Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Setting Your Family Up for Financial Success with Elaine King
In this episode, we’re joined by financial expert Elaine King, the founder of Family and Money Matters™, with the mission of empowering the family’s financial and human capital to achieve financial wellbeing. She has served as the Family’s Financial Planner for over 1,200 families and 100 multigenerational family enterprises crafting actionable family financial plans.
Elaine shares her inspiring journey from growing up in Peru amidst high inflation and terrorism to becoming a financial planner and advocate for financial literacy. She provides valuable tips on making money a positive force within families, focusing on effective money management and the importance of early financial education. She discusses the importance of teaching young kids how to invest and manage money, including how couples can work together to make smarter financial decisions for the whole family.
If you’re looking for practical tips on how families, including children and couples, can make informed financial decisions together, this episode is for you!
0:00 Intro to Financial Literacy for Kids
01:16 The Impact of Financial Education on Children
03:59 Elaine's Background
05:03 Elaine's Personal Financial Journey
09:25 Teaching Financial Literacy to Kids
18:09 Challenges and Advice for Women in Finance
Are you ready to take the next step? Join our weekly Money Talks series every Thursday at 11am CT! Register for FREE to gain access to our weekly sessions where Purse Strings-approved professionals discuss various financial topics. Click here to register now and bring your questions!
Got a unique financial story to share? Whether it’s about crushing debt, building wealth, an unexpected windfall, or just a wild money moment, we want to hear it! Or are you a professional who helps women with money? If you’re a financial coach, attorney, CPA, or work in any area that empowers women financially, we’d love to hear from you too! Your story could inspire our community of women. Fill out our intake form here!
Connect with Elaine:
Connect with us!
Resources
- Have questions? Click this to check out our expert Q&A for tips from industry experts, tailored to help women address their most common financial concerns.
- Subscribe to our newsletter to receive financial tips delivered weekly here!
- Explore our free guides to help you on your financial journey
Maggie: This lady talked about how she gave $300 to her kids every month allowance, but then they had rules that like 50% had to be invested, 20% had to be towards like short term savings, and then they had to buy the rest of their items like their socks, their clothes. They went out to lunch to McDonald's, they had to buy it, right? And all these comments were like, I can't give my kid $300 a month, right? Like, it's so much expensive. But I was just like, well, if you reallocate it and we're already putting $150 or a hundred dollars into a savings account for your kid every month, like on automation.
You just don't do that. You give it to the kid, right? And then they do that, and then the short term savings, like they're gonna use that for some things, and then that clothing, like it was gonna have to be bought anyways, right? So it really just teaches them how to use money.
And I thought it was like this really brilliant idea of almost like giving them more and then kind of managing those investments and doing the actions.
But it was interesting how much hate everyone was like, you can't give your kid $300, but if you really know your budget and kind of reallocate it to have the kids do it, I thought it was really great idea.
Barb: It is kinda smart because you're probably spending that much money while raising your child anyway. So you're teaching them how to budget with that money and really manage it on their own. But what was the result? Did they ever say what the result was?
Maggie: No, it was just like an Instagram video. That was just something they consistently did, but I thought it was so interesting how there was also so much hate, but I was like, you just have to reallocate your money that you're already spending to a different route. Like it's the same money, it's just different.
It's not like, here's $300, go buy candy and treats and however you wanna spend it.
Barb: Right. There's a lot of teaching going on there about investing, about allocating, managing seeing what they choose to spend on. When we talk about value-based spending, do they come up short at the end of the month? Do they come up balanced? And I think everybody's money archetype is so different, but I think as children,
when they're more nimble in their thinking and not so polluted with all that comes at them. That's a brilliant way to start teaching your children financial literacy.
Maggie: Yeah, and it'd be so cool to see that grow and to see, now that we're adults, it seems like, oh, 150 bucks, it's not much. And your investments aren't really growing as much when you watch 'em day to day. But if you start when you're like seven, that's a ton of money. So you're already super proud almost of what you're doing and have those like really good feelings about money and the success. Yeah, I think it's a great lesson for everyone to continue that conversation.
Barb: And talk about what are you investing in? Where did you put it? Is it a savings account? Did you open a mutual fund? If so, what kind of funds are in that mutual fund? What's your earnings? What did you earn this month? Watching it grow, seeing if there's a dip, if you had a loss, what does that mean?
I think it's fantastic.
Maggie: Yeah, I really like starting these conversations young with kids so they start understanding it at this ground level. I know that is one of Elaine's passions as well when we get into our podcast, is she has educated so many kids across different communities. But also has created books and education for them as well to start bringing these concepts when they're five,
'cause we don't need to learn everything then, but we can just start learning some of these ideas. Then she has books as you grow to kind of grow with that education level.
Barb: Yeah, she wrote eight books. Most are in Spanish, one she said is in English, but she sees the value of working with young children and really giving them some basic concepts. Like you said, she's graduated through the years with these books and taught them more interesting ways to think about money.
And she's a top 10 financial advisor, she's one of the top 25 influential Hispanic women, she's been in forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNN. But the cool thing is she really feels it starts young. So I think she's super interesting. We love talking to her and let's get started and unpack everything Elaine has done for children and for all the families in which she manages money.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Elaine, we're so excited to have you on the show today. Before we dive in, can you share with our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Elaine: Sure. Hi, Maggie and Dr. Barb. A pleasure to be here with you. So I make money a positive force in the world, meaning, it could be a small world because I can't take over the whole world, but it's in the world of the lives of the people that I work with.
Barb: Wow, love the way that you phrased that. And yes, we do try to sometimes take on more than we can chew a little bit, but the impacts we can make in our own surrounding communities and all are so important. Elaine, you grew up in Peru and it seems like a pretty tough time with high inflation and even terrorism.
So how did that shape how you think about money today?
Elaine: Wow. Yeah, it's an excellent question. When I was growing up, there was a lot of terrorism, inflation, et cetera, so it helped me to be a planner, basically, because 1500% of inflation. Today, I'm gonna make this up, a dozen of eggs and the next day I couldn't buy the dozen of eggs.
I was very small. I was a child, but it helped me control and plan for the future. So something that we, humans are not born with, that power of delay gratification. Since I was a little kid, I was conditioned to think about what if, what happens? My parents being so young when I grew up too, my mom was 18, so I learned with her.
I think it helped me be a planner, what I am now.
Maggie: Yeah, that's interesting how those things really align and we see that kind of through our life of being a planner. But that you and your mom both really learned this together. Makes you very conscious about money and how you're spending it, and where you're spending it, because of that inflation.
Elaine: Yeah, Maggie. Actually, it made me a saver. So I don't know if you've probably done like personality quizzes and stuff. I'm definitely a saver.
Maggie: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's funny how those things can be a positive and a negative, both at different times in life. And so it's interesting to see how that plays out, 'cause so many of us would wish we'd had that saving mentality. And we're like how do you just save so easily?
But I'm sure that's sometimes also a barrier in your life.
Elaine: Absolutely. I thank my husband for that actually, because opposite personalities and money attract. So as a saver, I obviously married a spender. So we balance out our strengths. So for example, if it was up to me, I probably would've stayed in my little studio, all paid off, no mortgage. He wanted the bigger house and I was like, oh, no, that's too much risk. So we settled for a smaller place but not a studio. So that balances out in life sometimes.
Barb: Yeah, and it's interesting how you kind of stood back and you reflected and you understand your money archetype and your husbands as well and how you can, it's kind of a yin and yang, right, of how you approach the money conversation or the money decisions. But you've also helped so many families better their financial plans.
So can you share a story of how your advice made a huge difference for a family?
Elaine: Oh, sure. Now that we're in the couples, I have a client actually that she says I saved her marriage because being that I understand and I married my opposite money archetype, I knew that the way that he shows his love was in spending and the way I show my love is in savings.
So, perfect example. My husband is spending but on the house. So we're remodeling, we're doing this, and I'm saving. That's the way we show each other's love. So I was able to sit down with this couple, he was a chef and she was an attorney, and he would show his love, by spending on kitchen stuff and everything.
And it was driving her crazy and we sat down and we said, okay, what do you wanna do in the next five years? You wanna retire, you wanna buy another house. So once you align your goal, then you would give up a little bit of that. need to do something and plan together. So that was kind of like a successful story, for the next five, 10 years it up. and they were able to live in harmony, so that helped. And the other thing I think is when you are able to see the financial life from the outside, and I always tell my clients, you're going through a tunnel maybe, but this tunnel is not forever. As a planner I could see that it's just a tunnel, oh, my kids are spending so much money or this is happening is only for five more years.
So let's look ahead, Let's plan ahead. So I think all these life experiences have helped me a little bit to guide the clients to have financial wellbeing make a positive force in their world.
I had like that idea of, it's kind of just a tunnel, 'cause especially with kids, there's different stages that I don't know if they're more expensive or just different expenses along the way, but it is just kind of like a tunnel and then it's come to that next stage of whatever you're going through.
Yes, definitely.
Barb: And you teach kids about money, right? Can you share a little bit about what you do with that?
Elaine: Oh, I love teaching kids about money. They don't have that fuzz in their head. They have this bright light and I would say, okay, imagine you're entrepreneurs,
how are you gonna build your business? And they would turn to each other and they would say, we'll collaborate and we'll do a team and this is gonna work. And I thought, oh my God, what a refreshing. they're not thinking about what if the world ends? What if this politician happens? They're thinking like, how can we do the best with what we have? So when I teach kids, most kids I've taught were either a nonprofit, so either I've taught in orphanages and ministers for the government in schools, but also for families that are multi-generational.
So the last, workshop I did was this family, if you could believe it, from Latin America, 95 generation kids, 90.
Barb: Wow.
Elaine: So they were saying, okay, first generation grandparents make the money. The second kind of spend it, the third one kind of build it, the fourth one are a little detached, but the fifth one, how are we gonna teach these kids the value of money. So I've written a couple books about the value of money in Spanish. 'cause most of the families that I work with, are bilingual, but they like to hear things in Spanish. And I don't know if this is another podcast, but this is about a little bird that lived in Galapos in a time of abundance and didn't plan for the future, but the parents had lifted so the little birds learned from the parents. And they were able to save, use, give, and share it with the community. And I think if you could teach kids as young as five years old, that value, imagine a kid that's crying and says, I want another ice cream. Well, if the mother or the father teaches them that the value of the other ice cream can go so much further, if you save it or if you share it, or if you grow it, if you take that money and you grow it.
So sometimes, the rejection will be like you can't have it, but it's not that. You could do so much more with it. So that's why I've written a couple books on it. Happy to talk in detail about it. They're right behind me.
Barb: Let's take a look at 'em. Let's see what they look like. And it's so important because we don't, in the United States really teach financial literacy. And I love that you're teaching it right at the onset, right at the beginning, when children, like you say, don't have all that fuzz in their brain.
They're looking at it as a brand new concept and how to really leverage and understand money without poor money messages that have been ingrained so far.
Elaine: As we inherited our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents DNA, we also inherit their money habits. I may be a little wrong with a date, but I think it was not until 1950s that women could use credit cards. And in the early 19 hundreds or mid 19 hundreds that women could not inherit land in Latin America. So many things, our great-grandmothers, our great-grand, great-great. They didn't know this. So we come up with patterns that we're like, money's bad or not safe, or spend your money and that's not it. We have to break those patterns 'cause we need to update our money beliefs to this era.
Maggie: Yeah, bring him up to the 21st century. For sure. And so how many books have you written now, Elaine?
Elaine: I've been lucky to publish eight books. Wow.
Published eight books, yeah. For teenagers, for eight year olds, for 10 year olds, non-financial, for couples, for multi-generational families and for international people. And so far, so
Maggie: good.
I love that you covered all the topics and all the age ranges as well, so they can really kind of grow with you and learn the concepts, as you need to, because you don't need to know it all when you're five. You just need to know some of these ideas, but then when you get older, you need some of that tactical things that make a little bit more sense at that time.
Elaine: Absolutely. Somebody asked me the other day, why did I write for kids? I write for kids because I love kids, but also, my mom was a kindergarten teacher and so she took me since I was in her belly. So I took kindergarten like five years. So like before I was even born, I kind of knew a little bit about kids and that's the reason, but also because when I was a director of financial planning for a trust company, I would talk to clients and sometimes the clients would be like, why do I need to spend, or why do I need to save? And I would think about it and I would be like, how can I get through this person? Do you have kids? And I would write to the kids, so they would have to read to the kids and I would say, well, if I can get through, then maybe by being an example, they can be an inspiration to the next generation. And that's the way that they may be, get motivated to have financial wealth in their family.
Barb: Right. It's a really good covert way to teach them without really teaching them because they're reading to their children. Very smart. And I agree with you, there's a short history with women and money. We haven't had access to it and power behind it for very many years, so we are all still kind of coming up to speed and learning about it.
But what's a piece of advice from one of your books that every family should follow or what's your favorite tip from the books that you've written?
Elaine: Well, I love numbers and you don't need to love numbers to love this, but I love to plan. I don't know if I should use the word budget, but like, cashflow planning for me is the number one tip that everybody should have. But not to see it as a, here's something that's gonna tight my belly. No, this is something that's gonna give me wings. If I plan well, my paycheck, my inflows, then I'm gonna have wings. I could actually put a little bit for my travel fund. I could put a little bit for my financial freedom fund. I could put a little bit for
my renovation, I can put a little bit for my land. I know it's probably one generation before us that said, oh, I have a budget. You can't do it. Like the budget work comes with a negative connotation, but I want to change that. It's like I have a budget, therefore I cannot do it because if I didn't have a budget, I couldn't do it. and the budget is not only to list, your light bill and you know your internet, but it's also to list your dreams, your wellness, and then all encompasses the fact that financial wellbeing is more important than financial quantity, so you don't need to have a hundred million dollars or even $10 million.
In some countries a million dollars. You don't even need to have that to have financial wellbeing. As long as you have money for your bills, your kids and your family are well communicated, you have a business, and you're living the dream. You don't need to always want more. So, it depends on each life's path's, own life path, but
the mission shouldn't be to accumulate. It should be more to have harmony with your financial wellbeing.
Maggie: I like that word of harmony a lot. And there is so much, I mean, especially in the American culture of just running and always needing more, wanting more, it always has to be bigger and better. And so it is okay just to slow down and be like, I'm actually really happy where I'm at, and if this continues, that's
awesome. Like, I would not be mad. This is kind of that dream I was going for. So I think that's a great message to have in your books and to read and to reconnect with and make sure that message really stays with you 'cause it's hard to get caught up in things and have that slip away. And so then to recenter yourself again and remember, actually really content here.
Elaine: Yeah. and Maggie, to your point that sometimes you are living the dream, and if you don't know it, and you always are aspiring, you don't get to enjoy the moment. So I think it could be like a wake up call for everybody, because we live in the capitalist country.
You're right. we don't have to have a new car every year. we don't have to have three homes, or we don't have to have three purses. I mean, let's not go there, but I don't remember the last time I bought a purse.
Barb: Yeah, I know. And it comes at us all the time from everywhere we look, just, buy buy buy buy buy and I think who needs 10 purses or whatever it might be. It seems super cool and that immediate gratification, but like you're saying, what's the investment of that?
How could that investment in a purse really serve you much better, right.
Maggie: I'm also not going out enough to like get good uses out of 10 purses. Like maybe I need to get out more, but that's a lot of purse changing.
Elaine: Well, you think it's either three purses or my, I don't know. My cruise to the Mediterranean.
It's to put things into perspective.
Barb: Yeah. Balance, ebb and flow. And you know what, I'm very curious to ask you, you've been living in lots of different countries, you're an expert around all things money, working with so many different families. What do you see as the biggest challenge for women when it comes to managing money for their families?
And what advice would you give them?
Elaine: Okay, so the first advice would be to really understand where we as women are coming from. And I read this statistic somewhere, it was like a journal of some university that said that the brain of the woman needs more than 50% of the information, like almost 75% of the information to make a decision, and the men only 50% to make a decision.
So as women, we need to basically read, I would say, 25% more. So knowing that either you take it and you do more, or you just say, what is it gonna take for me too understand the financial wellbeing of my family. Don't leave it to your partner to do it because then we live longer. There's so much statistic out there that we need to not take charge, but just be in a balanced situation that we know where, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I worked in my 20 plus years of experience that the woman says to me, I don't know where my bank account is, or I don't know who pays,
I don't know what the insurance. So I understand that divide and conquer, but don't take your eye away from your financial wellbeing because it's important. it's one of the things that you need to have overall health in your life. So that would be one tip that I would give women to include financial wellbeing in your to dos and your goals, your action plan.
Maggie: Yeah, that's so right. And we always say that there's a lot of things we end up delegating and there's a lot we might have managing on our plate, but we can't take our eye off that ball of the finances. Because it is so important, it is part of that wellbeing.
And as we've talked about, knowing your money is power. So it is so important.
Barb: And it is interesting 'cause we hear those same comments a lot and it's unfortunate, it's almost like, and they're smart educated women, but with the divide and conquer, it's like, I'll take care of the household, you take care of the finances, which is fine, but they need to have monthly come together meetings on how's our cash flow going and what have we contributed to our long term and short term savings?
What kind of debt are we paying down and having those conversations on a regular and ongoing basis.
Elaine: Absolutely. If somebody's here and it's like, okay, I get it. I need to do something about it. So what do you do? Okay, so include financial coaching, financial planning, financial literacy. I mean, all the universities are teaching financial classes, so just include that in your budget.
That's one. Two to Dr. Barb's point, make money conversations a routine. So don't wait till you know the credit card goes over to have a conversation, just make it monthly. I understand weekly would be ideal, but if nobody does it ever, maybe monthly. And the third thing is have joint goals with a family, because this is a way that you can put into practice.
It's like you take a class on how to learn how to bike, but the family is not actually biking. In order for the family to bike, then you guys have to have a plan as a family and the family today doesn't mean mom, dad, two kids, one a girl, one a boy. it could be partners, friends, mom and daughter, siblings, whatever.
Whoever is in your household needs to share a common goal. If you're spending or sharing economies, if you sharing expenses, have a common goal. So when you make decisions and you receive money, you can make decisions towards your goal toward growth. So that, any of the books, if you speak Spanish. I mean, there's one English.
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: It's interesting how like one of your original stories of having that couple kind of stay together was really just having those conversations and finding those goals that they have in common. And you kind of brought that back again and there is so much about just discussing what do we want and what does that timeline look like?
Because I think so many of these things are like standard thoughts we have in our own head of like, of course we're gonna plan to buy a house within the next five years. But like, somehow you just assume the other person's also thinking that, and to really get on the same page and really verbalize the goals, write 'em down, see what that would look like, is such a game changer.
And actually kind of moves the needle. But it's taking that next step and actually having the conversation and getting the thoughts out of your head, and shared with the person onto a piece of paper, a plan made. It's interesting to see those common themes.
Elaine: Yeah, there's a saying that says, you're as strong as your weakest link. So in families in money, the volatility of a family is higher than the return of the stock market. So yes, the stock market was up 20% or it's down 10%, but you know what, if you don't have a good communication and good finances in your family, you could actually lose a business. You could lose a child, you could lose a partner. This definitely that's priority. And how you do that is with knowledge, with a plan, with communication, and to make it part of a routine.
So some families ask me, well, before when I was in corporate, they would say, okay, Elaine, we can sit down in the table. It's too conflictive. So I said, okay, so if there's too much conflict, then do a project together. Like, for the community, do a philanthropic project together. So maybe the summer's coming, pick up clothes, I don't know, help the turtles do something for the community as a family.
So the kids will look for the shelter, the partner will look for what are you doing for the turtles? And the other person is bracing the money. So that team building exercise will be enough to just grow on the strengths and weaknesses of the family. That's gonna help them for a long time until they grow up and they'll remember, hey, remember when we did that project to help the turtles?
Barb: Okay, so what did you do? You did the location, you got the transportation, you got the other people to come. As you could see, I help people with all, I mean billionaires, but also orphanages. So you have to be creative here.
Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, if a family never came together to talk about money or to do something in collaboration, and each take a role and responsibility, it's a great way to get started and leveraging that activity to start venturing into other conversations and what it means to be in a family.
Barb: And being a CEO of your own household and things like that. Who are the contributors? What are we spending on, what do we as a family wanna save for in terms of maybe a vacation or a new car, whatever it might be. So making it more of a collaborative conversation.
Elaine: Yes. let's say us three we're a family and then Maggie wants to go to Greece, and then Dr. Barb wants to go to the Caribbean and I wanna go to Africa. And then we plan for this travel. But if we go to Africa, it's me that I wanted to go. But if we've helped the turtles, it's a hurdles that we're helping and none of us are getting served. So that would be step one, if your family's really separated, but if it's a healthy family, then yes, your example Dr. Barb would be great because then I will come up with my PowerPoint on why we would need to go to Africa, and then Maggie will have her PowerPoint on why she wants to go to Greece, and then we'll vote.
Then we'll decide the budget, if Maggie is the daughter and she has an allowance, maybe a percentage of Maggie's allowance will go towards the trip. Yeah, this is really fun. I mean, it could be so much fun. People should really look at the positive of, that's why I said making money a positive force in the world,
'cause it is positive. It doesn't need to be negative.
Maggie: Yeah, there's so many great things you can do with it for others, for yourself, for the community. And so it's just a tool, right? And we have to learn how to use the tool in the best way, which we want to be a positive way. You can use anything in a negative force as well, but we're gonna use it in a great one.
I think this conversation has had so many great examples and how to just really apply these things in very simplistic terms, which I always appreciate, really just how do we see this in our everyday life. So I appreciate you bringing all those examples and your knowledge and expertise.
There is a question we do like to ask everybody, and that is, what is your definition of financial freedom?
Elaine: Oh wow. Well, definition of financial freedom for me is, living with purpose, and owning your time, and living your dream. It's unique, right? So identifying your purpose 'cause purpose and dream doesn't need to be together. My life purpose is making money, a positive force in the world, but my dream can be something that supplements or compliments it, living within that harmony and the time is the most important. And I know that we're different ages here, but as you grow wiser, time becomes such a strong, valuable thing that I wouldn't change time for money, not anymore.
Barb: Yeah. That's pretty brilliant. As we get older we value our time so much more. We don't wanna waste any of it, that's for sure. This has been fantastic, Elaine. I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing all of your insights. I love that you've written all of these books for children at various ages.
We'd love to for sure, put the links to these books in the show notes so that people have access to them, and can purchase them, and leverage them. Yeah, this has been fantastic.
Maggie: Yeah. Thank you, Elaine. All her information will be in the show notes and we'll talk to everyone again soon.
Speaker: You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings.co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
