How to be financially generous without enabling bad money habits

 

Episode Description: Financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin joins Bobbi to share strategies on how to provide the right kind of support for those we care about, without undermining their journey to being financial grownups. We also discuss managing friends who are so generous it becomes awkward, and what to say to a loved one who is spending for emotional reasons that is supportive without being judgmental. 

A little sneak peek into Lindsay’s episode!

Timestamps & Main Points:

00:00 - Introduction

02:03 - “Know what you own and know why you own it.”

05:58 - There's this fine line between being kind and being conscientious.

10:26 - I think of generosity as being clear and kind.

12:57 - It makes it really challenging for that adult child to ever kind of learn the importance of taking ownership.

15:52 - There's so much opportunity to deepen further with your parent or with your adult child if you are connecting and talking about things besides that dynamic of I give and you take.


Lindsay’s Bio:

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin (she/her) is a biracial financial wellness expert, speaker, and author of the book "The Financial Anxiety Solution." A practicing social worker since 2012, she uses a shame-free approach to help people get their minds and money in balance by focusing on the intersection of money and mental health using financial therapy. While financial literacy is important, she champions the belief that money is rooted in emotions and impacted by the systems around us. She has a degree in sociology and a Master’s in Social Work with certificates in Financial Social Work and Financial Therapy. She lives with her partner and their dog on the occupied land of the Fox, Peoria, and Potawatomi peoples, also known as Michigan.

 
 

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Full Transcript:


Bobbi Rebell:

Welcome my friend to the Wellness for Financial Grownups podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm your host, Bobbi Rebell. I'm a certified financial planner and the author of a couple of books about Financial Grownups. The most recent one is Launching Financial Grownups: Live Your Richest Life by Helping Your (Almost) Adult Kids Become Everyday Money Smart.

I also run an education and consulting company called Financial Wellness Strategies, and I spent my earlier career days as a business news anchor and personal finance columnist working at places including Reuters, CNBC, and CNN. Each week on the podcast, we share strategies, not solutions, we'll explain, for living our best Financial Grownup lives.

So I say strategies, not solutions for a very specific reason. Our lives, not problems to be solved, my friends. We are in a constant state of adapting and evolving as humans. We are on our own journeys, but we benefit from the support, knowledge and perspective that we can get from each other. And that is the purpose of this podcast.

This week's guest is Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, and we are going to be focusing on the difference between generosity and enabling those that we love and care about in our lives. But first, as we will do every week, I want to share a quote to get us thinking about our own wellness as Financial Grownups. This week's quote is from legendary money manager Peter Lynch.

He is best known as the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investments. He was there, the big years were 1977 to 1990. He averaged, get this guy's, almost a 30% return, 29.2 annual return to be exact. Consistently more than double the stock market, making it the best performing mutual fund in the world. And he was a big proponent of value investing and advocated investing in what you know.

So here is this week's quote, "Know what you own and know why you own it." Know what you own and know why you own it. And I think this is an interesting metaphor for so much in life. It reminds me of Marie Kondo's focus on only owning things that bring us joy. We buy stuff for all kinds of reasons and there is nothing wrong with buying something because you like it and you can afford it.

But take stock, pun intended in this case, this week of things that you own and really give some thought to why you own it. And then take action or no action from there. Spring cleaning for Financial Grownups. Let's get to this week's guest. So as I mentioned, financial wellness expert and social worker, Lindsay Bryan-Podvin.

She is the author of the book, the Financial Anxiety Solution. And Lindsay is all about using a shame-free approach to help people get their minds and money in balance by focusing on the intersection of money and mental health. Now among the highlights of our interview, we talk about how to manage an overly generous friend when it gets to an awkward level. And look, I hope that hasn't happened to you, but sometimes it happens.

Sometimes people are really well-intentioned and they know that you can't afford something, so they're always offering to pay for stuff and it gets a little weird. We're also going to talk about how to delicately tell someone that you know is overspending to get control of the situation. And then we're also going to touch on how to be generous but not undermine someone's efforts to be a Financial Grownup. Here is Lindsay Bryan-Podvin. Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, you are a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Thanks Bobbi. I'm so happy to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:

I'm so appreciative of you being here because you have so much to share with our audience. You are not only a financial therapist, but you're also a content creator. I want you to tell us more about what you do before we get into our conversation.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Sure. So for people who don't know what financial therapy is, I have a background in clinical social work and I've been a practicing therapist for over a decade. And then I have additional specialty training in financial psychology and in financial social work.

So in my therapy practice, I help people with the emotional side of money. And then as Bobbi mentioned, outside of my therapy practice, I love helping people understand how our emotions and our mental health intersect with the way that we interact with money. And I provide a lot of content through YouTube and Instagram and my blog all about how our money and emotions are connected.

Bobbi Rebell:

And they are very connected. And that's one thing we're going to talk about today. This episode where we're going to be talking about the difference between generosity and enabling was inspired by our mutual friend Melanie Lockhart. She has a podcast called the Mental Health and Wellness Podcast. I think I got that name right.

Everyone should check it out. She spoke about this topic and I thought about it and I said, "You know what? I want to talk to Lindsay about how this can apply to Financial Grownups." Because being a Financial Grownup, we want to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and the people around us, but it can get a little bit nuanced because we want to be generous.

In fact, we talk a lot about generosity on the podcast, but at the same time, sometimes that can cross into some unexpected consequences and we can become enablers of some financially... Well, just some damaging behavior that we can basically undermine good financial habits. So first of all, what's your general take on this topic?

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

My general take on this topic is that for adults who are in this sandwich generation of trying to raise children, stepchildren or children in the community and aging parents, if they are doing okay financially, it can be really easy to slip from being helpful or being thoughtful into enabling a child or into enabling an adult caregiver.

There's this fine line between being kind and being conscientious and being generous and potentially making it tricky for somebody else who is able-bodied and of sound mind to take care of their own financial needs. So when we think about enabling from the therapy lens, enabling is where a person, we call them the giver or rescuer swoops in to prevent somebody who's engaging in behaviors that might be harmful from facing any of their natural consequences.

So when it comes to financial enabling, that could look like maybe swooping in and paying for your adult child's rent because they have decided to spend their money on going out and taking their friends out. Right? That would be a version of enabling, is you're preventing that adult child from facing those natural consequences of what happens if their rent is late.

And what happens over time is that it can create this unhealthy pattern where the giver or the helper is constantly kind of feeling like their role within this person's life is to save them or is to rescue them, and then they can kind of become dependent on the feeling of being the savior. So it gets to be really murky really quick.

And when we think about generosity, I like to think about it more of kind of your one-time offerings or having really transparent, generous conversations with an adult child about the financial gifts that you might provide them. For example, if you have an adult child who just graduated from college, maybe you say to them, "My generous gift to you is that I will help subsidize your rent for the first three months while you're getting on your feet.

Then after that I'm going to pull that money back. Not because I'm mean, not because I'm cutting you off, but because I want you to learn how to manage your money. And I understand that those first few months can be a little bit tricky getting on your feet." So the generosity is where you give something clearly, kindly and without the expectation of something in return, whereas enabling is you giving something with the hopes that you're going to get something in return.

Bobbi Rebell:

Right. And the classic situation that we hear about very often, and I know my friend, David Bach has talked about this quite a bit, is your child or someone that you care about, someone that you have financial ties to. It could be, for example, even a romantic partner, they get into credit card debt and you bail them out and you say you're not going to do it again, but then it happens again and maybe the consequences would hit them and you. So how do you handle that?

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah. Oh, it's so tricky in those situations. So when it comes to credit card debt in that cycle that we tend to see happen a lot where somebody racks up credit card debt, they either work really hard to pay it down or they pay it down with their partner and then they get back into it again.

When you're going to have a generous conversation with somebody like that, you may say, "Look, in order to prevent this from happening again, let's put a freeze on your credit and let's maybe get you into therapy to figure out why this is happening again and again."

Because it is probably more likely that they are trying to scratch some sort of itch with that shopping. Because when we think about shopping, it releases a host of feel good brain chemicals for us. So it makes it really challenging to stop shopping if that's somebody's kind of go-to coping skill. Right? When we shop, we get that rush of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin or endorphins depending on what we're shopping for, time of day, et cetera.

So it could be a loving and generous thing to do to say to your partner, "Look, we're going to pay this off together. Let's freeze your credit and let's make sure that I as your partner am not enabling this behavior and you are also getting the help that you need to find some other healthy outlets to get those feel good brain chemicals outside of shopping."

Bobbi Rebell:

A lot of this generosity versus enabling can get very nuanced when it comes to friendships, especially when...

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:

People have different levels of financial resources and often through nothing directly through their own actions.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:

So let's say a scenario. You've got young people that have jobs, they're both working hard, but one maybe has family money and has a little more wiggle room financially than the other. The one with more money wants to go somewhere and is perfectly capable of paying for everyone. We've got the person, "Drinks on me." That's great, that's very generous. But talk to me about how does that really play out in terms of this whole scenario?

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Again, I think of generosity as being clear and kind. So if you are the person who's in a financial situation to be able to treat your friends, that's perfectly fine, but also check in with them. Because as the person on the receiving end, this person being generous saying, "Let me take you on a trip. Let me take you out to a nice dinner.

This feels really good for me." The person on the receiving end actually might be incredibly uncomfortable and they might be like, "Look, I don't mind getting a round in drinks every now and then from you. That feels really good, but taking us to your family's Swiss chalet feels really uncomfortable for me.

And I actually feel more out of my element. And I know you mean for it to be kind, but for me it just feels really uncomfortable." So again, just being clear and kind and also maybe even addressing something that might be more uncomfortable, which is for the person who is not in that financial situation to say to this giver, "Hey, I would love to do more traveling together, but what's in my budget is more of splitting an Airbnb.

Is that something you're comfortable with? Would you be interested in kind of traveling my way? And if you want to take us out to dinner once while we're there, great. But I don't want to feel like I'm kind of out of my league either." So having some of those more uncomfortable conversations can help for the generosity and for your friend to feel like they're a part of the conversation as well.

Bobbi Rebell:

It also can come into play when there are mixed messages in families. So for example, can you talk about that? Because that's something that is very precarious because you're dealing with multiple different relationships.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:

And how we intersect.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah. So a kind of classic example of this is nice parent and mean parent or good cop, bad cop. That kind of dynamic where you have one parent who likes to be really kind, feels it's very important to be generous, but that generosity often sometimes is met from their partner with, "You're enabling our kid" or "You're never letting them face natural consequences."

And it can set up this weird triangle where the adult child knows who to go to when they need their cellphone bill paid or when they need their parking ticket paid. They don't go to the tougher parent, they go to the parent who they know is going to just log into that account and pay that bill for them. But then it sets up this kind of divide between all of them because you've got the parent who's trying to provide that tough love and say, "Look, you need to kind of face some of these natural consequences" with their partner who's eager to swoop in and clean up.

And then it makes it really challenging for that adult child to ever kind of learn the importance of taking ownership for those types of things. And it's not to say that if you have generous parents, you should never ask for them or of them anything. I think most parents will agree, if I have the means to help out my kid, I want to do that. And we want to make sure that it's more of a safety net than a enabling situation.

And what I mean by that, a safety net is more of a one time if your adult child is in a crisis helping out financially. So for example, if an adult child is renting and the fridge breaks, maybe the parents would say, "Look, we'll buy you meals or we'll buy you groceries until the fridge gets fixed." That would be an example of a safety net financial support versus like, "You can just use our credit card for groceries from here on out," which might be more enabling.

Bobbi Rebell:

Does the response from a parent have to, I mean, how do you sort of figure out the difference? I mean, I guess it's looking at is it something that they caused or that they're... In other words, the refrigerator breaking, I mean, that's just not their fault, but then again, that's also life and maybe you shouldn't be there. It's tricky because I know I would be there.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:

I'm going to write the check to fix the fridge. And I think most parents are, even if it's going to be to their own financial detriment, which is something that we talk a lot about with launching Financial Grownups is it's great to help your kids, but the greatest gift you can give your children is not being dependent on them later in life. So you have to be careful with that.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Also, think about when we are not allowing folks to face natural consequences or to use your term, have skin in the game, we're also robbing them of their ability to trust that they know how to problem solve or that they have the capacity to be responsible in certain ways.

Bobbi Rebell:

And that goes to your point earlier with the fact that you put up guardrails with things like subsidizing the first maybe post-education, first career years of a young adult's life. There's nothing wrong with subsidizing rent, but there should be messaging that there's a timeline for it and an expectation that can be adjusted.

Of course, if something happens, we're there for our adult children, but there has to be an expectation that we believe in them. Because you do undermine their confidence if you don't let them know that they can be okay without you also. That you're there for them when they need you, you're there for them when they just want you, but you also believe in them.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

And it can be really healthy for the adult child and the parent's relationship once that particular financial support is removed to connect about things beyond, "Did you pay my bills this month?" Right?

Bobbi Rebell:

Yes.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

It can actually help to deepen that conversation and that transition from emerging adult to adult. There's so much opportunity to deepen further with your parent or with your adult child if you are connecting and talking about things besides that dynamic of I give and you take.

Bobbi Rebell:

Because it can become very transactional then. You have a young adult child, maybe you're subsidizing their first couple of years in their career and the conversations can focus, the communication can focus on, "Oh, I got this bill, are you paying it?" And I think it's really important to sort of ease them off that.

So maybe if they are using your tax accountant, you can say, "well, I will pay this percentage of the bill this year and this percentage next year, but you have to take control of all the communications with the accountant. You are the client.

You need to get your documents in order, whatever it may be." And sort of ease them into it and let them see the bill. Because if they don't see the bill, what it costs to run their life, whether it is the tax accountant or their portion of the phone bill, whatever it may be, or even the Netflix bill. One of my favorite things is one of our adult children, she subscribes to a channel, and she, and I'm sorry if we get in trouble here, but she shared the password to that one with us.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah, sure.

Bobbi Rebell:

So it doesn't have to be one way. If they're paying 4.99 for whatever extra channel that I wasn't going to pay for anyway, but maybe there's a show on there, it can be reversed. And I think it gave them great pleasure to be like, "Okay, I know I'm using your Netflix password," and we pay for a family plan if anyone's watching. We do pay. But, "I know I'm using your Netflix password, but you can use my password for this and we can all share."

And the whole idea of the family ecosystem and letting them know that yes, you can pay for dinner 99% of the time, but it's kind of fun if maybe they pay for dinner on your birthday or whatever it may be. And it probably gives them a lot of pride. I know it's always, it gives me a lot of pride when we do something for our parents, my siblings and I for various life events and stuff.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Totally. I can remember vividly the first time my partner and I paid for a dinner for our in-laws and how good it felt to be able to treat them. And obviously, over the course of our lifetimes buying them a dinner is a drop in the bucket compared to all the things that they've done for us. But it also felt really kind and also just like a little token of our appreciation to say, this is something that feels good for us to be able to do. And it was early adulthood, but we firsthand some of those actual paychecks coming in and it was so nice to be able to do that.

Bobbi Rebell:

Exactly. So I want to wrap up our conversation, but I do want to give you a moment to sort of share your final thoughts on this topic.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Yeah. I think one thing for the listeners is just to know that this is an ongoing conversation. And I know I repeated this ad nausea, but it's so important to make sure that you're having these conversations with your adult children, or if you're the adult child, with your parents and caregivers.

And as Bobbi mentioned, these things are going to change over time and what feels good right now might not feel good in six months, and just because you agreed to something doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. So I hope that listening to this and listening in on this helps you to think about, "Oh, how can I talk to my adult child? Or, "How can I talk to my parent about this particular financial dynamic that we find ourselves in?"

Bobbi Rebell:

Thank you so much. Tell us more about where people can be in touch with you and also your YouTube channel.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Of course. So my business is called Mind Money Balance, where I help people understand the shame-free side of money so they can get their minds and money and balance. And you can find me on YouTube at Mind Money Balance, on Instagram at Mind Money Balance, and of course on my website. And my book is called The Financial Anxiety Solution, and it's a workbook that helps you work through your feelings about money so that you can have a healthier relationship with it.

Bobbi Rebell:

Thank you so much.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin:

Thanks, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:

Lindsay spells it out so clearly, make it a safety net rather than an ongoing means of financial support to make sure that you are not enabling, that you're merely being generous. Setting those boundaries, but communicating that you're going to still be there for them, but you hope that they're going to create a life where they have their own safety nets in place time.

Now for our financial Grownup Extra Credit for this episode. Each week I share a recommendation that can add to our conversation about wellness. Because education, financial education, financial literacy is a big part of financial wellness. This week it is a YouTube channel called The Financial Diet. It is hosted by my friend Chelsea Fagan, and she has a knack for putting money stuff in perspective.

She's very entertaining to watch, but she has some really good messages. Chelsea herself, by the way, very cool. In her spare time, she recently wrote a book, not about money, not at all about money. It is called a Perfect Vintage, and it is fiction. It comes out in June. Talk about balance. And by the way, they also have a really cool online book club over at The Financial Diet.

We will leave a link to The Financial Diet's YouTube channel in the show notes. I so appreciate all of the support for this podcast. I hope you like this new iteration. It's been percolating for more months than I care to admit, but we finally did it. Big thanks to everyone involved, including my editor, Steve Stewart, assistant Allie Bourbon, who you can thank for the show notes and the transcript. By the way, all for free at BobbiRebell.com.

Allie also puts together great social media clips that you can see on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Also, so grateful to Chelsea Perez who designed our new podcast artwork. If you are not already, please sign up for our newsletter, which has more great resources for Financial Grownups and will also include follow-ups to those extra credit assignments.

Please follow me and DM me on Instagram at BobbiRebell1 or catch me on TikTok under Bobbi Rebell. And of course, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn as well. Big thanks to Lindsay Bryan-Podvin for helping us all be Financial Grownups and invest in peace of mind. Wellness For Financial Grownups is a production of BRK Media.

Editing and Production by Steve Stewart, guest coordination, social media support and show notes by Alliee Borbon, artwork by Chelsea Perez. You can find the podcast show notes, which include links to resources mentioned on the show, as well as show transcripts by going to my website, BobbiRebell.com. To get even more out of this podcast, make sure you are also on our newsletter list to get more free content to live your best Financial Grownup lives.

There is a link in the show notes, but you can also sign up by going to BobbiRebell.com or financialwellnessstrategies.com. And be a friend, share the podcast with your friends and anyone you think might like it by taking a screenshot and sharing it on social media. Make sure to tag me on Instagram at BobbiRebell1.

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