The Get Ready Money Podcast

The Get Ready Money Podcast with Gayle Reaume: Creating Financially Savvy Kids

• Tony Steuer

Share episode

Send us a text

On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Gayle Reaume, CEO and Founder of Moolah U about changing the way we think about money and creating financially savvy kids. 


In this episode we discussed:

  • Why you can only teach, if people are interested in learning. 
  • How entrepreneurship brings empathy.
  • The importance of having money work for you. Use money to make money.
  • Why you need to avoid a scarcity mindset.
  • Being grateful for what you have. 

Gayle Reaume is the founder of Moolah U. Her mission is to equip the next generation for lives of financial capability. With 20 years immersed in researching this field, she’s developed a science-based methodology that teaches kids financial literacy through real-life, hands-on money experiences within the family setting.

Thousands of families have trusted Gayle to share best practices for raising financially savvy children through our nationally recognized summer entrepreneur camps and parent courses featured in the WSJ, NBC Nightly News, and Bankrate.com.

Connect with Gayle Reaume:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayle-reaume-46a1453/


Moolah U:


Website: www.moolahu.com

App: Moolah U app (here) https://moolahu.com/kids-learn-money-2/

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work. Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Gail Rehm. Gail is the founder and CEO of Moolah U. In this episode, we'll be discussing how we change the way we think about money and creating financially savvy kids. Gail, welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for being with us today.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, Tony. It's going to be an exciting conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So you know, please share about yourself, what is your origin story.

Speaker 3:

Wow, yeah Well, I've always had an entrepreneurial bend. I've always had an interest in how money works. And then I fell into the regular. You know, get a college degree, get a good job, spend all your money and coming out of that when I had a child I was like I got to get this money thing figured out. And I formed an investment club with some of my girlfriends and you know we were just learning how to buy like what is stock, how does investing work and my daughter grew up around that. You know she was at a lot of the little meetings and whatnot and she wanted an investment club of her own. So I thought I would do that at her school. You know I ran the Brownie troop. Why couldn't I do that?

Speaker 3:

And then I started trying to teach these kids about you know the rule of 72 and you know investment accounts and you know buying. You know like opening a bank account. It just was crazy. They were little kids, third graders, and they were pretty bored with it and I went back in and asked them what do you guys want to know, like what's interesting to you? Cause you can't teach unless people are interested in understanding what you have to talk about.

Speaker 3:

And that was a really huge turning point, cause the kids really let me know, like what they really want to know is why do we need money? Why isn't everything free? And I just got like the world of a child trying to understand a complex concept like money, which is just so deep into everything. You know it's all about value and resource. And I thought, yeah, and what they're learning from the culture of consumption is money is for buying things, but they don't understand why you have to exchange that money and whatnot and how you get that money. And that's really what they wanted to know. And they just want to understand how value gets created, how can they be valuable, how can they access value in the world.

Speaker 3:

And so it shifted everything in my whole next 20 years now have been around understanding where we can tap into that, experience of understanding that for kids, experience of understanding that for kids, and so you know we've had teams of psychologists, educational psychologists, behavioral work done on designing really amazing conversations and programs where kids can actually gain that understanding. A lot of it starts at home. I mean, we had a school curriculum but ultimately, where 99% of children report having learned anything about money even adults report. This is at home when they were growing up. So you know, if we're not addressing that piece, then we're going to be just you know, like I call it, putting frosting on a mud pie. I mean, certain financial literacy is all about information, and it's often not even information kids are interested in, and so we're kind of missing the beat there. And I got really focused on how do we create these experiences for kids where they can own their own understanding of something as complex as money.

Speaker 2:

So that's me Well, Gail, that is awesome, but I think you said something in there that we could probably just end the show with, because it was a mic drop moment is you can't teach unless people are interested in learning, and I think that's where the whole financial literacy industry or movement has really failed to understand is that, you know, we're pumping out all this content and videos and courses and all these things, but we're not asking the question what do people actually want to learn? You know what are they trying to accomplish, what are their goals, and you know it's awesome that you're saying that and that you've based your you know, you and your work around that, because that is key. Unless somebody wants to learn something, they're really going to be tuned out. You know, nobody wants to watch a video on 401ks unless they actually have a 401k and they're trying to figure out a problem with it.

Speaker 3:

But, very true, it's so easy to get the information and the plethora that's out there and people really aren't even accessing it. So, yeah, and this goes back to the entrepreneurship, which is, if you're not, you know, we see certain people in our industry, or if you're doing okay with money, or if you're in the financial services industry, you understand money pretty well, and we're out there looking at how can we make a difference in the people that don't, but we're not really asking them what their needs are. It's customer research and we have. We're coming from our brains, which is what I was doing with these kids. I was like, well, this is what you need to know about money. You know passive versus active investments and dividends. I was like they're nine, you know.

Speaker 3:

And when I stopped long enough to truly see, like, what were they curious about? It was the access point to everything. So then it was all games around trading and we started doing the entrepreneurship projects and that became a a camp, a week-long business camp, which was live forever. And in 2020 we shifted to virtual, so it's available all over the world now and we're putting these kids through this experience of money. It's what do they want to know. They want to know how to get money. We'll show you how, here let's build a business as simple as the lemonade stand. Whatever they want, whatever they're interested in right, Whatever they're interested in They'd go do their customer research. They decide people really want this and they'll pay me for it, and then they build a business model around that and they pitch on Friday and they're already making money by Thursday. It's hands-on in the trenches doing the work of understanding how value gets created, which is really the biggest question we're answering.

Speaker 3:

So I think something to point out here is that every time I've done this, every single parent who's had their kid go through this. This is exactly what they say. I wish I had this when I was a kid and really validates my work. But I also realize that when you're saying that you're like God, I suffered so long Now I'm in my 30s or whatever, and I'm I, my kid understands more about money than I do and I suffered and I'm still suffering, and that actually triggers them to go get curious often, which is why we have parent courses now. But that's hard Fixing something you learned at a young age and you've got a wrong model around it or an unhealthy money mindset, let's say, and you've been doing that for 30 or you know, 20, 30 years of your life, 40 years of your life in some cases, and how do you shift that? So our theory is just get the right one in place at a young age, and that takes time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, that's awesome. Well, I was going to ask you what is Moolah U, but I think you gave us a pretty good description. Anything else you want to add about what you do at Moolah U?

Speaker 3:

The. It started, obviously, with me being curious about my daughter and then it turned into a lot of big, different kinds of programs, curriculums in the schools, these online or entrepreneur camps and ultimately parent courses. Because weums in the schools, these online or entrepreneur camps and ultimately parent courses because we were hearing from parents. I wish I had this when I was a kid, or how can I do this at home?

Speaker 3:

So you know, over the years it's just morphed into all kinds of things Like, for instance, this weekend I'm judging the Acton Academy Kids Business Fair with 150 booths of kid entrepreneurs, some of them come through our programs and whatnot, and I just think we want to be able to expand in that realm, which is not the adult education although our parent courses are very much for adults but it's all about how do you set the right tone for your kids. And so in the mix of all of that, we're doing obviously directly to our consumers, but we're also doing some amazing partnerships with other financial education organizations that might actually be doing programming in the schools, for instance, where there's not experience, there's a lot of knowledge. So we're adding the camp, the entrepreneurship experience, and after that, so they can put that information to work. That's the best way we learn right All the different modalities, right, how do you get information and how do you process it going out, and experience is the best way.

Speaker 3:

So we're working toward that and we're also making this available through HR benefits offerings, because in the world of benefits, everything is getting really personalized. I mean, we used to it was 401ks and health insurance forever, and these benefit programs are getting really interesting. Financial wellness has bubbled up as a huge factor, because employers know that if their employees are struggling, they miss more work you know the whole thing and they don't want their employees to suffer anyway. So, but there's nothing really there for parents on how to do this at home with their kids. So that's the other piece. That's where we're going with next for us. And then, of course, we built an app which is for parents to use to implement the learning at home. So it's not a bunch of videos, it's actual, real money giving it to kids, letting them figure out how to use it in an incremental way so that by the time they're ready to leave home, they're they're capable of understanding how much things cost and how they're going to make their money last to cover their stuff. So that's pretty much all of me.

Speaker 2:

Well, that is awesome, you know. So there's some great resources and you know, I know you and I have talked about this, you know. And a shout out to Derek Wesley at Seedling, because I know that he's also talked about, you know, getting parents involved and that parents are often interested because they never really learned about their money. Are you finding that's a big part of it? The parents, you know, feel that lack of education themselves.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's the. I wish I had this when I was a kid. And right behind that saying when they say that is the shame and the guilt, because I'm talking to parents primarily, and so they're right there going I don't know, I cannot pass this on and I'm too embarrassed to say I don't know how or that I'm not good with it. So in the world of our parent work, it really is very much for the benefit of the children. But what happens is the parents are totally involved, because what they're doing is they're saying how much money am I really willing to spend on Legos this month, for instance? Okay, so if it's $20 for the whole month, I'm going to give my kid $4 or $5 a week, right, and that's going to go to their side and their own debit card and it goes into a bucket. So that's really brilliant. Now the child knows how much money they have to spend on Legos versus mom, will you buy me more?

Speaker 3:

The other interesting thing is we build all these other behaviors in like off the top of any money that goes onto the kid's card, 10 goes into saving to invest, which is the number one indicator of future financial stability. It just is and it's we hear it all the time. You know, pay yourself first, but we're not doing it. It's obvious as a culture culture we haven't done that. We don't even have emergency money, so, anyway, that's all built in, so the parents don't have to know anything in order to do that. But at the same time, they're looking at their own finances. So they're getting a touch of wow, I'm making choices, now I made them for myself and now I've got to make them for my kid, and everything becomes chaos once you have kids, and it's just really hard to stop long enough to figure all that out. So this is what we're doing in that regard and, yeah, it's got to start really early yeah.

Speaker 2:

So why is it important then, to raise financially savvy kids?

Speaker 3:

well, any parent who wasn't financially savvy when they got there is, I mean, we all kind of know. Right, it's again the shame and but also, you know, if we leave, if we step into adulthood with no real experience or understanding of how money works and how to make it last and all those things, you know, we're more than likely bound to a life of debt and scarcity. And it's so fear-based and so multiple reasons why, as individuals, we don't want to live that way. But even broader, for our culture, if we have a culture of people that are so afraid of not having enough, they're just living in a mindset of scarcity and a reality of scarcity. They can't contribute, right, and we need a world where we're all able to contribute to a world that works for everyone, right. And so sometimes when we hear a world that works for everyone, we're like, well, who's taking care of me? But someone else is, so we all have to learn that and we have to have the space to do that. Someone else's, so we all have to learn that and we have to have the space to do that.

Speaker 3:

Another reason entrepreneurship is really good is it brings a lot of empathy. Like, what's going on out there? What kind of problems do people have that I might want to go solve, whether it's through a nonprofit doing services or if it's a business that you can make money and hire employees. But what difference can I make? Which is kind of where I came up with my company, and that empathy is the foundation of a thriving community. So when we're living in scarcity, we can't have that, we don't operate there. This causes a lot of trouble in our world, in our communities, in our families. Think about the thing people fight the most about in their families money yeah.

Speaker 3:

So wouldn't it be nice not to have that conversation?

Speaker 2:

It would be nice and I was wondering, before we get into the get ready money questions, could you share with me the story that we were talking about pre-show about the homeless woman?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, briefly, you know, again, this is the empathy that we don't experience. I live in a downtown area of Austin and you know there's plenty of people wandering the streets and you know you think about that as like it's a problem and it's separate from you, but we also tend to think about what's wrong. Why don't they just get a job? Whatever, we have our opinions or we do the there, but for the grace of God, go out. We have all these opinions about it, but do we really understand it?

Speaker 3:

And I had the experience of carpooling a woman to a seminar we were in. I got to know her really well over the 10 weeks and learned that she had become homeless because her husband had become very ill and they'd used all their resources to help him and he finally died. And then she was left homeless with three kids or, you know, at the edge of her life or the edge of her rope, and she ended up in her car. And so, you know, for the next five years her kids were taken. You know, for the next five years when her kids were taken, she'd gone through every horrible nightmare that we all fear so much, because we're all in that sort of scarcity place, which is why we don't have empathy for the homeless. We don't want to think that we could be there.

Speaker 3:

So the idea was that, you know, we can really see through the lens of someone else. What, how easily that can happen. It was such an awakening for me that I realized that this is not about taking care of ourselves. It's really got to take place in the world of. We all have the opportunity to have the tools to never end up there. It allows us our own security. It allows for us to take care of the rest of the world in a way that we might not be able to when we're living in scarcity. So kind of a long, it's a flywheel. You know we got to be in good shape, but we also in order, so we can help other people who might not be, and that help might come in the way of educating them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that and I know that's why, personally, I'm passionate is not because of homelessness in my case, but because I've done some litigation, consulting, working with regulators and seeing you know a lot of financial fraud, elder abuse, you know again in the financial fraud space, you know again in the financial fraud space. And when you look at this is you know a lot of it comes down to education and people not even knowing the right questions. To ask is somebody will say, well, how could that happen to somebody? Shouldn't they have known better? And it's kind of that shaming question and it's the same thing. It's like, well, how could they possibly have known better?

Speaker 2:

And we can all look back and say, well, you know, I can think of a bad investment that I made, but we were fortunate because we didn't invest everything in it and we didn't get heavily into it, so that bad investment didn't really come back to hurt us. But think about that bad investment you made. What if you'd thrown twice as much at it? Would that have it? And did you like you talked about?

Speaker 2:

Is we all have the tools out there available to us, but we don't even know sometimes what tool we need. You know. So if we're trying to fix something, you know, let's take a plumber. You know, if I'm trying to fix something in my bathroom, if I don't know the right tool, hitting everything with a hammer is not really going to be productive, and if you don't know which pipe it is or how the pipes work Exactly, and that's the thing.

Speaker 2:

And so you know. That's why the beauty of what you do and the rest of you know, for my listeners, you know the other guests is these guests are helping you understand which tools to use and when you need to use them. And that's all. And you know, if you, if you're learning something on the show, please go ahead and share with other people so they know how to do this in their lives, which is what Gail's talking about is you know that we can do this as a community to help our friends, to help our families, to help our loved ones. You know, be safe and hopefully not end up homeless or in a bad situation. So you know, be safe and hopefully not end up homeless or in a bad situation. So you know I'll get off my soapbox now. Thank you everyone for bearing with me.

Speaker 3:

Well, I have a question for you. I have a question for you about that. Which is the? The? What keeps people from even wondering is this a good investment or is this the best way to use my money is, again, I think it's that shame.

Speaker 3:

Well, should know, like and look amazon buy this. So I'm gonna like, that's what I'm listening to. You know why would I go look at youtube just to check in a video about should I buy this or not? We don't even know. We're just hooked into the consumption and so we're not gonna go look and know. We know, maybe it's like I know I shouldn't have chopped the cake for breakfast. I know how to lose weight, right, I always love that example, but I'm not going to go watch a video about it before I eat that cake, and so cause it'll talk me out of it. Whatever, we're just not going to go do the stuff we were curious about because we're too ashamed. You know, we're embarrassed that we don't already know or we already know and then we're still going to take the bad action. It's all about learned behaviors and you've got to learn those young. You've got to get the right ones young.

Speaker 2:

Well, and you have to ask the question. You hit on it. Shame is a huge part of these financial abuse cases is people you know saying, oh boy, I should have asked the a question, or there was this that I wasn't really comfortable about and I just didn't want to seem like I didn't know what I was talking about. So I kind of went along and you know, and you think back to when you were a kid, and oftentimes a kid who kept asking questions.

Speaker 1:

Everybody would glare at you know it's like why are you asking questions?

Speaker 2:

And so we learn to not ask questions, sometimes because we don't want somebody, or you know, if you were put down by a teacher, so well, we covered that last week, you know, don't you remember? Yeah, so we don't ask questions. So, gil, let's get into the get ready questions. If I said we don't ask the question, so, gail, let's get into the get ready questions. The first one is what basic money concept do you?

Speaker 3:

wish people knew that money is a tool and it has many uses and we can use it to make more. And that has a lot of judgment with it. Sometimes it also has a lot of fear. But the most important thing, just like I said earlier, you can know, oh, I should be saving and investing. But the doing of it, so the actual muscle and discipline it takes to only use 90% of your money on consumption, which is still a lot of money, I mean, even if you're not making much, it's 10% goes into saving to invest. And that is the number one indicator of financial stability across all cultures everywhere is that we don't use all of our money on buying things versus buying investments. You know it's how we use our money and that comes from a mindset that's not scarce. I mean, if you can't save 10%, yeah, then there you go. So that's probably the most important thing and that's why all of our work, in all of our work, it's 10% saved off the top.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that's so important, because people talk about retirement. I like to reframe it as financial independence, because that's what it really is is that you have enough money put aside that you can live off it, and that's all about it.

Speaker 3:

Not live like when you say off it, like people think, well then I can start drawing down from it. It's that it's making you money. So one of my favorite quotes from my favorite author and smartest business money man in the world, warren Buffett, is if you aren't making money while you sleep, you're going to work until you die, because you've got to exchange value, you've got to make that exchange of value. So, yeah, you draw down from your golden egg and then you have nothing left to make that exchange of value. So, yeah, you draw down from your your golden egg and then you don't. You have nothing left to make money. So we have to reframe. I guess, yeah, like you said the retirement, like, no, you have this thing that's gonna like run for you and make money for you.

Speaker 2:

Well then you can actually stop having to trade your time yeah, no, that that is an awesome quote and I I think that really sums it up is you, you know you have to do these things, and there's so for people watching and listening. Don't worry, there's so many different ways to do this. It's something that anybody can do, it's just you have to put time into it. And, as Gail said, is you have to, you know, start doing it, and today is the best day to start doing it.

Speaker 3:

So, gail, well and even if you don't know where you're going to invest it, don't even worry. It's the mindset. So I recommended this to many people and a lot of adults have come back to me. It just changed everything you know, because now they're really conscious about the money they're spending. I'm like how much did you save? It's only been a couple of months. I don't have much, much, but I'm not using the 90% the way I used to either. So it's really more than just the physical sense of having that money. It's more than the tangible opportunity that that provides. It's your mindset changing so that you aren't in scarcity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100%, 100%. That's great advice. So, gail, what is one simple thing that people can do each year to set themselves up for financial success?

Speaker 3:

Wow, that's a big one. Don't necessarily know. I mean the 10% part. I think it would be like making sure you're attending to looking at your life. I mean I think people forget, like they go month to month, they get through December, all the high expense stuff of that, and then they start thinking about January or next. You know the next thing. They're not saying what's going to happen to me this whole year. I like that, whether it's at New Year's Eve or if it's anywhere at some point during your life. Maybe it's quarterly, where you're actually paying attention To, literally like looking at your profit and loss. Treat it like a business. I like to tell people that their home is no different. It's money in, money out and not understanding how you're going to make that work is no different than being irresponsible as a founder of a business, 100%.

Speaker 2:

I love that advice and that's behind the whole Get Ready Blueprint.

Speaker 2:

My latest book is to help people, you know, go back and review things, because I think so often we set in and forget it with different financial services and products and they all need to be reviewed.

Speaker 2:

But, like you said is we need to take a look at our life, you know, like are we on track for our goals?

Speaker 2:

Are we spending more than we're saving? You know, and taking a look at the big picture, because when you're looking at everything in micro which is how people make many financial decisions, like one that people have heard me say this a million times is when I talk about Bitcoin, the question shouldn't be is whether or not you should buy Bitcoin. The question should be is Bitcoin the right tool to get you to your goals? Should be is bitcoin the right tool to get you to your goals? And when you look at it that way, you're reframing everything to get to what you're talking about. Is you're keeping in mind the big picture and to keep picking on bitcoin because I love doing it is, you know, is bitcoin part of your big picture or is it just a random tool, because you wouldn't look at a tool you know at the hardware store and go, okay, I'm just going to buy this tool. You go okay, well, this tool is going to serve a specific purpose.

Speaker 3:

You wouldn't look at the tool and say, well, is this a good?

Speaker 2:

tool or not?

Speaker 3:

It's the value. Is it a value? Does it have? I'm giving up value, and so is it going to bring value. Is it going to help me make money? I think the other thing that you pointed about is data informs everything. If we're not measuring what we're doing, if we don't look at what we've done and say, hmm, I spent way too much on wine last year, or whatever you know, you can't even begin to make choices that are going to put you in a better place, and so when we ignore that, roadmap of our finances, then we're just driving blind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100%. So here's one about habits. What is one habit that people can change when it comes to their money?

Speaker 3:

I just think time. I think we're in such a hurry to have the latest thing, to make decisions quickly. Decision fatigue is really rampant because of our fast moving world and we would rather make a really quick decision to just to get the decision done. Oh, I don't know, I could probably buy this cheaper online or wait for a sale, but I just want to have it now because I don't want to have to think about it anymore and I think behaviorally, emotionally, that's been a really difficult slippery slope we've fed into, especially once everything was online and so easily available. We didn't have to think about going to the store to get stuff, and just the process of getting in the car and driving somewhere to get something takes a lot more energy and thought than saying, oh look, it's on sale, Push a button and you have it. So there's that. And that's what we want to create more friction with the way our money is used and everything out there. Right now, all the technology is create frictionless spending.

Speaker 3:

So, look at the investors behind companies that are doing that. I mean, it's a movement. It's not like there's, you know, it's not a malicious of efforts, but the people that are really organized around making sure it's frictionless are the people that are going to benefit the most from those kind of purchases. It's really sad to say that. That's the truth. So, and it's really hard to create friction, it's really hard to slow down. So a behavior might be putting your money into some sort of a budgeting system or even, like in the olden days, cash envelopes.

Speaker 3:

You know this is how much I'm going to use for this, and then you have to stop and think it through a little bit. So one of the behaviors is to truly organize yourself in a way that you have to wait before you can make those decisions and allow yourself some money for, you know, impulse buying, but in general, the bulk of your money should be more thoughtfully used, and the only way to do that is to remove it from having access to it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that advice and I think that is one of the problems, because you know what you're talking about is in the old days. The old days, you know, 20 years ago if you wanted to buy something.

Speaker 2:

You know, like you said, you had to go in the car, you had to go to the mall. You know you had to wait till the store was open because the store was only open certain hours was open because the store was only open certain hours. You know you can be sitting. You know the tv at night at a clock, oh, I need a new pair of shoes. You know, just amazon will have them to me tomorrow. One click shopping, free shipping. Um, you know that we think are things that are good for us but, like you said it is, they're actually not. It's like having a little fiber in your diet. Maybe you need a little fiber in your financial diet. I won't take that analogy too far.

Speaker 3:

Because that instant gratification that we get from that push the button and I have a thing is addictive in its own right. All of a sudden you're like, well, that was easy, I want to do that again, that was fun, I got something right away. I mean, this is the whole mentality of behavior, psychology around gaming games online. You know, apps with games, all of our apps. The faster we can move things and do things, the more addicted we are to the process, because it was. It took the pain of waiting and the decision making out. It's like you made a decision and you were done. I mean, decision fatigue is a big behavioral issue in this fast moving culture. So yeah, don't have to say more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we could do a whole episode about decision fatigue. So what money myth are you trying to break?

Speaker 3:

Money myth that I'm trying to break is that money is complicated and not for me and I, you know, on a personal level mine is, I'm no good with money. You know it's like we all have our own money mindset we came up with. But a myth generally is it's really there's haves and have nots and you know it looks like that, but then we're all still surviving out here, so we all seem to have enough somewhere. And then this whole idea of enough, like what's enough, like what is what is the value of having enough money and what's enough to you and what does that provide you?

Speaker 3:

I don't think we look at money as a tool. You, and what does that provide you? I don't think we look at money as a a tool. We look at it as this it's a envy or wanting something we don't think we have. And when we really do have enough, we're just not grateful for what we've got or not dealing with what we've got in a really powerful way that makes us feel good. That's the myth. It's kind of large, but you know, again, it's kind of a culture of us moving real fast and having money mean everything I grew up in wisconsin farmers.

Speaker 3:

Everybody was just happy. You know, we had our chickens and we know, whatever. I wasn't always out in the country but when I was, I was like really clear that this is a life, this. These people have a fantastic life having this farm with these chickens. Because I love going over there and you know, it was just to me that was like why do we need a fast car and all these things we think we need that? We're not really. They're not really um, honoring our, our experience of life, necessarily so and um with you.

Speaker 2:

I just read something yesterday. I wish I remember, uh, where I read it, but they were talking about that you know we tend to think we don't have all these things, but we're better off than the King of England was 300 years ago in terms of what resources we have and how rich we are. And you know we tend to forget that that we're so much better off than people at any other time in history, and that in this country than pretty much people anywhere else in the world. You know so it's like the more we get it seems like, you know, our mindset almost becomes a little bit worse about it. So, gil, let's get out the time machine now. What advice would you give your younger self if you could go back in time, knowing what you know now about money?

Speaker 3:

I think I understood a lot about my parents were really great I mean, I was always kind of doing projects and things but I really didn't have the idea of that. It that it was a tool to use for investing and I wasn't in the habit of saving 10%, so I was left with. I could manage the money I was making, but I was always right at the edge. You know, I was never. I was never getting money to begin to work for me.

Speaker 3:

And a really good example is, you know, I raised my daughter in this and she was doing investments with her investment money buying a bubble gum machine and putting it at this really hot local restaurant and making 50 bucks a month at 12 years old. Right, she was just constantly using her money to make money so that when she finally, you know, got out of college, she was had already saved a ton of money which is difficult to do in college and continually always kept using money to make money. So that actually helped her in college and, you know, got out of there and started buying real estate and was able to just move right into a profitable investment strategy for her. You know, there's a lot of ways you can invest and that's one of the ways that she's growing her wealth and using her money to make more, and it was so right there. So I wish I had had more of the experience of using money to make money. I got a really good basis of how to live within my means essentially, but not that other piece.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's awesome and I know you've talked about that earlier and that's such an important thing is going back to the Warren Buffett quote is about, you know, having your money work for you. Your money should be making money for you while you sleep, and that can be a whole variety of things. So, gail, to wrap up, what is your number one tip on changing the way we think about money?

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, you know, if we can experience ourselves as having enough, we can live much happier lives. And the way we do that often is by giving some of it away. And I know a lot of people donate and whatnot, but doing it from a place of you know having that be an experience of enough and not have it come from a judgment. I'm giving this away because someone else needs it more than I do. I just have it to give and that doesn't mean spending on yourself, but I'm just going to spend more.

Speaker 2:

It means.

Speaker 3:

You know, it's a really interesting idea I had my money is like oxygen in blood cells. That's the opposite. That's opposite Money is the blood cells that just move oxygen around. So you know, the idea that we're just continuing to create money flowing instead of hoarding it or, you know, using it and not having it flow inside of our communities. I think that's got to happen in order for us to start to change the way we think. If we're just buying, the money's moving but it's not moving in a way that's actually contributing something to someone else or to some other effort, I just think we. I know, in the moments when I have felt as oh my gosh, I'm almost out of money and I'll literally give a dollar to a homeless person you know it's like just buy someone a coffee Just do the nice thing, just be empathetic, be contributing, be generous, because if you are being generous, you will actually start to realize you have enough.

Speaker 2:

If you start giving away or realize you have enough. I love that and I think we underestimate the power of giving it. Actually, like you said, it benefits us as well as the people we give money to or the organizations, because you can support organizations that you believe in and you can see the difference, especially if you support your local nonprofits. You know that are doing something that you love if they're, you know, buying books for kids or you know, like my son has type one diabetes and listeners have heard that before is we support organizations that support kids with type one diabetes and it's something that we're close to and it makes us feel good, and we know that kids derive tremendous benefit, as well as the families, and I know that's a big part of what you do is that the kids are part of a family and that when you do these things for kids, you do something for the family. So, gail, where can people learn more about you? And Moolah U?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, of course, our website, which is MoolahUcom, spelled M-O-O-L-A-H-Ucom. We have information about our entrepreneur camps which are going on this summer. They're all virtual now. We have a place where you can go preview one of our parent courses. And, yeah, and about us a little bit more. See some of our press. We've been on NBC Nightly News and we've had a really fun 20 years of of doing this, so it's lots to see on the website. But I'm definitely interested in meeting people that are would like to work together to further this experience with parents, whether it's through HR benefits, as I mentioned earlier, or working with the Acton Academy, working on there with other schools that are doing entrepreneurship and bringing programming in there. Yeah, and I also do individual coaching for families, so if your family is wanting to start moving into, you know a stronger experience of how to raise their kids with money can have a call, so reach out.

Speaker 2:

Awesome and for everybody watching and listening. As always, there will be links to Gail's website social media profiles so you can get in touch with Gail and with Moolay Yu and check it out. So, gail, thanks again for joining us today on the Get Ready Money podcast. Thank you, yeah, it's been a real pleasure and, as always, thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode of the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and share with a friend. Until next time let's change the way we think about money. Thank you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Tony Steuer

Host