Alec: [00:00:00] Welcome back to our little corner of the podcast universe, How to Teach Your Kids About Money. Alec here looking forward to today's episode where Julie and I are gonna be talking about what is my new favorite money book. It's called Psychology of Money. It's by Morgan Housel, H O U S E L. It's really the first book I'm recommending to people who come and ask me and say, Hey, what's a good book that I could read that will really teach me about money?
This is it, the psychology of Money. I've never really had one that I could recommend before, but I find that this one is incredibly useful. And most importantly, what I'm really finding is that it is taking the fear and anxiety out of money for people. And when we talk about teaching our kids about money, that is hugely important.
So many parents come to me and say, you know, I don't really know if I can teach my kids about money if I don't know about it myself, and I'm a little anxious about that. I fear about that. Well, This book is fantastic. I hope you enjoy the episode. [00:01:00] Also wanted to remind you, as always, you can check out our resources at centsofresponsibility.com/resources.
That's of course spelled C E N T S centsofresponsibility.com/resources. As a parent or caregiver, that's your first. One stop shop for all of the different resources that we offer for you as a parent. And of course, don't forget to subscribe. Rate the podcast if you like it and if you don't give us some feedback, we're open to that too.
So teach sensibly, everyone, and here we go.
Hello and welcome to Cents of Responsibility. I'm Alec Lindenauer, a certified financial planning professional, husband and chief allowance officer to two daughters. I'm also the creator of the sense of responsibility, tools, and how-to instruction. Parents need to raise their children into financially literate, money savvy adults, even if they don't know much about finance themselves.
Julie: I'm [00:02:00] Julie Franz, a chef, entrepreneur at heart, wife and mother of two middle school children. I also curate the Cents of Responsibility community, so parents have a forum to ask questions, share success stories, and discuss their journeys. As a financial newbie myself, I'm also cultivating our group support system to help carve out my own family's path toward financial literacy.
Alec: All right, well, welcome back everybody. Julie, it's nice to be back with you. As we were chatting earlier, before we hit the little record button, I learned two things about you. Do you wanna know what they are that I hate? Headphones? Yes. That you hate headphones. I had no idea that you had this fear of headphones.
You don't like things in your ear. The only time you wear them is with this podcast. You don't even listen or watch anything on an airplane. How is that possible?
I just read. It's like the only time in my life I actually read books and I will read an entire book on two [00:03:00] flights and I just don't, I don't like headphones, any kind.
So that was the first thing I learned about you. All right. The second thing is that you and I are reading the same book, the Psychology of Money. I'm reading it and you're listening to an audio book, your car. I'm listening to it
Julie: yeah. Yep, exactly.
Alec: Because my first question actually was gonna be, okay. Well, what's been your favorite read lately?
Is this your favorite read lately? Mm.
Julie: I listen to bits and pieces. I'm really bad about keeping on one book at one time. I have maybe five or six books going at once. So whenever, whatever is like the topic on my mind, I switch to that. But I have really enjoyed it. Uh, it's given me a lot of perspective on things like new ways to think about.
things and, and put meaning to it. You know, like, why did, why did I do that? Oh, you know, and it kind of like just starts. I don't know, giving some color to why I do the things I do with money. I, I
Alec: mean, I have to tell you, first of all, I read a lot, but I don't read a lot of [00:04:00] books. I read a lot of news. I read a lot of articles and, you know, just in, in life and work and with kids and stuff, I find I just don't have a lot of time for long form books and 18 years of being in the financial industry,
people have been asking me, oh, well, what book can I read? What book can I read? And I've always been like, nothing. There's, I don't have a recommendation for you there. I, until now. This book. Wow, I love, yeah, so it's the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, H O U S E L, and we'll put links in the show notes for everybody.
But I wanted to tell you why I love it cuz it's so fitting for sense of responsibility and, and parents and everything. As I talk to different parents along the way, I hear a lot of themes repeat. And one of the themes that I hear repeat for from many is the theme that you've said to me in the past, really when you first started with [00:05:00] allowance with your kids and everything, which was that you're like, well, I don't know a lot about money, so how am I supposed to teach my kids?
Right? And then there's this fear about that, right? This, this fear about money. Shame about money, call it whatever you want, but there's like this, this mystery, let's even call it about money and finance. And if it's mysterious to me, what am I supposed to do with that? Is that a fair characterization?
Totally. Yeah. So what I really found interesting about this book is that it explains the disconnect between that fear and the reality of what we're trying to teach our kids. So right here, even on the back cover, I think it, it says it very well. I mean, it explains it in depth in the book, but the back cover, it says, "Doing well with money isn't necessarily about what you know.
It's about how you behave." So if we think of money as behavior and finance as science, [00:06:00] it's like two entirely different things because what I would, I almost want to like argue or or offer to you, and you tell me, I wanna get your feedback on this, is, is it finance that's scary or is it the behavior around money in your day-to-day that you find scary?
Julie: For me, it's all of the above really. Well, I've gotten better, you know, I've been using YNAB for the last four months, well since the new year, and that's really helped me a lot to keep my money. I think it's like putting it at the front of your mind, right? Because I think we, we think I. I don't know enough about money.
I don't know about the science of money. I don't understand money, and so I'm just gonna like put it off. I'm just, I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna go through life, I'm gonna do whatever I'm doing and hopefully it all works out. And I think even just similar to COR, YNAB helps me keep money front and center, so I am
checking it every day. I'm, I'm looking at where the money goes and [00:07:00] questioning, do I need that subscription, or why did we spend so much that month on that? And it's, it's getting me thinking more about it. So my behaviors have changed a lot in just fine tuning, like my attention towards it. Mm-hmm. So, no, my, my behavior is no longer my fear because I'm more analytical about my daily behavior and, and I question it.
But I think in the past it was more just this combination of like not behaving in the right way because I didn't understand it, and then not even trying to understand it because it's hard or scary. So you just pushing it off. Am I, does that make sense? I mean, I'm, I think it's like a combination of, of both.
Alec: Well, what's interesting though is that you didn't say anything about finance. When I think of finance and what people might be scared of, it's the, well, I don't know about stocks, or I don't really know the inner workings of a mortgage. Oh, yeah. Or I don't know, you know? Oh, well, if I wanna donate somewhere, well, I don't know the tax implications about that. I don't know about [00:08:00] tax. Like, to me, that's all very scientific, but it doesn't have anything to do with our behaviors
Julie: at all. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, that makes sense.
Alec: Right. And so what I'm, so, how this is really making me think is in, in the context of you and of COR parents, and what we're teaching our kids, it's that, you know, behavior wise, that's what we do when we talk about okay, giving our kids experiential learning opportunities, giving them ownership over money, giving them freedom to use it, having conversations, letting them practice, like all of that is behavior.
Mm-hmm. And so it almost feels like. Parents when they hear how to teach your kids about money, they have the fear of the finance when the reality is it's just behavior. It's just the giving them money, giving them freedom, having a conversation here and there, giving them practice, oh, you lost the, the 20 bucks, and, and things like that.
So it's like they're almost fearful of something that isn't there or, or they're fearful about the wrong thing, [00:09:00] I guess I should say.
Julie: Yeah, I agree. Right. I mean, I've been doing COR all this time and I feel like my kids have learned a lot and I still couldn't tell you the first thing about stocks, mortgages, taxes.
Alec: Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. I have no idea. . All right, so I've been, I wanted to run this analogy past you because there's an analogy that I'd been using. But is always kind of stuck like, hmm, maybe that's not the best analogy. I get it. It makes sense, but I think there's a better one and I think I found one and I want to hear what you think about it.
Okay, so we've been saying for a long time, right? You don't need to be Warren Buffet to teach your kids about money. Just like I wasn't Lance Armstrong and I taught my kids to ride a bike. Great. Right? Love those. That's. True ironclad, like those, right? But what I've also been saying is that, okay, well if you spend an hour a month, COR day, that allowance day, you know that that's your, that's the seed that you're planting, the consistency, like an hour a month, we can all do that, no problem.
The rest of the time. Look, it's like teaching [00:10:00] manners, you know, oh, I don't have time in my week to, to teach my child about money. And I would say, well, you teach your child manners and you know, you don't think about that. You just say at the table like, oh, where's your napkin? Or whatever the case. Right?
Sit up straight.
That's
Alec: what I say. Exactly. All right. Here, I think I came up with a better one than the manners. I think the analogy,
it's kind of like healthy eating habits. Okay. We're looking to create healthy money habits, but if we look at healthy eating habits, it's almost like science. Is the science of that is nutrition.
Just like the science of money is, is finance. So you're a trained chef. You've been a chef forever, right? And I know that you do not buy with your money the food coloring candy, sugar filled, you know, pop rocks or you know, the whatever, sugary nonsense ring pop. That's not your jam, right? You don't do that for your kids.
They might use their money on it, but you don't do that. The science of it. Explain to me, Julie, [00:11:00] the nutrition. What happens scientifically when that sugar and food coloring enters their body and their brain? Nothing. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? It's bad. That's what we know. I know. I was just gonna say,
Julie: It's bad. It short circuits.
It's bad for everything. Exactly. Exactly. But I mean, today, Cassidy took this giant bowl of. It was candy salad. She was doing this potluck with her friends and she goes, mom, whenever we go to a potluck, you always take a salad. So I am taking a salad too. She, I mean, it's Nerd clusters. It's Twizzlers snapped up, it's, it's a whole bowl of candy salad.
But she related it. I was like, can we just toss some lettuce in there? She goes, ewww, you know, but it was really funny that she made that correlation that since. I take salads to potlucks. She's taking a salad to potlucks. It was so gross. God bless
Alec: that child. God, that child right now. That's great. So [00:12:00] yeah.
Okay, so right, the science would be nutrition, but what you do teach all the time is you teach behavior, right? In terms of healthy habits, you, you. Three times a day, all the meals in the house. It's like, no guys, we you have dessert after. No, we don't. We don't eat that. Why don't eat that? Cuz I want you to be healthy.
It's bad for your brain. Oh, it's bad for your heart. Like these are habits, this is behavior that you're teaching them around, around nutrition. You're not teaching them the science of
Julie: it, right? I mean, you fill yourself up with all the good stuff first, and then if you have candy later as like the sprinkling, that's different.
But we always fill ourselves up with nutritious food first. I guess that is exactly like COR. It's like we do the important, we go down and do all the, you know, responsible things and then whatever's left at the end of the day for the fun money, then yeah. Okay. You can spend the fun money just like you can eat the candy when there's some left.
You know when you're at that point.
Alec: Exactly. Now how scary does that [00:13:00] sound?
Julie: That doesn't sound scary at all, Alec.
Alec: Oh, good. It doesn't sound scary. That's what I was hoping you would say. So we, so we like this analogy
Julie: then. Yeah, I, I do. It's a good one. Chef
Alec: Julie approved everybody.
Julie: So tell me how you're gonna word that.
Say it exactly how, what's the analogy?
Alec: The analogy is basically, I don't know. I don't know how I'm gonna word that exactly. That's funny. Uh, no. The, I don't know. I have to work on that. But this is what I've been thinking about as I read this book and, and I recorded a reel yesterday as I was driving for Instagram, is just talking about some of this and then, As I was taking a shower or something, I was like, yes, this is the analogy, this is the science.
This people are scared of the science. They're scared of the finance, just like, but they don't need to know the science. They only need to know behavior. What? And I'm just thinking, what are things like that? And I was thinking, yeah, nutrition. I'm like, I know white bread isn't good for me. I don't, I know there's something about starch and turns to sugar and like, [00:14:00] that's pretty basic.
A lot of people know that. I don't know anything beyond that, but that's okay. I just need to teach them behavior. I'm, I'm teaching them at the table, Hey, this is when we eat that, why we don't eat that? Oh, there's five food groups. Just like, Hey, there's five group food groups, Julie, just like, now there's five buckets.
And now that we added the emergency reserve
Julie: as a fifth bucket.
Mm-hmm. I like it. Yeah. I mean, in general, uh, I'm just gonna say parenting is super hard and Amen. There's a lot of pieces to it, right. I mean, I don't serve my kids like the most perfect nutrition, you know, nutritionally balanced meal every single night.
And we don't sit down as a family and eat at seven o'clock every single night. I mean, yes, I try to as much as I can. Maybe we sit as a family and have a home cooked dinner together. That's really good for you. Like. Two or three nights a week, and sometimes we need to get takeout and sometimes it's like you're getting mac and cheese cuz that's all I can do tonight.
You know? And that's okay too. Like, I think it's like you take like [00:15:00] the, the big picture, right? So it doesn't have to be this like daily pounding of like money lessons and manners lessons and nutrition lessons. It's just this overarching focus of the family that I think as long as it's like part of the
the core of your parenting that like money habits are important and this is a topic of conversation and when it comes up we talk about it. And then same with food. Like you put food on the table and most of the time it's good and sometimes it might not be the best, but that's okay. We understand what exactly like what that baseline is, like what's okay.
Yep. You know, sometimes we watch TV at dinner, Alec, sometimes I just, yes, sit at the bar and like I'll sit at the table with my phone and my kids will be like watching tv. That's not our every night. It's like, it's a very, it's just when I, when I just can't anymore. I'm like, fine. You know? And I say that just cuz we're all human and parenting is [00:16:00] just not easy.
And so I think that's the thing. We need to give ourselves a little bit of grace and realize like, it needs to be important and it needs to be at the forefront, but it doesn't have to be this like, This like hard thing that we do every single second of every day. It's just, it's an underlying aim of life.
Alec: Now what, what I would add to that is that, you know, what's what I hear so interestingly in the correlation between what you just said and COR, the whole sort of movement, the Elementary Starter Course, like all of it, is that you have an anchor in your house. I have that same anchor. Many families have that anchor, which is dinner.
Dinner is an anchor. It doesn't mean it happens every single day, but it's something that you can rely on, you know? Whether it's three times a week, two times a week, one time a week, you know, everybody has to eat every day. They have to eat at dinnertime. And so those are opportunities that you have to discuss some sort of behavior around eating that as it as those conversations come [00:17:00] up organically, right?
Mm-hmm. That's the COR day, right? That is the once a month having that conversation to know, okay, because money is a little bit different that you, you need an anchor. The COR Day is that anchor that first Sunday of the month, or if you make it the first Wednesday, whatever it is. But we have to have that anchor to base everything on.
Without that boat, with no anchor or no rudder, it's just gonna float, you know, with with the current.
Julie: Yep. Okay. So relating back to food, Alec, my kids, they eat really well and they're very versatile. I can take them to basically any type of cuisine and they'll, they'll eat it. I can take them to any country, they'll eat it.
And so, yes, of course they like, you know, quesadillas and pizza and hamburgers and they'd love In-N-Out every night like they're normal kids, right? But if I, you know, if I make a tomato, basil, burrata salad, they'll eat that too. You know, it's great cuz they're, they're very versatile. And so parents for my whole life have been saying, what do you do?
What, [00:18:00] how do you do that? How do you get them to eat that? And I, I think the base of that, it's every day since they were born, I've just put out a bunch of food. And I never said, oh, my kids don't like broccoli. Therefore, I'm not serving broccoli. Like if I feel like making broccoli and serving broccoli, I'm serving broccoli.
I don't force them to eat it. I don't negotiate. I don't bribe. I just, I put it out there. Right? So a lot of the dinners I put out are bits and pieces of things. I'll do a Mediterranean night where there's some chicken and some rice and some kale, and some cauliflower, and some lentils and some sauces. And I'm not, I'm not telling them, you have to eat this.
You have to do it the way I do it. It's just like a mix and match. Sometimes all of a sudden they'll grab a handful of kale and put it in, or they'll grab, you know, something that I didn't expect. And it's those moments where I just kind of like, I'm like, yes, I won. Like they, they did that on their own.
They, they grabbed that kale and they're eating it and they're liking it, and, and I didn't have to make this huge deal about [00:19:00] it or fight them about it. I just continued putting it out there and it's stuff I like, so I'll eat it and if they don't eat it for dinner, I'll eat it the next day. So it's, nothing's going to waste or anything like that.
But I think you can kind of correlate that with the COR project, and like you just keep putting it out there. You just, yes, that's your strategy. You just do it. And it might take a year before that, like one thing clicks. But you just keep doing it. You just keep saying, you know, you keep reminding them, well, how would you have done that different, or, what does that teach you?
And, and then the day that it clicks and the day that they grab that, you know, handful of kale or the day they come to you and say, I did it this way. Yep. It's like, Yes. That was worth it. That all of that was worth it. Strategy and consistency. Winning. Yes. Hashtag winning and strategy and consistency, which is, you know, what this whole thing is about.
So, and not, not making it such a struggle or such a [00:20:00] strict regimen. It just the, the, the put it out there. Conversation, putting it out there, up an anchor and put it out there. Yep. Just. Getting the thoughts going. So that's my, that's my analogy.
Alec: I was hoping Chef Julie would love the analogy. Mm-hmm.
Excellent. Alright. Now the second thing that I've been thinking about, With regards to this book, and again, highly recommend this, this book for anybody listening with absolutely fantastic. Again on the back cover. So I'm gonna reread that, those two sentences that were so impactful and you know, digging into the book impactful.
But then I'm gonna read the sentence right after that on the back cover, cuz this is the part where I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Okay. So again, it's doing well with money isn't necessarily about what you know, it's about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach even to really smart people.
Interestingly, randomly, I actually watched a full hour with the author Morgan Housel and a guy by the name [00:21:00] of Chris Davis. Chris Davis manages the Davis funds, a mutual mutual funds company, basically an investment manager for many, many years. Very well respected. And the two of them were, were talking and I was invited with, I don't know how many other.
Whether it was a hundred people, a thousand people, two thou, whatever it was, all of us watching, and they were talking about that, right? Saying that behavior is hard to teach even to really smart people. Um, and the author, he said, I want a mild calamity for my kids at age 20. Somewhere in there, meaning he was worried.
He, he's like talking about his seven year old saying, well, he's growing up entitled, we have money in our house, but I need him to understand a little bit of that suffering and, and hopefully something happens at age 20 where he kind of goes through something and then learns from that. And then beyond that, Chris Davis was talking about how, uh, Charlie Munger, very famous investor, what he said was, and they quoted him, was basically that [00:22:00] young people fall into two categories as future investors.
Those that understand compounding where it clicks. Compounding interest and those who don't. So to all of that, I'm thinking that is nonsense. You're rooting for your kid to have a calamity at 20, only some young adults will understand investing and that behavior is hard to teach even to really smart people.
You know who behavior is easy to teach to kids, right? We do it all the time. There isn't possibly a better time to teach somebody about behavior. As compared to when they are young, when they're in elementary school, when they're in middle school, high school, it gets a little harder. It gets harder as they get older to change our behavior.
So I was just really motivated by that concept.
Julie: Yeah. And I think the older they get and the more independent they get, it's harder to rein them back in. So not only ha you know, do you need to teach the behaviors when they're young, [00:23:00] but even the difference between Cassidy at 12 and John at 14, I mean, he wants to be out with his friends from the time he gets home to the time he goes to bed.
And he is gone all weekend and, and Cassidy at 12, like, sh she's still with me. You know, I can still impart a lot of these things on her and. Not to say that by 14 they're a lost cause or anything. I'm still working with John, but I think the older they get it does they. They just get farther and farther and farther outside of your realm of influence.
So the younger you can start, the better when they're like right next to you. All the time.
I've been taking Cassidy to the grocery store every week with me. It's so much more fun to grocery shop with her. Than it used to be because,
Alec: well, when does that change? Yeah, because when they're little, it's terrible
Julie: when it's, yeah.
It's terrible. And now she, um, she's so fun. It, it makes it so much more interesting and fun and we talk and she goes and does her thing and she takes her credit card over to the Starbucks counter and she uses her money to maybe get a treat or whatever and, [00:24:00] and then comes back to me. But we ring through at the same times and we watch.
The prices come up and then we love when we put in the, the phone number and we watch the num, you know, go from like 300 to 265 and we're like, yes. And we have a system of like putting the bags in the car. She helps me bring the bags out of the car and just, you know, I think the more you enjoy that those times with your kid, while you still have them by your side, is just these moments are, she's learning so much about.
How things should be priced and how to shop and how to, you know, budget and keep control and plan ahead and organize, you know, your thinking around money. It's just, it's been really, really fun. So I think the sooner, the better. I, I don't think, you know, definitely if you haven't started and your kid's 14 or 15 start now.
Um, but always the sooner the better so that you can start developing those behaviors and habits when your kids are still very, I influe, you know, influenced by your. Day-to-day [00:25:00] activities. Yeah.
Alec: When you can really change their behavior. Like we just said, you're not teaching them. Scientific mathematical concepts, just teaching them behavior.
Right. You're They're more malleable when they're younger.
Julie: Right. This was a fun activity yesterday. Okay, so Cassidy and this candy salad, right. She and her group of 16 friends that's in this friend group of hers, which is a big friend group, they organized a potluck for lunch at school today. And the, the name of the group, they have a chat.
On their, you know, they have a thread and I think it's called No Feast, no Eat, or something like that. Like basically if you don't contribute, You're not eating, so you better bring something good and you better bring enough for everybody or you're not eating. So it's very specific, specific It is. And they, but they organize themselves so that they didn't double up.
Each person has their thing. You know, one person's bringing donuts, somebody's mom's bringing Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets, somebody's bringing some soda. [00:26:00] I mean, it's all bad food. And she, she owned up, she's like, Yeah, it's a junk food feast, like that's what we're doing. So she watched TikTok and she got this candy salad idea, which is I guess trending on TikTok.
So she got the recipe and the whole thing. So she asked me yesterday, I need to go to the store. Well, There, there in itself lies a question of, are you paying for this or am I paying for this? Well, she doesn't have enough money to, to do this thing, and I think it's of cute. I think it's cute. I think it's a fun thing that they're all doing.
And I, I, I wanted to contribute to it, but not go overboard. So I said, okay, I will contribute $20. If you wanna go over $20, that's fine. I'll contribute $20. So she goes, well, you can't get any candy for $20. I said, well, let's go into Albertson's. Let's see, where's she buying candy? Tiffany? You know, like those bags of candy are like, Five to $10 a bag.
Candy's not cheap. Ba big bags. And she had to make a bowl of it. I [00:27:00] mean, it definitely was gonna add up. So we went to Albertson's. Luckily they had all these candies for like two for five, two for six, two for seven, buy two, get one free. You know, there's signs everywhere. So she starts grabbing and grabbing and I'm like, oh no, no.
We have to do this way differently. So if you have $20 to spend, you know, and. Some things are two for six, two or two for four, two for five. How are we gonna do this math? We need one in this section. One in this section, you know? So we start being really strategic about it and adding it up as we go. And I'm like, Nope, you can't pick this one.
Pick from that category. So we did it. She got nine bags, I think for $22 or something. But we stood there. We did impressive. The math, we didn't use calculators or anything, but I was like, Okay, a two for five, two for six, two for four, and buy two, get one free. That's gonna come out to around this amount.
Are you happy with this? Did a little bit of switching. Ran it through, watched it come up. Watched uh, you know, how, how the computer system like broke it down [00:28:00] and I just, I, I'm also like grateful for that opportunity that she had. That moment of understanding of like, if I have this amount of money and I need to feed this amount of people and I need to use the sale racks, how am I gonna put this all together?
And so, yeah. Was I super excited for her to buy crap that I don't condone? N no. I did. I did charge a candy tax though, and I ate quite a few nerds on the way home. I was like, mama gets some of this
Alec: candy. Oh, candy taxes you dipping in saying, I want to eat this. She goes, we
Julie: can't, yeah, we can't open that bag.
I go, oh, no. We're opening a bag for the way home. I did take a little bit for tax, but you know, I thought, okay, fine. So I spent 20 bucks. But what was the value of that lesson right there? It was massive. I'm pretty sure the other 16 girls just said to their moms, Hey, hey, go buy me donuts or go buy me Chick-fil-A, whatever.
And the lesson wasn't there. So I think it was worth $20 to have that budgeting lesson, and I'm happy [00:29:00] to pay it. And she was happy. She was excited about her candy salad.
Alec: I think it's amazing. And so, It does make me think of what we were talking about earlier. You talk, we talk about fear of finance and fear of doing this and fear of starting.
I heard nothing about finance there. I I heard all about commentary on behavior. Okay, let, how do we behave in a situation where you're making a candy salad like, We don't wanna throw unlimited resources towards this. We understand this is silly, but it's also fun. Let's have a fun budget of $20. Let's make it thrifty.
Let's look at two for one, you know, or two for $5, or like, all of that is, is behavior. There's, there's nothing scary in there. I hope. I hope everybody listening to this and hearing that story from you says, Hey, that's not so scary. I can't, I could do that with my kid.
Julie: Yeah. And involving them in the process is, is not just educational.
It was fun. Like it, you know? Yeah. It was fun standing there [00:30:00] and, and working out the math and talking about what candy was crap and what was good. I mean, it's all crap, right? But like Right, she was, she wanted to pay top dollar for these candies and it was a fun conversation that left us both feeling good and we didn't have to fight over the amount.
Cuz I had been really clear. $20 is what I'll contribute. And I, I wouldn't have ever gone and bought the candy without her. I just wouldn't have, and I, I, I think, okay, this scenario could have gone very different. She could have said, I need candy for this thing I'm doing for school. Go buy it for me. And I'm like, resentful and go and buy a bunch of candy at Ralph's and bring it home.
And then she doesn't like what I picked. And then it, it becomes this really ugly, nasty thing and nobody learns anything from it. Instead, it, it was, it was like a bonding moment. In addition to a math, in addition to a money, in addition to a budgeting. And it was, it was a great experience and that I think is a really symbolic thing of COR, you know, and kind of how I feel of this journey in [00:31:00] general.
It's taken what could have been either a wasted opportunity or a non-event and turned it into something that was like really. Profound in a lot of ways. I
Alec: love it. I absolutely love it. I know.
Julie: Does it spring tears to your eyes?
Alec: Are you, I dunno about it. Tears my eyes, but I do love it.
Julie: Yeah. Everybody needs COR.
That's the. That's the long and short of that story.
Alec: That is the moral of the story and the moral of this story, this episode, the Psychology of Money Morgan Housel. I'm telling you it is definitely, I don't know how many lives it's changing, but it's definitely changing my thought process and I'm gi I'm giving it out like Halloween Candy.
Julie: Yes. And if you can't read the book, cuz people like me don't have time to read books, it's on Audible and I just, I listen to it like while I'm folding laundry, while I'm walking the dog, I'll listen to it in like five to 10 minute increments. I remember a [00:32:00] story, I think it was about Bill Gates. Right at the beginning of that book, it was a story about Bill Gates and the computer and the private school he went to.
Yes. And luck versus, you know, action and behavior. And that story really stuck with me. I just, I was listening to it, you know, in the car one day and I just thought, wow, this is something my kids could really grab onto. So I think just, you know, listening or reading or whatever, in whatever capacity you can, you're gonna get some, some real great gems out of it that you can also share with others
Alec: and your kids. Yeah. It's actually, it's organized into 20 quick chapters, and like you, I, I don't have a lot of time to read books, so , the chapters are really short and some days I read no pages. Some days I read two pages, and it's the kind of book where you can just, you can do it at that, whether you're listening to it or reading it.
Totally.
Julie: Mm-hmm. Agreed. All right, well I'm gonna finish this book. You've inspired me. I'm gonna, I'm going to shift my, uh, my focus to this book, and on our next podcast meeting, I'll have a recap of my findings. [00:33:00]
Alec: All right. Well, the goal is always to inspire one person, Julie. So I've done it.
Julie: Yes.
Alec: Yep. I Mission accomplished for the day.
Yeah, I'm going to bed now. Mission accomplished.
Julie: All right, Alec. Well, this has been fun. Thank you.
Alec: As always, thank you. Thanks everybody for listening. Always like to close out with the reminder that the best place to start your COR journey is on our website, that Cents of Responsibility.com, c e n ts, of course, and specifically centsof responsibility.com/resources.
That's where you'll find all about the different courses, uh, the blog, the podcast, all sorts of different downloadables and things to help you start, improve this journey, whatever it may be. And as always, also want to ask you to hit the subscribe button, whatever platform you're listening or watching us on.
Hit the little review star, whatever it may be. And then of course, Julie, we sign off always with.
Julie: Teach [00:34:00] centsibly.
Alec: Teach centsibly everyone. How many episodes till that's like reflex.
Julie: I get so nervous, I'm gonna mess up.
Alec: You can't possibly mess up. Julie, whatever you say is gonna be spot on. Teach centsibly, everybody.
