Financially Savvy Grandparenting

Hello and welcome.

It is Mr. Stillman's Opus. I'm John Stillman here alongside, this week, a very special guest. My wife is here.

Molly, say hey. Hey. Thanks for coming. Yeah, anytime. You look hot.

Thanks. I thought it might be fun if we talk about you as a parent now. You are a parent. I am a parent, as are you. As are you, by the fact.

Yes, I am too, as far as I know. As evidenced by the fact there's a child sitting on my lap right now. Amos, say hey. He's not going to actually say anything as he is six months old, but he's here. And he is cute. He's cute.

He may say something later, but it won't be intelligible. No. I thought it would be fun if we talk about money from a parent's perspective. Yeah. But keeping in mind that we're mostly talking to people here who are grandparents.

Right. So I'm curious to know, what are the things that you would like your children to learn about money when they're kids, to know about money by the time they're teenagers or young adults? And how might grandparents be helpful in that process?

And what might grandparents do that could be counterproductive to what you'd like to teach? Right. Well, I guess I kind of have to think about it in the terms of what I learned about money as a kid, which was very little.

Right. And as evidenced by the financial mistakes I made in my early 20s, which I learned from, but I wish I had not made those mistakes. So I think the biggest things would be giving, saving and then spending. And then ultimately in the end, investing.

But I think just the teaching kids at a young age, you know, it's hard to teach them the concept, you know, a five year old, the concept of investing. So, I mean, maybe you could really simplify it. But I think just... I will. I promise you.

Oh, I'm sure you will. I'm sure you'll find a system and a spreadsheet to teach our children about investing. But I think the biggest thing would be giving first, saving second and then spending last. So I think those are the three main things. And then as far as like how grandparents can be, one, helpful, I think just helping to reinforce those things. And by reinforcing those things, I think not... Look, I'm all for grandparents spoiling their grandchildren. I am one hundred and thousand percent positive that I'll spoil our grandchildren one day.

Yeah, that's probably true. But I at the same time don't want to spoil them necessarily with stuff. I think spoiling with time is great. But I have a friend who also has children and her parents, every time they come to visit, they have like a new another tub of toys like that are just not necessary.

Like I get it. You love your grandkids, but like they don't need any more plastic stuff. And so, you know, not spoiling your children or your grandchildren with just unnecessary stuff that then causes them ultimately to always expect gifts every time you come to to always expect stuff. And then it just kind of in a lot of ways can create a desire in them for more stuff. And that's not what we want ultimately, I think, to teach our children, because then that teaches them ultimately greed, which then leads to poor money habits down the road. Obviously, I'm taking this to somewhat of an extreme example, but I think it's very prevalent today and can be a big issue.

So what would you say? I mean, is it wise, do you think, for grandparents to have talks like actual talks with their grandkids about money and those things you talked about saving, giving, spending in the right order? Or is that something you would prefer that be the parents' job and the grandparents are just not messing it up? I think, one, it's important that the grandparents sit down with the parents and talk about, okay, what are you teaching your kids about money? And do not, what's the word, I guess, counteract? Counteract.

Yeah, I think that's the word. Just counteract what the parents are doing. So don't, if the parents are, if you know, you as grandparents, you know your own children. And if you talk with your own children and your own children are like, look, we're really trying to teach my kids about saving this year.

And so we're not, you know, we're not doing anything extra. Like we're not doing maybe gifts outside of Christmas and a birthday, something like that. You know, we're really trying to teach them about saving and giving can you just help us reinforce that? So you don't want to just kind of go behind their back and do something that you know they don't want you to do. Because that can be frustrating as a parent.

And then it teaches the kids too, or your grandchildren, it teaches them like, hey, all right, if I want some, I'm going to see grandma and grandpa. Lily just turned three. So explain what you did for her birthday, which I thought was cool.

As far as gift giving, I say, explain what you did instead of what we did, because I really can't take any credit for it. She, you know, she, we love her, but she does not need more stuff. Like a homegirl has more toys than she just, I mean, and she doesn't even have as many toys as I know some kids have. But she's just she doesn't need more stuff. And so well, they're all on the floor when I get home every day. Somehow, I don't know how she gets every single one of them out every day, every day. I mean, she's like a little Tasmanian devil, like a little tornado toddler tornado is what I call her.

But she doesn't need more stuff. And so I was trying to think of a way, because like last year for Christmas, we did our 25 days or random acts of kindness with Lily. And so every day leading up to Christmas, we did a random act of kindness, you know, doing something for somebody else in the community. And so I wanted to kind of figure out a way that we could do that with her birthday. And so I went to her and I said, Look, Lily, it's gonna be your birthday. You're turning three.

It's very exciting. You will get a gift. But what about this year if we actually ask people to come to your party and not bring you a gift, but to bring a gift for a child in who is sick in the hospital? Because long story short, a friend of mine who has a daughter with epilepsy started a little project called Sugar Bears Toy Box, where they collect money and toys for kids who are sick in the hospital who need something maybe to comfort them while they're getting tests done, things like that.

And so Lily actually was surprisingly on board. I explained it to her as best I could. And she was like, Yeah, we're gonna give gifts to the sick kids. And I mean, I assured her I was like, You're still gonna get a present because she was like, Will I get a present, Mommy? Yes, you'll still get a birthday present.

But rather than amassing 30 new things that we don't need. She got a couple things this year. She got some clothes from the grandparents, you know, she got, you know, a toy or two from us. And other than that, you know, all the toys that would have been bought for her instead we collected. And, you know, then in a couple weeks, we're gonna take them together with her to the hospital and so she can give the toys that maybe she would have gotten for her birthday and actually give them to kids that can use them rather than having them sit on a shelf.

Yeah, pretty cool. Final thing and back to something you said earlier, you said you made a lot of mistakes in your early twenties. There were a lot of things you wish you'd learned about money as a kid.

And I'm guessing a lot of people are thinking, You know what? I probably didn't do the greatest job of teaching my kids some of the mistakes to avoid. How can I maybe help them? Like you said, parents and grandparents talk and say, All right, what are the things that, let's be sure that your kids don't make the same mistakes you did. What are the things you wish you'd learned? I wish I learned the terrible dangers of credit cards because when I went to college, you know, they have those like booths that when you walk in the student center, like they're like, Look, get a visa card with a 47% interest rate. And here's a T shirt and a slice of pizza. Yeah, like I just, you know, I mean, as ignorant and as ridiculous as it sounds like when you're 18, 19 years old, you're like, I have a credit card with a $10,000 limit.

I'm rolling in money. And then you forget that, Oh, I have to pay that back eventually. So I wish I would have learned more about that and just like responsible credit card use.

Not that credit cards are bad altogether, but just responsible credit card use. And then I wished I would have learned better when I was a little older. Obviously, in my later teenage years in college, I wish I would have learned better ways to invest money rather than putting money in a CD, which is awful, and better ways to invest money. And I would I really wish I would have learned the value of giving financially. Oh, yeah, you What do you think, Amos? Yeah, I would really wish I would have learned how important it is to give money rather than spend it. Yeah. So I think all those things are pretty common for, you know, like the baby boomer generation didn't necessarily have explicit talks with their kids about that stuff.

So, you know, maybe as you said, it does make a lot of sense to even though they're adults, go ahead and have that talk about, okay, how can we be sure this gets taught to our grandkids, your kids? Just a thought. Thanks for stopping by. Hey, anytime. Much appreciated. You know where I stay. When we leave here, we can go to the mall and you can use my credit card and I'll walk behind you and call you pretty. Sounds good. Love you. Love you too. We'll talk to you next time on Mr. Stillman's Opus.