What to Teach Your Kids About Money, and When SB1887

Every parent eventually asks the same question: what does my kid actually need to know about money, and when do I teach it? Today’s roundtable brings together three genuinely different perspectives, financial educator Karen Holland of Gifting Sense, middle school teacher and author Alaina Trivax, and Rishi Vamdatt, the now-college-bound creator behind Easy Peasy Finance who started teaching kids about money at age eight. Together they build a real, age-by-age roadmap, from swiping a credit card at six years old to filing taxes for the first time at eighteen.

What You’ll Walk Away With

Why waiting until kids are “old enough to understand the math” is one of the most common mistakes parents make
A simple age-by-age breakdown of what to teach, from age six all the way through eighteen
Whether you should tell your kids exactly how much you earn, and what to say instead if you’d rather not
Why letting kids make small, affordable money mistakes now protects them from much bigger ones later
How to talk to kids about in-game currencies and microtransactions in a way that actually sticks
A refreshingly simple way to build an allowance system that teaches real financial judgment, not just chore compliance
Why you don’t need to be great with money yourself to teach your kids well, and what actually matters more than expertise

Why This Matters Now

It’s easy to feel unqualified to teach your kids about money, especially if your own financial journey has had plenty of stumbles. But the goal was never to have all the answers. It’s to normalize talking about money at home, model good decision-making out loud, and let kids practice with small stakes before the stakes get real. A little structure around when to introduce which concepts takes the guesswork out of a subject most parents already feel behind on, and turns it into something manageable, even fun.

From the Basement

A special exhibition round of trivia brings together three guest contestants for a genuinely close guessing game on the current going rate from the Tooth Fairy, complete with inflation commentary that would make any economist proud.

Resources Mentioned

Easy Peasy Finance — Rishi Vamdatt’s YouTube channel and book series, including the new release Easy Peasy Stocks

Follow the Money by Alaina Trivax — Alaina’s new activity-based book teaching kids about money

Let’s Make It Grow — Alaina’s platform helping parents teach financial literacy

Gifting Sense — Karen Holland’s nonprofit teaching kids mindful spending, including the “Spending Ed” program

Our Topic: Teaching Kids About Money

Talking All Things Kids and Money (SB1516) (Stacking Benjamins)

During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:

Kids and money
Starting early
Money conversations
Financial trade-offs
Spending choices
Allowances
Money mistakes
Spending consequences
Delayed gratification
Opportunity cost
Cash versus cards
Money denominations
Saving money
Earning money
Age-based lessons
Budgeting basics
Peer pressure
Advertising influence
In-app purchases
Gaming currencies
Buy now, pay later
Credit cards
Managing debt
Roth IRAs
Investing basics
Index funds
Investment scams
Financial judgment
Family finances
Financial goals

Our Contributors

A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.

Karen Holland

Another thanks to Karen Holland for joining our contributors this week! Learn more about Karen and the team at Gifting Sense by visiting Meet the Team – Gifting Sense®

Alaina Trivax

Another thanks to Alaina Trivax for joining our contributors this week!

Check out her newly released book Follow the Money: A Fun Financial Literacy Game for Kids
.

Rishi Vamdatt

Another thanks to Rishi Vamdatt for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Rishi on his show, Easy Peasy Finance at Easy Peasy Finance – YouTube.

Check out his newly released book Easy Peasy Stocks: A Fun Stock Market Investing Book for Kids and Teens.

Doug’s Game Show Trivia

According to Delta Dental, how much money does the Tooth Fairy currently leave under the average pillow?

Mentioned in today’s show

Join Us on Monday!

Tune in on Monday when we tackle the question: “What should I do first with my money?“

Miss our last show? Check it out here: Tim Semro Answers Your Weirdest Estate Planning Questions (SB1886).

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] opener: 30 seconds to air What is it about flowers for the show notes case? These are for the guests. Yeah.
[00:00:04] opener: Um,
[00:00:05] opener: we need some more books for these mics. Anyone
[00:00:07] opener: have the promo for the show notes? Wait, where’s the Fiji water? Is thi- this isn’t… Is this tap water? 15
[00:00:15] opener: seconds.
[00:00:16] Doug: Somebody get the
[00:00:17] opener: cat. I can’t drink tap water.
[00:00:18] opener: Where’s the cat? Where is he? Can, can someone tell Joe’s mom to stop vacuuming? Perrier, it’s not hard to find. Has anybody seen my
[00:00:23] Doug: hair gel?
[00:00:24] opener: This is Fiji. Artesian water. Natural.
[00:00:27] opener: Quiet on the set. Live in three, two-
[00:00:35] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it’s a special roundtable episode of the Stacking Benjamins show
[00:00:51] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today we’re revisiting all things kids and money. What are the questions you should be asking your kids? And don’t worry if you don’t have kids, we’ll talk about how best to learn about money, whether you’re a child or a child at heart. And as a super special bonus, we’ll also share a special edition right in the middle of today’s show of my incredible trivia.
[00:01:15] Doug: This is a great one. And now, here comes a guy who 100% identifies the kid at heart part of adulthood, it’s Joe Saul-Sehy.
[00:01:30] Joe: What’s your first hint, Doug? Was it, uh, my love of all things Disney maybe? Or the fact that I just met my kid at a theme park? Hey, everybody. I am Joe Saul-Sehy, and I’m super happy that you’re here with us helping us finish off summer by establishing the curriculum, right, for the rest of the year for you and your family.
[00:01:50] Joe: And we have a great group of people today here with us who are gonna help us do that. So let’s introduce them. We’ll start off with a woman who is in… I don’t know where she is, but she’s from… one of the few people from north of where I grew up. Karen Hallam from Gifting Sense is back. How are you, Karen?
[00:02:07] Karen: I’m good, thanks, Joe. How are you?
[00:02:09] Joe: I am super. For the people that weren’t with us when we had you on at the end of last year, tell everybody a little bit about Gifting Sense.
[00:02:18] Karen: Gifting Sense is a practical early financial education non-profit. We help people teach their kids to think before they buy.
[00:02:28] Joe: Excellent. And people will find it at giftingsense.org. And we’re gonna link to everybody’s great educational places for your family on our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Let’s also meet a woman whose book I am super happy just came out, and I actually got to preview this book. I was super excited.
[00:02:49] Joe: Elena Trevax is here. How are you?
[00:02:51] Alaina: I’m good. It’s so great to be here.
[00:02:53] Joe: Tell me, you are a middle school teacher.
[00:02:56] Alaina: I am, yeah. So I teach, um, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, a learning support class. Uh, so by day I work with kids who are just having a little bit of trouble with the curriculum, and we try approaching it a different way, and that’s what I…
[00:03:08] Alaina: That knowledge is what I took into the book.
[00:03:09] Joe: It’s so interesting. My wife and I met as middle school track coaches and while I saw some teachers that shied away from middle schoolers, Elena- … they were my favorite people, you know? Yeah. You’re adults on one side, still kids on the other. It’s a great time of life.
[00:03:23] Alaina: Yeah, they’re super fun.
[00:03:24] Joe: Awesome. Well, tell us about the book, because I got to see Follow the Money before it came out, but tell everybody how it works. ‘Cause it’s not really a… It, it, it isn’t really a read from front to back book. It is really financial lessons.
[00:03:39] Alaina: Can I share what you said in your email to me, actually?
[00:03:42] Joe: Yeah. Okay. She’s gonna use my words against me.
[00:03:45] Alaina: Well, I very much remember getting this message, um, and you said something to the effect of, you know, “I was hesitant to review this book because a lot of kids’ books about money kind of suck,” and this one didn’t. That’s thrilling to hear. The book takes kids on a journey.
[00:03:59] Alaina: They’re following the money through the book. So there are seven chapters, starting with what is money, talking about saving and earning and spending, all the way up to investing. It touches a little bit on cryptocurrency and some of the more complex concepts. And as the kids work through the book or read through the book, they are also completing activities.
[00:04:17] Alaina: So they get a job, they have to make choices with their money, and their goal is to end with as much money as they can.
[00:04:24] Joe: I had so much fun with it. And by the way, I do read a lot of books that are clearly… The people that write them, and I really don’t wanna spend a lot of time on this because, you know, people that wanna teach kids about money, God, God bless all of you.
[00:04:38] Joe: But there are a lot of people that would do better by making it a little more entertaining.
[00:04:43] Alaina: Yeah. It’s, it’s not the most exciting topic for a 12, 13-year-old, so you gotta draw them in.
[00:04:49] Joe: You know what? If you’ve got kids, it’s a great, great way to focus your curriculum. As is, speaking of entertaining, this gentleman just won a Plutus Award this year because of the work he’s done educating children.
[00:05:04] Joe: What’s amazing is- He’s a guy who hasn’t finished high school yet. Rishi Vemdat joins us. How are you, Rishi?
[00:05:12] Rishi: I’m great, Joe. Thanks for the introduction. I’m excited for the conversation. It’ll be fun.
[00:05:16] Joe: It’s good to see you again, and I just love Easy Peasy. It is so awesome. Tell everybody about your YouTube channel.
[00:05:24] Rishi: Yeah, so the YouTube channel has now more than 1,300 videos covering both concepts for- Only … kids and beginners-
[00:05:31] Joe: Only 1,300. That’s it. Yeah.
[00:05:34] Rishi: Concepts for kids and beginners as well as strategies for young adults and teens.
[00:05:39] Joe: How old were you when you started Easy Peasy?
[00:05:42] Rishi: I was eight, so during third grade.
[00:05:44] Joe: Wow.
[00:05:45] Joe: So I gotta ask, well, I actually had the, the opportunity to meet your parents, who were just awesome, by the way. No matter what you might think of them from time to time, I thought they were awesome. You must’ve had help from Mom or Dad.
[00:05:57] Rishi: Yeah, in the, in the early days especially, they did do the animation and the fact-checking, and they’ve been really supportive all along.
[00:06:03] Rishi: But of course, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to take over more of the work, so, like video editing is something I do now. But it’s been a journey, and they’ve been really supportive through everything.
[00:06:13] Joe: Rishi, you only keep doing it for as long as you’ve been doing it if you’re excited about it and you’re curious.
[00:06:19] Joe: What are you most curious about money now?
[00:06:22] Rishi: Right now, both in the recent videos and what I want to study going forward, like in college, is the behavioral side of it. Like, I’ve done a lot with the concepts and the math, but I wanna continue looking into how people actually behave in the real world and how to help them do better through different strategies.
[00:06:39] Joe: That is so exciting. Wh- when do you graduate?
[00:06:43] Rishi: June 27.
[00:06:43] Joe: June 27. So one more year. You got one more year of school. Well, as you can see, we have a robust panel of people that are just gonna be phenomenal at helping you put together your curriculum this year for your kids. We’ve got Rishi, Elena, Karen, Doug, and I are here.
[00:07:01] Joe: We’re gonna dive in after we have a word from our sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We’re gonna hear from them, the people that make this possible, and then let’s talk all things kids and money.
[00:07:20] Joe: Years ago, we did an episode called All Things Kids and Money, which was fantastic. We’ll also link to that because these are timeless ideas. But there is a problem with teaching kids about money. Usually, adults decide what kids need to know. So today, we’ve assembled somebody who’s spent years helping kids make better spending decisions, somebody who’s spent more than a decade teaching middle schoolers, and somebody who actually is kind of a kid still.
[00:07:49] Joe: I know he’s a senior in high school, but he still is. Although calling Rishi merely a kid, I think, seems a little unfair to the rest of us. He started teaching finances, he said, at eight. So, A, and Rishi, you also just recently passed the CFP exam?
[00:08:04] Rishi: Yeah, it, it was quite a grind, but, you know, I’m really happy that I was able to do it, and it’s been a fun experience, I would say.
[00:08:11] Joe: It’s funny. When I was 16, I… My primary financial strategy involved figuring out whether I had enough gas to get home. Like, that was, that was the primary thing that I thought about at your age. Let’s do this. Let’s start off with this question. If adults are setting the curriculum, what, what are parents getting wrong?
[00:08:30] Joe: Elena, let’s start with you. Where do you think parents might be getting it wrong with the curriculum?
[00:08:35] Alaina: Yeah. I think it’s easy to wait too long. There’s so many things. You know, I’m a parent of little kids, and there’s so much going on. You need to explain a lot, right, when you’re teaching your kids about money.
[00:08:46] Alaina: And so I think often people just wait too long trying to make sure their kid can do the math before they start to learn about a budget or trying to make sure that they can kind of think critically before they’re making those decisions. But even the littlest kids can start to learn about making choices when they’re spending or about our family is prioritizing this or over this to kind of balance the spending, and just start to get comfortable with having those conversations in your family and with your kids.
[00:09:13] Joe: Karen, you’re also focused mainly on middle schoolers. Does that track for you? Did you see some kids that come in really ready and other kids that are completely unprepared?
[00:09:22] Karen: Well, I’m, I mean, I, I’m like a human bobblehead doll when Elena’s speaking. I think we, we wait too late. We confuse mathematical acuity with starting to talk about money.
[00:09:34] Karen: I think the biggest gift parents can give their kids is to normalize talking about money, that everybody makes trade-offs, that it’s scarce for many and finite for all.
[00:09:47] Joe: Rishi, from your comments section on YouTube, you gotta see a lot of comments. Some of them may be lost. Some of them may be think it’s basic.
[00:09:55] Joe: Where… What, what do you see?
[00:09:56] Rishi: Yeah, I, I agree completely of course that, like, starting early is really important. Even before middle school, like, during elementary school, like, is a great time to start. But I also think that the way parents talk to kids is often, it has room for improvement. Like, if you’re talking to your kid about money early, that’s amazing, but if you’re doing it as a lecture, then it’s not as effective as it could be, ’cause if you’re just talking about it, then the kid probably isn’t gonna really be interested.
[00:10:21] Rishi: So Karen, you were saying it’s a lot better to involve the kids in the activities and the day-to-day things related to finance. Like, I remember when I was three, my parents used to let me swipe the credit card at the store when we were checking out, and they told me how that’s how they’re paying for it.
[00:10:36] Rishi: Even though there isn’t any cash, they’re still paying for the things. So kind of in that way, involving in, in the activities instead of lectures.
[00:10:44] Joe: Is that what, Rishi, adults fundamentally, you think, often misunderstand, is that it has to be… Almost like, Elena, you and I were talking about earlier, but Rishi, do you think it’s that we fail to make it entertaining?
[00:10:55] Rishi: I think that’s definitely a big part of it, uh, ’cause if you can make something entertaining, then there’s the much better chance that the kids are gonna listen and actually use the strategies going forward.
[00:11:04] Joe: Elena, and you’ve had middle schoolers in front of you for more than a decade. Mm-hmm. When do you see their eyes light up when you’re teaching them about money, and when do their eyes start to glaze over?
[00:11:14] Alaina: Yeah. When I see the seventh and eighth graders in particular, they get excited about the idea of making money. Investing especially becomes this magical idea, uh, for middle schoolers, but some of them don’t have the foundation underneath that. So they’re, they made an account on Investopedia or somewhere else online, right?
[00:11:33] Alaina: They’re playing the stock market investing game, but they don’t understand all the implications that would be behind that if that’s in real life. They’re just super excited that, “Oh, you know, my investments are making money.”
[00:11:46] Joe: It is so interesting that you say that because a good friend of mine who could have also been on this panel, Gene Natoli, who works a lot in the Pittsburgh area with kids, Gene told me that when he first started teaching kids about money, Elena, to your point, it was all about staying out of debt, creating a budget.
[00:12:05] Joe: Kids’ eyes glazed over immediately. When he taught them the rule of 72 and how to put money in a Roth IRA, and if you just put a little bit in with your high school money, that you could be a millionaire by the time you retire, he was, he was so excited, Elena. He was like, “I can be a millionaire on not that much money?”
[00:12:22] Joe: He said the whole room went crazy.
[00:12:25] Alaina: Yeah, and then how do you kind of integrate the two, right? They, they need to know how to make a budget, how to follow- Sure … a budget, and it’s- it’s not as exciting by any means. But, you know, like we were saying, Rishi, to integrate that into, like, the daily conversations.
[00:12:37] Alaina: You know, that stereotype, “Oh, we have food at home. We’re not gonna stop.” Add another sentence there to explain, “And we’re choosing to spend our money on this instead, so we’re not going to get takeout.” Um, super natural, super easy, and it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be technical.
[00:12:51] Joe: Yeah, I love the idea of Rishi at three years old swiping the credit card, like, just starting to build what you’re talking about.
[00:12:58] Joe: Karen, this seems to be exactly where your line of sight is, is this area where kids often glaze over, like the spending decisions. This is w- what Gifting Sense is all about.
[00:13:09] Karen: Right. I mean, I really want kids to know that they have the power to shape their own future. When we show them the possibility how to avoid disappointment, how to create a future that seems interesting and exciting to them, how to get and use information to build that future, that deciding not to spend money isn’t unexciting because you’re preserving future purchasing power for something that might be far more compelling, this is, I think, really powerful for them, and that’s when I see the light bulb go on.
[00:13:42] Joe: Well, and I love that kids gotta create the business plan. They have to create the spending plan, Karen, in your program.
[00:13:48] Karen: Right. I mean, they, what they do is they evaluate a purchase and they amass all of the thinking that’s gone into deciding whether or not they wanna discuss it with their parents, and they’re able to generate a shareable summary of all that math and thinking.
[00:14:02] Karen: And we tell them, “This is your PowerPoint or your agenda to sit down and have a relaxed, productive conversation about spending.” What’s interesting is how often kids stop themselves in the middle of that process because when they pause, gather information, and reflect, they uncover that actually this potential purchase isn’t that interesting after all.
[00:14:23] Karen: When they realize what they have to give up to get it, they go, “Actually, I’d rather do something else next week, next month.” That’s where it’s really exciting to parents. They’re telling us they’re getting fewer better quality requests to spend.
[00:14:36] Joe: On those expenses that are, you know, money that’s spent on kids, how much financial control should kids actually have, Rishi, when it comes to, like, maybe not the roof over your head, but clothes, a phone, stuff for school supplies?
[00:14:56] Joe: How much financial control should you have over that stuff versus entertainment, gifts, et cetera?
[00:15:02] Rishi: I think the exact split of like what you think, like from the parents’ perspective, what they think they should pay for and what the allowance is for, I think the details like depend on the parents. But I think the main idea is that whatever the allowance is supposed to buy is something that the kid should have like full control over so that the money actually feels like it’s theirs.
[00:15:23] Rishi: So just exactly like if you’re getting the money from a job, it’s the same thing. It’s just of course from the parents. So in that way, the kids are able to make their own spending decisions and also make some mistakes, right? Like if it’s for entertainment, for example, maybe they buy a video game and then next week there’s a concert they wanna go to but they won’t be able to do it.
[00:15:43] Rishi: And then of course it’s not the end of the world, right? There will be more concerts, but in that way, having control of the entertainment, they can see how spending money was really easy, but then there’s consequences to that. So in that way, the control really can show them lessons better than just talking at them.
[00:15:59] Joe: Elena, Rishi’s talking as a high school senior, and I can see that, and maybe even in middle school, but does this have some age barriers in terms of how much financial control kids should have?
[00:16:10] Alaina: Yeah. I think it depends on what the kid is responsible for, Rishi, right? Um, and that’s exactly I think what you were saying in the sense that the littlest kids, they don’t have a lot of things that they need that are beyond, you know, what the parent is paying for.
[00:16:24] Alaina: My kids need sweatshirts or, you know, new shoes, but that’s something I’m getting and they’re too little to care about brands. But I still want them to be learning about money, um, and so we’re trying an allowance. It’s that challenge of like, well, what are they gonna do with it? But I do think that it’s their money and they should have control over it with whatever they’re spending it on.
[00:16:45] Alaina: So I took my kids to a bookstore yesterday, so their money, their, their choice , but also guided by me. Let’s go look, um, and see, you know, what you might wanna spend money on. One of my kids did not find a book. Instead, he found a stuffy, a stuffed animal that he absolutely wants to have. So we didn’t bring our money yesterday.
[00:17:04] Alaina: We were just shopping with our eyes, but he’s asked, I mean five times, “When are we gonna go back? I have my wallet.” He left it on the counter last night because he’s just so excited to spend his money. Is he going to value that purchase over the long term? We’ll find out.
[00:17:20] Joe: Well, and that’s interesting, Elena.
[00:17:22] Joe: I mean, my natural follow-up to that is should we deliberately let our kids make some bad money decisions?
[00:17:29] Alaina: I think we have to. And it’s so, I mean, I’ve already tried to talk him out of buying this. It’s a raccoon. It’s a raccoon stuffed animal. And I, I, uh, my first instinct was like, “You don’t, we don’t need that.”
[00:17:39] Alaina: But we have to let them make mistakes, ’cause that’s where they’re gonna learn, and that’s what I’m telling parents all day long about the middle schoolers that I work with. We pitch middle school as, like, the safest place to make a mistake. The grades, you know, they’re- nobody is gonna ask for your middle school grades when you’re applying to college.
[00:17:53] Alaina: It’s okay. So you can make mistakes, and the little kids can do that, even, you know, the teenagers can do that with money, too.
[00:18:00] Joe: Rishi, let’s talk about, you know, high school seniors. Elena said that a lot of younger kids aren’t into brands yet, but certainly high school seniors are, right?
[00:18:09] Rishi: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Joe: You see people that maybe have saved 250 bucks.
[00:18:13] Joe: They desperately want a pair of sneakers that cost $200. Do you think parents should let them buy the shoes, or should they hold back?
[00:18:22] Rishi: Well, first of all, I agree that definitely like letting kids make mistakes is really important, like you were saying, Elena, ’cause that’s how they’re gonna learn. Uh, compared to just hearing about it, if they actually have the experience of, like you said, wasting the money on something that they don’t care about, then they’re gonna learn a lot more.
[00:18:37] Rishi: But I also think- But now
[00:18:38] Joe: it’s not $30 or $40, I just increased it to $200. I mean, now we’re talking some, some big, big money, not the raccoon.
[00:18:46] Rishi: Well, then they’re also gonna learn more, right? So I think it, it depends on the kid specifically and the family situation, but for the most part, I think it’s okay.
[00:18:53] Rishi: Although I just wanna say that parents knowing what, if their kid is buying is a waste of money, I wanna push that back there because like parents might not always know whether their kid is gonna get a lot of value out of something. Like, I remember once I used half of my birthday money to buy a VR headset, and I used that for like two weeks and then just stopped using it.
[00:19:12] Rishi: I’m sure my parents knew that beforehand, they let me buy it anyway, but then a few years ago, I bought a computer mouse for $100, which probably sounds crazy, but that also increased my productivity, and it was really comfortable, too. So I think my parents probably thought that was also gonna be a waste, but I’ve been using that for years, and it’s been a really great purchase.
[00:19:32] Rishi: So I think letting the kid buy what they want is a good idea, and some of it will be a mistake, but I also don’t think pushing back on what a parent thinks will be a waste is always a good idea, ’cause they might just not
[00:19:43] Karen: know. I mean, instincts come from near misses, and we don’t let kids have near misses anymore.
[00:19:49] Karen: And then we wring our hands and go, “Geez, what’s wrong with these kids? They have no instincts.” So I think they, they have to make mistakes, and this conversation is reminding me of a question we ask in every workshop, which is, what’s a purchase that you just, you know, use all the time, you’re like, “That is the best money I ever spent.
[00:20:07] Karen: I totally don’t regret it.” So I could ask each of you that question, and then I just reiterate, okay, that’s the feeling we want you to have most of the time. It’s not possible to have that feeling all the time, but we want you to feel most of the time that you’ve really spent your money wisely, which means amount doesn’t matter, what you spent it on doesn’t matter.
[00:20:26] Karen: It’s to your point, Rishi, did you get the perceived amount of value, enjoyment, use, whatever it is that’s a priority for you?
[00:20:34] Joe: I love the fact, Karen, that in Gifting Sense you help kids build the plan ahead of time to envision themself using it and thinking about it thoroughly so it’s not like the VR headset like you envisioned.
[00:20:44] Joe: You know, what are all the different ways? Build, build the use case scenario. But I love, Elena, the other part of what Rishi said, which was because parents don’t know, it, it, it seems to me that maybe having a calendar, I don’t know, a, some calendar thing to circle back with your kid two weeks from now and go, “Was the raccoon worth it?”
[00:21:03] Joe: would be would be like the, maybe the way to handle it.
[00:21:07] Alaina: Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. I had to really check myself. You know, it’s not my job to decide if it’s worth it to him, and maybe it will be. We came home and we read a book about a raccoon. You know, that’s something that is exciting and interesting to him, and that’s exactly what his money’s for.
[00:21:24] Joe: So failure is part of the curriculum.
[00:21:26] Alaina: Absolutely. 100%. Yeah.
[00:21:28] Joe: Let’s talk about age groups before we go to… D- Doug’s so excited about his trivia competition today that we definitely have to do a great job with Doug’s trivia. I think everyone’s gonna like it. But before we do that, let’s talk about ages and kids.
[00:21:42] Joe: What should kids actually know and when? So I’m a parent who’s a stacker, and I agree kids need experience, but I’m thinking, “What the heck am I actually supposed to teach them?” So what I’d like to do, I don’t wanna create, like, a 37-item checklist, but I would like to give you guys some age ranges, and you tell me maybe some of the appropriate things.
[00:22:01] Joe: So Elena, let’s start with you. Let’s, let’s start with ages six to nine.
[00:22:06] Alaina: For the little ones, especially at that six-year-old side, I think the most important thing is whatever you can do, make it visual. Just that, you know, how money works, if it’s cash, if it’s coins, if it’s cards, and explaining we have a bank account and the money gets into our bank account in this way, right from the job that we go to or from another source.
[00:22:24] Alaina: So the where money comes from. And then what we use our money for. We’re spending it on these things. We’re saving it for these things. And how that works. So even for those younger ones too, like, a visual representation of what saving looks like to make it so much more clear to them is a great place to start.
[00:22:44] Joe: Kids often have a problem, Rishi. You mentioned this. Your parents said you swiped the card, right? I remember my kids when they were growing up, it was kind of at the dawn of doing that a lot of the time, and yet they see these paper bills come out, they see these coins, and then you see the swipe. At what age do you think we begin knowing the difference between a dime, a quarter, a dollar, or is that important at all anymore?
[00:23:07] Rishi: I, I guess that, like, cash, of course, on its own is becoming less important. What’s behind it, the meaning that you were talking about, Elena, that’s more important. Like, how you get income and then either that income goes into bills or that goes to a credit card payment, and kind of that, that cycle and how you’re able to pay for things, no matter what the medium is.
[00:23:26] Rishi: Like, now it’s sometimes buy now, pay later, which has all its own problems, but the idea of spending to buy things, I think that’s still really important for kids to learn
[00:23:34] Karen: about. I, I think spending cash is the only way for a really young person to understand that spending is giving something up, that that’s the trade-off.
[00:23:44] Karen: I think, you know, tapping or the magic box, I think it’s too abstract for little kids. I think they really need to start spending cash, and sometimes it’s tricky. There are a lot of places that don’t even take cash anymore, but I think you really wanna start there.
[00:23:58] Joe: We used an older version of Monopoly Junior, believe it or not, to teach our kids denominations, because you would buy the rollercoaster or you would buy the popcorn machine at the theme park, and it cost f- $3, and you’d have these bills that all looked the same.
[00:24:15] Joe: They were just different colors with a different number on it. And I remember my kids getting this huge aha when they would hand me one bill with a five on it, and I’d hand them two back, and they’re like, “Why are you handing me two bills back when I only gave you one?” Like, that was amazing.
[00:24:29] Karen: Have you seen the TED Talk where Adam Carroll plays a game of Monopoly with his three kids, and he gives them- Yes
[00:24:36] Karen: each, I think it was $10,000, right? So they’re, they’re playing Monopoly with real cash. Wow, all of the sudden, that game was much more interesting. It’s fantastic, right? I mean, he got a job done.
[00:24:48] Joe: I know, Elena, you’re looking forward to doing that with your kids, taking out 10 grand and-
[00:24:52] Alaina: Well, you know what we are doing.
[00:24:54] Alaina: I’ve been rolling out an allowance with them. This Sunday we’re gonna read a book, kind of a book about, like, what money is, some facts about it, just one of those fun, like, picture dictionaries. And then we’re gonna do, it’s the most teacher activity, we’re going to lay out 100 pennies, and we’re gonna lay out, you know, the number of nickels and dimes, and then a dollar, and kind of map out this representation of how do those correlate to each other.
[00:25:17] Alaina: Hopefully they start to understand, you know, 100 pennies is a dollar, this is what I can buy for a dollar, and just starting to get there. Even if they can’t, the littlest one can’t count all the way, right? But we’re getting there.
[00:25:28] Joe: I thought about some of these kind of heady concepts, and I’m wondering if six to nine is the time to begin thinking about these.
[00:25:35] Joe: Like, uh, the idea of earning money. Do you think, Karen, this is a good time, age six to nine, maybe even before, that, uh, this idea of earning money and money’s not finite, I gotta go get it?
[00:25:48] Karen: Everybody has a view on this. My father would say that’s why we have many different flavors of ice cream. My personal feeling is that spending the little bit of money that comes your way when you’re a kid is a m- more natural starting point.
[00:26:01] Karen: I think a lot of parents delay discussing money, teaching their kids about money, because they don’t wanna rob them of their childhood, you know? They don’t wanna put that pressure on them. So I think if they get a little bit of money for a birthday or a holiday gift, and then, you know, they’re thinking about how they could spend it, that’s more natural in my mind.
[00:26:20] Karen: I think that middle school is a perfect time to start thinking about earning. It’s also, again, naturally when it happens. You know, an 11-year-old can take the Red Cross babysitting course, they start to look after younger siblings, they start to do, you know, yard work with machinery. You know, you don’t put an eight-year-old on a lawnmower, but you put an 11-year-old on a lawnmower, no problem.
[00:26:39] Karen: So I think a, a little older for me.
[00:26:42] Joe: Is this because… I mean, what, what I think I’m hearing is in a very technical term, the ego, right? The fact that this affects me and, and me spending money, me having money and spending my money is more important than how the heck mom gets her money or dad gets his money?
[00:26:59] Karen: Well, we just, it needs to be relevant to be engaging and helpful. And it’s a little abstract, right? I mean, a, a child, okay, they can earn money, but they know they’re not in charge of a household, they don’t have all of these responsibilities, so- You know, if they start with the decision that feels real to them, which is should I buy this item or experience, should I ask for this item or experience?
[00:27:20] Karen: You were saying, you know, reflect on it. We call it hits and misses. At the end of the school year in June, I really encourage parents, I said, “I know the temptation is to just hurl the backpack in the corner of the laundry room or the garage, but if you just take 10 minutes out and say, ‘Okay, look back on the past school year.
[00:27:36] Karen: What really worked? What was super helpful? What were you jonesing for in September and actually you didn’t end up using it that much or it didn’t perform the way you wanted?’ And then tuck that list away for the end of August when you go back-to-school shopping for the next year.” Because those hits and misses can really help you avoid them going forward.
[00:27:54] Joe: You know, another one of these heady concepts, Rishi, is, uh, this idea of waiting, right? Delayed gratification. Were you in this age range, six to nine, when you started learning delayed gratification, or do you remember was that earlier, later than this?
[00:28:08] Rishi: I think delayed gratification when it comes to an allowance started earlier.
[00:28:12] Rishi: Like, I think I got an allowance starting when I was five. So like the idea of saving up money and waiting to get something that I wanted that was more expensive, I think in that way it can definitely start earlier. But delayed gratification is also, it’s something that’s really important for all ages, including for adults.
[00:28:29] Rishi: It’s very easy to, like whether you’re a kid who’s spending their allowance on something they’ll regret or an adult who’s spending a lot more money on something they’ll regret, it’s an important skill. So I think the earlier people start developing that, the better it’ll be overall.
[00:28:43] Joe: Let’s go to the next age group, 10 to 13.
[00:28:45] Joe: I mean, a, a big part of this, Alana’s middle school. That’s that’s where y- you come in, and then also of course Karen comes in, but what, what changes? What are we teaching at 10
[00:28:57] Alaina: to 13? Karen I think mentioned the kids’ motivation, right? They are in middle school motivated to manage their relationships with their peers, and often that means, you know, going to ice cream or going to the movies or spending their money on something with their friends.
[00:29:11] Alaina: As they’re wanting to do that, they’re also gonna be a little bit more motivated to earn. And if they get an allowance and they’re finding their allowance isn’t enough, or if they don’t get an allowance and they just need money, uh, to spend, they’re gonna have that motivation. And their math skills have also increased, right?
[00:29:26] Alaina: They’re much more capable at calculating and understanding the way finances are working, right? They can calculate, with some help, how interest would work in their savings account, and they can start to learn those more complex concepts.
[00:29:40] Joe: That is so fun. I remember, Karen, this was the time, for me anyway, that I was interested no longer just in the cool cartoons like on E- easy peasy, but you know, cartoons on TV, and I was interested in the commercials, man, all the stuff that they were selling me middle school.
[00:30:00] Joe: I feel like advertising and fighting against advertising really comes online at this age too.
[00:30:05] Karen: Well, and that is so important in this age of AI. I mean, kids can get answers to any question, and what we wanna do is help them understand what to do with those answers, right? Not to take advertising or influencers or even suggestions from family and friends as 100% authoritative, but to develop their own judgment as to what constitutes a purchase they’re gonna be happy with over the, the longer term.
[00:30:33] Joe: Let’s think about some of your audience members, Rishi. I mean, in middle school, this is when they’re starting to play games, and all these games have currencies, right? And hey, if you just put some money in the system, how do you help a middle schooler get through, you know, all the extras you can get in, what, Roblox or or, uh, Sea of Thieves or whatever game they’re playing?
[00:30:54] Rishi: I think definitely a lot of games, whether it’s, yeah, like Fortnite or Roblox, mobile games, it’s designed to earn money, but the way that it, like, manipulates people to do that is, is kind of evil because, like, you can buy the currency with real money, but it, the exchange rate isn’t gonna be easy. So you’re just spending, like, 200 V-Bucks, I don’t even know how many, or you’re spending 1,000 gems on something.
[00:31:17] Rishi: So especially for, like, a middle schooler or elementary schooler, they’re not going to translate that back to real money on their own. And al- there’s always gonna be a little bit of that premium currency left over because that’s how they design the prices. So in that way, there’s a lot of manipulation that’s going on, kind of like with buy now, pay later, but in a different context.
[00:31:37] Rishi: And I think one way that kids can fight against this is by, of course, considering how expensive something is in real money by converting it back, even if it might be a little annoying. And also, if they get an allowance or if they have a job, like you’re saying babysitting, then thinking about how expensive that is in months of their allowance or weeks of their allowance or in hours of work.
[00:31:59] Rishi: And if even that doesn’t work and they really wanna pay $20 for a Fortnite skin, then I’d say, yeah, go for it, but it has to come from your allowance. So then if you make the decision that you think it’s worth it, then you’ll have the consequences of that, whether that’s you’re really happy about it or you regret it
[00:32:14] Joe: That’s fantastic.
[00:32:16] Joe: This also seems, Elena, to be a time when, man, mom’s gotta be kind of vigilant. ‘Cause I’ve, I’ve heard so many horror stories about kids buying $100 worth of premium stuff b- before mom even knows the credit card’s gone.
[00:32:27] Alaina: Yeah, absolutely. You know, Rishi, as you were saying, they will learn the lesson, right, of spending that money.
[00:32:33] Alaina: And I almost wonder as a parent too, if they spend that money, how can you also help manufacture a little lesson? Maybe they’re getting a lot of joy out of the Fortnite skin or whatever it is, right? Or maybe they’re not, you know. But how do you help them see that because they chose to buy this, they cannot buy or cannot spend their money on this other thing?
[00:32:56] Alaina: You know, maybe that’s cruel parenting. Um, but if you can, if you can manufacture that lesson in some way, then they’re gonna get it.
[00:33:05] Karen: It’s denominating the cost of these in-app purchases and currencies with real dollars and real stuff on planet Earth, right? The perfect thing is when they’re jonesing for something, a jacket, Air Jordans, soccer cleats, whatever it is, and say, “Oh, well, you know, geez, we could get brand X versus brand Y, except we’ve spent the additional 20, $30 on whatever it was last month, so now we can’t do it.”
[00:33:32] Joe: Early lessons in opportunity cost. I mean, we obviously don’t call it opportunity cost with a 10-year-old-
[00:33:37] Karen: Right …
[00:33:38] Joe: but it truly is.
[00:33:39] Karen: And I think that’s the benefit of letting them make the choice when they live opportunity cost, when they live delayed gratification, when they live decision architecture, then when they get to high school, they’re gonna have the experience and understand the jargon, right?
[00:33:53] Karen: It’s, I think it’s a far more powerful starting point than learning about it and experiencing it for the very first time in high school. That’s why we wanna bring these lessons earlier.
[00:34:04] Alaina: And I do think we could use those technical terms, the opportunity cost, the delayed gratification. Even with those 10-year-olds, you don’t need to drive it home all the way and define it like a textbook, but just really lightly explain, you know, “We have the opportunity to do this, and we have the opportunity to do this, and because of this we can or we cannot do this, and that’s called opportunity cost.”
[00:34:24] Karen: Right. Every dollar can only be spent once.
[00:34:26] Alaina: Yeah. Touch on it once, and then when they circle back to it again, they’re gonna have an even greater understanding.
[00:34:32] Rishi: And I agree that it’s really important to talk about those concepts. Like, a lot of my videos are about explaining those into simple terms, especially for a elementary school, middle school, and high schoolers.
[00:34:43] Rishi: But, like, that’s an- another side of it, right? Like, we were talking about allowance and what parents can do, but the concept and understanding that foundation is another part of financial literacy. So that plus what parents do and of course in schools, together that’s gonna be a lot more effective than one part on its own.
[00:35:01] Joe: After our break for today’s trivia question, I wanna talk about 14 to 18-year-olds. We might have an expert in that area with us here. And then I wanna talk about some of the things that we brought up tangentially, which are money conversations, about having good money conversations versus maybe some scary money conversations, or should we have the scary money conversations?
[00:35:22] Joe: And also, you’ve all mentioned allowances. We’re gonna go there, too. We’re gonna talk about how to build an effective allowance. But at the halfway point, if you’re new to Stacking Benjamins, of every Stacking Benjamins show, we have a trivia question from Doug, but on Fridays we have a year-long trivia competition between our three frequent contributors, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Jesse Cramer from Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, and OG.
[00:35:48] Joe: And guess what? You don’t hear any of those people here. So today, we are having a very special competition. So the good news, Elena, Karen, and Rishi, this is an exhibition game, so you don’t have to worry about who’s winning the year-long competition. But I think that everybody listening’s going to be excited to see how close you can come to today’s answer.
[00:36:09] Joe: And we drew straws. Uh, in fact, Elena, Karen, and Rishi don’t even know that you drew straws ahead of time. So here’s the order we’re gonna go in. Rishi, for better or worse, you get the first guess. So if you nail it, Elena and Karen won’t even have a chance. Karen, you’re gonna go second, which is good. You get to see what Rishi does first.
[00:36:28] Joe: And Elena, you get to guess last, so as long as they don’t guess it, you kinda have the ability to look and see. Although Paula Pant has had that all year, that ability, and she’s in last place. So who kn- I always think it’s a benefit to go last. I would wanna go last, but so far it hasn’t paid off. But Doug, we need a question.
[00:36:47] Joe: What’s today’s question?
[00:36:53] Doug: Stackers, I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and the one thing kids will learn very quickly is that life is all about getting compensated. For example, I’ve negotiated a second helping of Blue Bell’s Great Divide ice cream if I don’t flub this up. So here we go. When it comes to getting compensated, for most children, their first opportunity to see this in action isn’t when they complete a chore or they have a birthday, something Joe’s mom said I apparently haven’t done in 20 years, which is why she never gives me any money in my cards.
[00:37:23] Doug: That’s a bummer. No, it’s when a body part falls out. That’s right, for most kids, it’s the Tooth Fairy leaving money under the pillow that lets kids know that trading enamel for cash is an acceptable human practice. But the Tooth Fairy has had some serious inflation over the years. In the early days, they left just a penny or two.
[00:37:45] Doug: Here’s today’s question: According to Delta Dental, what’s the latest amount they report the Tooth Fairy leaving under the average pillow? I’ll be back right after I check this out myself. Maybe if I loosen one of these, I can get, like, 20 bucks for the Sizzler happy hour
[00:38:05] Joe: Doug, you may wanna rethink that, but Rishi you’re going first, man.
[00:38:09] Joe: Kids and teeth? When did you lose your last tooth?
[00:38:13] Rishi: I think it’s been a while. I don’t remember exactly.
[00:38:17] Joe: Been a few years. It’s been
[00:38:18] Karen: longer for me, I promise.
[00:38:21] Joe: What do you think Delta Dental has calculated to be the amount the Tooth Fairy is leaving this year under the average pillow?
[00:38:29] Rishi: I think the generosity has definitely gone up with inflation, like you’re saying.
[00:38:33] Rishi: So since I ha- had money from the Tooth Fairy, it’s probably gone up, so I’m not sure exactly what it’ll be, but let’s go with $10.
[00:38:42] Joe: $10. Karen, you think that’s a high number or a low number?
[00:38:46] Karen: No, I think it’s spot on. I was gonna say $10.
[00:38:49] Joe: Oh, well, you can’t say the same number, so.
[00:38:52] Karen: I can’t? Okay. $9.99.
[00:38:55] Joe: And that’s how you play.
[00:38:57] Karen: I think it’s 10 bucks.
[00:38:58] Joe: Well, that’s the way it, the game is played, Rishi, because you guessed first. She chopped you off at the knees. Now if Elena says $10 and one penny, Rishi’s- … Rishi’s out. But, but Elena, what do you think? We got $10 and $9.99.
[00:39:11] Alaina: Well, is this Price Is Right rules? Like, can you go over? Is it closest?
[00:39:15] Alaina: You
[00:39:15] Joe: can go over. We used to play Price of, Is Right rules, but, um, we- Mm-hmm … we had some angry stackers about that. Like, people really get into… Yeah, they just want closest.
[00:39:27] Alaina: So I f- that’s interesting, though, that we think the Tooth Fairy has really increased. I was gonna say five, and I thought that was high.
[00:39:33] Alaina: Um, my Tooth Fairy might need to- … revisit its calculations. You know, I’m gonna do it, though. I’m gonna say $5.
[00:39:41] Joe: $5 for Elena. All right. So we’ve got, uh, Elena, who has the cheap Tooth Fairy at five bucks, Rishi with the most expensive Tooth Fairy at 10, Karen right there at $9.99. Who’s gonna get it? Do you have it?
[00:39:55] Joe: Everybody put in your guesses. We’ll be right back. Rishi, you kicked it off at 10 bucks, which looked great until Karen took away your downside, but you still feel good? Maybe it’s 15 now.
[00:40:06] Rishi: We’ll see.
[00:40:08] Joe: Karen, if it’s between $9.99 and what? About $7.50-ish, you’re the winner, so you feeling good?
[00:40:15] Karen: I, I am feeling good.
[00:40:16] Karen: I mean, I would have preferred to have been able to lay claim to $10, ’cause I really think that’s the number, but.
[00:40:22] Joe: And Elena, you still think those two are grossly too high?
[00:40:25] Alaina: I do.
[00:40:27] Joe: Well, let’s see. Doug, you’re the only one that knows. That’s a scary phrase, but Doug, you’re the only one that knows. Who’s gonna take this home?
[00:40:34] Joe: Rishi, Karen, or Elena?
[00:40:40] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m sizzler lover, but guy who needs teeth to appreciate it, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. During the break, I went upstairs to get some help removing this tooth when Joe’s mom informed me, “You only get two sets of these things your entire life.” Who knew? Wait, what? What’s that now? Most people only get…
[00:41:00] Doug: Really? Well, maybe I need to use Google for more than just cat videos. Anywho, here was today’s question: How much money, according to Delta Dental, does the Tooth Fairy leave under the average pillow? Now, kids, if you’re listening, this differs a ton regionally, so your number might be lower or higher depending on wind speed, the current economy in the area, the number of other kids with teeth leaving on that day.
[00:41:26] Doug: She only has so much money per day, per kid. But the average is… Well, I’m not gonna tell you that, but I will say it was $4.16 less than what Rishi guessed, $4.15 less than what Karen guessed, and 84 cents more than what Elena guessed, ’cause the correct answer is $5.84, making Elena our winner. Woo-hoo.
[00:42:00] Alaina: Good job. All right. And the fans go wild, Elena. Well, I’m glad to know that, uh, I don’t have the cheap Tooth Fairy over here and we’re- … hopefully right, right in the middle. Y-
[00:42:03] Joe: you are right there. But a lot of the nation’s kids that are listening, Karen and Rishi, want your Tooth Fairy. They want the $10 Tooth Fairy.
[00:42:11] Joe: Like, can we move to where Rishi and Karen live? So-
[00:42:14] Rishi: Maybe if they’re born 50 years later.
[00:42:16] Joe: That’s right. Just, just let inflation go. It is, it is a scary thing. I remember… No, that’s an old guy story. We won’t do that. All right. We’ll avoid old guy stories. Let’s talk about the next age group, which is age 14 to 18.
[00:42:31] Joe: Let’s have the expert in this area go, go first. What does somebody your age need to absolutely know about money before they leave home?
[00:42:41] Rishi: I think that at this age, like, it’s right before they go to college and they have to start managing their own money somewhat, or maybe they get a full-time job after high school.
[00:42:50] Rishi: So I think it’s really about, uh, practicing kind of managing money on their own. Like, I think we were talking about earlier how middle school is practice for high school. I think high school is practice for life. So that’s things like how to use credit cards to get the rewards but also not get sucked into debt, which is really easy to do.
[00:43:08] Rishi: Or how if someone has a summer job, then putting that into a Roth IRA and starting to get that compounding going, even if it’s not a lot of money. And especially one thing that’s really important, which, like, adults should be doing, is keeping a budget. So parents who have someone, a kid in high school, involving the kid in your household budget, like showing them how much you earn, what’s going to different areas, maybe some changes that you’ve made, like if you looked at your spending and you thought something has to go, and walking through that process.
[00:43:39] Rishi: And of course, talking about debt payments, investing, things like that. And so that way when the kid actually starts to earn their own money, then they’re able to have a better understanding of budgeting, and just overall they’ll have a good foundation. ‘Cause this, this is, like, the last few years when parents will be able to do that.
[00:43:56] Joe: Rishi, you mentioned one of the hottest topics in teaching kids about money during my entire career, which is telling your child how much you earn. Karen, are you on board with that, teaching your high schooler or telling your high schooler how much you earn?
[00:44:11] Karen: I, I don’t think the actual dollar amount is helpful because you just need too much context to make sense of that figure, you know?
[00:44:18] Karen: I mean, they, they hear a number and because they’re not fully cognizant of all the expenses that are required to run a household, it can sound really outsized. I think it’s very helpful for them to understand your overall situation, if you’re happy with your situation, if you feel good with your situation, if you’re still trying to improve it.
[00:44:38] Karen: A school guidance counselor told me a long time ago what kids really wanna know is, is everything gonna be okay? So for example, during COVID when people were losing their jobs, she said what they really need to hear is, “This is what’s happened. Here’s the change. But we’re gonna be okay. Here’s our plan to make sure that we’re gonna be okay.”
[00:44:56] Karen: Knowing the situation is totally appropriate and helpful. I don’t think the dollar amount is
[00:45:03] Joe: You know, we began this conversation, Elena, by talking about making it entertaining, but there’s one thing that Rishi also mentioned, which was debt, which is, I, I’ve never found debt entertaining. How do you, how, how do you present the debt discussion in a way that keeps a kid’s attention?
[00:45:20] Joe: Because to Rishi’s point, they, they need to know about stepping in it.
[00:45:24] Alaina: Yeah, I think showing them real numbers. Um, Karen, I would agree, they don’t necessarily need to know the exact dollar amount of income, but if there is some debt that your family has, maybe it’s a car loan or maybe you’ve considered, you know, taking a car loan or you can workshop that, have them run through those real numbers with you.
[00:45:42] Alaina: This would be the interest rate and this is how the interest rate is determined, and if we paid this much each month, it would take us, you know, however long to pay it off, and these would be the implications of it. To walk them through that if it’s real debt or if it’s imaginary debt, but let them see how it would impact their budget.
[00:45:59] Karen: You know, I’m 60 years old, and the year that I was 14 my parents said that we weren’t going to do anything on the March break because they were paying the mortgage off, and I still remember that like it was yesterday. Wow. And it, and it was… You know, they made it out like it was a real accomplishment, but this was the final trade-off that was required and, and, you know, we just totally took it in and we were like, “Makes sense.
[00:46:22] Karen: Okay, we understood.” But I still remember it.
[00:46:26] Joe: There’s another thing, Rishi, that you brought up which was really important, which is this idea of investing, and here’s another hot button. Do you teach high schoolers investing by buying individual stocks because kids are much more likely to see the comparison to the item and the company and get the real world scenario?
[00:46:47] Joe: Or do we begin with the way that the pros say to invest, which is let’s get used to that boring index fund right away but then keep investing boring?
[00:46:59] Rishi: This actually, this connects a lot to my story with investing. I remember I started when I was seven, and at that time, like anyone who’s young, like I wanted to make investing exciting.
[00:47:10] Rishi: So I wasn’t investing in crypto or anything. It wasn’t that bad. But I did start investing in individual stocks at that time ’cause like you were saying, I could recognize the company and I thought that would be a better choice than… Like, I also didn’t know about index funds, but I just thought that was the right thing to invest in.
[00:47:26] Rishi: But then as I learned more, I realized that the index funds are, of course, a lot better, especially since I had so much time. And in, because of that, like around a year in, I switched to s- investing in index funds. And I’m sure some of the stocks that I invested in back then have done better than the market, but they were still a bad decision, and especially I think considering how much time kids have to compound, just w- a bad choice of stock that ends up going bankrupt or just not doing too well has such an impact that even though it’s boring, I think it’s better for them to start with index funds.
[00:48:00] Joe: How do, how do you position this in Follow the Money, Elena?
[00:48:03] Alaina: The final chapter is actually all about investing, and that’s for just a little bit of a younger crowd, and so it’s more of a introduction to different types of investments and things that could happen in those investments. So we talk a little bit about risk, um, a little bit about market volatility, about how to avoid investment scams.
[00:48:22] Alaina: It gives kids an overview of how investing works and what they can get out of it.
[00:48:28] Joe: Karen, I’m glad that Elena brought up scams. This is also a time when kids need to learn about scams. How do you teach kids about the fact that they go off to college or work or wherever they’re going from home, there’s a lot of people out there ready to take their money?
[00:48:43] Karen: Well, you know, everybody’s looking for this silver bullet. Everybody wants to know, like, “Okay, what’s the secret?” And I’m like, “Okay, are you ready for the secret? It’s 10 words.” Here’s the secret: spend less than you make, first five words. Invest the difference, next three words. Be patient, the last two. If it feels too good to be true, it is.
[00:49:06] Karen: There is one way to build financial resilience. Super boring, works like a hot damn. Spend less than you make, invest the difference, be patient.
[00:49:15] Alaina: I think this is another opportunity to bring in just the real life. I don’t know about you, but I get texts all the time offering different opportunities, right?
[00:49:23] Alaina: “Oh, call me for this investment.” And you can just naturally show those to your kid, right? It doesn’t have to be a sit-down, “Today we’re gonna learn about investment scams.” “Oh, my gosh, look at this weird text that I got,” and show it to them, talk through what are the red flags there, and see what they can identify.
[00:49:39] Joe: It was so funny. I’m looking through my phone right now because I got one yesterday, Elena. I got one yesterday. Apple told me, by the way- Mm … that I have an unauthorized $621 and five cent charge on my account, and I have to, uh, contact them directly or open up this, you know, click the link.
[00:49:58] Alaina: And then sometimes it does happen, too.
[00:50:00] Alaina: I found $950 in fraud on my credit card this weekend that was spent on Amazon just over two days, and we didn’t get contacted by our credit card company. We found it because we were- Ooh … you know, reviewing our expenses and categorizing them. But our credit card company was like, “Oh, you shop at Amazon all the time,” so they didn’t flag it, and it was surely not us.
[00:50:21] Joe: Th- that’s interesting, the idea of, of the fact that they, they, that they don’t tell you. Rishi, I’m, I’m curious ’cause you mentioned making a budget earlier. If you’re tracking your expenses online, right, there’s a way to… Y- you can see it happening maybe a day or two later. I don’t know how, Elena, you found it, but maybe just tracking your money you found
[00:50:42] Alaina: it?
[00:50:42] Alaina: Just, yeah, the S- you know, the Sunday night review. We s- you know, sat down to kinda clean things up for the end of the week and went to reconcile against the Amazon account, and it did not reconcile.
[00:50:51] Joe: Not, not by a lot it sounds like. Rishi, are you using, uh, one of the popular apps out there? Are you using the bank app?
[00:50:59] Joe: Are you doing a budget on paper? How are you doing it?
[00:51:02] Rishi: Well, I don’t have enough expenses or income to need a whole budget yet, but my parents do involve me w- in their budget, and they don’t use any fancy app or anything. They just use a spreadsheet to keep track of it. But really, like, it doesn’t matter how you do as long as you do actually keep the budget.
[00:51:17] Rishi: And, like, of course, it was less boring for me to go through it with them than if it were in an app, but I think it’s, it still works.
[00:51:24] Joe: Yeah.
[00:51:24] Karen: It’s interesting. We get a note, we get a message every time we spend over a certain dollar threshold. I guess it’s a text from the credit card company. And often Mark and I will text each other and I’ll say, “Did you do whatever, whatever?”
[00:51:36] Karen: Because, you know, we didn’t discuss it and it comes up. And every once in a while both of us will be like, “No, we did not do that.” And then you have to scratch beneath the surface, right? And find out what happened.
[00:51:47] Joe: That’s what I love with apps. I like the spending thresholds in each- Hmm … of the budget categories.
[00:51:51] Joe: We have been literally sitting at dinner at a restaurant before, just gave the credit card to the waiter, and, and our phone dings that we went over our restaurant but, like you- Yeah … you know in real time that you made a mistake, which is awesome.
[00:52:06] Karen: What gets measured gets done.
[00:52:09] Joe: Before we move away from the age ranges and move into allowances and money conversations, I wanna ask this question.
[00:52:16] Joe: A lot of our stacker parents that I’ve talked to over the past 15 years have told me that, you know, the reason they listen to Stacking Benjamins is because they’re not perfect with money, and they sometimes feel like a charlatan teaching a kid about money when they’re not great at money. Elena, what would you say to that if someone is thinking that that’s listening to us today?
[00:52:38] Alaina: It’s funny, I talked to some of my friends about this too. There are so many harder parts about parenting than explaining how money works. And it’s okay if you don’t know it all, right? You don’t know everything about all the other things that you’re teaching your child to do. I don’t know how to teach, you know, a little kid to read.
[00:52:56] Alaina: I teach middle school, but I’m practicing reading with my kid. Um, and I work with parents all the time who are saying, “Oh, well, I’m not sure how to help them do their homework.” But that doesn’t mean you don’t try. And it’s okay to get it wrong. You guy- you can learn together, right? We have the entire internet at our fingertips, and there’s a ton of resources, uh, if you’re stuck, if you’re not sure.
[00:53:15] Alaina: But it’s just the trying, and feel comfortable, you know, making a mistake or two.
[00:53:20] Joe: I gotta imagine I’m not the only one. Karen, you must hear this in your workshops.
[00:53:23] Karen: All the time, and my common refrain to parents is, “Did you teach your kids to brush their teeth?” And of course, everybody says yes, and I’m like, “Oh, you’re a dentist.”
[00:53:30] Karen: And they’re like, “No.” And I’m like- … “Oral surgeon?” And they’re like, “No.” And I’m like, “Oh, you’re an oral hygienist.” And they’re like, “No.” And I’m like, “Wait a minute. You gave your kids a twice-a-day habit and in a field in which you have no technical expertise.” And I’m like, “Why did you do that?” And they’re like, ” ‘Cause it’s good for them.”
[00:53:46] Karen: I’m like, “Bingo.” You… Uh, not only dentists teach their kids to brush their teeth. You don’t need any sort of technical expertise. When they’re young, it’s really largely behavioral. It’s delaying gratification. It’s planning ahead.
[00:54:00] Joe: Meeting your parents just briefly, Rishi, they seem so open. They must have shared mistakes that they made with you.
[00:54:07] Joe: They must have been pretty open about, “You know what? I didn’t get it all right.”
[00:54:11] Rishi: Yeah, definitely. And that’s really important for like parents listening too. No one is perfect with money. Like, everyone makes mistakes. So like when you’re talking to your kids about your decisions, then sharing the mistakes you made is really helpful, ’cause that’s gonna show them that even if you’re not perfect with money, you can still be successful, right?
[00:54:29] Rishi: And the expectation is not that you get everything right. As long as you learn from your mistakes, it’s okay. My parents told me that like earlier they didn’t know about the HSAs and the triple tax benefit. They just thought that it was for current medical expenses, not that you could use it for things like way in the future.
[00:54:45] Rishi: So they didn’t invest as much as they should have for a while. And by telling me that, that made it a lot clearer to me the benefits of an HSA, and I’m sure like once I have a job, I’ll start contributing up to the limit immediately, right? ‘Cause that’s now so salient.
[00:55:01] Karen: That is a great example. Great.
[00:55:03] Joe: Karen, is there something that we don’t need to be teaching our kids yet?
[00:55:09] Karen: Well, I, I don’t think that the focus should be on, you know, the answers. I think the focus should be on what you do when you don’t have the answer, when the answer isn’t apparent, and that’s a, you know, the risk of repeating myself, it’s pause, gather information, reflect. It’s don’t act quickly, don’t succumb to pressure.
[00:55:27] Karen: Anybody who’s trying to pressure you does not have your best interest at heart. So I, I think it’s just we, we want them to develop judgment, right? Because the information is at everybody’s fingertips, but there’s a big difference between getting information and making a decision that supports your long-term wellbeing, and that’s the skill we want them to have.
[00:55:48] Joe: Elena, I got the feeling of what Karen’s saying all the way through reading your book. Like, I felt like you weren’t as interested in the answer as you are in just kind of bathing in the activity, Elena.
[00:56:00] Alaina: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the point of financial education for kids is to expose them to the concepts that they need to know and then help them feel confident learning more when they need to
[00:56:12] Joe: Let’s finish this off with this allowance discussion, which man, uh, you know, we’ve talked to so many allowance pros, and everybody has a different one.
[00:56:20] Joe: But Rhys, let’s start with you. How does, how does your allowance work? How did it start? How would you tweak it if it were your allowance instead of your parents’ allowance?
[00:56:29] Rishi: I started getting an allowance around when I was five, and then of course I started investing it when I was seven. But between that time I was, like, saving up and buying toys and stuff that I wanted at, at that age.
[00:56:40] Rishi: I don’t remember exactly, but that’s kind of how we’ve been talking about how, like, kids should use an allowance. Like, I mean, if they want to, then sure, they can invest it, but it’s really, like, more practical for them to spend it how they want. And one thing that my parents did with me then, and that I also think is important for parents now, and even me when I become a parent, is letting the kids make mistakes, of course, and also not trying to kind of fix the mistakes for them.
[00:57:06] Rishi: Like, I’m sure as a parent, it’s really easy to see that your kid wasted, like, $50 on something and then want to give them extra to make them feel better about it. Like, that’s the natural reaction. That’s gonna completely defeat the point, ’cause then it’s just like you can give them unlimited money and then they keep on making mistakes.
[00:57:23] Rishi: Like, for them to actually learn the lessons, you can’t just, like, bail them out of it. So whether that’s, like, a younger kid buying a toy or an older one buying sneakers or, like, video game micro transactions like we were talking about, letting them have the consequences, even if it might be difficult to see them deal with that, that’s really important.
[00:57:41] Rishi: It is something my parents did and also that’s really helpful in general.
[00:57:45] Joe: Karen, parents are also go back and forth between, you know, you’ve got a certain chore list, you’ve got some things that you have to do, and you get an allowance and you know what? You just need money in your pocket and as a member of your family.
[00:57:59] Joe: Like, th- you know, the allowance isn’t tied to chores, the allowance is tied to chores. You know- Where do you stand on that?
[00:58:04] Karen: The model that I like is a base amount, and when asked, I tell parents, “Allowance is not free money. Allowance is preemptive practice money,” because you can’t learn how to manage money if you don’t have any money to manage.
[00:58:16] Karen: And you want them to make a $20 mistake, not a $5,000 mistake, right? So they can only do that if they start young and early. But the model I like is if you do extra, you get extra allowance, because that’s also real life, right? People who work harder at the office get promotions and earn more. So I like the idea of just this base amount of allowance, but if you’re gonna rake, if you’re gonna shovel the snow, if you’re gonna help with the dishes, if you’re gonna do laundry, then you can get a top-up.
[00:58:43] Karen: And so there’s a natural incentive program there to work harder and make a bigger contribution. But I think they should get some, because otherwise, how do they get to practice?
[00:58:52] Joe: Karen, as an economist, I think you’ll love, we had a woman on our show a few years ago. If I find it, I will link to it in the show notes.
[00:58:59] Joe: I didn’t even know you were gonna talk about this. She had a book about lessons she learned from her dad, and her dad would post chores like you’re talking about for the top-up, but then they would negotiate the rate with Dad, how much extra they would get with Dad. And initially, this lovely young woman and her sisters, they bid against each other.
[00:59:18] Joe: And then they realized that if they colluded against the enemy, they would make more money, which it turns out was one of the lessons Dad wanted them to learn, which blew me away. It was fabulous.
[00:59:30] Karen: Fantastic. It was great. It’s- It’s fantastic. Yeah. Kids are so resourceful. They’re so resourceful.
[00:59:35] Joe: He wanted to teach them, “If we work together, we’re gonna go far, far, far further.”
[00:59:39] Joe: Elena, you said you’re right in the middle of this right now. You know? You’re, w- what are your thoughts? I’m sure you’re pulling in opinions from all over. How do you think you’re gonna structure the allowance?
[00:59:50] Alaina: Yeah. Karen, I think you’re, you were reading from my notes or I was reading from yours just now.
[00:59:53] Alaina: Mm-hmm. We are starting an allowance with our little kids. My husband and I actually argued a little bit over how to approach it. He was very much team the kids should have to do things to get the money. They need to work, right? We want to teach them the value of hard work. But I put my teacher hat on for a little bit and my thought was that kids don’t follow directions all the time.
[01:00:14] Alaina: Even if they need to do the things, they don’t always do them, and I didn’t want to introduce a whole second power struggle. You know, you have to brush your teeth because you have to brush your teeth, and also, you have to brush your teeth so you get your allowance. It just didn’t seem like it would be productive.
[01:00:30] Alaina: So the way we’re looking at it right now is exactly as a teaching tool. You get a base rate per week, and then as we grow and our money scales a little bit, we’re going to add kind of a daily list of requirements, things that you have to complete with the opportunity to get that money daily. It’ll probably be paid over the week, but, you know, your Tuesday chores, your Wednesday chores, whatever.
[01:00:52] Alaina: And it’s not for the whole week because kids make mistakes, right? We don’t need, you know, a mistake on Monday to ruin the whole week.
[01:00:58] opener: Right.
[01:00:58] Alaina: And then also the opportunity to, to bid or to get paid for these bigger jobs, things that we might pay someone to do or things that we just don’t have the time or the capacity to do where it would be genuinely helpful.
[01:01:11] Alaina: We’ll see how it goes. These are behind me, actually. Those are my kids’ little save and spend and give jars, and there’s a fourth invest one that I had them color, but we put it away for right now because I just, I didn’t think they were ready for the, the abstract concepts of investing for now.
[01:01:24] Joe: All right.
[01:01:25] Joe: One last question and then I wanna find out what all of you are up to in your daily life, what you’re working on. Rishi, you mentioned at the top of the show swiping, your parents let you swipe the card. That is just a great lesson. It, uh, it just reminded me that we can turn our world into this science lab.
[01:01:43] Joe: Like, there are times when we get these lessons when we’re out and about. What’s a lesson for each of you that while you’re doing something that you can involve your kids in that a lot of people don’t that might teach them about money? Karen?
[01:01:58] Karen: Oh, I think like talking through the, talking through the purchases.
[01:02:01] Karen: I mean, you know, my, my family’s all grown up, but they kind of affectionately chide me because I will often go shopping and come home empty-handed, and when they were younger, they would be like, “What is the point of that?” And I’m like, “The point is, when I see the thing that, you know, hits the mark, hits all the features that I’m looking for, I will be able to identify it in a nanosecond because I’ve seen these 10 things that didn’t have all the features I was looking for.”
[01:02:24] Karen: So just openly musing as you’re making a decision, it shows them that when you encourage them to pause, gather information, and reflect, that’s not just a suggestion, it’s actually how you live.
[01:02:35] Joe: I love that, especially with back to school shopping right now and doing that with your kids is huge. Uh, Rishi, how about you?
[01:02:42] Rishi: I think mine isn’t as fun, but when you’re, at least for high school students, when you’re filing your taxes, just even if it’s for just a few minutes, like bringing your kid in and talking to them about how this works, of course how taxes work, but also the actual software that you’re using or if you’re paying someone to do it.
[01:02:59] Rishi: ‘Cause a lot of people, like the first experience that they have really with finance is filing their taxes for the first time, and if they have that experience with understanding how it worked for their parents and that it’s not something that they should really be scared of, I think that’s a good thing to have.
[01:03:15] Joe: It’s funny, Rishi, when I was a financial planner, I had a client that gave his kids his allowance, and in front of them he would take money back out of it to show the tax bite, and they would and they would then as a family do something special with that for fun. But he wanted them to think that taxes sucked.
[01:03:32] Joe: That was his that was his whole goal was to teach them to look for tax efficiency. So I love that you brought taxes into it. Elena, you’ve got the last one.
[01:03:40] Alaina: Yeah. So, and the teacher in me thinks about, I mean, everything is a learning opportunity, right? And a lot of that is just narrating your internal thought process as the parent and how it relates, you know, to your financial decision-making.
[01:03:51] Alaina: Um, but one that I think is overlooked is explaining financial goals to your kids. Mm-hmm. So whether it’s a savings goal or a debt payoff goal. Um, in our house we worked for a really long time to pay off student loan debt, and now we’re working to save for a down payment on a bigger home, and we talk to our kids about that, right?
[01:04:07] Alaina: We involve them in thinking about the kinda house that we would like to get, and that means that it’s gonna cost more money or it’s gonna cost less money, and the timeline of that, right? But just involving them in those goals and being aware, you know, that you have to work for some things I think is something that’s overlooked.
[01:04:23] Joe: That’s wonderful. Not just the kids’ goals, but the family’s goals. Yeah. How we begin with the end in mind. Yeah, that’s fantastic and a great place for us to leave this fabulous discussion, although I’ve got notes for another, for like a 50-part series. So maybe we’ll pick it up again later. Mm-hmm. Let’s talk about what each of you brilliant people are doing now.
[01:04:41] Joe: Elena, I know you’re getting ready for school, but at the same time you’ve got this new book out. So where can people find it?
[01:04:50] Alaina: Yeah. Um, it’s available, you know, at all the major retailers and at your local bookstore. I also have a platform called Let’s Make It Grow. Um, so you can find that on Instagram or at letsmakeitgrow.com, where I am supporting parents in teaching finances to their kids.
[01:05:06] Alaina: Uh, so if it’s those big, scary concepts, how do we break them down to be a little more straightforward, and how do we integrate that throughout our life?
[01:05:13] Joe: That is super, and we’ll link to Let’s Make It Grow on our show notes page at stackingbenjamins.com, as we will the book. Which is interesting, because, okay, you quoted my letter saying, “This book doesn’t suck,” but it’s, but it is way better than that.
[01:05:28] Joe: Not only did, did I get excited when you let me look through it early, convincing a major publisher like, uh, Penguin Random House, I believe, convincing a major publisher that this is something the world needs to see, I know from my own experience, that’s a hard thing to do. And in a book about children and literacy, financial literacy, that, that’s just a, it’s a high bar.
[01:05:51] Joe: So congratulations on bringing that to life. And it sounds like it was a lot of fun making it.
[01:05:56] Alaina: It was really fun. I mean, it was a lot of work. Um, the thing I underestimated was the editing process. I am a middle school teacher. I taught writing for a long time. I just had no idea how long editing and revising would take me.
[01:06:08] Alaina: I was cleaning this weekend, and just stacks of printouts of my notes. Mm. But it was fun. It was hard work, and it’s so cool. I have… It’s so cool to see it, like, now in print. And to hear people’s feedback. Parents have been really excited, uh, and so that’s really nice to see.
[01:06:22] Joe: I absolutely love not just the money lessons, but the activities.
[01:06:26] Joe: It’s really amazing. We’ll link to it, like I mentioned in the show notes. Karen Holland, you and I have been chatting back and forth the last several months. And ma’am, when we last talked in either the end of last year or beginning of this year, I think we last chatted in person, since then you’ve had a ton going on at Gifting Sense.
[01:06:44] Joe: Tell everybody what’s happening now.
[01:06:47] Karen: I, you know, I think we’ve just really embraced our theory of change, which is that mindful spending is a terrific foundation for financial literacy. You know, kids land in high school and they’re grounded in math and language arts and science. That’s why a teacher can pick up a novel or start with algebra or kids know the scientific process, and we’d like to see them land in high school with some grounding in personal finance.
[01:07:10] Karen: So we’ve built something we call Spending Ed, which we liken to driver’s ed for money, and it’s a graduated licensing program, and kids work their way through via quizzes and pledges to practice mindful spending. And the idea is that when they land in high school, they are really enthusiastically embracing all the amazing high school content that already exists.
[01:07:34] Karen: You know, we have state mandates guaranteeing students at least a half a semester of high school personal finance education, but mandates in some ways only guarantee that students will be in the seats. We want the students in those seats really leaning forward and excited about what they’re learning.
[01:07:51] Karen: And so we believe at the Gifting Sense project that means they need to understand that financial tools have operational reality in their life, that they’re for everyone, and that you can use them to build the future that you want. So we’ve done that, and early returns are great.
[01:08:06] Joe: That’s incredible. And just to see the strides and the exciting results from Gifting Sense is so cool, and people can find out more at giftingsense.org.
[01:08:18] Joe: Rishi, your fans are all wondering, it’s senior year, it’s a time of big change. Some of them, I’m sure, are shaking, like, “Are the videos gonna go away? What’s gonna happen with Easy Peasy Finance?”
[01:08:30] Rishi: And don’t worry. Uh, I’ve been keeping up the one video per week for now, like, almost eight and a half years, so I don’t foresee that ending anytime soon.
[01:08:39] Rishi: I also have written a series of books, and so far that’s covered money, investing and banking, and over the summer I’ve been working on the next one, which released on August 12th, and that’s Easy Peasy Stocks, which you can find- Fabulous … on Amazon. And thanks. So that- that’s for middle and high schoolers, and it covers things like stock indexes, market cap, growth and value investing, and fundamental or technical analysis.
[01:09:01] Rishi: My YouTube channel is Easy Peasy Finance, where I’ll keep up the weekly uploads, and just the videos that are for, uh, mostly kids and beginners of all ages. But those cover different concepts on finance, and the more recent ones are more about strategies or recent developments. So things like, now just a few weeks ago, Trump accounts.
[01:09:22] Rishi: Things like maximizing your 401K employer match and not getting manipulated by buy now, pay later.
[01:09:29] Joe: Uh, buy now, pay later. Oh, my goodness, that just drives me, drives me so crazy. Me
[01:09:34] Karen: too.
[01:09:35] Joe: It is almost as much now as the ubiquitousness of, uh, college kids and betting, you know? And being able to bet on everything, the weather, the whatever you want.
[01:09:45] Joe: Betting on how long this episode’s gonna go. So all the above, man. Rishi, congratulations on all your success, and, uh, we will link to E- Easy Peasy Finance and the books on our show notes page at stackingbenjamins.com. All right, Doug, you got it from here, my friend. What should we have learned on today’s episode?
[01:10:03] Doug: So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? First, take some advice from our team today. Don’t lecture kids, make it entertaining. Instead of harping about, “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” or, “Close that door. Were you born in a barn?” Show them where the money does grow and maybe have fun lowering utility bills.
[01:10:23] Doug: Those lessons are far more fun, and kids will remember them for a lifetime. Second, I also love this advice. Don’t be afraid to teach kids because you aren’t great with money. Karen hit the nail on the head. You don’t have to be a dentist to learn to brush your teeth. But the big lesson, I get the whole allowance, planning thing, but if Joe’s mom asks you for an allowance, she calls it rent for some strange reason, but, uh, same difference, right?
[01:10:52] Doug: Just laugh and compliment her for the joke. She won’t take that well either, but you know, at least you’ll have a plausible deniability later. Thanks to Alana Trevax for joining us today. You’ll find her new hit book for kids, Follow the Money, wherever books are sold. You’ll also see Joe’s blurb in the book, and it says something much kinder than, “This book doesn’t suck.”
[01:11:15] Doug: Come on, Joe, find a filter. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Note to self: don’t have Joe blurb my new book. Thanks to Rishi Vamdat for hanging out with us today. You’ll find his books and links to his videos at easypeasyfinance.com or at his Easy Peasy Finance
[01:11:37] Doug: YouTube channel. Subscribe and have fun with the kids. Thanks also to the incredible Karen Holland for joining us today. Looking for a great way to put your kids in charge of their financial decisions? Check out her nonprofit website, giftingsense.org. This show is the property of SP Podcast LLC copyright 2026 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
[01:12:01] Doug: You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
[01:12:19] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamins show.

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