Episode 1 : Super Financial Literacy Skills

This episode launches season 2 of the Ca$h Kid Podcast. We need to build our knowledge to create smart financial habits. That’s what this season of the Cash Kid podcast will be all about. How to build "Super Financial Literacy Skills." What are students lacking? How does always using a debit or credit card affect our financial habits? Find those answers and more from a high school teacher who works to teach financial skills to juniors and seniors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Super Financial Literacy Skills

“Mr. Buffet, how can I make 30 billion dollars? 

Start young.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fErzHbEiQIs

 

That’s Warren Buffet speaking at a conference years ago. Start young he says. 

Wise advice from a man who bought his first stock at age 11.

But to start young, we need to build our knowledge to create smart financial habits. That’s what this season of the Cash Kid podcast will be all about. How to build Super Financial Literacy skills.

 

And today, it starts with an interview with a high school teacher who works every day to do just that. I’m so excited to start this new season and new journey with my fellow cash kids. The Cash Kid podcast is underway.

 

Intro tease:

So you’ve got some cash. Maybe from an allowance, or that money your grandma gave you for your 7th birthday. Here you go, sweetie. Thanks, Grandma.

 

Whatever it is, what are you going to do with it? Spend it, hide it away… or maybe invest it? Let’s start learning how to make that money grow.

Time to learn how to be a cash kid.

 

Joining me today is Mr. Ryan Halla. He’s a business and personal finance teacher at Vestavia Hills High School in Alabama.

 

Welcome to the show Mr. Halla.

 

Ryan Halla: Thank you. Good to be on!

 

Cash Kid:  First, tell us a little bit about yourself.

 

Ryan Halla: I’ve been a teacher for a long time. Graduated from Vestavia Hills in 1992. I played baseball at Auburn after that and then played baseball a little while after Auburn. Got into teaching and coaching when I was about 29 years old. Been doing it ever sense. I’ve got two kids. I've been married for 25 years and.

 

Cash Kid: Okay. So what led you to wanting to teach people personal and business finance to high schoolers?

 

Ryan Halla: Well, it actually kind of chose me. One thing led to another, and I ended up getting into the business curriculu. Which I have found to be very useful and very enjoyable. Because I'll be honest with you, a lot of things in school I   necessarily say I use today, but I same thing I tell all my kids as far as personal finance goes that they will definitely, definitely use that at some point in their lifetime.

 

Cash Kid: Do you remember what kind of financial literacy material, if you had any or found or given when you were growing up?

 

Ryan Halla: The only stuff I remember when I was a kid was we counted the paper nickels and the paper pennies and things like that. But as far as true financial literacy, I really don't recall. And I don't want to insult any of my teachers because it was a while ago, but I don't recall ever going over that.

 

Cash Kid: Also, about your thoughts on what type of financial literacy is needed in schools today and when you should it start being taught.

 

 

Ryan Halla: I think basic financial language, as far as, you know, checking accounts and savings accounts and things of that nature, I think that should begin in middle school. Then I think as you progress and you know, because I have a bunch of I teach a bunch of juniors and seniors, they all have jobs. They get real paychecks. So I think at the end of the day, when they get to be maybe a sophomore, you start talking about actually taxes.

 

And, you know, taxes is not fun to talk about anyway. I'm not trying to insult any CPAs, but they I'm not sure income taxes which I’m talking about as far as what comes out of their paycheck you know the FICA taxes and and the state and federal tax is probably discussion and I think they can all use, you know, savings account discussions and checking account discussions. A lot of my kids don't know the difference when a debit and a credit card.

 

Cash Kid: Yeah, we're going to cover that soon in an upcoming episode.

 

Ryan Halla: Uh, good!

 

Cash Kid: Would you say there's a lack of financial skills taught in schools, and if so, why?

 

Ryan Halla: I'm going to say, no, there's not, because I'm teaching it. I would say that I don't really know other people's curriculum, but I do think that as far as Vestavia goes we do a pretty good job of maybe introducing it to them. I think it's I think it's funny, though, because I think a lot of kids don't really understand and having taught for a while, they're like anybody to know they don't understand something. So I think a lot of times they just kind of sit there and pretend like they understand, but they get out in the real world and it's pretty obvious they don't understand.

 

Cash Kid: What are ways parents can get involved to teach these concepts?

 

Ryan Halla: I think parents can just kind of mimic the correct behavior. I know correct is a vague term in this, but I think they can just mimic and show the kids. I mean, kids understand more of what they see than what they hear. So I think if you can tell them and I think sometimes, you know, people with means, I think the hardest thing is to tell a kid, no, kids don't really have a concept of of financial skills because they've just always had.

 

And then when they get out by themselves, they don't really understand where the money went. So I think just just talk and sit down and have a conversation with them and say, and I'm old school. I think allowance is a good idea. I don't really care how much the allowance is because it teaches them the basic concept, basic skills of how to save money, how much things cos. Because also, whether people believe it or not, our main our main purpose is to be an educated consumer in this. You know, we understand how much milk should cost. We don't pay $20 from milk. I think when kids get an allowance to learn that at home, I think they're better suited when they get out in the real, quote unquote, real world.

 

Cash Kid: What do you find your students are lacking when it comes to financial literacy today?

 

Ryan Halla: I think taxes is a foreign concept, every single one of them. Because I've asked that question, I said, how many of you have gotten a paycheck and a lot of them raise their hand. I said, be honest with me. How many of ya’ll were shocked and stunned by how much was missing? And they all were. And that's common. Most people are like that when they get their first paycheck.

 

But I really think that just I mean, it's a basic overall concept of, where money comes from. I mean, I've had kids that thought that when you took money to a bank, you had a vault of your own, that they took your $100 when you deposit put it in there. And then when you went back a week later, they went back to that same vault, gave you that same $100.

 

So I think maybe an idea of how it works and what banks actually do with that money and how to access money. I mean, there's a lot of things there. There's a lot of things that that need to be discussed.

 

Cash Kid: What can be done to help instill greater financial knowledge to the next generation.

 

Ryan Halla: If every kid could listen to this podcast and hear my voice, then that would make everything better. I'm just kidding.

 

Cash Kid: Hahaha… I’m good with that!

 

Ryan Halla: Okay, let's go.

 

Ryan Halla: I just think what I said. And I think parents can get more involved and I think kids need to get more bored. We seem to push a lot of the lot of the blame on parents or schools or whatever it is. But if the kids not willing to be involved or get involved too, in their own learning, then it's really kind of pointless.

 

So I think we've got to figure out a way to get the kids involved and understand that the concepts that they're learning about the financial literacy is because people will talk to you about anything else in the world other than money. Nobody likes to talk about their own money and what they do with it. So I think when people are like that, there is no conversation going on about it.

 

And I think that I think I really think the parents and families could get involved more and have an understanding.

 

Cash Kid:

What is your goal for your students when they leave your class?

 

Ryan Halla: I think I think just have a basic understanding. Basically, if they go out in the real world, they can understand that what's what their paycheck looks like. They can understand how much things cost because like a lot of times people have no concept of how much the grocery store, especially nowadays or how much how much gas costs because they have mom or dad or aunt or uncle or grandfather or whoever it is, credit card and they just run that credit card.

 

They don't understand that they just paid $65 for gas. So, just a basic understanding, really very basic understanding of how much things cost, where they can put their money. We touch on investments, but that to me is kind of advanced financial literacy. I think basic is just just managing your money. I just really I don't want any of them to struggle with money is really my goal.

 

Cash Kid: Are there any books that you can recommend to your audience, either for parents or kids to continue their further knowledge?

 

Ryan Halla: Um, one book does come to mind. It's by everybody's favorite self-help guru, Tony Robbins. It's called Money Master the Game. And the main concept he likes is that he talks about his three buckets for investments, and those are there's security of growth. And then a dream bucket and how you move money to each one of those buckets and you fill up one before you fill up the next one because once your security that's kind of emergency fund as Dave Ramsey would say in your growth bucket that's kind of retirement future car whatever you try to save for once those are filled, then you move on to that drain bucket of, you know, if you want to go on that dream vacation, whatever it is. But his language is is pretty simple to understand. I think the book  certain parts of it very helpful.

 

Cash Kid:

Mr. Halla do you find there’s this generation shift where there’s less cash and never physically seeing the money?

Everything is just like in the cloud, basically and how they can affect money management for this generation.

 

Ryan Halla: Correct. Correct. I mean,  cash is I always tell my kids, I said, if you can get cash out, get cash out, because cash is easier to see it go down. Like, you know, if you've got a lot of cash in your pocket and that wad starts getting smaller, you understand, Hey, I've spent some money. But if I'm using a card, I don't ever see especially a credit card, because then you're like, well, I still have money in my account.

 

And I have I spent money. So I don't understand. You know, there's I try to throw a lot of statistics at my kids and, you know, statistics like 56% of all Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. And half of those 56% have less than $1,000 that they would need if they had $1,000 expense. So what that leads to is a constant, constant state of borrowing.

 

And I'm not going to bark like Dave Ramsey and say that all debt is terrible, awful, no good. But I do understand the concept that if I can't pay a bill and I need to go borrow money or use a credit card to pay that bill, what am I going to do next month when I've got a new bill and I couldn't pay it?

 

And then it becomes a snowball. It just becomes a bad situation. And that that I guess to answer the previous question, I said that is kind of, what I would like my kids to understand. But I do think that that just swipe your cards because how many times does it say, hey, you know when I was a kid, your mom would say, hey, go get this for me and she would give you $10. Well, you were like, man, if I only spend five, I could keep five. But now the parents are giving them their card. Say, hey, go get it. And now the kid's going in there buying a Coke, buying some chips, and buying some gas with no concept of what that cost because it was on a card.

 

They didn't see the number. They didn't pay attention to it. They just put a PIN number in and moved on.

 

Cash Kid:

Yeah, great points.

Um, is there anything else we haven't asked you that you would like to share with our audience?

 

Ryan Halla: No, other than I think this is a very great concept to have somebody who is in your position to talk about this, because I think that when kids your kids talk about that's a little different than hearing a 50 year old man talk about, well.

 

Cash Kid: Well, we agree. That’s why we started this podcast to help my generation get financially smart early because there's are definitely opportunities for kids now to start investing and saving earlier.

Mr. Halla, we appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you for joining us on the Cash Kid Podcast and boosting the financial knowledge of fellow Cash Kids everywhere.

So many great topics and interviews to come. Remember to visit our website at cashkidpodcast.com, leave a review wherever you are listening from, and follow us on Instagram. Cash Kid Out!