The Art of Allowance Podcast | Parenting | Families | Money Smarts | Financial Literacy

You've taught your child to save and share ... but how about to spend? Trae Bodge can help you tackle this important step in any money-smart journey! An accomplished lifestyle journalist and television commentator, Trae specializes in smart shopping, personal finance, parenting, and retail. She has appeared on television hundreds of times, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Inside Editio...

Is there a case for tying chores to allowance? If so, then Cameron Huddleston will make it. Cameron is an award-winning journalist with more than 18 years of experience writing about personal finance. Her work has appeared in and on Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Business Insider, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, MSN, Yahoo and many more print and online publications. She also is a mom of three and is marr...

In this episode, I talk to Andrea Ferrero. Andrea is a co-founder of Pockets Change, an organization that uses hip hop pedagogy to change the way personal finance is taught to kids. Andrea has enjoyed over a decade of teaching students of all ages, coaching educators and designing award-winning academic programs and products. She currently holds teaching credentials  in Pre-K though12th Grade Mult...

Are you wondering how best to talk to your kids during a crisis?    With coronavirus and COVID-19 dominating our lives, I thought it would be helpful to take a slight detour with this episode and talk to an expert about how we can have better conversations with our kids in the midst of a crisis. My guest on this special episode of the podcast is Lucy Rimalower.    Lucy is a licensed Marriage and F...

Are you looking for ideas to incorporate into your allowance program? Then you'll enjoy my conversation with Mark and Kimberlee Barnes, the "Not So Perfect Parents." Mark and Kimberlee are both educators — Mark is a school administrator and Kimberlee is an elementary technology specialist. In this episode, they discuss their implementation of The Art of Allowance program with their family of four...

Wondering about the effectiveness of personal finance education in the classroom? Did you know that there is good and bad student debt? My recent conversation with Carly Urban is full of informative findings and practical advice. Carly is an Associate Professor of Economics at Montana State University and a Visiting Scholar with The Office of Financial Education at The Bureau of Consumer Financial...

Do you fret about giving your kids too much autonomy when it comes to money and allowance? In this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, my guest David Owen offers a candid, funny and time-tested glimpse into the family financial system he wrote about in The First National Bank of Dad: The Best Way to Teach Kids About Money. This is a wonderfully written and hilarious book which heavily influen...

The Holidays are here and we can help you shift the focus from things to experiences with great advice from New Dream. In this episode, I talk to Guinevere Higgins and Kelley Dennings of New Dream. New Dream is a non-profit whose mission is to empower individuals, communities and organizations to transform the ways they consume to improve well-being for people and the planet.   Guinevere is the Di...

Do you ever wonder where the real heroes are? Look no further than Council Bluffs, Iowa. In this episode, I talk with Kyle Osborne, the Director of Financial Literacy at TS Institute in southwest Iowa, about helping families become money smart. Kyle is a financial literacy education expert and works closely with teachers and administrators to provide free, effective financial literacy resources fo...

In this second installment of our shorter format episodes — which we call Small Change — I explore the term "money-empowered." This is a stated goal of The Art of Allowance  (heck, it's part of the subtitle) and it's a question I ask almost all my guests. In this episode, I present you with four interesting responses and why I think each one of them is meaningful. Listen to what these guests had t...

Unsure of how to initiate and keep up the money conversation with your kids? My recent discussion with Ruth Soukup can shed some light on this crucial step in the financial literacy journey. A mother of two girls, Ruth runs an eponymous online media company with business, lifestyle, motivation and productivity divisions. As if that isn't enough of a full plate, she is also a New York Times bestsel...

Looking for ways to help your children combat the pervasive notion of materialism? In this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, I have a discussion with Tim Kasser. Tim is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Knox College in Illinois. He has published over 125 scientific articles and chapters on materialism, values/goals, motivation, ecological sustainability and quality of life, among other...

Feeling perplexed by all the higher education financing options available to both you and your child? My recent Art of Allowance Podcast guest, David Flores Wilson, can walk you through all the particulars. David helps Gen X and Gen Y professionals as well as business owners in New York City achieve financial freedom. Named one of Investopedia's 100 Top Financial Advisors of 2019, he is a Senior W...

In this episode, I talk with Pam Andrews, The Scholarship Shark! Pam helped her son win over $700,000 in scholarship money to help pay for his undergraduate and graduate schools. As a College Admissions Coach and Scholarship Strategist, she's helped her clients win over a million dollars in scholarships. My wife and I are in the early stages of our own college search with our kids, so this discuss...

Curious as to how to tackle the financial literacy conversation both at home and in the classroom? In this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, I talk to Breanna Reish, a Certified Financial Planner and the owner of the fee-only financial planning firm Wealth of Confidence. Over the years she has spoken out about the broken 403(b) retirement system, and recently she decided to educate teachers...

Here's a little something new at The Art of Allowance Podcast. This is the first of our mini episodes, which we're calling "Small Change." Each "Small Change" episode is shorter than our typical interview-format shows and is filled with bite size chunks of nutritious info. Think of them as yummy snacks (please ignore my mixing of metaphors). In this first taste of "Small Change," host John Lanza s...

  Are you interested in changing up your tween's or teen's allowance program but worried about giving him too much money responsibility too early?  In this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, I speak with Larry Hagner. Larry interviewed me on his popular Dad Edge Podcast last year and also invited me to speak to his dad mastermind group. In our discussions, Larry challenged me (in a good way!...

Want to know how money impacts happiness (and how you can talk to your kids about it)? I tackle this important question in this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast with the help of my guest, Ashley Whillans. Ashley is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Business School in Negotiations, Organizations and Markets. She received her Ph. D. in Social Psychology from the University of British Colu...

Interested in the secret to raising high achieving kids? In this episode, I talk to Ronald Ferguson and Tatsha Robertson. They teamed up to write The Formula, a book that explores how parents raise high achieving kids. Tatsha is an award-winning journalist who left her editing job at People Magazine to begin a decade-long investigation into whether parents of very smart people were following parti...

Looking for ways to facilitate better money-smart conversations with your family? Interested in investing with your kids but unsure of how to cultivate "the right relationship with risk?" Then be sure to check out the latest episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast.   This is the first episode to feature two guests, Evan Wilson and Todd Yuzuriha. Evan is the CFO of The Official Manufacturing Compan...

This was a fun episode to record. Financial coach, Kelsa Dickey, is my guest and we discuss so much that I think will be valuable for you: the importance of simple conversations, even with very young kids, the power of intentionality, how to think of a budget as something liberating and not restricting, and even dealing with a family member who may be spoiling your kids. Is your interest piqued? I...

Dave Hanley is CEO of Tomorrow, an app that helps families make long-term financial and legal decisions together for the first time, in an easy-to-use app designed to protect their futures. Dave is an incurable entrepreneur (his words) who has been involved in many successful ventures, including Shelfari — later acquired by Amazon — and Real Networks. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Dave was not...

This episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast features Ashley LeBaron, a researcher in Family Studies and Human Development at The University of Arizona.  Her research focuses on family finance, including couple finance and financial socialization. We discuss the importance of money conversations and real-world practice with money, both of which are stimulated by an allowance.

Are you ready for "Moose"? In this episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, I talk with Morgan ("Moose") Wright. Morgan's life enthusiasm is as infectious as his allowance program is novel. In fact, it was my previous guest, CNBC journalist Kelli Grant , who introduced me to Morgan because she had reported on his interesting approach to teaching his kids money smarts . Of course, if you're a fan o...

This episode (Lucky Number 13!) of The Art of Allowance Podcast features Chuck Kalish, the Director of Science for The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). Chuck received his B.A. in Psychology from Swarthmore College and earned his doctorate in Developmental Psychology at the University of Michigan. Before Chuck joined the SRCD, he was a Professor in and a past Chair of the Education...