Latest / The Curve / The Story That Changed How We Think About Emergency Funds, with Tanya Taylor.

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The Story That Changed How We Think About Emergency Funds, with Tanya Taylor. · The Curve

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Hello now the last episode that we put out last week
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I didn't know what the response would be in all honesty sometimes we put episodes out
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And you don't really know how they're gonna be received or what people are gonna think
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But I was really surprised by how many people enjoyed last week's episode
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And so we're going to be putting out another conversation from my trip to New York last year
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But this is a really different one. This is with Tanya Taylor
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The conversation with Tanya was all about emergency funds and before you pause this and think oh well I've got an emergency funds
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So I don't need one
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The most wild thing to ever happen to anyone as in the most unforeseen circumstances
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Happened to Tanya and her story is such an important reminder not only for the importance of emergency funds
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But perhaps how much you would need the conversation started hearing about Tanya's upbringing she grew up in Jamaica and
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Spoke about what it was like to live there and how her childhood felt and her relationship with money
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Tanya moved to the States from Jamaica with a hundred dollars to her name and
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You hear stories like this and you think oh yeah 100 no she she quite literally only had a hundred USD
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She basically shared how small money habits and
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Putting a plan together got her from having a hundred USD and no plan no idea how she was gonna get
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Anywhere to having a seven-figure investment portfolio. I don't know if I've met anyone who has had
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This much of a triumph from where they started to where their story ended up
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But what happened to Tanya after she built this incredible investment portfolio and an enormous
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Emergency buffer was she essentially then lost everything and had to start again and the story is
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courageous it's heartbreaking. It's incredibly interesting and
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She shares so candidly what happened to her that
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anyone looking for any kind of inspiration or
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Insight into how you can radically change your situation and also
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Prepare for the unexpected. This is a conversation you're gonna really enjoy
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So I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope that you send it to your friends
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I hope that you comment or leave a review or let us know what you thought and yeah, here is the episode
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Tanya, I would love to hear like a painted picture of what your life was like when you were in Jamaica before you moved to the States
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How how were you living? How big was your family?
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What was kind of going on for you at the time in which like before you moved over here to the United States?
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Yeah, thanks for asking so Jamaica is very beautiful. By the way, you've got to go outside of that
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You know when you go to me because you know people and you can ask where to go. I would have no idea
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Very friendly
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And it's so beautiful like really just a spectacular and
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Unpartial because I am from Jamaica, but you know, I grew up sort of in the middle section of Jamaica with not by the beaches
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In a community that was pretty poor. There were six of us in the family
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Well six children and my parents. Yes
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Yes, and I was I was the fourth child and then we had a lot of friends and families around so my parents sort of adopted two other children
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So total eight of us
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But it's just like a big clan of like fun friends to hang out with all the time. Yes always
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There was just always and and that's just how it is in the Caribbean and so but it was also we were all very poor
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And it wasn't just us. It's just everybody around us, but we were
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Very very much like family all of us. We shared it together to the point where sometimes we weren't really sure if we're gonna have dinner
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My father though was always that person who make sure he goes out and come back and even if it's like nine 10 o'clock at night
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He'll be bringing dinner home, but you know, it was really hard
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I went to a very well-recognized high school in Jamaica and
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There were times I couldn't go to school because my parents just didn't have the resources to send me
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You go many parents can afford to and most of the time they could have afforded to but they were those those time
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They just couldn't go growing up like we didn't have electricity for a long time
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We had to go to fetch water because we didn't have running water, you know
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You could go to the bathroom your bathroom is attached outside and I feel like that grounds us in some way
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so even thinking about it now and
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My children not being able to even comprehend what that was like
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That's all we knew and so that's how we lived and we we loved life though
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We were very happy and so despite the fact that we were poor sometimes we weren't sure if we're gonna have dinner
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I don't remember a sad childhood
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I remember a very vibrant very happy childhood with parents who loved me and just
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Community who loved me so I think
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That kind of offset some of the difficulties and also until I went to high school
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I didn't exactly know any different. I never really watched TV much
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I didn't know what was going on in the regular world
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So it was just our little bubble that we lived in. It's so interesting to think about
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Every time I've been to places like that where they have so little from a resource perspective
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Everybody looks so happy. Yeah, I think that sometimes
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You you hear statistics about how like money doesn't bring happiness blah blah blah
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But you know, you've really experienced having a lot less. Yeah, and having a lot more
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Yeah, what is your experience with that with like happiness levels and things and materialism?
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I think that there was a certain innocence when I was younger as well too, right?
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There was just some things that we didn't know so you sort of live in this bubble and
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The one thing that I always knew as a child like my parents my
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Community my teachers. They just always talks about how bright I was and
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How beautiful I was this was something I was always told you know, I was beautiful
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I was bright and so I always felt like I could do anything like in the world if the opportunity presented itself
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High school was a little different because then I got to high school and then there were those with privilege
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And it became a different dynamic because suddenly I realized that I was poor
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Yes, and it did something for me like myself has seen went down
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I also didn't feel like I was as bright as I was I was always the top of my class
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in primary school and when I went to high school
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Suddenly it wasn't and
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That was hard for me because they had never known like challenges in that way academically and then
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Looking at others and the disparity between me and others that was also really tough
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I remember I was embarrassed about where I live were before that wasn't like a thing
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But when you look at these big mansions that your friends live in some of them get
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Shelfured to school and then here I am. I'm like my parents could barely send me to school
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So that was tough and I even remember my closest girlfriend
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She's still a very close girlfriend now. We've been friends since we were 11
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I remember the first time my parents didn't have money to send me to school
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And they came looking for me she and another girlfriend and I was so embarrassed and she came and she would always come back
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Always came to my home no matter what
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Said in eight with us and I was even embarrassed about that because it was like we cook the food outside
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Sometimes because we didn't have gasoline
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So, you know from that respect to then moving to America and in the later part
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Maybe mid to later part of my life just being able to afford a different lifestyle
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where I could
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Travel wherever I want live a certain lifestyle by whatever I want for my children and
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I think back, you know the comparisons between both they're so vastly different
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But I also think I also grew up right I got older so the stress comes with life and so
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You kind of grow into life and so you grow into some of the stresses of life too. Hmm. It's all like relatives. It's relative
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Yeah, you left it 16 yes with a hundred dollars. Yes
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Talk me through how the actual
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Please beat it. I was editing this focus
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You had the courage to do that because I can't even imagine like going that far away from home at such a young age with
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Really no backstomp did you have like just the sort of blind optimism of I'm just gonna make it work was it scary
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Like how what was that?
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So I never really thought about being scared because if you think about it here
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I'm I'm graduating high school. There's no prospect of a job in Jamaica and
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And I have this opportunity to go move abroad, which was like a huge deal
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So all I could think was oh my god
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I get to go to America and I get to change my life and I get to help my family
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Though that was the only thing I was thinking so being scared was not even a consideration granted
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I didn't know where I was gonna live because we didn't have any family here
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So my parents were literally begging like asking people can she stay with you?
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So I didn't even know if I was gonna stay when you say you had the opportunity
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Were you given a flight or something like how did that work?
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So okay, so when you leave Jamaica to come to America you need to have a visa and
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When I was in high school we got to go to Disney World so that you got the opportunity to go to Disney you get a visa
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My parents were strategic so they said okay
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We're gonna send you to Disney not because they could afford it
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Oh and then stay there but then if you go to Disney you could stay and so my parents were asking so graduated high school in June
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And my parents are asking people like asking asking and this van they said okay, she could come for a month
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So they only said for a month and then once I got here
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Just started asking people
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Are you talking to them? Yeah, like literally like can we stay but the people ended up like they really liked me and
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They said they did you
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So yeah, and that's how so that was the opportunity
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I got a job started working and then my big goal was I want to go back to school
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One of the things that you hear a lot when you're in Jamaica when people return is that you
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If it sounded like America's this place paved with gold like everybody lives really live really well
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Except when I came like I came to a two-bedroom apartment
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I was sharing room with two boys and then the third one was born
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So I was sharing room with three boys that wasn't what you imagined when you were in Jamaica and coming to America where people were living this great life
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I came people were struggling. They were working two jobs and I just said I wanted something different
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So once I got the job I went back to school
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I couldn't go to college because I didn't have enough money saved ups and and I didn't understand the system
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So I went back to high school
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But it gave me the opportunity to learn the American school system and also to save to go on to college
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Very clever. Yeah, I know that she's up to
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I mean fast forward and you have had
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Jobs work in some of the biggest institutions in the world and you have an MBA and you have an ACL and an FBA and all
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All the acronyms so qualified and just have an incredible career behind you as well as having
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Seven figures invested which is just
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unbelievably impressive
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But you started with limited resources and really with no network no nothing
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I would love to know what small but very impactful decisions you made with regards to your finances
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Whether that's habits or decisions that gradually moved you towards more financial stability
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Absolutely the first thing that I always set goals
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So from the time I got here I started journaling journaling was a thing
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I think it also helped me because I missed my family
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But didn't think about it at the time
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But I said goals really concrete goals. So goal was graduate college once I found out what a CPA was goal was become a CPA
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I was certified public accountant. Okay. I did think there was an A for accountant and they but I thought I should just double check
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So I was very very clear about the goals that I wanted to achieve and when I wanted to achieve them by and I just
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Worked toward those goals like to get down to a little bit more about how I was able to do some of the things
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I started with budgeting always had a budget still have a budget till today and it's on the next cell spreadsheet because I just use a spreadsheet
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Then I also started investing in my retirement plan. That was really really important to me
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How do you want to do these things?
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Who taught you to budget? Who taught you about retirement?
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But like I got to nearly 30 not knowing how to do these things and without sounding like press
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You know you grow up in a completely different situation to me
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We're like if you looked it out out upbringing you seriously would think that I had some kind of awareness of like how to put money aside
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I have nothing it really like blows my mind that you knew how to do that. I think it was necessity
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I always saw my parents as poor as we were I always saw my parents save
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They and they I felt like they were good students of their money
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We had so little but they knew how to stretch it as my mom was saying she's gonna make the money stretch
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So when I came here, I had to stretch my money and having a budget was the only thing that was going to tell me if
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Every penny that I had I was making $75 a week $20 pay to rent to the family
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I had $55 a week. I had to know where every dollar was going
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So it really was out of necessity and then putting money in my 401k plan
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I would like to say it's because I was so savvy but it wasn't
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When I got the job and
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I was told that they have this 401k plan and they the employer matches 3% and I thought okay
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If they're gonna give me 3% then I'm gonna put in at least 3%
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So automatically was like I'm putting it in I didn't know what I was doing but at the time once I found out
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I would be putting this money in I started to learn more about
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Investing and I was at Goldman Sachs. So then I would hear the bankers talk about their portfolio
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I would read stuff that they're you know, whatever they're doing
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I would just start reading stuff and asking questions
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I would start to learn more about what a portfolio is what the stock market is
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You know how they're making money in the stock market and things of that nature
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So for me the more knowledge I gained the more I would
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Implemented so 3% went up to 5% to whatever percent until I maxed out
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So some of it was necessity and some of it was goal setting because I was
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Was based on some projection from some class?
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I took they said oh you can make a million dollars by the time you're 45 if you put this amount in
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So it's like I'm gonna make a million dollars by 45
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And you became the CPA
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Yes, what's it again certified public account? Thank you so much. They certified public accountant and
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You got an MBA you worked at Deloitte you know you're career just progressed and
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Such an amazing way, but you know at each of those stages
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Were there any big kind of like milestones that you could look at and financially you were like
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Tech I nailed that yes, I got there you know you spoke about those goals that you had
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What are some of the like big milestones that stick out for you along that journey to get to 7 figures being invested?
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Yeah, so so the milestones that I created for myself was I wanted to purchase a home by 25 and so 25
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purchase the home
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I wanted to graduate college by a certain time and do the CPA once like that was a big thing for me
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But it was because I did not want to study for it again
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So that was another big milestone for me
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And then when my children came when I decided to get married
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I said I want to say for my children for college so that they never have to have student loan
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That was another big milestone that I accomplished. It's so much bigger than the US
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Yeah, it's like some schools are not 100,000 dollars. They are so ridiculous
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Who on earth would choose to smile? I mean I could I would just be like don't worry about it
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Kind of order. Yeah, it's so easy. It's crazy. Yeah
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So that's why I because I didn't want to sacrifice my retirement for college for them
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So it was big for me that I saved a certain amount for them
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And also just wanting to hit a million dollars by 45 because they said you're good and so
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God that's amazing
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That's just so cool
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I
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Want to take a slight pivot here
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You have spoken really openly in fact I watched a TED talk that you did by the way how cool
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You spoke about a pretty enormous accident that you were in and
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How that affected obviously not only your personal life, your career, but particularly your finances
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Would you feel comfortable speaking to us about what happened? What was happening that day? Yeah
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Absolutely, so on that day
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It was it was so interesting because my daughter called my husband to take her somewhere
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So my husband at the time said he's he's on his way. He's gonna take her. I was like, I'll just take you
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Driving her and we're not even two minutes from home
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bam
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Oh my god, what's going on? I know this is not road rage because we're going down the straight path, right
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Bam again, this time harder
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So now we're completely freaked out because we're like we don't know what's happening
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And was this from the front the back side we're hidden back
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And it was a young man who had a medical emergency
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Unfortunately, so that was the problem and
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When I had the accident I had no physical so there was no broken bones nothing the car was pretty banged up
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Like the front of it came out. So it was a pretty hard hit
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But from air all intents and purposes we were fine two days later. I couldn't get out of bed
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Like I literally could not physically get out of bed. I was in so much pain
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So then I went to the doctor did all the MRI and it turned out I had to spulge and disc fractured this upper and lower
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and
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One of them in particular caused my hand to be consistently numb
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and the amount of pain that I was in for the past three years
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it's
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It's almost undescribable like some days I would my I remember my friends would come visit me and they would call it
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Okay, I'm good. You know, they come over and after like 10 minutes
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I'm laying on the floor on my back like I just can't I just can't do this
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It was just really really hard and so I couldn't even walk far
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No, I was someone who ran nine to 12 miles, you know, so I was pretty
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fit trying to train for the marathon and here
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I was like I literally couldn't walk for even half an hour sometimes like it was so much pain and
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Initially they told me we're gonna evaluate you for six weeks and then we're going to see
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I was just like six weeks are the better in like a week or two
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Six weeks came before you know, they were like what it could take months
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Were you working at this time? What did you say time? I had to take time because so it happened that
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Saturday and I was supposed to go into work on Monday and I that's when I couldn't get up
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I just couldn't get out of bed
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Yes, I had to stop working eventually my my company helped my job for a year, but eventually
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I had to give it up it turns out though that I had a year of emergency fund
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Saved out. Oh my goodness. Yes. How on earth did you do a year?
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I told you I have like this high need for security right
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So I had that year of emergency fund saved up
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It probably was a little bit more if I look at other places I could pull money from
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So I had the accident found out that my job short-term disability that I thought I would have been able to rely on
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I couldn't because they're changed the policy and they had what's called a lookback period
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So I had taken some short-term disability
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Before so I couldn't get I had only two weeks of short-term disability left
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And my long-term disability wouldn't kick in for six months
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So they have what's called short-term disability and they have long-term disability
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And is that like you know the difference between I I broke my shin and I can't walk short-term
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To Malieganese amputation and I'm not going to have to walk again
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Yes, and I need up to your rehab or something. Yes exactly. You just explained it perfectly. Yeah, pretty not the example
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Is so you basically didn't have insurance you had to just go you had to just eat through your you know
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12 months of emergency fund
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I had to eat through my emergency fund except there was a lot more going on
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I had a tenant who decided to stop paying rent
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I think it was because of my disability, you know, take advantage
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Not right, my daughter
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became ill and her medical expenses were not covered by insurance and it was a lot of money
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Some months I spent a couple thousand dollars
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And I had to pay for my own physical therapy
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Because they have what's called no-fold insurance in the US when you have a car accident except it's like crap
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Like you really don't get the kind of treatment and I wasn't so much pain
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So I was doing all of that unexpected all of the these others things that came in
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It's not typical day-to-day things
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If it was just my emergency fund and it just had regular things going on
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I would have been okay, you know
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Adjust my budget because that's the first thing you do if you have an adverse situation
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Whether it's a layoff or anything since I'm on a financial podcast
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I have to say that, you know, I have to say to the audience like
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You have a layoff or you have an accident go look at your budget and see what you could adjust
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So I did that but then I had all these emergencies that was just fire everywhere
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Can we talk about emergency funds for a second because I think there's this potentially like misconception of like firstly
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How quickly things can change how much can actually go wrong and a genuine emergency means you need emergency funds
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So I think there's that and I think everyone's probably a bit too relaxed on
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Just pull a bit of that out for my dinner that I see you know like no
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But also a 12-month buffer is enormous and like that really should be
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I mean, I would say the max. I mean not that I'm a financial advisor at all
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But you know, that's a lot of money to have saved
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In a savings account opposed to like investing in the stock market
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There's not that many situations where someone's you would hope gonna need more than that
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And I guess my question is you ended up in in such a stressful situation where like you should never have
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Like you know the insurance was like the main problem there
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What were your learnings when it came to like size of emergency fund?
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Did you feel actually like relief being able to use it or was it just stressful?
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Because even if I'm thinking about the times that I've had to use an emergency fund
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I've never had a proper proper emergency
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The times that I've used that I felt a bit guilty because I shouldn't have
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When it's a genuine emergency is it a relief or is it just like oh god
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Well, it's taking me so long to say this now. I'm gonna do it again like it's definitely a relief because imagine being in all this pain
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You you're having to deal with your sick daughter
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At the same time like I feel like our pat our
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Path and process has been the same for the past three and a half years at this point in time
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So it wasn't relieved to know that I I don't have to think I can just go and pull it out but
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For someone like me who just again have this high need for financial security
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Once I got to a certain point I went into almost like a panic mode like oh my god like this is really dwindled like
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And I really need money
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And you know, and I always only had strategic debt
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I've always been someone who don't like debt unless it's very strategic like if it's gonna make me money
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Or if I know that I could get 0% and I'm gonna do this thing in the long term
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And I also had to take on debt
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Which was one of the things that was most stressful for me because I was like oh my god like and now I have debt
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And I literally had to come to terms with the fact that it's okay
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Like you spent your life doing all of these things and you never really had debt
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So you know, you're gonna be fine
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You're gonna bounce back and things are gonna be okay
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But that was a process for me
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And then in terms of emergency fund like I always you know when I coach my clients
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I always say three to six months and I always say Aaron is out of caution and do six months
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And I'm telling you like just going through this process now you never expect to become disabled right
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But going through the process that I did I'm like I'm glad I had 12 months
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It just worked out that I had that 12 months sitting there and calling it emergency fund
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I also talk about how I feel like this was redirection for me though this car accident now looking back
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As I was going to it was not it was just torture
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But now I look at it and I'm like yeah
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Beyond just having an emergency fund
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What are some key things everyone listening should either put in place do think about should this happen to them because
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We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow in a week like an unexpected accident
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In fact any kind of health you can get is just like you can't you don't know what's around the corner
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What what was some of the biggest learnings and some of the things that you would like to pass on
24:34
So that people aren't in a situation where because a lot of people won't have 12 months of emergency savings correct
24:40
Yeah
24:41
No, I I would say people now think of budget as a cliche
24:44
You're like have a budget and it's just like oh yeah, you know a lot of people don't follow a budget
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But I really feel like I was happy I had a budget because I knew exactly where to go and to look and to say okay
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Do I adjust this to adjust that so always know how much you have coming in and how much you have coming out
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You should always know how much debt you have because you have to think about debt payoff to and we talked about the emergency fund
25:05
I mean I think it's so important and I really feel like six months is like that comfortable level
25:09
Not even three months because you go through it really fast three months have made me stressed
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Yes, I had three months and then I decided I actually I don't feel secure. Yeah, it's it's not secure
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It goes by really fast and even if I didn't have those emergencies
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I just think about how fast it would have gone by anyway
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I also feel like I
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I tell people and I talked about in my TED talk to find out from your employer
25:31
How much long-term disability insurance you have most people have 60% in the US
25:37
And mine
25:38
So 16% of your salary
25:40
It just not on us. It's not like I have a book where it
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Talk about my whole experience and how people should prepare
25:47
And in the book I did a calculation about if you were making X amount of dollars
25:52
I can't remember the dollar amount now and it's almost half or less than half of your income when you take 60% of this
25:58
Actually as much less than half you have to deduct your benefits out of it and you have to pay taxes out of it
26:03
And taxes if you live in New York, it's it's high
26:06
So you end up with a very small amount of what your income was and if you were getting a bonus on top of that a lot of people get bonuses
26:14
That's now factored in
26:15
So how do you live off this amount of money and most people cannot so to study show like
26:20
40% of people who follow up a bankruptcy do so because of
26:24
Medical illness something happened. Wow. Yes. Yes, and and there's another study that won in 20
26:31
people 20 years or older who will become disabled before their retire so when you take those two statistics together
26:39
The urgency to make sure that you have that emergency fund and then have a supplemental disability policy
26:45
I know a lot of people might say I'm already struggling. I can't afford another bill
26:50
But the it's it's worth it you can't think of it as a bill think of it as an investment in your life and your lifestyle
26:56
And how you're going to function if something were to happen because
26:59
You're correct
27:02
It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy
27:05
So the key things to ensure that you do not end up in a situation where you have to go and use 12 months of emergency fund
27:12
Which lets be honest most people are not going to have is
27:15
Insurance policies that's number one number two is to decide how much you feel comfortable with with your emergency fund
27:22
Yes
27:23
Are there any other like pro tips before you move on? You know, I think the internet is a place now where you can do so much
27:31
And a lot of us have skills that
27:34
We don't realize we can monetize
27:36
Do not rely on one source of income always find something that you feel passionate about that you can do
27:43
And figure out how to monetize it because if your income goes away
27:47
It's really difficult to just even with the emergency fund depending on how long it goes away for
27:52
It's difficult to survive on the income that you have especially again
27:56
Hopefully
27:58
Anyone in listening ear of this will go and seek out a supplemental policy
28:02
But if you don't have a supplemental policy you don't have an emergency fund
28:06
At least if there's a skill set that you have that you're monetizing
28:09
You could probably still be able to do it even if you suffer from a disability or some other passive income source
28:14
Like I had rental income which should have been a good supplement for me too except my tenant decided not to pay anymore
28:21
But you know like even having some of those things are are still helpful
28:24
Just like diversifying how you're reliant what income you're relying on
28:28
You're getting money from yes
28:30
Yeah, because it is quite scary the idea of just relying on one source of income to be your 100%
28:36
Like even if you work for a massive corporate you just never know what's gonna happen
28:40
Got me to help God, but then I reckon I'll just spiral and be like
28:45
Stressing out all the time that I don't have enough stability and enough say you know like
28:49
You also can't live in fear right and it's true that you don't want to be stressed
28:53
But if you do some of these things that we've talked about it will help to alleviate some of the stress
28:58
So that you don't feel like oh my god, I'm in a complete panic
29:02
Yeah, I think if anyone has anything from this this interview after listening it should be checking or getting
29:08
A policy that covers you should anything happen health wise
29:12
We've actually done a podcast episode on on insurance before because we thought it was such an eki conversation
29:19
I'll I'll actually link that in the podcast show. No, it's because I can't remember what episode it was
29:24
But I'm pretty sure the New Zealand and Australian and potentially UK version of the supplementary
29:30
What you're talking about is income protection. I think I probably I think it's probably yeah
29:35
And because that's exactly what it is. It's income protection. So if you have something by that name. Yeah
29:39
Yeah, that would make sense. I would love to end this conversation by asking
29:43
Your core mission at grow your wealth is empowering trying to empower one million families, which is
29:50
A lot of people. What is kind of the main message or the biggest
29:56
Empowerment piece or wisdom that you try and pass on for because I find a lot of people don't think they're interested in learning about money
30:04
And they just think it's not for them. How do you try and like
30:08
To still it down to really simple and really important advice
30:13
Creek question
30:14
So I
30:16
Start with mindset because most of us have this mindset that it's too late for us
30:22
I'm in this situation. I can't make this money
30:25
This is my situation sort of this is how it's going to stay so I start out like
30:29
Really talking about mindset and let's recognize what our
30:33
Store money story is and shift that
30:37
And then after that I start with what I say is like my three phase method
30:42
You have to get your budget credit and debt in order and that includes your emergency fund
30:48
Work on a strategy around that we can work on debt while we're investing
30:52
But I feel like if we have a strategy first we first have to have a strategy
30:57
Then we're moving into investing in the wealth building part and then we're moving into the risk management
31:04
wealth accumulation phase so it's almost it's like breaking it into three different steps
31:10
After we start working on the mindset because it's so critical
31:17
That we understand that we're we're able to do it no matter where we are in our finances
31:22
And I feel like my story is such an interesting story to share with someone to say hey you think you can do it
31:28
Just where I came from and I was able to do it and in the mindset piece we talk about goal setting
31:34
And one other piece that's really important to me is educating our children
31:39
Because it's not something that we do a lot and partially because we don't know
31:43
So if we don't know how are we going to teach and sometimes this starts with just saying
31:49
You know, I don't really know that I fully understand this
31:51
But I'm learning this and I want you to know this because if you know it you won't make the same mistake that that I did
31:58
And I believe with that approach we can really aggro your wealth transform lives
32:05
And really help people to build wealth. Oh, I think the pace that you mentioned on on passing it on to kids is
32:13
There's such an important one
32:15
And I don't think a true word has been spoken around the idea that
32:20
It's not that we don't want to teach our kids our you know, I've only got a goddaughter not only she's
32:27
But when we don't feel confident or know something we can't pass it on and
32:32
It's almost like stepping into the unknown and the things that feel scary which is learning yourself
32:38
Not just for the good of yourself and your family, but also to actually like really break the cycle because
32:45
Like my parents have learned about money management a lot later in life
32:49
And they would definitely have taught me if they knew yeah
32:53
Yeah, it's not just as simple as like save or don't do this
32:56
There has to be like more robust
32:58
Learnings and teachings around it and I think unless you know that yourself it's almost impossible to help someone else
33:04
It is, but you know, I had a children's financial education club too where I was teaching
33:09
What the hell have you not done?
33:11
The reason why I started it though was because I was teaching my children
33:14
They were two and four by the way I started when they were two and four. You're joking
33:18
What do you speak to a two-year-old about money?
33:21
So in the club we would start with coins
33:23
We took them to the stock exchange. We took them to the Museum of Finance. They still remember things now
33:28
Not maybe not to not the truth, but they I had it for several years too
33:32
Part of that and part of the reason why I did that
33:36
Was that I wanted to teach the children, but then the parents came and guess what they were now learning
33:42
So you go back home and you've learned something and you're having this conversation with your child
33:47
And you're learning together. It's hard because you're like I don't really know this
33:52
But it's okay to say I don't really know this. I'm learning this
33:55
And I think that's the part where we if we can become comfortable doing that
34:00
Then that's really important and so when I had the club the parents would come in
34:04
Tell me walking out there very happy because they've learned a ton and now they're feeling a little bit more comfortable
34:10
With the knowledge that they have and they could have this conversation with their children
34:15
It's something that I eventually maybe want to get back to
34:18
That's super important super so when you say what you talk to your children about so with my children
34:24
I used to always tell them about budget right and we used to create a budget together
34:28
And I would say your budget is going to feed into my budget
34:30
So you need to create your budget so that I could create mine and we did that for years and years
34:36
But even when we went to the supermarket like they would say to me
34:39
I would say to them remember we have a budget and they would say what's my budget?
34:42
And if I say okay your budget is $10 then they're going to pick stuff up
34:46
We're going to add up to see if it comes to $10 if it's over $10 oops over your budget
34:51
So let's see what we could negotiate and maybe remove
34:55
As young as they were and we made it fun
34:58
So it wasn't like oh my god mommy is doing this or mommy is doing that
35:01
It was very interesting to see them when we went to restaurants
35:04
It was the same thing till today
35:07
If we go to a restaurant as soon as they sit down the first thing they say to me mommy what's my budget?
35:12
Oh wow
35:14
It's such a good way to do it to reframe it not like no you can't afford it
35:17
It's like including them in so it's an activity
35:20
Rather than this real negative you we can't
35:24
You know which I think is difficult to do especially when you feel stressed about money
35:28
It's hard to not pass that on but actually if you can make it more of like a learning activity
35:33
Yeah fun
35:34
Really we should be hit a thousand million hours because I feel like we could have spoken purely about how to
35:40
Teach your kids about money. We could have spoken purely about how that how do you budget?
35:45
Well, we could have spoken about
35:48
How to prepare for financial really unexpected events where there's so many things
35:53
But yeah, thank you so much for your time for everything that you shared and yeah such an inspiration
35:59
So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This has been great
36:03
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36:07
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36:09
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36:23
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36:34
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36:39
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36:48
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