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With Six You Get Savings · Mom Wars

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom Wars.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Here's Bethany Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: My name is Bethany Mandel. I am a writer of
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: sorts at the Washington Examiner and I frequently write at
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: The New York Post and Fox News. And I am
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: a homeschooling mom of six children. You'll probably hear them
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: in the background because I can't get anyone to sleep
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: to save my life. And I'm joined by my beautiful
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: co host.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Tara Kennedy Mammoth one and one on the way. What
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: if they named mytain night eight because I saw you
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: wrote a long piece to Washington Examiner, but I didn'teka.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I've read so much today and that was all my list,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: but I didn't make't.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Well, you had an amazing piece on the Free Press
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: that I also didn't get a chance to read.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So now I feel better, Okay, Well, now we can
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: talk about it. Yeah, there we go.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: I wrote a piece a couple months back about the
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: child I'm sorry the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who I hate,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: because they took the rock and Play from me, which
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: was like the best baby sleep contraption. It wasn't even
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: a sleep contraction. It was just just a vessel that
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I put my children in, and a couple people were
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: irresponsible with it, and unfortunately their babies paid the price,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: and the Product Safety Commission took it off the market.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: They recalled it, and I think that's nonsense. I don't
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: think that I should have to suffer because other people
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: can't follow simple directions.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Wait, so could you keep you old? So you had
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to send it back?
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I kept it okay, but it was so my original one.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Actually I left it on my porch. I have like
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: a screened in you've seen it. I have the screened
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: in porch, And when we were doing renovations in our basement,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: we put stuff out there, and because of the humidity
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: of Washington, it actually got moldy. And so I had
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: a friend who had hers still, and so she let
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: me use hers for my most recent baby. But I'm
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: just angry that they they took my rock and play
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: away and made it impossible for mothers like.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You to enjoy it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: So I wrote a piece about that. So I got
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I got like a random you know how you get
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: these like random pitches, And this Pacific Legal Foundation sent
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: me a random pitch about how they were on the
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: warpath about a different baby product against the Consumer Product
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Safety Commission, and I was like, I'm so in on this,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: and I wrote a whole long piece, actually two long pieces,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: one for the New York Post and one for the
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Washington Examiner about their offensive on this company. And then
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: a different nonprofit law firm contacted me and they were like,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: we two are at battle with the consumer Consumer Product
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Safety Commission. God, and this one was really egregious because
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: the commissioner just basically like went vogue went rogue, went
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: on the offensive against a baby company. He claimed that
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: weighted sleep blankets, which like they're barely weighted, like putting
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: your hand on the child's chest, which is why they
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: do it because they want it to feel like a
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: huge They claimed that it caused sids, which no one
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: knows what causes sids, so to make that to make
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: that declaration as absurd, and so it ended up like
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: destroying this company because he wrote letters to every single
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: major retailer, like, your consumers trust you. It would be
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: a real shame if you kept carrying this product that
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: kills babies.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Wait so for the piece to do it or do
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: you just know in general, like how many babies have
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to dial or be injured.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: To It's it's totally arbitrary. It's like whatever they want,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and like every single circumstance in both these cases, there
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: were extenuating circumstances, right, Yeah, it was like for the
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: first company, it was the company was called Leechko.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: They were like, the.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Product was involved in some way, and so one of
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: the times where it was associated with the death, they
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: don't even know if the baby was in it at
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the time because the parents were drunk or high and
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the baby ended up dying. And they were like, we
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: don't even know if the baby was in the product,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And it's like, how based on that, how do you
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: take a product off the market? Yeah, and obviously it
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: had nothing to do with the product.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: With the rockers, was yours a rocket? Yeah, it's always
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: like the rocker was left on the kitchen counter and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: then it was not.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: You know, So in the rock and Play circumstance, it
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: was babies that were too big to be in it
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: who were left unsupervised and unstrapped in for an extended
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: period of time.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: There babies that are too big to be in it that.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Seems like, so what happened is it's on an incline,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: so the babies would roll over and suffocate because they're
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: like arched on their tummies and they can't they can't
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: breathe because the they're at too much of an incline.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: But like, that's why you strap the bait. That's why
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I have straps, and that's why you supervise your is.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: It how big is too big for a baby to
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: be in like a n seven months? God, that's okay,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that's kind of terrifying to me that.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Maybe, but yeah, like you have to just strap the
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: baby in or have eyes on the baby, Like you can't.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: You can't leave a baby in a rocker unstrapped and
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: just leave it in a room for four hours. Yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: that's like if your baby can roll over, that's not
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: they can't be on an inclined rocker unsupervised. That's just
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: common sense.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so it's just it's totally arbitrary. And in
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: this recent case that I wrote that I wrote about,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: it was more than arbitrary. He was acting outside of
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: his outside of his role, like he didn't have the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: authority to do these things, and he was on the
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: war path, and I think it was like it was
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: ego driven. He was just he was going on podcasts,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: he was going on TV like he wanted to talk
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: about it. You hear my baby in the background screaming
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: for his father in a text to my husband, it's
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: not a me problem. What's really nice about the last
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: baby is that he's decided that his dad is the
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: only person that he wants ever.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, dad, oh, and this is true because
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I've met him, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm like, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: there really is like this sac is it the second
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to last and the last like one is yours and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: one is yes.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and my fifth is like really mind the point
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: where I didn't want to because he was too young,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: but I brought.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Him to London with me. Yeah yeah, because I couldn't
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: leave hi behind. How old? The one that's.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Screaming right now is two and a half and then
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: my fifth is four.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: God, isn't it crazy having given birth in two and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a half years.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: So your piece looked amazing, And if I'm being honest,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I saw it come across my Free Press newsfeed and
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I thought it would make me feel bad because I
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: aspire to be low tech parenting, but I know I
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: will never achieve that, nor can I because I work
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: too much. Yeah, so I pledged not to read it,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and then our amazing social media Maven Sarah sent it
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: in our chat and was like, oh shoot, sorry, care,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: I miss that, So tell me what was yours about?
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It was basically, and I am also not like a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: zero screen parents, so I don't want to mislead to anybody.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: My baby does watch Miss Rachel, even though I hate
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Miss Rachel, but like, as soon as Miss Rachel comes
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: on the screen, my baby is so happy. I just
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I can't stop. And I've tried. I've tried to ban
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Miss Rachel and I just can't. But she's a terrible
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: person that I don't like it, but my baby does. Yeah,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and I hate her. And basically, it's about the kind
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: of trend in the tech world and the kind of
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: startup world, which is not my world. I just find
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: it very interesting that new startups are trending towards low
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: tech products for kids, when historically, over the past twenty
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: years or so, it's always been the opposite. Anything that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: buzzes and flashes and makes very annoying, terrible noises have
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: been given those funding and that is what baby toys
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: are filled with. Yeah, now we're trend in the opposite,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: which I think is good.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: I feel like it was like that even when I
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: became a parent, like twelve years ago. Yeah, it was
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: like the Wooden toys. It was like Melissa and Doug
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: and Hape and all those things.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: There's always been some like there's always been a choice
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of the two, But now it seems to be that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: like every single new product that's coming on the market,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: particularly with like Tony's and stuff. Like when I put
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: into the moms Chat, so many people came back with
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the products that they use, which is specifically low tech
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and are new and have come out in the past
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: couple of years.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I think that our chat on our substack, the Moomwars
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: dot substack dot com. You can join the chat. If
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: you're a subscriber, please do so, and you can see
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: this podcast on video and see my Hanukah pajamas, which
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's most I only wear it when
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: it's just the two of us, though I have a guest.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I try to look like a normal human. But I
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: feel like our probably our listeners too, are probably more
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: tuned to what's better for babies. So I think I
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: think you're your pool might be a little skewed towards.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: The Yeah, that's true, it's smart.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: But I mean, I I'm glad we need that, we
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: need we need the kids off.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: It's it's the the research is really fascinating that we're
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: and you talked about this in your piece because I
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: did read at least the blurbs. I didn't read the
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: whole piece, but I did read the blurbs. But but
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: it decreases their attentions.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Man, yeah, yeah, And and there's also data on like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: specifically the like television is okay, and it's spotable screens
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: with like YouTube shots, you know, like like flashing images.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: And yes, so not all television is made equal though,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: like the older, the older the kids shows the better,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: And I've noticed it with the kids shows that my
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: kids watch that are newer. They and there's research on
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: this also, like they flash from frame to frame much quicker,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: and and that is not great for your attention span
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: in general.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Really, I think, and I might be wrong on this,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but even like the Emily Alsta, data shows that the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: TV is fine in kind of any man as long
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: as you're basically not put in the kid in front
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: of the TV from but between ACE and bad time,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you know, AM and bad time. But basically TV is
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: totally like we all grew up with Did you grow
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: up with teath?
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I had a TV in my room my kids.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: My third pregnancy was like weirdly hellish.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I threw up probably five to eight times a day
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: from the very very beginning, like several days after I
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: missed my period until I literally gave birth.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I was throwing up that many times a day.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: And my kids after I had him were like, where's
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: the TV. I'm like, that was there was a coping mechanism.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: For nine months.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: My older two kids watched TV from the first moment
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: they woke up until I had a babysitter come help
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: me put them to bed. So it was like, I
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: don't know, nine hours of TV a day for nine months.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: It turned out Okay, Yeah, it's fine, It's really fine.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Like I don't think anybody has to make themselves feel bad,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that is where the kind of over
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: correction comes in. Like nobody is saying that your child
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: should never have to see a screen or TV or whatever,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, if you're if you're a nine hour flight,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they get in ancred if you'll like, if you want
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to make dinner and the only way that you can
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: make dinners. But I put it in. Yeah, I saved
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the screen time. I save it for them. Yeah.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I always say you can watch TV at five o'clock. Yeah,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and that is when I start dinner sometimes for thirty.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: There is another piece that came out today that's not
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: yours or mine that I'm super interested in, and I'm
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: wondering if you've read it, which it's the Wired piece
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: about surrogacy, and it is crazy. No, somebody's sent it
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to me. Can I just like basically tell you please
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: do It's like a ten thousand word piece and I
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: just read it. It's really really incredible. It is about
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: a forty four year old woman, well she was forty
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: four years old when she found it, Suring Good called
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Cindy B. And she is, I mean kind of crazy,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Like if you read the piece, it's it's people on
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: social media are going crazy. She decided I did a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: forty four years old that she wanted a child, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: she had frozen her hanks that I think thirty cents
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and with the idea that she was going to be
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a fit older by the time that she was going
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to get a sarrogan. So forty four she gets a
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: sarrogate for a boy and a saragate for a girl
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a few months apart, which is apparently very common with
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: sar See, you didn't Hilaria Baldwin do that? Oh really,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't know Hilaria baldd sarrogates what I think she
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I think she did. I think Paris Helton did it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, And that one made me sad actually
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: because she said she was afraid of giving birth and
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I thought that was sad.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah that I was talking about this today with
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a friend too, agreed. Cindy b had two sarrogates. The
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one that had the boy she got first, and then
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: six months later she got the girl. And the storigan
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: was a single mother and was by all accounts a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: very nice, normal woman and not kind of doing it
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: out of desperation, doing it out of the fact that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: she felt like she could help somebody. Bloody blody, bloody blah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So she goes into labor or her waters break at
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: like twenty seven weeks something like that. This is with
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the boy yeah, this is with the bond, the mum,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the intended parent as they call them. Throughout this whole time,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: is kind of very very involved, very much like stalking
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: her on social media, writing updates about her on social
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: media on Facebook, like daily telling the world and her
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: friends and her circle and whatever, like exactly what this
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: woman is doing, exactly where she works, like her medical
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: records and and stuff. Anyway, she's clearly quite unhinged. So
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the surrogate goes into premature labor twenty seven weeks and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: then they do the thing that they do I don't
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: know how they do it, where they just like stop
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the water, they give you steroids and yeah yeah, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: she's essentially in the hospital from then and will be
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: induced at any time that they see feather. She has
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to be induced, right, and then the baby dies doesn't
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: make it, Yeah, terrible. There were a few things to
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: indicate that something was wrong, but each time basically the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: hospital said like, oh no, this is fine, like and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: like they would be a little bit of bleeding or whatever,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and the hospital just basically deemed it as normal. So
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: this and then this woman really dies. She has her
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: placented detaches, she has terrible bleeding, loses gallons and gallons
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of blood. This woman really dies. And then the intended parent,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the woman who paid the surrogate, goes on this campaign
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to say that her surrogate has killed the baby intentionally
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and sues her, makes her pay for all of her
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: own medical bills, which are by this substantial in the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands, gets her fired from multiple jobs, or
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: like emails her bosses and tells them that she's done
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: like medical insurance fraud and different stuff like that, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: just like really tries to ruin this woman's life to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the point where she sends the woman's child, who's likes
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: seven years old a photo of the dead baby. No, yeah,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and just is crazy and just go and this piece
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: is like ten thousand words and Cindy B did crazy?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Sorry it uh no, Cindy B. Or the woman okay,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: it's hand to parent. Sorry all of the words confuse me.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Talks to this reporter, and the surrogate actually doesn't speak
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to him in the article.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: And the woman who gives the story, he still ends
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: up being the villain monster And isn't that crazy, Like
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: you can't even convince the journalist that you're the good person.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: So something like that happened to me once I converted
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: to Judaism. And my mom was not Jewish, but my
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: dad is Jewish, so I don't I don't really see
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: what I did as a conversion, but technically I did convert.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: And there was a reporter for a publication that has
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: ceased to exist who was writing a piece about a
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: woman who was like super duper public as a Jewish convert.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: And this woman, like gripp in Nebraska, had never met
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: a Jew until she got to college, Like she was
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: like a real legit Jewish convert and she was like
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: the face of Jewish conversion online for many years. And
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: so this woman wrote a piece about this other woman
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: who converted to Judaism. Her legal name was Amanda, so
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: I'll just use that because she doesn't go by that
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: now and very few people know that that's actually.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: What her name was.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: So the reporter contacts me, her name is Meg. Meg
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: contacts me and was like, I'm writing this long piece
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: about Jewish conversion through the lens of Amanda's conversion. Are
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: you interested in talking? And I was like, Amanda's a
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: nut job, So I'm very wary of doing that, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I was very cagy with her. I was very careful
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: with her. I didn't really trust her. And then I
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: found out that Meg had spent significant time in person
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: with Amanda and had gone to her house for a holiday,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: and they had known each other previously socially, like very much,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: like they went to college together something I don't know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: but I then I was like, oh, that was like
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: one trap, Like she's writing a hip piece on me
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: about how I'm attacking Amanda and dah da da. And
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I contacted Meg the reporter and I was like, you
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: are You're a liar, and you set me up and
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: you misconstrued your relationship with the subject of the like
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: the subject of your piece, and this was a setup.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: And she was like, MM, can't really tell you until
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: it goes to press, but you good. And I was
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: like okay. And then the piece went to press and
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: it was the juicy is Oh my god, And she
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: was very nice to me in the piece, but she
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: ripped this Amanda woman to shreds because Amanda was a hypocrite,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: left right up and down. And I was like, if
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: you couldn't if you couldn't convince this person that you've
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: known for this amount of time who spent that amount
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: of time with you to write a nice piece about you.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Oh that says something. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, so hang
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: on at the end of this wide piece. Yeah, the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: intended parent so that she's a second baby coming, Yeah,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: she has a daughter, and she writes and she tells
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the reporter like, oh, it was obviously this first surrogate
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: who was the issue, because everything went super smooth with
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the second surrogate and like, we had no problem whatsoever.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And then later in the piece, the second surrogate almost
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: died and had to have a hysterectomy because of the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: problems with the the percenta. And it turns out that
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I think both parents have history in the family of
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: like for cental issues. But it turns out when you're
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a when you're looking to obtain like a surrogate, you
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: don't have to share your medical history, but they do.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: So the intended parent had issues and it caused those
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: issues in the surrogate.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yet well, both issues happened with both babies, and.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: So it was because of the babies they were carrying.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: You you could argue, and it turns out that I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: didn't know this. Did you know that the risk of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: abnormalities or issues when carrying something that isn't biologically yours
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is like double. I have no idea. I mean, it
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: makes sense, but I have no idea.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard this about IVF, that the chances of
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: miscarriage and still worth and everything go through the roof.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: So I mean, I just think it makes logical sense,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: like you're messing with nature, and nature sometimes doesn't like that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: It's like the whole premise of Jurassic Park.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess like if you have a foreign
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: object in your book, it's in you alogically, it's going
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to try and fight against it. But I had no
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: idea about that. But anyway, Yeah, so the second surrogate,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: all those died and had to have a hysterectomy around,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: which I think is so tragic. I think it's probably
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the magic part of the whole thing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: And the mother was like the woman who got the sarrogates.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The intended parent was like, oh, yeah, everything was fine,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Like she obviously just didn't care about either of the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: women's lions, or badly these women's lions at all.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: And so the first surrogate wouldn't even talk and she
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: still came across that monster.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she wouldn't talk and there's still fighting called the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: intended parent is now like seven hundred and fifty thousand
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: dollars and to laws, suns and she and in the piece,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, Cindy Buy spoke to two like
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: psychics who told her that the.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Killer baby is this in the lawsuit the psychics, Yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I love it, I love it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: No, you can really be an absolute crazy person and
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: just destroy someone badly. Yeah, I have a friend going
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: through that right now. Actually, she she went to trial
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: with the person the psycho narcissist, and the psycho narcissist
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: did their whole part of the case first, and so
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: it was I can't, I can't go.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Into more detail. Wait, but is it? No, no, no, no, this.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Is a totally separate story. I'm a friend who's unfortunately
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: being dragged through the legal mud with a psycho narcissist
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: and the.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: A three day trial, and after the first day and
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: a half, where the psycho narcissist gave their side of events,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: the judge was like, so I don't really need to
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: hear the other side. I don't need to hear a
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: defense of this because I'm good just on what the
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: narcissist said, and I'm going to rule in the favor
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: of my friend. Like he cut the trial in half
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: and said, the defense can rest right now because you
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: don't need to defend yourself because she incriminated herself to
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: such a degree that you're you're good on my own.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: But this whole thing cost her one hundred and fifty
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars to defend herself.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Crazy. Yeah, so funny.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I want to take a quick, funny enough
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: commercial break and then we'll come back and we'll talk money.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Hello, I'm James Lenwix, and I'm at the diner. You know,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: classic American diner chrome long boomerang pattern for micha account
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: with little jukeboxes. We love these and you can join
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: me here every Saturday where we talk about whatever happens
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: to spring into my mind at the moment. There's no
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: predicting where it will go, except that it'll be done
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: in about thirty minutes. Join me, won't you, every Saturday
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: for the Ricochet Audio network. Ricochet, Yeah, join the conversation.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I was at synagogue on Saturday and chatting with her friend,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: and weirdly enough, she's an Israeli influencer. Yeah, yeah, And
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: so I watch her Instagram stories and when she does subtitles,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I hit translate and then I can understand them. Sometimes
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: without translation, I can understand like the gist of what
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: she's saying. But she talks very fast, and I don't
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: great Hebrew. But we were chatting about money stuff, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I had mentioned to her previously, oh, because we were talking,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: So my oldest daughter is about to be bought Mitzvad
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: and we're taking this like giant trip. We're going away
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: for like five or six weeks. I am so excited.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: We're going to Greece for a week and then Israel
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: for the rest of it. And so I was telling
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: her about it, and she's.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Like, how can you afford that?
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: And I said, I've been saving literally her entire life.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: She's almost twelve years old, and I've been saving a
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: lot of money for twelve years. Not a lot of money, actually,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: I've been saving between one hundred and two hundred dollars
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: a month for this amount of time and invested it
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: and it's grown many thousands of dollars just in the investments.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And that's how we're recording it. And she asked, you know,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: tell me more because she's Israeli, so like there's no
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: there's no like social barrier.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Of like can you tell me about your mom? I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: have that too.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: I love it and I'm like a total open book.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: So I was explaining to her and like sort of
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: what we do, and so I told her all of
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: my six children have three accounts. They have a bar
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Button's Fair account, they have an Education Savings account, and
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: then they have what's called a five twenty nine, which
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: is something that you open with a state, doesn't even
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: have to be your state. You can put money into.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: There's like limits, so you can only bok two thousand
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: dollars a year into an ESSA, but the limits on
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: a five twenty nine are much higher. What you can
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: use an ESA for is much more broad than what
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: you can use a five twenty nine for, though Trump
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: has actually made it better. So I was telling her
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: all of this, and then she posted on Instagram that
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: she opened these accounts because she talked to me about it,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: and people were messaging me, and I was like, I'll
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: just like be very honest about what I do because
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like not enough people know even what an
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: ESA or a five twenty nine are and I was,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I was right. Not a lot of people know, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: so I did a whole Instagram thing over the weekend.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I think about what we do. So if anyone follows
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: me on Instagram, it's Bethany S Mandel and you can.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: I have it like saved as a highlight. But basically
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: we have these six accounts. My husband's grandparents opened my
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: older three children's five twenty nines, and then his parents
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: opened the next three. And we don't have a lot
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: to do with those five twenty nines. They've been very
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: generously funded, mostly by my in laws family, like between
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: the grandparents or the parents whatever. My older kids because
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the fact that they're older, they have much larger accounts
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: than my younger children. So I've been adding money a
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: little bit to my younger kids accounts. But so those
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: accounts I don't have that much to do with.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: But the ESA. Hey, So for those accounts, the grandparents
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: still put money in or it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Was no so they put my they put seed money in,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: and I think that the seed money is sufficient for
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: my older three children and I will not be seeding
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: it more. But my younger three kids we add to it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So basically grandparents after the first three kids, but like,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: we can't afford this, so.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: It was Seth's grandparents, so they passed away after the
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: first three, so they seeded it very generously. And so
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: the younger three kids, we like, we've been putting some
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: money in there, but not a ton because they are
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: also I mean, everyone was generous who opened those accounts,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and they had a lot more money than I ever
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: did at that age or at any age. But the
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: older kids accounts are bigger because they've had more time
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: to grow. So yeah, you know, they're good, but we
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: do we do put a little bit of money into
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: the younger kids accounts. And so that's the five twenty nines.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: The essays we max out at two thousand dollars a
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: year because you can use those for private school. If
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: we ever want to send them to high school for
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: private we can do that. So that ends up being
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty six dollars a.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Month all six kids.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: So not my older two because they're their five twenty
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: nines are so big. And Trump actually changed the law
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: that you can take ten thousand out of a five
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: twenty nine for private school. Now, so when he changed
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: that I stopped investing in their essays my older two kids,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: and then I went to the max for my other kids.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And I don't even know if I do.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: I think I do my third I think I put
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: money still into my third kids the essay. So I
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: do between one hundred and one hundred and sixty six
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: for those younger four kids.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: It just seems like a lot of like admin and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: accounts nocks.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: So it's all automated. It it comes out automatically every month.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: And then for the bar Abot Mitzvah accounts, I do
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: actually in the inverse my older kid, we didn't open
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: these accounts until my older until my kids were older,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: and so to catch my older kids up, we put
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: more money into it. And my younger kids, like my youngest,
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: for example, he has like six thousand dollars in that
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: account already and he's only two and a half three
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: years old. It's like when he was born, like we
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: got a couple of generous checks, and so I put
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: those checks in there. So I don't save a ton
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: for him. I think it's like maybe seventy five or
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: one hundred dollars. But for my older kids, I'm putting
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: in like my older two kids, I'm putting in about
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: two hundred a month, maybe less, no, but it's like
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: a couple hundred dollars, but it's it equals about one
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: hundred dollars a kid. But for different kids, they're geting
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: different amounts for that reason.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And this money in the future will be used for what.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: So that last that brokerage account is for their bar
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: bot mitzvah. So I invest it into mutual funds and
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: it's grown a lot. So my older my oldest daughter
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: has probably twenty five thousand dollars in that account and
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: it's grown seven thousand. I've only put eighteen into it
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: and it's grown seven Wow. My fifth kid, I invested
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: in na VideA and that has made us that I
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: invested six hundred dollars and I think I've made eight
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not six hundred dollars. Nice. Yeah, so that'll be
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a nice bar mitzvah. Yeah.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: So, I mean the goal is to have about twenty
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: five to thirty thousand dollars per kid because I want
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: to take like a really significant trip and like be
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: able to do like a really nice not really nice.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: It's like not a baller party like you see on TV,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: but like you don't have one hundred members of our
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: family at a room in a synagogue somewhere and like
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: give a speech for a lunch, like do a luncheon
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: basically for our families. And so between the party and
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the luncheon you kind of need to save over twenty
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars unfortunately.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And then the other account, so one is an education account.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so specifically no, so that ESA the one that
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: like you can only put up to two thousand dollars
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: in that one. I'm probably going to use it for
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: high school in some capacity.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Wait all kids going to go to high school? Because
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you said this on Instagram and then I was, I
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I want it to not be a barrier. Yeah, I
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: don't want the finances to be a barrier. So if
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: they want to go to high school, I will have
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: the ability to send them to high school. Or if
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: they want to stay homeschooled and go to community college
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: when they're in high school, we'll be able to pay
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: that tuition. Like a dream would be if they stayed
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: homeschooled through high school and they started going to community
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: college and then they finished high school with enough credits
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: for basically half of their bachelor's Like an associates degree, Well,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: to me is a no brainer. Babysit earn your back,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: earn your associates, and you graduate high school with a
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: really nice bank account and half of your college degree done.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Like that seems to me a no brainer.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So I like that Susan's saying that you can even
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, like, I mean, if they're dying to go
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: to high school and have the experience, fine, but like,
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: or you can get your associates and work and be,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: you know, fifteen leagues ahead of all of the kids
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: your age by the time you graduate high school.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: What so your oldest must be approached in what is
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: high school age? It's ninth grade and she's in sixth now, okay,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: how old are you in ninth grade? Sorry, it's so different.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I'm so fifteen? Oh okay, okay, yeah, so years just
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: a couple of years then yeah.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: For three Yeah, so's she's three years away from high school,
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: which is wild to me, And she doesn't seem that interested.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I was surprised she after camp this year, especially, she
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: heard from a lot of her friends because the drama
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: at camp with a bunch of eleven year old girls
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: and a bunk together. No. She she asked like, is
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: this what school is like? And the other girls in
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: the bunk were like, oh no, this is so much
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: better than school. School is a NonStop drama. And she
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: was like, I can't take this. This is too much
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: for me. So she left camp actually not wanting to
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: go to school. She's just like, I don't want to
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: wake up. And also when she talks about what she
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: does with her friends, who do all go to school,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: they're like.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Why do we do this? That's nice? I had to
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: wake up.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I woke up this morning at nine am to go
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: to a violin lesson, and I showed her all the
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: pictures of her friends going to school at seven am.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I was like, here's your friend in Oceanside she left.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: She got on the bus at seven. Here's your friend
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: in Taneck. She got on the bus at seven. So,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, to me, it seems like a no brainer,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: But I don't know.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: So what would your advice be for somebody like me
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: who just had a baby and doesn't know how to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: save money for them? Well, even like, I mean, it's weird.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: There are so many weird barriers. I went to a
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: bank to open a bank account for the baby, and
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: they were just like kind of confused about what I
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: was doing and why I was there. That's really funny.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we use Charles Schwab and all three accounts
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: are for the kids. The essay is easy to open.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: You just say I want to open any essay. The
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: brokerage account is a custodial book brokerage account, so when
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: they turn twenty one, it will belong to them, although
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to deal with that because I'm going
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: to keep on saving for their weddings. And then the
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: third account of five twenty nine is something you open
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: with your state. So what I did when my kids
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: were very young was the first thing I opened was
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the essay. I wouldn't do that now. I opened it
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: because I wanted to have the flexibility to use it
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: for private school. But now that five twenty nine's you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars can be used from it, Like, I
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: don't think I would open any ESA. Now. If I
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: were to give you advice, I would say open a
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: five twenty nine. Probably not in your state. Virgina doesn't
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: have a great performing one. I would look into the
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: best performing states. I've heard Utah is very good. Ours
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: ours are in New Jersey. And so I posted a
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: picture of one of my kids, two of my kids
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: five twenty nines and like they're substantial, and like I
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: can take credit for some of that, but most of
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: it was Seth's family, honestly. But the growth has been incredible.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: My four year old it's grown ten thousand, so he
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: had so it had twenty five thousand dollars of principle
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: and it's grown like ten thousand dollars just in four years.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: And my eight year olds has doubled, right, So like
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: to me, the first step would be open a five
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: twenty nine and just put in like fifty dollars a month,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: like whatever you can not feel it, put that in
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: and just automate it. And it's very easy to automate.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: And then I would open just a second brokerage account.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: And especially when your kid is young, like use it
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: as like play money. And that was why I opened
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: That's why I bought the Navidia because he was so
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: little that I was like, I've heard this is a
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: really good stock pick. I'll put six hundred dollars in it.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: That's not a ton of money, and now it's eight
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, looks viable.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: And so I mean, but I think the majority of
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the money I would put into mutual funds, and mutual
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: funds have worked very well for us. We've made tens
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: of thousands of dollars in the mutual funds. But I
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: just I automated the savings and to the to a
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: point where like it wasn't terrible. Like we we probably
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: save between two and three thousand dollars a month, which
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: is a lot, but there's six of them, so like
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: with one, like if you're saving four or five hundred
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: dollars a month, that's a ton of money.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I mean, you did a very
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: valiant thing, because I feel like most people who have
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: more than a couple kids usually just kind of write
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: it off in their heads and it like, oh, if
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I had to, I would save for college, but I'm
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: gonna have more, and they just have to pay their
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: own way, you know.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: I was very lucky with my older kids that they
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: had such a large amount put away for them by
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Seth's grandparents and my everyone had a large amount of
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: money set aside by my in laws. That's not something
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: my parents could have done ever. But I I know
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: what it's like not to have that, and I feel guilty.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Like my younger my younger kids, it'll they're not gonna
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: have as much probably as my oldest, but like she's
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: really smart.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I think she'll use it. Yeah, but it is what
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: I also am trying to pay off my mortgage early
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: so that that will free up by the time my
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: youngest kids are in school, so I'll have more cash
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: by then. That's like, you know, hope, but I don't
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: know if that's a smart move. Actually, because my interest
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: rate is really low, I might stop doing that.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, no, I'm I.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: I mean it was funny because I have my stuff
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: together a lot with the kid accounts. And then someone was.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Like, what do you do about your retirement, Like, oh,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: we don't talk about that. It's not a thing. Yeah,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'll be doing that. Do you have
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: like patents?
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: So we have we have four oh one k's which
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: are through all like they're always through work. And it
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: sets work because you have to have a real grown
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: up job something that I basically have never heard. Yeah,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: we do the maximum matching, so like what however much
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: they match a year we do that is it enough?
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Absolutely definitely not. I'm really hoping that, like we're able
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: to bully the federal government to keep Social Security solvent.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah that would be cool. Yeah, probably not one of
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: your kids will have enough money that you get looked active.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: My hope is that we just like never stop working
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: because I really like working yea, And but we can
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: like work on the road, Like I want to have
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: an RV and drive around with Seth. That's my favorite
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: thing to do is just drive because Seth is stuck
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: talking to me and he gets carsick after a while
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: if he's staring at his phone. So if we're driving,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: he kind of has to talk to me. He's just
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: like a prisoner. So I want to just have an RV,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: drive all around, work as we're driving all around, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: abduct some of our grandchildren. I would love my some
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: of my children to be abducted. So I imagine my children
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: too would love their some of their children abducted and
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: and just kind of be like, you know, sixty seventy
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: eighty years old, just driving aimlessly.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: My only issue with that is me and Nick have
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: done this a lot where we will drive to like
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Florida or whatever. I can't work on the road. I
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: have to be. Yeah, he can work anyway. He can
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: go to a diner or whatever, have his laptop whatever.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I have to be like in the same place. I
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: know I have to be. I know I'm going to
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: be in the same place for like multiple hours and
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: everything is relaxed and there's no noise in the background.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Do you know you get anything done? I know, I'm
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: so fussy. I built myself in a room in this room. No, No,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: that's not how everything has to get out.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: No, you have, you have, you have to get out
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: out of that. I know, especially with a second kid,
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: you're never gonna anything done ever.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Again, it's two girls. I just think girls about it.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Girls are just bad. It behaved although barrel.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: But it's true. They do keep themselves occupied better. But
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: then when they get older, it's like emotional.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Now, oh my god, can you imagine, So two girls
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: seventeen months about can you imagine when they're like fifteen,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot. It's gonna be crazy, It's
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: gonna be a lot.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: So that's my retirement plan. It's not a good one.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: Maybe I should stop, I think, just not die.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean it would actually be kind of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: better if you died, because if you can't die, it's true. Yeah.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Can I tell you a terrible story that I feel
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: like I can tell. Yeah, So my grandparents, my mother's parents,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: were very terrible people, like probably the worst people I've
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: ever met in my life. And this is like a
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: really this horrible story. My grandfather, I'm just gonna like
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: I don't care, Like no one is alive anymore that
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: would care if I tell you a story. My grandfather
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: cheated on my grandmother their entire marriage, and she was
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: a demon to him in turn, and it was just
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: basically like a cold war but in a marriage for
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: like many, many, many decades. And so my grandfather developed Alzheimer's,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: and it took a really long time for all of
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: us to pick up on it because we thought that
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: he had been just tuning her out and he had
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: turned he had figured out how to just turn his
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: ears off, and so we were like, we just told
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: you that, and but we attributed it to like he's
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: been so beaten down that he just can't listen anymore.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: And then we realized like, oh, this is a things.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: And when we figured it out, maybe like brought him
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: to the doctor whatever they're like and none of this,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: none of this was an alarm belt for you.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And we were like, no, they're an evasive relationship.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: It's pretty bad, actually, And so my grandfather at the end,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: my grandmother did not want to take care of him
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: because she hated him, and she was like, I'm going
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: to put him in a home. And then she then
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: she looked into how much a home would cost and she's.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Like, find me the worst one.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I don't care what it's like, just fine, And even
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: the worst one was like thousands of dollars a month,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: and she's like, I can't afford that. And then this
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: is like the most terrible thing you'll ever hear in
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: your life. He had a hemorrhoid get infected and it
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: took a while for her to know because he had Alzheimer's,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: and so he was admitted to the hospital and they
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: were like we can we can like really just slam
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: him with antibiotics, and she was like what if you
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: don't And they were like, I mean, I guess you
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: could not be like you could withhold consent and she's like, yeah,
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: what if I do that? And they were like, well,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: then he'll die of a very treatable thing here. And
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: she's like all right, we'll be fast and they were
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: like yeah, I mean he'll go septic in like two
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: or three days. And she's like okay, And so she
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: just didn't you do that, yeah, because you have to consent,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: and he couldn't consent, and she just.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Didn't and did something very terrible, the worst expressing way
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to die. Also, she loved it.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: She loved it that it was like a humiliating she like,
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: truly the worst people I've ever met in my life.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Like there's there's other stories that like I don't feel
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: comfortable telling, Oh my god, they were the worst people
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: I've ever met my life. And what was really funny
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: was that she she was really happy after he died,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: and so she was like this completely different person than
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: the one I had ever known my entire life growing
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: up with her. And pretty soon after he died, Seth
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: came into my life and I like told him, like,
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: my grandmother is like probably the devil, and then he
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: met her and she charmed the pants off of him
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: because she was so much happier that my grandfather was dead.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: That that is hilarious and really sad.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so but then Seth did witness her like
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: low key tormenting a new boyfriend that she took on
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: and like even literally on her deathbed, like she's in
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: hospice and she died the next day, maybe two days later.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: She was talking to us and he was, so we're
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: at you know, the head of her bed, and she's
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: talking to us, and he's at the he's in a
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: chair like at the foot of her bed and so
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: across the room. But it's not a big room. And
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: she's sitting there talking about what a dummy he is.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: And I was like, Grandma, he's right there. And she's like,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: oh that that's Jerkin or me. And I'm like and
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: then I kind of sat there and I realized.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, she's right.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: He can't hear her. And so she was just like,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: he's such an idiot. But he's so he's such a
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: he's such a he's so kind, he's so easy to manipulate.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Oh oh my. And she's saying all of this just
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: like right in front of him, I mean for dayson
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: though after and he treated her so nicely. I don't
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: know eighty oh wow, Well, like we're just wanting them
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: to find somebody in their in their retirement community. Yeah
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: say yeah no.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: So it was I was glad that Seth got that
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: window into her right at the end, because I was like,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: you just got the tiniest picture of who she is.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: And he was like, yeah, she's a little she a
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: little much, huh. And I was like, yep, she a
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: little much.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: And my in laws didn't know me that well when
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: she died, and they had only met her at our
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: wedding once, very briefly, and I had told my in
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: laws like, my grandmother is the devil and she was
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: the very last person to RSVP to our wedding, and
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: I said, we can't have an open bar if she comes,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: because she's an alcoholic Irish woman who is anti Semitic. Like,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: I can't have it my anti Semitic Irish grandmother drunk
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: at my wedding. It's just like a recipe for disaster.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: And so my in laws, you know, we're arranging all
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the stuff for the wedding, and they were like, we
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: need to know about the open bar, and I was like,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: I can't. Until the last day because if she's coming
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: and then we can't have it. And my in laws
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: had to hit like a we had a very very
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: small wedding, and so we had to hit a catering minimum.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: And they were like, without the bar, we're going to
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: have to like really actually move some stuff around and
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: try to plump up the caterer. And I was like, well,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: that's a u problem and I can't tell you until
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: she tells me. And then she ended up coming and
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: I was like, sorry, we're gonna have to add like
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: past orders or something to make this minimum.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And you didn't have an open ball. No, I didn't
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: have it.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I only had like one beer wine and it was
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: very limited.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Because of her. Oh my god, what a moment.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: So when she died, so I was at that point,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: I was talking to my in laws every Friday and
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: we'd like do a like pre Shabbat call, and so
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: on one Friday, I was like, yeah, my grandmother's in hospice.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: We saw her yesterday. She's probably gonna go soon. And
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: and so my in laws knew that, like she was
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: on death store. And then we talked the next week
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: and they were like, how's your grandmother doing? And I
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, she did, like five days ago. And
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: they were like, and you didn't say anything, and I
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: was like, well, I told you she was dying, like
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: it wasn't a surprise. And they're like when when is
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: the funeral because my grandmother wasn't Jewish, so like, you know,
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: the funeral could be days later. And I was like,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: I think it was yesterday, and they were like, you know.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: You didn't go, and I was like, no, oh my god.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Why So in my defense, my so, I have an aunt,
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: my mother's sister, who is my she's the devil.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: She stole.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's terrible. She stole a lot of money from me.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Whatever she told me, I wasn't invited.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: In my family, there's invitations still funerals.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: And I wasn't invited to my father's funeral either. Yeah.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was pregnant and I so at my
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: grandfather's funeral, this aunt lunged for me, like to hit me,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: and my grandmother stepped in and it was a really
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: trashy moment and I was like, I don't really want
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: to have my husband like play body card for me
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: at this funeral, and I don't want to risk it,
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: like I'm pregnant. I don't want her to like that
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: attack me. And I just was like, I don't know
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: anyone there anymore. And I didn't even like this grandmother.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: There's no one like I'm not mourning. I didn't like her,
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: and there's no one there that I have to like
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: try to pretend like I'm mourning.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I can't stop laughing at that, right, is terrible.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: So I didn't go to my grandmother's general and so
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: my in law's I think thought I was a sociopath,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: but I was like, I'm not really sorry about it.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I've actually been thinking about hamwins a lot today and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: we'll end on this. Yeah, I mean thinking that hamoins
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: a lot, because it is by far the worst part
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of giving birth. I believe I'm actually going to do
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: it to myself again.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: And you're probably gonna jud yourself like more times. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: it's terrible.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: What do you do? By the way, March eleventh, Oh,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: have had a couple days early, and you can have
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: it on my birthday. What day's birthday? The seventh? Okay,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I want to I went a week last time. Yeah, okay.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: I one of my children was born on Saint Patrick's day.
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: I think that would also be a really fun birthday.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: That's the way. When is that March seventeen? Okay, I'll
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: see what's on the realm of possibility. I'll see what
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: I can do. All right, Well, good luck to you.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I think that's it. I think we're done. Let's be done.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you all for listening. If you have not yet
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: subscribed and left us a review, that would be really
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: nice of you to do that. We write on substack
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: and you can watch these episodes on substack as well.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: And in addition, I think we should do a live
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: on substack with like a live chat with our visit
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: with our subscribers. Let's put that on that to do list. Yeah,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I'm done, all right, let's do it.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: All right until next team. Until next time, Stay smart
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: or buckle up? What's it? Stay smart? Was my last
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: podcast staves falls great?
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Let's keep us because it was it was called Lady Brains.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: I'm great, I'm tired. Good night that saddle up right?
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks Ricochet Join the conversation.