December 18, 2024 • 46 mins
Carol Sutton Lewis sits down with Mellody Hobson—co-CEO of Ariel Investments, and author of the new children’s book Priceless Facts About Money: From the Beginning of Time to the Coins in Your Couch. In this engaging and fun conversation, Mellody explains why parents should talk with their kids about money early and often, and shares practical tips for teaching them financial independence and responsibility.
Mellody and Carol discuss:
Follow us @GroundControlparenting or at groundcontrolparenting.com
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
Mellody and Carol discuss:
- The importance of using cash to teach young children about the value of money.
- How Mellody’s childhood shaped her financial mindset.
- Advice for parents on allowances, savings, and smart credit habits.
- Why understanding and talking about money matters is important for every family—regardless of income level.
Follow us @GroundControlparenting or at groundcontrolparenting.com
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. Today, I
am thrilled to welcome a very special guest for this
bonus episode, the amazing Melody Hobson, co CEO of Aerial Investments,
(00:27):
the global asset management firm, and the author of a
great new children's book, Priceless Facts about Money from the
Beginning of Time till the Coins in Your Couch, which
we'll be talking about today. So the list of Melody'
accomplishments could fill the time we have for this episode,
so I will just highlight a handful. In addition to
her work running Aerial Investments, Melody has been a leader
in corporate boardrooms. She's a former chairman of Starbucks Corporation
(00:49):
and its current lead independent director. She's a director of
JP Morgan Chase and was a long standing board member
of the st Laughter Companies, and was chairman of the
board of DreamWorks Animation until the company's sale in twenty
sixteen and then on the nonprofit side, the list is
even longer. She is the chairman of after School Matters,
and Chicago nonprofit that provides area teens with quality after school.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And summer programs.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
She is also co chair of the Lucas Museum of
Narrative Art and a board member of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the
George Lucas Educational Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Melody earned
her AB from Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.
She and her husband, the esteemed director and producer George Lucas,
(01:33):
have are the parents of three adult children and an
eleven year old. Welcome to ground Control Parenting, Melody, thank
you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Ah,
I am so happy to have you join us to
talk about your wonderful new book, which I described as
a children's book, but as we will see, is truly
a book for everyone. So let's get started. So Melody, first,
tell me what led you to create this book. Why
(01:55):
with all of your history of financial literacy and investment experience,
why a book with moneyfacts versus a primer on investing?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, I decided I wanted to write a book for
children about money in order to socialize them to the
topic at a very young age. I think about money
language similarly to learning a foreign language, and we all
know that earlier you start, the better. And so I said, Okay,
what if I could get kids comfortable with the language
(02:25):
of money starting out of the gate? How could I
best do that? And I wanted to write a book,
and I had time because of the pandemic. I wasn't traveling,
and I've been frustrated by the lack of financial literacy,
not only in our country but in the world, and
the fact that we don't really learn about investing in
American schools. And so I said, instead of admiring the problem,
(02:46):
I'm going to do something about it. But I have
to tell you I didn't have an original idea for
some time of how was I going to articulate the information?
And the book publisher initially said, create a character and
have them tell a story. That felt too sweet for
what I was trying to accomplish and not write, and
I kept rejecting that. I said, no, this is not
(03:06):
a character, this is not three words on a page.
This is a serious book. I sent the most famous
children's books out to five or six kids that I knew,
and it was Where the Wild Things Are, The Giving Tree,
good Night Moon, all of those books. I said, read
the books and tell me what you like about them.
So we all got on a zoom and one boy,
(03:28):
Austin Robinson, who is now fifteen, said to me, I
like facts.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I like learning things.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I remembered Everest had a book about animals that she loved,
my now eleven year old that we read over and
over again, and we were just as fascinated with that
she was. And I said, that's what we're going to do,
but not an encyclopedia. We're going to do something that
gives you facts in a really funny and coherent way.
You could read it all at once, or you could
read parts. You don't have to follow it in order.
(03:57):
We were just thinking a lot of things, but maybe
telling anartive story along the way, which is what we
did to tie it all together and not make it
seem facts only. And ultimately we came up with the
concept of priceless facts about money. Lots and lots of drafts,
lots of peer review. Everest was my best editor.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, yea.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You dedicated the book to her and to children everywhere,
and I know that she helped you with it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
How did she help you? I wrote the first draft
and I felt really proud of it. Okay.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I had a writer with me, Nels Golvell. She was
helping me with research and she just makes things funny.
She's one of those people. She has great comedy skills.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Wit and we would allow me so hard and together
we just we would make jokes all the time, so
and looking for the jokes that would translate on paper.
And after I wrote it, I gave it to George
and I said, okay, George read it, figuring he knows
a thing or two about inspiring young people. And we
came back and he said it's a little sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And I was like a little annoying. I'm like, what
do you know like and.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Realized ay telling, So he's like, it's a little sophisticated.
So I was a little crushed, and I said, Okay,
what am I going to do about this? So I
decided to have Everest read it, and I said, Everest,
circle every word.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So there's a lot of circling, and so then I said, Okay,
I'm not going to dumb it down.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I'm going to translate.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So there are times when I phonetically explain the word.
There are times there's a definition and a footnote that's
very user friendly. But I kept the integrity, you know,
I leveled it up, but at the same time made
it accessible by having Everest helped me edit it, and
she did a really good job.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
She read it multiple times.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
And the illustrations really make it fun. I mean really really,
I mean spoiler alert. There's the cutest little the two
people that walking through the story of Melody and John Rodgers,
and there are depictions of them as little kids that
are so good. And the illustrator tell me about how
you found was Everest elementary school teacher, and this is
(06:03):
a true story. I was interviewing illustrators on Zoom and
I had an idea in mind, and I kept saying
to the book publishers, I said, I wanted to be realistic, but.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Not scary or anything like that. And so we were
trying illustrators and we're looking and they're showing me things
and nothing is speaking to me. Everest walks in at
that point she's literally only seven, and she says, miss
Stevens is a really great artist. And I'm like, yeah, thanks,
(06:34):
and she's like, no, mom, she is. And I just
really ignore ever. So I'm like, everest, you know, I
have to finish these interviews. And so she comes back
and she's like, just look at her website. She's like,
look at her website. She's really good. And she was
really like sort of grabbed me by the lapal seven.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Year old moment.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So I log onto the website and the first thing
I see, I said, oh, she's good. So I called
her and I said, would you ever consider She was
taken aback obviously, and I said, will you do one
thing for me? I'm going to send you my picture
in John Rogers's picture, who's my co CEO who founded Ariel,
and he's my coinarrator in the book, And I said,
(07:12):
draw us. Got heard the job was the two pictures
she sent back. We saw those and I said, she's
the person. And from there we were working together because
you have to interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What I write.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
That's the other thing in order to make the illustration
really make sense. I mean, they're so good and they
work so well. It is a funny book.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I mean, it's a serious book, but it's filled with
humor and illustrations really just.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Augment the humor. It makes it so much fun to
read and flip through.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So you wanted to socialize the concept of talking with
kids about money. Many years before you wrote this book,
you have been on a mission to get people to
focus more on being financially literate and talking to children
about money. Why do you think it's so tough for
people to talk about money with their kids.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Because of their own fears.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So seventy seven percent of Americans say they have anxiety
about money. A lot of that is born out of
their lack of knowledge and information. As I mentioned, we
don't grow up in homes. We don't grow up learning
about money at school. And if you don't grow up
in a home where money is discussed, you're really behind
the eight ball. And yet, and this is the great
universal truth. No matter where you live in the world Chicago, Illinois,
(08:26):
New York City, Kansas and African village, you must deal
with money every single day. It is a fact of life.
And so we have anxiety about something we have to
deal with every single day. And that is why we
avoid the subject. I've recently said, you know, parents basically
are more comfortable talking about a condom than a credit
(08:46):
card because these are the things that give them so
much anxiety, and it has nothing to do with socioeconomic status.
So we find this same anxiety exists at the highest
level of economic comfort and at the lowest level there's
not much difference. And when it comes to talking about money,
(09:08):
parents who have means are afraid to have the conversation
because they think they will raise entitled kids, and parents
who are struggling or short on resources thinks that the
conversation will create a great deal of anxiety for the child.
In both situations, running away from the subject is the
wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So you've talked a lot about the fact that you
grew up in fairly humble circumstances and in fact, because
you were focused on money or the lack of resources
growing up, it encouraged you to think about money. But
you've also said your mom was really helpful in giving
you financial literacy. How did you teach you about money
when you were young.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I'm going to ask you to hold two ideas at once,
because this is a little crazy. My mom was amazing.
She was a great mom. I'm the youngest of six kids.
My siblings were much much older than me. But my
mom allowed me to be my own person, and it
was it was a it was a gift that she
gave to me. It was never about me being in
(10:07):
an image that she wanted me to be in. She
just accepted me for who I was.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And I just dare say that you were number six,
that she'd probably exercised all that.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She was also like, five, you're still breathing, You're fine,
you know.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
There was no energy around my struggles, not in a
way of ignoring it, but she had lived through it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
All works out me, Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
She Yeah, my mom was definitely over it by the
time I was born, so she just like, you know,
you'll figure it out. Basically, that ended up being a
great gift because I became very, very.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Independent and self sufficient.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So the two ideas that I asked you all that
once is she made a lot of terrible money decisions.
So I had the mom who would buy Easter dresses
instead of pay the light bill, so we'd have no lights,
but we.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Look good at church, and that really messed.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Up my head, Like I couldn't figure that out and
she was doing the best that she could and she
was working so hard. So please know this wasn't someone
who was, you know, frivolous about her work ethic, but
her values around what was important sometimes were misaligned with.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
What we needed.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
So that was that, And even as a child, I
knew that, like, this is not a good decision. At
the same time, my mother, because money was scarce and
front and center in our life all the time as
a problem, she actually made me very aware of what
all the issues were. So I know what our ret cost.
I knew what our phone and light bills were. All
(11:38):
of those things she showed me. And one of the
things she did is she always had me handle cash.
So if we went to a restaurant, I paid. I mean,
I remember reaching when I was like four or five
years old. She was like, she would give me the
money and say hand it. Then when I got older,
she'd have me count the change. Then when I got older,
(11:58):
she'd have me calculate the t So as a result
of that one I knew what things cost. The other
thing that she did I remember once going to the
bank and she made a bank deposit and she stopped
and she said, you know, we were at the teller
window because my mom went to every place directly to
take care of transactions, like paid the lightmil at the
light company, paid the phone bill, no mailing in anything, right, Okay.
(12:22):
So we're there at the bank and she's depositing something
and after she finished, she made me stop and she's like,
now look at my account number and look at the
number on this receipt and make sure they're correct. And
I remember I was like nine, and she was just like,
she's always double check these things. And I was like,
she taught me how to write out a check when
(12:43):
I was very young. And of course, you know, I'm
on the board of JP Morgan. I can't believe I'm
saying this now. When I was a little kid, she
wasn't home and we didn't have anything to eat. We'd
order food and then she's like, go write out a
check and sign it. And they took chat said the
place where we ordered food, and it was just like
(13:05):
that was normal for us.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Normal. Now there were a lot of bouch checks.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
To me.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I was just thinking, I mean, when my kids went
off to college, I'm not sure they knew how to
write a check.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
You know, I write a check when I was like eight. Yeah,
I mean literally, I.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Was financially sophisticated and yet short on cash.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Well, you know, it's interesting that, you know, you find
parents when they noticed, they understand their own shortcomings. They
work hard to eliminate them and their children. But I
imagine that your mom may have understood that she wasn't
as great with money, but she could pass on to
you the things that would make you better.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I don't think that that was true. Knowing my mom,
I think that she was. It's how she was just
extremely pragmatic, practical, and direct. I don't think she was
thinking she was passing on something or she was training
me for life. But she did that in lots of things,
you know, But the sort of handling money and thinking
(14:05):
about money was just one of many things.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So one of the basic things you think that young
children should know. And how soon should families start these conversations.
I think they should start the conversations very early.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And people are always really surprised when I say four
years old, five years old.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They're really shocked.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And I said, you can start in a very basic way,
and I talk about it in the book. I use
this opening story of bartering as a way of establishing
the first conversation about money. The bartering example is one
that I love so much because it makes a child
to assign value to things, and it separates the idea
of actually cost from value. And sometimes something we value
(14:47):
a lot that doesn't cost a lot, and we don't
value at all that costs a lot, And so having
a child assign value, I think is really important. And
the great example that I give in the book is
do you want to trade a cupcake for picture that
John is drawn? And John is the one who I'm
making the trade with, and he's like, Ooh, I'd love
to eat that cupcake. But then you get to keep
(15:08):
the picture and have it forever, and the cupcake will
be gone. And that's a really good example of having
a child say, well this picture, is this more valuable
to me? Or is this instant gratification of the cupcake? No,
it's not putting any judgment on it, just letting the
child decide. So that would be a great example of ways.
You know, do you want Barbie or a cupcake? Do
(15:30):
you want Pokemon? Or you know, you can decide what
it is based upon your child and all they're doing
is valuing things, but over time they start to really
establish what.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Is important to them.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I think the other thing is just to This is
one that people are really shocked when I say it,
but I really think you've got to use cash around
very young children because the problem is money is extremely
mysterious to a child.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And I'll give you an example in a minute.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And the mystery is magnified by the fact that they
see money spitting out of a machine with an ATM,
or they see their parents waving a phone over a
point of sale machine, or obviously using a credit card.
So a lot of parents have said to me that
when they tell their children, as they're trying to control
their expenses, we can't afford it, the children will say,
(16:19):
put it on a credit card, which means fundamentally they
don't understand the thing about money in a wallet. It's finite,
it runs out. So they can see, oh, we have
no more now. Think about it through the eyes of
a four year old, you know, not the eyes for
a twenty year old. That that's something that really helps
them to understand there's.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
An end to this.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And then also explaining to them when I go to
this machine to get money, I have to work to
make sure it's there. We don't always tie out all
the pieces to them. Sometimes they ask questions and we
get there, but being as deliberate as we can, like
what is scary or traumatic about explaining to it out
(17:01):
where the money in an ATM comes from. It comes
from the work you did, or a gift that you received,
or you know, to make it clearer to them, and
then I do as a child gets older, I do
like to incorporate, you know, around twelve thirteen years old,
a debit card, around fifteen years old, a real credit card.
And I talk about that because parents usually hand the
(17:23):
credit card to a child when they leave to go
to college or are leaving the house.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
You can't get a credit.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Card on your own until you're twenty one years old.
Your credit is tied to your parents. I call that
credit card without any training a weapon of mass destruction.
So if you have not been trained on how to
use that credit card, you could do a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And we all know once you leave the house, it's
kind of hard to control the kid.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Again, you're lucky if you get a return full call
in some situations. So the idea that they're running around
with a credit card tied to your credit score without
any training. It's a little too little, too late to
do that at the age of eighteen. Start at fifteen,
having them understand paying off the whole balance, not just
making minimum payments, understanding the interest on things. These are
(18:10):
really great conversations, absolutely so so much of what you
said resonates. First of all, parents everywhere really need to
think about this cash thing because it's harder and harder
to use cashes.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You really have to work to use cash. Yes, you
have to coins.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You really have to sit down and make them start
with the play ones or go with the real ones.
But you have to because nowadays, I mean, so many
people who are having children don't carry cash at all.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It makes a difference in terms of how a child
can perceive how money is and how it works. The
credit card, I have to laugh. My mother gave me
a credit card when I was young, when I was
a teenager, and it was tied to her account. It
was only for emergencies, and I was the kid who
was going to pay attention to that. But I remember
specifically having to ask her when I made you know,
(18:56):
make any kind of purchase, let her know and you know,
figure out how much I was going to have to
give her back.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And that was really valuable lessons exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But I will say that it actually wasn't until I
was fully grown about to marry that I understood the
perfect use of credit cards, which is paying the balance
off in full every month, every month, every bill, because
we would use credit as credit. I mean, we would
just pay it over time, and I have to credit.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
My husband.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
He's like, what are you doing. Why do you have
balances on your credit bo cards? And I was like, well,
that's what you do. And then you know the fine print,
you realize you're paying twice from the same thing. And
as he said, and we've always said to our children,
if you cannot pay it off by the end of
the month, you should not be buying it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Now there are things, I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Washer washing machine that you need to buy and you're
going to pay it off over some months. I mean,
that is very practical. You may have to do something,
you know. I try not to have these rules be
too hard and fast, but I personally have always tried to.
I mean I walk around with my Green AMX, my
(20:04):
debit card and my wallet. And I always joke that
my visa is I'm in Europe and I break my
arm and they don't take AMEX, you know, like literally
that's what I say. Or my debit card, which is
a visa debit card.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
But that's me.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
We had built collectors calling all the time, and I
worried so much about money that I literally want everything
paid off.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I mean I really do.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
When I got my first apartment in Chicago, I was
twenty five and I paid it off in three years,
which I mean you would think I could not handle
having a mortgage.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I literally it just worried me to death. And I
kept saying, if anything.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Goes wrong, I want to know I have a place
to live.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
So I just like debtn't buy anything for those years,
and just every extra dollar I had I was paying
a mortgage off.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, no, I feel like I need to clean up
the statement because certainly, if you have to buy something
that's a big ticket item.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And you need it, you need to it's hard trouble.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I was just thinking in terms of the advice for kids,
it's sort of if you want those sneakers and you
know you're not not a.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Vacation, right, you know, don't put the ten thousand dollars
vacation on that you'll still be paying for next year, right, right, right, No, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to
the show, Melodie.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You've also said that talking about money is hard for
people who don't have a lot because of the stress
of it, But it's also hard for people who have
resources because of the stress of it. If you do
have some resources, why is it important that your children
know about them and understand them, and what's to prevent
them from feeling that they're entitled?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
As you said, so, I have.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
To say I don't think it's any different either side.
I want to really stress that it's not harder for
one versus the other. I think parents with resources it's
very important to put it all in context for a child.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And so.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Ever's very recently someone at school set something to her
about money and how much money her family had or
didn't have, or anything like that, and I looked at
her and I said, Everest, it's not your money, that's true.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
No it is, Yeah, it's not. I said, you live
here like none of it belongs to you.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I mean Okay, I'll give you the clothes on your back,
but in your cosmetics, you know kind of thing, but
everything else is kind of ours. And I didn't say
that in a way of being strident or mean spirited, No,
it just because it really then she was and she
said she's a smart, smart girl. She was like, well,
I have resources one day. First of all, she said,
(22:38):
used the word resources. I said, yes, you will, and
she said where will they come from? I said, well
you'll have a job. And I said, you know, you'll
have some resources, and she says where will I live?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I said, you'll probably have a house and she said, well.
I said, let's pick picture of your house. What does
it look like?
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I said, I see a white picket fence? Do you
She was like, mmm, modern. But it was a really
great exercise. I said, okay, now tell me more about it.
And I said, so, how are you going to buy
that house? You know, we sort of like, you know,
we sort of I.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Said, what city is it in? She said, I have
no idea?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I mean super interesting, right, visualization at that age, not
with any pressure, right, just like imagining your own what
would you do differently? Not stuff that has been put
upon you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Absolutely, And actually that conversation can have you can have
with a child wherever you are on the economic spectrum,
because you want to encourage your child to think about
the future and dream big.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I give her this example. I give this example all
the time.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So we're at the McDonald's drive thru on what we
used to call French five Friday, except Everest decided that
it wasn't a good idea. I was crushed because I
love French fry Friday. So we were French Try Friday
and we got a largerder fries at the window and
they said it was five dollars and forty cents with tax,
and Evers looked at me, she said, what is tax?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I was like, wow.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
First of all, I was annoyed at myself that I
didn't put tax in the book.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
But then I was like, she's that is such a
basic thing.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So we did the rest of the car ride on taxes,
both tax that you pay on goods, but also tax
that comes out of your paycheon. So I said Everest,
basically I worked the first few months of the year
for no money, because if you add up all the
taxes I pay over the course of the year, that's
what it equals. She's like, wait a minute, you work
for free for the No, it doesn't quite work like that,
(24:32):
but if you add it all up, and she was like, ah,
that is bad, mom, And so I'm looking at her.
I said, no everest, I said police, fire department, the
streets to be cleaned, like I gleet you all the things, teachers,
et cetera. And I said, those are all the things
taxes are for. And I hadn't thought about something that
(24:53):
basic of explaining that to her. But all of that
is just normal conversation to tell her how much we
pay in taxes. But it was the concept that I
was delivering to her, the concept that she would, you know,
have resources if she had a job, The concept that
she wasn't going to be given everything, and the concept
(25:13):
that what.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We had was not hers. She was temporarily our guest
right she was.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Eighteen years old, that we were going to love her
to death and put her on the best independent path
that we could.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
No, no, I really I really like that a lot.
I mean, so you're right.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
It is a terrible shame that basic financial literacy issues
are not taught to young people. I mean, everybody needs
to know about taxes. And I've seen each of my
children have this cold slap in the face when they realized.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That the paycheck that they got, they were like, oh,
this is when I make it. And then they get
the paycheck and they're sorely disappointed. They're like, I just
divided that number by twelve.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean, it's truly a patriotic act to teach our
children this when they're young, because they need to understand.
It's part of it's part of the history lesson and
government lesson. It's like, why you pay taxes, it's so
that these services can be provided.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And no one mixed. I remember one of my college friends.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean we went to Princeton. She had moved to
San Francisco. I went to visit her. I was on
a business trip. I go into this gorgeous apartment when
I mean gorgeous. Art was like, we're twenty three, how
do you have this apartment? And she was like, when
I got my job, I didn't factor in taxes.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh no, I read to this apartment and I can't afford.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It at all.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
No, because I didn't understand that, I wasn't getting the
whole about And so she was like.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Strapped for cash.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Oh, because she had an apartment that she signed for
that she couldn't really afford it.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
That always stayed with me.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
The other thing I will tell you because I know
we've been talking about younger kids, but one of the
things I did give a commencement address during COVID unfortunately,
and I should probably figure out a way to redo it.
I did a convincement address on money. I said, people
come in give you a advice on every topic known
to man. But I could not find a commencement address
on money and in starting your new life, that's a
(27:07):
big part of the story. Right, you went to school
for the degree, hopefully to get a better job.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
But one of the things I say, and when I
say this to young people, they like stiffen up, especially
those who have parents with resources.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Pick a date certain, I don't care what day it is.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Date it could be five years from now, next week,
a date certain. Write it down that you will not
take another dollar from your parents, not one dollar. Pick
a date and establish that is that's your independence day.
And it's true independence. And I have had a lot
(27:47):
of young people look at me like like they go
they swallow hard and they're like, and you have a
lot of parents applauding madly a date certain because a
parents won't do it. Oh no, So I'm like, you
go and declare yourself independent. And because I've worked with
so many people about money, so many wealthy families, so
many young people, and I say to them, what is
(28:10):
the day when you are your own person and not
your parents' child? One of those moments is when you
untap there financially and a lot of people don't do it. Again,
I have families that are struggling. We still pay the
cell phone bill.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I'm like, well, wait a.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Minute, you don't have a retirement account, you know. And
they're thirty right, what is happening here? And it's like, well,
you know, we're trying to help them out. And I'm
sitting here like you're going to be living with them
one day.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Ooh this hitting host home but yeah no, no, they
just called medicine.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But it's actually a date certain. I didn't have the
luxury of having any money from my mother. We didn't
have any It was a gift that I didn't because
I had to stand on my own two feet. There
was no where to go, there was no safety net,
there was nothing home to go back to, and so
as a.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Result of that, it really that is cold water. Take
the cold bath bravely.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
As du Bois said, you know that is really understanding
you're all you've got, and then you behave differently. And
so I think it's something, especially because I see parents
can't do it. So I told the people in the
at the college graduation, you decide.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I love that. I truly love that. I listen.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I think I think that's a great message for kids.
I think parents listening should start sort of mentioning this
as a concept.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
All the young people I know.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
They think they're twenty five and they're like, why are
my parents still treating me like a kid?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And I'm like, cause you're on the dole, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That's not hard. You called them for money. Why are
you calling sake my car broke down? Boy?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That is great, So listen. I want to make sure
that we talk about the book itself. This amazing book.
And as I said before, even though it's build under
Stanley as a children's book, it's the protagonist their children,
adorable children.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Truly, it is a book for everyone.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I mean when I haven't read it, when I read it,
or like we learned so much stuff. I want I
have a favorite part of the book, but I want
you first to tell me what your favorite part of
the book is.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, one thing I will tell you.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I always had one plan, which was I was only
using children as the gateway to adults, so.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
They were my conduit.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I thought adults sitting down and reading this book to
the children to their children would lead them to go
to a cocktail party and say did you know and
have these? You know, ge whiz who knew moments? So
there are tons of them. I have so many parts
of it I love. I tell people one of my favorites.
I've been saying this one over and over again as
the book has come out, is I love the idea.
(30:43):
The first credit card was actually a thousand years ago,
and it was a night's ring. And they had signet
rings that the king or queen would give them because
they didn't want them carrying cash on the road because
there were so many robberies. And so if they went
to a pub or they went to an inn, they
would put their signet ring and wax in a seal
on the bill, and then the pub keeper the or
(31:04):
the innkeeper would take the invoice to the to the
castle and get paid. So it was really a credit card.
And so I always joke, and we joke in the book.
It gave charge a new meaning, which is what you
think about when you think about knights jousting. So that's
one of my favorite stories. I love all the money slang. Yes,
I mean the money and where is the derivation of.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
The money slang? Yeah, it's like who knew?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Cheddar was a result of World War two and the
rations that they gave people and coming out of the war,
obviously food was so scarce. But the cheddar cheese, which
is government cheese. You know, many people who have been
you know, on the on the low end of the
economics pectrum, including me, understand that box of government cheese.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It was like gold.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
And so they would call because it was so valuable,
they started to call it cheddar.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
You know, it was to signify the value of it
and money.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
But there's so many other So I have to tell you,
I love the question of whether you'd rather have.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
A million dollars or a penny that doubles, that doubles
every day.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
And I mean if you say that to a child now,
and it's really good to say to a child now,
because they don't have a sense of the penny. People
throw away pennies. They don't think pennies are very important.
But you lay out how a million dollars, which sounds
like a lot of money, a penny that doubles.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Every day for ye for a year, yields so much
for five million.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It's sort of I mean, it's a basic compounding interest
thing and for people.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Shows them the power of it.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And I just do it very I say, on day two,
it's two cents, On day three, it's four cents. On
day four, it's eight cents. On day five it's sixteen cents.
And I go through that, and you start to see
them say like, oh my gosh. You start to get
to the big numbers and you see how fast it's doubling.
And so they get really clear about what compounding is
and how interest can work against you or work for you.
(32:57):
And speaking of the change point, which I explain, there's
sixty two million dollars in people's couches in America and change.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
That's why you say, go look in your couch.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
There's seriously a lot of change in your couch. So
I have the family that when we were sure I
cash my mom's.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Like turn over everything seriously, pocketbooks and couches, and you'd
occasionally five yeah, oh yeah, No absolutely, at the time
you put it there, it didn't mean exactly. So just
a quick hot topic question before we wrap up. So
I want to get your take on this issue of allowance.
(33:38):
Now in the book you mentioned you and John have
a very interesting conversation about allowances. You didn't grow up
with an allowance, and John did go up an allowance and
tell me what your mom thought allowance.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
So you my mom said, I don't pay you to
live here. You actually have to contribute to the house
and society. So you don't get paid for chores. Chores
are expected. There's no money, it's going to change hand.
And when I got my first job, my mom had
me give her part of my paycheck for expenses to
help with the family's expenses. So she was very clear
(34:10):
the idea that you would get paid to clean the
kitchen or bathroom or anything.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
No way, John done an allowance.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And what I tell people is there are different ways
in different families. I had a family a woman wants
told me she gave her a kid an allowance for
doing chores. The kid went on strike. So you decide
what's right for you. But what I would say, be consistent.
Whatever it is that you're doing, be consistent. And the
other thing that I would say is, you know, decide
if you're going to give an allowance, what is the
(34:37):
allowance to be spent on. You know, on the frontend,
you want to make sure you have some ground rules
on that and don't overdo it. You know, some parents,
I think they go a little too far sometimes at
their own paril, Yes, and they will do things that
don't make sense. So you know, people will tell me
how much they'll give kids a week in college or
how much they'll give a young person as an allowance,
and I'm like, what are you thinking. This is not
(34:59):
to suppose to be big money. You know, this is
WALM pocket change.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
A lot of parents, when they give allowances, do encourage
them to sort of break it up into spending and
saving and hopefully investing. I don't know if parents do that,
but they absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And I love the idea of matching any savings. Yeah,
so I call it a family four oh one K.
So whatever your child will save, you will match it
as long as you can afford it to a certain amount,
you don't have to match it all the way. Just
at work, yeah, you know, we match five percent, you know,
you know, fifty cents a.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Dollar for the first five percent or whatever. Yeah, no, no,
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And it encourages your children and you to talk about
money and to think about how they can grow their money.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Also reward them for saving right.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Absolutely, So, just final thoughts on tying an allowance to
things that aren't chores, but to academic things or reading
a book. I mean, frankly, we try that in a
desperate effort when one of my kids was younger, and
it just didn't work at all. I mean, it just
put more stress and was just not a good thing.
But do you think that can ever work that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
I'm really suspect and concerned about using money in that
way with young people. It feels a bit too manipulative
to me, and I worry about then what kind of
relationship they have with money. So it hardwires some values
that I think become challenging. You have to pay me
to perform when you want them to want to do
(36:24):
that on their own. I would very much discourage it.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, So as I said, we tried it, and I
have seen that it doesn't work. I mean, for some
people out there, it could work. And if you get
your child to do extra credit work that they wouldn't
orinarily ordinarily do, and it works for you. Again, to
your point, be consistent, know your child, know that you're
not stressing them out unnecessarily. But it's something I would
(36:49):
take a hard look at before before I would do.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, And to your point about independence, when do you
think allowances should stop?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I you know, that's my whole point. I think that
once you're out of college and you get your first job,
you can you know, I remember I got my first job,
like I didn't even have a spoon.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I remember I went home and my mom helped me
get two suits and two pairs of shoes. And my
suits were interchangeable. So then they came from Ann Taylor,
loved Ant Taylor, and I had it had.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
A jacket, a sting woman's.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It was wool crape, and so I'd wear the skirt
with a turtleneck, a skirt with a white shirt, skirt
with the jacket. And you know, I can tell you
all the way we wear the combination. But I remember
she helped me get the two suits, she helped me
get the two pairs of shoes, and then you know,
the first month's rent and all of that I had
to pay back.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
She wasn't just giving that to me. And after that
I was kind of paying her. But I will tell
you that I think that you know, out of school
should start some serious conversations about as I said on tap,
and it doesn't. You know, I get that you're young,
you move to a new city, you don't have anything.
(38:04):
I remember going to get a bed. I called my mom.
I was like, mattresses cost a lot, and she was like,
she said something to me that thought was so genius.
This was my mom's you know, the holding two thoughts
at once. She said, I said, Mom, the mattress is like,
the bed is like twenty five hundred dollars, I said,
I have to get. This was on credit and they
(38:25):
had a no interest for six months. It was Marshall
Fields in Chicago, and my mom said, the per dim
on that bed is nothing. She said, you're gonna have
that bed for a long time. It may cost you
fifty cents a night, make maybe a quarter. Wow, She's
like bedschool. She's like, you'll have that bed.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
For ten years. She's like, do the math?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Am so smart?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right? And she was like nothing more important than a
good night of sleep by the bed. Wow, She's like,
this isn't one where you want to go. She also
did my first apartment one hundred and thirty five thousand
dollars in Chicago. My first apartment, my mom says, and
I'm haggling with the woman over the price, haggling. My
mom looks at me and she's like, Melody, you lose
(39:06):
ten thousand dollars in your first apartment. Your life is
not going to change. You're twenty four, you have decades
ahead of you. Stop by the damn apartment. And I
remember sitting there thinking she was totally right. I felt
like I had to win something, and she was right.
(39:26):
I was like in the whole scheme of things, and
I'm not saying this being frivolous, because I worked so hard,
especially in those years, and you can see how hard
I was working to pay it off, like thirty thousand
a year or whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
But she was so right.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
She was like, you're worrying over nothing, which brings me
to one of my most important money lessons I've ever learned,
which was from John Rogers, who founded Aeriel, Who's told me,
never make important decisions based upon money. It's the biggest
mistake you can make. And I was like, that's profound
(40:00):
because you would not think that. He said, I've seen
people leave jobs that they love for an extra ten
thousand dollars and go somewhere that they hate it. I've
seen people do things based upon a financial decision that
was divorced from what would make them happy. And he said,
do not make important decisions based on money. I have
(40:22):
held that clothes to me, made no decisions that were
super important based upon a financial point of view. There
were other considerations that I always put first, and the
financial peace would become second.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Wow. Wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, I know we have to wrap up a quick
question before we do our lightning round. So you've talked
about holding the two concepts of your mom, someone who
struggled with making great financial decisions for a family, but
who had a brilliant mind for passing on financial information
and who had some pretty common sense wisdom about So
the world is filled with parents who hear this conversation.
(40:57):
I think I'm not comfortable yet with money. I'm not
spending it wisely. I mean, if they're true to themselves,
like I bought stuff that I didn't need. How do
you encourage parents to sort of get to the practice
what you preach, because we can tell them all day,
but we do set an example. How do you encourage
parents who feel like they're not steady, they're a little
wobbly on their own financial feet to approach us. First
(41:20):
they need to buy the book, and they will just
make them feel better about talking about money. I think
the literacy helps, but then it provides a foundation of comfort.
I love this line that Arianna Huffington.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Uses where she talks about too little to fail instead
of too big to fail, which was the concept out
of the financial crisis, too little fail is making little goals.
They're so small that it's hard for you to mess them.
I think what happens is when people start thinking about money,
they do it the same way they think about a diet.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
They get very severe. I'm going to save five hundred
dollars a month.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I'm like, I want you to say fifty cents a
day for three months. I wanted you to then change
that to a dollar. Then I wanted to be two
dollars a day. Could you get crazy and get to
five dollars which is half your lunch, you know, like terally,
So I start putting in perspective for them. You did that,
at the end of the year, you've got a couple
thousand dollars, you know, Like these are little, little little things.
(42:14):
So I will tell you that with the parents' language,
I think is very important, your language around money and
how you approach it, and just starting off with small
incremental steps as to try to go big or go home,
you know, just small things that you can do, and
I think that that would make a huge, huge difference
for the children around you.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That is so great, Melody, thank you so much for
coming to talk with us about this and everyone who's listening.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
If you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Already have this book, please order buy Priceless Facts about
Money from the Beginning of Time to the coins in
your counch. I mean, even if your kids are grown,
this is a very good book to have on the show.
So last thing I'd love is for you to play
the GCP Lightning Round for very quick questions.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Your favorite poem or saying be the labor greater or small,
do it well or not at all? From my mother
as not to say the recitation sounds like you've heard
that when you were little. It's going to be on
my tombstone. I decided. I was like, my mom said
that to me my whole life. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Oh okay, your favorite two children's books, and you're allowed
to say yours as one of them.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
The first book I ever read.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
It took me a long time to learn to read,
which always surprises people. I couldn't read until I was
in second grade. But the first book I read was
Charlotte's Web Ah, and it still means a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
E B. White.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, that's a big I mean for a first book.
That's why it was a job that was a job struggle.
And the other one we'll say is your book of course. Okay,
give me a mom moment that you'd like to be
able to do over. And by that, I don't mean
it was so great you want to do it again.
But it's sort of like if I could go back
in time, I might switch it up a little.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I said something to my mom once it was pretty terrible,
and she really got mad at me, and she shut of.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So I just come on from college.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
This is about money, and my mom said, and I
was desperately looking for a part, and she said stay here.
And I was like, I'll never live here again, even
if I were homeless. Oh and my mom she just
looked at me and she's like, malady, that's cruel. And
I was like, I really regret that, Like I kind
(44:16):
of well up thinking when I said that to her.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I know what I.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Intended, but it came out really bad. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
She ever quite forgot those words. Well, you know, as
a parent, now you ultimately do forgive. You don't forget,
but you definitely do forgive. So and then finally a
moment where you nailed it as a mom, and you
as a mom nailed it, like, got it right, I'm
pretty good at the math homework.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Okay, wait, that doesn't count. I'm sure you are. I'm
pretty good at math.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
She's proud of her mom's math, even though they do
it differently.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Now, but you know what I can I stop and
I try to learn. I'm like, okay, I got to
be intuitive. I can't do it my way. And so
I've sort of learned how they think about it.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Ah, so you're good at the modern day math homework.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
No, I'm not doing they told us, don't even think
about doing as they call it, simple algorithm.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
There's no carrying the one.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Oh no, there is no timetables, memorization, the stuff that
we grew up on what.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
No, not at all.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But Melie Hobson, thank you so much. I really appreciate
your time and thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and review where you
find your podcasts, and tell your friends. For more parenting
info and advice, please check out the Ground Control Parenting
website at www Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(45:58):
take care and thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yes,
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. Today, I
am thrilled to welcome a very special guest for this
bonus episode, the amazing Melody Hobson, co CEO of Aerial Investments,
(00:27):
the global asset management firm, and the author of a
great new children's book, Priceless Facts about Money from the
Beginning of Time till the Coins in Your Couch, which
we'll be talking about today. So the list of Melody'
accomplishments could fill the time we have for this episode,
so I will just highlight a handful. In addition to
her work running Aerial Investments, Melody has been a leader
in corporate boardrooms. She's a former chairman of Starbucks Corporation
(00:49):
and its current lead independent director. She's a director of
JP Morgan Chase and was a long standing board member
of the st Laughter Companies, and was chairman of the
board of DreamWorks Animation until the company's sale in twenty
sixteen and then on the nonprofit side, the list is
even longer. She is the chairman of after School Matters,
and Chicago nonprofit that provides area teens with quality after school.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And summer programs.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
She is also co chair of the Lucas Museum of
Narrative Art and a board member of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the
George Lucas Educational Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Melody earned
her AB from Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.
She and her husband, the esteemed director and producer George Lucas,
(01:33):
have are the parents of three adult children and an
eleven year old. Welcome to ground Control Parenting, Melody, thank
you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Ah,
I am so happy to have you join us to
talk about your wonderful new book, which I described as
a children's book, but as we will see, is truly
a book for everyone. So let's get started. So Melody, first,
tell me what led you to create this book. Why
(01:55):
with all of your history of financial literacy and investment experience,
why a book with moneyfacts versus a primer on investing?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, I decided I wanted to write a book for
children about money in order to socialize them to the
topic at a very young age. I think about money
language similarly to learning a foreign language, and we all
know that earlier you start, the better. And so I said, Okay,
what if I could get kids comfortable with the language
(02:25):
of money starting out of the gate? How could I
best do that? And I wanted to write a book,
and I had time because of the pandemic. I wasn't traveling,
and I've been frustrated by the lack of financial literacy,
not only in our country but in the world, and
the fact that we don't really learn about investing in
American schools. And so I said, instead of admiring the problem,
(02:46):
I'm going to do something about it. But I have
to tell you I didn't have an original idea for
some time of how was I going to articulate the information?
And the book publisher initially said, create a character and
have them tell a story. That felt too sweet for
what I was trying to accomplish and not write, and
I kept rejecting that. I said, no, this is not
(03:06):
a character, this is not three words on a page.
This is a serious book. I sent the most famous
children's books out to five or six kids that I knew,
and it was Where the Wild Things Are, The Giving Tree,
good Night Moon, all of those books. I said, read
the books and tell me what you like about them.
So we all got on a zoom and one boy,
(03:28):
Austin Robinson, who is now fifteen, said to me, I
like facts.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I like learning things.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I remembered Everest had a book about animals that she loved,
my now eleven year old that we read over and
over again, and we were just as fascinated with that
she was. And I said, that's what we're going to do,
but not an encyclopedia. We're going to do something that
gives you facts in a really funny and coherent way.
You could read it all at once, or you could
read parts. You don't have to follow it in order.
(03:57):
We were just thinking a lot of things, but maybe
telling anartive story along the way, which is what we
did to tie it all together and not make it
seem facts only. And ultimately we came up with the
concept of priceless facts about money. Lots and lots of drafts,
lots of peer review. Everest was my best editor.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, yea.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You dedicated the book to her and to children everywhere,
and I know that she helped you with it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
How did she help you? I wrote the first draft
and I felt really proud of it. Okay.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I had a writer with me, Nels Golvell. She was
helping me with research and she just makes things funny.
She's one of those people. She has great comedy skills.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Wit and we would allow me so hard and together
we just we would make jokes all the time, so
and looking for the jokes that would translate on paper.
And after I wrote it, I gave it to George
and I said, okay, George read it, figuring he knows
a thing or two about inspiring young people. And we
came back and he said it's a little sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And I was like a little annoying. I'm like, what
do you know like and.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Realized ay telling, So he's like, it's a little sophisticated.
So I was a little crushed, and I said, Okay,
what am I going to do about this? So I
decided to have Everest read it, and I said, Everest,
circle every word.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So there's a lot of circling, and so then I said, Okay,
I'm not going to dumb it down.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I'm going to translate.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So there are times when I phonetically explain the word.
There are times there's a definition and a footnote that's
very user friendly. But I kept the integrity, you know,
I leveled it up, but at the same time made
it accessible by having Everest helped me edit it, and
she did a really good job.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
She read it multiple times.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
And the illustrations really make it fun. I mean really really,
I mean spoiler alert. There's the cutest little the two
people that walking through the story of Melody and John Rodgers,
and there are depictions of them as little kids that
are so good. And the illustrator tell me about how
you found was Everest elementary school teacher, and this is
(06:03):
a true story. I was interviewing illustrators on Zoom and
I had an idea in mind, and I kept saying
to the book publishers, I said, I wanted to be realistic, but.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Not scary or anything like that. And so we were
trying illustrators and we're looking and they're showing me things
and nothing is speaking to me. Everest walks in at
that point she's literally only seven, and she says, miss
Stevens is a really great artist. And I'm like, yeah, thanks,
(06:34):
and she's like, no, mom, she is. And I just
really ignore ever. So I'm like, everest, you know, I
have to finish these interviews. And so she comes back
and she's like, just look at her website. She's like,
look at her website. She's really good. And she was
really like sort of grabbed me by the lapal seven.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Year old moment.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So I log onto the website and the first thing
I see, I said, oh, she's good. So I called
her and I said, would you ever consider She was
taken aback obviously, and I said, will you do one
thing for me? I'm going to send you my picture
in John Rogers's picture, who's my co CEO who founded Ariel,
and he's my coinarrator in the book, And I said,
(07:12):
draw us. Got heard the job was the two pictures
she sent back. We saw those and I said, she's
the person. And from there we were working together because
you have to interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What I write.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
That's the other thing in order to make the illustration
really make sense. I mean, they're so good and they
work so well. It is a funny book.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I mean, it's a serious book, but it's filled with
humor and illustrations really just.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Augment the humor. It makes it so much fun to
read and flip through.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So you wanted to socialize the concept of talking with
kids about money. Many years before you wrote this book,
you have been on a mission to get people to
focus more on being financially literate and talking to children
about money. Why do you think it's so tough for
people to talk about money with their kids.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Because of their own fears.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So seventy seven percent of Americans say they have anxiety
about money. A lot of that is born out of
their lack of knowledge and information. As I mentioned, we
don't grow up in homes. We don't grow up learning
about money at school. And if you don't grow up
in a home where money is discussed, you're really behind
the eight ball. And yet, and this is the great
universal truth. No matter where you live in the world Chicago, Illinois,
(08:26):
New York City, Kansas and African village, you must deal
with money every single day. It is a fact of life.
And so we have anxiety about something we have to
deal with every single day. And that is why we
avoid the subject. I've recently said, you know, parents basically
are more comfortable talking about a condom than a credit
(08:46):
card because these are the things that give them so
much anxiety, and it has nothing to do with socioeconomic status.
So we find this same anxiety exists at the highest
level of economic comfort and at the lowest level there's
not much difference. And when it comes to talking about money,
(09:08):
parents who have means are afraid to have the conversation
because they think they will raise entitled kids, and parents
who are struggling or short on resources thinks that the
conversation will create a great deal of anxiety for the child.
In both situations, running away from the subject is the
wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So you've talked a lot about the fact that you
grew up in fairly humble circumstances and in fact, because
you were focused on money or the lack of resources
growing up, it encouraged you to think about money. But
you've also said your mom was really helpful in giving
you financial literacy. How did you teach you about money
when you were young.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I'm going to ask you to hold two ideas at once,
because this is a little crazy. My mom was amazing.
She was a great mom. I'm the youngest of six kids.
My siblings were much much older than me. But my
mom allowed me to be my own person, and it
was it was a it was a gift that she
gave to me. It was never about me being in
(10:07):
an image that she wanted me to be in. She
just accepted me for who I was.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And I just dare say that you were number six,
that she'd probably exercised all that.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She was also like, five, you're still breathing, You're fine,
you know.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
There was no energy around my struggles, not in a
way of ignoring it, but she had lived through it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
All works out me, Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
She Yeah, my mom was definitely over it by the
time I was born, so she just like, you know,
you'll figure it out. Basically, that ended up being a
great gift because I became very, very.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Independent and self sufficient.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So the two ideas that I asked you all that
once is she made a lot of terrible money decisions.
So I had the mom who would buy Easter dresses
instead of pay the light bill, so we'd have no lights,
but we.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Look good at church, and that really messed.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Up my head, Like I couldn't figure that out and
she was doing the best that she could and she
was working so hard. So please know this wasn't someone
who was, you know, frivolous about her work ethic, but
her values around what was important sometimes were misaligned with.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
What we needed.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
So that was that, And even as a child, I
knew that, like, this is not a good decision. At
the same time, my mother, because money was scarce and
front and center in our life all the time as
a problem, she actually made me very aware of what
all the issues were. So I know what our ret cost.
I knew what our phone and light bills were. All
(11:38):
of those things she showed me. And one of the
things she did is she always had me handle cash.
So if we went to a restaurant, I paid. I mean,
I remember reaching when I was like four or five
years old. She was like, she would give me the
money and say hand it. Then when I got older,
she'd have me count the change. Then when I got older,
(11:58):
she'd have me calculate the t So as a result
of that one I knew what things cost. The other
thing that she did I remember once going to the
bank and she made a bank deposit and she stopped
and she said, you know, we were at the teller
window because my mom went to every place directly to
take care of transactions, like paid the lightmil at the
light company, paid the phone bill, no mailing in anything, right, Okay.
(12:22):
So we're there at the bank and she's depositing something
and after she finished, she made me stop and she's like,
now look at my account number and look at the
number on this receipt and make sure they're correct. And
I remember I was like nine, and she was just like,
she's always double check these things. And I was like,
she taught me how to write out a check when
(12:43):
I was very young. And of course, you know, I'm
on the board of JP Morgan. I can't believe I'm
saying this now. When I was a little kid, she
wasn't home and we didn't have anything to eat. We'd
order food and then she's like, go write out a
check and sign it. And they took chat said the
place where we ordered food, and it was just like
(13:05):
that was normal for us.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Normal. Now there were a lot of bouch checks.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
To me.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I was just thinking, I mean, when my kids went
off to college, I'm not sure they knew how to
write a check.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
You know, I write a check when I was like eight. Yeah,
I mean literally, I.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Was financially sophisticated and yet short on cash.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Well, you know, it's interesting that, you know, you find
parents when they noticed, they understand their own shortcomings. They
work hard to eliminate them and their children. But I
imagine that your mom may have understood that she wasn't
as great with money, but she could pass on to
you the things that would make you better.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I don't think that that was true. Knowing my mom,
I think that she was. It's how she was just
extremely pragmatic, practical, and direct. I don't think she was
thinking she was passing on something or she was training
me for life. But she did that in lots of things,
you know, But the sort of handling money and thinking
(14:05):
about money was just one of many things.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So one of the basic things you think that young
children should know. And how soon should families start these conversations.
I think they should start the conversations very early.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And people are always really surprised when I say four
years old, five years old.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They're really shocked.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And I said, you can start in a very basic way,
and I talk about it in the book. I use
this opening story of bartering as a way of establishing
the first conversation about money. The bartering example is one
that I love so much because it makes a child
to assign value to things, and it separates the idea
of actually cost from value. And sometimes something we value
(14:47):
a lot that doesn't cost a lot, and we don't
value at all that costs a lot, And so having
a child assign value, I think is really important. And
the great example that I give in the book is
do you want to trade a cupcake for picture that
John is drawn? And John is the one who I'm
making the trade with, and he's like, Ooh, I'd love
to eat that cupcake. But then you get to keep
(15:08):
the picture and have it forever, and the cupcake will
be gone. And that's a really good example of having
a child say, well this picture, is this more valuable
to me? Or is this instant gratification of the cupcake? No,
it's not putting any judgment on it, just letting the
child decide. So that would be a great example of ways.
You know, do you want Barbie or a cupcake? Do
(15:30):
you want Pokemon? Or you know, you can decide what
it is based upon your child and all they're doing
is valuing things, but over time they start to really
establish what.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Is important to them.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I think the other thing is just to This is
one that people are really shocked when I say it,
but I really think you've got to use cash around
very young children because the problem is money is extremely
mysterious to a child.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And I'll give you an example in a minute.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And the mystery is magnified by the fact that they
see money spitting out of a machine with an ATM,
or they see their parents waving a phone over a
point of sale machine, or obviously using a credit card.
So a lot of parents have said to me that
when they tell their children, as they're trying to control
their expenses, we can't afford it, the children will say,
(16:19):
put it on a credit card, which means fundamentally they
don't understand the thing about money in a wallet. It's finite,
it runs out. So they can see, oh, we have
no more now. Think about it through the eyes of
a four year old, you know, not the eyes for
a twenty year old. That that's something that really helps
them to understand there's.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
An end to this.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And then also explaining to them when I go to
this machine to get money, I have to work to
make sure it's there. We don't always tie out all
the pieces to them. Sometimes they ask questions and we
get there, but being as deliberate as we can, like
what is scary or traumatic about explaining to it out
(17:01):
where the money in an ATM comes from. It comes
from the work you did, or a gift that you received,
or you know, to make it clearer to them, and
then I do as a child gets older, I do
like to incorporate, you know, around twelve thirteen years old,
a debit card, around fifteen years old, a real credit card.
And I talk about that because parents usually hand the
(17:23):
credit card to a child when they leave to go
to college or are leaving the house.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
You can't get a credit.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Card on your own until you're twenty one years old.
Your credit is tied to your parents. I call that
credit card without any training a weapon of mass destruction.
So if you have not been trained on how to
use that credit card, you could do a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And we all know once you leave the house, it's
kind of hard to control the kid.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Again, you're lucky if you get a return full call
in some situations. So the idea that they're running around
with a credit card tied to your credit score without
any training. It's a little too little, too late to
do that at the age of eighteen. Start at fifteen,
having them understand paying off the whole balance, not just
making minimum payments, understanding the interest on things. These are
(18:10):
really great conversations, absolutely so so much of what you
said resonates. First of all, parents everywhere really need to
think about this cash thing because it's harder and harder
to use cashes.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
You really have to work to use cash. Yes, you
have to coins.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You really have to sit down and make them start
with the play ones or go with the real ones.
But you have to because nowadays, I mean, so many
people who are having children don't carry cash at all.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It makes a difference in terms of how a child
can perceive how money is and how it works. The
credit card, I have to laugh. My mother gave me
a credit card when I was young, when I was
a teenager, and it was tied to her account. It
was only for emergencies, and I was the kid who
was going to pay attention to that. But I remember
specifically having to ask her when I made you know,
(18:56):
make any kind of purchase, let her know and you know,
figure out how much I was going to have to
give her back.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And that was really valuable lessons exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But I will say that it actually wasn't until I
was fully grown about to marry that I understood the
perfect use of credit cards, which is paying the balance
off in full every month, every month, every bill, because
we would use credit as credit. I mean, we would
just pay it over time, and I have to credit.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
My husband.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
He's like, what are you doing. Why do you have
balances on your credit bo cards? And I was like, well,
that's what you do. And then you know the fine print,
you realize you're paying twice from the same thing. And
as he said, and we've always said to our children,
if you cannot pay it off by the end of
the month, you should not be buying it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Now there are things, I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Washer washing machine that you need to buy and you're
going to pay it off over some months. I mean,
that is very practical. You may have to do something,
you know. I try not to have these rules be
too hard and fast, but I personally have always tried to.
I mean I walk around with my Green AMX, my
(20:04):
debit card and my wallet. And I always joke that
my visa is I'm in Europe and I break my
arm and they don't take AMEX, you know, like literally
that's what I say. Or my debit card, which is
a visa debit card.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
But that's me.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
We had built collectors calling all the time, and I
worried so much about money that I literally want everything
paid off.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I mean I really do.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
When I got my first apartment in Chicago, I was
twenty five and I paid it off in three years,
which I mean you would think I could not handle
having a mortgage.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I literally it just worried me to death. And I
kept saying, if anything.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Goes wrong, I want to know I have a place
to live.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
So I just like debtn't buy anything for those years,
and just every extra dollar I had I was paying
a mortgage off.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, no, I feel like I need to clean up
the statement because certainly, if you have to buy something
that's a big ticket item.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And you need it, you need to it's hard trouble.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I was just thinking in terms of the advice for kids,
it's sort of if you want those sneakers and you
know you're not not a.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Vacation, right, you know, don't put the ten thousand dollars
vacation on that you'll still be paying for next year, right, right, right, No, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to
the show, Melodie.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You've also said that talking about money is hard for
people who don't have a lot because of the stress
of it, But it's also hard for people who have
resources because of the stress of it. If you do
have some resources, why is it important that your children
know about them and understand them, and what's to prevent
them from feeling that they're entitled?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
As you said, so, I have.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
To say I don't think it's any different either side.
I want to really stress that it's not harder for
one versus the other. I think parents with resources it's
very important to put it all in context for a child.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And so.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Ever's very recently someone at school set something to her
about money and how much money her family had or
didn't have, or anything like that, and I looked at
her and I said, Everest, it's not your money, that's true.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
No it is, Yeah, it's not. I said, you live
here like none of it belongs to you.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I mean Okay, I'll give you the clothes on your back,
but in your cosmetics, you know kind of thing, but
everything else is kind of ours. And I didn't say
that in a way of being strident or mean spirited, No,
it just because it really then she was and she
said she's a smart, smart girl. She was like, well,
I have resources one day. First of all, she said,
(22:38):
used the word resources. I said, yes, you will, and
she said where will they come from? I said, well
you'll have a job. And I said, you know, you'll
have some resources, and she says where will I live?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I said, you'll probably have a house and she said, well.
I said, let's pick picture of your house. What does
it look like?
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I said, I see a white picket fence? Do you
She was like, mmm, modern. But it was a really
great exercise. I said, okay, now tell me more about it.
And I said, so, how are you going to buy
that house? You know, we sort of like, you know,
we sort of I.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Said, what city is it in? She said, I have
no idea?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I mean super interesting, right, visualization at that age, not
with any pressure, right, just like imagining your own what
would you do differently? Not stuff that has been put
upon you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Absolutely, And actually that conversation can have you can have
with a child wherever you are on the economic spectrum,
because you want to encourage your child to think about
the future and dream big.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I give her this example. I give this example all
the time.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So we're at the McDonald's drive thru on what we
used to call French five Friday, except Everest decided that
it wasn't a good idea. I was crushed because I
love French fry Friday. So we were French Try Friday
and we got a largerder fries at the window and
they said it was five dollars and forty cents with tax,
and Evers looked at me, she said, what is tax?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I was like, wow.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
First of all, I was annoyed at myself that I
didn't put tax in the book.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
But then I was like, she's that is such a
basic thing.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
So we did the rest of the car ride on taxes,
both tax that you pay on goods, but also tax
that comes out of your paycheon. So I said Everest,
basically I worked the first few months of the year
for no money, because if you add up all the
taxes I pay over the course of the year, that's
what it equals. She's like, wait a minute, you work
for free for the No, it doesn't quite work like that,
(24:32):
but if you add it all up, and she was like, ah,
that is bad, mom, And so I'm looking at her.
I said, no everest, I said police, fire department, the
streets to be cleaned, like I gleet you all the things, teachers,
et cetera. And I said, those are all the things
taxes are for. And I hadn't thought about something that
(24:53):
basic of explaining that to her. But all of that
is just normal conversation to tell her how much we
pay in taxes. But it was the concept that I
was delivering to her, the concept that she would, you know,
have resources if she had a job, The concept that
she wasn't going to be given everything, and the concept
(25:13):
that what.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We had was not hers. She was temporarily our guest
right she was.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Eighteen years old, that we were going to love her
to death and put her on the best independent path
that we could.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
No, no, I really I really like that a lot.
I mean, so you're right.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
It is a terrible shame that basic financial literacy issues
are not taught to young people. I mean, everybody needs
to know about taxes. And I've seen each of my
children have this cold slap in the face when they realized.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
That the paycheck that they got, they were like, oh,
this is when I make it. And then they get
the paycheck and they're sorely disappointed. They're like, I just
divided that number by twelve.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean, it's truly a patriotic act to teach our
children this when they're young, because they need to understand.
It's part of it's part of the history lesson and
government lesson. It's like, why you pay taxes, it's so
that these services can be provided.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And no one mixed. I remember one of my college friends.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I mean we went to Princeton. She had moved to
San Francisco. I went to visit her. I was on
a business trip. I go into this gorgeous apartment when
I mean gorgeous. Art was like, we're twenty three, how
do you have this apartment? And she was like, when
I got my job, I didn't factor in taxes.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh no, I read to this apartment and I can't afford.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It at all.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
No, because I didn't understand that, I wasn't getting the
whole about And so she was like.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Strapped for cash.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Oh, because she had an apartment that she signed for
that she couldn't really afford it.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
That always stayed with me.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
The other thing I will tell you because I know
we've been talking about younger kids, but one of the
things I did give a commencement address during COVID unfortunately,
and I should probably figure out a way to redo it.
I did a convincement address on money. I said, people
come in give you a advice on every topic known
to man. But I could not find a commencement address
on money and in starting your new life, that's a
(27:07):
big part of the story. Right, you went to school
for the degree, hopefully to get a better job.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
But one of the things I say, and when I
say this to young people, they like stiffen up, especially
those who have parents with resources.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Pick a date certain, I don't care what day it is.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Date it could be five years from now, next week,
a date certain. Write it down that you will not
take another dollar from your parents, not one dollar. Pick
a date and establish that is that's your independence day.
And it's true independence. And I have had a lot
(27:47):
of young people look at me like like they go
they swallow hard and they're like, and you have a
lot of parents applauding madly a date certain because a
parents won't do it. Oh no, So I'm like, you
go and declare yourself independent. And because I've worked with
so many people about money, so many wealthy families, so
many young people, and I say to them, what is
(28:10):
the day when you are your own person and not
your parents' child? One of those moments is when you
untap there financially and a lot of people don't do it. Again,
I have families that are struggling. We still pay the
cell phone bill.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I'm like, well, wait a.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Minute, you don't have a retirement account, you know. And
they're thirty right, what is happening here? And it's like, well,
you know, we're trying to help them out. And I'm
sitting here like you're going to be living with them
one day.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Ooh this hitting host home but yeah no, no, they
just called medicine.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But it's actually a date certain. I didn't have the
luxury of having any money from my mother. We didn't
have any It was a gift that I didn't because
I had to stand on my own two feet. There
was no where to go, there was no safety net,
there was nothing home to go back to, and so
as a.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Result of that, it really that is cold water. Take
the cold bath bravely.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
As du Bois said, you know that is really understanding
you're all you've got, and then you behave differently. And
so I think it's something, especially because I see parents
can't do it. So I told the people in the
at the college graduation, you decide.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I love that. I truly love that. I listen.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I think I think that's a great message for kids.
I think parents listening should start sort of mentioning this
as a concept.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
All the young people I know.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
They think they're twenty five and they're like, why are
my parents still treating me like a kid?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And I'm like, cause you're on the dole, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That's not hard. You called them for money. Why are
you calling sake my car broke down? Boy?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That is great, So listen. I want to make sure
that we talk about the book itself. This amazing book.
And as I said before, even though it's build under
Stanley as a children's book, it's the protagonist their children,
adorable children.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Truly, it is a book for everyone.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I mean when I haven't read it, when I read it,
or like we learned so much stuff. I want I
have a favorite part of the book, but I want
you first to tell me what your favorite part of
the book is.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, one thing I will tell you.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I always had one plan, which was I was only
using children as the gateway to adults, so.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
They were my conduit.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I thought adults sitting down and reading this book to
the children to their children would lead them to go
to a cocktail party and say did you know and
have these? You know, ge whiz who knew moments? So
there are tons of them. I have so many parts
of it I love. I tell people one of my favorites.
I've been saying this one over and over again as
the book has come out, is I love the idea.
(30:43):
The first credit card was actually a thousand years ago,
and it was a night's ring. And they had signet
rings that the king or queen would give them because
they didn't want them carrying cash on the road because
there were so many robberies. And so if they went
to a pub or they went to an inn, they
would put their signet ring and wax in a seal
on the bill, and then the pub keeper the or
(31:04):
the innkeeper would take the invoice to the to the
castle and get paid. So it was really a credit card.
And so I always joke, and we joke in the book.
It gave charge a new meaning, which is what you
think about when you think about knights jousting. So that's
one of my favorite stories. I love all the money slang. Yes,
I mean the money and where is the derivation of.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
The money slang? Yeah, it's like who knew?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Cheddar was a result of World War two and the
rations that they gave people and coming out of the war,
obviously food was so scarce. But the cheddar cheese, which
is government cheese. You know, many people who have been
you know, on the on the low end of the
economics pectrum, including me, understand that box of government cheese.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It was like gold.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
And so they would call because it was so valuable,
they started to call it cheddar.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
You know, it was to signify the value of it
and money.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
But there's so many other So I have to tell you,
I love the question of whether you'd rather have.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
A million dollars or a penny that doubles, that doubles
every day.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
And I mean if you say that to a child now,
and it's really good to say to a child now,
because they don't have a sense of the penny. People
throw away pennies. They don't think pennies are very important.
But you lay out how a million dollars, which sounds
like a lot of money, a penny that doubles.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Every day for ye for a year, yields so much
for five million.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It's sort of I mean, it's a basic compounding interest
thing and for people.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Shows them the power of it.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And I just do it very I say, on day two,
it's two cents, On day three, it's four cents. On
day four, it's eight cents. On day five it's sixteen cents.
And I go through that, and you start to see
them say like, oh my gosh. You start to get
to the big numbers and you see how fast it's doubling.
And so they get really clear about what compounding is
and how interest can work against you or work for you.
(32:57):
And speaking of the change point, which I explain, there's
sixty two million dollars in people's couches in America and change.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
That's why you say, go look in your couch.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
There's seriously a lot of change in your couch. So
I have the family that when we were sure I
cash my mom's.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Like turn over everything seriously, pocketbooks and couches, and you'd
occasionally five yeah, oh yeah, No absolutely, at the time
you put it there, it didn't mean exactly. So just
a quick hot topic question before we wrap up. So
I want to get your take on this issue of allowance.
(33:38):
Now in the book you mentioned you and John have
a very interesting conversation about allowances. You didn't grow up
with an allowance, and John did go up an allowance and
tell me what your mom thought allowance.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
So you my mom said, I don't pay you to
live here. You actually have to contribute to the house
and society. So you don't get paid for chores. Chores
are expected. There's no money, it's going to change hand.
And when I got my first job, my mom had
me give her part of my paycheck for expenses to
help with the family's expenses. So she was very clear
(34:10):
the idea that you would get paid to clean the
kitchen or bathroom or anything.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
No way, John done an allowance.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And what I tell people is there are different ways
in different families. I had a family a woman wants
told me she gave her a kid an allowance for
doing chores. The kid went on strike. So you decide
what's right for you. But what I would say, be consistent.
Whatever it is that you're doing, be consistent. And the
other thing that I would say is, you know, decide
if you're going to give an allowance, what is the
(34:37):
allowance to be spent on. You know, on the frontend,
you want to make sure you have some ground rules
on that and don't overdo it. You know, some parents,
I think they go a little too far sometimes at
their own paril, Yes, and they will do things that
don't make sense. So you know, people will tell me
how much they'll give kids a week in college or
how much they'll give a young person as an allowance,
and I'm like, what are you thinking. This is not
(34:59):
to suppose to be big money. You know, this is
WALM pocket change.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
A lot of parents, when they give allowances, do encourage
them to sort of break it up into spending and
saving and hopefully investing. I don't know if parents do that,
but they absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And I love the idea of matching any savings. Yeah,
so I call it a family four oh one K.
So whatever your child will save, you will match it
as long as you can afford it to a certain amount,
you don't have to match it all the way. Just
at work, yeah, you know, we match five percent, you know,
you know, fifty cents a.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Dollar for the first five percent or whatever. Yeah, no, no,
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And it encourages your children and you to talk about
money and to think about how they can grow their money.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Also reward them for saving right.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Absolutely, So, just final thoughts on tying an allowance to
things that aren't chores, but to academic things or reading
a book. I mean, frankly, we try that in a
desperate effort when one of my kids was younger, and
it just didn't work at all. I mean, it just
put more stress and was just not a good thing.
But do you think that can ever work that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
I'm really suspect and concerned about using money in that
way with young people. It feels a bit too manipulative
to me, and I worry about then what kind of
relationship they have with money. So it hardwires some values
that I think become challenging. You have to pay me
to perform when you want them to want to do
(36:24):
that on their own. I would very much discourage it.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, So as I said, we tried it, and I
have seen that it doesn't work. I mean, for some
people out there, it could work. And if you get
your child to do extra credit work that they wouldn't
orinarily ordinarily do, and it works for you. Again, to
your point, be consistent, know your child, know that you're
not stressing them out unnecessarily. But it's something I would
(36:49):
take a hard look at before before I would do.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, And to your point about independence, when do you
think allowances should stop?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I you know, that's my whole point. I think that
once you're out of college and you get your first job,
you can you know, I remember I got my first job,
like I didn't even have a spoon.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I remember I went home and my mom helped me
get two suits and two pairs of shoes. And my
suits were interchangeable. So then they came from Ann Taylor,
loved Ant Taylor, and I had it had.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
A jacket, a sting woman's.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
It was wool crape, and so I'd wear the skirt
with a turtleneck, a skirt with a white shirt, skirt
with the jacket. And you know, I can tell you
all the way we wear the combination. But I remember
she helped me get the two suits, she helped me
get the two pairs of shoes, and then you know,
the first month's rent and all of that I had
to pay back.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
She wasn't just giving that to me. And after that
I was kind of paying her. But I will tell
you that I think that you know, out of school
should start some serious conversations about as I said on tap,
and it doesn't. You know, I get that you're young,
you move to a new city, you don't have anything.
(38:04):
I remember going to get a bed. I called my mom.
I was like, mattresses cost a lot, and she was like,
she said something to me that thought was so genius.
This was my mom's you know, the holding two thoughts
at once. She said, I said, Mom, the mattress is like,
the bed is like twenty five hundred dollars, I said,
I have to get. This was on credit and they
(38:25):
had a no interest for six months. It was Marshall
Fields in Chicago, and my mom said, the per dim
on that bed is nothing. She said, you're gonna have
that bed for a long time. It may cost you
fifty cents a night, make maybe a quarter. Wow, She's
like bedschool. She's like, you'll have that bed.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
For ten years. She's like, do the math?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Am so smart?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right? And she was like nothing more important than a
good night of sleep by the bed. Wow, She's like,
this isn't one where you want to go. She also
did my first apartment one hundred and thirty five thousand
dollars in Chicago. My first apartment, my mom says, and
I'm haggling with the woman over the price, haggling. My
mom looks at me and she's like, Melody, you lose
(39:06):
ten thousand dollars in your first apartment. Your life is
not going to change. You're twenty four, you have decades
ahead of you. Stop by the damn apartment. And I
remember sitting there thinking she was totally right. I felt
like I had to win something, and she was right.
(39:26):
I was like in the whole scheme of things, and
I'm not saying this being frivolous, because I worked so hard,
especially in those years, and you can see how hard
I was working to pay it off, like thirty thousand
a year or whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
But she was so right.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
She was like, you're worrying over nothing, which brings me
to one of my most important money lessons I've ever learned,
which was from John Rogers, who founded Aeriel, Who's told me,
never make important decisions based upon money. It's the biggest
mistake you can make. And I was like, that's profound
(40:00):
because you would not think that. He said, I've seen
people leave jobs that they love for an extra ten
thousand dollars and go somewhere that they hate it. I've
seen people do things based upon a financial decision that
was divorced from what would make them happy. And he said,
do not make important decisions based on money. I have
(40:22):
held that clothes to me, made no decisions that were
super important based upon a financial point of view. There
were other considerations that I always put first, and the
financial peace would become second.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Wow. Wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, I know we have to wrap up a quick
question before we do our lightning round. So you've talked
about holding the two concepts of your mom, someone who
struggled with making great financial decisions for a family, but
who had a brilliant mind for passing on financial information
and who had some pretty common sense wisdom about So
the world is filled with parents who hear this conversation.
(40:57):
I think I'm not comfortable yet with money. I'm not
spending it wisely. I mean, if they're true to themselves,
like I bought stuff that I didn't need. How do
you encourage parents to sort of get to the practice
what you preach, because we can tell them all day,
but we do set an example. How do you encourage
parents who feel like they're not steady, they're a little
wobbly on their own financial feet to approach us. First
(41:20):
they need to buy the book, and they will just
make them feel better about talking about money. I think
the literacy helps, but then it provides a foundation of comfort.
I love this line that Arianna Huffington.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Uses where she talks about too little to fail instead
of too big to fail, which was the concept out
of the financial crisis, too little fail is making little goals.
They're so small that it's hard for you to mess them.
I think what happens is when people start thinking about money,
they do it the same way they think about a diet.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
They get very severe. I'm going to save five hundred
dollars a month.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I'm like, I want you to say fifty cents a
day for three months. I wanted you to then change
that to a dollar. Then I wanted to be two
dollars a day. Could you get crazy and get to
five dollars which is half your lunch, you know, like terally,
So I start putting in perspective for them. You did that,
at the end of the year, you've got a couple
thousand dollars, you know, Like these are little, little little things.
(42:14):
So I will tell you that with the parents' language,
I think is very important, your language around money and
how you approach it, and just starting off with small
incremental steps as to try to go big or go home,
you know, just small things that you can do, and
I think that that would make a huge, huge difference
for the children around you.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That is so great, Melody, thank you so much for
coming to talk with us about this and everyone who's listening.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
If you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Already have this book, please order buy Priceless Facts about
Money from the Beginning of Time to the coins in
your counch. I mean, even if your kids are grown,
this is a very good book to have on the show.
So last thing I'd love is for you to play
the GCP Lightning Round for very quick questions.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Your favorite poem or saying be the labor greater or small,
do it well or not at all? From my mother
as not to say the recitation sounds like you've heard
that when you were little. It's going to be on
my tombstone. I decided. I was like, my mom said
that to me my whole life. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Oh okay, your favorite two children's books, and you're allowed
to say yours as one of them.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
The first book I ever read.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
It took me a long time to learn to read,
which always surprises people. I couldn't read until I was
in second grade. But the first book I read was
Charlotte's Web Ah, and it still means a lot to me.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
E B. White.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, that's a big I mean for a first book.
That's why it was a job that was a job struggle.
And the other one we'll say is your book of course. Okay,
give me a mom moment that you'd like to be
able to do over. And by that, I don't mean
it was so great you want to do it again.
But it's sort of like if I could go back
in time, I might switch it up a little.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I said something to my mom once it was pretty terrible,
and she really got mad at me, and she shut of.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So I just come on from college.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
This is about money, and my mom said, and I
was desperately looking for a part, and she said stay here.
And I was like, I'll never live here again, even
if I were homeless. Oh and my mom she just
looked at me and she's like, malady, that's cruel. And
I was like, I really regret that, Like I kind
(44:16):
of well up thinking when I said that to her.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
I know what I.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Intended, but it came out really bad. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
She ever quite forgot those words. Well, you know, as
a parent, now you ultimately do forgive. You don't forget,
but you definitely do forgive. So and then finally a
moment where you nailed it as a mom, and you
as a mom nailed it, like, got it right, I'm
pretty good at the math homework.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Okay, wait, that doesn't count. I'm sure you are. I'm
pretty good at math.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
She's proud of her mom's math, even though they do
it differently.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Now, but you know what I can I stop and
I try to learn. I'm like, okay, I got to
be intuitive. I can't do it my way. And so
I've sort of learned how they think about it.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Ah, so you're good at the modern day math homework.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
No, I'm not doing they told us, don't even think
about doing as they call it, simple algorithm.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
There's no carrying the one.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Oh no, there is no timetables, memorization, the stuff that
we grew up on what.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
No, not at all.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But Melie Hobson, thank you so much. I really appreciate
your time and thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and review where you
find your podcasts, and tell your friends. For more parenting
info and advice, please check out the Ground Control Parenting
website at www Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(45:58):
take care and thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yes,
Popular Podcasts
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.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.