Budgets, Boundaries, and Raising Confident Teens

[00:00:00] Because I think when it money starts to become complicated for them early in life, we kind of seed that conflict around this topic unnecessarily as they kind of move into adulthood. And I think it's really important. I feel like really empowered in my financial life and I have since a very young age, and I wanna give that gift to my girls.

[00:00:20] I am Tiffany Sauder, entrepreneur, wife, mom to four girls, and a woman figuring it out just like you. If you're tired of living a life of have to and finally ready to build a life of want to, then you're in the right place. Come on, let's go build your Life of And.

[00:00:43] Our oldest just turned 16 and there was something really like. Physically marking time about handing her the keys to a car and her getting her driver's license. And one of the most important gifts that my parents gave me when I left the house was the gift of financial literacy. Like having the confidence to know how to make money and understanding for the most part of what things cost.

[00:01:06] And a confidence that I knew how to operate within a budget so that I had the ability to like not get myself into financial trouble and understand at least the early mechanics of money. Because Aubrey was step is stepping into her teenage years as 16, setting up a budget and helping her begin to learn these primary principles was a really critical thing for me, for us to teach her.

[00:01:29] So if you are in the season of life where you have teenagers and you're trying to figure out, how do I help them understand what things cost and how do I make sure that I'm sending them into the world without, like we, I can accidentally give our kids lives that they cannot afford. And how do we peel some of that back so that when we, when they launch, like they're set up for success financially.

[00:01:53] So if you're in that season of life or have kids coming up into the season and you're thinking about financial literacy, you're thinking about budgets, you're thinking about how to set this up well, that they can learn and there's clear agreements between you, then this episode is a must listen. Um, I'm gonna share pretty nitty gritty like what JR and I have done with Aubrey.

[00:02:13] We're about three, four months into it and so far, like working really well. Awesome. Uh, Sam was back on the mic with me and we're gonna jump into financial stuff that I've done with Aubrey, but before I was starting to tell her story yesterday. Yes. You started telling me it, I was laughing really hard and then you said I had to wait.

[00:02:32] Yeah, so, so this is kind of like, I guess, adjacent to the budget conversation, but we, we've been in, on the house that we live in for 10 years. It's a lovely home. Okay. And also it is 16 or 17 years old. And so there are key aspects of the house that are just kind of at the end of its useful life. So like the kitchen really needs to be redone.

[00:02:54] Our appliances are like falling apart. Yeah. Need the next generation of things. So that is happening. And also when we moved into the house, we had two young kids. And now we have four. And like they're grow and they're bigger. And so the house, just like the way it's set up, does not fit our family in quite the way that it used to.

[00:03:12] And so for the last year, we have been doing all these different things about are we gonna move? Are we gonna build, are we gonna remodel? Are we gonna move? Are we gonna build, are we gonna remodel at any given point? It's a different answer. It's a different answer. Yeah. And it has been a tenuous like.

[00:03:32] Thing that JR and I have walked through has not been very simple. I don't know how anybody who has built a house or done any of these things without it being a little bit hairy, but it's been kind of a hairball of a thing where we've just sort of moved through the process of different paces, which is I guess what somewhat to be expected.

[00:03:48] We spent a bunch of time and some money with a designer and an architect, and I really fell in love with kind of that version of our home and this project, and I was like, I could see it and see our family in it, and. Yeah, we might still do some of that, but we might not. And so he just is kinda like pumped the brakes and I would say I'm kind of like the boat trailer that's being pulled that is like not slowing down at the same speed.

[00:04:13] I'm like, yes, Ram rotting into, so anyways, so in the latest sort of saga of where JR and Tiffany gonna live, he says to me a few weeks ago, I think I would like to write some letters to then put. Put in some mailboxes of some homes that we would maybe move into because the thing is, is like remodeling is like, you know, it's just more expensive.

[00:04:36] Yeah. It's gonna be super annoying. We're gonna need to move out of our house. It's probably 30% more expensive than just like building that square footage. And so, and unless you really, really love where you are or there's some gigantic X factor, which we do love where we are, it's, it's not fiscally the smartest, like financially the smartest thing to do.

[00:04:53] So JR would like. To not do that. And so he's like, what if we would put letters and I must have done a medium job of disguising my horror because I was like, sounds like a great idea. What? Like, are we living in an RV down by the river? Can we live in your house? We'll give you some money for it. Yes. He, he wrote a letter and I edited it, which I, I felt like that was like participating and then.

[00:05:24] I printed it off and put it into envelopes, sealed them and he had the girls color on the outside I think. So it was like, look, there's some humanity. And they were like, it was like, talk about it. You know what I mean? Like super stupid. Yeah, super stupid. I think one said love, you know, it was like these super stupid.

[00:05:42] Stickers. So anyway, we're like, this is probably from the children's hospital. Really? Gotcha. Yeah. Or maybe they're trying to sell me Hershey bars. No, they want my house. Yeah. So JR takes the girls and the um, golf cart, the little girls. In the golf cart and goes around. So I mean, you are very seeable in this situation.

[00:06:01] Yeah, yeah. It's not like he's in, you know, so anyway, so he drives around, it's like handpicking to these seven homes, which he had told me these are the ones that he was gonna go to. He was one short, he came back, he said, he said I had eight, actually we were one short, but that's fine. So he put them in their mailboxes and I was like, okay, this is part of the process.

[00:06:21] I appreciate. He is very strategic in his timing. He has no external factors. Do not make him feel like he needs to hurry up, which makes him very smart and we'll probably end up making the right decision, but this feels weird. Anyway, somebody emails us later that day. Oh my word, yes. One of these homes, and they're like, actually, thank you for reaching out.

[00:06:42] The other thing I think he is wanting is if we do buy a home, being able to buy it directly, you save a bunch on the realtor fees, which they do add value in some situations, but anyways. So anyway, had somebody reach out and they're like, actually we have been thinking about moving. And these are like in the one subdivision over, like there's a chance I'm on a walk and they pull outta their lane and I have to be like, ah, I sent you a letter.

[00:07:06] Totally. I was the lady. My girls like, ride the bus with these people. So anyways, so we'll, we'll see. We maybe we'll end up buying this house, but he really wants to go see it. So he was like a little aggressive. They were like, yeah, because he was like, Hey, we're open in the next six to 24 months. Like, it's not like our house sold.

[00:07:22] We could be patient for the right thing. And they were like, yeah, we'll kinda let you know. And he's like, well, I kind of wanna get it in the next three days. 'cause we need to make a choice. Like if they're like, Hey, yes, we'd love to sell you our house, here's the price, and we'll move out in 17 months.

[00:07:35] Mm-hmm. Then that would be fine with us. Right. But we can't kind of stay in maybe. So anyway, somebody, you can do this, you can put un postmarked mail in people's mailboxes and they'll email you back. We'll email you back. I signed them because I was like, am. I've signed them. It made me, made it feel more human.

[00:07:53] I don't know. It's so weird. Yeah, it's too good. Who knows? You guys so funny. My house, I, I am very grateful for it. And also something needs to happen. Yeah. But also, budgets are important, but budgets are important. Now we're back to budgets. Back to budgets. Ah, budgets, yes. My risk tolerance and my husband's risk tolerance are different, but he's, I'm, I'm glad he's in the driver's seat.

[00:08:15] I am. Yes. Let's get to budgets. It's not talking about it anymore. We wanna both stay married, so Yes. So budgets, okay, well, we'll did, were you on a budget when you were a kid? Probably not. Like super. I mean, we would have to earn money and then we could like spend that money. Okay. So in that way we were on a budget and then we just had to get like jobs.

[00:08:38] We had to get what jobs? Jobs to make money by, I dunno, where, et cetera. Yeah. Okay. When I was growing up, I'm the oldest of four. My dad is an entrepreneur and so when I was young, my family had And you didn't grow up with money either? No. Yeah. Mm-hmm. My parents did not have a lot of cash for a long time.

[00:08:57] My parents were balance sheet wealthy, but not like cash wealthy. You know, when I was growing up, they were neither, there was neither cash nor balance sheet. Yes. Yeah. And so they, when I was really young. I wanna say like third, fourth, fifth grade, they did the, like Dave Ramsey cash budget. Mm-hmm. Deal. And that was what I grew up on.

[00:09:14] My mom had this like folio of cash that was with her everywhere. And there was like, you know, little Yep. Bits of money. And that was how I learned to budget. So when we were like in middle school, I wanna say we started getting an allowance. We had a closed budget that we had, and it was like. It wasn't just a family closed budget, it was like this.

[00:09:34] Mm-hmm. Is Tiffany's closed budget, this is my sister's, et cetera. So that was what I grew up on, was this cash budget vibe, and it was really out of necessity for my parents. There was a lot of kids and I was the speediest of everybody. And so literally my mom will say that they went on the cash budget because of me.

[00:09:51] It would be like the family close budget would be like $300 and like Tiffany would spend 292 of it. Yeah. And it would be like the second of the month. And so that wasn't. So that's what I grew up on and I am very spendy naturally. And so having that very physical representation of like the envelope is gone and having that like natural barrier was just like a really helpful way for me to learn money and budgeting and spending and like getting cash out of the bank and refilling my envelopes and saving up.

[00:10:22] So now like I'm grateful that JR and I are not in a place where we don't need to put our kids on a budget because we can't. Afford to pay what we need. But what I'm realizing is that I'm creating an existence for my girls that they're not gonna be able to afford once they get out into the real world.

[00:10:39] And so when Aubrey turns 16, it's sort of this forcing function with a car of like, okay, who's gonna fill it up with gas? Am I just gonna give you a debit card and you can spend whatever you want to? Suddenly they're going places and getting food and hanging out with friends and going to places and mm-hmm.

[00:10:54] To movies and to activities that you're not with them. And so you've gotta decide who's paying for this. And I didn't wanna be in a constant state of negotiation or conflict or feeling like I was just being $20 to death. And that there was no sense of like, Hey, every time you make a choice to go do something that's costing somebody money from somewhere.

[00:11:13] And so how do you be prudent about understanding those choices so that when you are out on your own and you do graduate from college and financially, you're set up to do your own thing, you have an understanding of what this is gonna cost. So. Yeah, that was kind of the big trigger for setting up Aubriana budget.

[00:11:29] I thought I would share what we did with her. We we're like 90 days in. It's not like it's been going for years, but it's working really well. And so I thought I would just share that, so. Mm-hmm. What was your financial literacy? You're, are you spending or not spending? I'm not super spendy. I have a hard time spending money because we grew up very poor.

[00:11:48] Mm-hmm. So it was like, you just spend as little as possible, was like our budget, you know, like, but that also could not be healthy. It. Yeah. And not. And not super helpful either. If you don't know how much you can spend, it's like, well, I don't, I don't know what, how much I can spend or what I can do, or how I could allocate it to like what I really want.

[00:12:05] It's just like, spend as little as possible. So, uh, Bryce is more spendy, so I feel like he's balanced me out and helped me to be like, you know, you're allowed to buy some clothes. It's good. Yeah. And just like set a budget for yourself and to. Forced into that. Yeah. You wanna ex, you know, spend your money on resource, on things that give you joy.

[00:12:25] If it's not closed that's fine, but it's like this always sense of like, ugh, I'm in constant constraint mode. Mm-hmm. When you don't need to be. Yeah. Like doesn't give you that reward feedback of like, I don't need to be in that place anymore. Right. I can choose to be there if I love it, but how do you make thoughtful choices about it and like arm?

[00:12:42] So yeah. I think either extreme right is not healthy. It's about understanding money is a tool. That's all it is. It has its own properties to it that need to be understood, and when we understand it and have controls over it, then you can live in it freely. Right. When it owns you either in ways that are like, I've got debt because I overspent, or I feel like I don't understand it, so I just am chronically Yeah.

[00:13:06] Worried about it. About it. Yeah. Both of those are giving something external control over your thoughts and feelings and decisions and like, that's no good. We want to be in charge so. I'll walk through a little bit how I set this up with her, and then I'll go through the mechanics of how it works and then we'll provide a link in show notes.

[00:13:26] Yeah. To download what we ultimately ended up with, if you wanna use this as a starting point for your own family. I wanted this to be collaborative with her because I'm very directive and strong and she loves to kind of like know the rubric and like, how do I win? And I wanted her critically thinking and like how we made this together so that it wasn't like, this is what mom told me to do.

[00:13:49] Mm-hmm. It was like, Hey, how do we develop this together so that you understand this is what we're trying to teach you and this is what I want you to pay attention to. So Ainsley, our she'll be 14 in June, our 14-year-old on this, starting this summer for different reasons. She needs to be in the same structure and I'll.

[00:14:06] I'll kind of walk through how I think it modifies as they get older. Mm-hmm. And then I would say probably as young as 10. Okay. This would work. Ivy's nine, she's almost 10. And this summer she definitely could use aspects of this structure Yeah. To give her some sense of control over like spending and what she buys.

[00:14:27] Yeah. Right. Okay. So I'd say 10. Yeah. I think younger than that. That's helpful. So I look at this and say, I have 60 more years with Aubrey. She's got two years of high school left and four years of college. I've got six years to teach her. And I wanna start with how do I give her control over her discretionary spending so that when she goes to college, she starts to get some visibility into some non-discretionary spending, like your car insurance and your rent and those kinds of things.

[00:14:51] Mm-hmm. So that when she goes out into the world, I remember being like, oh, I have to like spend my own money on tampons, like. Yeah. Ooh, my word. Yeah. You know, like toilet paper, so much stuff. Yeah, yeah. Or like a cleaner, like a toilet wand. Like Yes. These things that suddenly you're like so much. I never thought that people had to buy these things.

[00:15:07] Mm-hmm. Of course, somebody has to buy it, but it's a startling. Yes, it is. It's very startling. It's so, and then I wanna teach you how to invest well, so it's like how do we control variable costs and then understanding kind of these fixed costs of life, like the non-sexy part, and then. Teach her how to invest well and think about that piece of it.

[00:15:26] So that's kind of how I'm laying it out. Big picture. So we're starting over the more variable costs, like consumables, the lifestyle variable expenses right now. Okay. Let me see. Quickly. Yeah. This, for me, this budget with her is not about making sure she understands the relationship between work and earning money.

[00:15:45] Okay. So her allowance is not predicated on any, any job she has to do. Mm-hmm. Any of that kind of stuff. I don't worry about that with that kid. She has a very high sense of like understanding, like she works really hard for her grades. She works really hard at her extra-curricular things. She'll be very responsible in her job.

[00:16:04] So I don't care right now about creating that relationship between, I did this work and I got paid this. This is really about helping her understand when you get a job, she'll likely start in some type of a traditional job. There is gonna be an interval at which you get paid. So I'm paying her her allowance every two weeks.

[00:16:22] Just like likely her paycheck will come so that you start to see, okay, I spent some money and it went down. I got paid and it went back up. I spent some money and it went down. I got paid and it went back up. So I want her to see that, and I want her to see a fixed amount of money that needs to be spread across a fixed amount of things so that then she gets to decide what am I gonna spend a lot on and what am I gonna spend a little on?

[00:16:45] And I don't necessarily need to make those choices for her. That makes sense. Yes. So if she wants to spend a ton of money on gifts for her friends and hardly any money on her clothes, I don't really care. She wants to spend a bunch of money on her clothes and buy her friends. You know, a blizzard present.

[00:17:01] Yeah. A McFlurry at, if you wanna be a terrible friend McDonald's, I don't really care if you wanna be terrible friend. That's probably what I would've done at 16 is found myself something great and been like, yeah, you'll be fine. This is a shirt I don't wear anymore. So really more about that. And also not focusing a ton on saving.

[00:17:20] Right now, Aubrey is naturally more like you like mm-hmm. Where she doesn't spend. And so it's teaching her that like money has elasticity to it. It can, there will be more. And so not always perpetually, but like when you're working, it's like you don't need to live in scarcity all the time. That was kind of big picture.

[00:17:42] I wanna take a quick moment to thank my partners at Share Your Genius. For the past four years, they have been an incredible part of my journey. Behind the Microphone, share Your Genius is a content and podcast production agency that helps leaders and brands bring their message to life. So whether you're trying to find your voice, develop a content strategy, or get your leader behind a microphone, they're gonna help you make it simple, strategic, and impactful.

[00:18:06] Okay, so how I set it up with her is. I asked her, I was like, what are the things that you think you're gonna spend money on? And I just had her kinda list some of those things. So we talked about things like clothes and gas and eating out with friends and gifts, entertainment, kinda like daily incidentals, like I wanna go to Starbucks, those kinds of things.

[00:18:28] And then I made a list of all the things that dad and I pay for, for her that like they don't always see. So it's like your car insurance, your phone bill, your health insurance. Your house repair and maintenance, you know, on things. Um, your healthcare bills like made a list of like, these are the things that we are paying for on your behalf.

[00:18:49] Not to make you feel guilty, but to give you some early exposure. But this is the list of stuff that you have to at some point, like pay for it. Yeah. And so this is what's happening. So what we did was we made a list. Of categories that she is paying for and a list of categories that JR and I are paying for, and I can share those on the podcast.

[00:19:09] This goes back to one of my Life of And principles of implicit expectations versus explicit agreements. So an implicit expectation is she's assuming dad and I are gonna pay for X, Y, Z. Yep. And I'm assuming she's gonna pay for X, Y, Z. And until we sit down and say there's a piece of paper. It has documented very explicitly what you're paying for and what I'm paying for, and we both agreed to it.

[00:19:36] So like literally we both signed this document. There's just no fight now because she understands and I understand, and we have this document that we can go back to about exactly how we're gonna do it. This played out actually very recently. Her car was pretty dirty. And I was like, you need to take your car through the car wash.

[00:19:52] And she's like, is that a me thing or a you thing? And I was like, that's a you thing to pay for. She's like, I also have two little scissors in a bucket of soapy water. I was like, incredible. Yeah, if you don't wanna pay the 18 bucks to go through the car wash, then I guess a bucket of soapy water. And yeah, paying two little sisters is another way to do it.

[00:20:07] They probably won't even get paid, but she got to make that decision Uhhuh and that's great. Or she can have a dirty car. I don't really care. Mm-hmm. Okay. Categories of what she is paying for. Gas, eating out with non-family. Hmm. Yep. Entertainment again with non-family friends, gifts. I made that specifically friends gifts.

[00:20:30] So like for sister's gifts for Christmas, I will pay for, again, explicit. Yep. Incidentals. So it's just like snacks and spontaneous purchases and stuff that happens in life, you know? And then school clothes, she will pay for gas. Eating out with, not with family entertainment, not with family. Friends, gifts, incidentals, and school clothes.

[00:20:51] And then I put a monthly budget for each one of those things. You can see what I put in the document. It doesn't really matter, but I essentially estimated here's what I think she's gonna spend each week in those areas. And we came up to a total of $400 a month is what her budget is. That includes gas, that includes, you know, hanging out with her friends.

[00:21:10] I think that's probably gonna end up being a little high, but I think she's gonna spend her clothes, money, very episodically. I think it'll be like back to school. We'll be like, yeah, a big a thousand dollars worth of stuff. She's just not a, like, I found the shirt I love, or this is the new thing on trend and I've gotta go to Lululemon, get it.

[00:21:27] She's just like, not that kid. She does not care that kid's coming. That kid is coming. That kid is definitely coming. So I think it'll be like that. But church clothes, I pay for, she went to prom. Yeah. I pay for that stuff. That makes sense. If she wants to go spray tan, just because it's the last day of school that's on her.

[00:21:42] If she wants to go spray tan because it's prom, I pay for that. So I was told, I'm like special event stuff. Mm-hmm. I'm your mom and I want those things to be special and I can make my judgment call on how much we spend on a prom dress, but her school clothes and everyday things, I want her to really pay for those.

[00:21:58] So $400 total is what she gets paid. And that goes out every other week in an automatic withdraw through Greenlight. That's the tool that we use, the budgeting, uh, app. And it, I could just set it up as a recurring allowance, which is super easy to do. And then I can see every single one of her transactions too, which is actually not that important to me, but it is helpful to see it.

[00:22:20] I wish I was in a world where I could teach her budgeting through the lens of cash budget. Yeah. Because there's something, it's just not that so powerful to it. But it's not, it's not relevant. No, I. It's an impossibility for her to be able to navigate the world. And so I have to teach her in a digitally native way.

[00:22:37] Mm-hmm. And so this, the Greenlight tool is pretty, the user interface, if you haven't used it, is like really kid friendly. It doesn't look like a banking app, even though it is a banking app. It's just skinned very nicely. The other thing I'm gonna do with her is sit down each month and reconcile her actual expenses against her monthly budget so that then she can kind of see like.

[00:22:58] Where am I overspending or spending more than I thought? Where am I spending less than I thought? Do I wanna move some of that money to savings? Do I wanna save up for a special pair of shoes? Or just kind of helping her think through that. So that is one of the ways that I'm kind of gonna bring the financial education in.

[00:23:13] It's not just not spending it all, but it's about sitting down and saying, what was my plan? What actually happened and what's happening the same or different than I thought was gonna be? Yeah. But she like went and filled up with cash. She's like, it's $65. I was like, I don't know. If she's ever really spent $65.

[00:23:29] Like routinely, right? Yeah. Maybe like a couple times, but it's mm-hmm. Why they just don't know how much life costs. I also find that she like comes home to eat more. It's like in between things. She'll like come home and eat something instead of like stopping and getting something for 15 bucks. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:47] Which is great. Yes. Like that's no problem. She gets to choose that. But I, I love that. And then I made a long list of like what parents will cover. So my goal is over the next two years is to move more things from the parents will cover. Mm-hmm. To the, Aubrey will cover the things like her haircuts, her makeup, her skincare, her hair, like those kinds of things will move over.

[00:24:09] Yes. But I even put things like school supplies and fees, all of her after school, like show choir and swimming and. Her tech suits and like all of those expenses are on, the parents will continue to cover just so she has it in front of her. Like these are ways, vacations. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty kid, but if these are things you wanna have in your life Yeah.

[00:24:31] As you move about that think you have to think about making room in your budget for this stuff. So it's very empowering I think, for both of us. Mm-hmm. My goal also is to just do an like ni every 90 days, sit down with her and just say for 15 minutes. How's it going? Anything you'd adjust to this? Any questions that you have?

[00:24:48] Just trying to keep the agreements super clear between us because I think when it money starts to become complicated for them early in life, we kind of see that conflict around this topic unnecessarily as they kind of move into adulthood. And I think it's really important. I feel like really empowered in my financial life and I have since a very young age, and I wanna give that gift to my girls.

[00:25:10] Yeah, so. Are you letting her make a choice on when she does get a job? I know right now in her life with all her activities, it's like somewhat impossible. But is she like, are you letting her pick that or are you saying like, not in high school? What's your like thought, oh, I don't really care if she wants a job.

[00:25:30] So she's teaching swimming lessons again this year to a family and she, I was like, are you gonna get a job? And she was like, I already am doing swimming lessons. And she had all of them scheduled. Already on her calendar if she wanted to go become a hostess or you know, work at the ice cream shop or whatever, like that's like more power to her.

[00:25:48] I think if I saw some challenges in her as it related to work ethic, it would be important for me that she had a place to be accountable to. Mm-hmm. That wasn't family. Yeah. Then that would be something that I'd be like, Hey, next summer you gotta get a job. You need to at least make this much money or work this many hours.

[00:26:05] Yeah. I think if I saw that, that was a com a issue for her. It would be very important to me that she had something that created some real consequence for her. Yeah. If she didn't keep her word, but you know her now, she's, yeah. That's just not who she is. And if anything, going to things like SpringHill Camp and places where she really isn't the most responsible person on planet Earth is like healthy.

[00:26:33] Mm-hmm. I think, yeah. For her. And so that's kind of where I'm at with the job thing. Yeah. We also did not, I don't know if JR had to pay for his car, his first car. I got a car when I was 16, but we could not take it with us. That was our family rule. Mm-hmm. When I was growing up. Yeah. Once she left to college, was it on next out?

[00:26:55] Yeah. I think JR got his first car and then he got to take it with him, and then from there it was him to figure it out. Mm-hmm. Like that first car, however long it went. So we gave Aubrey her car. It's a 2013. Yeah, so she's not the sexiest yes thing on the planet, but it's really, really very reliable and amazing for her, and she loves it.

[00:27:17] It's a great car for her. And we did give her the car, and I don't know that it will have a, it probably doesn't have seven more years left in it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, she might have to figure that out. Yeah, we'll have to figure that out later. But yeah, so that has been, it's been good. I think the key behind this, whether you do exactly what we've done or not, I think it's involving them in it so they understand what you're wanting them to learn.

[00:27:41] And the other thing I'll say is I think involve them in it so they feel like they have some agency over it and just get it so that it's clear to all of you. I think it takes the fight away from it and it makes 'em feel really empowered and a tool that they're gonna have to learn how to master. As they go into life in lots of different ways.

[00:27:57] Yeah. Ainsley, I'm just going to do clothes and friend gifts. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna give her a budget for those two things and I'll manage it the same way through Greenlight. She'll get an amount every other week and it's gonna be hard for her. Yeah, for sure. I mean, super hard. She, she owes me 120 bucks right now, and she has, it's May 28th.

[00:28:18] I know she owes it to me on June 1st, and if it, she doesn't pay it. It's gonna double. I think that's what I told her. I don't know if she has it. Does she have a plan? Well, she, she sold cupcakes at school. Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember the cupcake. So, we'll tell our listeners if this is the tail end, if you wanna hear the story.

[00:28:35] So Ainsley is my spender. She's my second one. We love you Ains very much. She's very fun. Oh yeah, she's very spendy. Uh, and she wanted the skirt for this dance. She had an exceptional alternative. If she would've had nothing to wear, I would've bought it for her. But it was, she just really wanted it, which I get it.

[00:28:52] She had the money for it. She had exactly the amount, and I said, I'll pick it up for you. You need to pay for it though. I'm not gonna pay for it. She's like, I totally understand. I'll pay you for it. Her money was in like Greenlight or something. I didn't have it physically. So she had spent that money, quote unquote, on the skirt, and I had not actually taken it out of her account yet.

[00:29:12] And then like four days later, she goes on a tournament, she goes to Brandy Melville and spends that a hundred bucks again. She gets home from her tournament. She's so excited about her new clothes hall, and I was like, who bought this for? She's like, I use my own money. And I was like, you, you don't have, you already spent that a hundred dollars.

[00:29:27] You spent it on the skirt, but you didn't pay it to me yet. But you, you used that. That was my a hundred dollars that you spent on that Brandy Melville stuff. What do you wanna do? You've got two options. Option one is you give me the Brandy Melville stuff until you pay back the a hundred dollars because you haven't actually, you don't own it yet.

[00:29:47] Right. You've used my money to buy this stuff, and that's number one. Or you can pay me 120. I wish I would've written it down. I either said 120 or $140 on June 1st, which is one, one month later and pay like a 20 to 40% interest rate. If you wanna keep all of it, if you wanna wear the Brandy Melville stuff to school in the last six weeks of school and be like, look, I have all this best stuff that that is on you.

[00:30:11] That's what you wanna do, but you're gonna pay an exorbitant interest rate to me because you used my money to buy those clothes. That you didn't have. And so she, which I appreciate this Ains, is just never under duress. She's like, what would you pick? Like, what's the right answer? I said, there really isn't a right answer.

[00:30:27] Mm-hmm. There are just two different real life outcomes. If you buy something that you can't afford, you need to return it, which we couldn't have returned it, or I would've literally made her take it back to brand Melville. Or you pay an interest rate if you use somebody else's money to buy something.

[00:30:41] And so they're both good outcomes. They just have different things. If you. Don't pay the interest rate. You probably have another shirt like in your life because you've got more money to buy stuff. But if you want this stuff right now and you value the kind of urgency of today, then you will take both of 'em and kind of take a shot.

[00:31:00] So she started off with a lot of energy and like literally the next day she was like, I am gonna start a cupcake club. And I'm gonna take a dozen cupcakes to school. I've already sold 'em for three bucks a piece and there were like four weeks of school left. So if I do that every week, I've got more than my 120 bucks.

[00:31:20] And I'm like, scot free. I was like, that's a super huy. Love it. And I was like, text your aunts. Go, you know, babysit, whatever it takes. So she did that for two weeks. I don't know how well she did on her collections, right? Yes. You know, did she actually get the $3? Mm-hmm. Un unsure. Yes. Unaccounted for. And I sort of feel like if she had the money, she would've paid me by now.

[00:31:43] Yeah. She would've, should've shown you that money. Yeah. So, I don't know. She's got three days of school left. Yeah. And June 1st is on Sunday, and so we'll see. But mm-hmm. I don't know. I, I felt like a little bit of a parenting win of not just being mad at her Right. But being like, let me create some. Real life scenarios for you about like, if you do this to yourself in real life, you're either gonna have to pay an interest rate to the credit card company, or you're gonna have to return this stuff.

[00:32:08] Mm-hmm. Those are your two options. Well, she doesn't pay it. It's like the credit card debt just then keep rolling. Yeah. It goes fast. Yeah. So she really wants control and I, I get that. I think she wants to decide, Hey, I wanna go to, you know, aero postal and pay $8 for this tank top because I wanna. Spend $120 to get this skirt at Lululemon.

[00:32:28] And she wants to be able to make those choices, which is great. So we're gonna focus same structure, but it's really about adding more things each year so that they just have more control over what, and just have more awareness of what things cost. Yeah. So that's what I'm gonna do. It'll be harder for Ansley, it just will be.

[00:32:45] Yeah. But she'll figure out she is. Yeah. If she wants something, she'll figure out how to We'll figure it out. Make the money to make it better. Yeah. JR was like, I, I don't know if she'll ever have money, but she'll always know how to get it. Yeah. Like that's for sure. Yeah. I was like, that's a great recap on her.

[00:33:01] Yes. So Aubrey will always have money. Yes. Yeah. She'll have no problem. So I, I'm, I'm more like Ainsley Ains if you listen to this, I'm not dogging you. We're all made differently and we all have different tendencies and we have to understand. Where our tendencies start and we have to have put things in place so that we can kind of save ourselves from the downside of who we are, but create guardrails so that we can kind of stay in the center.

[00:33:27] So yeah. Anyways. Yes. Right. Do the things. All right. So if you want an access to the budget guideline that we put together for Aubrey Links and show notes. Yep. And uh, as always, thanks for listening and if you've gotten any value from this content, likely if you have a teenager who's working through budget, you're working through budgeting, you have friends who do as well.

[00:33:48] So please share this episode with them. It's the fastest way that we grow the show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Life of And this is your weekly reminder to keep making bold choices, saying clear yeses and holding space for what matters most. As always, if you like this episode, I'd love for you to drop a review and share it with your friend.

[00:34:07] It's the fastest way that we can grow the show. Thanks for joining us. I'll see you next time.