Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Susan Stiffelman, your host and the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence. I'm also a marriage, family and child therapist, a teacher, a long time parent educator, and the mother of a 30 year old. This podcast is all about helping you raise confident, caring kids with more joy and fewer power struggles. It's really so much fun for me to share some of the things I've learned in my gosh, 40 plus years, working with thousands of families. So welcome again. Before we get started, please make sure that you're getting all of our updates by visiting Susanstiffelman.com and signing up for the newsletter. You'll get free inspiration, support, guidance. You'll also be able to go to parenting products and find a whole list of masterclasses. The most recent one was with Julie Lythcott-Haims on escaping the over-parenting trap.

Speaker 1:
She's the author of how to raise an adult, but you'll find lots of classes. Raising resilient kids with Dr. Tina Bryson and Dr. Laura Markham, learning the language of boys with the wonderful Maggie Dent, siblings solutions with Laura Markham, playful parenting with Dr. Lawrence Cohen, helping behaviorally challenged children do well with Dr. Ross Greene, and raising self-reliant kids in the digital age with Dr. Dan Siegel. And those are just a few. So please, please check out the classes. If you want to do a deep dive on a particular topic today, you're in for such a great episode. It's about money, not a topic I talk enough about. I'll be joined by Chelsea Brennan who's the founder of smartmoneymamas.com. Chelsea is a mom of two young boys, and she's a former hedge fund manager who has dedicated herself to helping moms connect with all aspects of their money in a way that lets them overcome emotional blocks and create really healthy money habits to help them achieve their goals and model positive money relationships for their kids. I loved our conversation. Have a listen, and then we'll come back for the wrap up. 

Well, hi Chelsea. Tell me your story, which is so interesting and a little bit about what you do.

Speaker 2:
Absolutely. So when I first got out of college, I went to Wall Street. I worked at Goldman Sachs right in New York City. For several years. I ended up moving on to be a investment manager at a hedge fund, which I did for a few years as well. And then we welcomed our first son into the world. And the thing about finance is that it's intellectually very stimulating. It pays well. It's great. But you're working crazy hours all the time and it wasn't something that felt like it really aligned with my values. And actually Susan, I was writing down a letter to son right before his first birthday of what I wish he knew about money, right? Like what do we wish we knew about money? And one of the things that I was writing about was that you can make money doing things that matter to you.

Speaker 2:
And I wanted him to know that he could pick any career he wanted. And I realized I wasn't living that truth for him. Right. I was doing a job because it paid well. And because I didn't know how to walk away from it. And so I started a blog simply to talk about money in a way that felt more real to me, really helping families and moms feel more confident with money, how to teach their kids about money and really start to build generational wealth that gave them options. And so that became, it went from a small little hobby to, I left 10. I left my job 10 months later, and now I love the work that I do. I have much better work life balance. And I get to feel like I'm making an impact, which I didn't get to do in my old career.

Speaker 1:
All right. So, so smart money mama's is really about offering support to moms. And I'm sure there's dads in your community as well, but there are around money. In what way

Speaker 2:
In really changing our relationship to money. I think that so many of us are taught that money is stressful. That money is evil, that there's, there's just a lot of baggage around money and what I want to help more people look at money as a form of self care, as a way to reduce stress, to give ourselves options, to become the best versions of ourselves. Some so often we try to separate really personal development from money with, we think about them as very different things. And in my mind, if you have financial security, if you have an emergency fund, if you have that flexibility, then you can walk away from jobs and relationships that don't serve. You can stand up for what really matters to you, which you can't do when you're really struggling. And so we come at money is really a holistic way of how can we use money as a tool to build your best life? Okay.

Speaker 1:
And of course we understand, especially since the pandemic hit that a lot of people don't have the luxury of walking away from whatever job they can get. Exactly. I think one of the things I'm hoping we can talk about is how to approach that. Certainly knowing that our kids are always watching us. In fact, it was in my first book, one of the chapter titles was live like your kids live like your kids are watching because they are, it's like those. I gave the analogy of the reality TV show, where they come into your house. You know, they sort of invade with all the cameramen and everything, you know, a family doing life, however, whatever the theme is, they're just everywhere. And you're so self-conscious, and then over time you don't notice, you start, you know, because clearly the things people say on those lists are not safe. They remember that, you know, millions of people would see it and it's like that with our kids, we forget that the cameras are rolling. So if we're struggling with money, if it's really been a very challenging time, whether it's from the pandemic or, or for other reasons, how can parents mindfully help their kids not absorb messages around lack, limitation, anxiety, fear related to money and finances.

Speaker 2:
Absolutely. So this is a really tough question. I want to first touch on what you were saying, which is that they're watching. And so one of the biggest reasons we tell moms and dads that it's important to be intentional with how we talk about money is because our kids are curious about money. Research shows that kids understand the basic concept of how money works in the world by age three. And that they've solidified some really major money beliefs by age seven. And so it's the same. As soon as your kid is asking for money, asking for something in the store, they're trying to figure out how money works. And if you don't talk to them about it, they will make assumptions with their very limited perspective. And those become the stories that run in their brains for years and years. Right? And so when we're talking about a place of stress, the reaction for most parents is that we want to protect our kids from that, right?

Speaker 2:
These are very adult feelings when we're worried about a job or we're worried about how we're going to make ends meet. And we try to hide it from our kids. But research suggests that doesn't really work because our kids are curious about money and because they feel our stress, right. They're watching us, they're watching our body language. And so the first thing is to be age appropriately, honest with them. And you don't necessarily need to tell them how much debt you're in or how much you struggling, but it's okay to sit down with your kids, even if they're six, seven, eight and say, Hey, things are a little tight right now. Mommy lost her job. Daddy lost his job and we're, we're figuring out how to do things. But just so you know, you are always safe. Mommy and daddy, mommy, and daddy, mommy, mommy, whatever your household structure looks like are making sure that you'll always have food to eat and a roof over your head.

Speaker 2:
We might not have some of the extras right now, but we're going to figure it out and then open it up to ways that you guys can work together. And this doesn't mean that they're getting into the nitty gritty of the budget, depending on how old they are. But it's saying, what are some things that we could do that are really fun, that don't cost a lot of money and sit down and have a brainstorming session about, you know, places, their favorite parks to go to or places to hike or what you could do for movie night at home, and really make sure that you're still bringing fun and light into their life when things are tough, because that's where the abundance comes from. And it's not just saying we can't afford that. We can't do that. Money's too tight. It's saying, what can we do instead? What can I figure out?

Speaker 1:
I love that so much because you're approaching it from a positive place, which is a very empowering place. And then you think about the message that child is internalized. When money is tight, we do these other fun things, as opposed to the first thought being when money's tight, I can't do this. I can't have that.

Speaker 2:
And they do want to help. I think that's the other thing too, is without putting the adult pressure and stress on them, giving them a way to feel like they're contributing, whether it's coming up with those ideas, whether it's, you know, saying to them, one of my favorite activities to do, my boys are young. They're five and three, but one of our favorite things to do when we go to the grocery store is like, pick an item, a section and give them a budget. Like, Hey guys, we have $20 for fruit this week. What fruit do you want? And then let them go and pick things out. It lets them learn how to do. Trade-Offs. How to think about opportunity, costs, how to budget, but in a very age appropriate, fun way that doesn't feel overwhelming. Such

Speaker 1:
A great idea. What's another one. What's another way that we could start giving our kids. You know, here's $10. You're responsible for choosing or deciding X.

Speaker 2:
I think anytime you're going to a family activity, whether that's, you know, you're going to the local fair or you're going to the farmer's market, giving them a limit and actually handing them that cash or handing them that amount and saying, you can get what you want. Not only does that, give them choice and autonomy and practice, but it avoids arguments, right? When you walk in, typically we all remember with our kids of, they want this toy. And then as soon as they get that, they walk to the next stall and they want to play a game or they want to do whatever. When they have their own money, they're much more intentional. It's really funny to watch how easily kids will spend your money and how hard it is for them to spend their money. And so it's giving them that practice. But the other thing too is, you know, when you are in a store and your kid wants something that you can't necessarily afford right now, or whatever, what we do with our kids.

Speaker 2:
And we're not currently in that position, but we still want to make sure we're setting limits is say, Hey, this is $30 $40. Let's take a picture and let's print it out and we can put it up. So our boys have space. Our boys have spending, saving and giving jars. And so we're like, let's take a picture, print it out, we'll put it on your savings jar. And you start saving money for that thing. And when we get $30, I'll bring you back to the store and you can get it. And whether your kids have allowance or however you handle your money with kids, you'll see even really little kids get creative. Hey, could I help do this bigger project around the house for $5? Can I sell a toy on Facebook marketplace? They start to figure it out. And once again, it's not saying no, it's opening up the ability for them to problem solve.

Speaker 1:
Dang, this is so great. So let's talk about allowance a little bit. I did a class recently with Julie Lythcott Haims, who I absolutely love, on how to watch her book is How To Raise An Adult and How To Be An Adult is her newest. And our class was on escape the over-parenting trap. And a question that came up a lot was money and allowance. Do we hand our kids allow us to, they get paid for chores, just so that you all know. I do not believe kids should be paid for chores. I believe that everyone in the family should to their ability contribute to the running of the household. But I also said we need to give them opportunities to earn money. So it could be washing windows. It could be, you know, extra activities or jobs around the house, or certainly the neighborhood. What's your position on allowances?

Speaker 2:
Sure. So I want to always start this conversation with that. Allowance is a place of privilege, right? Not every family has extra money to be giving to their kids for allowance. You can teach your kids about money without allowance, right? If you have that option, I am a huge proponent of using allowance as a tool to teach your kids about money. We don't pay for chores in our house, either for many reasons, one of which I don't want to be determining if their room is clean enough to dock their allowance or not like I don't have the time or energy to play that game. But also because I'm raising two boys, two young men who I want them to pull their weight at home and expect that that as part of being in a household, not because there's a reward that comes at the end of it.

Speaker 2:
Right? And so when we use allowance as a tool, there's a few things that I think that parents miss one of which has got to be consistency. If you're going to set up on the allowance procedure, make sure that you as an adult have set the systems in place that you are going to be able to stick to it because allowance on and off, when you feel like it, when you don't feel like it is really overwhelming for kids. And it creates a feeling of instability, when it comes to money, we don't want to do that at all. Three consistency. The second part is autonomy. Sure. As a family, you can set ground rules. You can't buy violent video games. You can't buy revealing clothes, but once those boundaries are set, you have got to let your kids make mistakes. They've got a practice because we want them to screw up when it's $20 instead of $2,000 or $20,000, this is the time for them to make those mistakes and to let them make the mistakes and process it on their own.

Speaker 2:
I think we can be really quick sometimes not even in a mean way, but just unintentionally being like, see, I told you, this is what happened. And really just letting them sit in the discomfort and then decide what they're going to do differently. Letting them have some of that autonomy and practice. The third part is making sure they have some responsibility that is aligned with that allowance. And so when we think about allowance, we don't want it to just be a complete free for all we talk about, you know, what are the things that they're going to be responsible for? So one of our examples, our kids are really little, but like we're no longer buying things in the checkout aisle. If they see a candy or a tiny toy or a pack of cards, they got to use their own money for that. We're not doing that anymore.

Speaker 2:
And so that way they know what they have to have money set aside for, because otherwise, sometimes what we hear is, Hey, I set up allowance, but my kid never spends their money. And it's like, okay, well, if you're still buying absolutely everything that they want for them, that's not a good opportunity for them to practice. And as they get older, you can stage things in. I really love my kids obviously aren't that old yet, but I love the practice of around 12 to 13, letting them taking over, buying their own clothes, set a family budget, that this is how much we have for the year. You decide if you want to buy really fancy, amazing jeans and go to the thrift store for all your shirts, like cool, that's fine. But just know that this is your budget. And then they're ready. They're practicing for when they have a car or when they have to go to college. And they've set limits before they've thought about recurring bills before. And once again, it's just that practice and repetition and letting them make mistakes when the stakes are low. Fantastic.

Speaker 1:
So where do you stand on in terms of age with letting a kid watch you pay bills?

Speaker 2:
So obviously in my house, things are different. My kids hear us talking about money all the time. My five-year-old actually has his own little egg business. He sells eggs from our chickens and his little entrepreneurial. Our house is different in general. I think it's a really good practice from an early age. And I don't necessarily mean that they need to watch the numbers, right. I five-year-old. And my three-year-old, they don't even have the concept of watching me do the math to pay the bills. Right. But they can be in the room and I can be having out loud processing conversations while I'm paying the bills. I can shout out something to my partner and very much being careful of how we talk about money again. And so this is something that before we bring our kids into the bills conversation, before we bring them into family money goals, the base setting that we do with our moms is making sure that you've set what we call family money values, which are, what are the things that matter to you as a family.

Speaker 2:
And these are, these are just typical values, right? So one of ours as a family is education. And so when we look at our budget with our kids, we show them, Hey, we make space for you to get the books that you want. Like whatever books that you want. That's important to us. We make space for museum subscriptions because we want you to be able to go to those things and how we tie money to values. I think that's a really important thing for kids to learn because every time we spend money is an opportunity to go vote in the world about what we want the world to look like, what entrepreneurs, what business owners do we support or not support? What do we want to be prioritizing? So that's one thing. And the second thing is having a conversation with yourself. If it's just you or with your partner of what our own money, history and money baggage, what are the things that we saw growing up, or we saw as young adults that harmed our money relationship.

Speaker 2:
Hey, did our parents fight over the dinner table about bills and really setting some ground rules of these are things we don't say in this house. Like we don't say we can't afford that. We don't say we don't place blame when it comes to money. Right? And so that way you're able to understand and police your own conversations so that your kids are hearing more positive messages. And it doesn't mean you're not going to screw up. Like we're all going to screw up, but it's giving you and your partner and your kids, the opportunity to call each other out. Like, Hey, I heard you say you need that new video game or whatever it is, you want that, right? Like let's, let's change the language and letting them know that this is a learning process for all of us, that we're in it together, that this is a lifelong thing that we deal with money. But that there are some ground rules of how we respect each other when it comes. That's great. You talked about the three jars save,

Speaker 1:
Spend and give, I think it was yes. Can we talk just for a minute before we wrap up about giving, because it is, you know, something that we know, if we cultivate it early in life, it just becomes part of our understanding of how we move through the world that we are. If we're so fortunate as to have a little extra, we're not scraping by that there are those who aren't as fortunate and that we're, we're, you know, mutually responsible for our fellow citizens to some degree. What's your take on that?

Speaker 2:
So, yeah, we do three allowance jars with our kids. The third one is give or share, depending on the age share is a little bit easier for them to understand. So our three-year-old, we still call it share. And when you talk about giving with kids, you want to make it something that they really connect with. And so what we don't want to do when it comes to any kind of charitable giving or money sharing is make it feel like you're taking money away from them to give it to somebody else. That's not helpful. Instead, what you want to say is what matters to you, right? Like if you're, if your kids loves art, right, they love to draw. They love their art class. It's sitting down with them and saying like, Hey, I heard about this really cool organization in town that buys art supplies for kids who don't have art supplies.

Speaker 2:
Like, would you like to help them get some art supplies and then go that way? Right? And so even from a young age, we're talking about like three, when my youngest, his might not even be giving to a nonprofit organization, it could be, if he's in a store and he sees something cute that he wants to give to a friend, we will let him use his share money to gift to a friend. My five-year-old's a little older, and he also tends to be a little more money savvy than the three-year-old. He's very, very numbers focused. And so for him, he loves animals, absolutely adores animals. And so what we do with him is we go to the world wildlife foundation website, where you can quote unquote, adopt an animal that's endangered. And we pick one. And what we offer for him because he's young is that will dollar for dollar match it.

Speaker 2:
So he will pick an animal, we'll print them a chart with the number of paw prints of dollars that he needs to do to rescue his animal. And when he colors in the whole chart, we sit down together, he gives the money to us from the jar and we, we put it in and then what's cool about world wildlife is they mail you a little stuffed animal and a certificate. And so now he has this thing. And so as soon as he finishes, he feels great about the animal that he saved. He's named all his stuffies from the animals that he saved, but he also immediately wants to pick the next one. What other animals can I help? And so, as your kids get older, once again, you can pick things that are aligned with their values and their interests, but it's just staging it up, giving them that experience and the joy that comes with giving. Awesome.

Speaker 1:
And may I ask how, how much your kids get at that age and you know, what the range is that you've seen for those people who are fortunate enough to have a little extra?

Speaker 2:
Absolutely. So for little kids, one of the rules of thumb that works pretty well is a dollar a week per year of age. So my three-year-old gets $3. My five-year-old actually gets $6 because dividing $5 between three jars was getting to be a pain in the button. So we give him $6 and he actually understands that he gets a little bit less in the summer because he has his egg business that he runs. And so he can sometimes have way too much money for a five-year-old. And so we've kind of, we turn it on and off. And I think that's another thing to remember is that fair does not mean equal. And so like when he's older, his brother might, you know, his brother can't take over the egg business that he already has. And so his brother might get more allowance at five than he got at five.

Speaker 2:
Or he might start a different business. It's determining what works for your family as they get older. So when we really kind of hit that seven to eight range where they're getting a little bit more emotionally mature, a little bit better understanding of math, then we want to think about what your what's, your allowance budget is based on what responsibilities you're going to give your kids and what their life looks like. So if you have a kid that plays a lot of travel sports and is away from home a lot, and then they need more money to like be able to buy their own lunches, maybe their allowance is higher to compensate for that versus a kid that's that's often with you. So it really has to be depending on what your kid's responsibilities are, but at the young age, a dollar per year of age seems to work pretty well for most families. Right?

Speaker 1:
What a great conversation I am. So, so glad that you made time for us and that we got to connect with you, and please tell people how to find out more about your, your work.

Speaker 2:
Absolutely. So I run smartmoneymamas.com. We are @smartmoneymama on all social media platforms. We have a weekly YouTube live show. If you want to come follow us on YouTube, but we just love to hear from you.

Speaker 1:
Awesome. Okay. That's Chelsea Brennan, everyone. Thank you, Chelsea. Again, I look forward to connecting with you soon. Thank you so much, Susan. I hope you enjoyed that. I love how grounded and practical Chelsea is, and gosh, so many great tips. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating or review, or please tell a friend or do all of the above. It just helps so much. We crossed the half a million mark everyone. So that was super exciting. You can also hit the subscribe button. So you'll be notified just as soon as a new episode is released and remember to stay in touch, get your regular doses of parenting inspiration at Susanstiffelman.com to sign up for our free newsletter. And you'll find out about everything we're doing. There's also some really good classes and programs and events coming up. So be sure that you sign up and you'll get all the notifications. All right, then that's it for today. Remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness, enjoy, stay safe, stay well. And we'll see you next time.