The Challengers – Raising Money Smart Pre-Teens and Teens

Parents will teach their children, but they they will always wanna learn the lessons themselves. Right. The the kids are gonna make sure you learn it. Right.

So if you’re trying to teach a challenger, you better make sure your every t is crossed and the i’s are dotted and the e’s and q’s are in the right spot because they’re gonna call it out. Yeah. And that’s that’s and then you will adjust because it’s like or adjust. Don’t throw in the towel because it’s the outcome of raising financially responsible children long term is always wealth.

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Today’s topic is challengers.

We could both be quiet, I think, for most of the episodes. I mean, the challengers I I struggled with giving this group. This would be young people ages eleven to twenty.

And even in there, there’s probably subcategories.

I I really I was conflicted in giving them the name challengers in the book because it has a negative connotation, but I I I want to spin that a little bit more from a positive thing. And we literally we talked about this a little bit off camera. We could probably do seventeen episodes just on the challengers and still not do it justice because so many things have changed and are continually changing.

Not only is that age group challenging, but you have different different willed children at that point in time. Hopefully, if everybody has been diligent and and and really put in good principles to the repeaters that those, you know, from infancy to age ten, hopefully, there’s a good foundation that’s at least laid that you can build on. The reason I use the word challengers isn’t because they’re challenging in that they’re in a bad way. It’s that they often will challenge the concepts you’re trying to teach.

Some because now they’re getting introduced, you know, from zero to ten, you’ve hung the moon. Right? The the the repeater looks to you and really values everything. Yeah.

You know everything at that point.

You do. Yeah. You get to challengers, and now they’ve got another set of influencers that are coming in and saying, you don’t have a cell phone yet? I have a cell phone.

How come I don’t have a cell phone? So there’s a different set of issues that can come in, but they’re also gonna challenge more because they see we’re not as consistent as we should be. You know, they humor on a side note. I always find it interesting that we say, you know, we tell young people maybe don’t drink and don’t drink and drive.

And yet you see a lot of adults get in the car after drinking. So kids watch this and they’re going, wait. Why the why the why the why the consistency here? So they’re gonna they’re gonna bring that up.

Now you have what? Three challenge?

Yeah. Yeah. So I have I have six kids between eight and eighteen, but I’ve got an eighteen, sixteen, and fifteen year old right now, and a soon to be thirteen year old.

So we’re, yeah, we’re in the thick of it and honestly looking for some advice here because we don’t have it all figured out.

Yeah. Well, I raised challengers back before actually, cell phones weren’t even there.

That’s a foreign concept. My second one was so excited because he was one of the first to get the chocolate. It was the small little teeny flip phone.

There was no eye in that thing. You could call, you could maybe get a text if you could get your fingers small enough. So what I raised my when my kids were challengers, there there was a lot of it was a different world at that point in time.

But I do know there were some things that didn’t work, some things I really wish I could go over and do better.

And, yeah, you know, when my oldest went to college, I think that the college he attended, I think the total tuition was sixteen thousand and he had scholarships of ten.

By the time my youngest went to that same school, he had scholarships of twenty four and the tuition cost was thirty eight.

Ten years. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, wow. What what explosion?

Yeah. Inflation is real. Right? Especially when you’re the one paying the tuition.

Vehicles. When I think of what my oldest his first vehicle was to what what the youngest although by the time the youngest got there, got it, man. He probably got a little bit more of a hand me down than he did something different. But so with this challenger group, again, I think one of the reasons there’s pushback, they have other new influencers in there, but also they are challenging why are we doing it this way? You know, what are some what are some of the struggles you’ve gone through with the challenger group?

I think that’s probably the biggest one is is when kids start to think for themselves. I mean, we one of the one of the quotes from a a parent, a pastor who who is also a parent who I greatly respect, he said, our goal is to raise our kids to be independently dependent on God. We wanna raise independent children. We want them to think for themselves.

Right.

We really want them I mean, ideally, I want my kids to question what I’m saying because I don’t want them to just believe what any authority figure tells them.

Exactly.

I want them to to learn to question.

That’s why if you go back to true wealth, one of the main principles is being open to wise counselors. Right.

It doesn’t say blindly follow Right.

These counselors.

Right. We don’t wanna raise kids to blindly follow.

Absolutely. So you should be sifting through and evaluating, I’m gonna be open to it. You need to be open to wise counselors, but that doesn’t mean just blindly trust them. Right. And the challengers won’t, which is good.

Right. And all it takes is one teacher to question one thing that you’ve taught them that they go, wait.

Mom and dad say this, and you’re saying something that’s different than that.

What else are you saying that isn’t true that my teacher who knows more than you do now because I’m not ten anymore?

Well, the other thing that’s always interesting when you have multiple in the same group Right. Is kinda like, wait. Why why did they get this and why did I not? So there’s it’s the ripe environment for challenging issues, challenging situations.

You know, you’ve hopefully you’ve taught them as a repeater some good found found money. So one of the things that I get asked a lot is, okay, with them, should I give them should I give them an allowance? You got a philosophy on that? What what are your thoughts?

I had both. Yeah. And I can tell the difference of how I did it and wish I could I the younger two turned out great. That isn’t it.

But we kinda just took care of whatever they needed. So I didn’t I didn’t wanna hassle with it. So but by doing so, I wasn’t teaching them, either. Yeah.

Or the older by because of a particular financial situation we were in, I needed them to be financially responsible so I could be better.

Right.

So there there are different philosophies on budget. What about you? How about you doing?

I I will tell you what we’ve done, and kudos to my wife for leading in this direction, because she’s the one who’s always coming up with the good ideas, and I’m the one going, well, that’s a good idea. Let’s do that. Yeah. But she had the idea when the kids were little that we would give them chores.

And the chores are expected an expected part of being part of a family. As a family member, you’re gonna contribute, be a contributing member to the family. You’re not just gonna suck all of us dry Right. And then leave us with your messes.

Right. There’s certain responsibilities.

Right. And so those were clearly defined, and my wife did a great job of doing that. She made a board and and magnets and the whole bed. And each of the kids we call it steward our stuff.

Every Saturday, the kids roll their eyes, steward our stuff again. Okay. I’ve got bathroom to clean, or I’ve got my laundry to do, or whatever it is. Right.

We’ve got specific chores that we feel like are are you contributing as as part of the family.

Then we’ve created some additional opportunities for them to make some money if they want to. So we’ll say, okay. If you wanna go remove we’ve got a tree that’s down. I’ve cut it up into pieces. It needs to be hauled to the truck, fill the truck up, and, well, that job is worth x number of dollars.

Right. And that makes sense because that’s something you did that you’re asking them to help with Right. Where as opposed to cleaning the one of the bathrooms Right. That’s a responsibility because you shared it in making it dirty.

That’s right.

That’s right. Interesting.

We’ve we’ve tried to separate it out that way. I don’t know that we’ve done everything the right way. I know Ron Blue, one of my favorite teachers, he they raised their kids, they gave them an allowance.

But with that allowance, the kids were required to buy their own clothing and shoes and and all that sort of thing. Yep. I’ve watched both. Right.

And it and it kinda gave his suggestion in doing that was you need to allow kids to make their own spending decisions. So when they go and decide, hey. I want the hundred dollar pair of shoes instead of the fifty dollar pair of shoes, they go, okay. There’s a consequence to that.

Right.

Money doesn’t grow on trees.

Yep.

We don’t have unending resources, and because you don’t have unending resources, you have to make decisions. Right. And there’s no independent financial decision. Right. One decision affects all other decisions.

So The other thing I found out is when I was willing to buy those shoes, Jordan’s new releases are the ones we had to have.

That’s great.

If they needed to have some vested dollars in that, they would say, yeah, those are nice, but I’d rather have these because they would make the choice and for me it was more, I want you to have this status, which was wrong, but that may have been why I may have done that with that and you learned that was not good good teaching and good training.

Because we we want them to have nice things. A normal desire, but it’s again, you gotta be so careful with with what the teaching is on that. I I see value in that. I see value in having them be responsible because quite frankly, they will probably spend it more wisely than we will by just giving it to them because if they think it’s an open checkbook, it’s like this fair game. I can get whatever I want. Right.

So having them have some ownership in that, I do think is Yeah.

Possible.

I think you also have to be careful.

If you’re paying them for the household duties, then all of a sudden it can become manipulative, and I think you don’t want the budget to do that. You want the budget that that will help them build off on the great principles of live, give, all, grow that we’ve outlined or at least introduced people to earlier.

But as soon as it’s, I’m gonna take this away from you. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, they are learning, oh, money is something you use to manipulate others with.

Dangerous. Right. Gotta be very, very careful with that.

Well, you’ve talked about that a lot that this fine line that you can cross between using money to teach and using money to manipulate, and those are it’s it’s hard to tell as a parent whether you’ve crossed that line Yep. Or not.

Well, and I think in any good teaching period of time, which is what we’re trying to certainly do with challengers, is there’s also an element of training. So teaching and training are are kind of the same, but yet there’s difference.

For example, I’m trying when they were younger, we tried to teach them how to make their bed correctly, and it isn’t just pulling the covers out, which was a challenge because I had I had one child who just really thought the floor was just another shelf. I mean, that’s just where you put things so you know where they’re at. And I’ll tell you what, there were a lot of things on those shelves. And it was always that was kind of a conflict or a struggle.

But, you know, them to make the bed is one thing. They’re really not trained until they figure out, oh, yeah. Here’s how you make hospital corners. Here’s how you do these kind of things.

So teaching and training is in the same piece. The one is when they finally grasp it, and and that’s really when it’s exciting to see them get the money concept. Yeah. The problem with challengers is not only are there the life event things, cell phones.

You know, everybody’s got a different philosophy on that. When is when is that being responsible? Yeah. You wanna in today’s society, I think you gotta be able to get ahold of your children, but and and for them to be able to get ahold of you in case of emergencies.

So that’s an issue. Do you buy a car? They get the family car. That can be an issue.

And again, there’s peer pressure that’s involved with that. But there’s one of probably the biggest budget killers that’s out there, and that’s higher education. Yeah. You know, all of a sudden you’ve got them at ten and you think, okay.

Well and before you know it, the you’re driving around the country going to schools where they wanna go and that’s a challenging one. And we could we need to have an episode specifically on that. But you know, there is not another thing in life. We we don’t take our kids to the car dealer and and, you say, hey.

Choose. Yeah. You know, it’s yours. Whatever you want, I will provide it for you. But yet somehow schooling, we fall into that that trap because we want them to have a good education.

But, boy, that that can be a big kitchen remodel cost. I mean, you’re talking could be a hundred thousand dollars difference. And I think it’s also important to be teaching them, Here’s why you wanna maybe take some advanced classes if if academically, you can do that.

You know, I am curious about this. Do you pay for grades?

No. Okay. No. We don’t. K. And and part of that is be is because the stick and the carrot thing, we we’ve tried to encourage kids that one of the one of the primary fundamental things we want you to leave the house with is a love for learning. We want you to love learning and to want to learn.

So find things you wanna learn about, and go get a book and learn more about it.

Yep. And the and the second we start to reward the result, the grade Right. Is the second where where we’ve changed our focus from the whole purpose is to learn, rather than the whole purpose is to get a grade and then pass. That’s the way I grew up. My parents didn’t pay me for grades, but I was very results oriented and results driven, and I wanted to get a’s. And so I would try really hard to get an a, Forget the material because I didn’t really I didn’t care as much about learning it as I did about getting the a.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I did both. Yeah. It’s So I I I saw the the fruits of that. I I I would caution or at least encourage people if that’s the motive you decide to go through, make sure that that you have the parameters set correctly. So for example, my children, although are equal in so many ways, they have different interests and different academic abilities.

And I think some of that may even be come on how we dealt with some of those things. So I gotta take responsibility of that as well. But, you know, to say to us to say to a child or a young adult who’s clearly a c student, you know, here’s the money for a’s. That that’s not an achievable expectation. You know?

If you’re a c student, I just wanna make sure you’re getting c’s, not f’s. Yeah. So for me, it was I I will reward that, but they didn’t always know they were getting that, and I never wanted it to be a tit for tat kind of a thing. Yeah.

So I was more interested in the comments that the teachers put in it than I did necessarily the grade. Because, you know, my oldest, he was very academically gifted, and and he always viewed it as a curse because he said, they don’t always know what to do with that, so I wind up doing four more packets and three more study guides Right. Cause I get it and I got my work done. Right.

So then to put financial rewards on that, that that didn’t mean anything to So for him, it was more and I agree with that. So we didn’t we didn’t I don’t see the value of that, but those that do just be careful and make sure that the parameters are right. Reward a students with a’s and c students with c’s, not not a by grade. Yeah.

Yeah. What are some of other issues or challenges you run into with your challengers?

All kinds. I mean, like you said, we could have multiple podcasts on this. I mean, I I’d say one of the big ones, though, is I I I love the I don’t wanna say the label that you that you give that age group, but that’s exactly what they are doing. They’re looking at the way I live my life, and they’re saying, is that in line with what you’re saying out of your mouth? Absolutely.

And Money is a big one.

Money is a big one. And I think one of the things one of the things I would I would caution people against, and and I found this to be true myself, I wanna get into the weeds and make sure you know, as a financial adviser, it’s no different than a doctor wanting your kids to be healthy or a pastor wanting your kids to behave. Like, you want kids to actually, like, make you look good as a parent. Yeah.

I get it. And if you’re a professional in something, and your kids are terrible at that thing, it really does you know, it’s like, okay. You can’t even teach or get this. So there’s a part of me that wants them to have this great deep understanding about finances.

But what I found is that each of our kids have varying interests in even wanting to learn about finances. Sure. So I have one kid who I I went through and taught him about compound interest, and Albert Einstein, and his famous quote, the compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. And so we get a calculator out, and he says, sign me up.

And he’s got a job, He’s saving money already. He’s the responsible one. And so he starts a Roth IRA at a young age, and he’s investing money. And then my other son says to him, hey.

Can I borrow some of your money? I wanna do that investing thing too. You know? And I’m, we raised you exactly the same way, but you’re two totally different kids.

Yeah.

So how do I It’s this gene pool thing.

My wife and I had this. I I’m convinced I had a couple of genes that fell asleep through this whole process because, you know, we had them on an envelope system. Yeah. And it was a I’d I’ll never forget the time we gave them their cash or that they what what we did these were the one we gave them an allowance. And the one took it and just handed it over to the other one.

Right.

Yeah. And I said, what’s this about? Oh, well, he borrowed some money from him. And then he said, paid you back. Right? And the oldest said, yeah. But you still owe me interest.

Exactly. Yeah. He And he’s like, what’s that?

I’m never doing this again. But I was just kinda like, yeah. Right here. This is yours. Yeah. I I I don’t have delayed gratification. Right.

So Well, I was gonna ask They do watch.

They you know, that’s always the interesting thing to me because I may say, oh, do it this way. Do it this way. Do it this. And then when I don’t do it, they challenge you.

Right.

I mean, they come back and say, hey, wait. Why do I have to do this? But you’re not doing it yourself. So that’s kind of the why I liked designing the book the way I did.

Because sometimes to get parents will teach their children, but they they will always wanna learn the lessons themselves. Right. The kids are gonna make sure you learn it. Right.

So if you’re trying to teach a challenger, you better make sure your every t is crossed and the i’s are dotted and the e’s and q’s are in the right spot because they’re gonna call it out. Yeah. And that’s that’s and then you will adjust because it’s like or adjust. Don’t throw in the towel because it’s the outcome of raising financially responsible children long term is always well with it.

Yeah. What are some of the things you’re trying to instill with them? Not only about money, but just good principles. I’ve always been impressed at least with the oldest two because I’ve seen them more.

They are willing you know, giving is not always dollars. There’s a lot of ways to give, you know, giving every time. If they’re always more than willing and they show up, they will help. They they see the value of that, and kudos to you for doing that.

How’d you get them to do that?

Well, again Great wife. Kudos to their mother. Yeah.

So Got it. But but I I do think that whole that whole idea that Moore is caught than taught, I I I talk until I’m blue in the face, and I think most of the time they hear.

Yeah. Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Right? And they’re like, now I’m gonna watch and see what you do. Right. And so when we serve, they serve.

When we fight, they think it’s okay to fight. Right. You know, etcetera, etcetera. And so, hopefully hopefully, they’re looking at my life and going, that’s the kind of life I wanna have.

And and I think when it comes to finances too, especially inviting the kids into the financial life is a really tricky thing to do, but I think it’s really worthwhile. Absolutely. Because I think a lot of people would would maybe listen to a podcast like this and go, okay. Give me some yeah.

You know, what should I do? Like, should I pay for college or not? Should I like, give me the answers. Right.

But but I think the bigger picture is there aren’t necessarily individual answers that if you do all these things, your kids are gonna turn out well. No.

But I think there is an authenticity there and and an openness that when you’re willing to to allow the kids into the why behind your decisions, hey. You know, in our in our family, we were have a very similar situation to yours, where my older kids grew up in in a place where we were not established financially.

Right.

We had a rough go of it for a lot of years. And so we would go through the Taco Bell drive through, and everybody gets one thing from the dollar menu.

Right.

And they they scoff at their younger siblings now, because we basically have three who are older, and three who are younger, and had a miscarriage right in the middle. Yep. And the three older ones were raised slightly differently, and we’ve we tried to raise them the same, but we had different resources for the younger three than we did for the older three. Right.

And you can see it in how they live. Yeah. But but this whole idea of inviting them into the why are we ordering one thing from the dollar menu when when I go with my cousins or my friends, they get to order a happy meal or a full meal or whatever. Why why are we doing this?

Why why do you make us eat fruits and vegetables at home to go with it Yeah.

And only spend this much hugely responsible.

Right. And, you know what? Mom and dad don’t have all the money in the world either. You don’t need to be afraid that we don’t have money, but you need to realize that we make decisions that are trying to be the best steward of the assets we’ve been given, and we don’t have that much to deal with right now.

And so I think it’s this constant battle of, okay, as you continue to grow as a as a person, and as you as you continue to grow as a parent and and, you know, step up the ladder in your in your business world or whatever, if you have more income, it’s hard not to let lifestyle creep in. Right. And when lifestyle creep happens, we are a living truth to our kids Yep. That, okay, you know, you can when you get more income, you can just spend more income.

Right.

Unless we invite them into That conversation.

Why we’re not.

Right. So Well, the the challenging thing too is the time between zero and ten and ten and twenty, although it’s the same in the number of years, it goes by so fast. And really one of anybody, one of their greatest greatest adversaries is time, but it’s also one of their greatest allies. And it just depends on how how you’re handling that.

So if you’re using that, challenges are a lot easier if you’ve done repeaters well. Yeah. And launchers have a much easier time if you’ve done challengers well. Communication is still at the core of making all that work, and we’re not we’re not trying to get every listener to have perfection, but we we do see value in a perfect effort.

How do we make this better? Yeah. Now granted, if you’ve got your challenger right now when you’re hearing this episode for the first time, there’s seventeen. You you can’t take them back to ten.

So some of that you you just have to own up and say, you know what? We haven’t been doing this right. Yeah. I haven’t been doing this right, and I I wanna help you be better at this.

Can we have a conversation about this? Yeah. What are things about money that you wish you could ask me? And you know what?

You may ask me the question. I’m gonna say, we gotta go listen to the True Wealth podcast because I I don’t have the answer to that. And and we’re not gonna have every answer there either, but the resources are there to help you make better choices. Yeah.

And that’s kind of Well, speaking of better choices, so you you’ve talked about your family situation where you have two kids and then multiple miscarriages and then two more kids.

So you’re you’re almost raising two sets of two.

Oh, yeah. There was eight years. I mean, roughly that. There was there was a fair number of years between second and the which also is interesting. Now I’m not a psychiatrist, but I have gone through family life planning. You know, how how an oldest thinks versus a middle child thinks versus a younger child thinks.

Yeah. It’s real. It is real.

One of the things that was really cool, we did as a couple, we went to this we brought in a professional, and I I’ll try to get them to come back on the show. I think that would be really well-to-do because the birth order is fascinating.

Anyway, what they had us do is they sat us down, and they put all the oldest and and onlys in one group. And then they put the no. It take that back. All the oldest were in a group.

All the middles were in a group. All the youngest were in a group that we had, and then the onlys were separate. And they they kinda had them pure Of course. They The only simple instruction was plan a party.

K?

And then when we were all done and we ran out of time, of course, it was a time thing. And then they put up on the wall what your group’s party was.

And the oldest was, we’re gonna start at seven o’clock. It’s this is gonna be the meal. This is how you dress. This is how this goes.

And every detail was there. The second group, potluck. Yeah. Why? Because they they wanna make sure everybody can they’re trying to be that negotiator between the oldest and the youngest child.

So potluck, you know, come as you are. Whatever you wanna whatever you however you’re comfortable, come. And so it was much more loosey goosey again because of their role in the birth order.

Youngest, which was I was in a group, we could not do it.

Our page was blank. And the guy laughed because he said, usually, these are the wildest parties.

And I guess maybe that’s true because there is nothing There’s no plan.

There is no plan. But, you know, it was true. Our oldest sometimes made those decisions for us and and we didn’t have to make those decisions. So finances, you gotta bring that into the same thought process because how an oldest and a middle and the youngest, they all go through that challenging stage with different issues.

Right.

But anyway, that is I got off track there a little bit, but that was really interesting to me to how you incorporate that and how you deal with it because they are all individuals.

Right.

We’re still trying to nurture their nature, and their natures are different, but we wanna build that Yeah. Repository.

Yeah. So if you could go back and do it over and you could just change one thing, what one thing would you change about how you taught your kids about money?

Especially when they’re in this challenging Again, because of the age differences and how we did it differently, I probably would wanna go back and make adjustments to both of them.

Yeah. I was probably a little too rigid with some of the budget on the earlier ones only because we didn’t have it. Right. And it was a means of survival. Yeah. And I was not trying to control them, but I knew if I could get their budget better, mine would be better, except I’m I’m terrible. I am such an impulse spender, which is kind of hard for me as I get into this next transition to life, which I’ll come back to as well.

Because I’m at this point in life where I can kind of be sloppy Yeah.

Which is not good if I want something and I really want it. We get we talked about those wants and needs with with Nick. But if I really want something, even if I may not need it, I go buy it. That’s not being financially responsible. So I’m a little worried about this next transition where I’m gonna be probably brought back into more of a little bit restrictive income stream.

And and how do I feel about it like this? Scares the the fever though.

Well, from a positive, you don’t have challengers watching anymore. True. You you have you have jugglers who are raising possibly challengers soon. Right?

See what dad’s doing if you’re not doing it that way.

That’s right. I wanna do what grandpa does, not what dad does.

The one thing I would have done with the younger two is had more conversation. I I I just blindly said, well, take care of it. Don’t worry about it. And they didn’t.

And they and they did. And sometimes I have to watch them. And now I even see them at different points. One being single, one one’s married.

Fortunately, spouse, I think, brings them back in. So we’re still learning with some of them, but I I I would go back and have a deeper conversation with it. I would I would have a better plan, and I would have more conversations on the differences between live, give, oh, grow Instead of big pot of money where is it all all going. Got more compartmentalized on why we’re putting money in this bucket versus this bucket and what’s its purpose, which goes back again to the true wealth concepts and and being, you know, wisely using those financial resources.

Yeah.

That’s number seven. But go back to that.

Well, I think, again, we don’t wanna shame anyone on this podcast or make you feel bad for the way you have to raise your kids, but our goal is to help share some of our, you know, our failures and our successes that that might help you along the way.

So maybe I mean, you you kinda shared how you would maybe do it a little different with the second group. Do you think do you think that the way that you raised that second group had as much to do with you being probably busier Yeah. But wealthier Yeah. Than you were with the first?

Had a lot to do with it.

So how do you how would you recommend people who are in the middle of that right now?

What advice would you give me of the world who’s in the middle of that right now going, I have two groups Right. And I’ve raised them a little different.

What can I do to to help this second group who has had almost a completely different set of circumstances going Yep?

How can I help them to understand how to be a good steward of their money?

That’s a great question. I go back to as parents, if your house is in order, it’s easier.

And and mine again, it was in transition to those periods of time. I was still recovering from the glowing store business, so I had a lot more debt I was trying to pay back. So there, you know, I guess to answer your question, it would be, do I have a lot of money extra or you know, which one would I want? Right. More money is not the solution. So how would I have done it if I had excess versus how would I have done it if I didn’t?

And I had both of those. I wish I would have had them in different order. But, yeah, if I could go back, it would be more conversation. It would be more clearly defined goals and why. Not just because.

Well, it sounds like all of those require time. Right? And intentionality.

I had a forty five minute commute when I was doing this. So fortunately, I had a great wife too who was very good and disciplined and and took care of a lot of those things with the kids. But we didn’t have as many conversations about money as we should have. I I openly admit that.

But the hard part again, and and you’ll run into this a little bit as well. You know, my what I would do different, this would be the one thing, my business and my home life finances were completely originally, they were merged together and then I separated it. I’m not so sure I wouldn’t had more clearly defined for those two. So what did we really have to work with?

Because I would move money back and forth. So I allowed some sloppiness there that I I wish I would go back and do different because I think the outcome and the life lessons would be Yeah. Much better.

But when you’re, you know, having how do you merge them? I think you keep it separately. You run the household this way. You you operate your business separate from that and complement that.

But that makes a difference if if someone’s self employed versus I have a w two and I know exactly what my income is going to.

What about for the what about for the couple who feels like maybe they have less time to spend engaging their younger kids in their own financial journey than they did with their older kids. Because as you get as you grow and you get you know, you know, for us, as you get more clientele, more households to serve, it’s less time at home.

Right.

And that can that can be a lot easier to just write out a check Yep. And give them what they need rather than simply teach them.

It is.

I mean, is is investing of your time in an intentional way even more important with the younger kids than it was with you?

I think it is. I think it is. And even today, societally is that the right word? In today’s Now.

In today’s society, the demands are different, you know, and and the the access to social media. There’s just time is your greatest ally. And if you’re not careful, it is your enemy. And I wish I would’ve I spent a great amount of time with my kids.

Yeah. I wish I would have spent more.

There’s, but we had amazing memories.

So I don’t regret any of those things. And it is what life was. Right? But I do I don’t think just drifting through it is the solution.

I think there’s more and more people who need guidance. They have hard questions, and sometimes they need some hard answers. But it’s not a lecture. It’s a let’s talk this through.

It’s conversations. How do I make this better? Well, what are you willing to give up? What are you not willing to give up?

Yeah. What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to invest into? What is your bigger priority?

And having that conversation with the the children and the adults, and then coming together as almost like a family session, I think this is a great I really do.

So what I’m hearing is you don’t have to be a financial expert in order to teach your kids about money.

You have to invite them into conversation, and you you have to carve out time intentionally to do that.

And be vulnerable.

Right. And be vulnerable. Be authentic.

Be authentic. I think as a parent, sometimes we wanna say, well, let me tell you how to do this when we, in some cases, don’t have a clue. Yeah. It’s like, hey.

I struggle with these same things, but I I need us to both be on the same page or or we’re gonna fight over this. And I love you too much to fight through this. So let’s work through this together. Let’s have some conversations.

If if this and this and this was important to you, which how would you rate them? Because then let’s work through this financially. How can I guide you through this? And that will help me as well.

So having that kind of a conversation with parents, we’re gonna have to come back and address this because the challengers is one of the Right. More challenging topics.

Can I close with one more question? Yeah. Because we talk about authenticity and being open with kids and inviting them into the conversation. Is there ever a point where you, having gone through this and seeing how your kids have turned out with the the the knowledge you’ve instilled into them and the wisdom you’ve instilled into them, is there is there ever a time that you can step over the line and invite them into too many details or be too authentic in your findings?

I don’t think so, but I did have some interesting conversations when sharing, you know, why you know, because because schooling can even be something. So I have one student, know, a child who was very gifted academically, didn’t require as much money. You know, you gotta have that conversation with the youngest younger one who wants to go to the same school but academically needs more assistance. That has to come from somewhere.

Right.

And now you gotta have that conversation to where the oldest doesn’t say, yeah. You paid for their school, but you didn’t mind. Right. Well, okay.

But he broke his collarbone. Does that mean I need to break yours? Right. You wanna be fair.

I don’t know if being equal Right. Is the solution. I think having conversation allows you to have that dialogue to where we’re gonna try to do this as fairly as we can. Yeah. Because you have different talents and abilities.

Right.

How do we incorporate that?

Well, and with teenagers too, I what what I’ve run into is, just to be very specific, I’ve got a savings account with an online savings bank that pays me a decent interest rate. When my son got a job, he had to have a checking account that was not mine Right. That his money flows into, so we open an account there as well. So when I log in, his stuff comes up and my stuff comes up.

So when he wants to see his stuff He sees yours.

He sees my stuff too.

And so transparency.

Great. So it’s I mean but but it might be too transparent Right. Because he’s going, dad, why don’t you why aren’t you Yeah. Doing these things?

You’ve got money and savings to do that. You could pay for it. And it’s like, well, because we drive old cars, son. Right.

And we pay for cars with cash. Right.

We need that for why you have more access.

Great.

And those that can be great.

But our oldest son understands that. The next in line says, I’ve got fifteen things on my Christmas list this year because I saw that you have money. Right.

Those are interesting conversations.

So it’s I I just wonder, okay, at what point do you and and the system is not set up to allow for much separation there with, you know, if you wanna open a checking account for your kid, it it is hard to open a financial account for someone who’s underage.

Right.

And so it it’s not a great system. But we would love to be able to talk with you about how to create a program that helps your kids Yep.

To to shift towards independence when they’re teenagers. I mean, we’ve done it. We’ve we’ve all done it differently. We all have different ideas. But helping your kids open Roth IRAs, helping them to learn compound interest, Some of these things are really valuable tools, but even more valuable than that, I think, is the value you bring when you when you invite your kids into the conversation. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And again, I’d state that you’re not alone. Everybody’s in the middle of it. Don’t try to do what everyone else is doing.

You gotta figure out your plan and your system. We’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for a perfect effort. And then say, gotta get better at this.

And am I doing better today than I did yesterday? And what am I gonna take what’s it gonna take for me to do tomorrow even better? But managing the debt cards or as as the industry calls them credit cards is huge. And I think that’s where some really valuable lessons are.

You gotta have a conversation. Do we give them one and how close are we gonna monitor it? How that’s a whole another episode.

So there’s plenty to cover with the challenging group and we will come back. And the equal but fair thing with credit cards because there are some kids that may not be a good lesson.

Yep. It may be a really tough lesson.

That is what makes this group challenging. Yes. And we will unpack this in more details. I wanna thank everybody for joining us.

You can see we we clearly have not answered all of the questions in this one. Post some of yours. Send them to us at info at pinnaclewealth dot com. We’d love to hear your thoughts, issues you’re having, challenges you’re having, what’s been successful for you.

We’d to share them to other listeners as well. So this is Kevin Ingers. This is the True Wealth podcast. Thank you for joining us on this episode.

If you’ve enjoyed the conversation, we would really encourage and love to have you just click the subscribe button and share it with a friend. We are very interested in reaching more consumers, more people like you who want to experience and enjoy a life confidently enjoyed. Feel free to share your thoughts. If you have some specific questions, again, that’s info at Pinnacle Wealth.

Thank you for joining us. Why Pinnacle Wealth? Because the pinnacle of wealth is True Wealth. Thanks and we’ll be back soon.

The opinions voiced in today’s True Wealth podcast with Kevin Engbers, Nick Omlund, and Ryan Ovieden are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendation by any individual. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. To determine what may be appropriate for you, consult with your attorney, account, financial, or tax adviser prior to investing.