Who’s Right, When Family Asks for Money and the Fine Art of Disagreeing

Hi, I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger.

We have this new podcast called "We Should Probably Edit This." But we won't. Your mic is on.

Okay.

So who are we?

Well, why don't you start off with the name of the show?

Well, what is the name of the show?

Unedited, Unscripted, and it's, um, it's—

you should probably edit this. The name of our show is We Should Probably Edit This.

Yes, it is.

That's the name of our show, We Should Probably Edit This.

I don't remember that, but okay, we can go with that for now.

Would you like me to go and get it off the thing?

No, it's fine. But I can tell you right now, this is going to be a complete redo because I don't like what I see in the background. Ugly white can that you have for the ashes of the fireplace.

Are you okay with that even though we have an empty can there?

The empty can's fine because it's a brass can. It's not a big hideous looking white tin.

Scoot in the sun closer. That's okay, not too much. Okay, that's good.

Okay, now we can't see anything.

Now you're talking to the phone there, I'm talking to my phone over here looking right at— You can look right at there but just so every now and then look at the— Look at that!

I can't because my eyes don't know. No, no, I can see you on the camera.

Okay, well we should probably edit this but we're not going to.

Why bother? I know it's just good.

Okay, so what's our topic for today?

You know what our topic of today is? When your husband doesn't follow your instructions because he thinks he knows better. I'll give you the example. What was our example today? Oh yes, we went to the mall so we can get some adapter so we could actually record the show. Now, how many times would you say, are you an active mall person?

No, I try to avoid them all at all costs.

Totally understand. So I don't follow that philosophy. So we're exiting out of the mall and I say to him, you have to turn here.

But it didn't look logical. That was like going down a road that didn't go out.

But that's just the point. It's about listening to what other people who have experience of going to the mall, getting out of the mall, and You didn't do that. So instead of making this an easy in, easy out, we ended up taking the whole tour of the parking lot before we got out to an exit that required us to wait for a stoplight.

Well, it would have had to wait for a stoplight going the other way out too, but only one light, not three.

Okay, but okay. Yeah, all because that's, that's, that's— you just didn't listen.

You're probably right, I probably didn't listen. A lot of times I, a lot of times I just don't listen. I, I think I know better, so what do I do? I go my way, and that isn't always the right way.

I agree, not always the fastest way either, but inevitably we still got home, so that was, that was the good part of it. But that was one life lesson. That was our life lesson for today.

Oh yeah.

So what do you want to talk about? Because, you know, you're the one who said, hey, it would be a great idea if we did a podcast together.

Let's talk about when family asks us for money.

Depends on who's asking and how much money they need.

But I mean, it's like What do you do when a family—

let's rephrase this, let's rephrase this. Who in this relationship would get asked by anybody to lend them money? Who, you or me?

Um, well, most of the time they're going to ask you because they don't want to ask me.

And why do you think they don't want to ask you but they'll ask me?

Hmm, why do I think that they don't want to ask me? Probably because I— honestly, probably because I'm too judgmental. I make them feel bad about asking me in the first place. It's not something that I really wanted. I don't want to admit that, but it's true.

Well, that's good. At least you understand your, your limitations to it. But I do— we do discuss giving money to people if it's necessary, even though they come to me and ask me whether or not we will lend them the money. Wasn't— isn't really your area. They'll come to me and then we discuss it, and then sometimes we give them the money without me knowing about it until later. Depends on the amount. I'm going to repeat, it depends on the amount. If there's a certain— we have a rule that if we spent more than, what was it, $600, we have to confer with each other. Anything under $600, we don't. We can make the executive decision and just spend the money, though we do have to tell the other guy we spent the money. But if it's under $600, we don't.

And so just the lighting— go ahead, keep talking.

Oh, I have to be talking all by myself. Now standing, sitting here. So that's really one of the main rules. And our approach to money is a lot different. My money— my approach to it is, if I have it and it's not something that I'm going to miss, and it's not something I'm necessarily going to be required that you have to pay it back and within a certain period of time, whatever, then I'll lend you the money. Because I have it and I'm not gonna— it's not gonna be something that I'm gonna miss. But I'm not gonna go into debt to loan you money, and I'm not gonna jeopardize what I need to take care of to lend you the money. Unless of course it is something really extreme, in which case I will do both.

Okay, so what, what do you think, um, do you think family members should ask for help from other family members?

I think it depends on what the situation is. If it's something that is going to be, say, to help my grandchildren in some way, I don't know if it, if it's some type of support that my grandchildren will require, I will do it. Um, if it's something that is going to be— help that family member excel in a particular area that they've been wanting to, that they're knowledgeable of, and they need a little seed money to get them going, I will. We've done that. Um, so it really just depends. But if it's to the point where you got yourself into some financial difficulties and you ask once, you can get it. But if you, if you don't fix your financial situations, definitely don't ask me for more. Because especially if you didn't pay us back, then I'm going to sit back and say no, you're a higher risk than something that I would allow. Because then I'm feeding into your bad behavior. Maybe they didn't learn from the first time around, or they're, they're, they're not taking certain things seriously enough to really figure things out.

Okay. Do you think we did a— do you think we did the right thing growing up, or raising our children, I should say, about money?

Well, you know what, I don't live in regret, and I'm not going to sit back and say coulda, woulda, shoulda. I think every parent, as you move forward, gets to screw up their kids their own way. You're just gonna have to figure it out, and hopefully you as a, as an adult, as you get older, you figure out those things that you need to improve upon so that the next generation does a little bit better. When it comes to money though, I think that's a really big a big topic. I don't think parents talk to their children enough about it.

I know we didn't.

No. And but we also didn't do what a lot of other parents will do. They argue, they, you know, will have really big fights over it, right? And I think your kids then learn a totally different situation on what money is all about. And that it's a cause for friction. It is a cause for friction, but what's the one thing I've always said to you? If the ship is going down, we're going down together.

So didn't matter who broke the, broke the ship or, or, um, made the hole, you know, we're not one of us, we're not going to jump out together. We're going to try to fix that hole.

We're going to fix it, but if we're going down, if we're sinking, we're sinking.

That's what we're thinking, right?

So, and I think from that perspective, um, because we took on that premise and that mentality, we sheltered the kids a lot from things that they should have maybe been informed about, right?

Right.

But I don't think it was, you know, too, too bad. I, I think we, we tried to do things along the way when they got a little older Uh, but by that point they were very much stuck in their own frame of thinking, and it was hard to change their opinions. Still is, right? Grown-ass adults, right?

I mean, I know my parents never taught me really how to manage money, and, um, my father always felt it was kind of the, the root of all evil, you know. Um, well, it's really the lack of money that causes more problems than the money itself a lot of times, because you're trying to struggle to get more money. But it's been a mental block in my life.

But here's the thing, what I've learned about money is, is that it's— you're in the control aspect to it. And as long as you live within your means, you won't have an issue with money, because you could be dirt poor, but as long as you live within your means you have enough to sustain yourself. It's when you go out of your way to buy the fancy car with the big debt, or you go out of your way to go do something that you know you don't have the cash for and you didn't save for, right? So it's not that it's the root of all evil, it's more of your mindset. It's what's just in your head. What's in your head? How do you view money? I view money as a tool by which, um, I use to do the things I want to do or achieve the things I want to achieve. And, um, I think to some great extent you do too, um, because in the years that we have been married, while we may have faced difficult situations, we always somehow managed to get through.

Right.

But what we didn't learn well enough was how to live within our means and how to do something, um, like save, pay yourself first. Before you pay anybody, you got to pay yourself first.

And that was something that we didn't learn, especially when we had our own business.

We didn't, we didn't really, um, do what was necessary to make sure that we paid ourselves first and everybody else then came afterwards. That's what we needed to learn.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a tough subject of conversation to have in any family. I think it's something you got to start when the kids are younger, and you've got to really teach them the value of a dollar and the value of saving and the value of, of spending. You know, you can't, um, as Jim Rohn said, you know, when you get $1, 70% goes to you, 10% goes to investing, and the other, um, now I can't even remember what it was.

10% goes to investing, 10% goes to savings, 10% goes towards a charity.

Yeah, and giving. And if you can do that with a dollar, you can do that with $10, you you can do that with $100. But if you don't start, you can't wait till you have that $10,000 to say, now I'm going to start doing this.

Yeah, it's a fallacy if you think that. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, you have to really set your tone and set your mind to saying, okay, this is what we're going to do. So, you know, now I look at my kids and I say, you know, if you have a 401(k) plan, Take advantage of the plan. Make sure you save money. Your pre-tax dollars goes into the— into that plan. Do it now. Don't wait, because the longer you wait, the less time you have to build up that kitty.

Right, right. It's amazing. There's a lot of different mathematical equations that, that show when you start saving at certain ages how that compound effect can really accelerate your growth. But the longer you wait, the less money you're going to have, and the harder it's going to be.

You're playing catch-up. That's what you're doing, playing catch-up. So we're putting, say, $100 or like $500 a month out of your pay. You went into a 401(k), and that now— and you started that when you say 20 or in your 20s, and you get to the point where now you're in your 50s you could have had a million dollars saved up.

Yeah.

Whereas if you start when you're 50, um, to do that, you don't, you don't have the luxury of time.

You don't have the luxury of time.

You don't have the luxury of time. So you find yourself having to do a lot of catching up, and even then you probably won't catch up completely.

No, no.

No. All right, so that was the first topic. Hot topic. I don't know why you picked that topic. That was not the topic.

It's because of relevant events that have happened recently. Relevant events. Okay, so anyways, we should probably edit this, but we're not going to.

Nope.

So you're going to get it raw and uncut. And so this is episode 1. Oh, let's see where it goes from here.

We'll just keep blabbing away, uh, fixing our system, figuring figure out which is the best angle. I think I should be sitting on that side.

Yeah, I do too, because I don't want to say— I don't want to show the—

these things.

If I sit on this side, you won't see that I got those things.

So we have to— we have to do a little bit of fine tweaking. But, um, let us know if you like the— if you like the topic. Let us know if you have any comments that you'd like to add. Let us know if you have something you want us to talk about. I think we're open to about talking about just about anything. And if I'm not open to talking about it, we'll let you know, or we won't talk about it.

All right.

Okay.

Okay, until next time. Toodles! We should probably edit this, but we won't.

But we won't.

Bye! Bye!