This episode of The Good News with Angie Austin doesn’t shy away from real issues, featuring a conversation with financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podman about instilling healthy financial habits in teens. They explore how everyday activities, like back-to-school shopping, can serve as teachable moments to differentiate between needs and wants. With practical insights into apps like Cash App, this episode is a treasure trove for parents looking to maintain balance in granting financial freedom with necessary safeguards.
welcome to the good news with angie austin now with the good news here’s angie hey there friends angie austin and jim stovall with the good news and today we are talking about his winner’s wisdom column uh titled interestingly enough take your advice and i take your advice weekly jim welcome
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, thank you so much. And what I want my readers and your listeners to do is take their own advice. Because I have believed for years and written and spoken from stages at arena events that we don’t fail because we don’t know what to do. We fail because we don’t do what we know. I mean, and how many times have all of us messed something up? and say, I knew better than that. You just sit there and you, I knew better than that. And you just, you did something less than your best, or you cut a corner, or you did something you shouldn’t have done. And you knew better than that. And, you know, so it’s not a matter of not knowing what to do. It’s a matter of not doing what we know. And not long ago, I reread Lewis Carroll’s amazing book, Alice in Wonderland. And if you haven’t actually sat down and read that, it’s just an amazing piece of work that this guy did. But Alice, in the middle of it, says two things that I think are fascinating. One is, she said, I give myself a lot of great advice, but I rarely take it. And that’s how we all are. We know what to do. And then, of course, there’s her fork in the road experience with the Cheshire Cat. And she gets there and says, which road should I take? And He asked where you want to go. And she said, I don’t know. And he said, well, then it doesn’t matter which way you go. And that’s where we all are. I mean, you know, and I just finished writing a Mark Twain book that you’ll hear about probably next year. But one of the things he said is I can tell anybody how to get what they want live if I can find anybody that knows what they want. And, you know, there’s a lot of that going around. People don’t know what they actually want. And. But with regard to all the things we work on or know to do, whether it’s you or your kids or the people you deal with on a daily basis, we all know what to do. We’ve got a really good idea of what’s right and wrong and what we ought to do. We’ve just got to do it, and that’s the tough thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Isn’t that interesting because this is what so many of us work on teaching our kids, to trust their instincts, trust their gut, and to teach them – You know, to be discerning and to not bend to their, you know, the pressure of their, their friends, etc. And I was just at that family reunion, as you know, and one of many of my relatives are educators and one couple, their principal and vice principal. And at different schools, but elementary age kids and middle school kids, high school kids, they’ve worked with them all. They’ve coached them all. And my closest cousin, I think you may have heard me talk about cousin Lori. And so she’s like my person in life. I’m her plug puller. We joke because if we make medical decisions for each other and her husband’s like, well, that’s an interesting choice of person. words you’re her plug puller but you know no one closer to me than her and her husband um we’re talking to my kids and he said uh wow your kids are just so great they’re really great and then he turned to faith and he said okay i want to know do you guys think you’re good kids like do you and your siblings like compared to other kids the kids you know what do you think of yourselves what is your opinion of yourselves My daughter Faye said, compared to all the kids I know, the church kids I know, the friends at school, the kids I watch, my sports friends, she said, we’re really good kids. And they’ll say that a lot to me, like if I’m irritated with their behavior. They’re like, Mom, you don’t even know how good you have it. You don’t even know how bad the other kids are, like how good we are, you know. So I am pretty grateful, you know. And I listen to them talk with large groups of their cousins at this family reunion about – that they deem acceptable and not deem acceptable. And my kids are definitely conservative, comparatively speaking, I think, to a lot of kids in the world these days. And I haven’t shoved that down their throat. I’ve never shoved, like, my values and my political beliefs down their throat. But I feel like they’re all pretty level-headed. But that whole thing about taking their own advice, I think a lot of teens have a hard time doing that because of all the pressures around them, the social media, their friends, you know, the world. How they’re – the pressure they feel to be a certain way and be cool.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, being cool is probably overrated. Yes. There’s no real big pie, big design, big prize, pot at the end of the rainbow for being cool. And – You know, I think we’d all spend a lot less time worrying about what people thought of us if we realized how seldom they do. And, you know, trying to impress people. that don’t really care about things that don’t really matter is a waste of time. You know, kids and adults and everybody needs to know him. If you get to the end of the day and you can put your head on the pillow and say that was one good day right there, it’s good. I mean, nobody else gets to vote. And speaking of voting and your kids, I saw this piece of pre-legislation. They’re bouncing around Washington where they want 16 and 17 year old kids to be able to vote. And, and I’m, I’m not quite sure we’re ready for that. You know, I mean, I mean, I know, I know 12 year old kids, I think would be great to vote. And I, I know 40 year old adults that I, I, you know, not so much, but you know, I, that’s something that we will probably hear more about in the coming months.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. In terms of, you know, taking our own counsel, our own advice. When we are unsure, though, I know you have mentors and you have people that you do lean on. When you are, you know, unsure, what path do you recommend, you know, people take? I do like going to someone who thinks like I do, someone who’s like-minded, whose life I respect, et cetera. And you always say never take financial advice from someone who isn’t doing well financially.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Or fat diet doctors or lawyers that are incarcerated or anything else. I mean, you know, don’t take advice from somebody that doesn’t have what you want. And, you know, and and then, you know, if but we all know what to do. You know, I have a good friend. He passed away several years ago. I still do some work for his company. And he wrote a book, the title was, If Knowing How Was Enough, We’d All Be Rich, Thin, and in Love. And it’s true. I mean, we all know how to do it. I mean, we just, you know… We don’t do what we know. And so, you know, trust yourself, trust your own advice, because so often now there are people on the Internet and all these people, they want to give you advice on how to run these important things in your life. And, you know, they really want to get your money or your influence or whatever it may be. And in reality, you generally know what to do. I mean, there’s nobody listening to us right now that doesn’t know how to be healthier, wealthier, happier, have better relationships. If you were going to do that today, they know what to do. They can at least take the first few steps, and unfortunately, we don’t do those things so often.
SPEAKER 05 :
As we send our kids off to college, I’ve got the one – in fact, he’s – I always brag about him, but he’s closing on a house in Boulder, my son, a 20-year-old, and he takes possession in just a few weeks. And we’re pretty comfortable, you know, with him and his decision-making and, you know, but you’re going to laugh. Did I already tell you I got him a breathalyzer? Yes. And you’re like, but he’s 20. Okay, here’s the deal. I kind of know that these kids go to parties and a lot of that fake IDs, et cetera, et cetera. I’m not telling you I condone him drinking, but I told him to put it in his car and I told him, like, if you’re out with your friends or somebody’s driving or, you know, you’re getting into your car, And you blow on this and there’s any – because there’s zero tolerance for drinking. It doesn’t – period. So if you get pulled over and you’re under 21, you’re done. So put the car keys on a tire and go to sleep and lock your car because it’s not happening. I said but like with your friends, nobody should be driving that’s blowing anything on this. And it’s amazing with the technology we have now that you can make sure that your kid is not driving with a drunk driver because – You could pick up a $15, $20 breathalyzer that works. We tested it out at home. I didn’t.
SPEAKER 06 :
My husband did. He had a drink because we don’t really drink, right? And so he had a drink and then he blew on it before and after, and it actually worked.
SPEAKER 05 :
But in general, they make really good decisions, but I always give them that out. We have a code if you want to get rescued from some kind of a party or sleepover where they are, the girls in particular because they’re younger. And then we, we also have that, you know, blame your parents. Like the other night they were having a sleepover at a girlfriend’s house. And I said, are there boys coming over? And she said, well, they’re coming over mom, but they’re not staying over. And I said, okay. And my husband’s like, you know, she’s leaving in a few weeks, well, less than a week actually now for school. So, you know, we have to start instilling, you know, like letting them do more of the things they’re asking to do. So I said, so if, if the boys sleep over, what are you going to do? Like if the parents say it’s okay, she goes, Oh, I’ll come home. And I 100% trust her. I mean, a hundred, a lot of people would be like, you’re nuts. No, I really do trust these kids. You know, I really, I really do have a lot of faith in their decision-making and they always use us as an out when there’s peer pressure. Like, Oh my gosh, my parents, remember I told you that we have the breathalyzer at home too. And then we have like nicotine kids and all this stuff. And it’s like, why do you have that? Well, I can’t do this. They have an automatic out with no peer pressure worried. My parents have testing kids at home. If I come home and they in any way think that I’m under the influence of anything, they will test me. And we’ve never caught the kids doing anything, but I like it. And they do too, that they have an out. And it may sound like, oh, you’re micromanaging your kids. No, sometimes they need a little extra besides themselves to stand up. They know what’s right to do, but the pressure can be overwhelming from these kids. And I remember experiencing, and I’m sure you do as well, And so to have an out of your parents, like, oh, my gosh, are you kidding me? When I go home, I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of my parents, you know?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, absolutely. I just did a huge convention for law enforcement officers. thousands and thousands of them out there, and I was sitting next to a guy who’s a chief of police somewhere, and we’re talking, and he said, what do you think keeps kids out of trouble? And I said, well, I was never afraid of you guys. I mean, you want to get my attention, it’s, hey, Jim, straighten up or we’re calling your folks. That puts the fear of God in me. I mean, cops don’t really bother me, but, yeah, that’s something we’ve got to take care of. And he said, Jim, what is so unfortunate? He said, I pick up kids all the time. He said, you know, one of my guys just picked up a 14-year-old girl after midnight the other night walking down the road. We picked her up and said, well, can we take you somewhere? Can we call your parents? Oh, don’t call my parents. Well, he said, I had to. I call her parents, and they’re yelling at me over the phone. Why are you calling and waking us up? Well, your 14-year-old daughter is out here in a dangerous area, and we thought you might want to come get her. Well, don’t wake me up. And Wow. That is so opposite of anything I grew up with. And, you know, I think, you know, your kids need to be able to trust you and you need to be able to trust them. And it’s a powerful thing. You know, it all goes back to do what you know how to do.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, an incident like that, I mean, it’s just terrifying to me what kind of danger, you know, kids can be in at that age, you know, especially, you know, by themselves at that age. Time of the night disappearing and nobody ever knowing, you know, what happened to them. And I think that in some ways I know other parents think that we’re a little naive to be so trusting of our kids. But, you know, we have a lot of safeguards in effect. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Life 360. Have you heard of that, Jim? Yes, I have. now so I can tell the number of hard break first of all I see the exact route my kid took at exactly what time and the exact location where they are whether it’s McDonald’s a boyfriend’s house wherever and it’s live and then I mean you literally see where they are in the school you can tell if they’re in the gym you know what I mean like you see their exact location and And then now they have a new thing besides hard braking, fast starts, speed they’re going. The entire route, I can follow it, and it shows me the exact speed they were. So I said to my daughter, why were you driving 40 in the neighborhood? She said, the speed limit’s 25, and you shouldn’t. It’s like a…
SPEAKER 06 :
country-ish neighborhood kind of anyway so um she said I wasn’t and I pulled it up and I like played it back and then remember that time I told you my son did donuts in the park in the snow and they were all those circles and so yes we do trust them but we have little like safety nets you know
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, my father for many years ran a retirement center, and they were one of the first ones to get there. Because he said, you know, I had residents that are 80, 90 years old, and they’re out driving around doing stuff. And, you know, you get a little lapse, and he said, I just want to be able to know where they are so I can – kind of keep an eye on them. So, you know, it also works for our, works for your kids, works for your parents.
SPEAKER 06 :
It works for everything. I love it. I love it. Jimstonehall.com, we’re out of time. I wish you the best. I’m going to put it on my grandpa’s phone. Thanks, Jim. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Westminster is listening to the mighty 670 KLT Denver. Hey there friends, Angie Austin here with the Good News. A really important topic we’re going to be discussing in just a few minutes. We have a guest who’s an expert in the financial area, the financial arena joining us. And we’re going to talk about teaching young people about fiscal responsibility, you know, growing wealth. And it’s not, even if you don’t have your own kids or your kids are grown or they’re too young for this, there are other people you can help. You know, my husband has helped a lot of teenagers that have been friends over the years with our kids. And he’ll do like these kind of like financial workshops. Sometimes he’ll have them come to the office, friends of the kids with our kids, of course, or, you know, we will do it. And we were just talking about doing it with some of the college kids that already have incomes, in particular the athletes that my son is friends with, kind of sitting down with them because they’re already making money and teaching them how to open their own investment accounts and some of the basics of investing if they don’t feel comfortable choosing their own stocks, etc. And so I just think it’s never too early to start and never too late to start investing. One of the kids that was learning said, oh my gosh, compound interest. This is so amazing. I’ve got to tell my mom about this. It was just so cute that she was so obsessed with it. My kids get such a kick out of seeing their accounts grow. My son, as you know, started that business when he was 12. He’s been doing it for eight years. He’s 20 now. He just bought a house with us in Boulder where he is going to college. He’s been saving for years and investing for years. I am really excited because this is kind of the way that we’ve kind of led our lives with our own children in terms of kind of growing them up, bringing them up with all kinds of lessons. So if you are just joining us, this is Angie Austin with The Good News. Always a pleasure to have you join our program. This is a topic, you know, that is just really close to my heart because I grew up so poor and I didn’t want to stay poor and I had to work full time all through high school and college. And that is building better money habits with your teens. You know, from backpacks to budgets, we are joined by a financial therapist who is turning school shopping into money lessons. Welcome to the good news, Lindsay Brian Podman. Lindsay is the author of the book, The Financial Anxiety Solution App. and she’s also a speaker and a cash app financial therapist. Welcome, Lindsay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, Angie. So happy to be here.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, I understand you’re an author of the book, The Financial Anxiety Solution App. You’re a speaker and a cash app financial therapist, and today you’re going to help us teach some of the younger people a little about, you know, it’s not that difficult to make some small steps to build better money habits.
SPEAKER 04 :
well and you know to stay on topic here and stay on theme it is good news right it’s good news that we are getting ready for back to school and we can use these very organic scenarios to start having that conversation with our kids and with our teens about money instead of you know just yelling and screaming when things get tense instead i use you know this back to school time to really set the tone, to normalize that money conversations don’t have to be hard or awkward, and using things like back-to-school supply lists or back-to-school outfit shopping as natural segues to talk about money so you can really build healthy money habits.
SPEAKER 05 :
My goodness, I have. You’ve got plenty for me, but I have two for you. We just were in Portland with relatives, and my niece was like, oh, let’s go get these jeans. I won’t mention the name. So we go in the store, which we don’t have in Denver, that they have in Portland. And as we went up towards the checkout, I looked at the tag, and it said $148 before tax. And I was like, I’m not spending $148 for each pair of jeans for my 16-year-old daughter who’s still growing. She goes, well, they’re made really well. I said, I’m sure they are, but she’ll be only wearing them for a year because she’s growing. So then we came back and we got I think it was twenty nine dollar and thirty five dollar jeans. Right. And then the other thing that happened that was interesting just last night, my daughter sent me links to these binders and she wanted pink binders. Well, they were like nine or ten bucks a piece. And I found the same white binders for four dollars a piece. So I’m like, do we really need to get the pink ones? Like these are so much less expensive. the calculator you know that graphing calculator the one she sent me was 105 dollars and I found one for 30 something and she goes let’s just wait because I can use the ones at school I’m like thank you because we just got a house for your brother at college we just moved your other daughter into a dorm which was like taking out a house you know buy another house to get all the stuff for the dorm so I’m like it gets crazy Lindsay yeah yeah um oh my gosh I’m
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, obviously this is radio, but I’m smiling and nodding along because you’re doing so many of the things that I coach parents on. You’re doing something called modeling, right? You’re naming, you’re doing for them, you’re showing them what matters to you. What are your values? Well, I’m happy to spend $40 on jeans. I don’t want to spend $140 on jeans, especially because you’re growing and it’ll probably change. And I love that binder example. This is a great opportunity to have a conversation about the difference between a need and a want. You need binders if you’re going back to school to keep all of your papers and homework organized, but you don’t need one that’s twice as much. That would be a want. And so you can invite kids into that conversation very organically and say, look, I’m happy to spend the $4 on the plain binders. If you want to spend twice as much on a different color of binder, you’re going to have to buy them yourself or make up the difference, right? This is how you organically invite them into those money conversations.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I love the needs and wants you just mentioned. And you also said something that is important about, you know, many of these kids have jobs. My kids are lifeguards in the summer and my son’s run a business since he was 12 and he is 20 and he does better than I do now at 20. So he actually just bought the house with us half and half. so he’s like legit knows how to do this and the girls are learning from him but I grew up really poor and suffice it to say Lindsay I’m not poor anymore and so I am always stressing these things to him and with the with the back to school right now they did making up the difference we’re checking out she grabs a purse I’m like I’m buying school clothes and I’m not buying that purse and she was all by the purse so she came right into my room when we got home I was already in bed and she put 25 bucks next to my bedside table and I took I took it, you know what I mean? Like I spent a lot of money on her. I took the 25.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, absolutely. And this is exactly how kids and teens can learn the importance of earning money and saving money and spending money. You made it really clear what your household budget was, AKA what you would spend money on. It was back to school shopping, but a purse wasn’t necessary in that moment. But your daughter has learned from you that if she wants something that’s outside of that family budget, she needs to use her own money for it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let’s I know about the apps. My kids use a lot of apps. So let’s talk about how families, you know, can give teens some financial responsibility, but still keep it safe and structured, not let them get all crazy with a credit card where they could really get themselves in some trouble.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, you’ve got it. So Cash App is the most popular money app for teens in the United States. And as far as how to balance freedom with safety and responsibility, Cash App Families is where a parent needs to supervise and approve the opening of Cash App for 13 to 17-year-olds. this means that parents are able to monitor the person’s activity there are options for them to turn on or off access to different features and this gives them the opportunity to practice saving up money so as you mentioned your child who was a lifeguard before they could have their direct deposit sent to cash app and they could move it into cash app savings which is fdic insured and they could set up a savings goal and watch that money, that graph grow as their savings goal moves on. And this is a great way to build that financial self-confidence but not, as you mentioned, give them so much freedom that they end up getting into trouble with the family credit card or something like that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and I know they get a real kick out of seeing it grow because we set our kids’ investment accounts up when they were 13, and our son has just gone gangbusters with it because he runs his own business. In addition – I mean, he started at 12, so he’s eight years in now. So he’s really seen that – and the girls have seen theirs grow as well, and it’s exciting to them. Now, when you talk about – you know, small changes and how they don’t have to be painful. Talk about some of them that you recommend for young people that can help them save money and that aren’t like, oh, I can’t do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is to reframe it from I can’t do that to I want my money to go to this place. So instead of it feeling like restriction, really feeling like it is something positive and proactive. So sitting down with your kid and saying, hey, here are the things we will and won’t spend money on. What are you interested in saving up money for? What are the things you want to spend money on? It helps them to set a savings goal and work toward it and also understand that Budgeting isn’t about restricting, you know, going out to the movies with your friends and just staying in all the time. It’s about saying to your friends, hey, I’m not going to the movies because this concert that’s happening in a few months I really want to go to, but my mom’s not going to pay for it, so I’m working on saving up for it, right? It, again, gives them the opportunity to practice financial management.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I think, too, like that concert, of course, we can pay for it. I say something you’re going to think is so obnoxious, but my kids will say something to the effect of, oh, you know, you know, a lot of the kids think it’s cool, think I’m I’m rich. And I, you know, they like to drop me off at my house or whatever. They’ll be like, well, we don’t get to drive cars like you do or like your family has because you’re rich. And I go, honey, honey, honey, I’m rich. You’re not rich. Because I want them to know because I was so poor growing up, low-income housing, a Buick that when it broke down, my mom worked in a factory. She dropped out of school when she was a sophomore. There were four kids with a single mom. She was working graveyard shifts. I’m working seven days a week all through high school and college to put myself through school. I’m working as a cleaning girl in a hospital, cleaning the morgue and toilets. So like I was no less than the rich kids. My one of the kids in my high school drove a Mercedes and my mom worked in his dad’s factory. So that’s how far I was from him. But I never felt like he was any better than I was. And I said to my kids, you are no better than these kids at school that are barely making it. So never think that because you’re the kids think you’re, quote unquote, rich kids. You are not, you’re just like them. You’re starting off and you’re starting off basically with nothing. So that’s why you have to, um, I started making an order like water, right? Like the restaurant, like years ago, they hated it because they wanted the $4 Coke, but there’s six people in our family. So I’m like, no. So now everyone orders water and they’re teenagers and I don’t make them except for my husband. And I’m like, that’s my little weird thing where I know I got through to them that they’re perfectly happy with it. And I I know that sounds really petty but you take every you take six times 424 so maybe it’s like 30 bucks each meal and you add it up when we go out and we don’t get desserts and we don’t get alcohol you know all that stuff it saves so much money and we don’t go to Starbucks and these little things that I’m teaching them they actually do it on their own now and it sounds petty or I’m being cheap no I will be the biggest tipper in the room I will be the biggest tipper in the room because I’ve saved money over the years and I have plenty of money to tip but I don’t have plenty of money to waste because I don’t want to waste it
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I so appreciate you naming that. And it is so true that these little expenses add up over time, but it’s hard to understand how $4 can become $140. So that’s why having these conversations, even when you go out to dinner and say, hey, we chose to get dessert instead of everyone getting a soda, right? Like these are really good teachable moments and it’s narrating your money choices and modeling for your kids what matters and also naming for them really explicitly Having money or not having money doesn’t mean you’re better or worse than anybody else. And what I also heard you say is that you learned it over time, right? You weren’t taught these skills one day or just like woke up and knew everything about money. It was step by step. You learned new terms and learned how to use new tools over time.
SPEAKER 05 :
And then, too, Lindsay, that helps you with the $10,000 to $13,000 for your club dues for volleyball. Okay, well, I’ll pay that, right? They’re all in sports, and it’s expensive. So I’ll pay that. But the reason I can pay that is because we didn’t buy all these dumb things. You know what I mean? Right. So and not one of my kids actually has a sports scholarship. So it paid off in the end. All right. I want to make sure people know how to get their kids like started. So give us like some info about where we can go to start using Cash App for them or get them set, you know, so they can start budgeting themselves.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, of course. So you can find Cash App online or download it from the App Store. And the other thing is to look up Afterpay and you can download it off the App Store to Afterpay.com. helps people pay for big expenses or unexpected expenses over time with monthly installments without those high interest rates that credit cards are so notorious for.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, okay, cool. Well, excellent information, Lindsay. Love what you do, and boy, I’m right there. You’re singing to the choir. I’m right there with you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great, Angie. Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER 03 :
You bet. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
This episode of The Good News with Angie Austin doesn’t shy away from real issues, featuring a conversation with financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podman about instilling healthy financial habits in teens. They explore how everyday activities, like back-to-school shopping, can serve as teachable moments to differentiate between needs and wants. With practical insights into apps like Cash App, this episode is a treasure trove for parents looking to maintain balance in granting financial freedom with necessary safeguards.
