Kids And Money: The Power of Home Economy with Scott Donnell

$617 million last year alone. Pissed away in all these homework programs that no kid is actually going to do in real life. The only way a kid learns is by having fun and real life experience. That's how kids learn everything.

Let's game learn and earn together. And we're going to talk to Scott Donnell. Scott is just an amazing guy. We know each other through the Free Zone program at Strategic Coach. And Scott being a founder of just a number of successful ventures, but has really zoomed in on really smart parenting as it relates to finances, as it relates to developing really healthy, successful kids. There's a new book that's been launched that we're going to talk about. There's a new platform that we're going to talk about. Scott, it is so awesome to have you here. Thank you for being with us on Wealth Without Bay Street.

Absolutely. Tell us all about the book, my friends. Just north of the border. Good to be on with you guys. I don't know if you know this, but I grew up about 20 miles from the Canadian border. Yeah, I live in Phoenix now. My whole family is actually from the northwest, like north of Seattle on Whidbey Island. Oh wow. We're like right there by Vancouver on the corner. I grew up going to Whistler, Vancouver island up the coast.

So that's not far from me. I'm 20 minutes drive to the Sumas border crossing.

Oh, there you go, man. Oh, it's my stomping grounds. There you go. Are you Dutch?

No, I'm a transplant here. I moved from Edmonton, Alberta about three years ago and living in Chilliwack, B.C. where it's absolutely beautiful. And it's interesting living from a northern location that like the northernmost capital city in the world. From what I understand being nowhere near a border to now actually being able to drive across one in a post Covid world. It's actually been pretty good. In fact, we're going to Seattle for my nephew's birthday party in about a week or so.

Very cool. Very cool, man. Yeah, I love those areas. My stomping grounds.

Tell us about this new book.

Okay.

Awesome.

So, well, there's kind of a huge movement going on. I guess I'll start with that. Arguably, I'm the go to voice on how parents teach their kids money. Arguably I've got about 6 million families under my belt and we're launching this huge banking app for families that actually teaches financial literacy through gaming. It's called Gravy Stack. But the book is called Value Creation Kid. So the Healthy Struggles Your children need to succeed. Our mission is to use this book to help 50 million kids become financially competent and ready to succeed in the real world. And so all the thoughts and the philosophies and the ideas of everything I've done in the coaching and the children's business fairs and our other companies helping all these kids is basically dissolved. Like, it's all in this. It's like this is the gravy stack method. That's how parents can teach their kids to go through healthy struggles and come out the other side to create immense value in the world. And it's basically like the antidote for entitlement and laziness and victimhood and anxiousness in kids and teens. Right. Like, we've created a model that basically is like a bulletproof, surefire way to have kids create value in the world and not worry about likes on TikTok, not worry about the clicks and the popularity contests, not fear about the future. And what am I going to do and where am I going to go to school and what's my degree going to be and how am I going to pay for it? It's just a lens to see the whole world and use it to create value for yourself and every single person around you. And when you do that, you build capability and confidence that then creates more value. So we call it the healthy. We call it the value creation cycle is kind of like the premise of the whole book.

Okay, that's amazing.

So it says if you have the gumption to go through a healthy struggle. And we're not talking trauma, right? We're not talking abuse, neglect, you know, the generational nightmares. No, don't pass that on. Yeah, I'm talking healthy struggles. Any athlete will tell you or any academic will tell you. Any entrepreneur will tell you this. There's healthy struggles in life. You have to sink in. You have to push through it. You have to see it in your mind as something that has something better for me on the other side of it, Right? That's a healthy struggle. That is a healthy struggle. And we have 90 of those in the book that are critical for kids that are not taught in schools. Almost all 90 are not even touched in schools. Okay? And when you go through them, you build capability, okay? That capability builds confidence. And the confidence. The confidence allows you to create material value, emotional energy value, spiritual value, all kinds of value around you. It's just like seeping out of your pores. And those are the kids that I want to raise. Those are the kids I want to hang out with. With my friends and their kids, and those are the kids that I want to be the entire next generation. That is so point of the book.

Awesome. And one of the things that we're going to do is for any of our Ascendant Financial clients, you're tuning into this episode, you're going to be. This episode is going to be shared with you. Regardless. For any of our clients who have kids, there's going to be a link that you'll be able to click through. And we're actually going to send you a copy of Scott's book. And now Scott didn't have time to sign 485 copies of the book when we were at Free Zone in Chicago. But just knowing that he's here with us today, he's sharing some of his insights and what inspired him to put this platform together. In addition to Gravy Stack, which by the time this episode launches, there will be more information available for folks to be able to actually do that. However, Canada is a future component of the plan, and we make all of our clients with children aware of it the moment that Canada becomes live. But we just wanted to give you some insight into some great innovation that Scott and his team are doing. But as a token of our embracing this, this whole process of creating healthy and successful kids, any of our existing clients, we were happy to send you a copy of the book with our compliments. And for people who are not yet clients of Ascendant, we're going to give you a link where if you would love to purchase a copy, you'll be able to go and get it and it'll be shipped right to your front door. And so this, this is just so exciting because.

Well, thank you, guys.

We're talking about, in our platform, creating the family banking system. Scott, you and I have shared conversation before about what exactly it is that we do.

I love it.

And so this is just a perfect complement to bringing kids along in a very healthy and successful way.

As Jason said, you can head on over to gravy stack book.com that's gravy stackbook.com to get your copy. And you'll also be placed on the list to be notified when the amazing Gravy Stack app for kids is available and operational in Canada. Head on over to Gravy Stack Book. Now back to the show.

And here's a little, a little secret I didn't tell you before. The Gravy Stack app is the world's first banking and investing app for kids and teens that plays like a game okay, there's a hundred games on this here app. And then there's a bank account with an Invest, save, spend, share accounts. No checking accounts because kids aren't going to write checks. That's like an archaic way of thinking. There's no monthly statements because nobody looks at them. Only like 8% of people actually look at them every month. So we built a money machine that shows the flow of money, but the game itself teaches 10 things through a hundred games and this whole world of characters. And I'm saying this to you because it's available in Canada, so the game itself will be available in many countries, like right away. Okay, so we'll get that out to you guys the moment we're live in Canada.

Okay?

The. The banking portion of it. And then by the way, the games are free. Like, just start playing them and enjoying them. The banking portion, we have a partner called synapse, that's our banking Rails. Once they launch, Canada is their next target. So once they launch in Canada, we're immediately in Canada. So our goal is to get there as fast as possible within a few months. But the games will be available for kids to start going and learning. And inside the game, it's like our 10 core principles of financial competency. Save. In this order, by the way. Save, earn, spend, share, invest, protect. Which means protecting your online security. Safety online is critical.

Excellent.

Borrow. Or the issues of borrowing and the types of borrowing. Right. Appreciating assets. Only people create value. How to create value in the world, that's the cornerstone of the book. And then the skills and traits that go along with them. For kids to be financially independent. Starting in the home, not outside the home. Starting in the home. By the time you get your driver's license using our app, you should be covering all 12 of your major expenses yourself. You should have over 50 ways to make money around the house and a dozen ways to make money in the neighborhood and the community at all times. And you should be moving concentric circles of earning to be able to increase your financial independence.

I love that. Concentric circles of earning. That's. We have a perfect diagram, a visual that will go with that. By the way, brilliant stump that we'll throw in there because it'll tie in perfectly. And the idea of that and even the physical motion of it is about expansion. It's a rock and a pond. And that's a way to think about the education and the skills that you're building because you know at an early age, the compound effect. It's not the compound Effect of money. It's the compound effect of attitude, knowledge, awareness, skill, aptitude. Those things are really work. That's what's going to create the most amount of money, because it's through the creation of value that the money will follow.

And here's. Here's the irony, guys. No one's teaching this.

Very true.

Schools teachers don't know this. They're not trained. They're not confident in this. They feel it's like teaching kids nutrition. They're like, I'm terrified to tell you what to eat because your parents might be Paleo, keto, macro, whatever. Like, I'm terrified to tell you what to do. And so money's the same way parents, teachers feel like it's a home thing. Parents have no idea what to teach them in what order, even if the kids will listen in the first place to their parents. Right. That's why this family banking thing you guys are doing is so critical to get out to families. Like, our whole goal for our book and the app and the show Smart Money Parenting we just launched is to have money conversations. How do you have money conversations with your kids? How do you bring them with you? Mommy and daddy are talking about investing in this thing here. We want to tell you why. Dad just made this big old mistake in business. I want you to know exactly what happened. Mom and dad are thinking about giving to this charity right now. What do you guys think? How much should we do? Like, do you have any better ideas? Like, let's. Let's talk about that. Like, have the home economy created. So we're just giving the tools for parents to look like heroes to their kids. Even if you don't know everything. That's why it's a game. Right? Play the game with your kids, then you don't look like you don't know anything. You just learn along with the kids.

That's the key. And we express to parents all the time that children have a much higher degree of neuroplasticity than adults do. That's why it's so advantageous to teach a child a new language at an early age.

That's right.

And so children pick up on these topics much faster than adults do.

And I was going to show. I was going to show you guys this. You. You nailed it right on the head. Like, in the home is where it happens. Yeah, there's no. You can't outsource your parenting here, folks. You can't go to church. Outsource this camp, outsource this school. Outsource. Nope, not with Money, you have to have it in the home. You can't do, you can't learn. Money like homework just doesn't work. Like, they've been trying to teach monthly budgeting and balancing checkbooks and debits and credits to kids forever, and it just doesn't work. Okay? In fact, Forbes, I don't know if you guys have seen this. I'll send you the article. Forbes just came out with an article yesterday. Rob Shevlin. The title of it is this. It's Financial Literacy Month. So stop wasting all your time and money on financial literacy programs. $617 million last year alone, pissed away in all these homework programs that no kid is actually going to do in real life. The only way a kid learns is by having fun and real life experience. That's how kids learn everything. I just explained the holes in the education system. Trust me, I've got 6 million families with all my companies serving kids for the last 15 years. The biggest hole is financial competency and the practical skills that create value in the world. How did geometry ever teach you how to do monthly budgets? How did trigonometry help you with your taxes? It's like, let's start simple and practical with our kids in the home and build it from square one. And kids need to do it with real money. Not monopoly money, not homework, real money, right? This is my problem with allowance, by the way. Like, it's. It is money, but it's free money from mom and dad to the kid.

It's communist money.

It's communism, right? So the problem with allowance, there's three problems. Problem number one, parents give their kids money for free. That kid will never spend that money like, they earned it themselves. If a kid earns their own dollar, they manage the dollar well, right? If I get free money, I ask for more and I loosely waste it. Okay? That's problem number one. Problem number two, parents like, no, no, no. I pay him for chores. Wait, hold up. Time out. How does your kid know the value of the chores? If you just do a blanket list with an allowance, half the things on that list, you shouldn't be paying your kids to doctor. You should not pay your kids to make their bed and clean their room and get dressed and brush their teeth or do their homework and probably not even, like, take out the trash and do the dishes. Like, that's your rent, kid. Right? And then the other half the chores are extra things that you have to, like, argue with your kids and then you end up giving them their allowance anyway. And it's A power struggle. And they don't know the value of sweeping the garage versus a bathroom. You know, like, kids need to learn the value of what they do. The third problem is the worst problem. The parents who are like, I don't pay my kids allowance at all. They're the good kids that do all their chores when they're told, right? Well, okay, you have good little soldiers. The problem there is your kids never learn to make and manage their own money at all. So now what you're doing as the parent is paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for all their stuff. You're paying for all their toys and trinkets and all their social items and all their birthday presents for their friends and all their in app technology, whatever they want. Your kid is not learning anything about money, okay? That's the problem with allowance. So we created the home economy system. It's three E's, okay? Expectations, expenses, and extra pay. And this is what the Gravy stack banking app just automates. It's like a print off for your fridge every week. Kids know exactly how to make the money. They're paying for their expenses. So basically, like step one, expectations. All right, Billy, here's your five things we expect you to do to be under our roof. If you want to have the Donald last name, you're doing those things. Number two, expenses. There's 12 major expenses that starting at ages six to eight, like you're passing them off one by one. By the time they get their license, they're doing all of them right. Toys, trinkets, souvenirs, extra purchases for sports equipment, social outings with friends, social trips, whatever. You know, if you're going to buy something in a game, great. You better be after you save, share and invest money away. Do whatever you want with the rest as long as you're covering your expenses. That's how a kid actually learns to budget. And then the third one is, now that you've saved hundreds of dollars a month on not paying for your kids, give them money to do extra gigs around the house. And we call that home gigs. So we have these 55 things around the house. Sweep the garage, pump up the tires, wash the window, make a meal, clean a bathroom, organize a closet, alphabetize my books, whatever. There's a ton of them, right? Stuff in the yard, stuff in the pool, stuff with the pets, stuff in the kitchen. The kids earn $2, $4, $8, $12, $1. Doesn't matter. By doing those gigs, and it automatically resets in the app. So it's Literally just this ongoing economy that replaces allowance. It's just as easy as allowance, but it teaches kids to create value to cover their expenses, which is real budgeting and the expectations in the home. So it removes all the power struggle, it removes all the coercion, it removes all the bribing your kids to buy their love. Right? This one's especially important for parents that might be split or single parenting or co parenting. Kid goes to mom bomb, buys a bunch of stuff, goes back to dad, dad buys more stuff. I mean, it's like a big old buying love fest. You remove that and you institute this home economy. Then it removes the entitlement, it removes the spoiling of them, it removes the anxiousness, it removes that power struggle. And within like 30 days of people using this system in the app and in the book, kids never ask them parents for money again.

That is so great.

And we're going to put a link actually to your podcast because I think that our listeners, our viewers, are going to gain so much insight from tuning into that new podcast, which is already doing extremely well. And I wanted to share with you, Scott, something that you mentioned that's so poignant because now we have all this technology that can support meeting kids where they're at and teaching them in a way, in a format where they learn best. I'll never Forget. So I'm 48 years young, and when I was just a young child, I'll never forget it, I was standing in front of the picture window of our home and we lived very modestly. There was nothing silver in our home. And my parents did a good job arguing about money. They didn't do a really good job multiplying it because they had nobody to show them. And I'll never forget this. One day all my friends were ripping around, up and down the street on their brand new BMX pedal bikes. And I kept asking my dad for one of these bikes and he said, well, I want you to watch what happens. And I didn't really understand conceptually. He said, pay attention. Watch what happens as they're going over these wood ramps and they're. Watch how they're handling those bikes and they're just slamming them down on the ground and running around, picking them back up again, slamming them down on the ground. He said, the reason they're treating them that way is because those bikes were bought for them. But I want you to look up and down the street and tell me what you see. That's the color green. And I said, grass. He said, there's a Lawnmower in the backyard. Get out there and earn it. And I promise you, you're going to be the only kid on the block spit shining your bike every single day.

That's right.

And that's what I did. And that was just one instance of having that etched in my mind, that the surefire way to really, truly appreciate the value of a buck is to go out there and earn it. Yep.

The most successful entrepreneurs I know, the most successful parents I know, they have the exact same stories that you just told.

By the time I was 12, I had to buy all my own stuff, dude. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I absolutely loved it. Everyone else was buying, like, $75 guest jeans. And I'm down at the bargain shop.

12 bucks.

All right. I got enough money for Sega Genesis this month.

That's right. I mean, this is my first business right here. Bead gecko keychains. I kept one just as a memento.

Oh, wow.

In third grade, I was making like hundreds of these, selling them for a couple bucks. And then I hired all my classmates and they were making them for a quarter. And then all of a sudden, I got suspended because nobody was going to lunch or recess in the entire class, right? So I thought I was going to get a whooping, and my dad took me out to dinner. He's like, do that for the rest of your life. Right. And I was in charge of paying my own way on things. I had four jobs in high school and college to pay for things like the grit and the personal responsibility, the delayed gratification, the wants versus needs, training, the. The choice, decision making. Like, that's how you learn it. Right? But here's what parents do. They go, I just want to make sure my kids have what I didn't. I want to make sure I get them all the things I never had. I want to make sure that they have all the opportunities I never had. I just don't want my kids have to deal with all the misery I had to deal with as a kid growing up. Parents say these things all the time to themselves out of good reason. Like, they have a good heart behind it, but they don't realize that it ends up spoiling the kids. It's like, how do you think you got there? Parent? You are who you are because of what happened and how you came through it. So let's not pass on the trauma and the generational issues of neglect and abuse and those kinds of things, but we need to pass on these healthy struggles. So the kids Learn to make and manage their own finances, to create their own value, to gain the capability and confidence to succeed in the real world. That's the point of this. And, and you mentioned too, Jason, a minute ago about. You kind of had bad money conversations growing up. We surveyed a thousand parents and kids. We found out this. Parents had no clue what to do. They're like, even if they're wealthy, they're like, I don't know how to pass this on and when and where. And so maybe we'll do like a bank account and a lemonade stand and I'll do a save, spend, share piggy bank when they're young. I don't know. So they didn't. They need help. They need a roadmap. That's what we're giving them. The kids was the most. Their responses were the most interesting thing. They said. Overwhelming majority, ages 6 to 18, they said this. We don't want to talk about money at all. I want to avoid the topic. It's the number one fight in my house.

Wow.

So parents fight about sex and money, right? But they don't fight about sex in front of kids. But guess what? They do talk about and have conflict around all the time. Honey, money doesn't grow on trees. You know how much I paid for this for you? Like, do you know how much that costs? Do you have any idea how much, how hard it was to get this? Did you forget that bill again? You know, there's no way we can afford for you to do that. Like, just over and over, they hear this reinforcement around money as a conflict. And so the vast majority of kids are like, you know what? Forget it. I got food, shelter, clothing. Most of the time, I'm going to just chill. I got plenty to do with my friends and school and sports. I'm going to just let this one ride until I'm 18 out of the house. And then we all know what happens, right? Immediate credit card debt. Immediate. They have no knowledge of budgeting, no planning for the future. They're just trying to get by. And then usually they get suppressed in debt and bad decisions, and that hurts them throughout the next 20 years. That just happens over and over and over. My buddy's daughter just turned 18. We show it in the podcast, one of the episodes, Smart Money Parenting. We talk about this. She got 18 credit cards in the mail. Happy birthday, McKinley. Here's $20,000 for you as a gift. You know, it's like, oh, my gosh, how is this legal? So kids are just, like, blindsided if they don't get this training in the home.

Scott, respecting that, you're just about to head out on an amazing camping trip with your family. We thank you for being generous with your time with us today. And this was actually supposed to be a phone call with Scott and I, and to his credit, he's handled himself extremely well because I literally texted him two minutes before the call saying, can we hop onto Zoom? And so we put this together, and it's going to be a great value for our viewing and listening audience. And, Scott, congratulations on doing something so remarkably valuable. You know, this is exactly what we need for the next generation and the generation after that and after that. And so for our viewers and listeners, make sure that you check the show notes, because all of the links that I was describing throughout the show are going to be embedded there. And for all of our parents who are existing clients of Ascendant, make sure that you click that link, because we're going to get a copy of the book sent to you. Scott and I participate in the Free Zone program with Strategic Coach together. And just as a token of gratitude for that association, I want to make sure that we support this amazing launch of his book and we get it into as many hands as possible.

That link again is gravy stackbook.com for. For clients of Ascendant Financial to claim your free copy. That's gravy. Stackbook.com well, and I gotta say how much I appreciate the name of Gravy Stack because I'm a big sauce guy and I love the gravy. So the fact that we get to incorporate with the kids, you know, you're gamifying it for the kids, and we're going to teach them how to make the gravy.

There you go.

Which I'm happy about, because whether the turkey, it's chicken, it's beef. I mean, I love all that gravy. I like it in a gamified money form. So well done and kudos to you on that.

It's gravy train and stacks of money. Gravy. Gravy Stack. Kids get it. Yeah. Everybody at the beginning was like, why did you name it that? We were like, because it can't sound like a bank. It has to sound like something fun. Because it is fun.

Absolutely.

And I want to say this too, before we go, you guys, you know, as I've been getting to know you, Jason, and the becoming your own banker and the family money conversations and the meetings. The family meetings, your, I think, most valuable contribution, not just the brilliant financial discipline of this, right? Being your own bank and growing your family's like, net worth and protecting one another and providing and creating that. The true economy in the home. I think the most pure form of home economy is what you're doing right? But I think the greatest contribution you're making here is legacy. Because when you have the family working together on these things, it's a natural flow. The conversations are natural. They are part of the family culture. They're a part of the everyday conversations. And that is step one. Even if you don't know anything, just having the conversations with your kids in a positive environment is the biggest hurdle that most parents struggle with. And so that's why I really like what you guys are doing. And believe me, like, we're working on so many more games in the app. Insurance is in there and a lot of this stuff is in there. And we're going to be teaching a lot of your principles and we want to, I want to make sure that we get help on content there.

Would love to collaborate on that.

You are going to get help on that content. Guaranteed. And so for all of our folks who are watching this on the youtubes, you just saw a playlist show up. Thanks to our brilliant editing team. Make sure that you click on the next video to continue your journey of learning. And Scott, thank you so much again. Make your camping trip outstanding with your family and gentlemen. This was amazing. Scott, thanks for being so flexible on short notice. Have an awesome rest of your day, guys.

Take care.