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How do you raise financially confident kids?

You focus on raising financially confident adults.

In today’s solo turned duo episode, host Tori Dunlap is joined by Bobbi Rebell to talk about how she helps parents to raise financial grown-ups. Sharing her insight after raising two kids and her career as a Certified Financial Planner and educator.

What you’ll learn:

• Why no advice is absolute when it comes to raising kids

• How to figure out what works best for your family

• How to talk to your spouse about creating a financial education plan when you have different backgrounds

Bobbi’s Links:

Website

Book

Instagram

JWI.org

Resources:

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Bobbi Rebell: I’m used to this. This is just, I’m a very, I’m, I’m a Gen Exer story and I just embrace being like very much a rule follower and just doing like exactly as I’m told. I’m not, I’m not necessarily the free flowing person. that, you know, you youngins are

[00:00:17] Tori Dunlap: Oh. But I’m very much like a rule follower in that way. So it’s Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. I’m like straight. A student was like teacher’s pet. Oh, a hundred percent.

[00:00:26] Bobbi Rebell: I completely believe that. Yeah, I do.

[00:00:29] Tori Dunlap: I, but like starting like in high school, college, I would like crack jokes and I was a bit of the class clown, but I was a class clown who got As, so it was. I don’t know. We, it was a fine line to walk. We’re so excited to have you.

[00:00:45] Bobbi Rebell: I’m so excited to be here. We’re su such dear old friends, and I just, you know, I never had any doubts about you. I think that I’m delighted at the timeline because you, I love and I am a listener of Financial Feminist, the podcast and I. I love when you refer back to like, so many years ago, you know, you’re talking about like your block and I’m like, that was a hot second ago.

[00:01:07] Like, like you’re like, that’s like nothing in

[00:01:10] Tori Dunlap: It just feels like so

[00:01:11] Bobbi Rebell: we just talk about that like adult years to where you’re, you’re like 28 years old. I mean, this is like ridiculous that you talk about the olden days. Like it’s really been a minute.

[00:01:20] Tori Dunlap: It just feels like so much has happened, and especially like pre and post pandemic are wor, I mean, arguably not even post pandemic, but it’s like everything happened during this time where all of the rest of the world was burning too, and so it just feels like such a longer period of time. Like my four years of college, like blew by.

[00:01:40] I mean all of the time has really, but like especially these last couple years, like they felt both simultaneously shorter and longer at the same time. And I don’t know how that works,

[00:01:50] Bobbi Rebell: Yeah, I think a lot of

[00:01:50] Tori Dunlap: time ago.

[00:01:51] Bobbi Rebell: Yeah, a lot of us. But you know what? You were hyper-productive. During the pandemic, and that’s not always, it’s, it’s really like, that’s like a social experi experiment. Like what did people do? Some people were like, just netflixing and there’s nothing wrong with that. I certainly did a lot of that.

[00:02:06] Some, some people like had the most productive periods of their careers. Just finally having this space, both in time and in mental space to just do something that they might not have been motivated to do. And I think you were motivated regardless, but it also gave you the space to sort of observe, take a step back, and then push forward into things in a way that maybe you saw opportunity in that timeframe.

[00:02:33] Tori Dunlap: Yeah. And it also just happened to be, of course, everybody’s stressed about money. Where are we turning on TikTok and we happen to be there. And that was both an intentional choice and also just like a fun, like, I don’t know, the kismet thing.

[00:02:46] Bobbi Rebell: I remember us talking about you going on TikTok we’ve been friends for a long time and we had these conversations partially cuz I was interviewing you, by the way, for my book. And you play a pivotal role in my book, which we can talk about.

[00:02:56] But you were saying how you went on TikTok, but you didn’t put yourself out there until you spent some time listening. and that’s a theme that you talk about in launching financial grownups, is that we all have to take a step back and actually hear what’s going on. And I think that you did take the time to really see, okay, what is resonating with people in TikTok?

[00:03:14] How does the message have to be communicated for it to be heard? Because there is so much noise on every social media platform, but certainly on TikTok, and I think that’s something that could be applied to so many aspects of life, of ambition, of career, of relationships, is listening.

[00:03:31] Tori Dunlap: Hmm. I appreciate that. I’m often a better talker than I am a listener, which is why I host a podcast . But no, I I, that’s a perfect transition into. Like I wanted to talk with you today mostly about like how to raise financially minded kids, right? And like I’ve been asked, of course, what does it mean to be a Financial Feminist?

[00:03:50] And I’ll give you the same question, which is like, what does it mean to be a financial grownup? What does that look like?

[00:03:56] Bobbi Rebell: It’s really about taking ownership of your decisions and, and I I, you talk a lot about the systemic things that we can’t control. Acknowledge that and then focus on what you can control and then move forward with that. Don’t get mired down in, you know, people telling you, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.

[00:04:12] I mean, we’ve talked both of us about the pivotal role that our. Father’s plate in, in its father-daughter relationship in giving us the confidence that we can, like, it’s just assumed, like people say, oh, how did you write two books you’ve written now this huge bestseller. Well, I, it never occurred to me that I couldn’t write the book.

[00:04:28] I just decided one day that I was going to write a book and I marched into the ed
itor-in-chief at Reuters and I told him what I was gonna do. I actually, I shouldn’t say I just marched in. Step back. I learned how to do Squarespace. I made a dummy website. Then I went in, I did, I presented it. I said, I’m writing this book.

[00:04:44] I want your blessing. And will you be the first person I interview? and getting that, then you get the ball rolling. So that confidence is what I think is the key thing for a financial grownup is just make the decisions of what you’re going to achieve and then execute it. Do it. Don’t listen to people that say you can’t find the way to get it done and, and just keep going.

[00:05:04] I mean, I literally, there was, I had no business. I looked back, I had no business saying I was gonna write a book. I was a TV anchor. I had three little kids at home and I. I decided and I just worked around my schedule. I’d looked at, you know, I have to be at work from these hours and I’m working 12 hours.

[00:05:18] I’m paid for seven cuz it’s eight plus lunch. Cause I was forced to be in a union, which I have mixed feelings about. But but at the end of the day, again, can’t control that. Right? I could not control that. I was in a union that capped, in theory, capped my pay. I have no doubt, and I’ll just say this.

[00:05:33] Mainly men may have worked and gotten raises, but I was always told, this is the union raise. So that was to me, something I had to eventually get out of. And I was like, what am I gonna do? Well, I’m not gonna work 12 hour days anymore. I’m gonna work what they’re paying me because I’m gonna spend the other time writing my book so I can leverage my career and take control myself.

[00:05:54] And so I just, one day I had no book deal. I had nothing. I had people that said, well, who are you gonna, do you have money to hire someone to write the book for? Tori, I was a journalist. Literally, I was a global business news anchor. I had a column on Reuters, on personal finance, globally syndicated. And people asked, well, who’s gonna write your book for you?

[00:06:13] And I just said, I am. And they were like, when you have three kids, a husband, a dog, and a full-time job. And I said, I am. And I just figured out when drop off the earliest possible drop off to drop my kid off, who was seven at the. I paid, you know, the 20 bucks for the extra babysitting. Again, money buys you things, you know, you gotta pay the extra money for childcare.

[00:06:34] And I just went to the same coffee shop, head down with a baseball cap, didn’t make eye contact and socialize in every day for two to three hours. I wrote that book and that’s, you know, and I think taking control of your life like that and saying, I’m gonna create a second career. Yeah, that’s what I could control.

[00:06:50] I couldn’t control that. They weren’t giving me raises. They gave me nice titles. , they really kept giving me nicer

[00:06:56] Tori Dunlap: Titles are sh are, are shit, unless she got the money to back it up. Well, and you

[00:07:00] Bobbi Rebell: many fancy titles.

[00:07:01] Tori Dunlap: you mentioned, you know, navigating You know, writing a book, of course, you know, working a nine to five and also having children, A good chunk of your platform is, is raising kids to be good with money. And one of the questions I get all the time from our audience is like, how can parents start talking to their children as they grow up?

[00:07:19] And of course I have some ideas, and I mentioned this in your book from being the kid, but I don’t have children myself. So for you, and happy to, you know, hear some stories from your book as well, what are some common ways. Parents can start educating their kids or talking to their kids about money as they.

[00:07:36] Bobbi Rebell: really listen, and, and again, this is something you talked about but I’m gonna emphasize some more about it, is listening to your kids. And I just, I don’t mean just like have a talk and like be like, tell me what you think. Actually listen to their everyday conversations and figure out. What’s gonna resonate with them?

[00:07:52] Right? What do they care about? So for example, we had with my now 15 year old, the one that was seven at the time, we’ve had many allowance failures. Why does the concept of allowance keep failing and allowance, by the way, for parents can be very controversial. People have very strong feelings about allowance.

[00:08:08] And we’ve always had things you just do cuz you’re in the family. Like it’s just, it’s just his job. He takes out the garbage. That’s the thing. And, and you know, kid number two, he does the dog late night walk the whatever it is, right. That we just expect. But I, I set up certain things for him that I’m like, okay, if you make your bed every day, you will get, you know, $15 a week allowance.

[00:08:26] Here’s the problem, I didn’t listen to the fact that he valued the privilege of not making his bed every day more than he valued $15. There was nothing he wanted to. . Right? So what was the point? Right? So that’s, when I say that’s a mic, it’s like a microscopic example of like, I wasn’t hearing him, even though he wasn’t saying, no, mom, I don’t want the allowance.

[00:08:49] He just, he was cool. He was like awesome in his head. I don’t have to make my bed anymore. All I do is not get the money. Right? So you have to listen. What do they really want? And another theme that you talked about was if your kid is doing something that you think is not good financially, how do you make that case?

[00:09:04] You. Shame them. You don’t judge them. You listen to them. Gee, you wanna buy, and this happened with my 20, now she’s 26 years old, my stepdaughter. I will tell you she saved a hundred thousand dollars by 24. We can talk about the privilege involved in that. And she owns her own apartment. She owns a co-op.

[00:09:23] Tori Dunlap: I love it. I love it when women quote, unquote, beat me, like people message me and they’re like, I did it at 23. I did it at 24. And I’m like, hell yeah. Great, great. No, of course not. I, I put beat me in

[00:09:35] Bobbi Rebell: yeah, yeah, yeah. She lived at home. I feel she, in retrospect, when I heard she did a podcast episode with me and things come out and things came out that I was like, wait, but you missed your friend’s thing, cuz you were like, it’s not in the budget.

[00:09:46] I’m like, you know, come on. I would’ve given you the mon,

[00:09:49] Tori Dunlap: Oh,

[00:09:49] Bobbi Rebell: but it’s, it’s so hard. But you. One of the ways that she did this was she had gone to school, she started Indiana University, got in as a teacher. She was always a great teacher, taught swimming, and when she did swimming, by the way, she made sure she got every level of credentials so she could make the maximum money.

[00:10:06] She was always financially savvy. If I’m gonna show up for swimming lesson, I wanna get the top of the pay scale, right? Think about that stuff. She really real
ized when she went to Indiana that she did like urban life. She did miss, she grew up on the Upper East side of New York City with all the privilege and all the things, but you know what?

[00:10:23] She kind of liked that freedom. She liked being able to take a cab if she was late. She liked being able to go out for a fancy drink if she wanted, and she sort of started doing the math. And my husband, her father was very instrumental in like looking at the numbers with her and just being like, this is what your life will look like.

[00:10:40] You choose, you know, think about this. You know, we’re gonna pay for your college no matter what. You’ll graduate debt free, however. , this is what a teacher makes. This is what the max is, this is what it costs to live in New York City at the level you want. And she switched to the School of Informatics and she’s now a very, I’m so proud of her.

[00:10:56] She’s a very successful, I’m gonna cry. She’s a cybersecurity analyst for a major consulting firm. She’s been promoted. She owns her own apartment. Everyone, if you’re watching like I’m gonna cry. I’m so proud of her and she’s proud of herself and I think. Those talks. And I, I do have a really good life partner in my husband who is very clear with his children, all our children, that, you know, you should choose what you wanna do, but choose with your eyes open and make those decisions.

[00:11:26] And she made that decision because if you make that decision, if you push them to make the decision and it’s your decision, not theirs, it’s not gonna end well. They’re gonna resent you for the rest of their life, or they’re gonna just. , I mean, I know of people, I know of someone I’m thinking of that the parents, because it was more socially acceptable for that person to go to medical school.

[00:11:44] They barely got in after years of trying. And then it, it was such a struggle and it never worked out. And the person is you know, in a blue collar job now that they’re very good at and they aren’t enough money and they’re happy. So it’s not about choosing the job with the most money, it’s choosing the right job for you.

[00:12:00] And the parents have to accept that and let the kid live within their means. You know, you can pay for dinner, you can take your kid out to get a manicure, whatever you wanna do that stuff, you know, you pay for the fun, not the needs, but let them choose and then help them get where they wanna go, not where you think is the right thing, or that’s gonna kind of bring you the, the spotlight.

[00:12:23] The spotlight needs to be on.

[00:12:25] Tori Dunlap: Well, let’s talk about, like you mentioned, you know, we’re gonna pay for your college or like maybe, you know, there’s opportunities where you’re paying for certain things.

[00:12:32] Bobbi Rebell: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:33] Tori Dunlap: I, I think one of the things is like, what will I help pay for? Do you have strong feelings about that? Like, you know, I think that one of the common things that I hear too is it’s like, you know, I student loans suck and I went through that and I don’t want my child to go through that.

[00:12:48] But we have a lot of parents who are sacrificing their own retirement to pay for their college or a portion of their kids’ college. And then what happens of course is that there’s no loan for retire. and so people end up having to rely on their children anyway. So like are there certain things where you’re like, yep, this is the path, or, I mean, for me it’s always personal.

[00:13:09] Finance is personal. Like what? What does that look like?

[00:13:12] Bobbi Rebell: I 100% agree with you. And one of the big themes of my book is it is, it is a call to action to the, you know, the parents of the almost adults. So people in their, you know, forties, fifties, sixties, whatever it is, primarily Gen X is at this point to put your oxygen mask on first. And I think that is essential.

[00:13:31] That is everything. If you don’t want your kid to have student debt, you really don’t want your kid to be supporting you. So you need to process that and do the math. And I do agree. I also wanna make a point though, in my personal case, and I’ve been very outspoken about this we were able to do it without loans.

[00:13:49] And also I have a partner. I really felt the kids should have some skin in the game. My partner. And we made a compromise. You know, that’s how we did it. We, we, the kids are very clear. They had their own spending money, they’ve always been employed. These kids earn money and they are focused on earning.

[00:14:09] Both of my stepchildren who are now 23 and 26 are earners. They take their earning power very seriously. They are hyper aware of their privilege. The younger one now is working in the movie. And he comes home and he will just say, this is funny. He says, he’ll say Monday. He said, I have content for you.

[00:14:26] I wanna tell you things. And he’s telling me what he is learning about how other people live, that not everyone gets to live. And he’s banking his money living here as his sister did right after college. That’s the plan. And he tells people, he tell our neighbors will come up to us and be like, we spoke to him.

[00:14:39] He said he’s banking money, he’s living at home. So that when he leaves, whether it’s to rent or buy, he’s got that emergency fund, he’s got that financial backstop. So these are kids that are very aware of what’s going on, and that’s always been the deal that they work. They earn money. I know exactly how it’s invested.

[00:14:56] We’ve had a lot of. Tough conversations in the last year because the stock market has not been our best friend and it’s hard to tell a kid to keep dollar cost investing when they see what’s been going on with the stock market. So I think it’s important that if you’re, you know, if you are a single parent and you make these decisions in a bubble, you do you right.

[00:15:14] You make the best decision for you. But if you’re in a partnership, you do have to take into account not just the financial part. And making sure obviously, that you can afford it, but also how it’s going to impact the other financial stakeholders in the decision. And I really respect the fact that my husband felt strongly that this is something we can do for them.

[00:15:33] They’re financially responsible kids, our parents did it for us. We will be fine with retirement. This will not make, it will not make a material impact on our retirement, and we chose to do that. One of the toughest things to write in the book, I’ll tell you and, and I’m curious to hear your reaction to this.

[00:15:49] I do feel strongly that kids should not just be given cars just because they became an age. But here’s the problem, Tori, my dad gave me a car and I’ve talked to him about it. I’d be like, why’d you do that, dad? Like, you just gave it to me. Like I had a job. I could have paid for the insurance. I could, you know, we, we never talked about the fact that you just like went to a car dealer and you just were like, which one do you like?

[00:1
6:11] And it wasn’t a fancy car, to be clear. It was quite a modest car. It was focused on safety. I wasn’t driving the ferr. Far from it. But he said, well, it wasn’t a financial thing that I couldn’t afford and I needed you to drive your siblings You know, it was, it was his convenience for me to drive because he saved money on having figured to figure out transportation.

[00:16:34] My mother, who I, and she’s no longer with us, but I’m so proud and I’m proud of her. The older I get, the more proud I am. She. and just became a lawyer in her forties, which was so unheard of at the time. And she always wanted to, and she was always sort of had this resentment that, you know, she went to Smith College, she had been a teacher, and then when she had kids, that’s it.

[00:16:53] You weren’t really, that was it. You didn’t work. And she felt like she was always working for charity and doing the the mommy things. And she’s like, but why don’t I get paid? And she went to law. you know, as soon as my brother was in kindergarten and you know, I’m so, I’m just so proud of her too, looking back because she didn’t have the opportunities that we have and I’m, you know, I think my father was supportive, but I also think it was unusual that your wife would suddenly up and do that.

[00:17:22] So she wasn’t really around to like be the mommy chauffeur. So I think part of the reason that he just bought the car was, you know, convenience. And that’s, that’s the other thing is there’s this layer of practicality sometimes. I always had jobs from age 15 on.

[00:17:35] So I was working at a bakery, I was working at a department store doing gift wrap. I was folding clothes at a clothing store. You know, I was always working, so I had to get to my jobs and I had to drive my siblings around. So sometimes these decisions, which seem ridiculous, he just bought the car, were actually, you know, made sense in that.

[00:17:56] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, I am putting myself in the shoes of a listener. , you know, we are both white women who have had a ton of privilege and who also, you know, work really hard who are like, my family’s not even, it’s not, there’s not even a thought of, can I afford a car for you? There’s not even a thought of like maybe even going to college period, yet alone, paying for part of not, if not all of it.

[00:18:19] How do you navigate a conversation raising financial grownups, raising financially minded kids when you’re financially struggl?

[00:18:28] Bobbi Rebell: Yeah, I think that that’s a really important point, and it points out that there are these huge systemic things going on, and I think that this is beyond my ability to solve and your ability to solve. And the thing that’s most important is that we raise these issues and we acknowledge it and we understand that it is definitely.

[00:18:49] And even playing field. And so, you know, we do our best. We put content out that hopefully is helping people and we try to be a resource to people and we try to just be supportive and, and hear them. But the truth is it’s, it’s just not okay. And I think that there’s, you know, we can talk about legislation and different programs that are going on.

[00:19:09] One, I mean, I can start rattling off, you know, a better balance is one organization that I would encourage people to, are you familiar with them?

[00:19:16] Tori Dunlap: I don’t know. I think I’ve heard of them. Tell me.

[00:19:18] Bobbi Rebell: Yeah, so they have been successful in getting, especially when it comes to balance obviously, but you know, for example, if you are a cashier there, there were cashiers at places.

[00:19:28] I actually, I don’t wanna misname a company, but I’m thinking of some very large employers where if you are a cashier and you’re pregnant, you can’t even get necessarily the bathroom breaks that you need. The childcare, the things that don’t allow you to go just do your job

[00:19:43] Tori Dunlap: I mean, paid family leave. We’re we’re still the only industrialized country who does not have required family leave at the government level

[00:19:51] Bobbi Rebell: Right. And the family leave, we have, I mean, if you don’t get paid for your family leave, what’s the point? That’s not family leave.

[00:19:58] Tori Dunlap: Right,

[00:19:58] Bobbi Rebell: No, there’s no family leave if there’s no paycheck, who can do that? Right. So, you know, I think that, you know, being part of these organizations, supporting them, I’m also part of an organization.

[00:20:09] I’m on the board actually, I just finished a meeting with jwi.org. jwi.org. You know, it stands for Jewish Women International, but it is for everyone. That’s just how it was founded. And it. Any, any race, you know, religion, whatever. But what they do is they support women who are victims of domestic violence.

[00:20:26] And what you say, which is correct, is 99% of that. And that’s actually a statistic. We’re not just being you know, we’re just not throwing out that number. That’s actually the statistic. 99% of those women are victims of financial abuse.

[00:20:38] Tori Dunlap: Yep.

[00:20:38] Bobbi Rebell: Okay. And I was in, I will tell you, I was in a marriage, very brief marriage in my twenties.

[00:20:44] I’m now married to, I call my forever husband. But I was in a a very, um, you know, verbally and mentally abusive marriage and money got me out of it. And I say that all the time. If I didn’t have money, money and family. Money in an amazing family got me out of a toxic situation that I was afraid to leave for three years.

[00:21:01] I was so afraid of, of, it was just the shame of it. I was embarrassed for people to find out what this man was doing to me and how condescending he was. I mean, I was a, I was a working on camera journalist and he made me feel like a piece of, you know what all the.

[00:21:18] Tori Dunlap: Yeah.

[00:21:18] Bobbi Rebell: I mean, I had no confidence. I didn’t know who I was.

[00:21:21] I, he made me feel so small, as you like to say, and without family, but also money and the education. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten out of that. And I come from so much privilege. So where does that leave someone who doesn’t? Right? And so that’s one of the reasons that I’m on the board of directors.

[00:21:39] Please look up jwi.org and also a better balance.

[00:21:43] Tori Dunlap: we’ll put it, we’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah. And I think, again, I like these solutions. We, or we don’t have solutions at the individual level beyond like as transparent and open as you can be about money. Especially if, you know, we’re talking largely financial grownups, right? It’s, it’s like probably high school, college age, right?

[00:21:59] And so
it’s like starting to have more in transparent and honest conversations about. Money about debt, about saving. And if you know you have made certain financial mistakes, that’s a perfect opportunity to actually discuss those with your kid of like, yep. When I went to a certain retail store and they told me it was a rewards card and I later realized it was a credit card, like that’s a perfect opportunity to have that conversation with them.

[00:22:27] And also what I, the other thing I’ve realized too is, I, anybody learns by doing and sometimes you just have to like create the space and the grace for your kids to make the bad decision because they probably won’t do it again. Or at least they’ll think twice before they do it again. Because I know, you know, plenty of people have told me something and I’m like, okay, cool.

[00:22:49] That sounds good. And then a year later I go out and do the thing. And only when I’ve done it do I actually learn, oh yeah, that was not the smartest decision. I’m not gonna do that.

[00:22:58] Bobbi Rebell: Yeah, I, I love that you said that. So the 15 year old made a mistake. He, well, he almost did. He, he was prevented from it because of communication, because he knew that I wouldn’t judge him. And he came to me. He said, you know, someone is asking me on this. Video game I think it was on Discord and he said, they’re saying that my account is locked and they need me to give them $50 to restart it.

[00:23:20] Tori Dunlap: Mm

[00:23:21] Bobbi Rebell: I’m like, oh, no, no, no. He wanted the, the money for me. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. Because I have I used an app where they’re sort of spending controls on it for him and we were able to, I was able to show him, you know, this is what’s happening. Like, you know, you gave them your password and they locked it something.

[00:23:35] He’s like, but I’ve known them for years. I’m like, you’ve known their acronym online. We’ve talked about this, but. At the end of the day, you can have, and he is a smart kid and this is someone that you know he trusted because his other friend, his real life. Trusted this. So it’s a whole, and that’s how scams like Madoff and Sam Bankman Freed happened because people don’t vet because they think their friend vetted because that friend thinks someone else vetted.

[00:23:56] So, you know, what saves us is keeping the kids or allowing the kids to make mistakes, but also not judging them when they do. So I didn’t judge him. I was like, this could happen. I’m glad you’re coming to me and sharing this with me. And I immediately of course, got my brilliant stepdaughter, the cybersecurity expert into the conversation, and I was like, Ashley, What are we doing here?

[00:24:21] Walk me through this. How do we, you know, get this bad guy away from, you know, our dear son, our your brother, and so on. And the other thing that I think is really important, and this is something I asked you on my podcast, you know, what have you learned since your book came out? What’s been fascinating to me is so many people have come up to me and said, I love this book, but I’m bad with money, so I can’t teach my kids.

[00:24:42] And I’ve said, you are the perfect. To teach your children because every mistake you made not only is a perfect lesson, but if you show them that you’re vulnerable and you screw up too, they’re gonna feel a lot more comfortable coming to you when they screw up. Because the only thing worse than a kid grinding themselves into credit card debt is a kid in credit card debt that hides it from their parents. So it’s really important to let your kids know they’re gonna make mistakes and you’re gonna be there. You may not write a check to solve their problems, but you’re gonna help them figure out how to solve their problems. And you’re gonna be there to listen to them, to support them, to guide them. And maybe you’re not gonna literally like wave your magic checking book, even though we don’t actually write checks

[00:25:22] Tori Dunlap: Yeah,

[00:25:23] Bobbi Rebell: you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna wave the magic wand and fix it, which is what I tell people not to do, which is concierge parenting. But you’re gonna be there and you’re gonna get them out. , you’re gonna be a family and you’re gonna support each other. And if you don’t have a biological family that’s there, find a family.

[00:25:37] However you define family. I think that’s the other thing that’s really important. You and I have amazing families. We’re very privileged. Not everyone does, but find someone, find a mentor. It might be your, you know, someone in your office. It might be somebody in a social group. It might be somebody in your religious organization, but find someone who can be there if you don’t have the family member that can be delight for you.

[00:25:58] Tori Dunlap: Yeah, the chosen family, and I love that we talk about vulnerability so much on this podcast, and you’re exactly right of like, you know, you want to, to have an open space where your kids can’t come to you and say they fucked up. Rather than them, bury it or lie about it, or feel so ashamed that, that you know, that they’re going to get in trouble.

[00:26:17] And it’s yeah, I think that that’s incredibly.

[00:26:21] Bobbi Rebell: And I think it’s important for parents to kind of stop themselves from saving kids that don’t need to be saved. Let them make decisions. I remember when Bradley, who, the one that works in the movie business, he was finishing up his project senior year at at college and he was a film major, which is of course music to every parent’s ears when you’re, you know, paying for college.

[00:26:40] But by the way, he has a full-time, you know, good, really good job on a major motion picture with lots of NDAs. So that’s all I can say, but it’s really gonna be big. But, you know, he came to us and he said, you know, I, I know that I’m supposed the NYU budget is whatever, you know, $500, whatever they give the kids and the equipment, but I really need more money to do the film.

[00:26:59] And you know, I guess he was, thought we were gonna write a check, but my amazing husband and I, who are very instinct on this, kind of looked at each other. We were definitely on the same page and we were like, how are you gonna raise the money? There was no check coming. And we did sit there and brainstorm with him, and he eventually did, you know, basically a GoFundMe project.

[00:27:18] We got to learn about how it’s taxed, all the fees involved. You know, it’s important to walk them through, not to say, okay, good. Go do that, do that. And then you sort of brainstorm, okay, who you know. You can’t just put it on the platform and think people will come. You need to, who are you gonna hit up? How are you gonna approach them?

[00:27:33] How are, how are you marketing this? What rewards are you gonna give them? You know, what are gonna be your benchmarks and what do you. . I think one of the best things ever is he didn’t reach his total goal. He got a lot of it, but not all of it. So what lesson did that teach? You gotta work with what you got.

[00:27:50] What compromises will you make on
the movie? Maybe you’re gonna shoot in one location instead of three. Maybe you’re gonna have a smaller cast. Maybe you know you’re not gonna have the extra person that you wanted on. Maybe you’re gonna, you know, ask a friend to supply food for the cast rather than have it catered, whatever.

[00:28:06] Not that he, I don’t think he was ever in the, the catering idea, but you get the idea. You know, what are you gonna be trading, you know, they do a lot of bartering in film school. You know, I’ll work on your film, you work on my film, all that stuff. So I think that he learned a lot about the business of film.

[00:28:18] In doing that, but also in the fact that, you know, yeah, he’s living here. We don’t charge him rent, we don’t charge him for food, but we do watch that he’s investing the money and we do expect him to be at work every day. And we do expect him to chip to do, and it’s great. He does. You know, it’s kind of weird when your kid starts like doing the things without you asking, you know, like what, whatever, like empty the dishwash, they just like start doing at a certain day, your kid will just wake up and be an adult and start emptying the dishwasher without you asking it’s magic.

[00:28:46] Tori Dunlap: I

[00:28:47] Bobbi Rebell: don’t know if you ever just suddenly one day started like doing chores around your parents’ house.

[00:28:50] Tori Dunlap: I think my mom would like to listen to this podcast and manifest that a little bit. My last question for you. If, if somebody’s listening and they are trying to figure out how to raise financial grownups and maybe they didn’t have the best experience around money and didn’t have the best experience with examples from their parents or their family, what is one thing you have to say?

[00:29:10] Bobbi Rebell: Do it together. Do it together. . Just own it. Tell your kid, this is how my background was. I want more for you, but I also want more for. So let’s figure it out together and let’s make a plan. And you help me and I’ll help you and let’s co motivate. Let’s find an app we can both be on. We can be each other’s cheerleaders.

[00:29:30] Let’s talk about what goals do we really wanna accomplish? What matters to you? Here’s what matters to me. Here’s where I wanna be in one year, five years, 10 years. Here’s my. Ideas for you. There’s nothing wrong, by the way, with having expectations for your children as long as you balance them with what their goals are.

[00:29:47] If you have a child that you think maybe is, as you like to say, thinking small, give them the confidence to think bigger. You know, don’t just accept, listen, but be their cheerleader, be their support. Tap into, you know, what are they good at? A lot of younger people are. If not ambivalent about their career goals, they might not have a passion or a passion that pays, which is important to separate that.

[00:30:08] It’s great if you can do something as you do that you’re passionate about and earn a very nice living at it. But sometimes the things we’re most passionate about are not income producing. And sometimes if they are, we lose our passion for it when it becomes our job. We all talk about like the chef that doesn’t wanna cook dinner when he gets home.

[00:30:25] So you gotta be careful what you choose, right? So I would just make it a family. Goal, keep it all together and just love each other and support each other and focus on financial wellness and living your lives together in support of each.

[00:30:40] Tori Dunlap: I love it. Thanks for being here, Bobby. Where can people.

[00:30:43] Bobbi Rebell: So find me first of all at bobby rebel.com is my primary website. And I also have a new company we actually, I forgot to talk to you about that. It’s called Financial wellness Strategies. So that’s the url, financial Wellness Strategies. And I’m gonna be working with companies to help better educate their employees and all things financial.

[00:30:59] And also working on generational communication and then making sure. Parents are communicating with the next generation, maybe the next two generations about money and about their hopes and expectations for the generations to come.

[00:31:12] Tori Dunlap: I love it. Thank you.

[00:31:13] Bobbi Rebell: Thank you.