Denis O’Brien [0:37]
Welcome to Episode 215. Talking to your kids about money. Hey, money clan have a warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth podcast. I’m your host, Denis O’Brien.
Katie Welsh [0:49]
And I’m Katie Welsh
Denis O’Brien [0:50]
So Kate, today we’re going to have a look at the impact that it really has when you chat your kids about money. And long story short, it really sets them up for success.
Katie Welsh [1:2]
Well, talking about money does.
Denis O’Brien [1:4]
Yeah, like if it’s something that you chat about in the household, they’re more likely to know what’s going on.
Katie Welsh [1:11]
Yeah, like I have a fine idea of it. They don’t have to know deep dive when they’re eight or nine but to have an idea that you know, you use money to pay for things and money literally does not grow on the trees out back is a very important stepping stone.
Denis O’Brien [1:28]
Yeah it totally is. So before we dive into today’s show, if you have kids, do you chat to them about money? We’d love to know hit us up on Instagram. It’s @chainofwealth on Instagram. Alright Kate ready to dive on in?
Katie Welsh [1:42]
Yes.
Denis O’Brien [1:42]
Fantastic. Let’s do it.
Voice Over [1:45]
Welcome to Chain of Wealth. here’s your host, Denis inspiring you to begin your journey of financial freedom.
Denis O’Brien [1:58]
Alright Kate, so chatting to kids about money. So what are your thoughts on the topic? Do you think that’s important? Not important. Where do you stand?
Katie Welsh [2:7]
I think everybody can probably kind of figure my thoughts, but I’ll put it out there anyway. I obviously think that talking to kids about money is really important. I mean, that is like my two lives put together right like I teach during the day I podcast money at night. I think both are very important to know about. So yes, I think that People should be talking to their kids about money. Do I think that it can vary based on their age? For sure, definitely. But I do think that you can be talking to kids, even little guys, you know, four or five years old about basic things and teaching them how to count money. And you know, them knowing that that dollar has a value to it is very important. Because as much as I want to say that, you know, teachers are perfect, and we get everything done all the time, and every single kid and there’s every single thing that we’ve ever planned for them to know. We’re not perfect, and we need the help from parents.
Denis O’Brien [3:12]
Yeah, that definitely does make sense. And Kate like, I just want to rehash one of our previous podcast guest and she was on the show a long time ago, it was Erin Lowry from]Broke Millennial.
Katie Welsh [3:25]
Yeah, that was a really long time ago.
Denis O’Brien [3:28]
Almost two years ago. It’s crazy. So anyway like her story really resonated with me and
Katie Welsh [3:33]
I know you’re gonna talk about.
Denis O’Brien [3:35]
Yeah so her story really resonated with me it was you know, she wanted to start a business as a kid and her dad was super duper supportive and you know, got on board and everything else and he helped her like, by the stuff that she needed to sort of like get ready to sell it and help set up the store to sell and everything else and her sister helped a little bit and everything else. And once all was said and done, she made a little bit of a profit. I think she said it was like $30 or something.
Katie Welsh [4:1]
I remember it was enough to buy two Super Soaker waterguns.
Denis O’Brien [4:5]
Yeah, so she was super pumped. And then a dad was like, uh-uh-uh not so fast. There’s something called taxes and there’s something called you know, paying for like the supplies and paying your sister for help and everything else. And her $30 turned into I think she said it was like 10 when everything was gone. So
Katie Welsh [4:27]
She felt robbed.
Denis O’Brien [4:27]
She felt robbed and she felt like, you know, she’d worked for this money. But, you know, the thing is Kate, at the end of the day, that’s life, like, maybe making $100 gross. But once everyone gets their share out of it and I’m not just talking about the obvious deductibles, like, you know, the taxing authorities and everyone else I’m talking about, like, paying for your mortgage, and then you have to pay for food and then everyone takes their cut and then the tiny little bit leftover is effectively what you get to have
Katie Welsh [4:58]
You get the pennies at the end.
Denis O’Brien [5:0]
Exactly. And you know, I think especially when you’re a bit younger and sort of receiving your first kind of paychecks, I know I was like this. I’m like, Oh, got so much money and everything else. In retrospect, It was nothing. It was total peanuts on an entry level salary. But you know, you think you’re the king of the world. And then you’re like, Oh, I have bills now. What is that about?
Katie Welsh [6:19]
Yeah, I also remember my first job was at McDonald’s when I was 14 or 15. That my first paid job. I had, obviously, you know, indentured serving jobs around the house in the neighborhood, but way before that, but uh, I remember, I talked to somebody and I don’t know why I remember this. But she told me that her parents make her save 50% of her paycheck,
Denis O’Brien [5:49]
Right.
Katie Welsh [6:19]
And at the time, I was like agasp. Oh, my goodness, like your parents are so mean. Like, you have to save half of it.
Denis O’Brien [5:58]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [5:59]
Like, you’re not making that much to begin with. And we only get paid every two weeks. So like, what do you do? And I remember she was like, very fine point about it. And she said, well my parents told me that if I learned now to live off half of my earnings, then I will be set for the future.
Denis O’Brien [6:19]
Yeah, and it’s totally true.
Katie Welsh [6:20]
And at the time, I was just like, well, I’m really glad my mom doesn’t make me do that. And now how the tide has turned I’m sure that I don’t even remember that kid’s name. But I’m sure that they probably didn’t have student loans or they’re in a very well off financial set right now.
Denis O’Brien [6:39]
Yeah. So this moves perfectly into the next topic area. And that’s, what about an allowance? You know, like, do you just like sort of hand off an allowance to your kid? Like, obviously, having some spending money as a kid can be nice, you know, you can save up for various toys that you might want. But what are your thoughts about that?
Katie Welsh [6:58]
Can I be completely honest?
Denis O’Brien [7:0]
I’d love for you to be honest. This is why we podcast cost.
Katie Welsh [7:3]
I have and we’ve actually never talked about this.
Denis O’Brien [7:6]
No we haven’t.
Katie Welsh [7:7]
So this is like a really authentic conversation. I have mixed feelings on allowances.
Denis O’Brien [7:14]
Okay.
Katie Welsh [7:15]
So part of me feels like they’re a kid. They should learn about money they should learn to, you know, help around the house. And you know, you should get paid for what you’re doing and your a kid so you can’t go out and you can’t make real money. Right?
Denis O’Brien [7:32]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [7:33]
So of course, like an allowance wouldn’t make sense. But then the other part of me feels like, well, you’re part of the family. You live here. Everybody shares our responsibility. Why should you get paid for taking out the trash? And I don’t get paid for grocery shopping, doing the laundry, folding it, putting it away vacuuming and dusting and doing everything else, probably behind you because you’re not going to do it thoroughly anyway.
Denis O’Brien [8:0]
Can I be honest? I thought you were going to be like well earning some money. So you must start paying rent.
Katie Welsh [8:8]
No, I didn’t think that. I do feel like you know, they’re a kid. You got to give them a chance. You have to let them learn that the same time. You are part of the family and this is a family responsibility. We all need to do at least a little bit of apart. And I remember when I was a kid, you know, my mom would even say like everybody in the house has a job like even the dog. The dog was a security system.
Denis O’Brien [8:36]
Yeah. And he had to keep the burglars out.
Katie Welsh [8:39]
Yeah, he had a job. And my mom would always say, everybody has a job. And if you don’t do your job, then you’re in trouble
Denis O’Brien [8:47]
And you letting everyone down.
Katie Welsh [8:48]
Exactly. So I actually have really mixed feelings about it. What about you?
Denis O’Brien [9:23]
Yeah, I mean, you know, I also think that definitely, you know, there’s a time and a place for it and sort of trying to, you know, encourage your kids to, you know, be financially responsible is a good idea. I definitely do think that there is tough love, which is definitely needed at some point. And, you know, I’m going to give a brief example, so one of my friends his dad actually started charging him rent like, straight out of him turning 18 years old. He was like alright well, you’re 18 now
Katie Welsh [9:23]
I thought you’re gonna be like when he was seven.
Denis O’Brien [9:54]
No, no. So when he was like, you know, you’re still kid really at 18 right? So
Katie Welsh [9:29]
Yeah.
Denis O’Brien [9:30]
But like this example can be applied to anything. So 18 years old, and he starts to charge him rent, like full on. All right, you’re now going to be paying, let’s say, I don’t know, like $400 in rent a month to live in this house, you know, and that goes towards your room.
Katie Welsh [9:45]
Can I interject. This may be completely off topic, but Den did he still have to abide by all the house rules? Like my house? My rule?
Denis O’Brien [9:53]
Yep.
Katie Welsh [9:54]
And he had to pay there?
Denis O’Brien [9:55]
Yeah, I mean, he he basically had to, but here’s what the the parent did, is he took that rent money and put it in an investment account for him without telling the kid and the idea was that all right, well, I’m gonna start investing this money and show you how much money you technically you could have saved. Had you been putting this money away. And it’s sort of like a hard lesson to like well essentially like tough love because you’re like, all right, well, I’m going to charge you rent but on the other side, you actually building up a bit of a nest egg for them which is kind of cool.
Katie Welsh [10:30]
Yeah, that is cool. I can see the point. I feel like personally for me that would not have worked. Well,
Denis O’Brien [10:39]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [10:40]
With my personality, but I definitely looking from an adult’s point of view, I’m able to appreciate that. Another thing that I never really got, since we’re on the topic of this. I was never that kid. And again, I was always jealous of this kid that would get paid for good grades. In my house. I was thankful to not get in trouble. Like, I don’t want to get spanked. So I’m not going to come home with
Denis O’Brien [11:10]
Right.
Katie Welsh [11:10]
Anything lower than a B. I struggled in school a little bit. So A’s and B’s were good for me. And yeah, so when I would have friends that were like, Oh, I got straight A’s. I’m getting $200 I was just like, oh my goodness, if I got straight A’s I’d Just wouldn’t get yelled at.
Denis O’Brien [11:31]
Yeah. So I actually like wanted to chat a little bit more about this topic. But really quick, we’re just going to take a very quick break and say a very big thanks to our sponsor. Kate our sponsor today is Masterworks which allows ordinary people to invest in blue chip art investments.
Katie Welsh [11:49]
You know, Den, I think this is such a cool idea. Because typically, whenever you think of investing in art, you think of the people who are like super duper wealthy, like multi millionaires. And now regular old Joe’s like me, and you can invest in, you know, a Pablo Picasso or a Monet or, you know, other huge art names.
Denis O’Brien [12:11]
Yeah, it really is a great opportunity and at Chain of Wealth we talk about the importance of diversifying all the time. So if you want to have a look at art, it is definitely a great investment to make. And in fact, it’s outperformed the s&p 500 by over 250% since 2000.
Katie Welsh [12:31]
Yeah, I was going to mention that that it’s not just a recent thing since 2000, it has outperformed the s&p year after year after year, and it’s a significant difference.
Denis O’Brien [12:45]
Yeah, it’s really cool. The minimum investment is $1,000. So if you do have cash laying around that you’re looking to put to use, definitely consider investing, you can head on over to chainofwealth.com/art, that’s chainofwealth.com/art. If you use that link, you will skip the wait list of over 17,000 people so definitely check it out. And if you want to invest in art, this is definitely where you want to go.
Katie Welsh [13:12]
For sure.
Denis O’Brien [13:13]
Alright Kate, so chatting about you know, like getting good grades and stuff. Like, should grades be a way to motivate kids because like, I mean, I kind of get the argument that you know, if you incentivize them with Hey, for every a, you’re going to get like 50 bucks. So whatever, or however much the value is in your house, it was much less than 50 bucks in my home. It was more like, I don’t know like
Katie Welsh [13:37]
Wait so you got paid for good grades.
Denis O’Brien [13:39]
Oh no, that was the household policy. I just never made the cut. My sister got really wealthy off it. For those who don’t know, my sister, which is probably 99% of people listening to this, she
Katie Welsh [13:53]
Poor thing never even gets talked about.
Denis O’Brien [13:55]
Well, she is a yeah, she is very well educated. She’s like a doctor / nuclear science graduate.
Katie Welsh [14:3]
No if we’re gonna be 100% honest. We’re just going to put it out there. Denis’ sister is the girl that everybody hates, secretly because she is brilliant and beautiful, and kind and every other good kind of adjective you could imagine. And it’s just like, Ah, come on, girl like,
Denis O’Brien [14:27]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [14:28]
Be fat or ugly or have a snaggle tooth or something like,
Denis O’Brien [14:32]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [14:32]
So that is Denis’ sister.
Denis O’Brien [14:34]
Anyway, we digress. But, um, yeah, like effectively, you do get rewarded and like a lot of homes do live by that. But, you know, if if you are a child that is not motivated by such things and look I was that kid, I was able to put in very little effort and do well in school. I never worked hard enough to really get the marks that I could have, it was always like oh Denis could achieve better, you know? And that’s kind of like, how I went through school. Stuff changed around at college, obviously, but kind of had to. But um, yeah, I mean, I definitely do get the arguments of incentivizing them, but maybe if that doesn’t work, you can maybe look at other ways to incentivize them. Like, like we said earlier, like, jobs around the house, you know, that can be a great way to say, hey, you want to earn some extra money? Here it is.
Katie Welsh [15:22]
I feel like when we have children, it’s going to be very funny, because I don’t feel the same way.
Denis O’Brien [15:30]
In what way?
Katie Welsh [15:31]
Well, school is their job. So you have to go and do your job and I’m not paying you for good grades. I expect good grade.
Denis O’Brien [15:39]
I never said I was on board with the idea.
I was just talking about what happened in my home.
Katie Welsh [15:41]
Oh.
Oh, okay. Well, either way, I guess. Thankfully we have years for that to to iron itself out. So it doesn’t really matter. But yeah, I think overall because the whole purpose of this whole conversation was teaching children how about money and how in your family you decide for the child to make money is completely, obviously up to you there. We’ve talked about it grades chores, I’m feeling a little bit like a dictator, because I apparently don’t want to pay for anything. But I think it is important and they also learn, you know, just simple, basic things like debt and interest and just they don’t have to know how to calculate it. But just know the general idea like, oh, if I put money into a special account, it can grow by itself.
Denis O’Brien [16:42]
Yeah.
Katie Welsh [16:43]
Or, oh, if I overextend and I don’t have enough I can go into what is called debt. And then I’m constantly paying people back
Right. Yeah.
And a quick story for that. Last year, we talked about debt and one of our reading books that we were reading in class, and there’s no like a Beverly Cleary book or something. And the kid went into debt. And it was turned into this whole great mini lesson. And half the kids in my class had no clue and to see them like, Oh, you mean you have to pay it back when you don’t have the money
Denis O’Brien [17:24]
It’s like, well, that sucks.
Katie Welsh [17:55]
Yeah and it is just like, oh my goodness, you can see, their little eyes just like grow so big.
Denis O’Brien [17:32]
Yeah, it’s like why would anyone do that? And yet that’s how most society is.
Katie Welsh [17:37]
Yeah. So
Denis O’Brien [17:40]
So I got another one for you. What about encouraging them to start their own business of sorts, you know, like maybe some kind of, I don’t know, like some, you know, like a lawn service or maybe buying and selling secondhand goods or whatever it is.
Katie Welsh [17:55]
It’s actually really funny that you bring that up because I had a conversation with a parent of a student of mine. A while ago and I stumbled across a website today actually while I was perusing Pinterest, and there was a website and I don’t remember the name of the website, but I’m sure if you go on Pinterest and you do a good search, you can find it. But it is exactly that and they sell like little starter business kits for kids to you know, create a plan and market it and how they would sell it and how they would make a prototype, and all that kind of stuff. And I think that is the way that I would encourage my child to be because you have your home responsibilities, and you have your school responsibilities. And if you want money, then you have to figure out a way.
Denis O’Brien [18:50]
Yeah, and like I also think like learning early in life, that you know, exactly what that sort of a space is, like. It’s basically directly proportional how much work you put into it. You know, like, the more you focus on something, the better you get at a certain thing. And you know, that that’s also a big life lesson you can teach him but I also think that like, just generally having conversations about money with your kids, so maybe you chat about what you’re doing with your money and why you’re doing certain things, obviously, at age appropriate levels. You know, just kind of let your kids know what’s going on with you. And also, you know, like, maybe it can help you out later in life like hey, um you know, I’m trying to pay for your student loans that are coming up. And I’m trying to set up a 529 plan for you. And this is why, you know, we don’t go out and spend lots of money because we are saving, so that you don’t have to have student loans or whatever that particular topic is explain the rationale to them. So that they sort of understand I think, is quite an important lesson.
Katie Welsh [19:48]
And I think and I know everybody here has heard it, but kids are smarter than what we give them credit for. They are shocking. So I feel like if you sit down and you do talk to them, like they’re actually people, they’re going to get it, especially if, if you say it to them over and over again, they’re eventually going to click and they’re going to understand, and that will give them a bit of an appreciation and some more gratitude for things that they do get to have.
Denis O’Brien [20:22]
Yeah, definitely. So guys, once again, if you enjoyed today’s podcast, we would love to keep you updated about latest podcast episodes that we do release. If you’d like to jump on our mailing list, you can head on over to chainofwealth.com and you can fill in a little sign up bar, send us your email address. And we will let you know when we are releasing new episodes and new content. We do have some content that is only available to our subscribers. So definitely sign up for the mailing list. And once again, if you did enjoy today’s episode, let us know on Instagram we do read all of our DMs and we really appreciate everyone that reaches out to us.
Katie Welsh [21:0]
And we personally reply to them usually
Denis O’Brien [21:2]
We do.
Katie Welsh [21:3]
Usually on my teaching breaks.
Denis O’Brien [21:7]
Alright guys, we’ll catch you next time on another episode of Chain of Wealth.
