Episode 63 – Interview with Will Carmichael from Rooster Money

The Financial Wellbeing Podcast

Episode 63 – Interview with Will Carmichael from Rooster Money

The guys are still here for the latest episode of the Financial Wellbeing Podcast. Join Chris, David and Producer Tommo as they chat with Will Carmichael, founder of Rooster Money. Now, Rooster Money may be an app to help teach kids great money habits with their pocket money, but stay tuned – us adults should revisit these lessons too! As ever we also have Ovation client questions and some great money saving tips from #tightasstommo

Welcomes and introductions

Click here for more information about IFW – the Initiative for Financial Wellbeing

The Financial Wellbeing book, can normally be found on Amazon or the Penny Brohn shop. There may be supply issues at the moment, do email us at [e-mail] if you cannot find a copy.

What is this podcast all about –

• A chat with Will Carmichael, talking about his app Rooster Money, that is designed to get kids into positive money habits with their pocket money. Helping them understand the value of money in a digital age.
• Click here for more information about Rooster Money

Ovation Client Question –

We do try to keep these evergreen so the podcast can help in the future. But . . . what do you do when the stock market goes down by 30%?

Tight Ass Tommo, featuring –

• Washing Powder
• Tinned tomatoes
• The price of too much hand wash

#tightasstommo tip of the week – leave your items in online shopping baskets for a few days before purchasing.

Will Carmichael Interview

Who is Will?

What does the app do?

How do we get our children into good money habits from the start?

As adults, 40% of what we do every day is put down to habits

So by starting early, by making it practical, by making it contextual, and really talking about money, which, you know, society isn’t very good at, you can put them on a path that will give them habits that will stick with them for life.

Click here for a link to the book Hooked by Nir Eyal

Technology can be bad, but it can also be used for positive purposes.

Why is practical and contextual so important in helping to create good habits?

Getting kids involved in the conversation to help them engage with money

What age should we start giving kids pocket money?

Click here to take a look at the Pocket Money Index

The hot debate between giving money to kids and having them earn money!

Any psychology between reward for work versus taking away for not doing something?

Why positive experiences are key

How to balance external pressures to spend money

Giving children the chance to build savings for a bigger item and helping them understand their spending along the way.

The challenge of context as we use less and less cash

Specific tips –

• Keep talking about money
• Get the kids involved and show them things like utility bills
• Give pocket money regularly with a saving goal, it can reduce ad hoc spending
• Show kids opportunities to earn more

If you give kids the opportunity they’ll really get involved and it will ultimately put them in charge of of their money.

Will Carmichael, Rooster Money

Conclusions from the guys

The importance of learning good habits

Teaching kids the impact of money on everyday life

The need to talk about money and introduce it from a young age

Click here for more information on the MoneyBox app

Financial Coaching – understanding our relationship with money

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Transcribe of the Podcast Script:

(scroll to the bottom to listen to the episode)

David 0:21
Welcome everybody to another one in our series of Financial Wellbeing Podcasts, and this podcast is being recorded during the movement resctrictions of the COVID 19 outbreak, so we’re not quite sure what the conditions will be when you listen to this, but at the point at which we’ve recorded this, we’re all sitting in our separate homes, having a little audio chat and video chat on Zoom. And so hopefully it will make sense when you hear it. My name is David Lloyd, co-host of the Financial Wellbeing Podcast, actor, writer, broadcaster and currently sitting twiddling my thumbs for large periods of time. And with me as well is Chris Budd, who are you Chris?

Chris 1:00
You’re an aspiring novelist, David, aren’t you?

David 1:03
Well, yes, I’m actually a current novelist, but my novel is yet to be completed.

Chris 1:08
That’s a nice way of putting it! So I wrote the Financial Wellbeing book. I’m also chairman of something called the Initiative for Financial Wellbeing or IFW. Any financial advisors, planners, coaches, anybody in the financial services sector, interested in the subject of Financial Wellbeing please come and join us at the IFW.

David 1:27
Tommo but who might you be?

Producer Tommo 1:29
Somebody who’s never written a book.

Chris 1:31
Yet.

Producer Tommo 1:32
Yet? Yeah, well, I like the sound of my own voice. So I’ll stick to the the audio means of doing it. Director and Chartered Financial Planner at Ovation Finance. Simple. Done.

David 1:45
A reminder that these podcasts are based on the Financial Wellbeing book which Chris has already mentioned, available on Amazon at the moment, but it’s well worth the read. And I clearly I would say that I wouldn’t I. But it’s a it’s a very straightforward, simple book for those of you that . . .

Producer Tommo 2:00
Oi!

David 2:02
What was that? Sorry?

Chris 2:03
Oi, what do you mean simple?

David 2:07
Let me finish . . .

Chris 2:08
It took me weeks to write that!

David 2:09
I know, for those of you like me that aren’t perhaps as well versed in the dark arts of finances, as Chris and Tommo, it actually lays it out in a very easy understand way. That actually demystifies a lot of this stuff around money. So, is that better Chris?

Chris 2:27
Much better, thank you!

David 2:28
Having massage your bruised ego; tell us tell us what’s on today’s podcast?

Chris 2:35
Today we’re going to have a chat with a gentleman called Will Carmichael, founder of something called Rooster Money, which is an app that is intended and designed to give positive money habits for young people. But as we will discover the podcast, I actually think a lot of adults would benefit from it as well.

David 2:56
True indeed, yes, a very interesting interview it was to and I am looking forward to talking about that later on. So usually at this stage, we have questions that have been sent in to Ovation, but at the moment things as they are, well, we don’t have any! So instead . . .

Producer Tommo 3:09
I think it’s more more to the point that the questions I am getting at the moment might not be relevant when this goes out. It’s a period of flux at the moment. So I want these podcasts to still be evergreen. So the questions I’m getting are really quite in the moment. So I’m not sure how beneficial they would be.

Chris 3:30
Okay. I’ll ask you a question. Tommo what do you do when the stock market goes down by 30%?

Producer Tommo 3:35
What do you do? You, unfortunately, the the frank answer is you sit on your hands and you wait for these things to recover because they do. But that’s a really dry response. The other way is to speak to a trusted adviser and talk through your worries, if you have them, because it’s natural for us to feel loss, more than gains that’s inherent in our in our psyche. And often, you’ll probably find that although the stock market or the FTSEs gone down by 30%, you’ll often find perhaps your portfolio isn’t 100% invested in the FTSE, or at least I would suggest that you may want to think about if it is in the future. So you might find that the drops have not been quite that much. But remember, it’s temporary. Investing is a long term thing. And it’s about, as uncomfortable as it is, sitting tight, and finding somebody to share those concerns with but sit tight, and this too shall pass.

David 4:36
Good advice, Tommo, thanks for that. Now, you talked earlier about us all being in a neverending state of flux, but there are some constant things that remain the same throughout all of this and one of them is of course, Tommo your ability to come up with Tight Ass Tommo Tips. Before we do, Chris, have you got anything at all?

Chris 4:56
I do, actually. Yeah. Make your own washing powder. So I was looking the other day – there’s a place local to me in Nailsea where you take your your tub in and they’ll fill up the tub with with washing powder. I was wondering is it possible to do this yourself and it turns out it is! You can do your own fabric conditioner and you can do your own washing powder with some vegetable oil, washing soda crystals and essential oils to give it a nice flavor. So it’s just easy to Google it, I’m not gonna tell you where to go because there’s loads of recipes. But yeah, save yourself a bit of money by making your own washing powder.

David 5:30
Right and I have a similar tip, at the beginning of the restrictions, if you remember thinking back now hopefully won’t apply when you listen to this. A lot of people went out and panic bought goods and there were certain things that you just couldn’t get. One of those was tinned tomatoes. So I’m going to tell you how you can make your own tinned tomatoes. What you need to do is get yourself a tin rinse out, wash it out, get yourself some tomatoes, chop the tomatoes up very small and put them in the tin and there you have your old tinned tomatoes. And here’s a chef’s tip, you can actually make that even easier by missing out the tin all together and just chopping up the tomatoes and put them in your food. I’m not sure it’ll save you money, because even though you can buy tomatoes very cheaply from your local green grocer, they’re probably not quite as cheap. But there are certain ways around everything!

Chris 6:22
Tell you what, there’s a there’s an anti-Tight Ass Tommo Tip here as well. Talking about that panic buying, a guy in America, there’s a few of them, one particularly got a lot of publicity who bought 17,000 bottles or something like that of hand wash and then tried to sell them on Amazon for $30 each. When the shops run out, and Amazon actually stopped it. They cancelled his account, which meant he had a garage full of hand wash which he couldn’t get rid of. Hopefully taught him a little bit of a lesson.

David 6:52
I remember a story from a supermarket, it was either Holland or Denmark, I cna’t remember. They were selling out one bottle of hands sanitizer for €1, two bottles of hand sanitizer for €100.

Chris 7:06
A great idea.

David 7:08
Right, Tommo, what have you got for us?

Producer Tommo 7:11
Well, it was, it’s something that I’ve noticed whenever I’m looking to buy something. Now I take quite a long time to buy things. You can imagine, i’m tight! So when I think I might want something, I take forever to buy it, and it really frustrates my wife. But I noticed that when I look for something online, and I pop it in the basket, and then don’t quite click buy, all of a sudden, a day or so later, you go into social media, or your emails, all of a sudden get these little prompts or promotions for a particular company, that you were looking to buy it from. And it doesn’t happen all the time. But maybe thats worth trying, that if you found something you really like. Pop it in the basket and maybe wait a couple of days to see if things pop up on your social media and emails. Now I know that’s a bit big brother and a bit creepy. But heck, you might be able to save a bit of money if all of a sudden a promotion comes through.

David 8:46
Oh, thats not a bad idea, I might give that a go actually.

Chris 8:46
That’s just using the algorithms in your favor isn’t it? Now I like that idea a lot Tommo. It always strikes me as really, really silly that the algorithms tell you how to buy things you just bought.

Producer Tommo 9:00
I’ve got no concrete evidence to say this will work 100% of the time, but I’ve noticed a few times. Yeah, yeah. There you go, use the algorithms in your favor.

Chris 9:09
Good tip.

Producer Tommo 9:10
Once again,fantastic for that Tommo. Thank you very much. Right, Chris, the main event. The interview?

Chris 9:16
Yeah. So Will Carmichael founder of Rooster Money. I really enjoyed this. It will be a particular interest to people with kids who are trying to train their kids into good habits with money, but it is of interest to everybody because there are lots of things in here that we can all learn from so yeah, have listen to my chat with Will Carmichael.

So Will, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.

Will Carmichael 9:38
Thanks very much for having me on, Chris.

Chris 9:41
So you’re in New York at the moment.

Will Carmichael 9:44
I am. Yes.

Chris 9:45
How exciting, I have never been to New York, is it as amazing a city as people say?

Will Carmichael 9:49
It’s, it’s a really fun city.

Chris 9:52
So for the sake of our listeners, just introduce yourself, and why you are coming on our lovely Financial Wellbeing podcast.

Will Carmichael 10:01
Absolutely, so my name’s Will Carmichael, I’m CEO of Rooster Money.Rooster Money is a pocket money app designed to help families with children between the ages of 4-14 to start developing positive money habits. So I’m really excited to come on the show to talk, I guess a little bit about how you can engage your kids in that early stage with money.

Chris 10:23
Yeah, and you use the phrase “habits” which is something that comes up a lot on our podcast with good decision making, how we get bad decisions coming back because we have bad habits. And of course you are getting those habits in a very early age. So how do we get our children to good money habits from the very start?

Will Carmichael 10:45
I mean, one of the reasons that I really got into what I sort of called financial capability kids, is that opportunity when you think about, you know, over 40% of what we do every day is put down to habit as adults. Then, you know, those habits that we developed early on do stick with us and a lot of research that came out, Cambridge University has done a huge amount on this, around money habits for me by the age of seven. Understanding opportunity cost, understanding, you know, do you have to save towards things. And in the same way that, you know, it’s much easier as a child age six to learn a language, I believe the language of money can be learned at that early stage. So by starting early, by making it practical, by making it contextual, and really talking about money, which, you know, society isn’t very good at, you can put them on a path that will give them habits that will stick with them for life.

Chris 11:45
I’d never heard that statistic before, 40% of what we do is down to habits. That’s a fascinating subject. You’ve now got me thinking about what I’ve been doing all day long.

Will Carmichael 11:54
There’s a great book that someone called Nir Eyal, who does a lot of lectures at Harvard produced a book called Hooked. And it looked at what do we use Instagram so often? Why did Pinterest become a thing? And that’s really interesting when you look at and we can talk a little bit about how technology can be an enabler and it can also be, it can be an issue, but it shows that those drivers habits will push us into all sorts of different things. So, yeah . . .

Chris 12:23
Not always ones that are good for us presumably?

Will Carmichael 12:23
No, no. But, I think that’s our huge opportunity around habit formation and you can use that for positive purposes.

Chris 12:35
So you said practicle and contextual are important words, in helping to create good habits. Can you describe what you mean by that?

Will Carmichael 12:44
So, I guess if it’s the same about teaching your kids about the right, you know, the right way to cross the road safely. You don’t really do that in front of the blackboard. You do it standing by the side of the road and being able talk to them about it. And I very much see that the same with money. It’s a very practical thing. And by making it contextual, as part of the everyday, and I like to talk about the teachable moments, you can make it relevant. I went through so many classes at school, where I just didn’t see the relevancy of what I was being taught. And with money, that’s something you can do. So, you know, good kind of examples of that is utility bills. When you get a utility bill through the door, you can actually start talking to your kids about how that’s calculated, obviously, depending on age, but how that’s calculated, what it costs, why you get annoyed that they leave lights on or the doors open. Same with going to the supermarket and trying to work towards a budget, what it costs for a family shop. It’s those things where you start connecting, okay, money’s involved, it costs this amount and it has this impact. And I think that’s, that’s again, the opportunity and why parents that are amazing vehicle to get kids engaged with money.

Chris 14:04
So it’s about involving them in the conversation then?

Will Carmichael 14:06
Totally. Fundamentally, you know, if you look at the major issues around money and debt and all those things, a lot of it is, it stems from confidence. And confidence comes from talking about money and understanding it. And that doesn’t mean you need to be Gordon Gekko about it. It just means it’s about having conversations talking about what you’re doing. And and actually, there’s additional research that’s come out to show that, as adults talking to kids about money can actually change how we start to manage money to.

Chris 14:38
Yeah, I can understand that. What age would you say we should start giving our kids pocket money?

Will Carmichael 14:44
So I think it totally depends. Siblings can be very influential. So older siblings earning pocket money will often mean that the youngest sibling might get onto it a bit earlier. But we tend to find that on Rooster Money, so we produce something called the Pocket Money Index, where we look at when kids start getting it. We find by the age of five or six children are earning it. We have children as young as four getting some pocket money, or you’ve got parents awarding stars instead of money. So when it tends to be a bit more behavior related. So I think you can start really early, you can start with stars, it’s the same concept that you earn something and then you can redeem something with it. And then you move them into money when the time’s right. And as I say that can kind of work that early, some parents will find that they bring them in a little bit later.

Chris 15:34
Interesting the use of language there that gave me away. A mistake I suspect I made with my kids, becasue I said give them money you said earn money.

Will Carmichael 15:39
It’s always a hot debate, should you should you just give money to your kids? Should that be parameters, should they earn it individually through chores and I think the key thing is to get into a routine and how you would do it. I think giving it regularly is a really good thing. I think having some parameters can really help. So you know we talked about a kind of good citizenship in the home. So you wouldn’t necessarily pay them for every time they take the bins out, but they might get their their allowance or their weekly pocket money, for making sure that they do do those things. And I think that that sense of earning also helps with an understanding of what that value is. You know, I’ve had to work to get this and therefore I’m going to be more considered in what I do with it.

Chris 15:57
I know a friend of mine, with an older son about 16, and he was often offered the opportunity to cut the grass for a tenner. And he couldn’t be bothered so his dad was telling me and then he started working doing washing up at the local pub for £4 an hour. And suddenly realized just what a good deal that he’d been turning down all those years, you know, so I could definitely see the reward part! Is there any psychology or any any logic behind whether it’s better to give pocket money or stars or whatever reward for work, as opposed to taking it away if you don’t do something?

Will Carmichael 17:12
Yes, I think, I think that’s a really tough one. Certainly as a parent, it’s something you think about a lot. I think that taking it away is, it depends on the context. But that’s not you know, that’s not necessarily usually how it plays out in life, that it will be taken away once you earn it. Like, you might waste it. You may find that if you don’t pay something off, you’ll get charged and effectively, you’ll lose it because you’ll get billed for that. So I think trying to focus on the positivity of earning it, if you’re holding it back, if perhaps you need to realign expectations can often kind of lead to I guess, a more positive experience.

Chris 17:58
I think the use of the word positive there is the key isn’t it, you want to try and get people into good habits not necessarily punish them for not doing things the way you want them to be done!

Will Carmichael 18:07
Yeah and I think you might see that change a little bit with stars when your starting a bit earlier when it is behavioural although I think you know a lot of kind of, certainly parents on Rooster will very much you know, they’ll give stars but you just won’t get them if you’re not not doing what what they’re trying to get you to do.

Chris 18:24
Yeah. So there’s lots of external pressures that exist, especially advertising to kids for example, I’m thinking of, that start encouraging you to buy stuff that you don’t necessarily need. I also think about us and I think back to my kids when they were little used to have their friends commence a birthday party, 20 kids they all bring a present, and all the parents agreed and maximum a fiver which was great, but we still had a long present opening session. Where one you know wrapper will be ripped off with ‘oh look, that’s interesting’ throw that aside, where’s the next one? You know, there was no appreciation because there were just so many. There’s lots of things that are coming in which I think end up making us form bad money habits, arn’t there. How do we inoculate our children from some of those?

Will Carmichael 19:12
Yeah, and the birthday one is a really tough one. And I don’t think there’s any silver bullet on it, I think making it clear what’s normal and isn’t, you know, but that also kind of comes with age too. I think, going back to and I always reiterate it, and I always say that those conversations about money and having them regularly and having positive ones really helps with that inoculation. And this is where pocket money can be useful, because if you are giving it regularly then they understand that they can start putting it towards the goal and saving towards that thing and they know that they’ll hopefully get their allowance next week, and they’ll be a bit closer to that. And that means that you can then start having conversations. A classic one you might have seen in a supermarket or experienced yourself is kids want to get a magazine with a plastic toy on the front. And, you know, they’re not really going to read it. They’re actually quite expensive. But rather than just saying no to them, which you will often see a parent going no, I’ve already bought new things, you can actually turned around and go. okay? Do you really want to get that we’re going to, we’re going to, you know, in the case of Rooster Money say we are going to take it off your Rooster Money account, you’re saving up for that Lego Deathstar that you’ve been saving up for five months for, and by getting this, there’s gonna be an opportunity cost, your going to be a little bit farther away from that. And, and that’s an amazing kind of ‘aha’ moment for the kids to understand that you have to save, towards these things. Yeah. And it’s not just instant gratification, birthdays tend to be a little bit more instant gratification. And thats a hard one to steer. But there are definitely those opportunities to show kids with a positive outcome you can get towards that bigger goal.

Chris 20:53
My children are a little older than your market. But I think there’s a good example here with my son who’s been doing a part time job, he’s got his own bank account now, but he’s also got really into records. I don’t know where he got that from! So he’s been really enjoying just kinda buying up some records. H e got a statement in, and it showed that he’s spent in the last six months £750. He had no idea that he even earnt that much money, let alone that he spent it, you know! And now he’s a little bit more picky about which record he goes out and buys, so you’re getting that sort of habit and that sort of realization, that engagement in from a very young age.

Will Carmichael 21:30
Yeah, and it’s totally that and and, you know, it is also celebrating one of the things that we did in Rooster Money was to show children the previous goals they saved towards and reached because you build up that sense of achievement. And I’ve done these things rather than. . . One key learning that that we’ve certainly seen is that if children get little bit amounts of money, then they’re more likely to go out and get sweets because you can kind of see look, well, I’ve got a couple of quid, I can get something. But it’s as soon as they get to a certain point where they’ve saved a little bit that they suddenly realized, you know what, I can actually get that bigger item, and I can work towards it, and they can see what they incrementally add to it, and they understand where that’s gonna take them. And I think that that is the big opportunity.

Chris 22:22
So, that’s an interesting bit of psychology here isn’t there, because if I think of the whats the archetypal thing for kids saving, it’s a piggie bank. And we actually have a cast iron pig, which has got a hole on the top, and we put all the money in it, but we can’t see it. So I have absolutely no idea how full that piggy bank is, how much is in there, and therefore how much closer to my goal is but by actually having on an app and be able to see the number and getting closer to your thing that you want to do. It makes it much more real than I guess.

Will Carmichael 22:54
Yeah, and you know, our big challenge now as we become increasingly cashless and, and you know very much in the context of kids, you’re carrying less cash on you. So you can’t hand that over, is how to make it feel tangible again. You know, the way that we pay for things, it is by your watch, you can pay in crypto, you can, you know, order your Uber and then only find out the next day how much you spent they make it seemless, or one click on Amazon. So these are these are challenges, that technology has created. But as I sort of also sort of mentioned earlier, I think the technology can be a great enabler. So that pocket money jar that sits at home or you might end up having a couple isn’t on the school run with you. Was not on holiday with you. And the app can be. And you can absolutely visulise that, you know, you can upload a photo, set the goal, see the progress, understand how much more you got to save and, and that can sort of drive really positive money habits. How it’s like, one of the other things is we encourage children, you can do this with jam jars, if you wanted to do it offline, you can have a spend, save, give pot. And we encourage them to, to break down what they want to do with their money. And over 40% of what children earn on Rooster Money is saved. Now, when you compare that with kind of what we as adults do, and I think the latest reports suggests we might manage to save around 5% of what we earn. Yes, it’s, it’s, it’s to an extreme, but again, it’s reinforcing that habit, that hopefully, will stick with them.

Chris 24:31
Thats fantastic. There’s I think a lot of adults who could do with your app! Never mind just kids. There’s habits that have been formed in there which, which we could all do with I think. So just to finish up then, this is fascinating stuff, you have given a few specific tips and ideas if you have any other tips that parents can use and how to help children understand their relationship to money?

Will Carmichael 24:56
The more conversations, the better. Make it part of the everyday, as I said those utility bills, when you go to the shops to do the weekly shop, or if you’re doing online, that’s a great opportunity to get your kids involved. You can actually save some money too, because you know, a great one is to say, okay, we need to do an energy switch why don’t you find us the cheapest deal, and I’ll give you a cut. And then you can turn it into a bit of a competition. Giving pocket money regularly could be a really great way of just allowing, as I say that opportunity to get your kids thinking about goals, they want to save towards, it will also reduce pressure on you know, kind of ad hoc spending because you can give them a set amount. This is actually something we talk about is this sort of pocket money paradigm by actually giving pocket money regularly, you as a parent can save yourself some money because you’re just not sort of trying to fit your hand into your pocket every time you’re out shopping. Show children the opportunities to earn. So you might want to give a weekly, regular amount and just say look to get this you need to be that good citizen need to keep your room tidy, need to help keep the kitchen tidy and take the bins out. But you can also say, well, look if you clean the car, whether it’s £10 or, or less, I think my dad paid me about £2 for the car, so he got a good deal! But, you know, by by showing them the extra opportunities to earn, that’s the kind of boost to get them towards that goal early. And encouraging them set goals and targets. Children are really aspirational. And they really do achieve, you know, things and we see, you know, kids saving up for big ticket items, you know, those big LEGO sets and Nintendo Switch, phones, putting money towards, you know, holidays. If you give them the opportunity they’ll really get involved in those things and ultimately put them in in charge of of their money. Yes, with parameters you as a parent can keep oversight, but you know and something that we’ve just built in the UK is a Visa Debit Card, so that you can move children into that, when when they’re ready, and keep those kind of controls and it’s allowing them to go out and make considered spending choices. And ultimately that that may mean some hard lessons from when it’s gone. It’s gone.

Chris 27:07
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, that’s so interesting. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time and enjoy yourself in New York.

Will Carmichael 27:14
Thank you very much. And thanks again for having me on.

David 27:18
Fascinating interview sounds like a really nice guy actually.

Chris 27:22
And in New York, Lucky chap.

David 27:23
I know. Yes. Now, I was struck by a few things in there, actually. And he talked about developing good habits, and how you can develop those, you know, from you very early on. I was also struck that actually good habits come from the same place as bad ones. So, you know, the bad habits that we have, we might drink too much, you know, maybe smoke or eat the wrong sort of food. But do they all come from the same place that says, Well, I must, I must make sure that I look after my money sensibly. And they become ingrained and they become a form of learned behavior.

Chris 28:00
Yeah, I would question whether all of those things are bad habits. But yeah, I think that’s 40% 40% of what we do is down to habit. Isn’t that amazing. So to understand these things, you’ve got to actually do something about it for things to change, you’ve got to practically make them change, you know. So that was the thing for me is, is that we have to actually do some stuff. I also really liked the the point about relevancy. He made the comment that a lot of the stuff that he studied at school he struggled with, because he couldn’t see the point. And my kids are just finishing their education and they made this comment a lot of the time, you know, the stuff they learn at say that GCSE level, they couldn’t see what the point of it and at the time I couldn’t really argue with them, I had to be honest. So making anything that you teach to people somehow relevant that they can get the context of it will help them to learn it, and that’s a really good tip.

The notion that we need to teach our children that money has an impact on their everyday life, as well, and I was very taken with that. I don’t think when I was a kid, my parents probably thought they were protecting me. So we kind of used to get pocket money. But I never really understood the value of money until I had money of my own, really. So I think that’s a really useful thing to be teaching on children,

Producer Tommo 29:18
I worry it is in our national psyche, that talking about money is deemed as crass. And when you’re talking about what something cost, value, etc, is, is stop talking about money, why is it always the focus. And that’s not the point. It’s just introducing people to the concept of money. And I’m really trying to wrack my brain with how I’m going to introduce it to my own son, Toby as he’s he’s three. So I’m not overly concerned right now. But some of the things that I say does he pick up on? You know, I’m Tight Ass Tommo. So do I want him to have all of those behaviors, they can be unhealthy to be too tight and I’ve worked really hard on that, to make sure that actually when I value, spending my money on a certain thing, I’m quite happy to spend it. And that’s taken a bit of a journey for me and I, I’m going to be looking at this in a lot more detail this particular app. And I think anything that helps to educate young people on on what money is about what’s important to them, and what they value I think is terrific. So yeah, all power to their elbow.

David 30:20
I had a little look at the Rooster Pocket Money Index, which is really quite fascinating now the amount of money that different kids can get at different ages. And it reminded me and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, there is an app that I use, I’m sure other similar ones are available called Money Box, where basically it rounds up your money automatically, it collects, it’s the equivalent of loose change down the back of the sofa, or the bottom of your cricket bag. So every time I spent money on my account, it rounds it up to the nearest pound. I’ve been doing that for about six months now, I’ve got almost £500, you know, and that’s not even habit, that’s just I don’t even have to think about that. But it’s just a way of accumulating money in that way.

Chris 31:02
One of the things that I’m interested in is financial coaching. Financial coaching is helping people to understand their relationship to money, and usually involves changing and getting healthier habits. And Catherine Morgan, who is one of the executives of the Initiative of Financial Wellbeing is heading up our financial stream. By the way, great Tight Ass Tommo Tip from her, furloughing may or may not still be a thing by the time this podcast goes out. But she suggested that she said to her kids, sorry, kids, but you’re going to have to be furloughed, you’re going to have to get 80% of your pocket money from now on.

David 31:37
And they would then come back and say, well the obviously, I’m not allowed to work.

Chris 31:44
Then she said, in fact, I took it one step further, I said to the two of them, I’m sorry I’m gonna have to let one of you go! But the serious point here is that financial coaching is all about changing our bad habits with money, what Will’s all about company, Rooster Money is all about is getting those habits right in the first place. I think that’s a fantastic idea. I really enjoyed that interview.

David 32:07
Yeah. Okay and I hope you enjoyed it too. And we hope you’re all safe and well at home and we hope also that you will join us next time for another one of our Financial Wellbeing Podcasts.