Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Andy Earle
Hey, it's Andy from talking to teens, it would mean the world to us. If you could leave us a five star review. reviews on Apple and Spotify help other parents find the show. And that helps us keep the lights on.

Thanks for being a listener. And here's the show. You You're listening to talking to teams, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle

Haye, we're here today with Berna Anat, talking about money. As parents, it turns out, we all have a money story. And research shows that the way we think about money was largely programmed into us between the ages of seven and nine years old. And we're passing a lot of these unconscious ideas about money that we've internalized onto our kids. We're going to talk about budgeting, and why the common wisdom for budgeting doesn't really seem to work for a lot of young people, and what works better. We'll talk about credit, and debt, and getting your team their first credit card. And we'll look at a little hack on how to give your teenager a massive jumpstart on their credit score that I've never heard of before and wasn't familiar with. And I think it's something that a lot of parents don't know about. All that and more is coming up on the show today with Berna. And Matt, and Berna creates financial education media all over the internet. She's the daughter of two Philippine immigrants. And she taught herself how to pay off over $50,000 of debt, and then did what any millennial would do yelled about it on the internet. Her work has been featured on platforms such as Forbes, The New York Times, and Buzzfeed. She's been named the most entertaining financial content creator two years in a row. And she's the author of the new book money out loud. Really excited to speak with Berna today about how parents can discuss money with teens. Berta, thank you so much for coming on the show.

You've been talking about money, or a long time and have a community online. It seems like how did you get interested in this topic and think that money was such an important thing to be talking about?

Berna Anat
Oh man, totally backwards. That's how I got into it. I grew up wanting to be a writer. I wanted to write in magazines. I wanted to be the editor in chief of 17. Magazine back when people write magazines, and I'm a Philippine American daughter of immigrants from the Bay Area. And my joke all the time, lots of Asian American immigrant families, you have four choices. Growing up, you're either can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or a disappointment. And I ended up going the disappointment route. And but my family eventually got used to it. But yeah, my family does not come from any kind of money at all. No finance background in my family. Both my parents are immigrants. And I majored in communications and PR in college. The way I found myself in the morals of money was really I found myself first and like shame and sadness. I was like, in my mid 20s, early 20s, here in New York City. I was a freelance writer, aka extremely ridiculously like poetically broke. And I had $12,000 in credit card debt. And I had $40,000 of student loan debt in that moment. And I was like, cool, but I felt so shamed about my dad, and so confused, but no one else around me was talking about money. So I just assumed I was the stupidest I assume that I had the worst. It wasn't until I started to like, Okay, well, what if I just Googled, you know, like, very millennial, I was like, we're gonna Google how to budget. I'm gonna Google how do you get out of credit card debt? Because we didn't learn this stuff in school. No one was teaching me so this is like the millennial wave University of Google. And I started to you know, learn stuff on the internet. I started to read books and listen to podcasts, and people were like, Oh, you're getting into money. You should read this book. You should listen this podcast this guy's my favorite money. Got it. And then I was like, I noticed one day and I love to say this now that the money world is Hello male. Hello pale, hello stale. It's just like white dudes everywhere giving older white dude money advice, and it's not bad advice necessarily. It's just coming from the face of a person I can relate to and like a voice and a life I can't relate to. So really, that's how it began. I started to sort of learn out loud I posted on my Instagram like, here's the budgeting thing I'm learning what do y'all think people were like what? Like We can talk about money like this, women could talk about money, women of color could talk about money. That's really where it kind of grew up from there.

Andy Earle
What do you think? Is your audience mainly? Who is following you?

Berna Anat
The folks that follow me? I think the most, it's a lot of women. It's a lot of women and non binary, folks. It's a lot of people of color. And I think, because I am not like the most accredited financial expert, I don't have every single, like, I don't give investment advice and like specific stocks, I don't like no crypto. And, you know, I don't have the like very specific details of everything. I think people follow me, because for the very kind of simple reason that I am a woman of color, talking about money in a way that isn't finance ease. I am, you see me now and I seem adult ish. But I like to joke that I'm like, you know, like three children inside of a trench coat, like pretending to be an adult. And because of that, everything that I learned, and this is the way that I learned about money, too. It's like I'm talking to my inner child. Like, I have to use weird metaphors, I have to use pop cultural references, I have to explain things like using dogs or food or memes, because that's just how my brain ingests information. And I think the folks that follow me relate to that. They're like looking for someone to talk to their financial inner child basically, of like, okay, it might be interest rates. And when you say it to me, like, I'm five, and that's how I talk to myself financially. And that's how I share information with my audience of just like, let's pretend we don't speak finances, because we don't. So then how do I say this in a language I understand.

Andy Earle
I love that. And you have really great like illustrations, it feels really youthful kind of your brand or something and really accessible. And I think that's why I'm so excited to have you on the show. Because I think a lot of what's hard as a parent is kind of how do I start introducing topics around money? And how do I explain things in basic ways? And a lot of times, it's really hard because we struggle with money ourselves. Yes,

Berna Anat
big time. And you and I were just talking right before we hit record. And just like how funny that, you know, we want to give advice to adults who have teenage children to talk about money. When as adults, we actually have lots of financial baggage and like financial trauma is a thing. Financial therapists are a thing. And so it's a tall order to be a parent and be like, Well, I don't know much about money. And I have to turn around and tell this like growing being that I'm responsible for about money. But the truth is, that's the way that things have always been generations and generations, you are learning the financial smarts that are passed down to you. Problem is, what do we know? You know what I mean? Like so many of us are coming from a place of like, oh, school of hard knocks, this is what I learned. Because I needed to work. This is what I learned, like from what I gleaned even before Google existed. And so the very first chapter of my book, I talk about unpacking your money story. And you know, I don't even go out the gate with like, oh, tips and tricks and like budgeting hacks or whatever. I'm like, let's first talk about you as an adult. I'm talking to the parent as a parent. First, let's talk about what your money story is. There is a study from the University of Cambridge that says that we kind of set our financial like mental foundation between the ages of seven and nine, which is horrifying. Yeah, exactly. Were you being shown budgeting and investing flashcards but you know, you just don't know. Yeah, maybe somebody was not so young. You're young. Maybe you were but like, a lot of us were not. And so and I don't say that to like panic parents and be like, Oh my god, I should have been teaching them at seven.

Andy Earle
Oh, so forego Hi. Oh, my God, my kids. 13. We haven't talked about it likely.

Berna Anat
If you're far behind, right, 99% of the world is far behind. And so again, I'm the parent first, let's talk about first where you learned about money. What were you learning between the ages of seven and nine? If it wasn't investing flashcards, which from most of us, it wasn't? What you're actually learning is context about money from your caregivers. What was money like in your household growing up? What's your very first memory of money? Do you remember the first time you kind of were able to catch on that money was a good thing. Do you remember the first good memory you heard about money? Do remember the first bad memory you had about money? I think it's very worth unpacking that first for ourselves, and understanding where our quote unquote bad money habits came from. If we don't do that, we tend to blame ourselves. We tend to be like, I'm just bad at money. Like as if we just came out of the womb, genetically bad at money. That's not true. The more we unpack our Money Story, the more empathy we can have for ourselves, the more gentle we can be for ourselves for learning, and I think that's really significant than for passing That message on to your kids. So you don't come at them with this like finger in their face of here's what I wish I did. Like we were all teens. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir. Nobody wants to hear information like that, especially not young people. So my first piece of information is explore yourself, get gentle with yourself, find financial empathy for yourself, and all the rest of the lessons I think will be easier to learn and to pass on. But

Andy Earle
the whole idea of having a Money Story and thinking through it was really interesting. And I started thinking through mine and following some of the prompts you have in the book, and it kind of there's a lot of stuff that I started kind of remembering, oh, yeah, actually, we did. It was kind of like that when I was a kid. Kind of uncovering things that I hadn't really remembered or thought about for a long time just about how we talked about money and treated money when I was really a child. And it's really interesting to think about how that just those general kind of ideas about money or how money works, might then be showing up in our life today. And we have to connect with that before we can really do anything else.

Berna Anat
Exactly. And I know that I'm not a parent, myself, I am surrounded by parents, though. And I understand that it's a lot of pressure to like, heal yourself and heal your problems, quote, unquote, so that you don't pass it on to the next generation. And I think that's impossible. It's impossible to heal, and then give them the perfect thing within your own lifetime. And but I think it really matters to just start and ask yourself those questions. You know, there's, I do have in that first chapter, a licensed therapists kind of walking through what the prompts should be, and how to treat yourself. But I think the number one piece of feedback I've gotten about my book so far, for folks who have read it, as I keep hearing Burna, I love chapter one, but I had to go put it down and like walk a lab around my block afterwards, because we're just renting very deep and intense things. And so go slowly, go gently with your cell. Financial therapists are also a thing. Maybe that's something you could explore if you have the time and space and resources before, you know, coming down too hard on your team about money. Yeah.

Andy Earle
And I always think, you know, less is more in terms of how much you tell teenagers, or how much you lecture them about stuff. But if you are doing some of these exercises, and reflecting on your own money story, and you have some interesting things that you kind of identify about yourself, or realize about yourself, I think it could be cool to that. Also go and have a conversation about that with your kids and say, hey, you know, I was just about reading this book and or listening to this podcast. And it got me thinking about how we treated money in my family when I was a kid. And here's a few things I noticed. And what have you noticed about how we treat money in our family and that kind of thing, which I think could really lead to a cool conversation? Absolutely. I'm

Berna Anat
like, clutching my chest because I'm like this is you pulled it out of my brain. This is exactly what I hope people do is that you know, it's not Let's shove money out loud and into the face of teenagers and be like, learn it, or else. My fantasy is that folks of any age and especially parents, aunties, uncles, anyone who's like a mentor, takes this book and starts conversations with young people and helps them walks through the conversation about money side by side. You know, like, it would be my fantasy, if someone really pulled their kid aside, and I'm like, I'm reading this book. Here's what I learned, what do you think, because in my experience, and working with teens, I worked with teen programs in at the YMCA for about five years, my number one thing I got out of working with teens is they want to be talked with, they want you to sit next to them, and speak to them with respect with relatability. I'm at your level. That's how you get them to listen, that's how you get them to open up and talk. And so what you just said, that's exactly what I want to happen. How beautiful that like, your team gets to see you learning at the same time. And then they feel connected to you in this way that's not coming down at you and I have the lesson. It's like this is confusing for everybody, even an adult like, right, let's open it up. And

Andy Earle
even if a lot of the stuff that you talk about in this book isn't something that people have done a lot before, it's all stuff that you could start doing now even just how cool would it be to say to your kids that, you know, I really want to start understanding our family budget better, and just getting more of a hold of our finances as a family. And I realized that something that I haven't done that well, but let's start doing it together. Can we start reviewing our family budget at the end of the week or the month? Or what does that look like? Yeah, it could be really just awesome modeling and a lot of stuff that I realized as I got older that we didn't do as a family and my family that was like hey, well so obviously my parents were budgeting and saving and investing and doing all these things kind of behind the scenes. And then they were also like encouraging us to, you know, save your money and you know, get a savings account and do all that which was awesome, but we didn't really Have a lot of conversations about the family finances, which I felt like could be really just a powerful way to teach or model, you know, rather than just lecturing.

Berna Anat
Exactly. I've met a very small handful of adults who will talk about money. They're like, yeah, actually, my parents talk to me very regularly about money. Or, you know, like we did have, like, it's very rare that I find it. But when I've encountered those people, those are the people who are the most fearless about money. They're the most like, yeah, money doesn't freak me out. It's something that I use, I know how to get it. I know how to manage it. But it's not the source of anxiety for them the way it is a source of anxiety for so many of us. I'm just like, I've seen they exist, these unicorns exist in the world. And we can make these unicorns if we wanted to. But it does take time to.

Andy Earle
Talk about this kind of standard budgeting advice, this 5030 20 rule. So talk to him about the 5030 20 rule. And Is that realistic? Or how does that show up today?

Berna Anat
Oh, my God, it's incredibly unrealistic. It's so funny that it's even a rule. Because I don't think I've ever met a single person who was like, perfect. 5030 20 Absolutely, my rent fits in there. And so does my utility bill right in the 50. So the 5030 20 rule is this idea. It's a very, like many generations back type of idea that you should split up your money or your paycheck in these amounts, 50% of your money, air quotes should go towards your I call it adulting. Like your needs, that's your rent, those are your bills, utilities, sometimes I call them like your come get me bills, because if you don't pay it, someone's gonna come get you like anything that you'd be like punished or you know, you need to survive is supposed to fit in 50% of your paycheck. And then 20% of your paycheck is quote, unquote, supposed to Oh, actually, 30% of your paycheck is supposed to go towards your wants, the fun stuff, entertainment extras, that's where people are, like, 30 Hmm, so many different directions. That's like, what you don't necessarily need to survive, but it's and you know, eating out, and it's trips, and it's extra stuff. And then the remaining 20% of your paycheck is supposed to, quote unquote, go towards your financial goals, your debt, your savings, investing and things like that. Now, the way the world is set up, I think has been set up for a long time. Nobody's life fits those actual, like brackets. And so I really stress in the book 5030 20 is a great place to start, because it at least tells you there are three categories to your money, that's new information for a lot of us, right, three ways you can split up your money, but the 53 of the percentages, you can mess with those as much as you want as you need to, you need to mess with them. And I think the fun thing about budgeting what people don't teach a lot, is it's a learning process. And it's like a stretch to fit process. So you mess with those percentages. At one point, I think the percentages for me, I was heavily paying down debt like like medically, like really focused on it for like three years, where I was like, I'm moving back in with family, I'm having no fun that no fun, very little fun. And it was looking more like 67% of my paycheck was going towards my student loan debt. So let's see where we're supposed to be 20 It was like 67. And then whatever the numbers were left for, like a little bit of fun, and like a little bit of rent a little bit of bills. And so, but I didn't I'm not living like that anymore. You know, that was my like debt payoff mode. So anyway, long story short, you can absolutely you have to mess up those percentages. And we can't let quote unquote, hard and fast rules like that make us feel like we're not doing it right. Because there's no structure, there's no rule like that.

Andy Earle
It does make sense that in different phases of life are different stages, we'll have to kind of adjust those, depending on what our goals are what's most important to us or what's happening in our lives. But it's cool to just start thinking about it. I wonder once you have those, like what do you how do you actually translate that into action or helpful utility? You know, you've got this and you kind of got your buckets worked out. But this is kind of what's going to be a good amount for me then, how do you what do you do with that? Or

Berna Anat
oh, man, so I think the easiest way to do it and like get it into action first is to set up either those separate bank accounts. Or if you use something like an online bank account like ally, this is not sponsored, I just love them. If you use a bank account like ally, you can take like your checking account and split it up into sections. So you can have like any one checking in while in your one checking account.

Andy Earle
Well that is smart. It's

Berna Anat
wild like and it's not it's so recent, this technology. I don't know why it should have been a thing a very long time ago. But you can take one checking account and split that up into your three categories so that when you're depositing money into that checking account, you can feel Like I want $50 to go into my needs on $30 What if I wanted it like you can split it up. And really, you can make as many categories as you want, you can have like a avocado toast every day category or like, you can have a sneakerhead category, whatever you want, as long as you have your categories, right. And then I say, when you get a paycheck, I want you to give every single dollar a job, which means like, it's like no dollar left on budgeted, you should like your paycheck is that like $1,000, every one of those dollars should be put in one of your buckets until you get to zero. And is that's budgeting right there. And I will tell you right now, the first few times you do it, you're gonna you're gonna mess up for sure, you're gonna be like, Oh, way too little here, way too much there. Other

Andy Earle
than reality, actually, there's no way I can get by on this much here. Exactly

Berna Anat
are like I was really overzealous with my avocado toast budget when like, I couldn't even pay like the rest of my phone bill, whatever. But it's those sort of like hitting your head against the wall moments that teach you a little bit more about your money life. And just so folks know, like, it took me I want to say like six to eight months to even be like, I think I might have one or two rules correct here. It's like, but you sort of have to feel your way through it and give yourself a lot of grace, when you're filling this out. Another very important tip is that you might not even have to do this manually, a lot of employers will actually split up your paycheck for you, and put different parts of your paycheck into different bank accounts if you want them to. So then you don't even have to touch the money. It's like budgeted for you before you even touch it, which is really good. If you feel like impulsive, you don't want to touch your own money, you're afraid you're going to like mess up the flow. If you have an employee who can split it up, I very much recommend that.

Andy Earle
Hey, we're here with Berna Anat talking about how parents can discuss money with teenagers. And we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.

Berna Anat
The first thing that comes to mind is that we were lied to we were lied to so intensely like our generation, I feel like we were sold as my friend likes to say like a crappy bill of goods. The understanding is like Oh, at least you know, I was very I was like a nerd in high school. I was like, the most important thing to me. And my friend group was like getting into a good college, the most impressive college possible. And then we had to sort of feel our way around scholarships and financial aid, but it was like doesn't matter. Like, whatever the most prestigious university is, we are told that if you get good grades, or get into a good school, and if you get into a good school, you'll definitely get paid well doesn't matter how much it's going to cost to go to that school, you'll pay it off. Like that's the idea. I do not blame our of like Gen Z and newer generations for being like kind of side I in college. What's also scary is the you know, the way that I also signed up for my first credit card, I was like a freshman or sophomore in college. And I'm not going to say the name of the bank redacted. But there was a bank that had a table on my college campus. And they were just giving us pre sweaters. They're like, here's a free sweater. If you sign up for our horrible interest rate credit card, I was like, what's the interest rate? I want a sweater. So I signed up. And turns out like years later, I learned about interest rates and a horrible interest rate. And it was a horrible bank also like morally terrible bank. But it's that it was that simple to be predatory to young people. Young people are watching your actions. They're watching what you do. They're watching very closely what you do. And then they're copying what you do. And so in the very last chapter of my book, I talk about financial activism, right, and how the way you move your dollar can affect the world. So if this is something you want to pass on to your young people, you need to live it first. Right? Maybe you're having open conversations about, you're using this much of a percentage of your paycheck, and giving to a charity or giving to a nonprofit. Or you set up recurring donations to this mutual aid fund and why this is why I do it. Or maybe you're having conversations with your teen about here's why we started shopping at the smaller local grocery store that sources like from the local area versus going to the big box store. Here's why we stopped ordering stuff on Amazon because Jeff Bezos doesn't need any more of our money. Here's why. You know, like, we're doing this fundraiser to like raise funds for the specific cause, like talking your young person and like showing your young person what you do with your money that is more than just spending. If you're intentional about your spending, and you're showing that to your team, they will learn that's a principle that they should kind of adopt that that's something important to them. I wish that I had like if I could go back in time, or if I could sort of like Auntie myself. I wish I had someone who was showing me like oh yeah, you know, like yo, we can go shopping. Let's go shopping though at the smaller store that's like owned by Filipino family that we know because when I spend my money with these people, I'm saying to them I want you to succeed. Like when you're giving your dollar to somebody, a company or a person you're like I'm voting from more of you. Water

Andy Earle
your the full interview, sign up for a subscription today you get access to all the interviews I've conducted by as well as new episodes weeks before the general public it's completely affordable and your subscription helps support the work we do here at talking to teens thanks for listening I'll see you next time