Ep. 122 - Do You Struggle with Teaching Your Kids Financial Wellness? The Parenting Secrets Behind Raising Financial Grownups with Bobbi Rebell, CFP
“The greatest gift you can give your children is your own financial independence when you get older so that they don't have to financially take care of you.” - Bobbi Rebell
Bobbi Rebell is the author of Launching Financial Grownups: Live Your Richest Life by Helping Your (Almost) Adult Kids Become Everyday Money Smart.
She is also a Certified Financial Planner, the founder of Grownup Gear - merchandise to celebrate all the milestones of adulting, a former global business news anchor having worked at CNBC, CNN and Reuters - and the host of the Money Tips for Financial Grownups podcast, of which I am a guest as well!
But on top of it all Bobbi is a mom of 3, a 14 year old and 2 step-children, ages 22 and 25, navigating motherhood as a blended family.
In this episode, Bobbi and I chat about
Her experience becoming an instant mom of 3 in 2.5 years in a blended family while managing a full-time career as a TV anchor
The importance of her career to her identity
How she had to make hard career choices as a working mom based on the lifestyle and workplace culture
Going on a “mentor tour” and tips on changing careers as a working mom
The meaning of being a “financial grownup”
3 tips on how to talk about finances with your kids
Strategies to avoid a scarcity mindset around money when talking to your kids
Follow Bobbi at
Website: www.bobbirebell.com
Instagram: @bobbirebell1
And if you want to check out my episode on Bobbi's podcast "Money Tips for Financial Grownups" then head over to "Money Tips to build your kids financial habits early with Stephanie Uchima"
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Ep. 122 - Bobbi Rebell Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephanie: Welcome back to Mommy’s on a Call. Today I'm excited to bring to you Bobbi Rebell. She's the author of launching financial grownups. Live your richest life by helping your almost adult kids become everyday money smart. She's also a certified financial planner, the founder of grownup gear merchandise to celebrate all the milestones of adulting, a former global business news anchor.
Having worked at CNBC, CNN and REU. And the host of the money tips for financial grownups podcast of which I'm a guest as well. But on top of it, all, Bobby is a mom of three. Welcome.
[00:01:28] Bobbi: Thank you so much for having me. Wow. I feel important now.
[00:01:31] Stephanie: I was gonna say quite the resume there. Yes. Well, we'll dive exhausted.
We'll dive into all of that, but to start off, what is your biggest mom win of the week?
[00:01:41] Bobbi: Oh, my gosh, you're putting me on, on the spot, but you know what it is is I, I will tell you, I reluctantly agreed to be the parent liaison, AKA class mom this past year and the previous year on the agreement. I was told that I just had to do a few emails because of course we've been in the pandemic.
I was informed. A week ago that in fact, because things are opening up a little bit, we can do a sort of graduation party for my son's grade. They're graduating middle school in eighth grade. The school does continue to 12th grade, but you know, it's still a milestone. It's still serve a separate thing. And so my win is that I secured a really great venue for the class.
And I also got together three more moms to help me. So I have volunteers to help plan. And, and this is a big deal, I should say, because we're recording this we're only three and a half weeks out. So having to plan this. Spectacular. It's not gonna be that. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. But this, you know, milestone event for our kids, the fact that I am getting it done, I feel is a mom win.
That I was able to get it done, amid a book tour and all the things going on the children will have their eighth grade celebration.
[00:02:46] Stephanie: That is a huge mom win because planning something in only three weeks is really tough. And we have that too. It's called, we call it promotion. Cuz ours is a K through 12 school, but don't you have other room mom, parents, or anything like that? Or room parents to help.
[00:03:01] Bobbi: Well, so what happened is because within the pandemic, the other one left. And so I was alone, but because it was supposed to be only a couple emails all year, and we weren't doing a parent cocktail party at the beginning of the year. We weren't doing end of year celebrations there.
I just, it was just me, but I, but I had three more moms step up the minute I asked. So that was great. We feel, I think dad's to step up though. I feel that's what I'm gotta, I gotta work on. That's gonna be my next mom. Win is getting a dad to step up and join our committee actually. But I
[00:03:28] Stephanie: do have three other moms.
I was supposed to be a room parent for my first grader, turning into a second grader next year, but we get four and there's only 40 kids in our class, but we still get four room parents. And unfortunately I had to back down because of other commitments, but one of the four is a dad. And we were like, wow, that's incredible.
And it, you know, it's so funny to think, because we think like gender roles and we're like, wow, like, oh, dad's stepping up. But like, we shouldn't be thinking that
[00:03:56] Bobbi: no, it, we should not be thinking about it. I mean, I do think it's sort of not good that we only got. Mom stepping up. And so I'm gonna send out a very pointed email soon to get one of the dads to be a recruit.
Cuz we do wanna have a dad. There's no reason why. I mean, and frankly, most of the moms, I mean, first of all, being home with kids alone is a job. Let's be clear, but most of the moms have just as busy careers and things to do as the dads. And this is not a big. I presented different options for where we're gonna have the party.
And so it's a question of just answering the email. What would you like, which venue do you think is better and showing up and helping to supervise the kids? It's not a big lift, but none of the dads have volunteered so far. So I think everyone listening, all the dads out there, or the moms tell the dads.
You need to step up,
[00:04:39] Stephanie: especially, I mean, you're right. Stay at home moms, but also most of the moms are full-time working moms these days and they're going back in the office or they're working from home. So it's no small feat. I mean, the fact that you stepped up to be a room parent and you are like, full-time dual working parents, like.
It's a lot. I wanted to give the audience a little bit of context. Can you tell me your kids' ages and kind of the dynamics of your family and then also the roles you and your partner play?
[00:05:08] Bobbi: So my family is a blended family. I married my husband, my forever husband. We're both a second marriage, but I married my forever husband 15 years ago and he had kids already from.
First marriage who did come to live with us soon after, and we had a child together as well. Who's now 14. And so all three grew up together and they are now 25, 22 and 14, the 25 year old has a job, a great job as basically a. I would say she's a computer consultant, but it's much fancier than that. I'm not really expressing it.
Well, it's one of those things where your kids do something that's way over your head. And she owns her own apartment, which you can read about in launching financial grownups. It actually is the framework of the book is will she or won't she make it? And she did. Thank God. Cuz the whole book would've been a, a whole different trajectory if we didn't have the happy ending.
[00:05:55] Stephanie: And you also did a podcast episode on that with I think stacking Benjamins on how she bought her first place at 24. So I can link that in the show notes too.
[00:06:04] Bobbi: Yes, and key to that is that she wanted to buy it. It wasn't us. You have kids have to do what they wanna do. And number two, who, by the way, when we were setting up, poked his head into the room, even though he's at college, he pops in quite often, which is great.
He's graduating from NYU and he's gonna hopefully go the, the film business. So he probably will not for now buy his own apartment because he wants to do, he wants to be more flexible with travel. So each kid is very different. And then the 14 year old, as we know is in eighth grade where he's graduating.
School, which is very exciting and he's great. So he's still home, full time, but I think the, the 22 year old will come home after graduation and live with us for a little bit while he figures things out.
[00:06:44] Stephanie: Well, and then what are the roles that you and your partner play now in this like new dynamic?
[00:06:50] Bobbi: I think the key thing is that the roles are always changing and it's very much personality driven.
It is a delicate road, delicate road sometimes when you have stepchildren, but I think what was made, what made it a little bit more feasible for us? And this is something that is in many cases, not a choice at all. It wasn't a choice per se, but we're very happy with how it worked out is that we did have full custody of all the children.
and so they grew up really very much on the, on the same playing field in that I, we, weren't dealing with logistics of going back and forth with joint custody, which I think can be very challenging with different rules and different households. So that made it much easier in that sense. And my husband, I will say also, it just is what it is because he is their biological parent, especially in the early years was very involved because as much as I did step up a lot with the logistics in terms of getting to them, their activities or making sure someone else got them to their activities, let's be honest. I was in a very intense job as a TV anchor, but someone got them where they needed to go. He wasn't always as involved in that stuff.
He was still very much involved because he was the custodial parent in the relationship with his ex-wife and she's in a different state. So he became much more involved because of that. And he's also a neat freak. So he tends to do more of the, just being honest, he does more of the household cleaning. We do have help, but he does much more of the household cleaning.
So I have to give him props for that. I do more of the finances the way it worked out. So, and I think that's not always typical, but I hope it is going forward. I think there's no reason moms can't be the ones in charge of the family money. We're often in charge of, of spending it. , but we're not in charge of sort of doing the investing and the accounting and the planning.
And I hope more women step up and take a bigger role in that. And that's been something that I've been in charge of.
[00:08:30] Stephanie: I think, you know, what's interesting though, in Asian cultures, like for example, I run our household finances. I mean, you know, the income comes in and I'm the one who manages all of it from paying all the bills, but to also just kind of figuring out financial painting and ironically, my husband's in private wealth management, so he should be the one doing it. But in the end it kind of is this role in, I don't know if it's like our culture or whatnot that I manage our, our household income, which is interesting.
But I wanted to step back cuz I've talked to a lot of co-parents and usually I speak to the mom who, you know, those are biological children and they're co-parenting, but this is an interesting situation. So step back, you have a huge, busy, busy career and then all of a sudden, you step into this role of mom.
You, you know, you just like all of a sudden one day you now are a mom to two kids. And before you had your son, , what was that like , any advice for women out there? Like how did you run the behind the scenes since you guys were both kind of the a hundred percent parents?
[00:09:32] Bobbi: I love this question and I, I have never gotten to talk about this. And so I'm so excited about this. I was single at age 35, Stephanie, at age 36, I was getting married. We were engaged, but I did have my son right soon after we were six months after we were married, let's be honest. So I was an instant mom of three.
Oh, wow. so I went from zero to three in probably a period of two and a half years. And my husband and I were together a year and a half before getting married. So I, so I can't do the math exactly, but, you know, call it two and a half years, I went from zero, literally being single to having three kids and it was overwhelming.
And I, I did have a really hard time and it was very stressful. It was very challenging. I had a hard, all I can say is I had a hard time. What made it easier was that we did make the tough decision and it was not a, not, maybe not the best financial decision, but it was the right lifestyle decision to stay in New York city because I needed, I, I really wanted to keep my career and I knew realistically in the way that things were set up in the New York city, Metro area.
If we had moved to the suburbs, which is where my husband's family had been, rather than them moving here, I could not have kept my career because at the time, well also just in general TV, anchoring, not the best. Now you can do it a little bit remote, but that was not an option then. And it, it won't be much longer.
I think that people are going back in studio. So I really had to be in New York city in order to be able to keep my career and that identity. And that was really important for me to do because it was not expected that we would have custody of all three kids. I should say, we did not set up here originally planning that and it just happened.
And so it was really important to me to have that continuity with my identity and my career. And I was present as much as I could for those early years, but I did have help. I think that's really important for people to know. My husband also was part of the help, even though he traveled a lot, he was home and was very conscientious that it was his children and he knew how hard it was on me.
And it did inform to some degree, my decision to leave being a full-time TV, anchor, and adjust to this life as being an anchor and a media spokesperson and a speaker and a podcast host and so on, because I did feel that while I could outsource a lot of logistics, when the kids were younger, you can't really outsource being a mother. You can't really outsource just being there when they get home. And this is no judgment against people that are not home when their kids get home. Of course not.
But just whatever moments you can have where you're not rushing off to an activity. It's something, even though I had made this change in career before the pandemic is something that a lot of us were able to experience during the pandemic because when you're not rushing off to an activity, when you're not eating dinner at three different times, because everyone's activity ends at different times, everyone has different homework schedules and so many different logistics going on.
I mean, my head spins just thinking about what was going on before the pandemic. You don't have the time or the focus or just the quiet to have your kids say, oh, you know, someone said something to me at school that maybe feel bad about myself or just the little moments, or you can speak to your child.
And without the pressures of just. You need to clean your room before you do this, or did you pack this for school? There's just so much else going on. And the pandemic gave us that quiet space. So that was a lot, but yeah, but I love
[00:12:46] Stephanie: identity because so many women become moms and trying and keep their old identity, but don't realize that actually becoming, and I mean, you did the fast track, you went from zero to three, but you had, you also had the hormones and, and all of that and you became.
Um, a mother to a newborn and also two older kids all at once. I know you said like the identity and, and that really set in at what point did you finally realize I can't do this anymore. I need to figure something out. And then how did you go about that process? Like, did you have a support system? Did you like, you know, a lot of us go through this in our heads, and I'm curious about kind of like how you approached it.
[00:13:27] Bobbi: I think the workplace is changing a lot now and I hear things are getting better, but at the time it was very difficult. I had my, my boss that was sort of my career decision maker was in DC. And he said to me, he was such a kind man. He said, come back three days a week, four days a week, whatever you want.
We'll leave it that either person can change their mind. On 60 days, notice I chose four days a week because I needed the corporate benefits cuz my husband was working. He had started his own company, so I needed corporate benefits. So I did four days a week that worked out really, really well. On paper.
And I, and I, by the way, I was responsible to have someone there on the fifth day. So my coworkers who is paid separately as a freelancer and I was paid for four days, so I took the pay cut. And so no one that worked with me had to do more work.
That said the people around me were unkind. I had one man who was single about my age, who would constantly complain about the fact that I had Fridays off. I was still working 10, 11 hour days a lot of days. And I never, you know, at this time period, I was never not doing anything I wasn't supposed to do, but just the idea of it bothered him. He would joke that he should have a baby, so he could get a three month vacation. And let me tell you, and I had a C-section, I was off for 14 weeks, which is pretty generous in this country, but it is still not enough.
No. And because of my job, as you know, I was a journalist, I was running around. I had to stop breastfeeding. By the time I went back because there was no, it was nowhere. I mean, sure. I could go into the bathroom, but not really. When I was going to, you know, you're going to these convention centers and covering on an auto show or whatever, it's, it's not realistic.
It was not easy. It was not a vacation by the way, the 14 weeks were nowhere near a vacation. The vacation was the day I came back and I actually number one, went to the bathroom alone. I had a phone call. I ate lunch. I mean, there were all these exciting things that were happening talking to real humans.
I talked to humans. I, I just, I ate lunch. I mean, I remember sitting there being like, I haven't had an uninterrupted phone call. I mean, I love the title of this podcast. I haven't had an interrupted phone call in 14 weeks and it was just, he was very unkind and a lot of people were not. And even the day that I left someone well, meaning pointed out to me that I was the only mom on the floor and he was shocked that I made it to my son was age seven at the time.
He's like, I can't believe you made it seven years at this place with a kid. Wow. And he met, well, he met well and he was a dad of four. He met, well, his wife didn't work, but it it's just these, the, the perception.
And this was so I left in 2017. It's not that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime. But it was just not a friendly to mom's workplace on the surface. It is. And in some job roles, it might have been, but it wasn't for me, even when I had disclosed my pregnancy and they were on the surface, the HR level, very nice, very supportive, good benefits, all the things.
in an actual day to day thing, my colleagues were not supportive. A lot of derogatory comments, a lot of annoyance. If I had to use the ladies' room and I left someone waiting to be interviewed in the studio, which just happens. It wasn't that long. It'd be a couple minutes, but people were, were not kind.
Wow. It was a really tough environment to be in. And the true reality is most people left soon after they had a baby, they would come back for a week or two, and then they didn't make it. Wow. Most of my female colleagues did not last long after having a child there.
[00:16:42] Stephanie: Were there any also physical pressures in terms of like, you know, you have a child, obviously our bodies are not the same and when you're a TV anchor or you're on TV, besides the dealing with everybody else and their comments and all of that, did you have to deal with anything else that involved appearance or stuff. I'm just, yeah, it just said my role. Like, I feel like actors and actresses, they like come back after they have a baby, you know, they're on the cover of us weekly or whatnot. And it's like, you're under a microscope. I feel like. And so I'm wondering if that ever affected you or no.
[00:17:16] Bobbi: Candidly. As much as I'm sort of trashing my coworkers, no one ever said a word to me about my weight. That's good or anything like that's no, that's good. No one did I, myself did right now. I feel a little chunky, but that's on me. That's pandemic weight, but I, I did try to lose weight. I, I came back. I wasn't as thin as I would've liked to have been, no one ever said a word to me and I did eventually lose.
You know, weight to the point where I was comfortable. I think we're all always battling our weight, but I wanna be honest that I don't feel anyone, any of my colleagues ever said anything. Maybe it's good. You know, that's usually the, like not a full body shot. I don't know. You can hide behind a desk, Stephanie.
[00:17:49] Stephanie: Well, it wasn't that bad. Coming back to a job, you know, it's different than being like the center of attention. And so I was just curious at like, you know, all of the different ways that people interact after having a baby. But I could imagine like breastfeeding being on camera and be like, uh, oh, I'm leaking, gotta, well,
[00:18:07] Bobbi: I had to stop that.
Remember I stopped, I stopped a week before and, but your body doesn't. Your body still? Yeah, it, it was, I didn't, I never had an incident like that. Oh, good. To be honest. I, I was good. Yeah. So I was fine. It was more when I was pregnant, there was a lot of, it was very difficult. I was just tired a lot too.
Yeah. It was really hard. And I did, my last day at work was not planned. I really had, I had preeclampsia and I had some other conditions. So it was the last day. Was earlier than my last day was meant to be. Yeah, if that makes sense. So that was hard. It was really hard.
[00:18:38] Stephanie: So you went through this like transition and then you left being an anchor.
What happened next? And how did you kind of go down this path now of becoming an author and all of this, because your background was journalism. And so what inspired you to then switch gears and start something different?
[00:18:57] Bobbi: Well, all the things that are universal to all of us is that I realized that I could keep doing the job.
And you know, my mother who's no longer with us basically had said to me, she's like, no, one's gonna remember what a great job you did at work. Last week. She said, it's really about your family. And I realized that time was going on. My son was probably, I wanna say six. When I started writing the book, he was probably eight.
By the time it finally came out and I. It's one thing to try to get home in time for bedtime. But if all you wanna do is get your kid to bed so you can rest. Cause you're so exhausted and then get back on the computer to do prep work for work. Cause otherwise you just won't get everything done in time.
What's the point? It was just, I was just too exhausted all the time. Even if I could physically be there. I wasn't, I was just exhausted. I was killing myself to try to get to a birthday party for the last five minutes. So he would see me there, whatever it just. It just wasn't worth it at a certain point, I'd interviewed a lot of CEOs and I wanted to make a change where I could be present.
So I did have this idea for a book, what I did well, I went on what I would call a mentor tour. I called up everyone. And this is great advice for all the moms. I'd been out of touch with people, but even if you're out of touch with somebody for 5, 6, 7 years, reach out to them and just say, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about making some changes in my life.
I, or just even compliment them on what they're doing. And just say, I hate to say meet for coffee, but, you know, say, can I meet up. Even, I do a lot of asking people to go for a walk in the park. You can also be candid. Say I'd love just to some career advice. Can I come to you? I mean, I hate when people say I'll buy you coffee.
I don't need somebody to spend $5 on coffee. It's not about the free coffee, please. You know, just be honest, just say I need some career advice. Can I hit you up? I promise I won't ask for a job or whatever it is, or just meet up with them. Just reconnect or have a dinner for five or six of your former work colleagues and have a little dinner party for them.
Or, or lunch for them have a ladies' lunch and reconnect with people. That's another great thing people can do. And so I just picked people's brains for about six months. What should I do? And I thought about doing a documentary about something that I really cared about. And then I had the idea for the brand financial grown up and I decided a book would be better for it.
And it was really a three year project. Stephanie, it was three years before I left Reuters. Yeah. It was three years because you know, you take a year developing the idea. And I made a website that was very basic, just so I could show people what I was talking about. And then I had to sell the book and then I had to write the book and then it takes a year for the book to come out.
So all the things, so it took a year and then six months after the book came out, I left and I had a bunch of speaking gigs lined up and I enjoy doing that. And right now, by the way, I would love to get out and do more speaking. So if anyone's listened to this, please reach out. I would like to come speak to your group.
At the time, I still had three kids at home and, and Harry was still very young. And so I realized doing all this speaking it wasn't great cuz I was traveling and really occupied with that. So it was sort of a different busy and I fell into doing more media spokesperson work, which I really enjoyed because it was very similar to TV anchoring.
I found it very. I don't wanna say it was easy, but it was a very comfortable transition. And instead of talking about the news, I was basically trying to help brands get their message across. And so I've ended up doing a lot of brand work to help, you know, communicate the different stories that brands wanna tell.
And that's been really wonderful and I've enjoyed doing that. So that's been my primary income source actually for the last few years. And I've worked with brands like synchrony and JP Morgan and TransferWise and tally. So that's been really wonderful. I just did something with chase out in Los Angeles, speaking at one of their branches.
We did a community event. I did a series on CNBC through NBC brand studio.
[00:22:26] Stephanie: And was, I was gonna ask, was finance, always your passion, cuz I know. I mean you did journalism in finance. I was curious if like finance was your initial thing.
[00:22:36] Bobbi: So my initial thing was actually that I was super shy and my father was looking for ways to help me break out of my shell. And so he convinced me to join the debate team in high school to help me with public speaking.
And I actually found that I was more comfortable speaking in front of people than like in social situations. And so, but think about it, but I was, it was comfortable presenting my ideas that I had.
You know, thought out and I had a partner and we really worked hard to, you know, on debate. You have to kind of take both perspectives. You're not always communicating what you believe. You're communicating a point and making a case for something.
Anyway. So from that, I got interested in doing TV, journalism, and I wanted to do local news and my dad knew that I wanted to be in New York and I really wanted to have a family and being in local news at the time, this is in the nineties, you would really have to travel from small market to small market as you know.
So lifestyle wise, my father really didn't think that would be great for me. So he convinced me to, or strongly suggested, and this is in the book that I do an internship in business news.
And so I had was an intern at CNN business news. He was also a wall street person. And so he thought I would learn about wall street and maybe I would decide to go work on wall street, which would be much more lucrative than journalism. So basically business news, suggestion of my father, who was a wall street person and also better lifestyle.
And I do wanna say to the moms out there better pay yeah. Your work. I feel cuz you're not. I, and I also, I really felt uncomfortable. I never wanted to go to a mom who had lost a child to say if it was a crime and put a microphone in her face and say, how do you feel like your sons just had this terrible thing?
And, and how do you feel? And I didn't wanna go cover wars. And I didn't, I just didn't wanna cover bad things. So I mean, losing money is bad too, but it's not the same, especially currently. It's not. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it's, I, I was even bad at that. I will say, I, I think I was a decent journalist, but I was really bad.
Like I felt bad. One time someone accidentally said something, they weren't supposed to stay legally. And I didn't even ask that, like he just spilled the beans on something that was under wraps and I got all, you know, the. The company I worked for was thrilled. They're like, oh my God, you gotta scoop. And I felt terrible.
Cause I knew he was in trouble. So, you know, I sort of was never good at that part of it I always was sort of cheer. That's why I think I'm good at the marketing with the brands because I'm always cheering these companies on. Cause I know how much work goes into these campaigns and I want them to succeed and I always felt bad asking the heart.
I did. I did it. I always asked the hard questions because I knew that was my. But I always felt bad if a company wasn't doing well, I felt terrible. I remember I had to cover Blackberry, which is really no more, but they had a, like an iPad copycat out and it was terrible. It got terrible reviews and I felt terrible.
Cause I had to go to their party and like ask their executive, like you got terrible reviews, what's your response. And he, he didn't wanna talk about that. terrible. I was just thinking, but I had to.
[00:25:21] Stephanie: So were you a anchor? So I finished business school in 2009. And so right. That was a, a fun time. I was curious, did you have to cover anything in oh 8 0 9, 2010?
Yeah. Lehman and all of the things.
[00:25:35] Bobbi: Yes, all the things and you feel really bad cuz you know, these people that are losing their jobs for no fault, their own, it was sometimes it was just one bad trader, crazy stuff was happening and it was really horrible. And yeah, I had a hard time with that, but also I knew that we were doing very good work because it's really important to spread the word, especially to young people, how important it is to start investing young and to understand that there are risks evolved.
And as we record this, the stock market is not doing well to say the least, but it's a good, it. Important reminder. It's a really important reminder because people are still up. If you've been investing for a long time, you are doing fine and people need to remember that it is risks reward, and that there are going to be down times and they have to, it's not just a saying when people say invest for the long term, it's really important to understand that that means you have to not close your eyes.
But you need to sort of understand that there will be down times. And if you are going to take the risk and you do want the upside, you will have to take the downside as well. So it's an important reminder because we've had some really big, really good past couple of years and you don't know what's gonna happen.
I remember when Donald Trump was elected and I was still at Reuters. People thought the market would completely crater. My guests all canceled on me cuz they didn't wanna be put in the position of having to respond to the tough questions that were gonna happen and it turned out fine. So you just don't know.
So it's really important to be able to ride out the waves. Yeah.
[00:26:51] Stephanie: Well, I wanted to switch gears now into finance and talk a little bit about what does it mean to be a financial grown up.
[00:26:58] Bobbi: It means taking ownership of your own financial future and your own financial present as well. I should say that means that it's not that you can't ask for help if you really need it, but it means that you are the one ultimately taking charge of where you are going to go financially and you're gonna make your own decisions.
And you're gonna know that just because people are there as a back step doesn't mean they're the first place you go. So I always tell parents when peop, when your kids come to you with a question or concern or a problem related to money, Ask them how they can solve it rather than offering to write a check.
If someone, if your child is truly in a tragic situation and you can write a check to bail them out in an emergency, of course, be there if you can afford it. Of course. But the. Things should not be, let me write you a check.
So on the other side, the young person has to be a financial grown up and, and really try to come up with solutions of their own of how to get out of whatever situation they're in or how to just plan their, their future successfully so that they get to their goals.
And I stress their goals because every child may have very different goals. We all know anyone that has more than one child or has friends with more than one child. They may come from the same parents, but they are different people and they have different goals and it's not right for us as parents to put our expectations on the children, we have to let them come to us, let them say what their goals are and then do what we can within our means to help them get there.
But we have to understand if they're different.
[00:28:16] Stephanie: So I'm curious, how did you start, I guess, parenting your own children in finances. So what are kind of the things that you personally did and like book aside, just curious, what were your kind of your top three things that you made sure you did with your kids and how early on did you do them?
[00:28:35] Bobbi: every child is different. Remember I gave, I quote, gave, I like to joke. I quote, gave birth to a 13 year old girl, you know? So it's,
[00:28:40] Stephanie: I didn't get the, of all things. It's like the worst time
[00:28:44] Bobbi: yeah. You know, it's it's, I, I, I don't wanna say it's the worst time because it's every time, the best and the worst time.
Every it's not easy to reason with a two year old. Let's be honest.
[00:28:53] Stephanie: True. I have one right now and she's, she's a handful.
[00:28:56] Bobbi: Yeah, exactly. I think it's important. First of all, to look for moments when they're gonna hear you and when you're gonna listen to them. Emphasis on listen to them because there are times and, and the book opens with me trying to get my older kids to open up Roth IRAs.
They were not there at that moment and you can scream at them, but if they're walking out to go to a party or some other place, they wanna be, they're not gonna hear you and they're not gonna act. So you need to give it up. I mean, they just it's pointless and, and you're just gonna alienate them and annoy them. So it's important to pick your moments really carefully.
I think it's also important to focus on their goals, not yours and ask them. You're not gonna know urgently, as I told you, the kids have different goals. I mean, and, and by the way, the goals will chase throughout life. I mean, it was Ashley's goal to buy an apartment that doesn't mean she's gonna live there forever. She might decide to move somewhere else. That was her goal.
Bradley. He's graduating from college, he'll have his own goals. And one of his goals, top of his list, I can tell you is not by an apartment as soon as possible. He has goals related to his career. And so we have to listen to him and see, how can we help him doing that?
And then the third thing I think that's so important is to remember that you count too. and we've gotten to a point in our society, whether you wanna call us helicopter parents, or
[00:30:07] Stephanie: I think lawnmower parents is the new one.
[00:30:10] Bobbi: Yeah. Lawnmower, snowplow. What are lawn it's lawn. That's the same thing. You're kind to see everything outta the way.
[00:30:16] Stephanie: It's well, it's like, yeah, you clear the path, you lawnmower the path. So your kids don't ever have to face adversity, which is. Kind of the worst thing ever. I can't believe that's the parenting style now. I almost prefer helicopter parenting, cuz at least they're watching them do dumb shit, but like now they don't even allow them to do anything
[00:30:32] Bobbi: well, exactly. And then in the book I talk about the fact that concierge parenting becomes a thing because they get older and they want us to still be available at all times, which remember when I was growing up, we didn't have cell phones and texting and all this where you just couldn't reach your parents from college to solve all your problems now, financial or not.
We are reachable. And if you don't create boundaries or just teach your child to figure things out for themselves and come to you as the last resort, we are, you know, a lot of parents are available at all times like a concierge and usually can solve problems by throwing money at it. Cuz that's what a concierge often does.
Right. So we need to watch ourselves and make sure that we put ourselves first to deal with oxygen mask first in an airplane thing, where if we don't pay attention to what are we doing to set ourselves up for retirement and the later ages, cuz that's something that's really hard to wake up at age 65 and be like, oh wait, I gotta save for retirement.
No, you don't wanna do that. The greatest gift you can give your children is your own financial independence when you get older so that they don't have to financially take care of you. And if you can put that first, wait, if I give my child, if I drain my savings to give my child the down payment for their home, which is a very generous, wonderful thing to do, and yes, you will set them up for success.
That's great. But if you do that at the expense of your own retirement, what gift have you really given your child? Right. You want them to never have to help you financially. Of course you want family support. You want them to love you and be there for you and so on, but you don't want them to be draining their bank account to help you in your older years.
And you certainly don't wanna ask them for help and have them not even be able to help you because you haven't taught them to be financial grownups. Like that's the even worse scenario is you need your kids help and they can't give it to you. So if you shift your mind mindset that way and think the greatest gift I can give my kids is not needing their financial help.
When I get older. You might think differently about giving them about writing that check.
[00:32:20] Stephanie: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And especially since we are living longer and I've also noticed like, kids are home longer, too. They're in the house longer. It's not like we turn 16 or 18 and we're actually adults and we leave and go to college.
Nowadays parents cover college, cuz it's so expensive graduate school. A lot of times they help them continuing forward. And it's just this like prolonged, almost parenting. I mean, you're always a parent, but like actual, like taking care of them.
[00:32:50] Bobbi: Yeah. I've had parents of kids in their thirties come to me and say, my child is, you know, they have these jobs, they're in the gig economy, but they know they still don't earn enough to live separate from me.
And there are many good reasons by the way, for multi-generational parents to live together and including some cultural reasons. So that's not what I'm talking about. If there's cultural reasons. and other reasons that's different, but if you're living, if your 26 year old child is living with you for economic reasons. They need to rethink their lifestyle.
Maybe they need to think about moving out with roommates or something else. There, there comes a point where they have to be living their adult life. And if that's, again, the exception being, if you're proactively choosing to live together in different generations for your culture or whatever, uh, health reasons and so on.
But if it's economic, then I think their expectations may need to be reframed for how they live. Yeah. Or, or how they, or the amount of money they, they earn. Sometimes you can't just kind of work in the gig economy, doing your dream job forever. If you can't be a financial grown up, there has to come a time when you do grow up.
And that's something that's missing a lot of the time.
[00:33:52] Stephanie: Right. So with your 14 year old back up, what were kind of some of the things you did when he was younger? I'm curious, cuz I have young kids and I have my own thoughts on like, you know how to raise like young kids, but I wanna hear yours on what you would do with younger kids.
I know your book is geared more towards kind of the years where they fully understand more of the concept of money, but I have, you know, my oldest is turning seven. So what advice would you give to moms out there with like kids say 10 and under on raising them to be financially savvy teens, to then financial grownups,
[00:34:28] Bobbi: I would just weave it into your everyday life.
So, and also make the extra effort. It is always going to be easier to go shopping, whether it's online or in a store without your kid. So at least try to do it, you know, half the time, bring them and engage them in it. Just say, can you find a lot of times they're they hide the prices at the grocery store, but say, you know, if it's a little, you can just say, can you read the number.
Read me the number help mommy decide which one to buy, you know, or you can say we can choose to buy the more expensive one because we like it better for this reason. That's okay too, because that's also real life. Real life is not always just getting the cheapest thing because it's the cheapest thing.
And I think it's really important not to always have a scarcity mindset, don't say to your child, in my opinion, I don't think it's ever a good idea. Well sometimes, but to say, we're not getting that because we can't afford it. You can just say, that's not on our list today, or we are choosing not to get that.
We're doing other things. That's not our choice on how to spend our money. And if you want, we can have a bigger discussion later when we get home about the kinds of things that we choose to spend money.
And, and not one thing that I really think was great that I missed doing with my son. And it sort of went away in the pandemic and also he just kind of aged out of it.
Cause he was 12 when the pandemic started, it's when he would get birthday gifts. He would get checks. We would go together to the bank. And again, easier for me to just, just deposit it by myself so much easier, but I would really try to, and it would take weeks sometimes to get a time to do it, go to the bank, have him walk up with the, the slip that we would fill out the slip, which you sometimes have to ask for now.
Cause they don't really do that anymore.
[00:35:53] Stephanie: Right. Everything's like mobile deposit. Just take a photo on your phone.
[00:35:56] Bobbi: It's there, but you can go at most banks, you can go in person and I would have him. And again, we haven't done this in two and a half years because the pandemic, but we would go and, and more so when he was younger and you take the check with a deposit for him, and I would take pictures of him depositing it, you know, and take pictures, you know, of every little thing and make a little collage. And then I would have him film right there at the bank film, a thank you little video that I would then text or email to the relative or friend that had sent him the check saying, thank you so much for my birthday gift.
I really appreciate it. I've deposited in my bank to spend at a, at a later date. And he wouldn't say that exactly, obviously, but you know, depending on the age he would just, I would just film it right then, and then we would just send it. That one when the fake was done too. Right? Yeah. And then the thank you notes done, and then you also have it.
You have like the memory of, oh yeah. Ma gave me $10 for my third birthday. And here's the thank you video. And so
[00:36:50] Stephanie: it expresses like gratitude list. Like it's like the gratitude too for it. It, so it's this like great energy of like, thank you. I accept. And I receive it and then I love that. That's really cute.
[00:37:01] Bobbi: Yeah. So there's little moments. Yeah.
[00:37:03] Stephanie: I love how you've like intertwined parenting with money because a lot of times we think of them as very separate things, you know, money's very transactional money is like more of a concrete thing. And the fact that you were able to intertwine like parenting techniques, cause a lot of the stuff that you're talking about on how our relationship with money is the same way we parent in everyday life or in other things, not just surrounding money.
So your first book was financial grownups, but it was more geared towards adults, not necessarily like parenting for teenagers. So any final thoughts, either adult related or kid related that you would like to leave?
Any advice on, you know, just setting yourself up for success in the future.
[00:37:44] Bobbi: I think it's really important to focus on listening to your child. We all have ideas in our mind and hopes and dreams for our children, and it can be frustrating. I mentioned earlier, like my father wanted me to go work on wall street and I took his advice and learned about wall street.
And I decided that I like to covering it and telling the stories of companies and telling the stories of entrepreneurs and business people. And that's what I wanted to do. And he had to kind of accept that. And I think that you need to accept your children for who they're going to be.
And the other thing is that sometimes children will not be interested money and that's hard. It's really hard. And so you have to first explain number one. Money is not just being materialistic. It's not always about buying a cool purse. Money, when you become a grown up can be about paying for your child's orthodonture. So they may say money is not important. I wanna do this career and I don't care if I ever earn money, but.
If they wanna have a family or just take care of themselves, they do need money. Maybe they need less, but it is important to understand that that life does cost money and that it's not a bad thing. And it's respecting yourself to know that you're worth being paid money, talk to your children and just make sure if they're gonna major in something in college, for example, do they understand how that plays out?
Even for example, Harry says, he'll say, oh, maybe I'll be a YouTube star. Okay. That's fine. First of all, don't tell them they can't because you don't. Okay. You don't know, but also ask them, tell me about the economics of YouTube. And he did that. He said, well, this guy makes this much money because he does this, this and this, and this is the strategy and blah, blah, blah.
I don't know that. That's what he's gonna do. I personally don't think so. We'll check in in 10 years, but. Have them understand the economics of that and what, what life would cost have them play out that scenario at the age appropriate? You don't have to do that right now. Your kids are little, but, but it's, it's, you know, it's always an interesting exercise.
I remember once my son saw what a week of summer camp cost, we did a bonus week that was run by his school between. School and sleepaway camp and the school had a program and it was expensive. It's New York city. And when he saw he was originally signed up actually for two weeks, when he saw what we paid for each week, he was upset.
He says, I didn't realize it costs that much. And two things happened. One. He said, I, I don't really wanna go. It's too much money. I said, well, let's go for one week, not two, then fine. And he appreciated a lot more. So it's not always a bad thing to kind of when they get to an age where they can have a sense of what money means to share at your discretion, what you feel comfortable with.
What their life costs and every child is different, but they might treat things very differently, especially the whole idea of skin in the game of having them earn some money. So they understand wow. To do this event, to go to dinner with my friends, it costs me five hours of babysitting time, whatever it may be, let them have skin in the game.
So they understand money has to be tangible to them and be realistic about it without ever. I, I really try to avoid creating a scarcity mindset. That's that's the big warning. I don't like the, we can't afford that answer to everything.
[00:40:29] Stephanie: It's so hard to be like, that costs so much, or like, especially if their friends are doing it.
So, and they don't understand yet the skin and the game, like my six year old wants to do all these things. He's like, why can't we go to Hawaii again? And it's hard not to say, oh, it's really expensive, honey. We can't just go whenever we want. And so trying to parent that and not set him up for financial failure in the mindset, because I'm all big on money mindset.
It's really hard to explain that to him. And so from your standpoint, what would you say to a six year old who wants to do these things or sees other friends doing these things? And again, like summer camp. And even if I say like, oh, it's $800 for two weeks, we can't afford that or not can't afford that.
Or, you know, maybe let's find something different. I, I still feel like it's like scarcity and it's just like, I'm not gonna spend $800 on you then. Like, you know, it's, it's a lot and you have two other sisters who need to do things too.
[00:41:28] Bobbi: Oh yeah. So what would you say? Yeah. Well, first of all, that that's so real.
So thank you for that. And yeah, first of all, I wanna acknowledge it is hard. And every child is different and they're gonna process it differently. And they might say things to their friends that could go to other parents. So it's very complicated. So I don't wanna minimize it and just give a pat answer.
But in general, what I would be thinking about is, especially at age six, it's, it's young to really process that I don't know that you wanna get into the dollars at that age. And I don't. As you don't wanna do also, you don't wanna create a scarcity mindset and say, we're not going because we can't afford it because it's really, you probably could afford it, but then maybe you don't do other things.
So you can just say, well, you know, we did that. Or, or we let's think about that. Let's think of other ideas too. And this is what we're doing. And it's always surprised me. Believe it or not that some of the wealthiest families we know here in New York city do very modest things. Somehow, if you sometimes you'd be surprised, it does not always correlate that the wealthiest families are doing the most extravagant things far from it.
They're often doing quite modest things. So it's not always that case. Sometimes it's the people that can't afford it, that are doing it. But that's TMI for a six year old. I would just say I would, I would, first of all, listen, and say and ask them to say, oh, do you wanna research Hawaii? Let's look at pictures and then say, let's look at other places we could go.
And just say, let's make a list of different trips and maybe one trip is going to Sesame place. And that's it. In the end,
[00:42:43] Stephanie: I feel. I feel like he's like, I just wanna go to Hawaii cuz I like the beach. Well, great. We have like here, like it's they, it's not even about like Hawaii. It's about like the activities and things that I'm like, oh perfect.
Or like being together or whatnot. But I think it's coming up now because of the tooth fairy. So he's six, all his friends are losing teeth and I'm like, Oh, no, like what's the going rate for a tooth? Are we comparing these things these days? Like, oh, wow. He's like my friend got this for his tooth. I'm like, oh, that's great.
Um, so then like going into those money conversations, I'm like, I have to prepare myself, like, what do we say? What's the right thing to say. So we're not like, oh, your friend got $20 for a tooth. Well, we don't do that in our family. it's like back when I was young, I got like a quarter, maybe
[00:43:28] Bobbi: mm-hmm . Yeah, I, you could do it's yeah.
It's, it's complicated. It's it's complicated. I don't wanna get into the tooth bar, but yeah, I still, I probably still it's. This is, I probably have those tooth still. I used to have those little, the little cute containers, like the little tiny baggies. I, I got very sentimental about that stuff. But yeah, that stuff is really complicated with peer pressure in that way, even at the youngest ages.
So it can be a minefield and, you know, I feel a little relief listening to that. I'm past that, but there's other stuff as they get older, I, when you get into cars and stuff, not so much in New York and all the things. yeah. Yes. It, it is, it is hard, but also they, you know, they also you'd be surprised, especially kids in, in wealthy areas, they sort of also develop a lack of appreciation for it because they realize like this person's not better than me because they have a $3,000 purse.
They'll sort of laugh it off at a certain point. They get over it. Yeah. And they sort of say, you know, that's not me and I don't need that to feel special. I can go with, you know, whatever the person that I like, that just happens to be whatever it is and they don't need that to feel important. And so that's a whole other podcast, Stephanie.
exactly. I dunno. I'm gonna give some thoughts on the tooth fairy thing though.
[00:44:37] Stephanie: Yeah, I was gonna say I'd like your advice on tooth fairy. So think about that and maybe I'll have to circle back on. What would you tell to your child when they come home and they compare tooth fairy costs or income from the tooth fairy.
[00:44:50] Bobbi: I mean, there could be all kinds of variables. I, I, you know, it, it's complicated. I'm still struggling with allowance with my son, because I, I said you have to get certain grades to get allowance. And then what if he doesn't and he doesn't care because he doesn't need to buy anything. Yeah. That's another complicated thing in New York city.
My son doesn't really, he's not materialistic and he. Sort of like an allowance, but he's sort of indifferent to it right now in this phase. He's in, you know, kids go through different phases yeah. And seasons of their life. And right now my son is not interested in money and in terms of spending it and getting, he doesn't really care that he doesn't care enough about his allowance to get the top grades.
And so that's not a motivator. So I'm working on different motivators to get him to be driven academically. Right. Different ways to get him interesting. That's a whole nother topic. That's a whole other topic, so, and, and clean his room. So it's hard when you, you know, when kid, not everyone kid is interested in money it, and so it it's really complicated and it's constantly evolving.
And like I said, every kid is different. There are so many different variables and I have a son right now. That's 14. I think girls are even more complicated at this age. So hats off to all the girl moms out there. Oh. But we're dealing with fashion choices and all that stuff. Um, it's hard. The girls are tough at this age.
Oh boy.
[00:46:00] Stephanie: I have two and I'm I'm dreading the future. cuz they already, yeah. The night, like love to dress up, love all the things, so right. I'm gonna have work on that.
[00:46:11] Bobbi: he is indifferent. He will. I mean, I don't, I don't wanna say he wear anything, but he's just, he just wears sweats does not care. Yeah. So I don't have to deal.
And I know from my girl, mom, friends, it's a whole other world out there, so he's very low maintenance, very not interested in materialistic things and so on. So that brings, you know, it it's complicated when your kid wants things. It's also complicated when your kid doesn't want things. Yeah. Think about that one.
[00:46:32] Stephanie: Everyone intrinsic motivation. That's a whole, you
[00:46:35] Bobbi: tell them when your kid is not doesn't, isn't begging you for anything. Yeah. They're just not interested in money that makes it even harder to teach them about money because you can't, what do you do? Right. You can say you have to skin in the game. If they want to buy something, you can say, well, let's work for it.
Let's figure out a business. Let's figure out where we can budget. Let's get coupons. What, what happens when your kid just is like, no, I. Huh, right. I don't have an answer. Oh, complicated. I know. I feel my second book. I know exactly my, my next book. Your third book. Yes. My third book. When your kid just isn't that into it.
yeah.
[00:47:08] Stephanie: What's that book like, he's just not that into you so you can do just not that anymore. You're just not that into it. Just doesn't
[00:47:14] Bobbi: care about money. Exactly.
[00:47:16] Stephanie: Bobbi, to wrap things up. I wanted to ask, what do you think is your mom's superpower that you gained? Once you became a mom that makes you better at either business or life.
[00:47:26] Bobbi: Rolling with the punches. Just keep going. Cause so much is gonna happen. That's so unexpected. I never thought I would be like an instant mom of three. And so many the kids go through so many different phases. There's, you know, I share everything I share in my book is accurate, but I don't share everything in my book.
And. That's important. I respect their privacy. I don't share things that were tough for them that are very personal for them, but there are phases in every child's life that are gonna be really hard for parents. And we have to understand that this is a season of their life and we have to be there to support them, but they will come through it and hopefully stronger than ever.
And they do grow up and often faster than you realize, and it goes really fast. So just roll with it and know that if today's a really tough day with them and they. Are not hearing you. Tomorrow's a new day.
[00:48:13] Stephanie: And where can we find you online?
[00:48:16] Bobbi: My website is just my name, Bobbi rebell dot come. So it's B O B B I R E B E L L.
I'm on Instagram at Bobby rebel one and everywhere else, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all that. Well, Twitter, Twitter is Bobby rebel. I'm now on TikTok at Bobby rebel and on LinkedIn it's Bobby rebel, Kaufman Kaufman in my married name.
[00:48:33] Stephanie: Are you getting TikTok advice from your kids then? Or.
[00:48:38] Bobbi: I, my kids are not on my TikTok channel, but that's a great idea, Stephanie, I have not recruited them yet.
Although they're really good sports about everything. They've been super supportive about the book. And even on my mother's day card this year, they wrote thanks for the financial advice.
[00:48:52] Stephanie: I love it
[00:48:53] Bobbi: which was really funny. Well, the older ones look, the older ones, it's real. And I'll tell you, you know, like I said, the older one has an apartment now and a really good job, which she earned, but we certainly supported her and her ventures and the middle one who's graduating college.
He's done really well investing, and he's doing a great job hanging in there. Now I should talk to him and check in with him actually on how he's feeling about the market. Cause I haven't talked to him about it in the last couple weeks, but he did a good job investing over the last few years and he's got a nice little nest egg, so I'm really proud of them.
Yeah. But they're, they have not appeared on my TikTok channel, but it's very new. So please help me out and follow me on TikTok. Like, and comment and all those things so that I can get motivated to keep doing it. It's really fun. Actually. I resisted it. Are you at TikTok?
[00:49:34] Stephanie: I am. I did it for like two months and then I stopped for the last year and I'm like, I need to get back on. I haven't been on it in probably, I don't know, like 15 months or something like that.
[00:49:44] Bobbi: Go back on and we'll support each other and I'm still figuring it out. So please write me comments and feedback, and I love it. Thank you for your support.
[00:49:52] Stephanie: Well, thank you Bob, for joining today. I'm so happy that we had to, we got to chat
[00:49:58] Bobbi: me too.
Thank you for having me. This is great. And thanks everyone. Bye.
[00:50:01] Stephanie: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of mommy's on a call. Your support means the absolute world to me. You can find the show notes for this episode and other goodies over at mommy's on a call.com. And if you enjoyed this episode or have gotten value from the podcast, I would be so grateful if you could head on over to apple podcasts and leave a rating and review so that we can reach and empower more moms all over the world together.
Thank you so much again, mommy pod, and I will see you here next time.