Philip Taylor, aka PT Money was too cool to do any research, or any real negotiation when buying his first car. But the crushing payments, and having to call his dad for help, quickly brought him back to reality. 

In PT’s money story you will learn:

-Why PT felt guilty and went into a panic after buying his first car

-How he determined what car to buy and the budget

-The exact steps he used to buy his first car

-What his costs were relative to his financial resources

-His negotiation strategy

-What happened when he got home and made a huge decision

-How he tried to correct the mistake himself

-Why he reached out to his father for help, and how the situation was resolved

In PT’s money lesson you will learn:

-How to know what to pay for a car and how to negotiate it in advance

-The specific steps PT now uses to buy cars

-The best ways to finance a car purchase

-How you can avoid the pitfalls PT experienced

-The exact resources PT uses when buying a car

-Other skills PT now has to be a financial grownup

In PT’s everyday money tip you will learn:

-How PT and his wife have streamlined their grocery shopping

-How to balance saving money with saving time

-How to avoid buying things you don’t need when food shopping

-Strategies to get grocery shopping done with kids in tow

-When to pay fees for grocery related services

In My Take you will learn:

-Don’t let your pride get in the way of correcting a mistake

-When free is not the best value

-What to look for in a business where you are paying a fee for service to determine if it is worth paying the extra money

Episode Links:

PT’s website https://ptmoney.com/

Come to Fincon! Learn more here. 

Follow PT and Fincon!

Twitter: @PTMoney @Fincon

Instagram @PTMoney   @finconexpo  

Facebook PTMoneyblog   Finconexpo

 

Car resources PT mentioned

Edmunds

TrueCar

KellyBluebook

Craigslist

Grocery resources PT mentioned

WalMart

Kroger

Target

This episode was taped at Podcast Movement

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Transcription

Philip Taylor:
I all of a sudden felt a rush of severe guilt and severe panic that I think I've actually put myself in a big hole here. I felt embarrassed that I couldn't have gone into the dealership and made us smarter choice. And I tried to call the dealership up and say, "Hey, would you guys take this car back?" And I think they got laughed at me over the phone.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell. Author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. But you know what, being a grown up is really hard especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hello my Financial Grownup friends. Making your first really big purchase, is a really exciting. But it's also a reality check. That is what you are hearing in the voice of Philip Taylor, known to many of his fans, as PT money. He later went on to start a huge money content conference called FinCon, which we'll talk about later. Welcome to the podcast to everyone. We keep it to about 15 minutes because you're busy. We're focused and intentional in bringing you a mini story and a lesson from that mini story, and then we'll always give you what I call an everyday money tip and specific ways that you can put it all to work in your life. All right, so let's get to PT's story. It is about buying his first car. But as you will hear, it is also about learning that even if you are legally an adult, you sometimes have to be humble and make that call to your dad. I was able to connect with PT at Podcast Movement in July. So you're going to hear a little bit of that in the background. Here is PT.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Philip Taylor, aka PT aka PT Money. You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Philip Taylor:
Thanks for having me on Bobbi. It's great to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is an honor for me because we are approaching year three for me of your venture FinCon, which is a big conference for money people. Tell us quickly about it, and then we're going to get your money story.

Philip Taylor:
Yeah. It's a digital marketing conference for people who talk to people about money. So if they're out there, whether they're the Dave Ramsey type or the Suze Orman type, they're reaching people with a financial message. We'd like to have them at the event and show them how to do it better.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you're going to show us how to do buying a car better. Tell us your money story.

Philip Taylor:
Yeah, my money story is this. When I was, let's see, 22, 23 left college. Thought it was a big time college graduate with my new career.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was your new career?

Philip Taylor:
In accounting. So I was going to go work for one of the big financial firms, big accounting firms. My salary was 33,000. And through college, my parents had most have helped me out with a lot of the financial expenses. I had took out some student loans to help me out with some of the college. So, for the most part, I hadn't really managed my own money yet.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you were in accounting just to be clear.

Philip Taylor:
But I was in accounting. Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Philip Taylor:
And I knew some of the high finance stuff at that point. But I didn't know really how to handle my own money. And I was kind of naturally a spender. So, left for the new job that I had this big paycheck coming in, and the world was mine, right?

Bobbi Rebell:
And what were your other ... were you paying rent? What else was going on financially with you in terms of your overhead? Were you living with mom and dad?

Philip Taylor:
No, I moved into an apartment with some buddies. I was at least splitting I guess rent with some friends. But it was the nicest apartment in town because here we were big time college grads now, we could afford it all, right? And the next thing I wanted to do is run out and buy a brand new car, like a brand new SUV. I think it was the Mitsubishi Montero Sport had just come out. And it was this brand new SUV and it was 1999. So that dates me a bit. But it was like this beautiful vehicle that I thought now I had earned the right to go by.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Philip Taylor:
And so I kind of just blindly went down to the dealership.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now did you bring your buddies? Did you bring a family member? Anyone?

Philip Taylor:
No. The ego was there and I was like, I'm an accountant. My dad's a CPA. I can go figure this thing out.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you did the research that you knew what car you wanted, but anything on pricing financing anything? [crosstalk 00:04:05] my young accountant.

Philip Taylor:
No. I did None of that. I literally went down to the dealership thinking, I'll just work it out when I get there. I think my buddies and I were going to go on a trip the next weekend. And so it was in my mind that I would have this SUV by the time we went on this trip. I left my old car there for whatever they were going to give me for.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you negotiate that?

Philip Taylor:
I didn't even negotiate, no.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you negotiated nothing?

Philip Taylor:
No. I took what they were giving me on that. I took the interest rate that they were going to give me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which was?

Philip Taylor:
Somewhere between 9% and 12%. So it was ridiculous. Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Philip Taylor:
I was being taken to the cleaners totally.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what was the price of the car?

Philip Taylor:
I don't remember that. I think it was somewhere around 32,000. Something like that.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, your yearly salary, which you do remember-

Philip Taylor:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Was 33,000. You went out and bought a $32,000 car, brand new. You don't really remember the actual price of the car. You don't remember the actual interest rate. You didn't negotiate anything. But you had a fancy car and you were in the nicest apartment in town.

Philip Taylor:
That's it. That's it.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's good. All right. And you're going on a trip?

Philip Taylor:
That's right.

Bobbi Rebell:
Continue.

Philip Taylor:
Yes. So I get home and I we're getting ready for a trip. And then I start realizing what insurance is going to be for me. And because I was a young guy, I guess and not married yet or not a homeowner yet, insurance on this new Montero Sport was going to be just absolutely through the roof. And so when I started putting it all together, the car payment, the insurance-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, what's the car payment?

Philip Taylor:
It was somewhere around $400 I think. $400, $500.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was your monthly take home pay?

Philip Taylor:
33,000 divided by 12, whatever that is. I don't know. It was not much.

Bobbi Rebell:
I hope you paid taxes too. So it wasn't [inaudible 00:05:36].

Philip Taylor:
Exactly. Yeah. So all in all-

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.

Philip Taylor:
I was going to be probably spending close to at least a third of my take home pay on this whole car experience, if not more. So, overburdening myself for sure.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you feel?

Philip Taylor:
I all of a sudden felt a rush of severe guilt and severe panic that, "Okay, I think I've actually put myself in a big hole here." I felt embarrassed that I couldn't have gone into the dealership and made a smarter choice and negotiated it a little better. And so, yeah, I felt, I guess a sense of the immediacy of owning this thing was now fading. And I was feeling bad.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do?

Philip Taylor:
At that point, I tried to call the dealership up and say, "Hey, would you guys take this car back?" And I think the guy laughed at me over the phone. And I didn't even then attempt to go down there. I was like, "Well, what can I do now? Can't really afford this thing. So should I try to sell it on the secondary market? And that would be foolish." I knew enough to know that. And so I just felt, I was at the end of my rope. So I called my dad.

Philip Taylor:
And here I am this 22 year old, big ego, new college grad, at the end of the day calling dad for a bailout. And I said, "Dad, what do I do in this situation?" And luckily, dad is able to call up the dealership and somehow spin his magic and convince them to take the car back from me. I do remember one thing about this is that it was $1,000 down payment that I put down because that's pretty much what I lost in this whole process. So they took the car back and I didn't owe any payments anymore, but I did lose my $1,000. And they gave me my old Saturn back that was paid for. And I drove my Saturn for the next five years, proudly. I swore going forward that I would own my financial life going forward. And I wouldn't ever rely on someone else to kind of help me out.

Philip Taylor:
But then I also studied up on actually how to buy a car. And I actually learned how to do it right. And so the next one I bought, I used some smarter tactics there.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, give us a lesson for our listeners, what is the takeaway from that?

Philip Taylor:
Yeah, number one, you need to absolutely have the price of the car pretty much nailed down before you even walk into the dealership.

Bobbi Rebell:
The retail price of the price that you are willing to pay?

Philip Taylor:
The price that you are willing to pay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Philip Taylor:
And what other people are buying that car for. So we have all kinds of tools out there these days that will let you research that. Whether it's in edmunds.com or truecar.com. Those services will allow you to kind of research what people are actually buying cars for on the public market. And so you really need to kind of nail that down before you go to a dealership.

Philip Taylor:
The second thing I like to do is to actually take a step further and start communicating with dealerships about a potential offer and saying, "This is what I'm looking for. What's kind of your best offer to get me down there?" And so I have these conversations over email with these dealerships to let them put their best foot forward. Dealerships are used to this now. They are very used to consumers who want to just communicate beforehand. And so nail down that price as much as possible before you walk into the dealership. With financing, go to other sources. Go to your bank go to other vendors who could provide a good rate for you and have that loan secured before you walk into that dealership.

Philip Taylor:
Secondly, know what your car's worth. Look it up on Blue Book. Understand what your trade in value is going to be. At the end of the day, we're going to take this to Craigslist with and sell it on the open market. So know those numbers. And then once you're going in, and once you go to the actual dealership, bring someone with you. So I made that mistake the first time. And this is a chance for you to rely on someone else. Negotiate each of those factors separately. So start with the price get that nailed down. They're going to want to talk to you about payments. They're going to want to talk to you about interest rates.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, let's talk about why they want. They want to talk about payments, because most people just think, can I afford the payment rather ... And that's a way for them to charge a higher price because you can manipulate the payments.

Philip Taylor:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's talk about your everyday money tip. Because this is one that is near and dear to my heart as a busy mom and someone that doesn't want to get suckered into buying stuff that I don't want. Do tell.

Philip Taylor:
Yeah, so my wife's the frugal one. Mrs. PT is super frugal. I'm the spender. So, she's got all the cool money saving ideas. And so one of the things she does is buy her groceries every week or every other week. And in the past it's always been good advice to make a grocery list before you go the grocery store, right? Because that way you won't pick up anything extra, you'll get exactly what you need. You'll be able to maybe even price some things out beforehand. That's good advice.

Philip Taylor:
But I find that through the years, it's like we made the event in January for a couple weeks, and then it kind of falls off, right? You're less diligent about that. So you end up just buying sort of random things at the grocery store every time you go. So one of the things we started doing is taking advantage of grocery pickup, right? So many folks are familiar with this. But this allows us to beforehand, before we go the grocery store, use the online portals of Walmart, of Target, of Kroger, whoever, and pre select our items we want to buy. Walmart is free for this service. Some other grocery stores will charge you these days. It's a small fee, though. And to me, it's worth it because you're selecting beforehand, before you're hungry before you're walking the aisle, seeing the tempting things. You're seeing exactly what you need.

Philip Taylor:
And then you pop in your car. At the scheduled time you show up, and you don't even have to go in the store keep your kids in the car, which is really cool for my wife, we have three kids. And then you pay your fee if you're going to the one of the places that pay a fee, or you go to Walmart, you pick it up free, and then you head home knowing that you didn't buy anything extra that you didn't need. And you saved some time because you're not wandering the stores picking random things.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about FinCon because this is your how much?

Philip Taylor:
This is our eighth one.

Bobbi Rebell:
Eighth one. Wow.

Philip Taylor:
Yeah. And so it's an annual event and community. And our event will be this September 26 to 29 in Orlando, Florida. Be 2,000 money nerds like us sitting around talking about money but also how we talk about money. So talking shop. Whether it's how to create better content, promote it better or make money on our efforts.

Bobbi Rebell:
How has the business evolved, because you've really grown. You've got a big ... we're here by the way, recording a Podcast Movement. You've got a lot of people here on your team which is really impressive.

Philip Taylor:
About the third year I decided I wanted to take it a little more seriously. And so I started looking for ways to add value to the attendees. Things I'd held off on before because I wanted to keep the pricing low on the tickets. So, I just said, "Well, I can still have a low ticket but then now I can have a premium ticket. And I even have a premium above that." So I look for ways to add value for attendees that we could kind of build some margin in and charge a higher price for.

Philip Taylor:
Secondly, was to create more of a true marketplace at the event where people were coming together to do business and to do deals. And so for the ROI of the experience being face to face. You for instance, meeting with brands at the event can turn into a podcast sponsorship. And so, that's kind of what we want to create. A marketplace for that to happen at the event. And so the more we leaned into our expo hall experience, which we call FinCon Central now, to make that a bigger part of the event. The more value that sponsors and exhibitors saw and being a part of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where can people find you and learn more about FinCon and about you. Because you also have your own stuff going on.

Philip Taylor:
Sure. We're on the socials @FinCon or @FinConExpo. And then our website is finconexpo.com. And then me personally, I have my own blog and some podcasts I've done in the past. All at ptmoney.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you PT.

Philip Taylor:
Thanks Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
There is a lot in what PT had to share with us. So much that we can all relate to. Financial grownup tip number one. If you get into a bad situation, do not let your pride get in the way of fixing it. PT could have just accepted defeat and been under a mess of payments for years. But he did the hard thing and called his dad, and his dad was there for him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. You may have noticed that in PT's money tip, some of the grocery services were free and some had a payment. There are times when free is not the best value. Not saying it isn't in that case. But a well run business is profitable. So they must make money somewhere. Give your business to the stores that work the best for your life. The store that executes better. That has delivery done on time for example and correctly. May cost more, but be worth it. That cost may be in a fee or it may be in slightly higher prices. But look at the total picture.

Bobbi Rebell:
A quick word about PT's business, FinCon, it is happening in Orlando on September 26th to the 29th. If you are interested in coming, please come hear me speak on Wednesday at 1:30. I will be doing a joint presentation with my editor and producer, Steve Stewart. We'll be sharing the behind the scenes look into what went on when we launched the Financial Grownup podcast and where we have come from those first episodes back in February of 2018. And we'll also have a lot of information about how you can get started podcasting if that is something that interests you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Make sure to let me know if you are coming so that we can connect in person. I'm going to leave a link to sign up for FinCon and learn more about it in the show notes. Those show notes are at bobbirebell.com calm/podcast/ptmoney. Or you can just DM me on any of the social media channel and I will make sure that you get the right information. On Instagram, I am @BobbiRebell1 and on Twitter @BobbiRebell and thank you to PT for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grown ups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary shares a story about his mother and a secret he learned about after she passed away. The Entrepreneur, who is also behind O’Shares and O’Leary Ventures  reveals in the story how his mothers choices informed his investing style, which is heavily focused on dividends. 

He goes on to discuss the two types of investments his mother chose, including her thinking and mindset in making those choices. 

O'Leary also talks about the importance of the tax changes and why that is something that will benefit investors who follow his strategy. 

In his money tip Kevin explains how people who can’t save can find the money to get on track. He also reveals another lesson from his mother that was a bit surprise. O'Leary also shares his 90 day money test that he does with his wealthy friends to help them stay rich. 

O'Leary talks about an app that he launched  called Beanstox that allows investors to buy small dollar amounts of ETF’s and market-leading stocks. It gets people into investing without having to commit large amounts of capital up-front. 

Links to things mentioned in this episode

• Kevin O’Leary’s financial literacy books the Cold Hard Truth series can be found here. 

• His app to start investing can be found at Beanstox

• To learn more about the companies he backs as well as his wine business and more, go to O’LEARY VENTURES

• Kevin also talked about his ETF business O'Shares

• In his story about his mom he spoke about Chanel and Gucci

Books I recommended in the episode: 

• The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber

• Smart Money Smart Kids, Raising the next generation to win with money by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz

• Make your Kid a Money Genius even if you are not by Beth Kobliner

• Money A-Z Scott Alan Turner

• Steve Jobs, The man who thought different by Karen Blumenthal

 

I also mention Fincon which is a fantastic conference for anyone who creates content about money. 

Kevin O'Leary explains how people who can’t save can find the money to get on track. O'Leary also shares his 90 day money test that he does with his wealthy friends to help them stay rich and how you can save 10% even when you're living paycheck to paycheck. #SaveMoney #MoneySavingTips

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Transcription

Kevin O'Leary:
The executor called me and said, "Look, your mother has kept a secret account from both of your husbands her whole life, you should come here because you're not going to be executor of this".

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up, with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be A Financial Grown Up, and you know what, being the grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're gonna get there together. I'm gonna bring you one money story from a financial grown up, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, welcome to this edition of Financial Grown Up, and for those of you who have not guessed yet, yes that was the voice of Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. He is going to join us in just a moment to share a story about a secret, a financial lesson secret that he learned from his mother only after she passed away. It is a great story and it's gonna change your whole mindset about how you think about investing, so stick with me here. I just want to do a quick introduction to Kevin, tell you guys a little bit more about him for the maybe one or two people out there that don't know exactly who Kevin O'Leary is.

Bobbi Rebell:
He is a serial entrepreneur. He's got his own ventures including an investment company that focuses on dividend ETS. He also is in the wine business and of course, O'Leary Venture supports all the Shark Tank companies that he's invested in. Recent success of note, Plated, which he sold for a cool 300 million dollars. He's also got a really interesting app I want you guys to hear about and you will hear about it in just a moment. Here is Kevin O'Leary.

Bobbi Rebell:
Kevin O'Leary you are a financial grown up and I'm so excited you are on the podcast. Welcome.

Kevin O'Leary:
Great to be here. Thank you so much.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you are, of course, so special in my heart because you are such an advocate for financial literacy. You make it part of everything that you do, including your entrepreneurial ventures. Before we get to the financial grown up moment that you're gonna share with us, I do wanna have you tell us more about the app Beanstox. Tell us about Beanstox.

Kevin O'Leary:
You know, for the last few years I've been teaching at colleges and high schools and I've just been stunned by the fact that we teach young people in America pretty well everything about math and reading, geography, even sex education, but we never talk to them about financial literacy. We never teach them how to invest, and even when I teach graduating cohorts of engineers at places like MIT, Harvard, Notre Dame, Temple, I'm blown away that these young people going off in the workforce have never bought a stock or bonds.

Kevin O'Leary:
So, the genesis of Beanstox, and I've spelt it B-E-A-N-S-T-O-X, is an app. You download it and it allows you to buy fractional shares of your favorite stocks or exchange traded funds, which means if you only have $2 to invest, or $5, or $10 or whatever you've got, you can actually own a real share and learn about how the prices go up and down, when dividends get paid, and just to build a diversified portfolio. I find when you do that on your mobile device, you actually watch it every day. Some people go on 10 times a day, and I've just been thrilled.

Kevin O'Leary:
Hundreds of thousands of them have been downloaded now. People have set up accounts, even if they only put in 50 bucks a month, it's great to start investing because the truth about America is the average salary is $52,000 a year, and if you started investing just 10% of your income at the age of 22, by the time you're 65, if the markets do what they have done for the last 50 years, which is give you six to seven percent a year of return, you'll have 1.2 million dollars sitting in the bank for-

Bobbi Rebell:
Very nice, all right, everybody check out Beanstox now. I'm really excited for you to share your financial grown up moment money story because my mom passed away a few years ago and it's, in some ways, only in retrospect that I learned some really important lessons from her, and you learned a big lesson from your mom at that time.

Kevin O'Leary:
Yes, when she passed away, I was the older son. I'm two years older than my brother, so the executer called me and said, "Look, your mother's kept a secret account from both of her husbands her whole life, you should come here because you're now gonna be the executor of this" and when I got there, I was blown away. I mean she ... I had always wondered how she'd provided for my brother and I, her sisters, and her extended family. She always seemed to have money, and what she had done is she had done exactly that.

Kevin O'Leary:
She had put aside more than 10% of her paycheck when she was a young woman, and she invested in two types of securities. 50% of this portfolio were in large cap dividend paying stocks, and the other half were in Telco bonds, five to seven year bonds and her thinking was that nobody would ever let their phone be disconnected by not paying their bill, so she trusted Telco Company, and this portfolio, over 50 years, outperformed everybody else in the family's, so I did some research.

Kevin O'Leary:
It really changed my mind forever about investing. 70% of the returns of the stock market over the last 50 years have come from dividends, not capital appreciation, so I never buy a stock today that doesn't pay a dividend. I learned that from my mother, and her whole mantra was never spend the principle, only the interest. She was so right about that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's interesting because that really did inform your whole approach to investing and your whole business, when it comes to your ETF business.

Kevin O'Leary:
Yes. O'Shares is build around her philosophy. We don't have a single security in any of our O'Shares funds, including the new midcap one OUSM. The reason I'm really intrigued with midcap stocks in America today, the ones that pay dividends, is because of this tax reform. They used to pay 36% tax, now they pay 21, so their cash flows this year are going to grow up by 15 to 20% more free cash. And if you look at the Russell 2,000, which is the universe of all the small companies in America, 339 are profitable and pay tax, and they're all captured in OUSM.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, all right so, what is the take away lesson from that story? Do you wish, for example, that you talked to your mom more about her money philosophy and what she was doing?

Kevin O'Leary:
Basically the take away story is this. When you start saving, there's two aspects to your saving. There's the principal, the money you're putting away, and then there's the interest you make off the principal, or the dividends you get if you bought a stock. What she basically said was it's okay to spend and live off the dividends and interest, but it's not okay to spend the principal, because once you spend the principal, you never get it back.

Kevin O'Leary:
The principal is what makes the money for you, so that philosophy is, you live off interest, you live off dividends, and that's how you monetize your lifestyle, but you never dip in to your principal. Some people say, well I really wanna buy a boat, I wanna buy a bigger house, I wanna buy something and I can't because I don't make enough, and they spend their principal. That always ends badly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, all right. Your mom was definitely a financial grown up and certainly we appreciate you sharing what she taught you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Before you go, give us a money tip for our listeners. Something that you do that maybe they can emulate that can make a difference in their financial wellbeing right now. Something they can implement today.

Kevin O'Leary:
I've learned this years and years ago, and again taught to by my mother. When you go out every day, the whole world is designed to take money from you. That's how they market and tell you to buy this or get a new latte or buy new jeans or a new pair of shoes. Every time you get tempted to buy something, and I do this even to this day, I ask myself, do I really need this thing, do I really need it because when I take it, I take my cash and I buy it, I'm basically killing those dollars in terms of them making me interest or dividends because I bought those shoes or I bought those pants or I bought whatever it was.

Kevin O'Leary:
People say to me, well I can't save 10% of my salary. I'm living paycheck to paycheck, and I always remind them what my mother said, yes you can. You buy so much crap that you don't need and anybody can look in their closet and look at all the stuff they don't wear anymore. The shoes they don't wear or the junk they bought, and so I've really, really learned, buy really good things once in a while. And I'll tell you the anecdotal story.

Kevin O'Leary:
When my mother passed away, the women in my family fought like cats or dogs because all her clothes were Channel and Gucci and really good stuff that she kept for decades, but she didn't buy any crap, and that was her lesson to me. Buy a good suit. Buy a great pair of shoes, but don't buy a bunch of junk. That way you feel good about what you own, but you save a lot of money, and I've been able to cut my spending by a ton because I don't buy crap, and because she taught me that.

Kevin O'Leary:
Even wealthy people I work with, I do this special test with them, I say get a piece of paper, just two sheets, you don't need any technology.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh no.

Kevin O'Leary:
And write down all of the things you make money from in 90 days, and all the money you spend in 90 days, and even really wealthy people outspend their income, and they learned sobering basis. That's my lesson. Do your 90 day test, but don't buy crap. You don't need it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much Kevin O'Leary. It was such a pleasure having you. We will all keep tuning in to Shark Tank and all your other ventures, thank you.

Kevin O'Leary:
Take care.

Bobbi Rebell:
I always love talking with Kevin O'Leary, he's an amazing advocate for financial literacy and such an inspiration. Here is my take and it probably won't surprise you guys. Financial grown up tip number one, talk to your parents about money, and yes, get their advice, but also try to get them to open up about what they did right and also, just as important, what they would have done differently. Get them to share their financial grown up moments, their money stories. When we're kids, our parents often shelter us from what is really going on behind the scenes in our daily lives.

Bobbi Rebell:
For example, I remember as a teenager, my family moved into a bigger and newer house. Now, I didn't think that much about it, when I saw my mom putting towels over the windows. It was a little weird, but you know parents can be weird. What I learned later on was that they had really stretched to buy the house, and they were waiting, holding off to buy the window coverings, so my mom was basically making due with what she had, and really, it was just fine, no big deal.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, financial grown up tip number two, if and when you have kids, make a plan for how you want them to learn about money. There is no right or wrong plan here, every kid has different ways of learning and every family has different things that are right for them. Find out what works for you guys.

Bobbi Rebell:
Some resources though, I am a big fan of a book called The Opposite Of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. Another classic to check out, Smart Money, Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruise, and finally, Make Your Kid A Money Genius by Beth Kobliner. Check them out. And, for fun, I was recently gifted a book at FinCon by Scott Allen Turner called Money A To Z. It was a lot of fun to read with my child, and of course, don't shy away from business stories for kids, especially as they get older.

Bobbi Rebell:
Harry is now 10 and we are reading about Steve Jobs. The actual book title if you guys wanna check it out is Steve Jobs The Man Who Thought Different. It is by Karen Blumenthal. It's opening up a lot of discussions about funding a start up and all the different things that go into a business. It's also interesting to read about Steve Jobs and all of his personal quirks, so I will leave it to you guys to see if you wanna read that book with your children or just check it out yourself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for listening to Financial Grown Up. We are new and we need your support. Please subscribe to this podcast and then of course, be sure to rate and review it on iTunes and especially please share this with your friends. And until next time, I am wishing all of you financial freedom.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grown Up with Bobbi Rebell is a BRK Media production.