March 30, 2022 • 24 mins
Bobbi Rebell is an author and host of the Financial Grownup podcast. Her newest book is: “Launching Financial Grownups: Live Your Richest Life by Helping Your (Almost) Adult Kids Become Everyday Money Smart.” She was previously the global business news television anchor and personal finance columnist at Thomson Reuters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy
and this is the author Snack series. Bobby Rebel is
an author and host of the Financial grown Up podcast.
Her newest book is launching Financial grown Ups. Live your
richest life by helping your almost adult kids become everyday
(00:27):
money smart. She was previously the Global Business News television
anchor and personal finance columnist at Thompson Reuters. Bobby, why
did you write this book? I wrote this book because
I knew so much on paper and yet was failing
fabulously with my almost adult children. And I was so
(00:48):
almost embarrassed and baffled at the situation, because I mean,
I had like two decades of covering investor news and
writing about personal finance. I had become a certified financial
planner a few years earlier, and yet my kids just
wouldn't listen. And I realized that there's a lot of
advice for parents of younger children who will They might
(01:09):
not always listen, in that they might throw a temper
tantument just ignore you, but they're not going to just
kind of yes, you say, I got a mom, and
like walk out the door with their friends. It's a
different level and the stakes actually are much higher. You're
not just teaching them lessons just as a lesson. This
is actually happening to them and there are benefits and consequences.
So I needed help, and I kind of looked for
help and there wasn't So I went to my expert
(01:31):
friends and there was a book. One thing that struck
me was that your father was a big influence on
you becoming financially independent at a young age. Can you
talk about what led you to buy your first apartment
at age twenty three? I mean, that's incredibly unusual. It
is incredibly unusual, and you're right, my father had a
huge role. And it's been very interesting watching his reaction
(01:53):
to this book because he's sort of looking back and saying, oh,
I forgot I did sit you guys all down and
just tell you had to tell me what you need
for the semester. And he in that case, he was
very generous. He wrote a check, but then that was it,
and he said, well, I I you know I thought that, well,
if you ran out of money, you would just get
a job. And we did have jobs in college. So
after school I went to Penn. A lot of my
(02:13):
friends had these big fancy jobs, and I was just
you know, going to my journalism job, and I was
living at home, and we were looking at rental prices
in this area called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan, and the rental prices were like a
thousand dollars a month for a ground floor back of
the building studio. So we did the math on that,
and we realized that because it was a time when
(02:36):
it was the early nineties, real estate was actually in
a real slump in New York City, that if I
had the down payment to buy basically that same studio
and there were they were going for about a hundred
thousand dollars. So we did the math on, you know,
what a loan would be in all the costs associated
with it, and we realized that I could buy one
and the total payments on that would be less than rent.
(02:59):
And so oh, I you know, was able to get
the down payment through having had savings. And then I
did save by living at home for some time, which
is something my stepdaughter did. And then you know, you
do often need parents co signing for you at that age,
so again I had that parental support, which is definitely
privileged and definitely not something everyone has. But I was
(03:19):
able to buy a co op in that complex it's
called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West Side um in
that market flop. But I will tell you no one
else is buying real estate in general at that time.
So I bought at a time when people were afraid
to buy New York City real estate. And that was
very risky in that sense. But we did the math
and we felt that the amount of money I would
save in even two or three years not paying rent,
(03:40):
but paying this, you know, partially tax deductible, maintenance and mortgage.
The mass just worked and so I did it. One
of the interesting things about your books, you really put
it into context how both COVID and the age of
helicopter parenting has changed our relationship with how we how
we talk about money with our kids. How has that
(04:02):
impacted it. It's so interesting, and that's such a good question.
First of all, it's changed our relationships, and that when
normally kids adult kids move home, it's often in a
situation where they are in financial distress, there's something going
on related to them as a person. This they were
moving home because something happening to everyone. So it was
(04:23):
a shared experience, and there were other things happening. They
didn't have activities to constantly run to. They weren't making
plans to go see their friends in person, so they
were around and sort of a little less attached to
their friend group than they might have been. We also
got to witness, and this is really interesting, we witnessed
our adult children working at their jobs, and a lot
(04:46):
of parents I don't think fully appreciated how hard their
kids worked, and so that was a whole new appreciation
of them as individuals, not just our children, and the
way that other people see them and the way that
other people might have expectations for them. It also helped
create an environment where after a certain point, I mean
remember when it was fifteen days to stop the spread. Well, okay,
(05:06):
so you got fifteen days, so your kid comes home,
so maybe you're doing their laundry and making sure they
have all their meals made for them. But as time
went on past that fifteen days, things start to settle
in a little differently, and maybe mom is not making
all of her meals for her twenties something children, maybe
they're starting to make them for their parents. Maybe they're
starting to have different kinds of conversations with their parents
about their adult money issues that are very different from
(05:28):
just oh, i'm short on cash, can I have some money?
Maybe they're really talking more about the things going on
in their life and their goals and dreams, and they're
also seeing, just through general conversation, the financial realities of
their parents, which may not be as perfect as they
necessarily assumed. A lot of us assume our parents have
things always perfect, And I learned over the last few
(05:49):
years even that my parents had more ups and downs
than I was aware of at all when I was
growing up that things were not always perfect. And they
kept a lot of that from me at an age
appropriate time, so it was not a mistake for them
to not share it, But it was just interesting to
learn that their career path worn't necessarily perfect all the time.
What was your personal experience during the pandemic with your
(06:12):
almost adult kids and talking about money. It was a
lot of that. I mean, we did have a lot
of conversations that we never would have had because, um,
the oldest one, well, she had actually just graduated college
and started her job, so she was very busy, and
I got to witness how as I said, how hard
she was working. She worked for a consulting company. And
(06:32):
I also was able to see my stepson was he
was gosh, he was a sophomore when he moved home.
He's at NYU two Film School, so it was interesting
to see him adjusting and to see how they related
to their friends. And you know, you just talked to
them more because they're there and you didn't have distractions.
They weren't going out to meet their friends at night.
(06:54):
They were just home. And so I remember we went
the first few months we were um in the kind
of upstate New York at a house and we had
dinner the first night there. I remember it was a
Taco Tuesday, and we all sat down to dinner together
at the same time on a weeknight, not a special
occasion or a holiday. And my youngest who is fourteen,
(07:16):
comments and he says, we've never had dinner together, and
everybody liked it. And we did start to really have
dinner together where even if someone so wasn't hungry or whenever,
they came and sat at dinner time, and so many
conversations happened then and just getting to know each other
in a way that wasn't as purposeful. It just happened
sort of. I hate the word authentically, but it did.
It happened authentically, and that that was a great experience
(07:38):
for our family, and I think that they came to
respect us. They saw us as adults, not just parents,
which is also really healthy. They saw more of our
lives because they're seeing it from a different perspective as
young adults, not kids that are in high school getting
ready to go to college. They're let they weren't as
only focused on themselves. Were there any kind of financial
stories about your ups and downs that you shared with
(08:00):
them during this period of time that they didn't know? Yeah,
well that I always share them because I think it's
really important, So I don't I have to think that.
I'm sort of struggling about the timing of when I
share things. I certainly share the fact that you talked
about the apartment. Well, after I got the apartment, I
then wanted to do a Hampton share and I was
so tight on money that I took out a load,
which is not going to do and I have shared
(08:23):
that publicly, It's in my previous book. But um, yeah,
so don't do that so they know that, so they
know we do all you know. Look, we are always
making mistakes all throughout life, and it's really a question
of being able to course correct and make different decisions.
But we all make mistakes, and I think that they're
more than aware of that. There's also a fine line, right,
(08:43):
and then I think parents try to struggle with what
is too much to share and how do you figure
that out? Well, you look at first of all, the
child's personality, maturity, age, need. For example, in the book,
I started age sixteen, because they need to know things
if they're going to start driving a car, if they're
going to have a job, there's a need that they
have to understand the basics of what's going to come
(09:05):
out of their paycheck and and the responsibilities that go
with having a job. So you focus on all of
those things, but remember that you may unintentionally give them
reason to worry. So if you think that they are
sort of getting a sense of things, it's important to
talk to them directly so they're not just getting it
from overhearing things. Sometimes we aren't as discreet as we
(09:25):
think we are, and I think that's the worst case scenario,
is when you unintentionally are giving them information to be worried.
About so if that's happening, you need to be more
direct with them and let them in on things. But
it is important to give them a general sense of
you know, your values when it comes to money, more
than a scarcity mindset. You want to avoid that. So
(09:46):
you can talk to them about where you're prioritizing your
resources and maybe there are times when you're gonna be
a little bit more careful with money because you have
a goal like saving for their college. So you can
talk to them about those kinds of things. You don't
have to assign dollar numbers to everything. For example, if
you want to talk to them about what we call
state planning, which is a terrible name because it implies
(10:08):
that you have to be uber wealthy. But the truth
is all that means is kind of where everything goes,
you know when you pass, and you can tell them
the general ideas that you have without telling them dollar amounts.
That said, a lot of information is available on the internet,
So even if you have a little kid like Aby
with a seven year old, if their kids, if their
friends got curious, they can all look up what everybody's
(10:29):
houses costs and things, so they can figure stuff out.
Because of technology, they have a lot more information than
we had when we were young, and so don't be
naive and think that they don't know things. So control
the information if you think that they're getting it. I
used to host a radio show. It was a college show,
and people would call with our problems, and the second
most common problem was a failure to launch discussion of
(10:53):
what do I do. My child won't leave the house
in terms of, you know, financial independence. They don't make
an of money, and my spouse says we should kick
them out. How do we handle this? Every case is different,
but in general, you need to sit down with the
young adults and talk about your expectations, your hopes for them,
(11:13):
and really come up with a plan. And one of
the toughest things to do is tell them that their dream.
You know, they may be saying, well, i'm home because
I'm working on this business. So I'm working on my
big project. You have to basically say, okay, but you
need income too, So if you want to be here,
I need to see an income producing job. I don't
care if you don't like it. You need a job
just to have a job for money, and unless you do,
(11:37):
you're gonna have to find another place to live by
this time, and of course it depends on the context.
If they've been home a week, give them a break.
But they have to have an exit strategy, and that
is one of the themes that I talked about in
the book. But along with expectations, you also have to
let them know that you have confidence in them, that
they can do it, and that you believe in them,
and that you're there as a resource, not a financial resource,
(11:59):
but as a resource to come up with ideas and
to brainstorm and let them figure out the details. But
let them know that this is a very temporary situation
and that they you know, set a timeline work backwards.
If they say they need more times, they explain to
me why, and make a decision if you think that's valid.
But you need to really set the bar high and
(12:21):
let them know that they can do it. That's the
biggest thing, because there's usually more psychology than fact in
why they're staying home. They're probably afraid to fail. They're
afraid to disappoint you. They might have set a goal
and set it publicly and they haven't gotten they haven't
made it yet, right, so they don't want to disappoint
anyone it's okay to be doing a job job while
you're following your dream. So much of your book, what
(12:44):
I enjoy about it is that it's not just like
here the facts, here's how to set up a rath.
I R right. It's it's infused with emotion, which I
think is such a big part of our relationship with money. Yeah,
because that was the hard part. It is more psychology
then fact. I do have the factual information in there,
but I had that and I was failing, and that's
(13:04):
because I wasn't communicating well. It's important to really think about,
for example, the tone in which you speak to your children,
and make sure it's a supportive tone, not a judgmental tone,
that you're accepting them, that you're hearing what they are saying.
One of the people interviewed in my book, and I
believe you've interviewed her on this this podcast, is Tory Dunlap.
(13:26):
So she's right in this category. She's twenty five years old,
and the most important thing she really said, and I
think she's spot on, is listen and hear what your
child is saying, because if you just yell at them
to get out of the house by a certain date,
date probably won't, by the way, and it's going to
ruin your relationship and create tension. And what's the point
of that, right, You're basically saying you're a failure. Get
(13:48):
out of my house. So that's not what you want
to do. You want to just listen to them. Tell
me why you're here. What is this, you know, season
of your life doing to get you to where you
want to? How can I help you besides just indefinitely
providing a place to sleep, I want to help you proactively,
you know maybe, And I say in the book, if
you have connections, life is hard enough. Make the connection,
(14:11):
Make make the introduction, make sure your child is going
to follow up, make sure it's going to be well received.
But do the things that you can do within your
power reasonably to help them leave. Did you talk to
your kids before you wrote the book about the fact
that you felt like you were failing. I'm connecting with
them on this front. Yes, yes, And what did they
and what did they say? Okay? So Ashley wrote the
(14:34):
epilogue and it's my favorite part of the book. And
I had to so and I can be a helicopter
parent even though I was aware of it, and didn't
want to be it. I see it. I see it
all the time. And she, you know, she wrote this
epilogue which gives her perspective on what I wrote, and
it gives her money tips and her justification of a
lot of things that we thought about. And so it's
(14:54):
really funny. So she defends her decision in the epilogue,
which I talked about in the book, how she's live
thing at home, rent free. You know, we're not charging
her for anything except the phone, but which has done
another thing. But but we're basically and she's living free.
And I am watching her savings bill that she's doing great.
And the pandemic helped because she wasn't running to go
out with her friends. There was a lot less temptation.
(15:16):
And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, um,
my boyfriend and I are buying season passes to Disney World.
Now we live in New York City, Disney World has
in Orlando. There's a pandemic. Her number one priority is
saving for this apartment that she's wanted since she was thirteen,
basically since she met me and moved in and she
(15:37):
heard my story. She's been saving for this apartment for
you know whatever, almost a decade, and I'm like, this
is not aligned with what you've told me you want
to do, and it's my job to help you. And
you know, I'm also thinking and I need you, I
love you, but I want you to go out and
be happy. And you know, because we had everybody home
(15:59):
for the demic and she just was adamant and we
thought about it. I was so angry and she justified
it and I sort of went, well, I can't control it.
She'll be home forever and this is not going well.
My book will just my book, you know, my book.
I'm like, well, it'll work out if she buys the apartment.
If she doesn't, that'll be just a reality check, okay.
And in the epilogue, I'm not going to go into
(16:21):
the whole story, you will hear her perspective on how
she justified buying season passes for Disney World while living
in New York City in a pandemic the Disney World
in Orlando. But Ashley, he's really grown into her own
and she has look she has to choose her priorities
and that's the other thing. She's getting a puppy now.
She waited, so she had sort of more money in
(16:42):
her emergency fund. And she's been in the apartment for
a year at this point, and so now she's literally
getting a puppy in a few days. So she waited
for it, and she's researched that since she researched all
the costs. Do I think she should get a puppy out? No,
I think she should wait a couple more years. But
she I have full confidence I'm not paying for the puppy.
What kind of financial grown up advice would you give
(17:03):
to college students considering graduate school? You need to actually
talk about it and run the numbers and say, Okay,
if you are going to use the law degree and
this is important to you, that's fine, but look at
what it costs and really think about what kind of
law you're going to practice, because that's where it really
falls apart. You have to look. I mean, I saw
(17:24):
I just opened to TikTok account, so everybody please follow me.
It's just my name. But I saw a TikTok and
it said and it was mortifying because it said, the
five jobs from that you get an undergraduate degree, that
are the worst jobs, the worst value. In other words,
if you like, if you have student debt and you
need to pay them off. These are the five worst jobs.
And journalism, which is basically what I've done my whole life,
(17:44):
was like top of the list of like jobs where
you can kind of earn your money back. So that
would be a bad move financially. It doesn't mean you
don't do it, but you need to recognize. So if
you're going to go into law, I think I don't
know enough about which areas of law necessarily pay the most,
But you should think about if you're going to have
have a lot of law school debt, what is the
plan to pay it off as quickly as possible. Think
about what kind of law will pay really well? Where
(18:07):
is the demand for lawyers right now? For the highest
paid law You may not seeing it forever, but just
go for it. Because the other thing is people think
their money is tight when they're in the lowest paying
jobs in their earlier in their career, but actually, because
you often have no dependence, you have the most discretionary
money and it's the easiest to pay off those loans.
(18:29):
So really focusing down when you're young and just out
can really help. That's something that's very relevant. Unfortunately in
places like medical school, but also even undergrad I mean,
think about the career you're going into and now a
quick break. What is your perspective on women and money?
(18:50):
I mean you have worked with at this point, I
would imagine thousands of people and are their gender differences
in In why I think there are gender different because
I think a lot of women it's a stereotype, unfortunately
for a reason. And I think you've seen this, and
that's something that you've been such a wonderful advocate for
that women are many it's it's I don't like to generalize,
(19:13):
but women can sometimes fall into the trap of wanting
someone to just take care of them and deal with
that because they perceived that they're not good at money.
But the truth is money is not that hard. Don't
spend more than you have, make sure your money is
invested and diversified. That's really kind of it, right. So
I don't I'm not a specialist in that, but I
think that women have more need for money because we
(19:36):
earn less and we live longer, and we often in
cases of divorce and by the way, I'm divorced, I've
seen my husband went was divorced from his from his
ex obviously, and so I've seen how the money goes.
And what women need to understand is that sometimes a
marriage will end, even not through divorce. Sometimes you can
be widowed, or all kinds of things can happen. Your
(19:56):
husband could lose their job. Both men that I was
married to have had career ups and downs, and you
have to step in. I have twice had to be
the breadwinner unexpectedly. Right now he's the primary breadwinner, but
I always make sure I'm earning money. He's been very
supportive of it. He keeps saying he wants to be
a kept man. So I think that you are always
(20:17):
going to feel more confident and more secure if you
have money that you control. And by the way, my
first marriage that I just alluded to, had I not
had both money and wonderful family support, I think it
would have been much harder for me to leave. And
it makes me very sad. And I am on the
board of a charity that works to educate women that
(20:39):
are victims of domestic violence on financial literacy, because without money,
it is very hard to leave a bad situation. And
that's the extreme version of it. But I'm very passionate
about that problem. And finding ways to get women to
advocate for themselves when it comes to participating in family
money decisions and not just step back. What is one
(21:01):
piece of advice that you would give that isn't in
the book. I'll tell you somethings that have happened since
the book that are just personal anecdotes that really show
that even as far along as I have come, the
journey really does continue. As much as that is the cliche,
that I still catch myself doing helicopter and snowplow things.
So just recently, for example, we notice we're going so
(21:22):
we're going on this trip to Alaska, but we have
to go through Canada, and so we want to make
sure our passports are up to date, which everyone should
do anyway. So Bradley is twenty two years old, and
we noticed his passport was expired. So we because we
know that when you have children, you have to go
to the passport office of the post office together to
get it renewed. My husband and I went to the
post office to get it renewed, and we were informed
(21:45):
that he's an adult and he has to do it himself.
We wanted to renew his passport. Are you getting the connection,
like we don't perceive our child like it didn't occur
to us to just like tell our twenty two year
old to renew his past for it now. When we did,
he was like okay, and he just like made an appointment.
He did it like he's perfectly capable. And the other
(22:07):
thing that happened that's not in the book is for
the high holidays last year. So we're Jewish, we go
to the synagogue, and the way that it works if
you get tickets for the high holidays and you write
to them and you say how many you know you need,
and they allocate appropriately depending on you know your membership.
And so I said, well, we need to for my
husband and I we need three for our children. And
I get back a note that said, well, we're gonna
(22:28):
give you, you you know, two adult tickets for um, you
and your husband will give you. You You have a fourteen
year old, no problem, you can or he's thirteen at
the time, um, and you can, you know. And then
there's a college student ticket, no problem. And they said,
but Ashley needs her own membership. I was so offended.
I was like, what do you mean? Oh my god.
I went to my husband, like they want her to
have her own membership, and you know, I wrote back
(22:51):
and I was like, what do you mean, and she said,
she's twenty five, she needs her own membership. But she's
my child. And they're like, but she's an adult, and
so all this this day, but it keeps happening, and
you know, I'm trying. I'm right there with all of you.
I guess it's my advice that's not in the book
is that it doesn't magic like go away. We always
(23:14):
see these adults as our children and they're fine. I
mentioned Ashley and she was like, we ended up not
going because Delta Vera got crazy and we didn't want
to be in person. But she was like, oh, maybe
I'll look into my own membership like it's not them,
it's us. And so that's the advice I would give.
It's just kind of like check yourself because we all
have these moments where we just can't like process that
(23:34):
even though there are children, like literally legally they are adults.
You legally cannot do certain things. You cannot renew your
adult child's passport for them. Society is stopping us. But
it's hard. It's really hard to let go and it's
hard to understand that they are fine. The book is
launching Financial grown Ups, and that was Bobby Rebel. I
(23:55):
am going to be giving this to every teen parent
on my list and highly recommend reading it. If you
enjoy What's Her Story with Sam and Amy, please do
leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and do
let us know what you think of the author snack
series by commenting on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast
You're listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy
and this is the author Snack series. Bobby Rebel is
an author and host of the Financial grown Up podcast.
Her newest book is launching Financial grown Ups. Live your
richest life by helping your almost adult kids become everyday
(00:27):
money smart. She was previously the Global Business News television
anchor and personal finance columnist at Thompson Reuters. Bobby, why
did you write this book? I wrote this book because
I knew so much on paper and yet was failing
fabulously with my almost adult children. And I was so
(00:48):
almost embarrassed and baffled at the situation, because I mean,
I had like two decades of covering investor news and
writing about personal finance. I had become a certified financial
planner a few years earlier, and yet my kids just
wouldn't listen. And I realized that there's a lot of
advice for parents of younger children who will They might
(01:09):
not always listen, in that they might throw a temper
tantument just ignore you, but they're not going to just
kind of yes, you say, I got a mom, and
like walk out the door with their friends. It's a
different level and the stakes actually are much higher. You're
not just teaching them lessons just as a lesson. This
is actually happening to them and there are benefits and consequences.
So I needed help, and I kind of looked for
help and there wasn't So I went to my expert
(01:31):
friends and there was a book. One thing that struck
me was that your father was a big influence on
you becoming financially independent at a young age. Can you
talk about what led you to buy your first apartment
at age twenty three? I mean, that's incredibly unusual. It
is incredibly unusual, and you're right, my father had a
huge role. And it's been very interesting watching his reaction
(01:53):
to this book because he's sort of looking back and saying, oh,
I forgot I did sit you guys all down and
just tell you had to tell me what you need
for the semester. And he in that case, he was
very generous. He wrote a check, but then that was it,
and he said, well, I I you know I thought that, well,
if you ran out of money, you would just get
a job. And we did have jobs in college. So
after school I went to Penn. A lot of my
(02:13):
friends had these big fancy jobs, and I was just
you know, going to my journalism job, and I was
living at home, and we were looking at rental prices
in this area called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan, and the rental prices were like a
thousand dollars a month for a ground floor back of
the building studio. So we did the math on that,
and we realized that because it was a time when
(02:36):
it was the early nineties, real estate was actually in
a real slump in New York City, that if I
had the down payment to buy basically that same studio
and there were they were going for about a hundred
thousand dollars. So we did the math on, you know,
what a loan would be in all the costs associated
with it, and we realized that I could buy one
and the total payments on that would be less than rent.
(02:59):
And so oh, I you know, was able to get
the down payment through having had savings. And then I
did save by living at home for some time, which
is something my stepdaughter did. And then you know, you
do often need parents co signing for you at that age,
so again I had that parental support, which is definitely
privileged and definitely not something everyone has. But I was
(03:19):
able to buy a co op in that complex it's
called Lincoln Towers on the Upper West Side um in
that market flop. But I will tell you no one
else is buying real estate in general at that time.
So I bought at a time when people were afraid
to buy New York City real estate. And that was
very risky in that sense. But we did the math
and we felt that the amount of money I would
save in even two or three years not paying rent,
(03:40):
but paying this, you know, partially tax deductible, maintenance and mortgage.
The mass just worked and so I did it. One
of the interesting things about your books, you really put
it into context how both COVID and the age of
helicopter parenting has changed our relationship with how we how
we talk about money with our kids. How has that
(04:02):
impacted it. It's so interesting, and that's such a good question.
First of all, it's changed our relationships, and that when
normally kids adult kids move home, it's often in a
situation where they are in financial distress, there's something going
on related to them as a person. This they were
moving home because something happening to everyone. So it was
(04:23):
a shared experience, and there were other things happening. They
didn't have activities to constantly run to. They weren't making
plans to go see their friends in person, so they
were around and sort of a little less attached to
their friend group than they might have been. We also
got to witness, and this is really interesting, we witnessed
our adult children working at their jobs, and a lot
(04:46):
of parents I don't think fully appreciated how hard their
kids worked, and so that was a whole new appreciation
of them as individuals, not just our children, and the
way that other people see them and the way that
other people might have expectations for them. It also helped
create an environment where after a certain point, I mean
remember when it was fifteen days to stop the spread. Well, okay,
(05:06):
so you got fifteen days, so your kid comes home,
so maybe you're doing their laundry and making sure they
have all their meals made for them. But as time
went on past that fifteen days, things start to settle
in a little differently, and maybe mom is not making
all of her meals for her twenties something children, maybe
they're starting to make them for their parents. Maybe they're
starting to have different kinds of conversations with their parents
about their adult money issues that are very different from
(05:28):
just oh, i'm short on cash, can I have some money?
Maybe they're really talking more about the things going on
in their life and their goals and dreams, and they're
also seeing, just through general conversation, the financial realities of
their parents, which may not be as perfect as they
necessarily assumed. A lot of us assume our parents have
things always perfect, And I learned over the last few
(05:49):
years even that my parents had more ups and downs
than I was aware of at all when I was
growing up that things were not always perfect. And they
kept a lot of that from me at an age
appropriate time, so it was not a mistake for them
to not share it, But it was just interesting to
learn that their career path worn't necessarily perfect all the time.
What was your personal experience during the pandemic with your
(06:12):
almost adult kids and talking about money. It was a
lot of that. I mean, we did have a lot
of conversations that we never would have had because, um,
the oldest one, well, she had actually just graduated college
and started her job, so she was very busy, and
I got to witness how as I said, how hard
she was working. She worked for a consulting company. And
(06:32):
I also was able to see my stepson was he
was gosh, he was a sophomore when he moved home.
He's at NYU two Film School, so it was interesting
to see him adjusting and to see how they related
to their friends. And you know, you just talked to
them more because they're there and you didn't have distractions.
They weren't going out to meet their friends at night.
(06:54):
They were just home. And so I remember we went
the first few months we were um in the kind
of upstate New York at a house and we had
dinner the first night there. I remember it was a
Taco Tuesday, and we all sat down to dinner together
at the same time on a weeknight, not a special
occasion or a holiday. And my youngest who is fourteen,
(07:16):
comments and he says, we've never had dinner together, and
everybody liked it. And we did start to really have
dinner together where even if someone so wasn't hungry or whenever,
they came and sat at dinner time, and so many
conversations happened then and just getting to know each other
in a way that wasn't as purposeful. It just happened
sort of. I hate the word authentically, but it did.
It happened authentically, and that that was a great experience
(07:38):
for our family, and I think that they came to
respect us. They saw us as adults, not just parents,
which is also really healthy. They saw more of our
lives because they're seeing it from a different perspective as
young adults, not kids that are in high school getting
ready to go to college. They're let they weren't as
only focused on themselves. Were there any kind of financial
stories about your ups and downs that you shared with
(08:00):
them during this period of time that they didn't know? Yeah,
well that I always share them because I think it's
really important, So I don't I have to think that.
I'm sort of struggling about the timing of when I
share things. I certainly share the fact that you talked
about the apartment. Well, after I got the apartment, I
then wanted to do a Hampton share and I was
so tight on money that I took out a load,
which is not going to do and I have shared
(08:23):
that publicly, It's in my previous book. But um, yeah,
so don't do that so they know that, so they
know we do all you know. Look, we are always
making mistakes all throughout life, and it's really a question
of being able to course correct and make different decisions.
But we all make mistakes, and I think that they're
more than aware of that. There's also a fine line, right,
(08:43):
and then I think parents try to struggle with what
is too much to share and how do you figure
that out? Well, you look at first of all, the
child's personality, maturity, age, need. For example, in the book,
I started age sixteen, because they need to know things
if they're going to start driving a car, if they're
going to have a job, there's a need that they
have to understand the basics of what's going to come
(09:05):
out of their paycheck and and the responsibilities that go
with having a job. So you focus on all of
those things, but remember that you may unintentionally give them
reason to worry. So if you think that they are
sort of getting a sense of things, it's important to
talk to them directly so they're not just getting it
from overhearing things. Sometimes we aren't as discreet as we
(09:25):
think we are, and I think that's the worst case scenario,
is when you unintentionally are giving them information to be worried.
About so if that's happening, you need to be more
direct with them and let them in on things. But
it is important to give them a general sense of
you know, your values when it comes to money, more
than a scarcity mindset. You want to avoid that. So
(09:46):
you can talk to them about where you're prioritizing your
resources and maybe there are times when you're gonna be
a little bit more careful with money because you have
a goal like saving for their college. So you can
talk to them about those kinds of things. You don't
have to assign dollar numbers to everything. For example, if
you want to talk to them about what we call
state planning, which is a terrible name because it implies
(10:08):
that you have to be uber wealthy. But the truth
is all that means is kind of where everything goes,
you know when you pass, and you can tell them
the general ideas that you have without telling them dollar amounts.
That said, a lot of information is available on the internet,
So even if you have a little kid like Aby
with a seven year old, if their kids, if their
friends got curious, they can all look up what everybody's
(10:29):
houses costs and things, so they can figure stuff out.
Because of technology, they have a lot more information than
we had when we were young, and so don't be
naive and think that they don't know things. So control
the information if you think that they're getting it. I
used to host a radio show. It was a college show,
and people would call with our problems, and the second
most common problem was a failure to launch discussion of
(10:53):
what do I do. My child won't leave the house
in terms of, you know, financial independence. They don't make
an of money, and my spouse says we should kick
them out. How do we handle this? Every case is different,
but in general, you need to sit down with the
young adults and talk about your expectations, your hopes for them,
(11:13):
and really come up with a plan. And one of
the toughest things to do is tell them that their dream.
You know, they may be saying, well, i'm home because
I'm working on this business. So I'm working on my
big project. You have to basically say, okay, but you
need income too, So if you want to be here,
I need to see an income producing job. I don't
care if you don't like it. You need a job
just to have a job for money, and unless you do,
(11:37):
you're gonna have to find another place to live by
this time, and of course it depends on the context.
If they've been home a week, give them a break.
But they have to have an exit strategy, and that
is one of the themes that I talked about in
the book. But along with expectations, you also have to
let them know that you have confidence in them, that
they can do it, and that you believe in them,
and that you're there as a resource, not a financial resource,
(11:59):
but as a resource to come up with ideas and
to brainstorm and let them figure out the details. But
let them know that this is a very temporary situation
and that they you know, set a timeline work backwards.
If they say they need more times, they explain to
me why, and make a decision if you think that's valid.
But you need to really set the bar high and
(12:21):
let them know that they can do it. That's the
biggest thing, because there's usually more psychology than fact in
why they're staying home. They're probably afraid to fail. They're
afraid to disappoint you. They might have set a goal
and set it publicly and they haven't gotten they haven't
made it yet, right, so they don't want to disappoint
anyone it's okay to be doing a job job while
you're following your dream. So much of your book, what
(12:44):
I enjoy about it is that it's not just like
here the facts, here's how to set up a rath.
I R right. It's it's infused with emotion, which I
think is such a big part of our relationship with money. Yeah,
because that was the hard part. It is more psychology
then fact. I do have the factual information in there,
but I had that and I was failing, and that's
(13:04):
because I wasn't communicating well. It's important to really think about,
for example, the tone in which you speak to your children,
and make sure it's a supportive tone, not a judgmental tone,
that you're accepting them, that you're hearing what they are saying.
One of the people interviewed in my book, and I
believe you've interviewed her on this this podcast, is Tory Dunlap.
(13:26):
So she's right in this category. She's twenty five years old,
and the most important thing she really said, and I
think she's spot on, is listen and hear what your
child is saying, because if you just yell at them
to get out of the house by a certain date,
date probably won't, by the way, and it's going to
ruin your relationship and create tension. And what's the point
of that, right, You're basically saying you're a failure. Get
(13:48):
out of my house. So that's not what you want
to do. You want to just listen to them. Tell
me why you're here. What is this, you know, season
of your life doing to get you to where you
want to? How can I help you besides just indefinitely
providing a place to sleep, I want to help you proactively,
you know maybe, And I say in the book, if
you have connections, life is hard enough. Make the connection,
(14:11):
Make make the introduction, make sure your child is going
to follow up, make sure it's going to be well received.
But do the things that you can do within your
power reasonably to help them leave. Did you talk to
your kids before you wrote the book about the fact
that you felt like you were failing. I'm connecting with
them on this front. Yes, yes, And what did they
and what did they say? Okay? So Ashley wrote the
(14:34):
epilogue and it's my favorite part of the book. And
I had to so and I can be a helicopter
parent even though I was aware of it, and didn't
want to be it. I see it. I see it
all the time. And she, you know, she wrote this
epilogue which gives her perspective on what I wrote, and
it gives her money tips and her justification of a
lot of things that we thought about. And so it's
(14:54):
really funny. So she defends her decision in the epilogue,
which I talked about in the book, how she's live
thing at home, rent free. You know, we're not charging
her for anything except the phone, but which has done
another thing. But but we're basically and she's living free.
And I am watching her savings bill that she's doing great.
And the pandemic helped because she wasn't running to go
out with her friends. There was a lot less temptation.
(15:16):
And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, um,
my boyfriend and I are buying season passes to Disney World.
Now we live in New York City, Disney World has
in Orlando. There's a pandemic. Her number one priority is
saving for this apartment that she's wanted since she was thirteen,
basically since she met me and moved in and she
(15:37):
heard my story. She's been saving for this apartment for
you know whatever, almost a decade, and I'm like, this
is not aligned with what you've told me you want
to do, and it's my job to help you. And
you know, I'm also thinking and I need you, I
love you, but I want you to go out and
be happy. And you know, because we had everybody home
(15:59):
for the demic and she just was adamant and we
thought about it. I was so angry and she justified
it and I sort of went, well, I can't control it.
She'll be home forever and this is not going well.
My book will just my book, you know, my book.
I'm like, well, it'll work out if she buys the apartment.
If she doesn't, that'll be just a reality check, okay.
And in the epilogue, I'm not going to go into
(16:21):
the whole story, you will hear her perspective on how
she justified buying season passes for Disney World while living
in New York City in a pandemic the Disney World
in Orlando. But Ashley, he's really grown into her own
and she has look she has to choose her priorities
and that's the other thing. She's getting a puppy now.
She waited, so she had sort of more money in
(16:42):
her emergency fund. And she's been in the apartment for
a year at this point, and so now she's literally
getting a puppy in a few days. So she waited
for it, and she's researched that since she researched all
the costs. Do I think she should get a puppy out? No,
I think she should wait a couple more years. But
she I have full confidence I'm not paying for the puppy.
What kind of financial grown up advice would you give
(17:03):
to college students considering graduate school? You need to actually
talk about it and run the numbers and say, Okay,
if you are going to use the law degree and
this is important to you, that's fine, but look at
what it costs and really think about what kind of
law you're going to practice, because that's where it really
falls apart. You have to look. I mean, I saw
(17:24):
I just opened to TikTok account, so everybody please follow me.
It's just my name. But I saw a TikTok and
it said and it was mortifying because it said, the
five jobs from that you get an undergraduate degree, that
are the worst jobs, the worst value. In other words,
if you like, if you have student debt and you
need to pay them off. These are the five worst jobs.
And journalism, which is basically what I've done my whole life,
(17:44):
was like top of the list of like jobs where
you can kind of earn your money back. So that
would be a bad move financially. It doesn't mean you
don't do it, but you need to recognize. So if
you're going to go into law, I think I don't
know enough about which areas of law necessarily pay the most,
But you should think about if you're going to have
have a lot of law school debt, what is the
plan to pay it off as quickly as possible. Think
about what kind of law will pay really well? Where
(18:07):
is the demand for lawyers right now? For the highest
paid law You may not seeing it forever, but just
go for it. Because the other thing is people think
their money is tight when they're in the lowest paying
jobs in their earlier in their career, but actually, because
you often have no dependence, you have the most discretionary
money and it's the easiest to pay off those loans.
(18:29):
So really focusing down when you're young and just out
can really help. That's something that's very relevant. Unfortunately in
places like medical school, but also even undergrad I mean,
think about the career you're going into and now a
quick break. What is your perspective on women and money?
(18:50):
I mean you have worked with at this point, I
would imagine thousands of people and are their gender differences
in In why I think there are gender different because
I think a lot of women it's a stereotype, unfortunately
for a reason. And I think you've seen this, and
that's something that you've been such a wonderful advocate for
that women are many it's it's I don't like to generalize,
(19:13):
but women can sometimes fall into the trap of wanting
someone to just take care of them and deal with
that because they perceived that they're not good at money.
But the truth is money is not that hard. Don't
spend more than you have, make sure your money is
invested and diversified. That's really kind of it, right. So
I don't I'm not a specialist in that, but I
think that women have more need for money because we
(19:36):
earn less and we live longer, and we often in
cases of divorce and by the way, I'm divorced, I've
seen my husband went was divorced from his from his
ex obviously, and so I've seen how the money goes.
And what women need to understand is that sometimes a
marriage will end, even not through divorce. Sometimes you can
be widowed, or all kinds of things can happen. Your
(19:56):
husband could lose their job. Both men that I was
married to have had career ups and downs, and you
have to step in. I have twice had to be
the breadwinner unexpectedly. Right now he's the primary breadwinner, but
I always make sure I'm earning money. He's been very
supportive of it. He keeps saying he wants to be
a kept man. So I think that you are always
(20:17):
going to feel more confident and more secure if you
have money that you control. And by the way, my
first marriage that I just alluded to, had I not
had both money and wonderful family support, I think it
would have been much harder for me to leave. And
it makes me very sad. And I am on the
board of a charity that works to educate women that
(20:39):
are victims of domestic violence on financial literacy, because without money,
it is very hard to leave a bad situation. And
that's the extreme version of it. But I'm very passionate
about that problem. And finding ways to get women to
advocate for themselves when it comes to participating in family
money decisions and not just step back. What is one
(21:01):
piece of advice that you would give that isn't in
the book. I'll tell you somethings that have happened since
the book that are just personal anecdotes that really show
that even as far along as I have come, the
journey really does continue. As much as that is the cliche,
that I still catch myself doing helicopter and snowplow things.
So just recently, for example, we notice we're going so
(21:22):
we're going on this trip to Alaska, but we have
to go through Canada, and so we want to make
sure our passports are up to date, which everyone should
do anyway. So Bradley is twenty two years old, and
we noticed his passport was expired. So we because we
know that when you have children, you have to go
to the passport office of the post office together to
get it renewed. My husband and I went to the
post office to get it renewed, and we were informed
(21:45):
that he's an adult and he has to do it himself.
We wanted to renew his passport. Are you getting the connection,
like we don't perceive our child like it didn't occur
to us to just like tell our twenty two year
old to renew his past for it now. When we did,
he was like okay, and he just like made an appointment.
He did it like he's perfectly capable. And the other
(22:07):
thing that happened that's not in the book is for
the high holidays last year. So we're Jewish, we go
to the synagogue, and the way that it works if
you get tickets for the high holidays and you write
to them and you say how many you know you need,
and they allocate appropriately depending on you know your membership.
And so I said, well, we need to for my
husband and I we need three for our children. And
I get back a note that said, well, we're gonna
(22:28):
give you, you you know, two adult tickets for um, you
and your husband will give you. You You have a fourteen
year old, no problem, you can or he's thirteen at
the time, um, and you can, you know. And then
there's a college student ticket, no problem. And they said,
but Ashley needs her own membership. I was so offended.
I was like, what do you mean? Oh my god.
I went to my husband, like they want her to
have her own membership, and you know, I wrote back
(22:51):
and I was like, what do you mean, and she said,
she's twenty five, she needs her own membership. But she's
my child. And they're like, but she's an adult, and
so all this this day, but it keeps happening, and
you know, I'm trying. I'm right there with all of you.
I guess it's my advice that's not in the book
is that it doesn't magic like go away. We always
(23:14):
see these adults as our children and they're fine. I
mentioned Ashley and she was like, we ended up not
going because Delta Vera got crazy and we didn't want
to be in person. But she was like, oh, maybe
I'll look into my own membership like it's not them,
it's us. And so that's the advice I would give.
It's just kind of like check yourself because we all
have these moments where we just can't like process that
(23:34):
even though there are children, like literally legally they are adults.
You legally cannot do certain things. You cannot renew your
adult child's passport for them. Society is stopping us. But
it's hard. It's really hard to let go and it's
hard to understand that they are fine. The book is
launching Financial grown Ups, and that was Bobby Rebel. I
(23:55):
am going to be giving this to every teen parent
on my list and highly recommend reading it. If you
enjoy What's Her Story with Sam and Amy, please do
leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and do
let us know what you think of the author snack
series by commenting on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast
Hosts And Creators
Samantha Ettus
Amy Nelson
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.