Latest / Parent support Circle Podcast / Teaching Your Kids About Money — Even When You’re Still Figuring It Out
Transcript
- CURTIS: Alright, before we even get started — RJ, I need you to tell the people the Walmart story. The one you texted me about last weekend. RJ: Oh, we’re going straight there? Okay fine. So I’m at Walmart with my daughter Armanda — she’s thirty years old, grown woman, has her own apartment — and she picks up this $38 scented candle from the home section. At Walmart. And she looks at me dead serious and goes, “Dad, ambiance is an investment.” CURTIS: (laughing) AMBIANCE is an investment! RJ: At Walmart! In the home goods aisle! And the worst part? I almost agreed with her because I didn’t have a good counter-argument ready. CURTIS: Because you’ve said something like that before, haven’t you? RJ: I told my wife a $220 stand mixer was “an investment in family time.” So yes. Armanda absolutely got that from me. That girl is my mirror and I do not like it. CURTIS: (laughing) She handed your own words right back to you. RJ: With a straight face. She’s thirty. She should know better. We both should. CURTIS: Okay so that moment right there — a grown adult child using the same money justifications her dad uses — is EXACTLY what today’s episode is about. Because our kids learn from us. Whether we mean to teach them or not. RJ: They are watching everything. CURTIS: Welcome back to The Parent Support Circle Podcast. I’m Curtis, your host. RJ: I’m RJ, your co-host. And today we are getting into something a lot of parents avoid talking about: how do you teach your kids about money when you’re not exactly the poster child for good financial habits? CURTIS: Which, by the way, describes most of us. Nobody talks about this. But we’re going to. Let’s go. 2:30 – 6:00 SEGMENT 1 — START WITH THE CONVERSATION, NOT THE CURRICULUM CURTIS: So the first big idea is this: you don’t need a finance degree. You don’t need a lesson plan. You need one thing — transparency. Just talk to your kids about money. RJ: Which sounds simple but for most parents, money feels like the third rail. We don’t talk about it. CURTIS: Why do you think that is? RJ: Shame, honestly. If you’re struggling, the last thing you want is for your kids to know. Because you feel like you’re failing them. Or they’ll worry. Or it’ll get out to the neighborhood somehow. CURTIS: Right. But here’s the thing — they already know something is going on. My daughter London, she’s eleven, and she heard me on the phone once stressing about a bill. Later that night she comes and asks me, “Dad, are we poor?” RJ: Oh man. What did you say? CURTIS: I said, “We’re not poor, but we’re being really careful with our money right now — and that’s actually a smart thing to do.” She seemed relieved. Just knowing what was going on was better than the mystery. RJ: Because kids will fill in the blanks with their imagination, and it’s usually worse than reality. CURTIS: Exactly. So just name it. There are these great example phrases — things like, “We have fifty dollars for groceries this week, help me figure out what we need most.” You’re not putting the burden on them, you’re just including them. RJ: We did that with Josh and Armanda growing up. We’d do these “grocery math” runs at Walmart where they each had a budget and had to find items within it. Josh was super competitive about it — he’d come back like, “I found the cereal AND saved forty cents!” CURTIS: (laughing) That’s so cute. RJ: And now that man is thirty-two, manages his own household budget like a pro. He tracks every dollar. I genuinely believe those Walmart trips planted the seed. CURTIS: That’s huge. And what about Armanda — same experience growing up? RJ: Armanda was different. She was always the one who wanted the name brands. Even as a kid, she’d pick the Walmart brand up, check it, put it back, and grab the name brand. She had opinions. CURTIS: (laughing) And now she’s thirty buying a $38 candle. RJ: Consistency, Curtis. She’s been consistent her whole life. But here’s the thing — she’s also consistent about paying her bills on time, keeping her savings growing, and she actually called me last year to tell me she’d paid off her car. So she got there. She just took the scenic route. CURTIS: I love that. The scenic route. That’s most of us, honestly. RJ: Right. And I think the key was — we were honest with them when we made mistakes. I told them about the car I financed that I couldn’t really afford. The payments that were killing us every month. I said, “I made a dumb decision and here’s what I lost because of it.” CURTIS: That takes guts. RJ: It does. But Josh still brings it up. He’s thirty-two and he still says “Remember when you told me about that car, Dad? That’s why I always pay cash.” Real talk beats a textbook every single time. PRODUCER NOTE — KEY QUOTE FOR SOCIAL: “Kids fill in the blanks with their imagination — and it’s usually worse than reality. Just name it.” — RJ 6:00 – 10:30 SEGMENT 2 — THE THREE-JAR METHOD (AND WHY IT ACTUALLY WORKS) CURTIS: Okay, the Three-Jar Method. RJ, you actually did this with Josh and Armanda when they were little, right? RJ: We did. Three jars: Spend, Save, and Give. Every time they got money — allowance, birthday cash, anything — they split it up. We did fifty percent Spend, forty percent Save, ten percent Give. CURTIS: And you’re talking physical jars. Not an app, not a spreadsheet. RJ: Physical jars with labels. Because at that age, kids need to see it and touch it. Armanda used to sit at the kitchen table and line up her coins by size before she put them in. Like she was organizing a tiny bank. CURTIS: (laughing) That is adorable and also, clearly, she cared about money even then. RJ: Oh absolutely. And the important thing about the Spend jar — and this is where parents mess up — you have to let them spend it on whatever they want. You bite your tongue. CURTIS: That is the hard part. Because London wanted to take her whole Spend jar to Walmart and buy a bag of those little plastic army men. Like the ones that cost $3 in the toy section. RJ: Classic. CURTIS: And I’m standing there thinking, that is a waste of money. But I let him do it. And within two days, the army men were all over the floor, the dog got into them, and she came to me like, “Dad, I think I made a bad choice.” RJ: (laughing) That is the lesson right there! The sting of buyer’s remorse when it’s YOUR money is something no parent can teach. It just has to happen. CURTIS: And it’s five dollars, not five hundred. Better to learn it now. RJ: Exactly. And Josh had a similar moment. He spent his whole Spend jar on candy from Walmart — like a full grocery bag worth of candy — and got a stomachache that same afternoon. Double lesson: financial and physical. CURTIS: (laughing) The ultimate regret. Okay what about the Give jar? Because I think people sleep on this one. RJ: The Give jar changed my kids. I mean that. When Armanda was about eight, she decided her Give jar was going to buy school supplies for kids in her class who didn’t have them. She picked that herself. I didn’t suggest it. CURTIS: Wow. RJ: And now she’s thirty, and she volunteers every Thanksgiving, she organizes a coat drive at her job, she’s just… generous in a way that feels natural to her. And I trace that back to a jar on a kitchen counter. CURTIS: Man. A jar. Something so simple. RJ: It’s not the jar, it’s the habit it builds. The jar is just the container. CURTIS: I’m telling y’all, go get three jars this weekend. Walmart sells mason jars for like $8 a pack. Label them. Done. You just set your kid up. RJ: And as they get older, the jars become bank accounts. Same concept, just digital. Josh has three separate savings accounts to this day — one for spending, one for goals, one he donates from quarterly. CURTIS: The jar never left him. It just grew up with him. RJ: That’s exactly it. THREE-JAR QUICK REFERENCE: SPEND jar — Everyday wants. Let them choose. Let them feel the remorse. SAVE jar — A specific goal. Write it on the jar. Make it visual. GIVE jar — Generosity. Let them pick the cause. No overriding. Walmart mason jar pack: ~$8. Life lesson: priceless. 10:30 – 14:30 SEGMENT 3 — ALLOWANCE, CHORES & MAKING SAVING FUN CURTIS: Okay — the allowance debate. Tied to chores or not? RJ: Strong opinion: you do both, but you separate them. Family chores — dishes, making your bed, cleaning up after yourself — that’s just being a functioning member of the household. No pay. Then there are extra jobs — washing the car, helping organize the garage, yard work — those get paid. CURTIS: I like that framing. Citizen of the household versus paid contractor. RJ: Ha, exactly. And Josh — this is my favorite story — when he was about twelve, he started washing our car for allowance money. Got really good at it. Then one Saturday he knocks on the neighbor’s door and offers to wash their car for fifteen dollars. CURTIS: Wait, he just went and got his own clients? RJ: He washed three cars that day. Forty-five dollars. Came home and dumped it all on the kitchen table like he’d struck gold. CURTIS: That is a business! That twelve-year-old had a business! RJ: And I didn’t tell him to do it. He just connected the dots. Give a kid a skill and a financial framework, and they will find a way to use it. Josh is now thirty-two and runs his own landscaping company. Started with a sponge and a bucket at Walmart. CURTIS: I love that so much. Okay, making saving fun — because saving can feel like punishment to a kid. What actually worked? RJ: The goal chart. Draw a thermometer on paper, tape it to the fridge, and let them color it in as the Save jar fills up. Armanda had one for a bike she wanted. Every week she’d color in another section. That bike took three months to save for and she treated it like it was made of gold when she got it. CURTIS: Because she earned it. It wasn’t just handed to her. RJ: She rode that thing for six years. Took better care of it than anything I ever bought her. There’s something about earning it yourself that makes you value it completely differently. CURTIS: Okay, the Parent Match Program — talk about this because I think it’s genius and not enough parents do it. RJ: So you play banker. For every dollar they put in their Save jar, you add twenty-five cents. You’re matching their savings. And without them realizing it, you’re teaching them how a 401(k) employer match works — years before they’ll ever see one. CURTIS: I love that. And you can also pay interest. Like at the end of the month, look at the balance, and give them a little “bonus” on it. RJ: We called it bonus money. Armanda would ask every single month, “What’s my bonus?” She loved it. Had no idea she was learning about compound interest. She just knew saved money made more money. CURTIS: And that’s the whole point. You’re not giving them a lecture. You’re giving them an experience. RJ: Now the waiting rule — do NOT sleep on this one. Before any non-essential purchase, wait forty-eight hours. CURTIS: Right. If you still want it after two days, you can buy it. If you don’t… you’ve saved yourself some money. RJ: Armanda changed her mind probably sixty percent of the time. She’d be dying for something in the Walmart toy aisle and two days later it was completely forgotten. CURTIS: Because the wanting fades once you’re out of the store. The marketing only works in the moment. RJ: And I will say — I have personally used the forty-eight hour rule on myself multiple times and it has saved me hundreds of dollars. It works at thirty, at forty, at any age. CURTIS: We are all just grown-up kids learning the same lessons. 14:30 – 17:30 SEGMENT 4 — WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE THE ONE WHO NEEDS HELP TOO CURTIS: Alright, let’s get to the part that I know somebody driving right now needs to hear. Because everything we’ve talked about is practical and great. But there is a parent listening who’s in debt, barely making it work, and thinking — “How am I supposed to teach my kids this stuff when I can’t figure it out myself?” RJ: I want to speak to that person directly because I was that person. CURTIS: Tell us. RJ: When Josh and Armanda were young, we were in real financial trouble. Both working, still falling behind every month. Credit card debt, a car underwater, no real savings. And I felt like such a fraud even thinking about talking to them about money. CURTIS: How did you get out of that headspace? RJ: Josh did it for me, actually. He was about ten, came home from school, they’d been learning about savings accounts. He looks at me and says, “Dad, do YOU have a savings account?” Just like that. CURTIS: Oh no. RJ: And I had a choice. Lie, change the subject, or tell the truth. I said, “Not right now. But we’re going to start one. Together.” And we did. We opened a savings account with eleven dollars. That’s all we had. CURTIS: Eleven dollars. RJ: Every week Josh would ask me how much was in it. He became my accountability partner. Because I was NOT going to tell my ten-year-old we spent the savings on takeout. He kept me honest. CURTIS: That is such a powerful flip. The kid becomes the motivation. RJ: Use that. Parents, use that. Let your kid track the family savings goal. Put it on the fridge. They will hold you to it in the best possible way. CURTIS: And it teaches them that growing is possible, even from almost nothing. RJ: Right. Josh is thirty-two. He knows we started from eleven dollars. He’s proud of where we got to. And Armanda — she knows about our struggles too. She’s told me that knowing we went through hard times and kept going is part of why she’s not afraid of a setback. Because she saw us bounce back. CURTIS: That is the real inheritance. Not the money. The mindset. RJ: Exactly. You don’t have to be a financial expert to teach your kids about money. You just have to be willing to grow. And a parent who says “I’m learning too” is modeling something no finance class can teach: humility and resilience. CURTIS: Okay, rapid-fire. Someone’s in a tough spot. What are the first five steps, right now? RJ: One: track your spending for one month — as a family. Just write it down. No judgment. Two: set one shared savings goal. Small. Pizza night, a movie, a trip to Walmart for a treat. Something the whole family is working toward. CURTIS: Three: have a weekly Money Minute at dinner. One minute. Someone says how we did this week. RJ: Four: admit a money mistake out loud to your kids. “Hey, I bought something I shouldn’t have and I wish I hadn’t.” That sentence is worth more than any lesson plan. CURTIS: And five: celebrate every win. Saved twenty dollars? That deserves a moment. Acknowledge it. Let your kids see you happy about saving, not just stressed about spending. RAPID FIRE FAMILY MONEY PLAN: 1. Track spending for one month — as a family, no judgment 2. Set one small shared savings goal together 3. Weekly Money Minute at dinner 4. Admit one money mistake out loud to your kids 5. Celebrate every win, no matter the size 17:30 – 19:30 RAPID ROUND — AGE-BY-AGE QUICK TIPS CURTIS: Okay, rapid-round age-by-age because I want people to walk away with something concrete for wherever their kid is right now. RJ, I throw the age group, you give me the one thing. Ready? RJ: Ready. Let’s go. CURTIS: Ages three to five. RJ: Play store. Set it up in the living room. Price tags on stuff. Toy food, books, whatever’s around. Let them use pretend coins to “buy” things. And while you do it, introduce the words “need” and “want.” That’s it. That’s the whole curriculum at that age. We actually used a Walmart receipt once as the “menu” for the store and Josh thought it was the coolest thing. CURTIS: Ha! That’s so good. Six to nine. RJ: Start the three-jar system. Grab a pack of mason jars from Walmart, label them Spend, Save, Give. Give a small allowance — two or three dollars a week. It’s not about the amount. It’s about the habit. And step back and let them make their own spending mistakes. Do not rescue them from buyer’s remorse. CURTIS: Ten to twelve. RJ: Goal chart time. Your kid is ready for a real savings goal. Draw a thermometer, stick it on the fridge. Start the parent match program — you add twenty-five cents for every dollar they save. This age group responds incredibly well to visible progress. Also, this is the age I started taking Josh to Walmart with a set budget and letting him manage the whole grocery run. Twenty-five dollars. Go. CURTIS: (laughing) That’s a field trip and a finance class at the same time. RJ: He still talks about it. Thirteen to sixteen. CURTIS: Oh wait, that’s mine. Thirteen to sixteen: open a real bank account. Not pretend. A real savings account. Consider a debit card with a limit. And start having honest conversations about what happens when you overspend. Credit cards, interest, overdraft fees — real world stuff in a safe space. RJ: And take them grocery shopping at Walmart and let them compare unit prices. Generic versus name brand. Teach them that value and price are two different things. CURTIS: Ooh that’s a great one. Okay, seventeen and up. RJ: Full picture time. Budget together. Talk about their first job, their first paycheck, how taxes work. Talk about what a 401(k) is and why the employer match is basically free money. If they’re going to college, be honest about student loans before they sign anything. And if you have debt, show them. Let the lesson be real. Josh knew exactly what we owed when he was seventeen and he made his college choices partly based on what he’d seen us go through. CURTIS: That is remarkable. He used your experience to make a smarter decision than you might have made. RJ: That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? We learn so they don’t have to learn the hard way. CURTIS: Alright, and a quick update — where are Josh and Armanda now, financially? Because I think people need to hear this. RJ: Josh owns his own landscaping business at thirty-two. Bought his house at twenty-nine, cash offer, no regrets. Armanda paid off her car last year, has a solid emergency fund, and still buys the occasional overpriced candle — but now she budgets for it. She calls it her “joy fund.” CURTIS: I love that. A joy fund. That’s not a money problem. That’s a money plan. RJ: Exactly. They’re not perfect. But they’re intentional. And that’s all I ever wanted. 19:30 – 20:00 OUTRO & CALL TO ACTION CURTIS: Alright, we are coming up on time. RJ — close us out. One thing for the parent who feels like they’re too far behind or too unqualified to have this conversation with their kids. RJ: You are more qualified than you think. Because you’ve lived it. You’ve felt the stress of a bill you couldn’t pay. You know what buyer’s remorse feels like at four in the morning. You know what it’s like to want more for your family. That story — your real, messy, in-progress story — is the most valuable thing you can share. Your kid doesn’t need a perfect parent. They need an honest one. CURTIS: That’s the one. That’s the quote. I want that on a poster. RJ: (laughing) Put it on a Walmart poster frame. $5 in the home section. CURTIS: (laughing) Ha! Always practical. Alright everybody — if today’s episode hit home for you, share it with a parent who needs to hear it. Leave us a review, send it to your group chat. RJ: And if you want to be in a room with parents who are figuring this out together — no judgment, no perfection required — come join the Parent Support Circle. The link is in the bio. It’s free, it’s warm, and it’s full of people just like you who are showing up and trying. CURTIS: Because you don’t have to do this alone. You never did. I’m Curtis — RJ: I’m RJ — BOTH: And this is The Parent Support Circle Podcast. See you next week! [ EPISODE TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Cold Open: The $38 Walmart Candle & “Ambiance is an Investment” 2:30 — Start With Conversation, Not Curriculum 6:00 — The Three-Jar Method (Spend, Save, Give) 10:30 — Allowance, Chores & Making Saving Fun 14:30 — What To Do When YOU Need Help Too 17:30 — Age-by-Age Rapid Round 19:30 — Outro & Parent Support Circle CTA