that on an expensive pair, but with Zenny, why not. And so most people when they buy from Zenny, they try to buy like three or four pairs at once. It just kind of helps. Just you'll find maybe some fit your face better than others. And in case you lose one, you gotta back up hair. It's nice and when you're spending forty or fifty bucks overall for repairs, like,

why not do it? Yeah? Man, that's right, all right, Matt. Since we're talking about teaching kids about money today, I wanted to mention quickly that there's some good news on the personal finance front, personal finances being taught in schools. It turns out that New Jersey just enacted to law that's gonna require personal finance classes in in schools in

the state. In the state of South Carolina at the same time has a proposed piece of legislation that kids would have to take personal finance in high school and then pass a test before graduation knowing more about debt and budgeting and just all these things that. Right, you and I we wish we learned in school, but we didn't, and so we kind of had to be self taught when it comes to personal finances in so many ways. And I've heard that same gripe from some of our listeners.

Even Brendan in our Facebook group recently said, I love this podcast in this Facebook community. Man, I wish they taught us this stuff in public school. And that's the sentiment that a lot of people have. I'm trying to learn on the fly and I'm finally getting into personal finances, but nobody talked to me in school. And that's totally true.

And in fact, there's a financial report card that gets pridate that gets provided by a Center for for Financial Literacy, and only five states in our nation get an a grade for their financial education efforts, and so that's a that's a bummer, right, Yeah, that's pretty rough, dude. We learned about trapezoids and all these other things that we

never come across again after we graduate. But the fact that personal finance is something that we use literally pretty much every day of our lives, we're not learning about it in schools. I think it's a huge disservice to our students, and so like, we would love to change that. So you know what, you and I we need to

try to make something happen in our state. You know, I was actually thinking when you mentioned in South Carolina about Chad's behind that junk, Oh Chad from our Monday episode, Chad Carson kind of changing the world up there in South Carolina, at least in Clemson. Yeah, man, I couldn't agree with you. More personal finance needs to be taught. All right, Matt, let's move on to the beer that

we're drinking today on the show. It's another beer from listener Alex, who sent us something for Monday's episode as well. This is a beer called Peanut Brother by Great Notion Brewing. It's a peanut butter chocolate stout. I'll let you go first this week. What's your one war to describe this beer? Buddy? Oh man, this is good beer. It's been a minute since we've had a peanut butter stout. My one word is going to be refreshing. Yeah, but you want to

expect in that word. Yeah, man, this beer is powerful and tasty, and so my word is going to be Reese's. That's obvious. Sometimes you just gotta go with the obvious thing right in front of you, all right, Matt, onto the topic of hand teaching our kids about money. You know, since there isn't a formal system in place when it comes to teaching our kids about money, the job falls squarely on us as parents. And so hopefully this is something that we've realized and that we can intentionally teach

lessons as we shape our kids perceptions towards money. But at the very least, we have to keep in mind that our own attitudes get absorbed as our kids are

adopting our views towards money. Yeah, man, I think that there that we placed a lot more pressure on teachers nowadays, and we expect our teachers to teach our kids everything they need to know in regards to life and how to move through it, and as parents, sometime aimes we take a back seat thinking that our teachers are gonna do the heavy lifting in regards to some of that teaching, and teachers do a great deal of teaching for our kids.

They I'm so amazed already at at how much my kids learn are learning in school, but also it's our job as parents to reinforce those things and then also teach some things that they're not going to learn in school and personal finance, you know what, bummer I wish it was a part of high school courses, but it's something that we have to teach them even if it was in high school courses. It's something that we need to start teaching them way before they get to that

point as well. And so we're gonna talk about in this episode how to teach to different ages and stages, some of our philosophies on how we're teaching our kids and how we're planning in the future to teach our kids about money, as well as some key principles and tactics that you should consider taking in your own family life as you seek to raise children that know how to go out in the world and handle their personal finance as well. And so we'll dive into all that

stuff right after the break. All right, Joel, we're gonna talk now about some principles that we feel are incredibly important for us to teach our kids. And the first one that we're gonna cover now is the value of money. You know, honestly, this is the biggest lesson that I want to teach my kids, right is for them to understand that they receive money because they've done work. At this point in the raising of our kids, I don't

plan to give our kids allowances. Right, There's something about that that there's a stipend that you just get money because you're alive and live under my roof. That kind of rubs me the wrong way. I would approach it more from an angle like the like their own commission. There are jobs that need to be done, and there are things that we're going to have talked about, and if they do have that desire to earn money, that this is how you do it. Do you feel like

that's a little too hardcore. No, I don't think so. Honestly, I don't plan on giving my kids an allowance. I think there are decent reasons for giving your kids an allowance. I'm not completely opposed to the idea, but for me, I mean, I think, yeah, when you get out in the real world, the way you earn money is typically pretty much solely through through work, right, and so helping your kids establish that correlation that you get money by working,

I think is the right way to go. And like you said, giving them a stipend for living under your roof, I mean until we have something like potentially universal basic income in our country. If we have that, then maybe I will revert more to an allowance to model right right, but that doesn't exist, and so it doesn't model our current systems that we have, our current economy. Yeah, and so for me, I want to give an example. My parents didn't pay for my first car, didn't even really

put a dollar towards it. I knew from the get go that I had to work and save every dollar that I made to to buy my first car, and so I distinctly remember how much money I spent on my first car, and I remember the care that I took of that car because I bought it with all my own dollars. I remember how many cars I looked at in order to buy that first car, and it was such a big moment for me, and it was such a good money lesson that I had to make the money myself. And then I had to go make

that purchase. And my dad was there every step of the way. He helped me to make the purchase, but the money was all mine. It was one of my first big time growing up decisions. And I feel like you actually kind of rob your kids of something like that, of kind of a coming of age moment, and we we lament in our culture how our kids are growing up at later and later stages, but yet we're we refused to give them the ability to make decisions on their own and to kind of hand the reins over

to them. And a lot of it has to do, honestly, with taking control of their own money at an earlier and earlier age. Yeah, at that point you were able to truly learn the value of money because you had worked for And that's my big rub with the allowances that I think a lot of times the argument for an allowance is that, well, we want to teach our

kids how to handle money. We want to teach them how to spend it and how to save it, but I think how to earn it is one of the most important lessons that you can learn about money, at least initially. Is the end we're gonna get to a principle that might be a little more advanced, but initially you get money because you work. And and the other thing is too, is that it's important to note that as parents we can still love on our kids with gifts.

My girls aren't only ever going to receive money from us, from from my wife and I just because they've done a chore or a job, or they've accomplished something. There's gonna be times when we give them things because we love them. I think there's a fine line between. Certainly, there's hardcore lessons that I want to teach, for sure, but at the same time, there's gonna be moments where we kind of break the rules because you know what, I'm your father and I love you and I want

you to have this. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, completely, and yeah, there's times where having those solid rules and then that occasional time where you're able to do something a little bit out of the ordinary and give your kids something super awesome that they've been asking for or wanting. I think that's super important at the same time, Matt.

And so right now, my kids are super young, they're five and three, and so what I'm trying to instill in them is that they can make a specific small dollar amount for work that they do around the house. Typically that's cleaning up the room or really just picking up their stuff because it gets all over the place, right, And then what we do is we're able to go out to the dollar store or something like that and they're able to spend their dollar or if they've saved

it up. They maybe they have three or four dollars, which is really cool because we're kind of starting really small to teach that idea of you want this thing, but you don't qubably have enough money for it yet, so saving for a little bit longer, you're gonna be able to afford that, maybe in a couple of weeks. But instilling that idea that they get money when they work has been so awesome. My oldest daughter like often volunteers now to do work and she's like, can I

get paid for it? And so we have to have that discussion and we'll talk about that in just a little bit. Do we get paid for every chore or are there certain things that are that we do just being just because we're part of the family. So it sounds like some of that's kind of taken to it. Then, huh, Like she's got the idea of of working and sort of earning the money she does. My three year old

not so much. She's kind of on the sidelines and now not working for the money oftentimes, and then she just doesn't get paid and she doesn't really mind it at that point in time, but she actually really doesn't like it when we're at the dollar store and she doesn't have enough money to wake up calling. Yeah. Yeah,

so I think she'll get into it. She's three. I'm trying to find ways to keep a balance where they don't feel terrible about the fact that they didn't do that work, but you know, coaching them along the way so the next time there is work to be done, they're both ready to get up and and start cleaning up because I need their help out around the house now at this point, right, yeah, man, they're getting to that age where where they can certainly help out around

the house. Our daughter is also five, but we just started way too young, and I think we kind of kind of burned her a little bit. Like we started the chores and the tasks that she could earn money when she was three years old, and it didn't really stick. Like she didn't at all understand the value of money like she would she would earn the money and then she knew it was money, so she would stash at places and she would kind of forget where money was, and that we would find this money is kind of

scattered around the house like a little pack rat. She's like a hoarder. Yeah, yeah, she knew that it was valuable, but she didn't quite understand what it was for. And so maybe that's more on us as parents to kind of connect the as dots and maybe show up at the store to show that, hey, if this is something that you want, this is something that you can buy with with your own money. And honestly, what I think might help now is the fact that our oldest daughters

can read. Because we had a chore chart before and we would have the jobs written out, but we'd have to tell them what they had to do. But now she might be able to look at that and read and you know it's it'll say bed, and she might know that, Okay, I have to go make my bed now. Right. So, yeah, we're certainly at the very early stages of teaching our kids about money. But these are the principles that we've identified to be important to us that we are teaching

our kids. Yeah, and studies have shown math that you should really start as young as potentially three, and obviously, like hardcore lectures aren't going to get the job done, but starting young is really important. So we're trying to do that. And so if you have kids of almost any age, it's important to to find out where they're at and give them money. Coaching you know where they're at, specifically in life. So let's move on to our second principle that we want to cover, which is that giving

right is just as important as saving and spending. If you're so focused on earning money and feeling like that every time you do something good, you perform, you do what you're supposed to do, you then receive that money. I think that sort of mindset, if that gets too ingrained into a child, that can lead to a lack of compassion, right. And that's where generosity and an open hand to where you're not so attached to your money

can sort of create that balance. I want to have kids who have compassion, right, and who have that sort of generous heart, so that when they're in a situation where they see somebody in need or somebody that might be less fortunate, they're not immediately thinking, oh, why aren't you working harder? No doubt, Matt, and I feel like a lot of families will do this differently, Right, We'll teach their kids about generosity and giving a little bit differently,

and that's okay. And I think one thing is important it's hard for a kid to visualize the impact of their dollars being given away if it goes into a jar and you write a check based on that amount. So I would recommend to to folks to go serve with your kids at the same time. So maybe your check is going to one chair and you serve at

another with your kids. However, it works where you can help your kids connect the dots in a meaningful way that their money is going to actually physically help other people. Maybe it's serving at a soup kitchen or playing bingo

at a retirement home nearby where you live. But look, kids, the money that you earned and then the portion that you donated actually went to serve donuts and coffee for our friends at this at this retirement home, or to provide the food that we're serving at this soup kitchen. There are just ways to help connect the dots, and oftentimes you need a tangible experience in order to kind

of drive that point home. And we have a whole episode on giving that we did a while back, and especially if you're looking to find a good charity that uses your money, well, we talked about websites to use in that episode. They will help you find charities that are doing really good work, and you can find charities that use most of their money to go to the actual people in need and not just to service overhead

of a bulky nonprofit. Another thing that we prioritize when teaching our kids about money to distinguish between the work they need to do in order to get paid and then work that they need to do around the house just because they're part of the family. And so right now, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of airing on the side of paying my kids for work just to kind of teach them to concept. And there aren't really that many tasks that they can perform at ages

three and five. Before I mow the lawn, my five year old can go pick up sticks in the backyard to make sure that I don't mow over them right. And she can obviously pick up her room and make her bed, and she's learning how to do more and more things, which is cool, But right now I'm airing

on the side of paying her. But the older and older she gets, the more responsibilities that she's going to have in our house just being part of the family, and she's not gonna get paid for them, and so I think it's a line in the sand that you need to draw that's gonna be different at different ages. But that's an important thing for me to teach my kids, is that there are certain things they have to do just because they live in our house and because they

are a part of this greater thing called a family unit. Dude. I love what you said about them getting older and then it changing because things do change, and something that may have started out as a task that they were paid for can then sort of graduate into something that they don't know. You just got to do that now because you're old enough, right, and now you get paid for these other things exactly. Yeah, these more complicated or

these more labor intensive tasks. I think something else too that can differentiate between those two tasks or what you call them. For some reason, in my mind, I hear chores, and I think of it's just something you do because you're part of the family. Right. In my mind, you don't get paid for chores, even though I did, like as a kid, like that's just what my jobs were called as a kid, Like I did my chores, and then because that I was paid an allowance, I didn't

get my allowance if I didn't do my chores. It's just the language that my parents used. But in my mind now, for whatever reason, chores to me are what you do as a family, because you're part of the family and you're expected to do them. What we tried to do when us three is we we tried to call the tasks that she were to perform where she would earn money. We tried to specifically call those jobs in order to mirror the real world, right, so to mirror the market and okay, are did you do your

job this morning? If so, then you get paid. Chores to us were the things that by default, now you're just part of the family. Pick up your toys, right Like, that's just something that you have to do. And that all comes down to the individual family, right A task or a chore for one family might be a paid for a job in another family. It just depends on what you want to focus on as a parent. Yeah, I love that because then it makes it really simple to ask your kid at the end of the day,

did you do your chores? And what jobs did you accomplish today? And so you can really divide that up in a meaningful way to kind of nail that home for the kids. Just creating that divide in terminology is so helpful, not just for the kids, but for how you talk to them about, you know, what they're actually doing. Man.

You know, since it's been over a years since we've tried to get Eavy on board with the whole get doing your jobs and getting paid things, this is gonna get me pumped to uh give it another go because we got that Dave Ramsey Junior kit and we've got the clear envelope system where what's cool about that is they're clear and you can put the money in there and they can see it. But uh, yeah, we haven't

really done that. In a minute, in a little bit, Matt, I've we're gonna talk about, you know, the cash system versus using There are some really cool apps out there and now to help families and kids figure out this money thing. And I just love that there are easy systems that help kids function in the real world when it comes to money. It's called fintech, yes, exactly financial technology. But I remember back in the days when we didn't have fintech, Matt, and we just had cash. Right, that's

just a plain old cash, cash, money yeah. And one thing that my parents did that I really respect and I want to use too when it comes to how my kids spend money is giving a cap of an amount that I'll spend for my kids on certain things that our needs. Even because I remember distinctly when I was a kid, I wanted the cool sneakers. I wanted the Scottie Pippens shoes or whatever it was, and they

were so expensive, and those Jordan's. I don't think I ever had a pair of George's, but I did have one pair of Scottie Pippens and I didn't have Jordan's, and they were pretty sick. I wasn't a sneaker head, So I want to, like you want to bother you know what I was into? Actually, I just I was

in the sunglasses, are you huh? You remember back in the day how big Oakley's were, Like Oakley's were such a big deal completely and so, like you, my parents would cover basic clothing, right, like they're gonna pay for my clothes. There's a little bit gray though, Like they didn't set a hard cap, and so I could kind of negotiate. I could say, hey, you know, I really want the easily here you know that this is what I would like, but sunglasses. I'm a kid. I don't

need sunglasses. And that was something that I had to work for myself, and my parents were not gonna put any of their money towards my Oakley I think they're called I wraps, but they're just like this, I don't know how to describe them, but they would like stick to your face, real real tight. That's why you gotta find the Folkleys, dude. But I was so into sunglasses, specifically Oakley's. I was such a sucker. You wanted to

look like that cool summer lifeguard. Dude. That's totally true. Well, one of my friends was a lifeguard and we would go and and hang out with them at his pool and he had a pair of those white I think he had white Oakley I wraps back in the day. Dude, those were so freaking awesome. Yeah, but I just could remember my parents would set a cap on my shoes

off few dollars and so every good point. Yeah, so every year, before before school would start, they would and and and actually, honestly, now I look back and I'm like, that was a lot. I mean right now, I mean I can get a sweet pair of Chucks on sales like twenty eight bucks, so fifty bucks seems like a lot, but yeah, they were really cool to have that cap.

And anything over that that I wanted to spend was money that I had to save up from birthdays or Christmas and working for money on the side, so I was incentivized to go moilan or or to find some work if I really wanted the shoes that bad. And occasionally I did and I got that one pair of Scottie Pippins, and other times I settled for a cheaper pair of sneakers because I didn't have the funds, so

I just had to roll with some lamer shoes. Plus, even if you did have the money, you would have had to decide what is the value of this money? Is it worth these fancy shoes? And maybe it wouldn't have been. And so after the break, we're gonna cover some specific tactics to keep in mind as you're trying to raise financially responsible children. And we're gonna cover one

more principle as well that is quite lofty. So we're gonna get to that right after the break, all right, Matt, Before we get to the tax plays to help our kids learn these money lessons. Let's talk about one final principle, which is that we really want our kids to learn about the glorious thing that is passive income. And so we want to incentivize our kids by adding to the

funds that they're willing to leave in savings. We want to essentially be a bank that pays generous interest amounts so that our kids are willing to leave money in their savings accounts. And then as they get older, we want to potentially even incentivize them to put money into

a retirement fund. And so if our kids get a job when they're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and they want to put aside money for their retirement, after lots of discussions about that, I'm sure I'm really excited about the fact that I can boost their ability to grow their wealth by matching their retirement fund contributions. That's that's something that sounds awesome to me. Yeah, well, specifically, man, I've heard

of the four oh one k parent match. Not us really even to retirement, but even if a kid saving safe or a car, to match every dollar that the kid puts toward the vehicle, you will match that. And so essentially that if they set aside, says, well, now they can afford something that's three grand. And obviously in this case, right the idea is to drive home the principle of hey, if there's a four O one K

with a match, you take it. Right when you get that job out of school and they have an employer match four own k where they're putting, oh, four percent or six percent of your salary towards retirement, and they're gonna match that, like, you take that match. That's free money. It's just a way to teach that principle. And obviously it's a little bit different right when when you're looking at a vehicle versus retirement. But I love the idea of sort of creating a game and finding a way

to make it fun. And it's something that I think can be way more relatable when it's something that the kids care about. Here and now, Yeah, really what you're doing is you're incentivizing long term thinking, and that's a really hard concept for a teenager to grasp, and so you're gonna have to do a lot of talking about that, really showing them through action, whether it's matching a car

purchase or matching contributions to something like a roth Ira. Obviously, they'll thank you later because that's gonna be huge when they're in their thirties and they look at their statement and they're like, holy mackerel, that's insane, how much that's grown. Mom and dad didn't tell me it was going to be this good. But creating that long term mindset in your kids, even if you don't see it taking root,

they're learning something while you're doing that. And so really teaching passive income, although it's really hard, should definitely be a priority. Well yeah, I mean not only two teenagers, but even to adults to have that long term mental

thought process. One of our recent Money pro episodes we had Grant on where he talked about how time does not equal money, and his whole talk was about disrupting that linear path of working and therefore you earn money, which sounds a little contradictory to our very first statement right where Okay, the way you get money is by working. And so that's why that's why this is such like

an advanced principle. This is a really sort of lofty goal that we're trying to to teach kids, and that's why it's so important to start when they are kids, because even as adults, we have a hard time wrapping our head around the idea, Okay, well, how am I going to make money if I'm not actually working? Well, go back and listen to that episode with Grants Abatier. Like we talked about how you have to focus on investing,

you have to focus on entrepreneurship. Right if you are able to create a business that is making money for you, where you're brokering other people's time and they're contributing and they're earning money, but at the same time they're earning you money, these are the ways that you need to start thinking about work, not just in Okay, I will work, I will punch the clock, and then I will receive a paycheck. That's how most of us think about money. That's how I think about money a lot of the time.

But over the course of the years, we're working towards more of that passive income. But you gotta start thinking about that now. All right, Matt, let's talk about some of our favorite tactics to help our kids learn these money lessons. And one big question that comes up from folks right now is do we do a cash method or do we teach our kids through kind of these advanced fintech apps, And I think, honestly, it probably depends

on the stage that your kid is in. Cash can be so much more tangible, especially if you've got youngsters. But certain apps will, as our kids get older, be more helpful with certain aspects of how they handle finances. And so I think I mentioned a while ago that when my daughter lost her teeth, you know, giving her coins actually meant a lot more to her than having

a dollar bill. There's something about just having four yeah, clink them around in your hands, yeah, And so to seeing that that meant something to her and paying her through that method, well, that was the most effective way to do it. But as your kids get a little bit older, and you also want them to learn how to handle plastic because that's a part of our everyday world now. And you want your kid to leave your house not just knowing how to balance a checkbook, because

checks are going away folks like that. That's not gonna be an important skill at some point. So you want them to know how to handle a plastic card in their wallet, and there are apps that can help them do that. There's one that I like called green Light, and it costs five dollars a month, which might sound expensive, but honestly, it's a small drop in the bucket if you're thinking about helping your kids handle their finance as well.

And there's another one that's similar called fam Zoo, and so i'd encourage you to look at either one of those if you have older kids and you really want them to learn how to handle plastic, well, it's kind of like learning how to ride a bike with the training wheels because you're in control. And you can also incentivize them to save more of their money by offering

a higher interest rate, like we talked about earlier. And I love that that you can do it digitally because your kids, if they've got a smartphone and they're rolling with apps and they want a credit card or a debit card, I mean something like green Light or fam Zoo is the perfect option I think for for older kids, especially as you're seeking to teach them how to handle their money well as they go out on their own

at some point. Another sort of broad tactic that we can keep in mind is to model the behavior that we want our kids to learn. I was listening to an interview with Jail Collins, who's just this brilliant sort of mastermind investor, and he was talking about how he

regretted that he lectured too much. He's got a daughter, and he felt that he he was just harping on money and hitting those sort of hard money lessons way too young, way too often with his daughter, which hit a little close to home, considering that's when I feel like that, you know, we've already done with our oldest daughter. And you know, what he realized was that, man, I was just lecturing way too much and instead of what it turns out that she needed to see was she

needed to see it lived out. And he was actually able to see now like twenty five years later, that his daughter was able to learn that from his wife, Like his wife is super frugal and led by example, and his daughter was able to learn that from her. And so in that case, it wasn't about, you know, the lecture, the big talk and this is the lesson that I'm going to teach you, but in fact it

was more of the day to day. Obviously, all kids are different, right, like some kids will learn more readily from clear spoken word, like here is a lesson that you're gonna learn now, hear me. But for a lot of other kids, and I would probably even say most kids, they might learn much better from seeing it lived out in their parents lives. Yeah, I think if we take the do as I say, not as I do approach, it's not gonna work out very well. And you know

that too. Like if you go to work with a boss who kind of has that approach, they say, do what I tell you to do, but they don't take the same prescription that they're doubling out. You don't really want to follow in their footsteps, and your kids will

be the same. And so practicing some of these things in your own life will be readily apparent to your kids as they try to emulate you and Matt, like as our kids try to emulate us, the way that we act in front of them is going to be crucial, and honestly, a huge part of this is also admitting our mistakes, being real in front of them, and being able to have an open and honest conversation about the

times where we didn't live up to our ideals. There's really something about a parent choosing to be vulnerable about their mistakes that really resonates with a kid and has long lasting impact. I mean, I still remember those conversations with my parents when they were up front about a mistake or something that hadn't gone the way they had planned, and just the fact that they would choose to confide in me as a kid was meaningful. And the same

thing happens for us as parents. When we assume that our kids can handle that sort of information and we lovingly share it with them, there's something that connects in their mind in a way that lectures and even just modeling it perfectly just doesn't do. Kids are freaking awesome and and I mean naturally our kids that they tend to act in the ways that we will act, and so if we're generous, they will tend to be generous as well. And like I mentioned earlier, I like our

kids don't always turn out like us exactly. They form their own lives, but their default is to act in a similar way as us their parents. So make sure that you are living it out as well. And like

we mentioned earlier, start early with your kids. Kids are so impressionable, especially from the ages of three to seven, And like Matt just mentioned, doing the lecture at age three, four or five it's not going to work out so well, But making sure not to avoid talking about money in those years, because there are a time where kids are forming their biggest opinions about so many things as they see us live and as they see us talk, and

so making sure that those conversations and those little lessons are being started early. That's a huge tactic to employ to start your kids on the right money path. And then finally make sure that you're talking about money. Often bringing up the subject kind of takes away from that taboo. We did an entire episode where we talked about you

should be talking about money. You should be talking about your personal finances, and so maybe say when you're planning a trip, you can talk that through with them, you can talk about the expenses. The goal is to have healthy conversations surrounding money. A lot of us grew up in households where the only time money was talked about was because there were fights going on, but because money was tight or there are disagreements. You don't want the only time that money is ever discussed to be a

stressful time. You have control over that. We have control over that as parents, and so that's why we talk about money that's why we enjoy it. We think it's important. But we know especially that it's important for our kids to hear us talking about money in a healthy way and in a way that's encouraging to each other and to our our families. So let's make sure that we're all trying to do that in our lives. Regul early. You gotta know that there's sometimes that there are difficult

and sometimes heated discussions that need to happen about money. Yeah, sometimes it's just disagreements, right, Like, it's not a huge deal, But those discussions should really take place behind closed doors where your kids hopefully cannot hear you, because those do leave a lasting impression. So trying to avoid those situations where they're mega influenced by arguments about money is a

good idea. It's okay to hear parents disagree or have an alternative take, but heated argument is is something different and can create long lasting negative connotations with money. You don't want that knockdown, drag out fight, right right, Yeah, so a dinner table discussion great place for for money. Or Emily, I want those sneakers now she refuses to buy me those Jordans. I want it's really only the

Scotties for you, Joel. All right, Matt, let's get back to the beer we had, Peanut Brother by Great Notion Brewing. I do love the name of this beer, Peanut Brother. It's got like this sort of amish looking art block print on the on the can, and the guys on the can have these super awesome long beards just like you find in Portland. And this is a beer from Portland, so uh, and the Portland mixed with Pennsylvania like almost kind of right right in a top hat too to

boot right. Nicely done. And Matt, the word I used to describe this week's beer was Reese's because this is a peanut butter chocolate stout. Well, my question for you is that you said this is a powerful beer. Why powerful? Did you have some events as a child where you thought Reese's peanut butter cups them candies is powerful? You know it's funny. I'm not even a huge fan of Reese's peanut butter cups. I know what is wrong with you? Dude? That is the best peanut butter, peanut butter inside of

a Reese's peanut butter cup. Somehow it is like this magical peanut butter. It's that's the best. I don't want to get into a fight right now, but I will. I will if we have to, I'll take you down. And you know that. But this beer, man is so good. There's something really awesome about a peanut butter chocolate stout to me. I don't know, Maybe I need to eat some more Reese's, maybe maybe I'll feel differently about him now. But this beer was really be good. Totally tasted like

a Reese's, but for me way better. Yeah. With it being a milk stout, was a little creamier, a little smoother, It had that lactose and my word, was refreshing. And that's because it's sort of felt like a refreshing glass of milk with a little bit of peanut butter going on in it. A lot of times like peanut butter stouts are exactly like they sound, thick and chunky, like there's not actual chunks of anything right in the beer, but they're pretty thick and heavy. This beer drink really light,

really refreshing. It's sort of like a cold glass of milk, but maybe with a little bit of Rees's peanut butter cup on the side. I'm partial to a glass of milk, and that's probably why I like this beer way more than I like Reese's peanut butter cups. All right, Joel's time now for our final thoughts. All right, Matt, first final thought we have to share is that Emily and I are having a baby. Yeah. I didn't know if you're gonna share with folks, man, you're kind of wait

until the end a little bit. Yeah, I wasn't sure a wind to drop the news. But we're pregnant with baby number three. So yeah, we're really excited. We've gone in seeing the ultrasound we got saw that heartbeat and super fast and uh, that's awesome, man, it's just excited. Man. It's another kid to to love on, to be a part of our family, and also to teach about money. Right, that's right. Yeah, that's awesome and congrats, thanks buddy. So

we'll move on. And the first principle that we want to teach the kids that we bring into this world, we want to we want to teach them the value of money. It's tough out there for kids. Most kids don't learn how to handle their personal finances very well. We went over the fact that they're they're they're just isn't much education to be had in the public school system, and so that's on us to teach our kids that they get money typically and almost always through working for it,

and arguably just as important is giving. We want to teach our kids to have generous hearts and to be compassionate. It's not focus on just earning and amassing just every single dollar that they can. Yeah, man money and everything. So and also it's important to help our kids distinguish between doing work and getting paid for it and just the chores that they have to complete for being a

part of the family. And the last principle that we focused on today is to teach our kids about passive income. This is gonna be a little bit trickier, especially for younger kids, but as our kids get older, we're gonna find ways to teach them the principles of compounding interest, of finding ways to make your money work for you, and not just investing, but teaching our kids the ways

of entrepreneurship. We want to incentivize that long term thinking, and then you really want to model that behavior for your kids. It's so important for them to see you living out what you believe that's more important than any lecture that you'll ever give is the way you live this out in front of them. But at the same time, you do have to have those conversations, and usually it's

gonna be small conversations here and there. They're gonna be more interspersed into your daily life as opposed to sit down on the couch long term, long form discussions. Teaching your kids about money isn't necessarily easy. We're not trying to make it sound like that, but it is important and hopefully you can implement some of these principles into your family's life to make sure your kids have just a little bit better of a grasp on personal finances

before they leave the nest. That's right, man. Going back to the beginning of the show, we talked about how schools are starting to implement this right. However, that's not guaranteed, and so much of this they need to learn from us as parents, So now is the time to start. So man, that's gonna be it for today. Thank you everyone for listening to the show. We really appreciate it. You can find us on the web at how to money dot com. There we'll have our show notes up

and that's right. If you like this show, if you found it helpful, we greatly appreciate it. If you'd leave a review on Apple Podcasts that helps us get the word out about the show to other personal finance enthusiasts and other parents that want to help teach their kids how to handle money well. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button while you're there. That's right, Papa Joel. So until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out Man