The Get Ready Money Podcast

The Get Ready Money Podcast with Karen Holland: The Power of Thinking Before Buying

• Tony Steuer

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On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Karen Holland, Founder of Gifting Sense about teaching our kids to think before they buy. 


In this episode we discussed:

  • How the DIMS (does it make sense) score helps kids (and adults) make well-informed decisions before spending money.
  • Basic financial literacy is a human right.
  • Our money personality is relatively stable and established by adolescence.
  • Thinking before buying is a simple habit. 
  • Slow down with your money: FOMO (fear of missing out leads to spending with speed, which can lead to regret.
  • Think about the total cost - lay bare the facts of a purchase.


Karen Holland has been making learning about money immediately helpful to school-aged children for over 9 years through her early financial education Not-For-Profit Gifting Sense, home of the DIMS - DOES IT MAKE SENSE?® SCORE Calculator. A free and safe online tool that introduces children to the habit of asking & answering simple questions about typical childhood purchases, before, anyone spends a dime. Karen worked for Canada’s largest bank before having a family that is now grown up. She has an Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics and a Master’s Degree in Economic History. 


Gifting Sense has been recognized at the Money Awareness & Inclusion Awards three years running, in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Connect with Karen Holland:


Gifting Sense Website (here)

LinkedIn (here)


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The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.

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.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Karen Holland. Karen is the founder of Gifting Sense. In this episode, we'll be discussing Karen's insights on how we change the way we think about money and talk about money with our families. Karen, welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 3:

Oh, thank you, Tony. I'm so pleased to be here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I'm excited. We've known each other for a while, but please share with the audience what is your origin story.

Speaker 3:

My origin story is that I grew up with a mother who was an Olympic dollar stretcher and, like many kids, I had no idea that I was growing up any differently than any other set of children or family, and I really didn't discover that until I was a mother myself and I spent about 12 years on the sidelines of baseball and hockey games when my son was on those teams. And what happened is at first, just by observing, I saw that kids were asking their parents for spending money and there wasn't the process in place that there was in my own family which, to be honest, I had just grown up with and then taken over from my own childhood and that was to ask and answer simple questions, but standard set of questions about typical childhood, tween or teen purchases before any money was spent. So you know we parent in a tribe and eventually you know you're spending weekend after weekend with the same families and my friends start to notice and they start sending their kids to me. They're like go talk to Karen.

Speaker 3:

And we're word lovers in my family, big Scrabble players. We love a TLA, a three-letter acronym, although DIMS doesn't make sense as a four-letter acronym and it just sort of fell out of me, what's the DIMS score? And the rest is history. I wireframed the site and found a developer and started delivering workshops and now we have three money, awareness and inclusion awards. We just went to the Jumpstart National Educator Conference and we're heading into our busiest holiday season ever.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. That's really exciting. Well, let's go a little bit deeper on it. Tell us about the DIMS score. What is the DIMS score?

Speaker 3:

Well, the Does it Make Sense Score Calculator is a set of questions that children answer before they spend their money or anyone else's, and they're not difficult questions. A lot of them the kids have already heard how much do sales tax and shipping add to the cost of a seemingly small online purchase? How much does safe transportation, snacks and souvenirs add to the cost of attending a professional sporting event or a concert? Do you have a sibling or a cousin who can use this item, a piece of sports equipment, clothing, whatever? When you're done with it, are you willing to spend some of your own money? That's in every silo.

Speaker 3:

So the first question, first decision kids make is are they calculating the doesn't make sense score for an item or an experience? And then we have six silos and items sports equipment, toys, electronics, clothes, special occasion clothing, anyways. They answer these questions. It takes about four minutes and we distill their answers to the questions into a number between one and 10. And that's the Does it Make Sense score. And what we say is that if you can't generate a Does it Make Sense score of eight or greater, you probably don't have enough information about the purchase you're thinking about to make a well-informed consumer decision.

Speaker 2:

Well, I love that because I think, instead of focusing on yes or no, it's like can you make a well-informed decision? I think that's a really different way of looking at it, because sometimes it is a lack of information rather than a good or bad thing.

Speaker 3:

You know. It's interesting that you said that because, when you think about it, family arguments about money really stem from the question what's the big deal? What's the big deal? I just want to go to the movies. Well, parents know the big deal is not the $8 movie ticket, it's the fact that you need $16 for snacks, popcorn and soda. You have to get there and back safely. Maybe your parents have a previous commitment. They might have elder care. A sibling has to be somewhere else.

Speaker 3:

So really what the doesn't make sense score calculator does is helps kids consistently lay bare the facts of a purchase. And children are like everybody else. When they slow down and really look at a spend, they spend differently. Gets the whole family singing from the same song sheet and now they know what the big deal is before they even go to their parents. And that's why we say thinking before buying does so much more than just help young people save money. It helps them avoid disappointment, reduce know. We say thinking before buying does so much more than just help young people save money. It helps them avoid disappointment, reduce waste, improve family harmony because they now know what the big deal is with the request before they make it, and protect the planet. Of course, thinking before buying is the easiest way to be a planet protector, because when we only buy what we'll actually use and appreciate by default, we're lowering our carbon footprint and the number of items that we put into landfills in our lifetime. So it's a win, win, win, win.

Speaker 2:

On many levels. And I want to back up to something about that, because it's something I talk about in my most recent book is thinking about the total true cost of a purchase and you know, especially when you get into the big dollar purchases you know when you buy a car, you have your insurance, you have, you know, registration, you have all the other things that go along with it and that's, you know, as you point out, that's where the cost of something really goes up dramatically, and so you can apply, you know, the DIMS score, not only for kids.

Speaker 2:

But you know, I'd urge the audience, you know, if you're working with your clients, to encourage them to think about the total purchase of what they're thinking about if they're buying a new home, everything else that goes along with a new home, or you know, have your parents, you know, have your clients talk to their kids about this and if you're a parent, it also works with your own kids, even if you're a financial advisor.

Speaker 3:

Parents and educators tell us they use it all the time and I like to remind people that gifting sense is in the think more business. We're not in the feel bad about spending business. We're in the think a little more before you spend business. And that's because spending is so speedy today, with our frictionless spending environment. Right, there's never been more opportunities to buy something and it's never been easier to employ a digital payment method. But spending with speed fear of missing out leads to spending with speed. Spending with speed leads to buyer's remorse. So we tell the kids, think of the dim score calculator as a speed bump Just slows you down enough to help you avoid a purchase. You may well end up regretting. And if you think about speed bumps when you're driving, Tony, they don't stop you from getting anywhere you really want to go. All they do is help you get there safely.

Speaker 2:

Definitely, definitely. Slow you down a little bit so you can see those pedestrians.

Speaker 3:

See the phantom costs. See the phantom costs that at first glance you know they're not visible. I mean the purchase price of anything is the beginning.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that the purchase price is the beginning and that's a good way to put it, because I think you know it's like you talked about and going to a movie is. You know you also have the gasoline or bridge toll or the time that it takes you to go. You know it's like the average time in the movie is what? Two hours, you know, but you're talking about maybe a four hour block because you got to find parking, you got to do all the other things that are involved.

Speaker 3:

It's. It's interesting. I mean I've been doing this nine years, I've been running workshops for nine years and I would say on average the ratio is three to one. Total cost to ticket price of a concert or professional sporting event. And that is a real eye opener for kids.

Speaker 3:

I mean, every January we have students calculating the doesn't make sense score for Super Bowl tickets, for example, and they get about halfway through. They really do not appreciate that this is a thousands of dollars proposition. So you know, calculating the doesn't make sense score, it really happens in four steps. You identify your purchase, you research its full cost, you think about how much you'll use and appreciate it and then you can share all the math and thinking you've done to generate a doesn't make sense score. A lot of kids, when they get to the end of the second step, they want to abandon ship because they know that a thousands of dollars ticket is not realistic, right, and we encourage them to go to the end. This is a process that you can use for all sorts of purchases, but isn't it interesting how much more money is required to execute that transaction than you understood at first glance. And I'm telling you, I mean you literally see the light go on. It's really exciting.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's awesome and it's great to start with kids because you know, then they'll carry this habit through their life. But you know, parents, you can still go to the Gifting Sense website and use the DIMMS calculator yourself, like shoes or something.

Speaker 3:

You touched on something that's near and dear to my heart there, starting with children. I have said for years now, tony, we have to ask ourselves why, when there is more amazing financial information tools, websites, books, you name it than ever before in the history of the planet, really why are citizens continuing to struggle with successfully managing their personal finances? And my belief is that it's really unfortunate that so much of this tremendous material reaches the majority of people well into adulthood, because there are a number of studies we link them to our answers to the frequently asked questions on the site that show time and again, our money personality, which is the habits and beliefs we have about money. That informs how we think and act with it the rest of our life. It is incredibly stable and largely established by adolescents, so the timing of being exposed to productive financial decision-making is really critical, and that's why we target 10 to 15-year-olds. We really want to work with as many middle school students as possible, because we know that an 11 year old who gets comfortable asking about things like return policies almost can't help but become a 16 year old who looks at their first pay stub and goes, oh geez, what are all these deductions? And they naturally become a 22-year-old who asks detailed questions about starting salary, pay bands and employer-sponsored savings programs and family leave.

Speaker 3:

And you know, there are lots of reasons why I get excited about my work, but one of them is I think today we are raising the first generation of young adults where young women are going to continue to ask those detailed questions about money before choosing their first and subsequent employer, as young men are. And when that happens, that's when we're going to see the gender money gap really significantly narrow, because employers want the best employee for the job period and when they lose talent to more gender equitable competitors. You watch how quickly that money gender gap closes. The pay gap closes. The other piece of history I like to share. I share this with most principals that I'm speaking to. Did you know, tony, that regular toothbrushing only became a thing after the Second World War? I?

Speaker 2:

know it was fairly recently. Regular toothbrushing only became a thing after the Second World War.

Speaker 3:

I know it was fairly recently, so a lot of people are surprised by that. But trench mouth, you know, wasn't just in the movies. People did not look after their teeth and soldiers regularly couldn't complete their duties because they, you know, they literally had a toothache. So it comes down the chain of command brush your teeth twice a day. Soldiers take this habit home at the end of the war. In 40 years, which is a blip in the history of mankind, oral cavities go from an early onset childhood disease to a late onset adult disease. So think about it All of our grandparents had dentures. Do you know anybody with dentures? Today We've all but eliminated dentures. So here's why I get excited.

Speaker 3:

Toothbrushing is a simple habit adopted early in life that permanently improved the well-being of citizens around the world, and it was not only taught to their children by dentists. Everybody taught their children to brush their teeth. Thinking before buying, tony, is a simple habit adopted early in life, can permanently improve the well-being of today's school-age children, and anyone can teach their kids to think before they buy. I mean, it's just asking and answering simple questions about typical purchases before you make a consumer decision. But knowing the answers to those questions in advance is so powerful because it lets you avoid disappointment. No more repeat wrong size, too young, too old, holiday or birthday gifts, or you don't buy something that you regret as soon as you get it home. You are avoiding wasting time and money, and again, not only your own but your parents and extended family members.

Speaker 3:

Imp improves family harmony. No one's disappointed, right? I know that parents and extended family members really put their heart and soul into choosing holiday gifts. You don't need to guess. You don't need to guess what will make your young people in your family happy. You can ask them to calculate the Does it Make Sense score, if you were really committed to them opening a surprise. Ask them to calculate the Does it Make Sense score for a couple of potential gifts and then you can choose which of them you want to actually purchase. But at least you'll know you're spending your time and money buying something that's going to be used and appreciated.

Speaker 3:

No more returns lowers our carbon footprint. I mean, it's really early. Financial education solves so much. It's easy to learn, powerful and it's sticky, because kids are like everybody else. Success is tasty Once you discover that you can get and use financial information to make your life better. Well, why would you ever stop? You wouldn't, and that's why it's so important to do it when we're young, so that we enter young adulthood really comfortable asking questions about money, and it's so much easier to avoid a pitfall than dig out of one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that with the pitfall, but I think you just highlighted something that I've really tried to focus on. It's about asking questions, that's the thing is. You have to be curious about your money in my book, so I love that. So you know, let's switch gears for a second. I'm going to jump into what I call the get ready questions. These are questions that I ask all my guests is. The first one is what is one simple thing you can do each year to set yourself up for success?

Speaker 3:

Make a plan. Okay, I know Tim Geithner is credited with the quote plan beats no plan, but I'm pretty sure Betty Holland, my mother, said it first when I was growing up. You know, we just always made a plan. And a plan isn't foolproof, it's not always completely achievable, but it gives you an overall sense of direction and it's surprising how much a simple plan keeps you on the straight and narrow.

Speaker 3:

I don't know if you're familiar with Wendy De La Rosa's work. She's a behavioral economist, I believe at Wharton now. She was out in the West Coast, but I think she's at Wharton now, and one of the tips that Wendy gives is that people, instead of having a restaurant budget, they should have what she calls a frequency budget. So instead of saying I'm only going to spend whatever it is dollars every month at restaurants, I'm going to eat out twice a month at restaurants, and that's, of course, much easier to keep a handle on than a dollar amount right that you have to tabulate every time you go and put it into a spreadsheet or something.

Speaker 3:

Now the beauty of that plan is, let's say it's somewhere towards the end of the month and somebody asks you to go out to dinner. You know you've already been to a restaurant twice this month, you automatically have a quick and easy answer. It's so easy to share in this environment of loud budgeting. Oh, my personal financial program is I only eat out twice a month. I've already been out twice this month. Maybe we can get together early next month. That is the power of a plan.

Speaker 2:

That is awesome. I love that and I haven't heard about that approach. But I love it because, as you point out, it's simple, it's easy to adopt and I think sometimes in the money world well, very often in the money world well, very often in the money world we get dragged down by the complexities and people aren't going to calculate. Well, gee, I spent $90 on that dinner, but this one was 35 and I have a budget of 200. Because the other thing is, most of us are not great at math, so you know.

Speaker 3:

You know it's just easy to forget, right? Think about groceries, like think about how many times you get your credit card statement and you're like what? And then you go through it and you're like right, right, right. So sometimes it's just hard to remember. But I think that that frequency budget is just brilliant because more often than not you can remember how many times you've been out to eat.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly. I love it. So, karen, what is one habit that people can change when it comes to their money?

Speaker 3:

Slow down, slow down Again. It's that fear of missing out the frictionless spending environment. It's a perfect storm and it's just so easy to spend money. Now you know I use a lot of humor in workshops. Of course that resonates with kids and I always tell them. You know, when I went to school back when dinosaurs roamed the planet, there was one way to buy something.

Speaker 3:

Well, first of all you had a job, and it wasn't a super interesting job to make your resume look great for, you know, prospective employers or prospective colleges. It was a job no one else wanted, like raking leaves or cleaning the gutters, right, and you had that job. Or my first job outside of our family home was I worked at the Dairy Queen. I remember begging my parents to let me work at the Dairy Queen and you got a paper check and you had to take that paper check to the bank and get it cashed. And if you didn't have enough money in your account which often 14-year-old Dairy Queen workers didn't to cover the check, you had to wait for the check to clear. Then you had to take the physical money to the store. Stores were only open from like 10.30 to 5.30, monday to Saturday.

Speaker 3:

Stores were. You know there was no online shop or anything. You had to physically get to the store. There was no online shop or anything. You had to physically get to the store, so you either had to take the bus or ask your parents to drive you. The store had to have what you wanted right size, right color, right model and you had to have every dime on your person required to actually execute the transaction. So people will call all of those things pain points or friction points. I call them opportunities. You had to really want something to buy it. You had to work for it, you had to earn it. It's so easy. Now. One of our most popular blog posts is titled remember shopping from home at midnight and of course, no one does, because we couldn't. I love that. I'm just making a note.

Speaker 2:

So I want to make sure I link to that post. So I might ask you for a link that I do try for people watching and listening to always link to these references in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

So the next one is Karen.

Speaker 2:

I think you might like this one. What money myth are you trying to?

Speaker 3:

break that. Thinking before buying means you never get to do or buy anything fun. That's not what it means at all. Again, I'm not in the feel bad about spending business. I'm in the think a little more about spending business and in fact when we slow down and really look at a spend, we spend differently and we tend to spend in a manner that we don't regret. Two days, two weeks, two months, two years down the road. Thinking before buying, I mean it literally takes minutes and it can spare us hours, weeks, months, sometimes years of disappointment and waste. It's you know, think about it. It's such a high return on investment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100%, and you know, just actually going back to your last answer is because, yeah, I remember that is. You know you had your job but yeah, if you wanted something you had to find out when the store was open. You had to figure out how to get there and then hope that they had it in stock and you had to have enough money to buy it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there wasn't credit I mean I'm I'm very, I'm sympathetic towards today's young people and I'm sympathetic towards younger parents today because you know it's really, it's no one's fault, if you will. They're just operating in the environment in which we're operating. You know, one of my favorite descriptions of culture is an operating system you're completely unaware of. So when we ask younger kids, where does money come from in workshops, I mean you would be gobsmacked at the answers. The wall, that's a bank machine, Aunt are completely unaware of. So when we ask younger kids, where does money come from in workshops, I mean you would be gobsmacked at the answers. The wall, that's a bank machine. Aunt Kara's phone Daddy has a magic plastic card.

Speaker 3:

Now what's happening is younger children are confusing payment methods with how they're funded. But it's really not their fault. They're just describing the world they see around them and it could honestly look like mom or dad have this magic plastic card and they use it to get everything from a tank of gas to ice cream, but we always, you know, we roll it back and we're like no, no, no. What you're describing is ways to pay for something. So what happens is someone in your family has a job and they earn wages, and when you have earned money, then you get to decide how you're going to spend it, and that again, is that that's a real eye opener in workshops for kids. They're like right. And then we go on to point out that sometimes, when children ask their parents for something and the answer is no, they think their parents are being mean or unkind or I really dislike this word, but it does get thrown around they think their parents are being cheap. I really dislike this word, but it does get thrown around they think their parents are being cheap.

Speaker 3:

But I point out that parents know, every month, their first responsibility is to make sure that the entire family's needs are met. And needs aren't just the classic, you know food, water, shelter, clothing. Needs are also, according to the OECD, access to education so you have to learn how to read and write and be financially responsible, thanks to Mission 2030, and access to health care so you have to learn how to read and write and be financially responsible, thanks to Mission 2030, and access to healthcare, so if you're unwell, you want to be able to see a physician. So I just remind the kids you know it's a heavy lift for your parents to make sure that everyone's needs are met every month. Trust me, it's a blue ribbon day. You know this yourself, Tony. When, as a parent, your children ask you for something and you can utter an unequivocal, unbridled yes. Right, I mean, that's a great day. Parents want to make their children happy, right. We want our kids to feel heard and cherished. But I caution children not to interpret not being able to buy what they want as their parents, not hearing them, not cherishing what it is they want to do, because it's just not the case and in fact, that normalizing that money is scarce for many families and finite for all is something that schools really appreciate about the workshops.

Speaker 3:

We actually begin every workshop, we do a poll in classrooms and we ask kids if any of them have ever received a birthday or a holiday gift that isn't quite, you know what they were hoping for. So I'll ask you a question how many kids? How many kids? What percentage of all the children we had in Thinking Before Buying workshops last school year, what percent do you think had received a birthday or a holiday gift they didn't use or appreciate? 100%, 92. And I think it's 92 because sometimes we do parent-child workshops and I think the younger kids are reticent about saying that beside their parents. But I think you're right, I think it's closer to 100%.

Speaker 3:

And then the other thing we do is kids go on a virtual reality field trip to a landfill, and there are 50 million school age children in Canada and the United States alone, so that landfill is 10 hectares. So we have them. They can take the virtual reality goggles like it's on screen. I mean, there are amazing tools that we can use today. And I asked them to find it. Well, I'm not going to say what I asked them to find, in case somebody listens to this, then it's a giveaway if they're ever in workshop.

Speaker 3:

And I asked them to find something in the landfill and while they're looking around, I'm like does it look like a nice place? What do you think it smells like? Would you like it if your house was right beside this landfill? And of course you know, we know the answers to those questions. And then I take them through a little bit of math, which is, if 10% of those 50 million children received one item every year that they didn't use or appreciate, it would generate the landfill they're looking at, except does anybody remember what percentage of kids? And then someone usually does remember that it's over 90% and I'm like exactly, and that is why the easiest way to be a planet protector is to think before you buy. Two thirds of us buy things we don't fully use or appreciate, so forget about the benefit to our wallets. What about the benefit to the planet if we can do nothing other than reduce that number? And in fact, the second money awareness and inclusion award we won was the sustainable finance award for that exact explanation. It's very powerful.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that. So yeah, the easiest way to be a planet protector is to think before you buy, and that's something I think that everybody can put into play. So let's get out the time machine for a minute. We were talking a little bit about when you and I were a little bit younger. What advice would you give your younger self if he could go back in time, knowing what you know now about?

Speaker 3:

money saving isn't enough. You know we talked about money when I was growing up and we were very careful with it, and when I was a young working woman I was proud of myself because I lived within my means and I was able to save a little bit of money. But in retrospect, the fact that I participated in my bank stock savings program is really what gave me the flexibility that I have today. Saving a loan is not enough and you know it surprises people. I can't even take credit for that decision. I worked for the Royal Bank of Canada and we you know it's a very Canada has five large national banks. They would be like super regionals in the United States, and so you know we have like 50,000 employees and there was an employee intake center. When I started out and I remember this woman her name was Betty White, not the Betty White, but I never forgot Betty White and she literally was like tick that box, tick that box, tick that box. She corralled me into participating in the stock savings program to the maximum extent possible and I did that from day one. So at the beginning I mean it's a meager amount of money off your paycheck and you know I'd been a poor grad student. So I, you know, I felt like I had lots to spend by comparison, but in retrospect, 35 years later, that mattered. So my husband and I say all the time you know, earlier in our marriage it was my participation in that program that gave us flexibility, and then later in our marriage, it was our joint participation in the equity markets that gave us flexibility. So you know there's this tension because I think investing gets the most attention in the personal finance world.

Speaker 3:

Right, everybody wants to get good at investing and participate in market gains, but the rub is you have to be able to afford to invest, and that's why basic money management, in my mind, actually trumps investing. You need an investable surplus and it doesn't have to be big, but it has to exist. So an investable surplus comes from spending less than you make. How do you spend less than you make? Well, you know what my answer is going to be the easiest way is to think before you buy, because if you really slow down and think about it, a lot of what you buy you don't even use. Not only does it not make your life better or help you do something, but so much we don't even use. So if you just stop doing that, you'll be surprised. You'll have a bigger investable surplus. And then it's the old participate in the markets and be patient. I know it's a boring answer, but it works patient.

Speaker 2:

I know it's a boring answer, but it works. Yeah Well, and boring is, you know, these simple rules are what makes a difference. So, karen, to start to close out, what is your favorite money resource, whether it's a book, podcast, newsletter, app, website, what is the number one resource you would share for people?

Speaker 3:

well, I I will tell you I get asked about books a lot by parents and educators. Um, I've started to recommend your book, tony, because because I love the worksheets, you know, the checklists. I think people are looking for granular instruction. I think there's a lot of you know, high level, sort of ethereal guidance, but they actually want to know, like exactly what to do. So I do recommend your book.

Speaker 3:

For years, fred Selinger's, the Missing Link from College to Career and Beyond. It's actually the textbook for what. I don't know if it still is, but at the time it was the number one undergraduate course at UCAL Berkeley, personal Money Management. And Fred goes through chapter and verse of what young people should do from their first postgraduate paycheck forward. He's very pithy. He says you know, there's only one problem with paychecks they don't come with instructions.

Speaker 3:

As you know, I'm a big fan of Robin Taub's the Wisest Investment. She just wrote a US edition. We were just at the Jumpstart National Educators Conference and I took 10 copies of that with me for the door prize because it's organized by age. It gives clear, actionable advice and that's what people are looking for. And then I guess I can hear my team saying you know what about the dim score calculator, I will say the Does it Make Sense score calculator at giftingsenseorg is a free public good. There is no registration, there's no paywall. We believe that basic financial literacy is a human right and we wanted to make it as accessible as possible. We really think we have an elegant and easily scalable solution to eliminating basic financial illiteracy in one, maybe two generations, along the lines of which I described with the history of oral hygiene, and we knew that if people had to register or cross a paywall to use it, that would really impact our reach and we're very interested in solving this problem and we think we can do it. So we've made it as accessible as possible.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. That's awesome, so I think I might know what you say here. But what is your number one tip on changing the way we think about money?

Speaker 3:

My number one tip on changing the way we think about money. Well, it's early financial education, right? Early financial education solves so much Like when you think about it. We don't start any other subject in the middle. We learn the alphabet and then we learn how to read. We learn our numbers and then we learn how to read. We learn our numbers and then we learn how to do math.

Speaker 3:

What comes before budgeting or learning how to invest, or comparing car loans, or deciding to buy a used car or a brand new car, if that's your first major purchase, which for many young people it is. For so many people, almost nothing comes before they're faced with a personal finance decision that has consequence if you make a misstep. So you know I like to think of thinking before buying. Is the ABCs, or one, two, threes, of being good with money. It's, you know, 99% of children are given an opportunity to spend during their young adolescence, which we know is when their money personality is developing right, be it a little bit of holiday or birthday money, lunch an opportunity to spend during their young adolescence, which we know is when their money personality is developing right, be it a little bit of holiday or birthday money, lunch money. Oftentimes parents will say, oh, can you stop by the grocery store and pick up whatever right? So you're there and you have an opportunity to look around and say, oh, is one type of milk on sale? Is there any sort of volume discount?

Speaker 3:

One question I get asked a lot is why the focus on spending? And that's because personal finances are personal. Financial information needs to be relevant, to be helpful and how to make a good consumer choice. That's what's the most relevant to the most children and subject. Mastery of the basics is what gives us confidence and whets our appetite to want to learn more about any subject. So why would personal finance be any different? So this is why I'm so focused on starting early.

Speaker 3:

We need personal finance courses in high school, we need them in college, we need them beyond, but we need something before that to prime the demand pump for this content. We need kids to be entering high school believing in their heart of hearts that they can successfully pursue money smarts long before they're an adult income earner. Another part of the reason that all these tools aren't delivering on their promise is because so many people don't honestly believe that they're, for them, right and really. You and I know you need two things to create personal financial peace of mind. You need a social insurance number, a social security number whatever it is in your home country, and an investable surplus. That's it. So all the tools and resources out there. They truly are available for everyone, but the thing is, you really can't partake of them if you're spending the first five or ten years of your working career digging out of. You know debt and and a lot of debt is avoidable. Not all of it, for sure, but more of it than we like to concede.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Well and.

Speaker 2:

I think what you said there goes back to what you were talking about with the women and personal finances that women feel like money is not for them, and you know so. I think it's super important for women, and you know other groups that feel like you know, hey, this isn't for me, it is for everybody, and everybody can learn money and it's never too late. You know it's better if you learn it early, as a kid. But if you didn't learn it as a kid, you can still learn.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. And again, I have a lot of particularly younger teachers come up to me at the end of workshops and again ask for book recommendations. And here's another component this is sort of my closer for the workshops and everybody excuse me always really seems to enjoy it. So, tony, I'm going to ask you what is your favorite sports team?

Speaker 2:

The Warriors. The Warriors Home State Warriors.

Speaker 3:

Okay, and I'm sorry. What sport is that?

Speaker 2:

Basketball.

Speaker 3:

Basketball the Garden, Golden State Warriors.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, with Steph Curry.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yes, okay, I'm shocked I didn't hear that at first, because I will tell you I get that answer oh, I don't know 95% of the time. That's a very popular basketball team. Okay, I know exactly who they are. So how do the Golden State Warriors beat the Toronto Raptors? And I'm looking for a very simple answer. What does one team have to do more than the other team in any team sports setting? And it rhymes with door.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm going to go with score.

Speaker 3:

Exactly so in basketball. How do we score? We run the basket down the court and we get it in the other team's net, and that's called offense. You've heard that term and the 10 to 15 year olds have heard it too. So I'm like okay, but Golden State Warriors score 10 points, toronto Raptors score 10 points. That's a tie. Nobody wins. So we know that offense alone isn't enough. We a tie. Nobody wins. So we know that offense alone isn't enough.

Speaker 3:

We need offense and Defense. Defense exactly. And so it goes with managing your personal finances. Financial offense is earning an income when you're not yet an adult income earner. You earn an income through, you know, part-time job, allowance. Again, maybe you get gifted some money for a holiday gift or your birthdays. Financial defense is nothing more than spending what you earn with a plan. And then we point out and that's what you learned how to do today. And of course, you and I know the history books are filled with examples of, you know, celebrities, athletes, politicians, business people who had tremendous financial offense. They earned, you know, wonderful incomes. You know they outsize what most families will ever see, but they had no personal financial peace of mind because they failed to spend those incomes with a plan.

Speaker 3:

So we do. We try to make it just so accessible for kids. We want them to know that anyone can learn to be good with money. You know, think about this. I think it's really been in the last 10 years.

Speaker 3:

There's been a heightened focus amongst private wealth managers on helping children who live with abundance grow up to be good with money. You know, we've all heard that throw away shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. So we know that if you grow up living in a family with abundance, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be good with money. Well, the flip side of that coin is, if you grow up living with scarcity, you can absolutely learn to be good with money.

Speaker 3:

Because we know that being good with money is a pursued life skill, it's a pursued habit, right. And when do we decide to pursue something? It's when we can observe other people doing it or experience it ourselves and think, oh, that looks like fun or that was helpful. And that is why thinking before buying is such a powerful and sticky life skill for kids, because what they're really doing is experiencing firsthand during the time in their life when their money personality is being developed. I can ask questions about money, I can get and use financial information, and it makes even my young life better. And again, once you discover that, why would you ever stop?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is awesome, karen. So you know. To wrap up is where can people find you? I know we've talked about giftingsenseorg. Are there any social media channels where you hang out? I?

Speaker 3:

mean I must. I must confess I'm not the best at social media, but I am. You know, we're trying, we're getting there, we're growing. So you can find us on Instagram and LinkedIn, but I will tell you, the site really works. People order pencils, class sets of pencils, for their students because they're a monomic device we use at the end of every workshop.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I think I have one right here so we always give kids a pencil at the end of every workshop and it has what's the DIMM score printed right on the side. And we suggest that they go old school and sharpen their pencils and practice slow spending until it becomes habit from this day forward. So if you go to the site and reach out to us on the contact us page or the teacher tab, we will write back. I do it every day.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. So, and as always for everybody watching and listening, there'll be links to Karen's website and, of course, to the DIMS score in the show notes. So, karen, thank you very much for joining us today on the Get Ready Money podcast.

Speaker 3:

Absolute pleasure, Tony. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's been a pleasure and thank you everyone, as always, 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 share and subscribe Until next time. Let's change the way we think about money. You.

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Tony Steuer

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