00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday Night special with Doug Nordmann and Carol Pittman. ER as we talk about family and finance here on the inspired stewardship podcast I'm Doug Morgan and I'm Carol Quittner and where the authors of raising your money savvy family for next generation financial independence and we challenge you to really focus on becoming money savvy. One way to be inspired. To do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott, Major Theo. Second thing I would say is I would not try to sit a kid down and try to have,
00:00:48 like, a formal teaching sessions. You know that teacher moments Yeah, that worked well in our house. And that's the thing that teachable moment aren't meant to be. Like, You know, you have to sit down in a dining room table and have your notebook out. Mom, Dad again elect Searchie for the next hour and 1/2 because we've seen how well that works for kids in school. Let's not do that at home with money. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be.
00:01:17 Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in. The inspired sturgeon podcast will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In tonight's 38 Saturday Night Special, Doug Nordmann and Carol Pitcher and I talk about their new book, Raising your Money Savvy Family for Next Generation Financial Independence. Carol and Doug share some of their favorite money stories as a father and a daughter, and we talk about how this can change your family tree as well.
00:01:59 No one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity, getting not just mawr things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called Productivity for your passion that's designed toe help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity not just to be getting more done but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality,
00:02:44 because the truth is, a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type. But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work. But there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone, and we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over an inspired stewardship dot com slash launch. Duck Nordmann served for 20 years of active duty in the U. S Navy Submarine force and retired in 2000 and two at the age of 41.
00:03:20 He and his spouse, a retired Navy reservist, reach financial independence in the late 19 nineties on a high savings rate. They've lived in Hawaii for over 3 30 years, and their daughter, Carol, was born and raised on Oh, how thes days. Doug enjoys surfing, slow travel, writing, public speaking, reading, home improvement, personal finance conferences and oh yeah, more surfing. He's the Arthur of the Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement and founder of the military guy dot com. He donates all of his writing and speaking revenue to military friendly charities.
00:03:58 Carol Pinar joined the Navy on an ROTC scholarship. She's been stationed around the world on a destroyer and an aircraft carrier before moving to the reserves. She and her active duty spouse are rapidly approaching financial independence, also on a high savings rate. And they've just started their own family. Military personal finances. An important family topic almost is important is surfing. Carol and Doug are the Arthur's of raising your money savvy family for next generation financial independence, coming in the spring of 2020 from Choose Fi media. Hey,
00:04:37 Doug! In Carol's Welcome to the show, Doug and Carol raising ah, money savvy family for the next generation. This is the idea behind your book and looking at financial independence. So why, as a father and daughter team, how did you come up with this idea for writing a book? Together, we mark my wife and I go to a lot of family financial conferences. There's ones all over the country now. I can't mustache and camp if I, you know, one of these Ah woman asked us right away after I given my talk on something completely different.
00:05:15 She said, Okay, fine. I get it. I understand. Um, how are you raising your kids for financial dependence? And I had no idea. I remember babbling something about giving them an allowance and letting them make mistakes. But at the end of it, we both agreed that I really didn't have a clue as to how I wanted to answer her question. And, ah, a year later that almost exactly the same thing happened again. And this time my wife was at the camp. If I with me.
00:05:39 And she did that fateful thing that Carol has seen happen in our household before, where she turned to me and said, Nords, you really got to write that book. And so we went back home at the time, were staying with Caroline KJ at their apartment in Norfolk. And we went there and said, Hey, a funny thing happened at the last camp F I. I got that question again about raising the money savvy family, and and I said to Carol, Do you have any stories about that?
00:06:06 You have any memories of that that we would talk about? OK, Carol let you take the rest of story from here and I said, Yeah, I actually have quite a number of memories. And there was the initial dinner conversation where we're all sitting around the table and we share what I were initially remember and that particular week that they were in Norfolk, my parents were in Norfolk. I was actually in the middle of what they call a transition program for the military. And I was I was bored out of my mind during the day.
00:06:31 A lot of the information that they have out at this Ah, this period, this whole class was stuff that I'd already they learned in high school or things that I had known from job interviews in college. It was all something that was second nature to me. So here I am, in the corner of the room, typing away my laptop, all these different stories that I remember as they're coming up throughout the day. And so by the time I got home on the second day of like a dad,
00:06:51 I have, like, four chapters in, like, 18 chapter titles. What would you like to Dio went from there? So I don't know what happened really fast. I was going to say I don't know the secret to writing a book. It's ask someone else to write it for you that that appears to be the secret way we have to edit that one out. I don't want everybody to see that secret. It's a lot of fun, though, right in with somebody who's better at it than you are.
00:07:16 What I think. You How was it working together? I mean, you know, father and daughter. How was that working together? I I can imagine myself with writing a book with my son, now realize he's 16 and found to be 17 in about a month. So probably a little different in a few years, I imagine. But, ah, how was that working together? Right? The book. It helps when your kid is actually in their twenties. So I'm 27 right now. So I think that the maturity has finally said,
00:07:44 and I've actually learned a few things that finally understand the other side of all. My dad see stories, so I would say Wait in the twenties and now the other thing is that the technology has caught up, so a dad never using Google docks the whole time you're actually able toe each going to document the same time we would write our stories and as we're reading each other's part, that would tip us off on how to either modify our stories or to add in or take out. And so even though we were completely different time zones and we're working a different times of day and night,
00:08:10 it was very easy for us to be able to work together, right? You could still collaborate exactly, and collaborating was pretty straightforward on a Google doc. But we did. We did choose a format that's a little difficult to write about, and the editor, Ah, was where very cautious about what she really wanted to see from that. But it won't do a back and forth narrative. You have toe stick to the same story, and and both make that work out so that you tell your side,
00:08:38 she tells her side. And then we go back and forth on it, and it's sometimes it's not clear who is talking about which part of the story or we would write a summary together, and it wouldn't really clear whose point of view he had that turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. And I don't mean working with Carol that that part was great. I I not tell you, Scott working with one of your adult Children and finding out that they're better at that stuff. And you are,
00:09:01 That's just the proudest moment. Seriously, it's the proudest moment of Parent can have in your life is when they find out that it really have raised somebody who's very good at that and has taken it further at their age than you ever had thought of when you were that age, right? But we also found out that you're welcome. We also found out that writing the back and forth narrative is a little more challenging, and it is a little more difficult for an editor to be able to follow the flow in the development.
00:09:27 So that part there was probably something that we belonged into. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and the metaphor is telling stories around the kitchen table. We didn't want to write textbook. We didn't want to sit up in our ivory tower and pontificate and say these are the six things parents must do to reason when he said instead, instead, we wanted to say, Look, you know, every every kid is different. Every family is different, Everybody has different values. Here's what worked for us.
00:09:56 Here's what didn't work for us and hopefully you guys gonna prove on that. Yeah, that's it's interesting because, you know, again talking about reflecting with my son, who basically he started. He's never been allowance. He's always been on commission. Started when he was three years old. You know, we were like, Dude, you're three. You could clean up your room here, Let's show you how to do. Of course, week did 90% of the cleaning and heated 10% but still, you know it taught the lesson.
00:10:24 So he's run his own lawn care business the last few years. You know, he's great, my earliest memory of him with money as we were in the midst of struggling and getting out of dad and dealing with our own financial issues. And so we had cut up all our credit cards, and basically he's hearing us talk about how we're not going to use credit cards so many more credit cards or bad on all of this. He's like five at the time, and he sees someone in line in the grocery store in front of us.
00:10:50 Pull out a credit card to pay no stores on the five year old. Looks at him and goes, you know, credit cards. Air stupid. I'm going. No, no, I could. Delery was wrong, but at the same time, I couldn't tell him I was right. Either. It's like you, but, uh, we were We were It was an interesting experience to explain to the person in line in front of you. No, no, he's really not calling you stupid. This is what's going on.
00:11:17 He's just pointing at your critic. Yeah, that's it exactly. Um, but anyway, uh, So, Dad, thinking about that when you look back on what you did you were just talking about, you know, having the experience of working with your adult child and recognizing that she learned lessons and has probably even gone further than you in some ways, when you think about the things you did right and probably a few that you didn't do so right? What lessons would you kind of go back and tell yourself today,
00:11:48 as a parent, the first thing I try to do is go back in time and get more sleep. But that wasn't an option at the time. Yeah, that's OK. She she's she's had the child that we raised. So now she can turn about is fair play. The mother's curse works. Yeah, that's right. You know, we shake our fingers and say, One day you'll have kids of your own and you'll understand while that day is here. Were there would what I would tell my smile myself if I went back is mostly a tech re fresh when we were doing our techniques in the nineties and early two thousands.
00:12:19 One example of that was my spouse, and I just did not understand how useful smartphones we're gonna be for a teenager. Thus, a smartphone was something you had in your company is a company perk, or it was something that celebrities carried around because they were selling it and they're demonstrating the consumer lifestyle. But us smartphone wasn't necessary for whatever was that you were doing at school all day. Uh, of course, in retrospect, and this was a couple of years before the iPhone came out. In retrospect,
00:12:52 it turns out that she was missing out on all kinds of opportunities for study groups. For a teacher Q and A sessions. All kinds of things were going on mostly on text, but also on voicemail. We we eventually figured it out, but there were, I don't know, about a couple of tense months here, Carol. Maybe six months. And ah, you wanna Caroline? I mean, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but do you want to tell your side of how you solve that problem and educated us?
00:13:18 Oh, yes. Oh, right. You know, I'm a little bit young for my age. I was born in October, so I always started high school, you know, a couple of months shy of everybody else. By the time you know the feeling, yeah, I turned 14 and I was finally old enough to be able to start working, and I worked at this local. It's an after school center. It's called a cologne center, and that's where they teach math and reading on individual basis.
00:13:43 And so I was finally making enough money that not only was able to contribute to my Roth Ira, actually, a little bit of extra spending cash on the side, and I was living within my means, which is the allowance and Mom and Dad gave me. So I realized for the first time my life I could go out and I could buy my own cell phone that actually went to the local 18 t store in the local, the shopping mall. And they had pay as you go plans. And it was something like 10 cents a minute for calling and 25 cents a text.
00:14:07 And it's just little brick phone. I mean, it didn't even have snake on it. That's how I was ableto t o about this. For those of you that don't know, Snake was the original a little video game on a Nokia phone that you can actually chase a little Grab the little balls that it got longer. Okay, Now you go. Uh oh, yeah. And so didn't even have snake on it. And then from there I was ableto actually get back into other groups. People would actually be able to call me.
00:14:35 I would be able to hear voicemail. I was able to get text and I was back in loop again. And on the flip side, Mom and Dad landline stopped ringing. No getting Oh, it was classic teenagers. It was It was It was Ah, Carol, pick up your phone. Why aren't you picking up their phone? Call me back. Bye. Click. Or or even worse, uh, Kara, this this is this is ah, Ryan. Ah, yeah, it's it's funny because I can kind of go through the same thing of where we were thinking with our,
00:15:11 you know, son, for, ah, long time. It was kind of, Well, we don't want him to have technology,
00:15:17 but honestly, we came to it pretty quickly. We actually let him have a phone starting in Ah,
00:15:22 late elementary school. But it's because we live out in the middle of nowhere, and his bus ride to and from school was like 45 minutes,
00:15:31 and we're like, we don't want him trapped missing the bus and not be able to get a hold of us.
00:15:36 And it was more of a say. It was a big of anything. It was a safety issue of He's gotta have a way to communicate with us if he if he you know,
00:15:43 got stuck on the side of the road, so to speak. Oh, absolutely. And a lot of let things we've learned to is that the schools will pretty much set the policy on that.
00:15:52 So as a parent, you don't necessarily have to have all the wisdom all at the same time for any piece of new tech that comes along.
00:15:58 I will say to that in, if we had that awareness spect when we're learning about cell phones in that way,
00:16:06 we would have done it much earlier, and we would have had a much more useful as a tool,
00:16:11 right? I mean, now your son can probably listen to podcasts on his way to school. So he does wear,
00:16:16 you go? Yeah, and and he uses the computer in the phone. And like you, I mean,
00:16:22 sure, Yeah. He plays video games with his friends and all of that. But hey also uses it to do homework and Google and research.
00:16:30 And they use Google classroom. And you were talking about collaborating on the Google doc. They do all of that,
00:16:35 you know? Absolutely. So he's actually kind of immersed in that. It's funny how different that is from,
00:16:42 you know, I got yelled at for typing assignments. You know, you have to be able to do long division manually,
00:16:49 because what were you gonna do, carry computer around in your pocket someday? Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
00:16:54 Actually, you are. Uh huh. Carol kind of turning that around now. Obviously, you're young family,
00:17:01 young child of your own. That all of that. When you started working on this book and thank you about it,
00:17:08 this has has it either changed anything that you were doing. Ah, are doing with your family or no,
00:17:15 Nothing changed. Well, why not? Well, one of my daughters, only 10 weeks old, so we have quite gotten there yet.
00:17:20 You know, we're still in the very early stages of making his first job yet. She's no. Her job right now is letting Mom and net sleep,
00:17:28 and she's failing miserably. And you have the doctor pay. But one thing that has changes my mind set has changed naturally.
00:17:38 You know, before I was the kid and it was always the kid's perspective of wire. Mom and Dad doing this now that I'm on the adult side,
00:17:44 it's like, Ah, okay, pretty good bunch of parenting trick. It's It's all about. It's all about giving them teachable moments.
00:17:55 As a parent, you have to be aware of these teachable moments. But you also have to give them a sandbox to go out there and run around in and make all the mistakes.
00:18:04 Because you're keenly aware of this with your business, where your clients really are hijacked more by emotions than they are by math and logic.
00:18:11 Right, right. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, at the at the end of the day,
00:18:16 if it was a math problem, our money would be easy. It's not a bath problem. It's a life problem.
00:18:23 You know, the math is easy. That's not the hard part. It's Yeah, I I again kind of telling on myself.
00:18:29 My my money story that my mother loves to tell is how when I had, like, I think I was like,
00:18:37 12 bucks or 10 bucks or something that I heard it was a very young child, and we go to the mall and they have the arcade.
00:18:46 Oh yes, for people that are younger, and arcade was a room where they put a bunch of ending a bunch of,
00:18:51 Ah, video games that you could play. And I spent all $12 on quarters and blew all of it on the video games.
00:18:59 And Mom, let me do it and you'll probably an hour and 1/2 that I was in there or something.
00:19:03 Mom, let me do it. And, of course, all the way home. I'm beating myself up on wasting all of my money on the video games and not having any money left.
00:19:11 And my mom claims that's why I'm a tight one to this day because I was so mad at myself for doing it.
00:19:16 And I was like, Never again, you know? And guess what? Never again. I started from that minute on.
00:19:21 I put a little bit aside for spending a little bit for saving, you know, talking about what you're doing about Doug of letting somebody make the mistake.
00:19:28 And that's really what taught me the lesson she could have told me all day long. I wouldn't have cared way.
00:19:35 We do talk about that in a book to You're not going to swoop down as apparent and start admonishing your child.
00:19:39 See, that's how you feel when you waste all your money instead, it's ah, it's better to empathize.
00:19:45 Sympathize, Sale. I felt that way once when I was your age. How do you think we could keep this for happening the next time?
00:19:51 What do you think about this idea? If you can draw out the discussion and validate the emotions and work through the issues there,
00:19:59 then they're probably ready to listen. I'm not going to say it's gonna work the first time you've you've got a non opportunity and eventually people get tired of living in that manner and eventually that idea of saving some spending,
00:20:15 some that starts to resonate. And then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, right? And they get a little used to it.
00:20:21 It starts to succeed, and from there on it just it takes off. And that's the big approach to these teachable moments is that you have toe figure out what motivates your child,
00:20:30 figure out what those financial incentives would look like and find ways toe put those into their everyday life so that instead of thinking to themselves,
00:20:38 no, mom and dad are gonna be mad at me if I do this instead, their thought processes Well,
00:20:43 I can do this or I could do that. And if I do this, mom and dad are going to share the savings with me.
00:20:48 If I do that, I'll run out of money sooner. That's an internal locus of control, right?
00:20:52 That's where you've succeeded in motivating somebody on their own, and all you have to do is clear path in front of them and help them succeed in life well,
00:21:01 and yeah, that that idea, too, of I think it's important to recognize that all of not just kids but everybody is different in terms of how they're wired,
00:21:10 especially when it comes to money and said that lessons you do with one Keto may not work with the next,
00:21:17 you know, you're gonna have to tweak him and adapt because not gonna be the same wire. That's the big difficulty in writing a book.
00:21:24 We did not want to write a text book about how to raise your family. We wanted to write a series of stories about what worked for us because every kid is different and it's a big,
00:21:33 wide bilk er with fat tails, and I'm sure that we saw most of the good parts of the bell curve and didn't see any of the really,
00:21:40 really bad parts that could pop up. So yeah, well, you're shaking your head. Okay? Way.
00:21:45 Saw anything. She's like, I'm not gonna tell you that story. I should. I shared a few things,
00:21:51 but I'm not gonna talk about that one. But that, at that point with with families, is that every kid is different,
00:21:57 and maybe this will work when they're eight years old. Or maybe you'll try it and you'll back off for six months and try it again when they're not right?
00:22:05 Oh, yes. And I can't think of anything specifically that happened that way. But I remember a lot of times when I was young,
00:22:10 thinking that didn't go well and then a couple months later is like, Oh, yeah. Mom and Dad tried to introduce this a few months ago,
00:22:16 and now it's working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've seen the same thing again with my use of my son is an example where,
00:22:25 you know, there were some lessons that we tried to teach him at six. And it's like, Oh,
00:22:29 yeah, I know. He's not ready for that. Okay, Back off you know, how do you How do you teach?
00:22:35 But But you know, the basic idea of Don't spend everything that you have in your hand, you know,
00:22:41 give to other people that three years old, he was getting that stuff down. I mean, now how he did it mechanically was very different then than it is now.
00:22:51 At 17 now 17 he has his checking account. He has things that he has to purchase. He's responsible for those things.
00:22:58 You know. There's other things Mom and Dad provide because you still live at home and you know you're OK.
00:23:02 It up. Um, but that's, you know, it's it's interesting, like we go to festivals,
00:23:09 and one of the things we do that the festivals is will buy food. But all of hiss, you know,
00:23:15 junk. He gets Teoh valuable collectibles exactly. You know, and so he's also had the experience of buying something and then having it break and be like,
00:23:27 I wasted my money on that one. You know, it's like Okay, um, but yeah, those air valuable lessons toe learn when you're young.
00:23:35 Because I know some 50 year olds that still haven't learned. That's that's a very good point is that you make those mistakes while they're at home in the comfort and safety of the family,
00:23:46 where everybody can sit down and talk about it. Hopefully, it's not full of judgments there or lectures or admonishing.
00:23:52 And eventually you'll stop making Asim steak so often. And then you know you're finished high school and go out in the world.
00:23:58 And that's the wrong time to start learning about these mistakes on your own, because that is where there's a lot of people waiting for you to enter college to help you make those mistakes.
00:24:09 Absolutely. There's a whole industries up around that. So, Carol, let's let shifting gears a little bit.
00:24:16 Um, if you could share with somebody that is focused on this idea, they want to raise a family that has a healthy relationship with money.
00:24:26 What would you say are the top three things that you would sit down, make no two or three things that you would sit down and tell them to focus on the first thing I would say it's make everything with money a positive experience.
00:24:37 Now I know that money is not always gonna be positive, but a lot of people that associate money with getting in trouble.
00:24:43 You know, it's don't touch Mom and Dad's wallet. It's Don't spend all your money. Otherwise you're going to get a licking.
00:24:47 You know that that kind of a thing is not a good thing. What you want to be ableto show kids is that money is how you're able to provide food for your family.
00:24:54 Money is how you're able toe, you know, have fun at a concert and experience life if you want to make it positive.
00:25:00 And the second thing I would say is I would not try to sit a kid down and try to have,
00:25:05 like, a formal teaching session. You know, that teachable moments? Yeah, that worked well in our house.
00:25:13 And that's the thing is a teachable moment aren't meant to be like, You know, you have to sit down in the dining room table and have your notebook out and mom data and electricity for the next hour and 1/2 because we've seen how well that works for kids in school.
00:25:22 Let's not do that at home with, and so the best way to do teachable moment is whenever you're walking around.
00:25:28 You know, they're always telling new parents always make sure you're talking to your child, that they can get used to you talking and they learn the language of a little bit better.
00:25:35 But it's the same thing with money, you know, when you go out to eat it. Hey,
00:25:38 you know, how much do you think we're going to be spending of money if we go out to eat together?
00:25:41 What if we bought more appetizers or about more desserts? You know, little little sidebar conversations like that will start.
00:25:46 Um, having Children think about money in more ways. And the third thing I would say is one special thing and one special thing can start.
00:25:55 However, the most routine thing is for the family. So for the Normans growing up, we went to the grocery store once a week and it was always on a Sunday morning.
00:26:03 And if I behaved in the grocery stores and I would get one special thing, I'm usually that would be like,
00:26:08 you know, I could have my favor, candy bar or if it happened to be some kind of toy that I saw that I could really have that and The nice thing is that,
00:26:14 you know, I'm 27 years old, and right now my one special thing is my really nice car.
00:26:19 You know, I have a Toyota Prius who is really nice, and that's our one special thing. Okay,
00:26:24 so the idea of finding things that are important to you but rewarding yourself with them basically, even now,
00:26:32 as an adult, you're still doing that. But you're doing that obviously a different way. It's not a candy bar now,
00:26:37 actually, right now, one special thing for you would probably be a full night's sleep. Given that you have a newborn at home.
00:26:44 A little teacher? Actually, yes. Someone hurts. What would your dog when you were there? Did you all take care of the kid?
00:26:52 Oh, so they could sleep. Get up some sleep at night. I for your listeners, Scott,
00:26:57 I'll point out that my wife and I are both Navy veterans and military retirees, and Carol and her spouse are also Navy veterans that he's still on active duty.
00:27:05 She's in the reserves. And so we set up whatever you know, military family does. We set up a four section watch bill,
00:27:12 and everybody has possibilities. I had the mid watch. Okay, well, and And by the way,
00:27:18 thank you both for your service as well as your family service. Ah, for the military. And Doug,
00:27:25 you and I've had the pleasure of chatting many times. So I forget that not everyone knows that you all are all the military of him.
00:27:32 Thanks for your support and impressionable teenagers who are listening. This podcast should really think hard about following Carol's footsteps.
00:27:40 I would I would join the military because you want the experience. I wouldn't join the military because you want it for the money.
00:27:45 If you're thinking that you're gonna get money. Bad idea. But I mean, the reason I joined because I wanted to travel and see the world.
00:27:52 And I saw 12 countries in my first duty station, so it worked out perfectly on her beyond her wildest dreams.
00:27:58 Oh, yes. Well, yeah. I military is not right. It for everybody. But there are benefits to being in the military.
00:28:05 I know. Ah, for I was a school teacher for years. Also a career you don't go into for the money,
00:28:11 by the way. Some and there were many of my seniors that that, you know, I was either helping him figure out college or figuring out other options when they graduated.
00:28:21 And for some of a military is absolutely where I pointed him, because it's like you need this. This will help you.
00:28:27 You need the discipline, you need the family, you need the environment. You need the ability to travel the structure,
00:28:33 seeing a different you know, For some of them, the furthest they'd seen away from their house was this was on the south side of San Antonio was like military drive well,
00:28:44 military drivers on the south side of San Antonio. It's just a little further north, you know, is a 15 mile radius.
00:28:50 That's it. That's all they ever seen. And it's like the opportunity to get out and see the rest of the world.
00:28:55 Yeah, not a bad one, you know. Um, gets Carol. How did just on that note?
00:29:01 How did traveling like that and and seeing the world on dog? I'll circle back and has for your tips in a minute.
00:29:07 But this when you think of this, how did that change the way you view? You know, money,
00:29:12 cause I'm I'm sure you saw some things in your travels? Oh, yes, we're very different. Yes.
00:29:19 Two memorable things come to light of one thing is that it really helps to have an emergency fund because,
00:29:24 uh, on my first ship, there was a big problem that we had to make it simple. Everybody was supposed to receive a housing allowance,
00:29:32 and that housing allowance was supposed to exit the American bank accounts and enter the Spanish bank account so that that it could be transferred from the Spanish bank account to the landlord and because it was a transfer of American money overseas,
00:29:45 there was some kind of internal system corruption and a bunch of people were getting all of their money taken away from them,
00:29:51 and it never made it out to the landlord. And so it was. It was It was a hard month for a lot of people because they're in a foreign country for the first time.
00:29:59 They're still getting used to the language and the customs and the new work schedule. And, oh, by the way,
00:30:04 they don't have any money to pay the rent because the month that was given to them for rent was already taken away from them.
00:30:10 And so it was. It was a very eye opening experience to Hey, you know, you might want to have six months of emergency money for you,
00:30:16 just in case something like this happens. And then it also gave me a different perspective on how people spend their money as adults.
00:30:22 Because every time you go to a different port call, you see all the different ways that people spend money.
00:30:27 Uh, but the most friendly, family friendly one that I can talk about five cast there was There was one night where we saw a liberty group that was having a lot of fun,
00:30:39 and we noticed that there is a lot of drinking going on and we figured out they'll be fine and they did make it through the night.
00:30:44 We did see them back on the ship at Liberty expiration. Nothing went wrong there. But the next morning they're all gathered around the table and they're going through all the receipts of how much scotch they had to drink that night.
00:30:54 And you talk about carrying around of calculating pocket. They literally whipped out their phones, and they're starting to calculate the four digit number of how much money they spent on alcohol in the previous night.
00:31:02 Yeah, wow, that was. That was a whole different perspective, a little bit of buyer's remorse,
00:31:09 there to a lot of buyer's remorse. They they just spent. I never found out the full number,
00:31:14 but let's say something like $1200 it's gone. That money is never coming back. You literally drink, drink $1200.
00:31:21 Yes, on. But it would. It would seem more valuable if they could remember what they had done last night.
00:31:27 Yes, I think about the alcohol is it's one of those things where if you start down that road,
00:31:33 we're talking about emotional buying it. Look, it reduces your inhibition. So, hey, now it's really easy to just blow $1200 because,
00:31:41 you know, yeah, it greases the wheels, so to speak. Yes, so well, I know for me,
00:31:49 like TRIBE is, one of the things that came to me to traveling internationally is that it may be recognized very,
00:31:55 very quickly how blessed we are in this country and how even somebody who is not Grote doing fantastic in this country is often doing a 1,000,000 times better than many,
00:32:07 many, many people around the world. I'm sure you've got to see some of that as well. Yes.
00:32:13 So just calls. Work. Yeah, I lived in Spain, and the actual time that I spent on the ground in my house and country was only about six months.
00:32:20 I got a very small snapshot. But being in Spain between 2014 and 2016 I heard at one point a statistic that said that Spain's unemployment was 20%.
00:32:28 And so, as an American with a paycheck, everybody would just fall over their feet. For me,
00:32:34 it was, you know, when my land lady wanted something that needed to come up, she would ask me,
00:32:39 Hey, you know, I have the situation. Can you handle it? And it was easy because I had so much money compared to the Spaniards that could ask for anything.
00:32:47 And so I remember there was this one time where Spain is all about family. And so my landlady's actually the grandmother in the family.
00:32:56 And then she has her kids, which are about dad's age. And then she has those kids which are my age,
00:33:02 and all three generations came to the house to pick up the rent from me one day, and I remember thinking,
00:33:07 Well, what's what's the What's the party going on? And they said, Oh, well, we need to do some Christmas shopping for the family And it's a lot easier to do it after we've collected the rent because right now the paychecks are a little bit delayed because of this company's issues and that company's issues.
00:33:21 And so I was literally the The family is spending money for Christmas gifts for Christmas gifts. Wow. Yeah,
00:33:28 that would be an interesting experience. And being in South Texas, the Hispanic culture is very, very big here.
00:33:36 So I know exactly what you're talking about about. It's all about family, you know, in a good way.
00:33:41 Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a very powerful There's a good side of bad Side is just like everything else.
00:33:46 It could be taken in a negative way, but often times that network is incredibly powerful for families to be raised in a very good environment.
00:33:53 When it's healthy, so denser, go ahead. It's gonna say Dad and I saw the same thing in Thailand,
00:33:59 actually, uh, that if you want, talk about that trip in Thailand that we took way had a chance when she was between junior and senior years of college to go to Thailand,
00:34:09 and we were there for three weeks and and the running joke was, This is what it's gonna be like for liberty Call when you're in a Navy.
00:34:15 Now we were in Bangkok, and all the things that go on in Bangkok were right out there in the street for everybody to see.
00:34:21 It was, I think you had a fairly eye opening experience, Carroll. And it was. It was also interesting to watch what you could do when your financial independent,
00:34:32 because we were on a 29 day visa, were there for three weeks. And I think you realize,
00:34:38 appreciate now that you've had the experience, that you really get that much time off to go running around and seeing the world on your own with your own money.
00:34:46 So it was interesting glimpse into financial dependence and that lifestyle. But it's also a very eye opening experience and how the rest of the world lives and what you have to work with in 1/3 World country,
00:34:56 and I don't know if you remember meeting the publisher of the Military Guide? Do you remember when we were at that that cafe and watching that couple and listening their stories?
00:35:07 And so she got a glimpse into what goes on in the rest of your life once you reach financial independence,
00:35:11 how that lifestyle goes on because he was not only financially independent, but he is what we would refer to today as fat fire.
00:35:18 Very much fat fire. That was a gorgeous It was a five star restaurant in a five star hotel.
00:35:24 It was the kind of thing where you sat on the seats and you could feel the money coming out of the cushion.
00:35:30 It was a gorgeous. You're like, I'm not. I'm not really sure I could afford touching the silver Rare.
00:35:36 Yes, I I was. I was hoping that they would take a credit card because I hadn't brought enough cash for that drink.
00:35:41 But the whole experience was very eye opening for her as well as for me, but very eye opening.
00:35:47 Look at consumerism and lifestyle and all the things that go into being a young adult and starting out. And to me it was the springboard for many teachable moments.
00:35:58 Many conversations about what you want to do with your life. Well, save your money and make your choices well.
00:36:05 And I think that's, you know, to call that out, that they The interesting thing is, often times it is comes down to that.
00:36:11 What do you value and what are your choices? You know, if if travel is something that's important to you,
00:36:15 great, how are you setting up your life so you're able to travel? But if travel is not important to you didn't don't set up your life for that big something else,
00:36:25 and every kid is different. I really enjoyed getting a chance to relate to Carol as an adult, because by that time she had three years of college under her belt and said,
00:36:32 We've got a young adult, not just some teenager who grew up in a house. And I think it was much more interesting watching how everybody got along as a family because you're making that transition to three adults in the household instead of two adults.
00:36:45 I kid right? Yep. So Doug, circling back toe to you, I asked Carol for kind of her tips on raising a family with a healthy money relationship.
00:36:55 What? What would you ah, add to the three or three different ones if you have them? Well,
00:37:01 some of them overlap, but I would say you should keep ahead of the curve. Try try to think about where your child is.
00:37:09 Whenever you have an opportunity for a teachable moment and by a teachable moment, I mean anniversaries like a birthday.
00:37:14 So when a birthday is coming up, think about well, how do we want to raise the allowance?
00:37:18 What additional chores should we assign for responsibilities? What other jobs could they do? Let's let's think about the rules and what that look like before the birthday party gets here.
00:37:28 Other anniversaries are starting a school. If you start middle school, or if you start fourth grade, you're gonna look at the school supplies list or you're going to look at things that they're capable of doing because they've got more mobility may be a little more independence.
00:37:40 Maybe they don't walk to school. Maybe that will ride their bike. Maybe they have to ride the bus.
00:37:45 All those things as apparent. You really want to think about that? Talk about that together before you roll out that program,
00:37:52 or even worse, before your kid comes home and says, Hey, here's what I want to do And so watch out for those moments And then,
00:37:59 as apparent, it's difficult. Teoh develop that training mindset and that that qualification mindset. Now the military helps you to learn to teach people and train them and help them qualify.
00:38:12 And you're you're always training. The person is going to relieve you at your job when you're in military,
00:38:16 but it is difficult to watch your child run off the rails and head for a crash financially and watch them go through that process and it's hard enough the first time.
00:38:28 But when they do it for the 20th time, it's even harder. You begin to lose faith in your training program in their potential,
00:38:35 whatever the performance from, Maybe it's a real test of your your conscience and your plans. So I would just say is apparent.
00:38:42 Let them make those mistakes, but just give them enough flexibility to make those mistakes without making it something that's going to traumatize everybody.
00:38:51 Ah, and maybe you have to sit there and say, Well, we thought you're old enough and we're just gonna wait a few more months before we try again.
00:38:57 Third thing, I do develop those internal motives. You know what you respond to is an adult. If your boss gives you a 10% raise that's gonna affect your performance if your boss hands you,
00:39:08 Ah, bonus. That's gonna affect your performance. If your boss gives you three months off to travel the world,
00:39:13 that's definitely gonna affect your performance. If they're going to support that sabbatical, think about those things. If you're growing up as a child,
00:39:21 when you become a young adult, the same performance bonuses air gonna be handed out to you as an adult and your child is an adult.
00:39:28 So maybe you want to teach them how to handle that right now. So give them the incentives while they're younger and give them the ideas that they can use to be an entrepreneur to go out there and look for savings to figure out how to raise their income and empathize with him.
00:39:42 It's not that money is the enemy. It's that it's a tool that you learn to work with. So that third thing,
00:39:48 I think, is very important is the more proficiency they get with handling that money when they're growing up in your house and you guys can all talk about around the dinner table,
00:39:56 the more proficient they're going to be on your own. And to me, I think the clearest demonstration of that the time when you know his apparent that you're succeeding is right around the middle school and high school years.
00:40:06 One. All the parents start talking about how good their kids are with money, and the word comes back to you,
00:40:13 the parent, that your kid is the leading troublemaker, the ringleader, the person who's got all the money,
00:40:19 knowledge in the school, who everybody else is looking to for advice and and you've tried something and they've got some kind of incentive.
00:40:26 And the other parent wants to know, What are you doing that make it so motivated to earn money for this?
00:40:32 Because I'm being told to do that in my family to that's when you know it's working. Oh, and that kid has the checkbook to,
00:40:38 uh, well that, you know, back in back in the 19 nineties, having a checkbook in the hands of a nine year old.
00:40:44 That was pretty powerful stuff on dhe today. You might imagine if you watched 1/3 grader in elementary school with a debit card.
00:40:51 That's the way that was looked at back then. So those things air very visible indications. And I'm not just talking about with the other kids in school.
00:40:58 When care would whip out her checkbook at the Scholastic Book Fair, the other teachers were very. I know this because I was going to a lot of school field trips as a chaperone and I would get pulled aside for a quiet conversation,
00:41:11 and it was quite enjoyable. Yeah, that is, that would be a different again. Having been a teacher gets on your radar now,
00:41:20 I was middle in high school, but still middle schoolers. You didn't typically see a middle schooler that actually was paying for things and,
00:41:28 you know, had money. You know, they'd show up in this classic book fair with the check already filled out.
00:41:32 It was Mom and Dad's check, you know, the ones that were you been paying with cash. It was a handful.
00:41:38 It wasn't true. Many you know, you didn't see him with that kind of relationship with money. Usually by high school,
00:41:45 you'd start to see more of it, but but yeah, but even in high school, there were kids that never paid for anything.
00:41:51 Um, and I had an interesting experience that I taught for many years in a very low socioeconomic area of the city.
00:41:59 Um, 88% of my kids run reduced free lunch. Um, you can reduce your free lunch. 84% lived.
00:42:06 It lived with the noncustodial parent. So, you know, either split situation or live with grandma or Grandpa,
00:42:12 our aunt or uncle or something like that. So it's, you know, rough. And then I went from there and taught for four or five years in one of the richest private schools in San Antonio.
00:42:21 So I literally got to see both extremes. And yet what was interesting is the problems were actually very similar,
00:42:28 You know that they they expressed in different ways. Yeah, but really thinking we have therefore they What was that?
00:42:39 I'm thinking about the student parking lot. Oh, yes, I can tell you at the private school,
00:42:45 the kids drove nicer cars that I did by far. Uh, I had a had a wonderful day at school.
00:42:52 Once where I had just pulled up on my bicycle. I was leaning over the bike rack and I was putting my lock into my bicycle and I hear the screech of tires and I look up just inside to see this kid in what looks like kind of like a sports car looking car.
00:43:06 Hit this van and I see this van immediately. Pull until parking Spot and I see the coach come out of the van and start running at the kid because the kid had just hit the football coach of Van.
00:43:21 And I swear the kids knees were shaking. By the end of this, that was one of the loudest,
00:43:26 angriest, you know, actions I'd ever seen, and it was completely avoidable. It was just because the kid did not do the football coach,
00:43:33 signaling that he was gonna be taking a spot and he had just slammed right into him. No, now,
00:43:38 because what you're that age and first learning to drive things that, as after 35 years of driving, is very obvious to you,
00:43:47 is it is obvious having I'm teaching the driving right now as we speak and, boy, we've had the experience of sun.
00:43:55 Are you going to stop at the stop sign that's in front of you? You Are You just gonna be bomb right under it Because you don't appear to be paying attention?
00:44:03 Yeah, those conversations, air fun. Oh, but it But again. And they were done about driving there.
00:44:09 But the same thing is true of money of, you know, that that idea of of being able to learn those lessons young is important.
00:44:18 You know, I was real proud when my son came home and that one summer, he ran his lawn care business,
00:44:23 and he did all the lawn mowing. And the next summer, he hired some of his friends. They would,
00:44:28 you know, he bit out the jobs, and he didn't make a difference, you know? And I'm like,
00:44:34 there you go. That's good not to work. There's almost done. That's fantastic. Um, and I did the same thing when I was 12 but I actually hadn't told him that story.
00:44:44 Only I did it with painting. Um, I created a painting business when I was 12 and 13 years old and hired all my friends to do all the work.
00:44:51 And I just collected the difference on the on the beds there in lies. But yeah, is so it's fun to think about this and and thank you for sharing that on what you do with the the relationship with money.
00:45:05 Let me ask you one kind of last question about the book. What, uh, what would you say is your favorite story that you got to share in the book and I'll give you a second to think.
00:45:17 But Doug, what would you say? My favorite story is the kid for a one K that we came up with.
00:45:26 Teoh give Caroline idea what it was like to have to save for very distant goal. A very long term goal,
00:45:33 A short version At eight years old, we set up a kid for a one K that she would cash in at age 16 for her first car.
00:45:40 We totally manipulated all the math and spreadsheet. Give her the amount of money that she would barely be able to use to buy that first car.
00:45:48 $5000 and the whole discussion about a kid for a one K was intended to be able to talk about retirement accounts and Roth IRAs.
00:45:57 Everything else you do to be an adult, this was adult ing, and one the kids got together.
00:46:03 I think they were 12 or 13. There were several girls talking one day, and the first girl said,
00:46:11 Well, when I'm 16 years old, my mom and dad are gonna buy me Ah, hot car.
00:46:17 I think it was a Mustang and any other kids said, Well, when I'm 16 years old, my mom and dad are gonna buy me a Hummer and this is gets competitive.
00:46:26 It's the trash talk that comes from MTV is cribs and pimp My right, And Carol said, When I'm 16 years old,