Talking about Money is More Taboo than Politics, Religion and Weight (11:38)
When it comes to gender, men are much more comfortable than women
Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses the stigma of discussing money with Bankrate’s Ted Rossman.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
This morning, talking about money is more taboo than talking about religion, politics, and your weight. And joining me now to help break it all down is Ted Rossman of Bankrate. Ted, always great to see you.
Thanks for joining us on the program this morning. Good to be here. Thank you.
I like this survey because, look, there’s a lot of things you don’t talk around the dinner table about politics, religion, sex. But one that I think is really interesting based on the Bankrate study is people don’t like to talk about money as well.
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
That’s really surprising. In fact, of all the things we asked about, money topics were three out of the four most uncomfortable. So we’re talking about things like bank account balances, credit card debt, salary.
Those were three out of the four most uncomfortable topics. Your love life was somewhere in the middle there. In other words, people are more likely to want to talk about politics, religion, and their weight because all those things were further down the list.
So it’s really money issues that bubble to the top of the list of taboo topics. And sometimes this is because people are ashamed about the way they handle money. They’re ashamed of their credit card debt or they feel like their salary is not high enough.
There’s not enough money in the bank. I would say, well, one, you have plenty of company. A lot of people have similar issues.
But we need to get better at talking about money. Secrets can undermine trust. The fact that 40 percent of people in married relationships or otherwise living with a partner are keeping financial secrets, that can really hold you back from reaching your financial goals.
We need to get better about bringing these things into the open.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, especially with a loved one like a spouse. I feel like that’s a thing that you should be talking about money issues, especially as I’ve aged, estate planning issues, what happens, end of life. I feel like those are things that when you have that kind of bond, legal bond, but also a bond with somebody, you should be talking about money and all these things.
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
For sure. And I should say that in our survey, we talked about comfort level with family and close friends. So we’re not saying you need to blab these details to everybody.
But but yes, people you’re close to your spouse would definitely be one. We see Gen Zers breaking down some of these stereotypes. It’s generally older people who have a harder time talking about money.
Gen Zers are a bit more comfortable. Some of that is there the social media share everything generation. Right.
Some of it, though, goes deeper. Something like the gender pay gap, for example. Gen Zers are a lot more likely to talk about salaries with friends and coworkers.
Sometimes there is a bit of a social justice take on that, which is if inequities exist, one of the ways to correct them is to bring it out into the open. We’re definitely seeing Gen Zers a lot more likely than boomers and Gen Xers to talk about salary in the workplace. And and sometimes it leads to these uncomfortable truths.
But the hope is that by bringing this out of the shadows, it can be addressed.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And what’s the correlation, do you think, with financial literacy? Like I can understand.
Look, I’ll be the first one to say I’ve made lots of mistakes with money. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The people I know are not perfect when it comes to money.
Is there a correlation with with your financial literacy? Like saying I understand what a credit card is. I understand how to manage a budget.
Does it does that correlate anyway?
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
It could. Honestly, I’m pretty down on the state of financial literacy. I really feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement there.
Only about half of the states have some sort of personal finance mandate in high schools. I would like to see that be 100 percent. Even when it’s taught, it’s often at a very cursory level.
I feel like there’s a lot more that could be done there. A lot of people are learning about money through the School of Hard Knocks, basically through life experience. And sometimes they’re getting tips from family and friends or social media.
Sometimes that advice is good. Sometimes it’s not. Personal finance is not one size fits all.
It is very custom. So I like to think that by bringing some of these issues out there, we can work on them. So even if you have blemishes in your financial past, everybody has blemishes in their financial past, you know, it’s something that one could learn from older friends, family members.
Take it with a grain of salt. I mean, you’re not necessarily going to take every hot stock tip from your brother-in-law, but there are some things that we can learn from each other. And and maybe that’s a constructive way to bring it up around the holiday table.
You have to read the room and tread carefully. But it’s appropriate to ask, like, hey, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, like, how did how did you go about this? Have you ever wrestled with debt, savings, investing?
Some of this can be empowering. If you’re in your 20s, every dollar you invest could be 40 or 50 dollars by the time you retire. I realize things have changed.
It’s gotten harder to buy your first house. Things like child care have gotten a lot more expensive. College costs have gotten a lot more expensive.
I believe these are some of the reasons why Gen Z-ers are more open, because it’s kind of a shared burden. There’s not a stigma to having student debt in your 20s, because I have a student debt in their 20s. I feel like that’s breaking down some of these older existing walls.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I want to ask you, and maybe this wasn’t picked up in the survey, but just tips for the for our older folks, myself included. I’m in that generation now when we’re giving guidance and giving counseling to these younger people, and which, you know, you don’t want to be Debbie Downer. You don’t want to say, well, don’t go get a Starbucks.
I feel like that is the wrong way of handling things and dumping on people. What are some good tips for our mentors out there to help guide younger people through the trials and tribulations, really, of life?
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
Well, one thought is we’re seeing a substantially higher number of people in their 20s and 30s living with parents or otherwise getting financial assistance. And as a parent, my kids are younger, but I do think that part of our duty as parents is to prepare our kids to be independent someday. But I also think that more training wheels are needed nowadays, just because it is a lot more expensive to buy that first house, rent that first apartment, pay for child care, pay off student debt.
One way to help is to offer some support. It shouldn’t be an open-ended blank check because that crosses the line into enabling and a failure to launch. But, you know, maybe there are things that those parents of adult children can help with.
Maybe they can help pay the cell phone bill or at least get the kid on the family plan that’s cheaper. You can stay on your parents’ health insurance until you’re 26. These are kind of things that can help.
Maybe there’s some support for groceries, or maybe there is some support towards rent, or maybe the kid lives with you for a while, but it shouldn’t be a handout. Even if the adult kid is living with you, maybe they contribute to shared household expenses like utilities and groceries, maybe you set that money aside as kind of a freedom fund for, okay, in six months, maybe you can move out on your own or in a year or something like that, I think one of the best things that Gen Xers and Boomers can do when they have teenagers and 20-somethings is to give them that support, give them those training wheels, but also have a glide path for taking away that support so that the kid’s preparing to be independent at some point.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And by the way, Failure to Launch was a great movie. Matthew McConaughey, I think was in that along with Sarah Jessica Parker.
A great movie. It’s interesting that you said Failure to Launch. I want to go back to financial literacy for the last couple of minutes of our talk.
A lot of states haven’t yet passed, I think they’re working on it, but they haven’t passed a financial literacy bill to have the curriculum in school. The question is, where does it fit? Do you need to wait?
If you’re a parent, if you’re a Gen Z or Gen Xer like me, you don’t need to wait for your school to offer it. I mean, there are lots of different sources of information. I think you just need to be careful about what you look and where you get that information from.
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
You don’t need to wait. That’s a great point. Even really young kids.
My kids are 10 and four, but even from an early age, you can talk to them about money. You can talk to them about bills and coins because tangible currency is often easier for them to understand than credit cards, for example. You could run a lemonade stand.
You could give an allowance. You could talk about when mom and dad go to work, that’s so they get money so that they can buy food and housing and other things. Just sort of introducing kids to the concept of money, the concept of debt too, that when you owe other people, you typically have to pay them back with interest over time.
So that can be expensive. There are different age appropriate lessons. I would say by the teenage years, maybe you add them as an authorized user on their credit card around age 16 or 17 when they start driving and they get a little more independence.
They can build credit. They can get the experience of using credit. There are some really great apps like Greenlight and GoHenry that are all about teaching kids about money.
And there’s appropriate guidance when it comes to payments and allowance. And I would really look to find ways throughout those childhood years to interject some money lessons. You don’t need to wait until adulthood.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, totally. And also you want to check the credibility of the sources if you’re looking online. I mean, there are a gazillion TikToks and Instagram shorts, YouTube shorts that have information, but you want to make sure they’re not trying to sell you something.
Ted, you brought up allowance. I remember getting an allowance for cutting the lawn, taking out the trash. I think it was like a dollar a week, $2 a week.
What’s the going rate now for an allowance?
Ted Rossman, Bankrate
One rule of thumb I hear is a dollar a week per year that the kid is old. So for example, like an eight year old maybe gets $8 a week. Maybe that’s a little high, but every family figures out what works for them.
You need to decide too, are they getting paid for a routine set of chores? Are there extra things? Like maybe you kick in a little extra if they weed the walkway or shovel the driveway or every family needs to figure out what works for them.
But some sort of allowance can be useful to teaching kids about money. The trade-offs are important. And we see this with our older daughter that when it’s her money, she’s more thoughtful about how she’s spending and okay, if I get this, then I can’t get that other thing and it actually limits some of the fights in the gift shop line and things like that, I tend to think it’s a good low risk way to get kids some experience with money.
So maybe something like a 10 year old gets $10 a week, or even if you cut that in half, I mean, $5 a week, that’s actually a lot of money to a 10 year old. And you can give them some opportunity to spend and set goals and things like that.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I mean, that’s much more than I got as a kid. But hey, you know, with inflation, it probably comes out to about the same. Ted, we’re going to have to leave it there.
Great story, great survey, great conversation. Look, we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon. Me too.
Thank you. And that wraps up this morning’s episode, but we’re back again tomorrow. Until then, I’m Jeff Snyder.
Stay safe, keep on saving and don’t forget, roll with the changes.