What Fewer Earnings Reports Could Mean for Investors and How to Teach Kids About Money (Video Episode)

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Kids have a lot on their plate.

There's reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Then there's the whole, you know, becoming an adult thing.

So when's a good time to start adding financial literacy to that plate?

We'll talk with a listener mom about her kiddo money questions.

Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds.

I'm Sean Piles.

And I'm Elizabeth Ayola.

Later this episode, we'll be talking with a listener about how, and of course when, to start setting your kids up for financial success.

And a note before we get started, if you've always wanted to watch smart money and not just listen to it, your wish is granted.

This is another special video episode and you can find us over on YouTube.

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All right, let's get to our weekly money news roundup where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money.

Our news colleague Ana Hilhoski is back with us and today we're talking all about how the rules of the stock market are changing.

Yeah, you've likely heard about President Trump's tariffs, tax cuts, spending.

We talk a lot about that here, but you might not be aware of some pretty big rule changes that the administration is making in the stock market.

And those changes haven't gotten as much news coverage, even though they could have pretty big implications for companies and for investors.

So here to give us more insight is Sam Taub, investing writer here at Nerdwallet.

Sam, welcome back to Smart Money.

Happy to be here.

So listeners who have bought and sold individual stocks are probably familiar with quarterly earnings reports.

Publicly traded companies are required to disclose their latest revenue and profit numbers every three months.

And these numbers can have a pretty big effect on the company's stock price.

A good earnings report can send a stock skyward, and a bad report can cause a crash.

But I read in your latest investing newsletter that the Trump administration is working on a big change to how earnings reports work.

Can you walk us through that?

Sure.

In short, the Securities and Exchange Commission may be cutting in half the number of earnings reports that companies have to release every year.

Soon, companies may only need to disclose their revenue and profits every six months rather than every three.

Oh, well, that seems like a pretty big change to how the stock market works.

How did that idea come about?

Well, so last month, President Trump wrote a post on his social network, Truth Social, about how he'd like the stock market to switch from quarterly earnings reports to semi-annual reports.

And then a few weeks later, the SEC confirmed that it's fast-tracking that rule change, which means it could potentially come into effect as soon as next year.

Now, A social media post from the president is a bit of an unorthodox way of changing the rules like this, but the rule change itself, the idea of doing earnings reports every six months instead of every three, is actually something that prominent Wall Streeters like Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon have been talking about for a long time.

The European Union switched from quarterly reporting requirements to semi-annual requirements more than a decade ago, actually,

and quarterly earnings reports weren't required in the U.S.

until the 19th century.

1970s.

So it's not a new concept per se, just new to the U.S.

If this change change actually happens, what would some of the pros be?

What are some of the cons?

Because quarterly earnings reporting is only a few decades old, and since some other large economies have already done away with it, researchers have a lot of data to work with that examines how these sorts of rule changes shape company and investor behavior.

In that Truth Social post, President Trump basically argued that quarterly requirements force companies to obsess over short-term results at the expense of long-term planning.

And there are a number of studies that support that argument.

For example, there was a pretty influential study published in the Accounting Review Academic Journal back in 2018, which looked at the behavior of public companies in the US between 1950 and 1970.

For context, this was the lead up to when the SEC first started requiring quarterly reports.

So this was a period when a lot of companies were just starting to do it.

The study found that when reporting frequency increased, when companies started reporting their earnings quarterly, there was a big drop in the long-term investments they made.

So things like opening new factories, for example.

And what about some of the arguments against switching to six-month reporting?

So the main argument against this is that numbers like revenue and profits, or earnings as they say on Wall Street, are really important information.

And making that information available less frequently means that investors are kind of flying blind more more often.

To go back to that same journal, The Accounting Review, they published a study in 2023 that looked at stock returns over the last 50 years or so, and it found, pretty unsurprisingly, that a stock's earnings data is a very strong predictor of its future returns.

One of the most well-known measurements of whether a company is undervalued or overvalued relative to its competitors is the price-to-earnings ratio, which, as the name implies, is the ratio between a company's stock price and its earnings per share over the last 12 months.

If we halved the number of earnings reports that companies had to publish, these sorts of measurements could get less reliable.

And some researchers think this could actually make the stock market more volatile rather than less.

So there's definitely some downsides.

You mentioned that this rule change is still in the works and that it basically started, as many of Trump's actions have, with a post on social media.

With that in mind, how likely is this to actually happen?

There is still a big question mark around that, because, as you said, President Trump tweets or posts on social media about a lot of stuff, and he actually made a similar social media post on Twitter about switching to semi-annual earnings reports back in 2018 during his first term.

And back then, the SEC started working on the rule change.

They put out some proposals and collected public comments and whatnot.

But that time, it ultimately didn't go anywhere.

Now, the second Trump administration has generally been a lot more active than the first one when it comes to making these sorts of changes.

So, my bet is there's a decent chance it'll actually happen this time, but we can't discount the possibility that it might fizzle out again.

All right.

Some of our listeners who pay close attention to quarterly earnings reports might be day trading stocks, or at least they may have tried day trading, or they may be thinking about trying it.

And you also wrote in your newsletter that the administration is working on a big change to the rules about who is allowed to day trade, right?

They are.

The SEC has this thing called the Pattern Day Trader Rule or PDT rule, which puts certain requirements on investors who buy and sell the same stock on margin, that is using borrowed money, during a single trading day more than a couple times a week.

In other words, it applies to...

quite a few day traders.

And what this rule says is that pattern day traders, people who engage in that stated behavior, are required to maintain a minimum account balance of $25,000 or else their broker has to restrict their account.

And what is the SEC thinking about changing here?

Basically, they're thinking about scrapping that $25,000 minimum balance requirement to day trade frequently.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, which is a professional organization of stockbrokers and other financial institutions, is pushing to get rid of that minimum and replace it with a more flexible requirement, where margin investors would just need to maintain an account balance of at least 25% of their open positions.

This rule change is seen as a lot more of a sure thing than the earnings rule change we discussed before, in part because FINRA is already on board with this day trading rule change.

And it could happen sooner, potentially before the end of this year even.

And that could open up day trading to a lot of people who are currently gate-kept out of it by the minimum balance requirement, for better or for worse.

I can see why a beginner investor who wants to try out day trading but doesn't have $25,000 lying around might be excited about this.

But what are some of the risks involved?

So the PDT rule was enacted in 2001 in the immediate aftermath of the dot-com crash when a lot of small-scale beginner traders got absolutely wiped out by this big crash in tech stocks.

So the gatekeeping aspect of the PDT minimum balance rule is quite intentional.

It's designed to protect inexperienced investors from the volatility of day trading, which studies show is a dicey affair that most people lose money on.

All right.

Well, we've laid out some pretty big changes to how the stock market works coming soon.

Where can listeners go if they want to keep up with this kind of news?

We wrote about both of these upcoming changes in the most recent issue of NerdWallet's email investing newsletter, The Nerdy Investor, and we'll include a sign-up link for that newsletter in the show notes.

We absolutely will.

Thanks for coming on, Sam.

Thanks.

Always good to be here.

And thank you, Anna.

A reminder, we want you to send us your money questions.

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We're back, and we're answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions.

This episode, we are going to be talking with a listener who has questions about financial products for kids.

Her name is Essa and she's here with us today.

Welcome, Essa.

Thank you.

And we're coming live from a studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, where you live.

And I'd love to hear what your favorite thing about Scottsdale, Arizona is and why you like to share it with your family.

Right now we get monsoon storms and there's a nice break from the monotony of all the spot, which I know a lot of people can't um understand yeah but to have these like exciting thunderstorms and then finally some precipitation is and you get these

dust storms as well yes I feel like for the past two days or so that we've been here I have experienced three different weather so I don't know but anyway it's been a good experience so far now my friends and family hate me because I am a deep diver and I love your question that you sent us thank you for your question and it centers around kids so I have a little deeper icebreaker for you.

If you could go back to your younger self and teach her one financial lesson, what would it be?

I thought that was my question for you guys.

I wish that I was more curious about it.

And I think if I had had some curiosity there, then I would have become more proficient earlier.

But I just...

It was not something I was interested in.

And so I don't know if that's necessarily a lesson, but if like there was a way to expose, you know, my younger self to this world before,

then I think I'd be so much, you know, more adept at this point.

And why do you think you weren't curious?

What were your thoughts around money?

I guess for your younger self, was it like, well, money is just going to make itself or it's not something I really need to think about or it's for someone else to think about?

As far as like the basics, I got those, I got those down.

Like I knew how to save.

I hated being in debt, you know, and like when I was younger, my goal was to see the world.

So I did not want a car.

I didn't want a house.

I just wanted to be debt-free so I could pick up and leave anytime I wanted to.

I think I was very good with managing that part of it, but I was not curious about making your money work for you.

Investing.

Yes.

And actually, I do have one story.

Right out of college, I had a coworker and he gave me an earferral about how I should invest and that, you know, a mutual fund was a pretty solid way to go.

And so this was a long time ago.

So I may be missing some details, but eventually, I did.

I had some seed money and I put it into a mutual fund.

And, you know, I was told, like, you just let it sit.

You don't have to look at it.

You don't do anything with it.

And then, not like six months or a year goes by.

And then I was informed that my mutual fund had been sold to another company.

And then now there was going to be a fee because it was such a paltry amount.

And so I got completely jaded.

And I'm like, well, I'm out.

Forget this.

This is too hard.

I don't want to deal with this stuff.

And so it was a bit short-sighted on my,

you know, on my end.

That's a common experience, I'll say.

A lot of people, especially back, I would say in earlier years where there were higher fees and it was less accessible, a lot of people would feel kind of shut out by the investing industry.

So I'm sorry that you experienced that,

but know that investing now is generally less expensive and a lot more accessible.

Okay.

Yeah.

So thank you for sharing that.

I'm sure that was pretty vulnerable.

And I think that's a beautiful segue into why why you wrote us.

So tell us a bit about your kids and what you're trying to do for them in terms of financially or rather equipping them with the financial education they need to make their own decisions as they grow.

I have two daughters and they are almost 15 and 10.

And to date, they are kind of like me.

They're good with their allowance and saving.

And we have Green Light set up for them.

Green Light's an app where you can manage their finances together.

Yeah, like it,

you know, we do all of their allowance through that.

And then I I did recently find out you can do savings goals.

So, you know, there's some of that kind of built in already.

And I'm, you know, pushing them to explore those a little bit more.

We gave them an allowance pretty early on.

And then immediately we're told them like half of this allowance is going to savings.

And then my husband invests that along with some other

you know, money annually.

How much are they getting for their allowance?

And are there like tours they have to do or is it kind of a weekly, monthly thing?

No, they have to do chores.

Ah, they have to do chores.

I always find that interesting.

Sometimes in the parenting world, that's controversial because people are like, you shouldn't attach chores because you're a team and, you know, two allowances.

So that's interesting.

Also, that's how you are earning money too.

Growing up, we had a chore wheel.

And so my sisters and I would each tackle, like, okay, you get the upstairs bathroom, you get the kitchen, whatever.

And that's how we would earn our allowance.

Do you have something similar in your house or how does that work out?

Well, it's kind of a hybrid.

And I understand the controversy because you do want want to, you know, them to think of like, okay, we're all a team.

We all have to work together.

Yeah.

So we have it as we're a team, but it's also required.

I love it.

I love it.

That's being in a family, right?

Yeah.

Like you can't, even if, you know, you're not going to get paid if you don't Deary Lounge, but you're also going to lose other privileges as well.

So, and honestly, like, because we started it.

so young, I think it's just they, they get it.

Like they don't love it, but I have seen a transformation in them in like like the amount of angst, you know, you know, that the cost is

cover it now.

Yeah, they're just like, okay.

How much are they getting?

So we have done the dollar equivalent to their age.

Okay.

And that's, you said weekly?

We're months.

Okay.

So but then they only get half of that, right?

Yeah, to spend.

Do they know where the other half is going?

Because I know you said you invest it.

I don't think they do.

I think that that's something we need to peel back the curtain on

so that they can see that and see what's been happening since they were, you know, three or four.

So with that, are there any other kind of formal ways that you've been teaching your kids about money besides the chores and the allowance?

Just this past year, we started doing a clothing allowance.

And so

they each get about $200 a year.

And they have that for the year.

So they can buy everything they want at once.

Like my daughter just dropped $118 hot topic the other day.

Yeah, I was going to say, you could buy one Juicy track suit, maybe just a pair of pants from Juicy Couture.

And it's hard for me because I'm a thrift shopper, you know?

I'm like, let's go thrift shop, like thrift store first.

But that's a lesson, you know.

I'm eager to see how that plays out.

Have they ever run into a situation where they spent all the money, but they actually needed like maybe a new pair of shoes or a new jacket and they spent that money and they couldn't get it?

That's all part of the process.

But they can use their allowance to, you know, supplement their clothing if that's what they want to do.

So that's happened too

on occasion.

We also did a room decorate this past year.

We've been moving around quite a bit in the last four or five years, and they've never really had their own space that they wanted it.

So we gave them a chuck of change and we said, here you go, and start searching.

We went to consignment stores for a lot of the furniture and whatnot.

And then they, you know, we broke things down in Excel and said, well, if you buy this mattress, this is how much you're going to have left over versus you buy this one.

So I think that was really, you know, good.

It probably,

well, I don't know.

I know it.

My oldest daughter is probably more able to digest some of the lessons that you just like how they responded to that.

Did their eyes just glaze over when they saw a spreadsheet or were they engaging with the numbers?

They engaged with them when they saw how quickly it went.

You know, we did a lot of online searching at first and then they saw how quickly it it dwindled.

I think it was really informative.

The final one, which is a departure from maybe what most parents do, is so I have for the last 18 months been tracking all of our expenses.

The credit card makes the way your expenses are outputted to Excel and makes it very easy to do, but you have to do some cleaning up of the data.

And so

I had her do their.

about four, I had my oldest daughter do about four months of that.

So she could see what we were, where we were spending and which, you you know, how much is that is needs and how much of its wants and how much of it goes into our savings and whatnot.

And so I would really like her to adopt something like that.

I know it takes time every month, but it's been really helpful for me to get a grasp on like what, where our money is going.

Yeah.

So I'd like to ask at a higher level, what are the primary goals?

If you had to break out maybe two or three goals that you have for your kids in terms of their financial education, what would they be?

Like I mentioned before, I'd like them to stay curious.

I understand I'm not going to be able to teach them everything, but if they can,

you know, recognize that there are resources out there that they can take advantage of, like I would, I feel like they would be ahead.

If they recognize that there are people that they can talk to, that know more about it, if they don't, you know, have a sort of innate interest in it, then I think that would serve them well as well.

And then I also want them to realize that, you know, knowledge is power.

And, you know, in my situation, I was very fortunate to meet my partner and he was just off the charts.

He's very good with money.

He's a little older than I am.

He had kind of it all figured out.

And so I just kind of jumped on his coattails for the last 20 years.

And

I

don't necessarily think that's an approach I want them.

I don't want them to rely on luck, you know?

So if they get into a relationship, I want them to be able to, you know, recognize, you know, where there could be red flags, you know, or, you know, help their partner, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Well, sharing your household expenses with your older daughter, I think is a good step in that direction.

Something I'm thinking about too, and I want to hear a little bit more about your goals, but something else I'm thinking about is how a lot of what we learn about money, we aren't even really aware of what we're learning.

We're learning it kind of through osmosis of seeing our parents and our families do things through like the way that money is described in the household, whether it's something that's really scarce, even things that aren't talked about around money and sort of the subconscious things that are going on in the home.

What do you think your kids might be getting from how you and your husband have been managing your finances and how you've talked about it amongst yourselves and even with them?

What do you think kind of lessons they might have learned or even the values they might have absorbed from you?

I'm very open with like the way that we shop.

You know, I tell them what our monthly budget is for groceries, you know, and then, you know, I update them.

Yeah.

Not all the time, but I'm like, oh, we have to wait till the next grocery trip because we've used all our money this week.

And then, you know, like I say, I'm a very frugal shopper.

I don't buy a lot of stuff.

I tell them, like, you know, what I do is I make a list of my wants as they come up.

And then I keep an eye out for them at the thrift store or consignment store.

And then sometimes I just forget about them.

We also, you know, kind of have this money powwow about the allowance

and their clothing allowance,

they can pipe in and

give us their thoughts, you know, as well.

So you're teaching them to have open dialogues around money.

Maybe that wasn't something that you had before.

So you want to emphasize that.

Right.

The harder stuff, like the investment, you know, that that conversation doesn't really

happen.

And

I don't know.

I'm not sure how we would tackle that.

Okay.

So tell us a bit where we can help you in terms of questions that you have in terms of maybe how to start having that conversation with your kids about investing.

I know you wrote to us and mentioned maybe having discussions around saving for a 401k.

Is it too early to do that?

So can you go ahead and ask us what you want to ask us around that?

I kind of, like, as I was distilling this down in my head, I'm like, is this really a conversation I need to have with an adolescent psychologist?

You know, because it's like, how do you make them want to do

to do something?

I want to say I don't think, especially coming from someone whose mom didn't talk to her much about investing, but my mom was investing, I don't necessarily think it's about making them do it, right?

Because they're going to make their own financial decisions when they grow anyway.

I think you're doing a wonderful job in terms of equipping them with the information.

But had I known these things, I could have applied them when the time was right to apply them, if that makes sense.

And I know that you mentioned one of your daughters is 14.

So that's four years away from potentially going to college and living out on her own, maybe another eight years away from getting her first job.

And I think, you know, depositing those seeds now is not a bad idea, even if it's in small doses, even if she doesn't fully understand it, just having the concept of it gives her something in her toolbox to use later.

I don't know if I'm worrying too much about like those things that you get after you get a job.

You know, like how to negotiate your 401k plan with your employer and matching funds and

health insurance and investment plans and that the credit card thing is coming up on the horizon.

And

I'm not really worried about especially my oldest abusing that, but I still want to give her a taste of it.

And I also want her to understand why it is important to build credit,

which was not something that I was aware of when I was younger.

I know that you wrote and said that you didn't necessarily want to make her an authorized user on one of your credit cards.

So can you talk to us a bit about that?

Because that is one way that she can learn in real time about credit.

You seem to be excellent about doing things with her, alongside her, versus just preaching at her.

So, it sounds like there's an opportunity there for you guys to do that together.

So, what are your reservations?

I mean, I could show her what we do, but I was kind of hoping that we could have like some sort of simulation where she would actually have, you know, be required, you know, on the 30th of the month or whatever, to make a payment, you know, even if it's like some

pretend payment.

It's like, I don't know what the equivalent of SimCity is today.

Great game.

So that she could

feel like the real-time sort of consequence, like, oh, you know, I didn't pay and now I have this extra interest that's up and applied.

So because we are very good with our credit, like I don't know that she would see the repercussions of, you know, not staying up on it.

Well, before I tell you, like, a couple of maybe potential games or simulations, as you mentioned, that she could or you guys could consider doing together, what do you think is her money personality now at 14, almost 15?

Oh, man, she is, what's a nice way to say tight?

Like she's very tight.

Like she often will negotiate like,

I, I think this is something that you pay should pay for because it's, you know, X, Y, and Z.

And so it took me a while to like kind of catch up to that

because you're so used to as a parent just paying for everything that they do, right?

But she can still spend her money at Hot Topic.

So she's willing to have some fun with her money.

Well, so that was my youngest.

Oh, the youngest.

I see.

I see.

My oldest, she goes to, she goes to Goodwill and she goes to Ross.

Like those are her big, you know, where she likes to shop for clothes.

Yeah, so for context, if you added her as an authorized user, each credit card issuer is different in terms of the age that you could do that.

So it could be anywhere between the ages of 13 and 15.

You're right.

There is the risk that she could affect you guys' credit if she didn't pay on time.

But I think think there's so many guardrails you could put around that, like checking how much she's spending weekly.

And like you said, she's very tight.

So it doesn't sound like there's a high risk of her overspending.

But aside from that, if you don't want to go that route, which is understandable, you could use the Byte of Reality app.

There's also the Next Gen Personal Finance platform.

You have the Uber game by the Financial Times.

And there's also a platform called Everfy, which offers resources and games as well that she can use.

And the good thing about all these resources is they give you real-life scenarios where she could see what happens if she overspends on a credit card and maybe they give her a budget and she has to work through it and you know pay off some debt and do other things so these are some activities that you could do with her that will give her some kind of real life experience of what it looks like to pay down debt and stay on budget and one note on the authorized user thing you can add her to your credit card and just not give her a card at all, but that would help her build a credit history, which is one of the most important things in terms of establishing your credit.

My former co-host on SmartMoney added her daughter to her credit card, and the daughter actually had a credit history older than she was.

So

you can do things like that.

So you can set your daughter up for success without the risk of them spending money and maybe not paying it on time.

So that's an option too.

Yeah.

So I'm confused.

So you put, you put they're they're on our same account, but they have like their own credit profile.

Oh, tied to their social security number.

So it helps them to start building credit.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Good to know.

So what are your thoughts on that?

Are you still maybe not, or is something you'd be open with open to?

Yeah, no, I think that would be certainly something we could consider.

I do like the idea of the still like the simulation game.

Of course.

And we will follow up with some more information around those different tools that you can use.

But another thing that you might want to consider as your daughter gets closer to 18 is a secured credit card.

And with this, you have to put down a deposit, and the deposit is basically the credit limit.

And so this is a smart way to build credit and to make it so that they can't spend too much money.

They're not going to be getting like a $10,000 credit limit unless you put down all of that money.

But that way they can manage it in real time themselves.

You could do a bit of hand holding for the first couple of months saying, okay, when's your bill due?

Here's your statement.

Let's look at this together.

That might be a nice way to actually.

do it with a real credit card, but have it still with some guardrails on it.

Yeah.

I started with a secured credit card, card, not as a teenager at 20 something when I moved back to the U.S.

And it was really helpful because I had to put down my own money as the deposit.

So it really helped me to learn how to use credit cards responsibly.

Yeah.

Okay.

And those are issued by all the banks?

Well, by several, yeah.

NerdWallet has a Roundup and articles about this.

So you can look into that website too.

We've talked about a few different options so you can help your kids learn more about their finances and actually be more proactive and hands-on managing their money with a secured credit card or other options.

What do you think would be maybe the most effective for them?

And what would you like them to get out of this?

I essentially want to

prevent them from getting into credit card, deep credit card debt once they leave the house and we are no longer

looking over the shoulder all the time.

So I'd like them to like experience that so that

they're aware of how it works and they aren't surprised by anything.

Something Something else I'll encourage you to talk with your daughters about is the idea of financial goals.

And I think viewing money as a tool to get what you want out of life can help encourage them to, as you were saying, stay curious about money and think, okay, maybe your daughter wants to move abroad for a year.

What amount of saving is it going to take to have that be possible?

What's the right tool to use to save?

There are all sorts of different savings vehicles that they can use.

So by starting with, here's what I want out of life.

Money is going to help me get that.

What kind of tool can I use to get there?

It begins to sort of have this spiral of okay there are all these different questions that come from just this one thing i want to accomplish and money will help me get there so that would be something to talk about too is longer term beyond college maybe what's money going to do for them well that's good actually just this morning we was talking with my oldest about that because she's turning 15 in a couple days and she's going to be driving you know in a year and so i i said okay well so i looked up the average you know price of adding a child to insurance.

Expensive.

Yeah.

So

you need to start saving now.

And so I talked about, and I have been talking about the spending goals on Greenlight.

She's just been kind of like, oh, can we do it later?

But now I'm like, okay, now you have something that you know you're going to want in a year.

Let's look at how you're going to get there.

I love that.

And it's big, it's something that she wants versus something you want for her.

So there may be a bit more of a driver there.

I was also going to say, I know you said earlier about kind kind of making them more curious or want to learn about personal finances.

I took a Khan Academy course during my early days of personal finance.

It's a free course and it teaches you all the fundamentals.

So that's budgeting, saving, debt, retirement, and kind of all those foundations.

So maybe that's a course that you guys can do together.

It's interactive.

You have videos, you know, you can answer some questions just as a way to kind of incorporate family learning as you're already doing such a great job with.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I am actually taking that course.

you're on it well i know what i'm on like unit two

the podcast is is just a really way nice way for me to

because it just fits into my life so well when i exercise or i'm walking the dog you know the course the online course i have to sit down and go through it so that's that's a little harder but i'm i'm i'm working on it yeah good job so what do you think your next step will be in terms of talking with your daughters and setting them up?

Where are you going to go from here?

So next steps, I think I'm definitely going to push the savings goals for both of them.

I'll have to talk a little bit more with my youngest about what that might be.

It might be another trip to a hot topic.

So that's one thing.

I would like to,

like I say, expose them more to like the investments that we've done so they can see how that works

and

you know how my husband manages that.

And then also to show them, like, you know, you put this much money away every week.

It doesn't sound like, you know, seven bucks doesn't sound like much, but look where you are after, you know, 10 years.

Yes.

And you can use to really bring that to life is NerdWall's compound interest calculator.

You can put in, oh, I'm putting in seven bucks a week or however much a month.

What's that going to look like with the average rate of return over 10, 15, 20 years?

There's a nice graph on that page too, and it really shows the power of compound interest.

So that can help make it a little bit more tangible.

Okay.

That sounds good.

I also feel like, you know, now that we're talking about saving in the hundreds of dollars, like maybe getting her hooked up with like a high interest savings account

at this point so that she could see, you know, kind of how that works.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, like I say, I think she has the savings now.

I think we'll, I'm going to try and get her to track her expenses.

Yeah.

You know, I've got the the whole Excel spreadsheet set up.

Yeah.

We'll see how that goes.

But and there are other tools that might be more friendly to your daughter's style.

Yeah, like using an app of some sort.

There are all sorts of apps that are even kid-oriented too.

So playing around with those might make it less of a hurdle to be entering something into a spreadsheet.

It can sync with a bank account and that way it's just automated too.

Okay.

And also it might be nice for your daughter to help her feel empowered in the process to show her different types of budgeting systems and see what resonates with her most, right?

So that she can feel like, you know, she's doing it in her own way.

I haven't raised a teenager yet, but I hear that they're very opinionated and assertive and want to do things their way.

So this might be a way to make her feel more enthusiastic.

And it's just been lingering on my mind, the 10-year-old with the hot topics.

I once had a friend who the way that they would get their kids excited about investing and they were pretty young was by letting them buy a stock in the company that they really like.

So if she is a hot topics lover, it could be, hey, let's put, I don't know how much the stock is, if it's 10 bucks, let's take some of our allowance and put 10 bucks on that.

And now we get to invest in a company that we really like versus just consuming.

So, okay.

Yeah.

That sounds intriguing.

Yeah.

And that sounds like a good father-daughter bonding

thing as well.

What about all the other stuff that comes after college?

You know, they're not in the home anymore.

They're not 14 anymore.

They're now 20, 21.

Is that something you like?

We just

plow through when, when, when, as it arises?

I'm going to give you another real life scenario that an ex of mine did that I thought was very clever.

So, what he would do is he would match whatever his kids invested.

So, if they invested $10, he would match them $10.

And I think that's such a great entryway to teach them about 401k matches, right?

So, if you contribute this, if you, you know, your employer might contribute that.

So, I think just introducing them, maybe that's another thing for you and your husband if you do 401k matches, just talking them through how that works.

So I think it's about introducing it first, right?

In a way that they understand at their age level, and then they can apply it later when it becomes more relevant.

Okay.

I like that.

Yeah.

I think my husband will like that too.

Yeah.

It's a great tip.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, Essa, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about teaching your kids about how they're going to be managing their money.

I know that there are going to be some ups and downs over time.

And at a certain point, the kids got to make their own mistakes too.

And that's a valuable lesson to learn, but it seems like you're doing all the right things and setting them up for success.

Yeah, that's encouraging to hear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're still doing a great job, mom.

Yeah, keep us posted.

We can't wait to hear how this goes.

If you enjoyed our conversation and you're interested in getting a financial strategy tailored specifically to your needs, then you may want to consider working with a financial planner.

You can get matched with a financial advisor for free using NerdWallet Advisors Match.

You can find a link to that in today's show notes.

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We are not your financial or investment advisors.

This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances.

This episode was produced by Tess Viglund and Anna Hahosky.

Hilary Georgie helped with editing.

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And a huge thank you to all of our editors for all of their help.

And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.

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