Teaching Kids About Money: Real-Life Lessons from a Real Estate Investor | Jonathan Greene

Mark Taylor 00:00:00

Hello. Welcome back to Education on Fire. Today I'm delighted to be chatting to Jonathan Greene, a long time real estate investor who believes parents need to start money conversations earlier, but more importantly, differently now. Jonathan grew up learning about money not through lectures, but through exposure. His father would take him along on weekends to walk rental properties, collect checks, and talked openly about the deals and how they worked. By the time he was 10, he understood concepts like investing leverage and why sometimes selling a house, even one that you love, can be the smartest financial move. Now that early experience shaped his entire philosophy about money education, and it's why he believes parents today need to replace awkward sort of financial lectures with real world exposure and honest conversations. Now we discuss things like how kids actually absorb money habits, simple ways families can make money, part of a regular life discussion, and examples of financial lessons children can learn from an early age. Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Mark Taylor 00:01:06

Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hi Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Fire podcast. Financial literacy, financial understanding is something which is incredibly important for everybody and I think the earlier children get to understand it, to be aware of it. It's important. And I know you have some good stories about how you learned that in real time with your, with your father as well. So yeah, thanks so much for being here.

Jonathan Greene 00:01:36

Yeah, I'm really excited to be here, Mark. Excited to talk to your audience. And I love talking kids money and what they can learn earlier than they think and probably earlier than their parents can think.

Mark Taylor 00:01:47

Yes, exactly that. So why don't we just give a little bit of, of an overview of sort of where you are now and why finance is important to you in terms of your career and then we'll, we'll talk a little bit about how that early journey started for you.

Jonathan Greene 00:02:01

Yeah, I mean, now I run a real estate brokerage. I've been in real estate for, on the, on market side for the last 15 years. But I've been investing in real estate my whole life and I started a podcast about real estate investing and it started to really make me think more of, wait, I can transfer these ideas into what I learned about money from my dad because there's one thing that I learned growing up, it was that I was going to be talked to about money, real estate and houses and things like that. Pretty much every second that we were in the car. So I think as I got deeper into real estate, it became almost. That was the feature, but I was really. Almost every conversation was about financial freedom and time freedom, and that's a product of money, but it's not the same for everybody. And I think that's really important for people to learn. But what I found is most people don't have really a good grasp on money when they're young, because they really don't when they're even my age. So. So for me, I was very fortunate to be able to be talking about it early. And I found that a lot of families find it to just be a very hard subject to talk about it. So they don't. Or they think maybe they'll learn about it in school. But we know that that's not part of the curriculum, at least not at the levels that I would like. And I've found that there's just a lot of great ways to get that information to kids that I think, as I was saying, parents don't really know that exists and that it's easier to have that conversation than they think.

Mark Taylor 00:03:30

So why don't we go into what that conversation looks like? Because I would imagine there's a couple of barriers. One is I don't want to tell my kids too much about our financial situation because, you know, you try and keep maybe a shield if. If things are tight or, or you don't want to sort of fill up this sport if you've got loads of money. So maybe there's a little bit of a barrier there. And. And I guess the other side of that is that you say there's like, oh, you need to learn about money and financial understanding, which is different from the practical day to day side of it. So I wonder whether there's a combination those things.

Jonathan Greene 00:04:03

Yeah, I mean, one thing that you said stood out to me, to me, I really want that conversation about what we have to be present. I don't think you have to go into particulars, you know, but I. I don't. I think it's very important if you're struggling month to month that your child doesn't feel the stress of that. So that's very important. But understanding that you're renting and you pay a monthly amount to rent and you don't own the home, that's something a child can understand. And it's not off putting them to them to be a renter, ra owner. There's a lot of people now who are renting rather than own because of high interest rates, at least in the U.S. so I think those discussions are easier instead of saying, this is how much we have. It's about this is what this allows us to do. This is what I make, this is what we take and this is what we pay for either rent or mortgage. I learned those conversations very, very young. My dad was a landlord. We owned a lot of rental properties, but I used to be with them collecting rent. And the interesting difference between then and now is I used to go with him. I, I would actually see a cash transaction. You know, it was really, people weren't paying with checks in the, in the mid-70s to late-70s. They would just hand him cash. And to me, that was a visceral experience where I could understand there was a transfer. And I would ask, well, what's the money for? He says, well, we own this and we rent it to them. So I was ahead of the curve. So even if you don't have rental properties, it's harder now because there's no transfer of cash. We're all trading money on our phone. And to me that makes it more like a video game to kids. And, and that's where I think they're missing out on kind of the tangibility of money. You know, like when we were younger, we take the cash down, you know, to buy a comic or buy baseball cards or something. And you give the money and you get change and then you, oh wait, I have change. I remember I used to store change in a jar. Eventually I'd roll up the money and take to the bank and get like, you know, $50. Kids just don't have that experience anymore. I don't, I don't never see a kid that has cash ever. And I think that's, that's creating more friction and understanding money. Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:06:04

And I would say my experience as a parent, it wasn't until my kids started getting part time jobs. And I mean, so they're into sort of university and getting jobs now. But that sense of like, say you don't have that transactional cash element. But what they do start to understand at that point is the fact I've had to work this number of hours and then when the bank receives the money for is their wages, they're then like, all right, so now I can afford to, to do this or to do that. But it's such a delayed thing, like you said. And also, you know, they're well into teenagers at that point, you know, and like you're saying you, you were much younger when you were learning about these sorts of ideas.

Jonathan Greene 00:06:41

Yeah, but I think allowance can serve that purpose in the beginning. You know, a weekly stipend that you're either giving for chores done around the house, which I don't necessarily think it has to be. I think it's okay for a parent to be, you know, giving their child a small amount of money each week to try to help them figure out what to do with it. I've proposed a lot of strategies that I think would be interesting for par now that whatever you want to give them a week, whether it's for work done or just to keep their lifestyle so they can get stuff and buy on their own, you tell them I'm going to give you x but 10% of that we're going to put into an index fund or something or another 10%. You have to figure out what to invest in. You're not going to actually get that money. That helps them start to understand what future will be like, what mortgages are like and what lending is like. And I think you can, so I think you can do it before there's a pay for job. And of course you can do that in the house. Yeah, if you clean out the garage, you'll get $10. That's a transfer. You can actually do the transfer. I would again suggest that you do it with cash now. I just, I always tell the story because I remember as a kid I had moved from Brooklyn out to California with my mom. My dad was still in New York and he would send me money, cash in the envelope and I would go take it to the bank and I would give them the money inside the bank at the teller and then I would give them my bank book and they would print it out on the bank book and I would see that I had more money and I became really interested in saving because I could see it grow and I never wanted to take it out because there was a lot of friction to take out the money. I had to get a ride from my mom down to the bank. I had to go up is very uncomfortable. I'm an introvert. I had to go ask them for money from my account. And I'm a kid so it's weird. So I never touched the money. There's like money is frictionless for kids now. You know, you can just order a game off your phone. I mean we've all, as parents, we've all had our kids, you know, buy six apps that like oh, how did that happen? You know, you spent $100. They didn't even mean to. That's how frictionless money has become. And so I do think it's harder for kids. That's why if you can educate them on tangible money, I think it makes what's going on on apps and games a little bit more understandable for them.

Mark Taylor 00:08:54

And what's your thoughts on the, on the saving the money to then buy something as opposed to we will fund this particular thing if they've got something they want to buy and then you'll pay us back. Because there's a different emotional feeling, I think, to that.

Jonathan Greene 00:09:10

I mean, I like them both depending on what the purchase is. I think it's really important for kids to be able to spend money the way that they choose to and make mistakes. If it's their money and you tell them you can't spend it, it's not really their money. And I'll, I'll get to the second part also, but my dad put money, he gave me a substantial amount of money when I was probably about 15 to invest in stocks. And he gave me a broker at Merrill lynch and I was very nervous. It's more money than I've ever seen. He's, I was like, what if I lose it all? He's like, well, you're going to talk to the broker. I mean you could lose it all, but if you do, it won't be because you just went and spent it. You know, just try your best. And I got really, I mean, I was reading the newspaper about stocks as a 15 year old because I wanted to win. I was invested in winning. I've always been very good at individual stock investing. But then the other part you said is kind of what I think again goes to learning about mortgages and lending later sometimes maybe a kid has just doesn't have a lot in there. They had to buy something else that they wanted. And now a new game's coming out. I always use games because it's very popular. Popular they want to order. I think you make a deal with the parent and you say, well listen, I'll give you the $50, but you're gonna have to pay the $50 back over the next six weeks. And P.S. It's not going to be $50 that you're borrowing from you. There's interest on it. And once you explain interest, kids are way smarter than about money than parents think. It's like, then the conversation becomes, well, why does it cost more? It's like, well, because I'm giving it to you in advance, you don't have it. So if you don't have it and I'm giving it to you, I can either give you a gift, which is nice, or in the real world, what happens is somebody gives it to you and you have to pay them interest. And that's just a little bit over the top that you need to add to it. Of course, you don't have to wrench your kids with a 10% interest rate. But, I mean, you can really say, like, instead of giving me $10 a week for five weeks, you have to give me $11 a week for five weeks. And I think that just puts a light bulb in their head to see what happens later. So then as you become an adult and you start to, you know, get into credit cards or some other type of lending, it makes more sense because there's plenty of kids now who run credit card debt and don't understand how fastly it's accumulating, you know, a 27% interest rate. And then because everyone says, we'll just put on your credit card. Well, there's a good part of the downside to credit card, and that's the downside where so many kids and young adults put themselves in a much higher debt ratio than they thought just because they allowed it to accumulate and they had no. No way to pay it off.

Mark Taylor 00:11:41

Yeah, exactly. And like I say, that's an interesting conversation for kids as well, that sense of the benefits of credit cards and some of the bonuses and things that you can get in terms of. I'm not going to use cash, I'm going to use the car, but I'm going to pay the whole thing off at the end of the month, and therefore I'm doing it smartly as opposed to, this is just free money. And like you say, you don't see the pitfalls as you get further down the line.

Jonathan Greene 00:12:04

Yeah, I've never carried a balance on my credit card. I always thought it was just something you use to get points or airline miles, and then you pay it off where you didn't have cash with you, so you would use that instead. And I think that's a good mindset to get into that. It is available. It is an emergency thing. My dad gave me an emergency credit card again when I was young, when I went to California. And the first time I used it, I thought I interpreted an emergency to mean I should buy Nike Air Force Ones. I mean, I didn't realize that that wasn't really what I was supposed to do. And I was so young that I didn't have an ID So they had to call my dad's law office in New York, California, and say, like, in this kid, buy the shoes. And he, he. He was such a good person that he didn't ruin the transaction. He knew I was there with my friends. He let it go through. And then later he said, like, I just want to talk. That's not really the emergency that you're talking about. If you want to buy something like that, let's talk about it first. So that's a very important point because that's a very open discussion. I was very, very fortunate to have just wide open discussions with both of my parents about money, about anything. There was really no barriers. I didn't have a lot of rules growing up. They just allowed me to kind of free flow. And I didn't really do that much wrong. I kind of enjoyed the freedom. And I think now with all the tracking and stuff, it plays a role. If you feel like your parents are always watching, literally where you are 24 7, and now they're watching every cent that you spend. You give them money and then you say, oh, why'd you spend $1.33 at CVS? What did you get? It's like, it's so invasive because parents can see so much. And I think kids need more freedom. And as we're going back to what I was saying before, the ability to make a mistake, sometimes you buy something bad. I mean, as adults, we make bad investments sometimes that seem good and they're even well researched, and they just don't go as well as we thought. Kid can buy a video game that he thought was going to be good and realized wasn't that good. But the good thing now is you can retrade it for less. And that's another understanding of now. You can sell a used product in a lot of different marketplaces. I think all kids should be like, as they get a little bit older, should be taught to help, like, resell their clothes and things that are still in good shape to other people. And then they will realize, well, I don't need to buy new all the time. And that will really help them when they go to buy cars.

Mark Taylor 00:14:20

Yeah, for sure. And I really like what you said there about the shoes, because, of course, you don't know what you don't know, do you? Because something as. As a young person, it's like, it is an emergency because I can see them there and I really want them. You know, I really wanted them. That makes a lot of sense. And. But I think, like I said, you Know, the, the understanding that your father said in terms of, you know, I'm, I'm not going to push the button now. We're going to have a conversation about it.

Jonathan Greene 00:14:46

It's.

Mark Taylor 00:14:47

It's doable as well. You know, it's possible that you can have them. And like I say, you're now, many years later, talking about this as a learning process as opposed to the, the real negative experience it would have been if he just said, oh, no, this isn't it. We'll, you know, we'll talk about this in a, in a negative way later on. Because like I say, you're there with your friends and you hadn't even realized. It's not like you're doing something wrong. It's just your perception was slightly different.

Jonathan Greene 00:15:08

Different. Yeah. And I, I've learned that with. My kids are now, they're both adults, they're soon to be 25 and just turned 23. And they have a kind of emergency credit card that just. If they go over on their own bills or if they're getting something that I normally would pay for, like gas, gas, they can just charge on my credit card, no problem. But sometimes, like, my son will just tell me, like, hey, I just ordered, you know, some new sheets for, for the bed. I'm like, no problem. But it's, it's because it's always been an open topic. They don't feel like they have to hide anything from me. And I think that's what happens, even if it's not a taboo topic. And you just never talk about money. It's going to be very hard for your child to come to you and, like, explain something that they had to get or that they spent all their money or they gave it to a friend, you know, for a good reason. And that goes to the tracking aspect. But really part of what I really am passionate about is making sure that kids and parents are talking about money. And I've used real estate as a vehicle for it a lot. Because the thing about real estate that people don't realize it's an open conversation 24, 7. Because literally everywhere you go, underneath it is real estate. Every building that you go into shop, every school, there's. It's a piece of real estate. Your house is a piece of real estate. Whether you rent or your own. It's an open conversation of how do people buy these things at all times. And it's understandable because kids play games. If you, if you go back almost 20 years, my kids used to play Club Penguin. It probably still Exists somewhere, but on there, you would still you build your little house. And on the sims I used to build houses. I mean, houses are tangible things. You can see them. Businesses are tangible. But under business is a building that's owned by somebody else a lot of the time. I just think it's a fun discussion. And kids start to understand that each of these buildings is owned by just a regular person. You know, not all corporations own real estate.

Mark Taylor 00:16:56

Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing is, is it also gives you that range and scale, doesn't it? Because it might be that you own this one small place that someone's running their business from. Or like you say, I own the whole street. Or like, say a large corporation that owns all manner of things. And so it's not that it has to look a certain way. It's different types of people. And. And if you're going to get involved in it or your understanding of it, it can just be, I just need enough money to buy this thing, or I understand if I'm renting, it's affecting this person in that way. And that's that like, say, then the range in the. And the understanding of it affecting everybody is going to be very different.

Jonathan Greene 00:17:33

I think opening up those type of conversations allows kids to go into their own mini entrepreneurial business ideas. You just take an example like this. If you learn about how just say a retail storefront, there's four storefronts for retail. There's a couple apartments on top, and a mixed use. And a parent explains to their kid, well, somebody owns a building, but they rent each space to a different person. And then a kid has like some fair at school, and one kid gets left out. And they said, well, look, I'll rent you half of my booth. That's where entrepreneurship starts. A lot of people that I've talked to who are still entrepreneuring their whole life started as kids selling stuff on ebay or going door to door and washing garbage cans. They just had the mindset. But again, kids are influenced a lot by what they see at school. School's not a big push for entrepreneurship. Cause it's very, you know, blinders on. We need to fulfill the curriculum, take the tests. So it's really on parents to be able to show out every entrepreneur. Even if you're. If you're driving and you see somebody on the side of the road that's selling something, it's still entrepreneurship. I mean, that's what kids can get. And that's also another part where we were saying before, maybe you don't have the traditional job because you're too young. But if you can figure out how to go to door to door and do a service for somebody that they don't want to do, pretty cool way to make money and then save money and understand money.

Mark Taylor 00:18:53

And I think also you never quite know where that's going to go. I mean, I'm a, I'm a musician now. I've been a professional musician for over 25 years. And that journey started because I, I learned an instrument at school and my parents, who weren't musicians, you know, we bought a very cheap drum kit at the paper. I think it was 50 pounds or you know, 60 something dollars or whatever it would have been and, and very secondhand. And it really served its purpose for my sort of very early stages in that first sort of year or so. But I got more and more interested in it and I wanted to buy a new drum kit and I found this shop in the local city and we went there and I didn't have the money to buy. Parents didn't know the value of this drum kit compared to another drum kit. And so I did my research, but I found the one that I wanted and I'm. It would have taken me a long time to get that drum kit, but of course I was having lessons already. There was a real benefit to sort of upscaling what I had and what they did do, which I sort of alluded to earlier on, was the fact that they sort of loaned me the money to get the drum kit. But that sparked my car washing business business. I literally had my parents and two or three neighbors that I did consistently every week for a number of months and then played that drum kid off. And so there was a real lesson in that. But the lesson they didn't know was the fact they were enabling me to basically create my career. You know, because it was all of those positive things that then enabled me to really get into my music, which then led to this, which led to the next thing and you know, moving to London and, and performing after that. So I think in enabling the. Enabling as it were, in whatever it happens to be, even if it's something that you don't know about, but understanding the concept of why you're doing it, especially if it's something which is maybe slightly out of your understanding or out of your normal financial reach, you never know where that's going to go. So I think like you say, the lessons that you were talking about have these sort of wider implications as well as the immediate lesson yeah, just the.

Jonathan Greene 00:20:47

Availability of the conversation to be had is there. You know, a lot of people, if a kid wants something or say they want to get into the drums, they're like, oh, you know, you didn't finish the flute and the tuba, so we're not going to get you the drums. But maybe the drums was the thing that was going to stick. You just never know. But smartly. Like, when I was growing up, we used to go to yard sales, tag sales, people selling stuff outside their home. I realized later my dad was trying to buy every house. That's really why we went. But we. My. My brothers and I, we're always just looking through everything. We're looking for sports, you know, and we would make deals, and we were bartering. And my dad in his law practice, he never really made money in the law practice. Most of his law practice, he was a wills and trust attorney. He was bartering. So he would come home with like, like a hundred antique books. I'm like, what is this? He's like, well, they didn't have a lot of money, so we bartered for this. And then he'd come home, you know, with sports equipment. And then one time I came up for the weekend and there's a bulldozer in the yard. I'm like, are you serious? What are you doing? He's like, well, now I'm going to learn how to. To build a golf hole in the back. Like, he. He figured out ways to trade things. And growing up, I used to trade baseball cards, trade comics. I don't know that kids really have that. It's so much fun to try to weigh value on what you have versus what someone else. And maybe if I like a player more, the card that they have is just worth more to me. It doesn't mean that the values match exactly, but they might be worth more to me because. Or even if you're using products, if I'm better at using a certain something, it's worth more to me. I can make more money with a hammer than I can with a saw because I'm better hammering. It all starts with the conversation and parents just being open to let their kids ask questions and answer them. It's just very hard, I think, for someone once, like you were saying, once you get to a teenager, it's just hard to approach the conversation. If you really don't understand anything about how do we get money? You know, where your parents were. But I think it's fine to know how much they make. You don't have to know how much is exactly in the bank account? But if, you know, I make 2,500amonth and our rent is 1200, there's overage. But, hey, look, here's all the other things we have to pay. Electric, gas, that prepares a kid for. Not just when they go off on their own, but even before that, you know, to just understand that there's other bills that come with everything. Just think they're conversations that are missed. There's so many kids who graduate high school, go off to university, and they don't even know how to do their own laundry. You know, they just don't understand the basics of how things work. And I think if you start those conversations all the way from the beginning, they're just going to be ahead.

Mark Taylor 00:23:22

Yeah, and the laundry thing reminds me of something that happened in the last year. Our youngest went to university and. And the thing that was funny about the laundry was the fact that you had to put your tokens into the laundry to make it work. So not only did you have to do it, it was like, this costs quite a lot of money, let alone the time it takes to do it, as opposed to putting it in the machine at home or handing it over or whatever it happens to be. And I think you're right. Of those little things that happen really, really add up. And the same thing, you know, when they started driving, it's that kind of. All right, so there's obviously the petrol, there's the insurance, the tax, all of that sort of stuff. But then, oh, the exhaust is gone, or. Or recently we went over a nail and I need a new tire. You know, those unexpected things which then opens up that conversation again about, you know, do you have some saved over? Do you have. Are you able to do that? Like, say, an emergency card in order just for those things. I still need to get to work, but, you know, I need to wait till the end of the month or whatever and understanding how that. How all that kind of fits in. I'm curious about your idea about the flow of money because, you know, like I said, there's the practical thing. I earned this, I can save this, I spend this. But what's your thoughts on that kind of. I'm allowing money into my life because I understand that it's transactional and there's. There's another deal to be done or another conversation or another piece of work I can do, as opposed to sort of being fearful of it and sort of just sort of holding on to it tight.

Jonathan Greene 00:24:48

Yeah, I mean, I would liken it to people who say they want to be successful, but really they're scared of being successful because they don't understand what's going to come with that sometimes. I mean, it's why lottery winners lose all their money most of the time because they're not prepped to have money. So again, I think it starts with open conversation and understanding. And again, it's a trading thing, though. You were just saying. I mean, I think people can learn that quickly. If you have someone, if you just sell something very small on ebay, you know, you can go to a yard sale. It's a Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, still goes to yard sales and he, you know, buys a Beanie Baby and then he resells it for twice the amount. My kids have resold their clothes. My sister's kids are reselling pins, Disney pins and stuff. I just think those things really make it kind of see that there's more of a transfer between people, that there's all the goods in the world and we can trade them back and forth and we can buy them. But I, again, I, I just think it starts with being open and really parents wanting participate and help their kids with entrepreneurship start many businesses. But yeah, it, it's harder again because it's not tangible. I really, I think about this all the time. You know, when I go, I still like, use my credit card. My kids just use their phones, and it's just still weird to me. I. It's like I like to use cash, but I don't have to. So I never go to an atm, but sometimes when it's cash only, I'm like, I really, I don't even remember the last time I went to an atm. It's kind of weird because I grew up with it being so cash friendly all the time that I had to have it in my pockets. And where I grew up, we had it in all different pockets. In case you got mugged, you knew which pocket had the least money, so you would give them the least money and they're like, oh, you know, you had all the good stuff in your back pocket. But yeah, I think, you know, working together with your kids is the important part. And I think it can really help bridge better relationships because it's just another subject that maybe kids don't think their parents will be open at. And then if they're open with their kids about something like money and how we get by month to month or year to year, I think kids are more likely to ask better questions about that and then maybe open up other avenues of conversation that are going to be important. Yeah, I agree.

Mark Taylor 00:26:59

And almost going, I suppose they go hand in hand, but certainly maybe before these conversations about money, what is it that you think kids kind of absorb or they kind of understand about it without even being told? Is that an age thing before you start to have those conversations or is it a combination also of that kind of. We've had a conversation. But I'm also then witnessing sort of what, by experience, as it were, by what I'm seeing.

Jonathan Greene 00:27:25

No, I, I think kids view of money is directly influenced by how their parents act around money growing up. And it could be for a variety of means. Like if you're struggling to get by month to month, that is hard. But parents with a scarcity mindset will deliver their kids a scarcity mindset. And you want to always be focused on an abundance mindset, even if it's not abundant inside your house. You know, if you can build abundant happiness and then say like this is how we're transferring money, we're trying to get more money. I think a lot of kids will want to help with that. You know, again we've been saying you don't have to show them your bank accounts and put it up on a screen, although I'm not against that either. I really think it's all good to know. But kids also suffer from a lot of fear of missing out and looking at social media now and what other people have versus what they have. So it's just kind of double hard for parents now because they're not only up against whatever their own struggles is, is bringing in money in a tough time, but they're up against everything else on social media that looks like everything is free and everybody's riding around on jet skis and motorcycles when obviously that's not true, but that's a lot of the content that kids consume and the algorithm delivers them more content. But hey, what if you had that good discussion at night night and then they plug into TikTok, you know, smart money decisions instead. They're just going to get a better view of the algorithm that way. So, you know, again, open conversations, we'll get there. I wanted to just go back on one thing because I thought it was interesting when you were talking about your, your son going off with the laundry. So I went to boarding school for 11th grade and there were again that there were coin washers, but there was only one in a whole dormitory, like one washer and one dryer in a dorm. There was like at least 50 people in the dorm. So the, the time versus people pulling out your stuff. And because it cost a lot to put the coins in, we were like overloading the washer so it was always soaking wet. So I did it a few times and I, I realized like, there's a better solution here. So I found a place in town where I could take my laundry and they would wash and fold it and it was, it was heavy. I mean, it would carry like, you know, know kids don't do laundry until the last second. Like there's no underwear left, nothing. But I carried it in and I had a lot of feedback from people like, oh, you know, you're being fancy, you know, you're paying for this. And I'm like, it takes me like over a week to wash my clothes in the dorm. They're all wrinkled. A lot of people, if I don't get there on time because I'm in class, they take them and put them on the top, then they become mildewy. It's just, this is a better use of my time. I literally still apply that principle to my businesses. Now. There's a lot of things that I pay for that other people don't like. I don't go to the grocery store. It's just a bad use of my time. And I'll get too many snacks. So I just order the same things every week. And I choose to pay for the delivery not because I think I'm too good to go to the grocery store, but because it's a much more efficient way. I save at least two hours not commuting back and forth. I don't have to make bad choices on the food and then it saved me. So I think that's a great discussion to have too, that not every, like you can pay for things. I'm a terrible house cleaner. I technically I could clean my house, but I'm so lazy when I do it that I won't do it well. So it's a better use of my money to have somebody else do it once in a while because then I'll feel better about my home and I have all that time back to work on something else.

Mark Taylor 00:30:44

Yeah. And I think that really is a key thing, isn't it? Because if you're self employed or able to work from home or do the extra hour, your time is probably charged out effectively more than it would be for whatever it is that you're paying for. And, and I think the other thing is, is that all these things are proportional, aren't they? Because you know, like I say when kids are young, they don't have loads of money just because they're young and then they start to earn it in whichever way it happens to be. It might be when you're going through university, if that's the route that you take, you know, you, you have student loans and you're sort of watching all those pennies, then maybe you get a job, but it's not as, as higher paying job as it is in 10 years or 20 years. And then you also realize that having the high paid job might be fantastic, but then you've got no time for anything else. So you decide how you decide what you want to do. Another podcast, that one probably. But, but, but relatively when you understand all of those things, it's like, I'm not able to do this now because I'm getting myself into that position or my experience is this so far, but I want to change it. So no matter what your circumstances, you're in a good place. Which I think goes back to your sort of lottery win thing. It's that you've suddenly got all the money you need, except then you haven't because you weren't in that place. Whereas it might be that you can, you're building that wealth or you're building that sustainability. So you might never have the money of a lottery win, but you have the lifestyle and the understanding of money to enjoy it in the best possible way.

Jonathan Greene 00:32:07

Yeah, and I mean, I think that's why it's important for people to understand that whatever your vision of financial freedom or time freedom is, is different from it literally every other person. It's like a snowflake. It depends how much money you need to live what you like. You know, some people don't need anything fancy. They don't strive to have the, the newest things. They're smart, they're resourceful, they save a lot of money. No, they, they spend the money on the things that are important to them. So each person has a different vision of it. But if you can start to develop that when you're younger, it won't get out of hand because social media is always going to show you all like the best stuff. But I bet if you again, like I was saying, if Somehow now your TikTok algorithm is couponing well, now you're going to learn a lot about savings and if you just put it in there once, it's going to start to generate more content for that. So those are things that kid can, you know, kid can watch inside, you know, maybe like they're Also like anime, so they're watching anime. But you know how the algorithm works now it's going to, you know, know, here comes a couponing thing. Here comes the thing about saving money. My dad taught me about saving money because he showed me what he would save. And I just again with the bank book thing, I started to really like saving money, you know, and it is, it's, there's a different amount of friction right now. It's just so easy to do everything for kids that, you know, a lot of people blame their kids for, for spending, you know, whatever they had on their allowance. But it's literally so easy. I wouldn't be wasting all my money on allowance like in the first second if I was a kid right now because I would get it and I'd be already have a list of things that I wanted to get and I would just spend it and then there it is. It's very easy for kids to get into that. So better that you can talk about it with them and give them a little bit of guidance whether they're going to listen or not. That you see.

Mark Taylor 00:33:51

Yeah, for sure. And I think also the story of life is important, you know. You know, we live in a lovely village, you know, about 60 miles north of London where we've got a four bedroom house and a large garden and that kind of sort of easy to get into the city, but a life sort of raw, you know, walk to school kind of environment. No, we could have literally a studio flat in London for the same price. But, but your life is going to be very different. And I think understanding that, you know, my wife and I both, both had that experience. You know, we've lived in the city, we had that, but we chose to sort of put our money in a different place in a different way. Even with the same amount of money, like you said, to change your lifestyle, to change the how our family was going to grow up and how we wanted to spend our time. And so I think giving that sort of perspective is, is a really important thing for, for children to understand as well. So that now is our children get over and you know, and they're going to different universities and living in different cities, they're sort of appreciating that sense of okay, so I could live here, but I could also live there. I can still do the same thing, but I'm making those choices based on that lifestyle.

Jonathan Greene 00:35:02

Yeah, I think it's really important for a parent to help kids learn how much everything costs, how much it's worth. So I growing up, we're driving around. I was always asked, how much is that? You know, how much could somebody rent that for? How much is that car? I just like to make a comparison. So I know. So as you're saying later you can say, well, I can live in, in downtown London for X, but I could live a little bit outside for X minus 5. And then if I want a 30 minute commute, X minus 10. And then you look at it and you're like, well, this place is, suits me just fine. So why don't I do The X minus 10? I don't mind commuting, but that's something that it changes over time. Then maybe, you know, you're in your 20s and you like a little more nightlife, so you spend more to be there. But then you have to be more efficient with what you do with the rest of your money. And I really think these things can start all the way down at a level, you know, I don't advocate for people, you know, charging their kids rent on their room, but understanding allowances and the transfer of money and how to use money and what you can earn extra money for. Just like. I found it very interesting when I was in school, this is before it was so strict as it is now. I don't think teachers wouldn't even be able to do this now. I used to go up and ask, you know, what are things I can do this semester to get extra credit? Because I wasn't to, I didn't pay attention a lot. So I would try to like overload on things I could do at home because I just didn't pay attention in class. And they would just give me a list of things I could do and I would just do them because I could do them on my own time. And I think that if, if kids have those things, well, here's a list of things that you can do if you feel like it, to earn extra money. And then one day you realize, you know, I want to get this, you know, something else to, to bring to school to show my friends. And then you go down the list and you're like, oh, you know, washing the garbage cans, five bucks I'm going to do it it. But then as a parent, like you have to be like, did they do a good job? It's not just a little rinse, can't still smell. You gotta do a good job. And I think that starts the understanding of, okay, hard work for good money. And I think it helps you as you get to your first jobs. Yeah, I agree.

Mark Taylor 00:36:59

Now the acronym FIRE is important to us here at Education on Fire, obviously. And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment. Does one of those words jump out of you or combination for any reason?

Jonathan Greene 00:37:12

No. Empowerment. I think the understanding of money at a young age is one of the most empowering things you can feel. Again, I was really fortunate to be having those conversations. I never had bad ideas of money. I never felt uncomfortable talking about money. My friends and I freely went money back and forth because I wasn't worried about it. I knew early on that if me and my friend went out to eat, even as kids, and I paid one time, it was understood they would pay the next time. We weren't saying, like, checking, well, are all these meals, you know, $7 and 50 cents? It's just like that's kind of being loose with money. And that's the empowerment of understanding money and using it how you like. And again, the empowerment to lose money is really, really important. That's part of empowerment to know that I tried something, it was a good idea, it didn't work out. That's most of our adult futures. Sometimes you buy a house that goes down in value, not as much in America. Everything kind of goes up. But, you know, you can make. You could buy high in a high market and still lose. You can pick a bad stock, it could go under. So I think allowing kids, again freely to spend their money without kind of hovering over them will give them a supreme empowerment later to come to you to tell you, like, hey, this is what happened. I made the decision to bet on this, this for this reason. It didn't work out. As a parent, my response would be like, yeah, great job. I'm gonna refund that because you tried really hard to do that. It's not. It's not frivolous. And that's where, if you have money scarcity as a mindset, I don't think you can feel empowered as a human, because money is what gets you everywhere. It's what provides your housing, your transportation, everything. So if you have a scarcity mindset, you'll either pull too tight on it and make yourself very rigid in a financial set. Never treat yourself to anything. And part of earning money is the ability to be empowered enough to say, you know what? I'll treat myself this week to this, and will there be a consequence? Yeah, I'm going to have less money for next week, but I deserve it, and I think it's really important. That's the one that stood out for me right now. When you Said it. I can see it in my head. I can see myself growing up never feeling off about money and feeling really like I had it under control.

Mark Taylor 00:39:29

Yeah, I love that. And the one thing I just want to finish off, pick up on there was that sense of as the grown up, as the, the more experienced person, I think having that safety net under there. Like you say, you did all the right things, you gave it a go, and I want to support you to keep doing that. Yeah, I know this might have cost you a couple of quid, but let me fund that. Let me, let me help you learn that lesson in a really, really positive way. And I think that was a really, it's a really key thing to do. We set the environment and the parameters as adult and support our kids in any particular way. Amazing. Jonathan, thank you so much. It's been a fascinating conversation. I think one that's really important. And like I said at the beginning, the ability to do it in an informal but a regular conversation is the most important thing. So thank you so much for that. And for people who want to find out more about you and the conversations you're having in your podcast and things, where's the best place for them to get in touch?

Jonathan Greene 00:40:22

Yeah. First, I really appreciate the conversation. I enjoyed it, Mark, so thanks so much for having me on the best place. I have a hub site, it's Trust Green and Green has an E at the end, so trust green.com. Every link of what I do is out there. The podcast is called Zen in the Art of Real Estate investing. We're over 360 episodes now and it's morphing into a real financial mindfulness, wealth generation, wealth preservation. And that's why I love having these conversations, because I want to get those conversations like these all the way down to younger kids. And of course, you know, as podcast hosts, it starts with the adults who are listening and they say, hey, here's something interesting we can listen to in the car. And then if a kid just gets one and light bulb idea from this and the parent and the child are getting it at the same time, wow. That could change the entire relationship between parent and child for the next several years.

Mark Taylor 00:41:11

I love that. Thank you so much indeed for sharing all this great wisdom and yeah, look forward to keeping up with that journey.

Jonathan Greene 00:41:17

Yeah, thanks, Mark.