Ep. 115/ How to Teach Your Kid Not To be Spoiled without Sacrificing Your Own Lifestyle: Rebecca Shoval
SHOW NOTES:
Please leave a rating and review for the show!
++++++++++++++++++
Don’t want your kids to think money grows on trees? Want your kid to appreciate money and have a sound financial understanding and foundation?
Rebecca Shoval runs Welcome Financial Education which helps teenagers and young adults from high net worth families - like her- understand the financial system and take control of their future. What I love about Rebecca’s advice is that it’s applicable to anyone with disposable income and she shares savvy advice in terms we can all understand.
Rebecca graduated from Cornell and worked as a real estate investor and runs a family office. She uses her 50k+ following on social media and live workshops to help young people get financially educated to avoid being taken advantage of, and generally take control of their financial and personal future.
You will learn:
How giving allowances teach kids financial responsibility and limits - 11:58
The importance of reviewing credit card reports - 17:11
How to discuss taboo topics, like money, in a healthy way with partners, parents and beyond - 23:58
How showing up on camera can grow your brand - 39:24
LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!
Click below to Follow, Review & Give a 5-star rating to Mom’s Exit Interview Podcast.
My guest this week, Rebecca Shoval, discusses the critical need for financial education, and innovative strategies for raising financially-savvy children. Rebecca shares her journey from producing simple educational videos during the pandemic to transitioning into high-quality professional studio productions. The shift has not only enhanced the sound and visual clarity but also refined the focus of the content, resulting in overwhelmingly positive feedback. As we are both storytellers, we discussed the importance of holistic storytelling and creating targeted content to effectively convey financial literacy messages tailored to various audiences. Rebecca's experience underscores that understanding one's own story and message is crucial for reaching and resonating with people, no matter their financial status.
One of my favorite discussions was about her parenting advice and teaching children the value of money. Rebecca highlights the importance of having open, honest conversations about finances with children, akin to discussions on other significant life topics. She advocates for allowances as a practical tool to teach kids that money is finite, recommending a set amount rather than unfettered access to credit cards. This method helps instill budgeting skills and an understanding of financial limits. Additionally, Rebecca provides insights into protecting against fraud, stressing the importance of checking credit card statements regularly and being cautious with online activities. The episode brings home the message that financial education should be an ongoing conversation, both at home and in schools, empowering individuals to make informed decisions based on their unique financial circumstances.
In this episode you will learn:
How giving allowances teach kids financial responsibility and limits - 11:58
The importance of reviewing credit card reports - 17:11
How to discuss taboo topics, like money, in a healthy way with partners, parents and beyond - 23:58
How showing up on camera can grow your brand - 39:24
Quotes from our guest:
“An allowance of a finite amount of money that they're going to run out of at the end of a period is a really great way to emphasize that even with a lot of spending power, you can run out of it.”
"Starting with simple equipment during the pandemic was great to get the message out there, but moving to a professional studio has significantly improved our content's quality and focus. It's amazing how this shift has led to such positive feedback and impact on our audience."
“I really started talking about financial literacy and going into the details of personal finance during the pandemic making YouTube videos and TikTok videos just with my phone camera in my apartment during lockdown. And it was something that I had been thinking about for a while, but really had to make happen of my own accord, and that's really satisfying and I feel like I've gotten a lot of great information and content out to people that way, but it was such a great experience to go to the other extreme of that where there's a whole studio of people having your back and encouraging you, and it can be with making your own content.”
Get On Camera with Kim’s brand new 7-Day On-Camera Challenge
FREE DOWNLOAD: 10 Tips to Make Better Video In Less Time (To Grow Your Revenue) click here
Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram & Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert
EMILY’S LINKS:
Kim (00:01):
Rebecca Shoval of Welcome financial Education joins us and she has advice on how to raise your kid to not be spoiled. We all need that. She has best practices for giving an allowance. How to teach your kid to appreciate money and save money, how to avoid being a target of fraud, why money is considered taboo, and how to break that. Plus, how to encourage your school to teach your kids financial literacy and a fun game that she has called Grandma Roulette. She'll explain it.
(00:29):
Welcome to the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the Grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.
(01:31):
Summer is winding down and I love the summer. Sun just makes me happy. I think I'm a lizard or an amphibian or whatever that is, but we are all ready for fall and so many exciting things. A couple of things happening in my world. Number one, I'm going to be speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in early September. So if you're around and you're in New York City, I would love to have you come and say, hi, I'm, drop me a line on Instagram or LinkedIn or through my website, Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. I also have a brand new seven day on camera challenge. So if you've been trying to get on camera more or not feeling confident on camera and need a little push and the education on what to do, I help you feel confident on camera. I tell you exactly what to say.
(02:12):
I give you specific assignments. It's really, really fun and very encouraging. So I'm going to link that out in the show notes as well. And I am particularly excited to have Rebecca on because a lot of the things she talks about, she works with high net worth families, but really that is anyone with disposable income. If you have any disposable income and you're worried that your kids don't appreciate money or don't understand money or always asking you for more stuff and you're having a hard time saying no, and you want them to be financially literate as they get older, both to be in control of their future, but also not to be a target of scam or fraud. Rebecca has a lot of really, really incredible advice and also I met Rebecca, she came and did my VIP accelerator where she came and we did this amazing shoot day.
(02:53):
And so I love getting to learn more about her educational programming. I think it's something that we all need. So for me, I got to work on her messaging with her and she's already been doing a lot on social media over the past several years teaching young people about financial literacy. So I'm really excited for her to bring her knowledge here I have here with me today, Rebecca. Rebecca Shoval runs Welcome financial Education, which helps teenagers and young adults from high net worth families like her understand the financial system and take control of their future. Rebecca graduated from Cornell and worked as a real estate investor and runs a family office. She uses her 50,000 plus following on social media and live workshops to help young people get financially educated to avoid being taken advantage of and generally take control of the financial and personal future. Rebecca, I am so glad to have you here.
Rebecca (03:43):
Thanks Kim. I'm so excited to be here and talk to you today.
Kim (03:46):
And one thing I really want the audience to understand is I know you focus on kids from high net worth families, but really your advice basically applies to what levels of people. Can you shed some light on that?
Rebecca (03:58):
Absolutely. It's interesting because terms like wealth rich, high net worth affluent, even well off, there are so many different terms that all just have vague meanings, these ideas of that people are doing better financially than the other people around them. And it's not exactly for me to say who that is because so much of it depends on what your lifestyle is and where you live even within the United States. And of course whether or not you have children, I mean to make a certain amount of money anywhere you live and be a dual income couple without kids, you're going to have drastically more disposable income, be able to build up much more savings over time, nest eggs assets, maybe even own multiple homes in a way that people earning the exact same amount of money with three kids, even living in a less expensive place may not be able to do so.
(04:56):
So I don't generally want to put those exact numbers on people. I think if you were somebody who feels like you have a decent amount of disposable income, who's really looking to consider long-term planning now or for your children or in your own personal future if you're a young adult, these are advice that for you in general, I think that we need to be doing such a much better job for people with financial education. This is something that can really be taught age appropriate curriculum to people in elementary school, in middle school, in high school, college as well as in adult financial literacy settings. Adult financial literacy is so important, but if you go to a general class or you look for information online, it's either going to be aimed at people who really are struggling financially and it's going to be advice about pinching pennies, grocery store budgets, stuff that's really important for people to know if that's their financial situation, which it unfortunately is for many people, but it won't necessarily help you out if you are not in that situation. And similarly, even advice, information that's aimed at more of a middle class will target things like saving for retirement, getting a nest egg to make a down payment on a house, and if you have a nest egg, if you have family money so you can afford that down payment on a house or even to buy the whole thing outright, that financial advice isn't really going to help you make the decisions you need to know about yourself.
Kim (06:24):
I feel like basically it's if you have disposable income, you need to think about how you're using your money and likewise your children, whether they're children, children or they're in high school or college, I think that's very helpful because sometimes when people hear the phrase high net worth families, it's like, oh, maybe that's not us. But really you're saying if you're affluent or if you have disposable income, this advice is applicable to you.
Rebecca (06:45):
Absolutely there are just decisions you're going to be able to make for yourself, but you're going to need to understand how they apply to someone like you. And a big part of that is we teach about how to make decisions about how to understand the financial system, but every individual is going to have different characteristics. And when you talk to financial advisors, they really need to know all the details of your financial picture and you're really going to want to have people whose clients look like you. Otherwise they are likely going to be giving you bad advice, even if it's well-intentioned advice, if they don't have other clients like you, they're going to be giving you information that might not be relevant to your life. And I've definitely seen that with people who get inheritances and keep the same financial advisors. We're in their fifties when they get that money.
(07:34):
And so the people they've been working with, the average net worth is say the average investible portfolio is say $250,000 and then they inherit an extra million from their parents. That could even just be at this point, the sale of your boomer parents' home and their financial advisor doesn't really know how to give them the right financial advice anymore, but they don't want to lose them as a client. And you really need to know that you are getting the right very specific advice for you. And that really starts I think with financial education and understanding your role and your opportunities.
Kim (08:09):
So one thing I find is really important, and I'm a parent, I think a lot of other parents feel this way, is no matter how much money you do or don't have, I think a lot of us are concerned that our children just don't appreciate money and I mean we're not the first generation to hear it. You see in the old school TV she was like, Maggie doesn't grow on trees, but I say this to my son, my son's like, I want a mansion. I said, wonderful. When you're an adult you can make a lot of money and you can buy yourself a mansion and I want to come visit. And that's what I say. I'm like, that's nice for you. And then he goes, also, I want a black jeep. I'm like, great, you should go work hard and buy yourself a black jeep. But anyway, I diverge. So many of us are concerned that we're raising kids who don't appreciate money and we're worried that they're going to be spoiled and just think money grows on trees. What's your advice on what we can do to our children to help them understand and appreciate money?
Rebecca (09:01):
I think the first and biggest thing is that you do want to talk to your children about money, especially if you have some money, if you would consider yourself affluent. If you don't, they're first of all going to think that money is a taboo topic. That's something that you see a lot in our society. We could talk about that a bit more later, but that you want to be somebody who's having those conversations with your children. That doesn't mean you need to go into the specifics, especially if they're young, but what we recommend is that you have conversations with them in a serious manner, appropriate for their age and their own personalities like you would have about other topics that might be important, school health, whatever's going on in your family to make sure to keep this tone of your conversation similar to what you would about with that same child.
(09:50):
But other conversations, we recommend that you would say that it is a private topic, not that it's secret that there are things in the family that you only discuss with each other that you don't discuss with outsiders, but that you don't add any layer of like, this is bad or this is secret, this is something that you should be ashamed of because people will tell me that they had those sort of experiences and they carry them well into adulthood. And one of the things that we see with people who have intergenerational wealth is that the older people were really told by their own parents or grandparents don't talk about money. It's impolite to talk about money and that carries on and it makes it difficult for them to then have those conversations with their children. But then simultaneously I talk to people who didn't grow up with money, who themselves are now raising children who are like, how do I have those conversations?
(10:45):
I don't want them to think that they can have anything they want, but at the same time I want to have a nice lifestyle. And so in those conversations recommend that you talk about the differences between different economic groups. One of the things that children might be more likely to see is that they're growing up with very comfortable lives and then that the other option is people who are really poor, if it's New York City or many places in the United States today that could be visibly unhoused population or if they do charity work, they might see people who are really, really struggling. And while I think that that exposure can be really important, it's also really good to make it clear that there's a lot in the middle between people who don't have enough to eat and people who are going on many vacations a year as you might be, and to just try to explain that there's so many different levels of wealth and comfort and introduce those ideas to them yourself so you can also kind of control what they're hearing and not just let what they're hearing be what they see on television or TikTok and Instagram.
(11:47):
Really if we're talking about Gen Z and Gen Alpha,
Kim (11:51):
I know a lot of people believe in giving their an allowance, which I do too. Give me some of your best advice regarding an allowance.
Rebecca (11:58):
I think allowances are a really great way to try to teach kids of all different ages from pretty young, even through into their twenties, that money is a finite resource even if you have a lot of it. I wouldn't say that skimping on their allowance is the way to go, but rather making it clear that whatever money you give them is for that period of time, the total amount. And we do really recommend giving allowances as opposed to say another thing that people do, especially if their kids are going away to boarding school or to summer camp or to college, which is to give them a credit card and say, spend whatever you want, for example, books or food on this card and then we will pay it off. And that really teaches them that later in life they will be able to spend anything they want on those items because they're necessities, even if that necessity suddenly includes eating out.
(12:51):
But an allowance of finite amount of money that they're going to run out of at the end of a period is a really great way to emphasize that even with a lot of spending power, you can run out of it. You have to consider almost you're working backwards about what you can spend. And I think that applies to not just their everyday expenses, but also if you intend to pay for housing is another one that we see a lot for people who are older that their parents or older people in their family might pay for their housing. And in that, the strategy that we would recommend is to look at whatever the housing market they're considering moving to. It's very easy today to find on Google on websites like Zillow, average cost of housing in that area. And even if you want to give them a budget that's double the amount of money what the average is to say this is how much you can spend.
(13:42):
You go find a place that's under this amount. And if you do that, we also recommend that let's say if you offer them $2,500 and they find a place for 200, I'm sorry for $2,000 a month, then you give them the rest of that money as sort of a you didn't spend it, you spent less than you had, so therefore you can use this money either to pay for the other costs of housing like utilities or for other parts of your life because that will more closely resemble how they're going to have to think about their spending habits once you are not giving them money or once they're more on their own for individual decisions and it doesn't encourage them to spend right up to the limit as well.
Kim (14:21):
And what you were saying about the credit card, so let's say my kid is going off to boarding school or going off to college, so you recommend we have a shared credit card and I say, and actually I live in the city. I mean at some point I do think my daughter might have a debit or credit card and maybe I say, okay, you can use up to X dollars each week and if she wants to get apparently Bob Batis all the rage. And so if she wants to get bobet twice a week and then a bag of Cheetos, if that hits the max, not Cheetos, that's disgusting, but a bag of pretzels if she hits the max, that's it. So you recommend even if you're giving them a credit card, they are checking in the credit card they are seeing each week or each month of what they're spending, so they're making sure they're under and it's not just here's a credit card, food goes on the credit card because that trains them that food, no matter how expensive or how inexpensive it is, is kind of free. It grows on trees. So you recommend there being a cap and everything that you consume, everything you buy under that cap is approved, but they need to be in the credit card bill and looking at that.
Rebecca (15:19):
Absolutely. I can say for example that my parents were always very much into the allowance system and not allowing us to spend whatever we want, but this is going to take the story a bit, but we still had gas credit cards, like gas charge cards that were for each specific kind of company and you got a better deal if you used their cards. So that was the kind of thing where nobody was really paying attention to that, which the weird lesson there is that gas for your car is the one infinite resource and everything else going out with your friends, all of those things you have to consider, but transportation is not. And then when I get older and especially I live in New York City and the cost of taking the subway versus a cab or walking, biking, all of that is such a real consideration into your expenses.
(16:07):
It was something even I had to think about almost in a backwards way compared to how I thought about a lot of my other spending. So yes, absolutely. Some of the addendums as you were saying about it's not just that there's a finite amount, it's that they should keep track of that amount and especially if you're going with a credit card because it's 2024, and that is often just the easier way to pay for things rather than a debit card or literally when you and I were young, like cash in an envelope a lot of the time that people would give as allowance to their children that they should track, that they should know to compare their receipts to the credit card bill to make sure that they match up. And that's also a very good lesson if you are on both sides. If one person is paying the credit card bill and one person is making the charges, that's a really common situation for people to be able to take advantage of.
(16:59):
I went to prep school and I was a day student, but it was a boarding school and there was a situation where one of the women in the dorms stole some of her friend's credit cards. That person also had plenty of money, so it was not a, I'm jealous of my rich friend situation. It was just like I can tell no one's paying attention and I want all these other things and my parents won't let me have them and charge thousands of dollars on her friend's credit cards before anyone caught on. And that's because she was sort of making similar purchases to the things they might have made and nobody was reporting back home. So these were kids living abroad in their teenage years and they weren't reporting to their parents like, oh, I bought this and this on the credit card. So when their friend bought similar items and parents just assumed it was fine. It's really important to check your own credit card statements and I really especially encourage if one person is paying and one person is spending that you from the beginning, even if it's small, starting with small purchases like Boba tea, although I think that can be like $9 at this
Kim (18:02):
Point, I know it's like it's not cheap
Rebecca (18:05):
That you ask them to go look and make sure all those charges are really their own as well. It'll ingrain that habit as well as cut back on future arguments if they claim that they didn't make them or cut back on the opportunity for conflict.
Kim (18:22):
I know you're big on helping young people and people in general, but young people especially avoid being targets of fraud. Talk to me about the greater risk for both young people but also people with more money. I don't know if it's about people with more money. I think there's so many scammers in general. I've read something about billions of dollars are being scammed from people. So what's your advice on how young people can avoid being the targets of fraud?
Rebecca (18:46):
It's true. There are so many more scammers out there than even if we were having this conversation a year ago. I mean in our texts in a way like never before and that's definitely something people need to be careful of. I would also say though that wealthy people can be the targets much more frequently of more clever scams. I wouldn't assume that there aren't people also going after you. One of the things that happens is that scammers will go after not necessarily individual people who are wealthy, although that does happen, but rather people who hang out in places that people with disposable income are. So here I'm talking about airport lounges, the lobbies of fancy hotels, even just coffee shops, inexpensive neighborhoods are places that wifi can be particularly is an easy target for hackers to go after. Those are kind of open wifi scenarios and then if you log into your bank account or anything else, even credit card rewards points have been a target recently, airline miles, all of those things, it may not sound like a big deal, but once they get into your life it's so much easier for them to get into other elements of your life as well.
(19:55):
So one is to definitely protect yourself via using your phone for internet instead of using open wifi or using A VPN to protect your information literally on your own computer and with the computer. That also is like if you're going to get rid of your computer, make sure all the data is wiped. There's a lot of information out there about how to do that, but one of the biggest things, and this really ties back into what we were just talking about, is checking your own financial habit. If you know how you're spending money and where you're spending money and you look at your credit card statement, your bank accounts, you will be able to catch something wrong so much faster. So often when you hear stories and there's been a lot of celebrities out there recently for example, telling stories, trying to warn people, I got scammed and this is how.
(20:43):
But part of what's happening is in many of those stories, it takes people a long time to realize money is missing because they're not looking at their own credit card statements. You can decide what is the level to which you want to verify it. Maybe every time that you get to spend two 90 on the subway, you're not going to double check that you really did that, but you should decide what the right amount that you want to be concerned at. Usually it's say over $50, it could even be thousands, but really to just double check that all of the charges on your credit card or any money removed from your bank account, you recognize that you know when that was and yes, that is unfortunately just something that you're going to have to do that takes a little bit of time on a regular basis, but the more often you do it, the less time it will take. Again, there's just no defense like yourself. Obviously. Part of that is also understanding your own spending habits, taking time to learn about how those elements of the financial system work. Obviously as financial educators, we really recommend,
Kim (21:43):
Right. It's interesting what you were saying about best practices of checking your credit card. I think that's so true for a lot of us are on streaming services. We thought we canceled and we didn't, and then you're paying for max or prime for months and months and months and not using it and you're like, oh, that's annoying. So I think it could be from something small and annoying that adds up to something large that's really dangerous and yeah, I mean I think we all know someone who's been a victim of scam or fraud, so that's really helpful. Why do you think we don't talk about money? Why is money a taboo?
Rebecca (22:12):
I think that money is something that's been a taboo topic for so long. It's definitely within our society, but also many other societies. I think there's just such a general discomfort in part with economic inequality that makes people really hesitant to talk about their financial situation, particularly if they have money. And I also think that people are constantly being told that it's inappropriate or impolite to talk about money and that ingrains this idea and then also there's all these societal signifiers that money is bad or money is not something that you should acknowledge. We were talking just a minute ago about places that wealthy people hang out. Another one that you see a lot of is membership clubs where you pay a lot of money upfront to join a golf club, a dining club, pickleball club, whatever it might be, and then when you go to those places, you don't pay for anything individually, you charge it to your account or it's included depending on the type of place that it is, and it adds an element of like, oh, money is something you're dealing with in private, in secret, away from prying eyes.
(23:18):
We couldn't possibly have it messing up this magical place that we've created for ourselves. And all of those signifiers really get into your brain and make you uncomfortable in the sort of lessons that you don't even realize you've learned. One of the things that we ask people who participate in our programming to do is to think about the experiences that you had growing up or even yesterday that are impacting the way that you think about money that you think about spending and really question those elements about themselves. And just time and time again, people will say, well, my grandmother told me I wasn't supposed to bring this up in composition. It's not polite and everything from it's not polite and mixed company to just like, oh, you shouldn't talk about money or religion or politics with people. All of those things that just get handed down and then really disrupt people's ability to have healthy conversations with the important people in their lives about these issues.
(24:16):
I mean there are statistics out there about the amount of people who don't know how much their partner makes that are shocking and it's like these are people who you are sharing a financial life with and that can be obviously really important. It prohibits parents from talking to their kids about money. I mean the amount of people I talk to in their twenties and thirties who say Every time I try to ask my parents about these things, they prevent the conversation. They don't want to have that conversation and that's very difficult. But also even in the small less important relationships in your life, or I shouldn't say less important, but the ones that aren't quite as financially tied to you as your significant other or your family, it's important to have a door open to have a conversation about money, even if it's just to allow the person to say that they're not comfortable with the way that money is being spent between you two or for you to be able to say that. That's definitely something, an experience I've had.
Kim (25:15):
What are some examples of the activities you work on with clients when they come work with you at Welcome Financial Education?
Rebecca (25:20):
We try to cover the gamut of both the specific details of this is how you read a financial report, this is what different financial advisors are, here's how trust work, but also particularly stepping back and thinking about what are your financial goals, what is the lifestyle you really want and how can you utilize the resources that you've been given as well as the income that you are earning or will earn in the future to make that lifestyle happen for you. We do talk a lot about how to have different conversations about money with all the relevant people in your life in order to encourage you to have as much information as possible to ask questions. It's so important to ask questions of really everyone in every scenario, but about money to your financial advisors, to the people in your life. Again, utilizing that information to empower yourself to make the decisions you want to not feel peer pressured into doing things because other people around them are doing them or that's how you think they've always been done.
(26:21):
That's how you grew up, so you should behave that way. Maybe that's not the life you want and maybe it is. It's not for us to tell you any of that. I'm not interested in educating people like this is exactly how much you should be spending on this or these are the decisions you should make about what's important. If exercise is really important to you and you're really into some activity, you should absolutely be spending a disproportionate amount of your money on that compared to somebody who isn't interested in that topic. But until you know how to analyze your financial habits, how to understand what you have and make plans for the future around that, you're not going to feel empowered. Whether it's scammers who are strangers or just people in your life who might be taking advantage of you financially know is like if you don't understand, you are in a much better position to be taken advantage of and in a much worse position should just get what you want.
Kim (27:12):
I know you work with a lot of kids of varying locations and teaching them all about financial education. Can you give me a couple of examples? Example of someone applying your learnings in real time so other people and their kids can learn from them?
Rebecca (27:26):
Absolutely. It's funny the things that stand out to people in their experiences of like, oh, I was prepared for this because I had considered this thing and you think it's so funny that people come to me and say, oh, when I got my first apartment, I realized that I was going to have to spend all this money on furniture and even really small dollar items like toilet paper and trash bags, and my friends weren't prepared for that at all because they had only lived with their parents or in the dormitory, and I just knew there were going to be all these little expenses because you had told me to consider what are the ways people are spending money on me that I'm not even thinking about? Obviously in that example I was talking about very small dollar value items, but I think it speaks to something where they just stepped back to consider what was going on with the monetary situation around them and then that was what stood out to them. I
Kim (28:19):
Think whether you're talking about 20 to $30 wastebaskets times seven, which ends up being several hundred dollars or furniture, I think to your point, I remember being my first apartments that I really had on my own. You think you're just trying to hit not more than certain number of rent, right? Certain rent dollar. Then you don't think about that furniture is expensive. I remember I went to housing works, I was like, oh my God, nice dressers even at companies that aren't nice are expensive. Anything above IKEA is expensive. And I was like, housing works thrift shop, I got a dresser. But really if you're furnishing an entirely new apartment that could be multiples of your monthly rent, and if you're not thinking about that, you're actually not budgeting accurately and that's money that that's money taken away from savings, that's money taken away from other things.
(29:03):
So I do think we're laughing that it's all about waste baskets, but your point about furnishing rent furnishing an apartment is something that so many young people will have to deal with and if they're not really thinking about the different specific things. Another thing I really like what you said earlier also about is that we bring all of our baggage basically from our childhood into adulthood, and it's important. I feel like how I was raised is I've always been really penny pinching even when I was earning good money and now I have a business, I have to spend money on my business to grow my business, but that's been a thing where I'm like, actually, my business is doing well. I need to invest in things and I also am now practicing what I preach. I think if you're running a business and you need to sell your services, you need me.
(29:44):
Likewise, I need to hire coaches to help me and which I have. And so I think that when we're not processing, we're not processing the psychological background of our money mindset, we're not thinking about it and saying, does this still work for my life now the things I learned when I was seven or 12 or 18, do I need to adjust those for my current life? And for me, a hundred percent, me being a squirrel, collecting my acorns and shoving them in my cheeks might've worked when I was 24 and starting out in journalism, had a three bedroom apartment with three roommates and nothing. Now I'm a grownup with two kids and a business that's growing. I can't do that. It's not actually good for my business and is not good for my life. And so I like what you were saying earlier about the value of sitting and really understanding how you were raised, what are the things you want to hold onto? What are the things you don't want to hold onto? What's serving you, what's not serving you? Because that's how you grow and you learn from those experiences to build a solid foundation, be in control of your financials, but also not be a target of fraud. So I really liked how you were saying that,
Rebecca (30:48):
And I think really what you're talking about right now also is the difference between spending and investing, which is a topic that we like to go into that there's a very big difference between spending money on things like eating out. Again, that's not to say there's anything wrong with that. It's important to consider how that's different than investing in yourself, whether that's in education, in building a business, even in how you deal with your housing or your health. You have to consider those expenses, those costs differently based on what you might get out of them in the future, right? An example that's true for everyone going to the dentist now, even if it costs you some money, will help you both with your teeth later and also with saving money later because if you don't go to the dentist, the procedures associated with dental work are incredibly expensive and it's very difficult to have any kind of insurance that will cover that even if you have great insurance in this country.
(31:39):
And so obviously that's one specific example, but it applies to so many things. And yes, building your business is such a different investment opportunity for yourself then if you had just been spending that money going on trips with your friends, if you have that money to spend and that's how you want to spend it, you should absolutely go on those trips with your friends but know then you won't have it likely to also invest in yourself in your business, whether it's marketing or financial education or even building up yourself as an author and needs to do their own well, that's another kind of marketing I guess. There's just so many different ways in which we can invest in ourselves and understanding the financials behind that is really important because financial education and understanding your finances, it's really not just for people in finance fields or who want to do their own investing.
(32:33):
I think that's really important. We don't teach people specifically how to invest money. We teach people how to monitor their financial advisors and how to understand how their behavior is being impacted by their investments and is impacting their investments. So I don't want to go into too much minutiae right now, but if you get an inheritance or you are the beneficiary of family money, how that money is structured matters a lot in terms of what you're able to do with it and assets, particularly if it's personal real estate, are valued at the same amount as a stock portfolio are going to create different financial situations, strictures rules for yourself. So understanding, we do an activity I like to call grandma roulette, where you look at a bunch of grandmothers who leave the same amount of value of assets to three grandchildren but in very different structures.
(33:28):
And so some of that again is personal real estate cash trust where individual child is a beneficiary trust where they're all beneficiaries together and kind of go through how that can impact your finances as one of those grandchildren differently. And one of the things I really like about that is we tie it to decisions that that person wants to make for their life and they can see how different decisions of theirs would go match better or worse with different grandmas. But also I like going through them because there's a good chance that if you are the beneficiary of family money, whether it's many generations of wealth or your parents were successful, you might be in multiple of those situations. You might both inherit a family vacation home that you share with other people and also get some cash, let's say from a life insurance payout.
(34:23):
And so all of those things which will continue to come back up through your life, these are not one and done. These are not decisions you make a 25 or things that might just impact you for a short period. If you make good decisions with that family money with what you've been given, it can last you a lifetime. And if you don't, no matter how much it is, you can run through it, there is literally no amount of money that some person or some family has not lost. Many of the famous examples of that are like celebrities, pop stars, athletes, but honestly there are many examples of family businesses, fortune 500 companies where they lose all of their value and therefore the family loses all of their money in a decade or less. Wow. You got to be prepared for everything and not assume that wealth is going to be a given, and that's something that does happen with a lot of people grow with money. They just assume that money that not having to be concerned about money is a given in their lives and maybe that will be true for them, but it's so much more likely to be true if you take an active approach to understanding both your own money and the financial system at large.
Kim (35:30):
I love that so much. Great advice in here, Rebecca, and especially I love the phrase grandma roulette. Before we shift gears, is there anything else you want to share that you feel like I didn't ask?
Rebecca (35:39):
Oh boy. Well, we talked about how there's any amount of money you can lose, which I think is just something that people don't want to think about. I don't always like to think about. I would just encourage people to again, step back and think about their financial situation and what they really understand about personal finance. We offer a kind of quick 10 question quiz on our website that kind of tests your own financial knowledge for yourself. This isn't to be shared with anyone, it's just a way to kind of think about the areas in which you may or may not know about and whether it's through us, through other programs, we do just really encourage everyone to learn about their own finances, to get some financial education and also huge advocates for more financial education as a requirement in the school system. It's a little separate from most of what we've been talking about today, but if you are involved with your school system at all, I think it's so important for financial education to become part of the curriculum. We've made great strides in the last few years having it added, but having more semester long courses that are part of the graduation requirements will just be so helpful to people of all wealth levels, income levels, just really set them up better for the future.
Kim (36:55):
I love that. Actually, that's something that did come up last year at our school at a parent meeting, and I'm going to bring it up again this year, so I'm glad you reminded that. I think it's super important. I wish I had learned about it when I was younger. I mean, I think it, it's really, really important. We learned so many things in school, but this is one of the most applicable things in the entire world and it's not being taught in school. And so thank you for raising that.
Rebecca (37:15):
Absolutely. We expect people to make so many decisions for themselves, whether it's like, what kind of insurance do you want? Should I rent or buy just a litany of financial decisions without providing them with the information? And it doesn't make any sense. People think, oh, you're going to learn that at home and maybe you will. You're
Kim (37:33):
Not.
Rebecca (37:35):
Even if your parents try really hard though, even if you as a parent try really hard to teach that to your kids, there's just something to be said for learning things in a classroom and seeing them be taught alongside other people. And also the financial system changes really quickly. So how things worked for your parents or grandparents are not the same as how they're going to work for you. One of the things we see a lot with millennials and Gen Z is that they will work multiple part-time and or freelance jobs, and their parents never had any experience like that. They worked one or maybe two, but jobs for a company and they never really had to deal with a lot of the tax matters for themselves that if you were a freelancer and you're 22 years old, you were somehow expected to figure out, which is crazy.
(38:19):
I mean, I touch people who are like, I am in school and my parents gave some money and I have this part-time job, and then also I'm a freelance Pilates teacher. Can you help me with that? He's like, you actually probably need a tax professional because I can't help you figure out what you might be able to do better with your money and think about the big picture, but the specifics of tax law are going to vary so much based on what is your legal home state, what is your state of residence and a million other factors having to do with you that are so complicated and confusing for people. And we have done almost nothing to prepare them for even knowing what questions to ask.
Kim (38:57):
Totally. Alright, I'm going to shift gears and ask you one last question before we say adios and gras to Rebecca Fer of for amazing education. So Rebecca and I met in person when you participated in the VIP accelerator shoot day, and I love meeting you in person in filming with you. Talk to me about how do you feel showing up on camera in that larger way where you're getting your messaging locked in and you're participating in a big shoot with the crew? How do you feel it's helping your business or what made you want to do it?
Rebecca (39:24):
It's so funny. I really started talking about financial literacy and going into the details of personal finance during the pandemic making YouTube videos and TikTok videos just with my phone camera in my apartment during lockdown. And it was something that I had been thinking about for a while, but really had to make happen of my own accord, and that's really satisfying and I feel like I've gotten a lot of great information and content out to people that way, but it was such a great experience to go to the other extreme of that where there's a whole studio of people having your back and encouraging you, and it can be with making your own content. And I hear this from podcasters a lot too. You just kind of feel like you're speaking into the void and having other people to really be telling you like, no, this is what's going well, or Hold on a second, we're need to fix this.
(40:19):
A siren just went by that you might have not noticed because you're so in the flow of things, but when you listen back later, it's very obvious was such a fun experience and it felt really supportive. And it also has been, I've had a number of people comment, oh, your videos got much higher quality recently. They're like, yes, that did not happen accidentally. I've been trying to put out ones that are more message focused and talking about what we're doing and not just talking about different kinds of bank accounts, talking about the information which I have in so many of my videos, but it's also great to come on here and talk to you about the big picture and to do those videos where it was much more of like, what are we talking about when we're talking about money?
Kim (41:02):
I love that. And what I loved about focusing with you is you are already creating a lot of super valuable content. You already are an influencer in the financial space. But I do think, I mean, but I think when you step back and say, okay, what's my story and who am I putting it to? And what I like about these higher quality videos, they are a holistic, so it's like, what does Rebecca stand for? How can she help you as a human and also your community and your society? What's the bigger goal and picture? So I think stepping back so people can see the overall welcome financial education and how you got there I thought was really interesting. And also doing videos that are very targeted. One thing we worked on is having that be focused for colleges. Come hire Rebecca to bring in and do workshops and having educational organizations, youth organizations, financial organizations really bring Rebecca in.
(41:55):
And I like to say, what's our goal? And then how do we get there? So if your goal is X, we might make this content. If your goal is Y, we might make a different content and distribute it differently and do other things. So I think that that's something I really enjoy doing with you is seeing you're making really good content on your phone. I believe very much in that sort of content can grow a brand, but I do think there's also that time to step back and say, who am I holistically? What do I stand for? And make the kind of content that people are happy to see as well.
Rebecca (42:20):
Absolutely. I think it was very helpful for me to even think about some of those things where I think a lot about what are the lessons we want to impart about money to other people, but I hadn't stepped back in a while and just thought, how did we get here and why are we doing this, not just for them, but also writ large.
Kim (42:36):
Yeah, I think it's true. It's funny, I've done some of the messaging exercises for myself every year or two or three. I mean, I literally do my own work on myself. I'm like my own avatar in Guinea pig. But I think it also took me a while to realize, oh, actually, here's who I am in this story. It's like, yeah, my business is teaching people video, but it's more than that. My business is helping people build a future that they're excited about that's driven by themselves through modern marketing because it's not just like a skill or an object, but rather I'm giving people the tools to be self-employed. And that in itself is really, really valuable and powerful, and I found that for myself. I worked in corporate for 15, 17 years and I want to work for myself now, and I need to do this social media marketing.
(43:23):
I need to do messaging. I need to do publicity for my own company to have the freedom that I want. And I find most of my clients want that too. They're driven by goals, but they're also driven by the idea of freedom and control and opportunity. And so I've realized over time, I'm like, it's not just that, oh, I'm helping people with marketing. It's like I feel like I'm really empowering people, and that's become a part of it in a way that when I step back, I realized, oh, actually I'm loving that. I'm getting to help people and pick up my kid from camp.
Rebecca (43:53):
Absolutely.
Kim (43:53):
Rebecca, this has been such an amazing chat. I wrote down so many things while we were chatting, grandma roulette, money is a Taboo Best Practices for allowance, so this is great. And let our listeners know where they can find you.
Rebecca (44:04):
Absolutely. You can find me everywhere at Link Tree, so that's Linktree/WelcomefinancialEducation. You can also, I think pretty much Google Welcome Financial Education and our website will come up, but we are on there. We're running programming for the public this fall in New York City. We split up our big program into three different days that you can take individual modules or you can take them all over the course of a month or two, whatever fits into your schedule best. And always you can find great content information. The videos Kim and I were just talking about, and so much more on YouTube and on TikTok. I love
Kim (44:45):
That. Thank you so much.
(44:50):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg.