Lessons from Real Coaching Clients: How to Set Up Teen Allowance with Bank Accounts, Combine Finances in Marriage, and Rebuild Financial Trust with Your Spouse | 491

0:00You give your teens their own money and they get to decide for themselves how they're going to spend it. We've had a lot of clients recently. They are opening up separate accounts for their kids with their kids' names on it. Their kids get their own debit card. Instead of you having to make decisions for your children, you give your teens their own money, and they get to decide for themselves how they're going to spend it. It's such a good thing to do to get them ready before they go to college, before they move out, and they have to deal with money for real. There's so much financial literacy that starts with this small little thing.

0:32Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt-free, but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget, or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together, or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what?

1:00You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on a conversation.

1:33We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account, or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Let's talk about this concept of allowance, okay? Actually, I don't want to talk about the concept of allowance. You do you, boo, whatever you want to do. I want to talk about how you put it into place. Okay. So we always want you to have a kid's or if you have kids, we want you to have a kid's account because we don't want your personal spending money to be robbed, right?

2:08We want you to have your own money. We're for it. We love that for you. But instead of a kid's account, as your kids get older, you might find yourself moving to an allowance or you're giving them a paycheck or whatever you want to call it. And they might have their own accounts that you're putting it into. So that's what the lesson is for this one. Instead of you having to make decisions for your children, whether, okay, you wanted to go to this game this week, so that means we're not going to go to the ice cream after that other game next week or whatever. You give your teens their own money, and they get to decide for themselves how they're going to spend it.

2:40And so I've had a lot of clients recently. They are opening up separate accounts for their kids with their kids' names on it. Their kids get their own debit card, and they're saying, look, I'm putting this much money in there for every two weeks or every paycheck or whatever. And you need to deal with that. you get to figure out how that's going to work, what you're going to do with it, how to make it last, all of that. And it's such a good thing to do to get them ready before they go to college, before they move out and they have to deal with money for real. And the only other caveat I'll add to this, Vanessa, that a lot of them are doing, which I think is really smart.

3:12I have this too, is if you have one of your kids that's commuting your other children or that's helping or whatever you might, they might get a little bit more money. Or I have a client that they've budgeted in their gas account they do one fill up for their driver each month because they're owning the fact that yes you're helping me out by by doing all this pickups and drops offs and stuff and so anyway so the idea is each kid would have their own account it's how you can teach them you don't need some like random service that people are offering or some other bank green light i don't even know what that is honestly but you and there's a monthly charge yeah you can do it on your own just open their own account you and then you're transferring money and then you get to have these conversations with them show them their bank balance that maybe if they have a phone they can look at it themselves.

3:50And like, you just start to get them ready to do it even, it'll be more complicated, but right now it's simple and that's how they can learn. Yeah. I think that this is a great step as your kids move into say high school. I think that's maybe a good time because it does teach them responsibility. It allows you to know that their account is funded. They have money to go out to eat after a game and you don't have to go with them to fund that, or you don't have to give them your debit card or give them cash. Like you already know that, that and that requires them to also be responsible of a debit card so my daughter we finally set her up we used to have a local bank but it had like really bad interest rates so bad and so we attached her account to ours and she has her own little debit card and it's so pretty the debit card has like a beach on it and it's a sunset scene and it's so anyways it's like this big thing she loves it and last night for instance they went out to eat after there are both of my kids had games and they went out to eat with their friends and i said do both of y 'all have your debit cards they say, yes, ma 'am, we're good.

4:44I'm like, okay, this is amazing. Your dad and I are going on a date night, right? So it was just so nice for them. And they know they can, they have the app on their phone. They can pull up their balance to make sure that they don't go over. They cannot go over, like they can't go over, which is great, but they have a, they know they have a limit. Like they can't go over it. We're not going to Chick-fil-A and buying$40 worth of food because guess what? Your limit is 40 bucks a week or whatever the amount of money you decide, right? So you have a limit for there. And again, the responsibility that brings them in on the conversation.

5:13There's so much financial literacy that starts with this small little thing. Yeah. And there's some caveats to this. So for example, if your kid has a job, you might, and that's what I, everybody is different. Every budget's different. That's what I told my client recently. I said, I don't pay, I pay for my son's haircut. That's it. Because I feel like, I don't know why, but he pays for literally every other thing because he has a job and that's the point. And I don't pay him to cut the grass. that's I he's always becoming an adult I assume I this is required versus my daughter I pay her a little bit for the chores and she's not able to have a job so she wants to have money to spend and so that's how she earns it and I did want to say that you don't you can decide if your kids have to earn it or if you're just going to give them money whatever that's on you but but what you want to do is have a system so that you don't it's taking the stress out of when these things pop up that's what we want you to learn and I did have a client she's like super serious about it But if they don't check, like basically they're handing her an invoice when they have their chore list checked off every week.

6:11And that's when they get cash because she's still doing cash. And I was like, I love that for you. That's really, you're so disciplined. Good job, mom. But then I did, I just want to say sometimes it'll be different. And I do have plenty of clients, like their kids have their debit account because they have their own job. And they have a lot more money in there. But maybe their parents are supplementing a little bit. Like they're saying, I'm paying for your haircut or I'm paying for some of your gas because you're helping with the kids. They're not giving them all of their money. The kids are earning their own money.

6:36But either way, it's still a way for everybody to be on the same page with what's going on with their money and for you to teach them and help them. So I just think, like Shayna said, whatever stage of life your kids are in, whether it's they're getting money for chores or they're making money but you want a supplement or whatever this looks like for you, you can still set this up on your own. You don't need a third party to help you do it. It is free to do through your bank. And it gives them a debit card. It gives them a limit. They can't go over. There's so many guardrails put into place here.

7:03So I just think that's a great feature to seek out. Yeah. All right, budget besties. It's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah, it's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck-to-paycheck feel.

7:44If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, you're about to meet your new obsession. This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now. Yeah, so head on over to budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. So I have this lovely client who, their husband and wife, and he was a bachelor for a very long time. And she is coming, she came into the situation and they got married. They have two wonderful children. But they both have major money baggage from their childhood. He's been doing life a certain way for so long when he was by himself.

8:26And then she came in and now they're doing life together. but they never combined or brought their finances together and it had a lot to do with trusting each other but when we got on the call it was basically like a marriage counseling call which is fine it happens but when we got on the call one of the questions that I asked him I said have has she ever done anything to admit to make you not trust her with finances and he said no and then I looked at her and I said has he ever done anything and you've been together for almost 20 years I think and has he ever done anything to make you mistrust him with your finances and she said no and I said so where is this coming from oh it's coming from your parents because they both said that their parents were really bad with money and it just wasn't a good situation it made them very scarcity mindset and all that so I really have the really open very transparent conversation of if you have no reason to mistrust each other then we need to try to do this the right way can we bring everything together and where we are opening up a bills account we're bringing everything under one bank he has a business she has a business so that's separate and then their finance their personal finances are going to be together but it's taking a lot of work to do this mind work because for so long they haven't done it but they didn't have a reason to not have their finances together it was just the way it's always been done so anyways there's just i say all that to say and the lesson for me would be for our listeners are if there's not really a reason here.

9:54If there's not anything that's lingering, nothing that is the why behind why you don't trust your spouse, you probably need to have a really good conversation with them and break that down. I think what happens, and it can be childhood trauma or baggage, whatever, but I also think money in general is just this taboo thing. And that's like what we've all been taught, or at least what we've absorbed. And so it's something that we keep to ourselves. We don't talk openly about it. But here's what I'm gonna say, Vanessa, like you get naked together. Okay, I am not gonna say whether they did or didn't do that.

10:27I'm just saying like, I, why is finances the thing that you can't tackle together that you can't be honest and open and vulnerable with? But it's true. You're not alone. If that's you like it's a lot of them we have we see the clients all the time. But just put some sense to that we have, we have we see each other naked, like we can see each other's finances And we can talk about this. It's maybe feels like a heavy issue, but we can tackle this. And really, it's one of those things like the more you talk about, the less heavy it will be. You'll see it come be lighter. And you can actually like we talk about in our steps, like the first one we want you to do is dream again.

11:00You can start to dream again. That's going to put some fun back into your relationship. And then you have a positive baggage around money. But the other thing I want to say is even if you have a reason not to trust your spouse, that's all the more reason to have this conversation, to start budgeting together, to get it all out into the light, get it all out into the open and start maybe. And I do think a lot of times, whatever thing that person did, maybe that you don't trust them, they have a baggage that probably caused it. And if we don't start to unpack, it's just either going to repeat ourselves or we're just, we are in our separate corners.

11:31There's this one part of our marriage where we're just in separate corners. We're not on the same page. We're not doing the same thing. We don't want that for you. We want you to get this all out in the open, have the conversation, set your goals, and then set up a system that you both know what's going on and you can go as a team in the same direction together. And usually if that person did something to make you mistrust them with their finances, they are feeling super guilty. See that all the time. They are carrying that. They feel it, they know it, and they're not telling you or they're ashamed of it.

11:59And by you attacking them, if that's your go-to, just know that, just know that was really hard to tell, like for them to tell you. I'll need to work through that together and you will, and you'll come out of this stronger stronger together. Yes. And that's all that we want for you is for you to come out stronger, for you to not have your head in the sand with your finances and to be together as a team. Like we just, that's our dream for you. If you feel like you might need a little help with that, like we're here for you. We are financial coaches and we have these conversations with couples all the time, even if it's not super painful or if it is super painful, there's still some things, some questions, some conversations that we can have together to light and we can help you lighten it.

12:34Like we can help carry this for you for give or take six months and then you'll be able to take get from there. Yeah, absolutely. So if coaching sounds like something that you want to look into, go to budgetbesties.com forward slash coaching, and hopefully I'll see you on a free call. If you're tired of feeling like your finances are all over the place and you're ready for a simple set it and forget it way to budget, we have something special for you. Watch our automate your budget masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'll show you step by step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your account and put your budget on autopilot.

13:06So your bills, saving, and spending run like clockwork. Imagine less stress, more savings, and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank account. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.