Financial expert explains the conversations parents should be having with their kids about money – and when to start them.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: How do we talk to our kids better about money?
BOBBI REBELL: The first thing you need to do when you want to talk to your kids more about money is listen to them, right. Look for openings to start a conversation based on what’s happening in their life that’s relevant to them. So listen to them and ask them, what’s your goal? So one of the things that my book focused on launching financial grownups was a goal that my oldest had. She wanted to buy an apartment for her. It was the right decision for her to own property at a young age. That was her goal. Many people, that’s not their goal. That’s fine. It might be something else. And so we did a lot of talks about how to get there, and we figured out not only how to figure out, OK, if she had a two year timeline, this is how much she had to save over that two year period each week. And she had an excel spreadsheet. She changed her major in college to a higher earning major so that she could do that. She made specific decisions about how much she was going to spend going out with friends, and it made me really sad that she did miss some things.
But it was important and this is an interesting twist with her. She also made sure that she was building up her credit score so that when she did go to get a mortgage, she was able to qualify. And that’s something that we don’t always talk to kids about. We tell them not to not to get into credit card debt. But we don’t often talk to them, not only about the things you can get when you pay your bill every month on time, like the points and cash and free stuff and privileges and all that. But we don’t talk to them about the importance of having a good credit score so that you can get better terms on so many things in life, whether it’s their first car, their first apartment, just being able to get the better credit cards, that stuff’s really important.
The other thing I would say is bring things up as they happen in real life. Even if you get the eye roll. And an example of that is with my youngest, I remember he like hit his toe or something and we had to go to the doctor and it was December and I said to him, well, while we’re waiting for the doctor, I said, well, at least financially this is good news because and I got such an eye roll, but I said, we’ve used up our deductible, so this won’t cost us very much. And he was like, mom, I know, I know, I know. And I started and he was like 11. And this poor kid, I started explaining to him and he was like, I understand. And he then told me how the health insurance worked, which was amazing. And the lesson from that is your kids pick up a lot along the way and don’t undermine don’t underestimate, I should say, how much your kids actually know and how much they’re picking up from overhearing you good and bad conversations in the family and just from life. They’re smarter than we think.
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