Conversations on Money, Values, and Parenthood | Ep. 52

What changes when a financial planner becomes a parent? More than you think—and less than you might expect. In this episode, Tre shares the practical money moves he made after having a child, from updating the family will to reviewing life insurance, adjusting cash flow, and setting money aside early for future needs. He also talks about the bigger parenting challenge: teaching kids how money works without spoiling them, scaring them, or making money the centre of everything. This episode is for Canadian parents, soon-to-be parents, and professionals who want to raise financially capable kids while protecting their family first. 

You’ll learn:

•  Why parents need a will, guardianship plan, and proper life insurance 
•  How to budget for a child before and after they arrive 
•  Why cash flow is the foundation of family finances 
•  How to teach kids delayed gratification and responsible spending 
•  Why children should learn to earn, save, invest, and give 
•  How to raise kids with healthy money values in a privileged environment 

Follow, review, and share the Plain English Finance Podcast with someone who wants to make better financial decisions for their family.

Website | Youtube | Linkedin

Transcript

Tre 0:00

Have you ever wondered what a financial planner does or changes when they have a kid? Let's talk about it. it. I wanted to go through kind of what we changed, and maybe some steps that everybody. You know, what, what did I do to not even prepare for a kid, but what are we, what are we doing right now? Now that, what changed, I guess?

Sierra 0:21

Mm-hmm.

Tre 0:21

I have a few things in mind, but what do you think or what comes to mind about what changed? I guess what we got Ariyah. She's now 19 months? 19 months?

Sierra 0:32

Yeah. Oh yeah. Almost. Wait, what month are we in?

Tre 0:36

May.

Sierra 0:38

I think she's closer to 20 months.

Tre 0:41

Yeah.

Sierra 0:41

Anyway,

Tre 0:42

start doing it normally soon. Just

Sierra 0:44

be

Tre 0:44

2, 3, 4.

Sierra 0:45

I feel like people without kids, they're like, I totally understand that. 'cause I hated when people are like, oh, there's 17 months. I'm like, I'm not doing the math. don't know what that means. But when you're living in kid world, it's like that's how everything is.

Tre 0:59

Because they're so different from

Sierra 1:00

11 months. It's like the, the doctor is like

Tre 1:02

13 months.

Sierra 1:03

Yeah. Yes. Like the doctor will be like, oh yeah, like each month is important kind of thing. And like the doctors use it. Clothing uses those sizes, but anyways, once they had 24 months, it goes two years. So, But any, anyways, what changed? We redid our will.

Tre 1:23

So I wanted to talk about that one quickly. Okay. Yeah. Uh, know this is, it's not that controversial, but I'm gonna say, and be very clear.

Sierra 1:31

Oh yeah, I know what you're gonna say already. You know what

Tre 1:33

I'm gonna say?

Sierra 1:34

Because you made a comment. You were like, I would be a bit, what would provocative was the word you used

Tre 1:40

With this comment?

Sierra 1:40

Yeah, with this comment.

Tre 1:42

So I believe it is a parent's responsibility to look after their children. Sounds crazy, but if you have a child that and you are responsible for someone else and you have not prepared some way for the potential prepared in some way for the potential for you not being around anymore, you are a bad parent. I said it,

Sierra 2:13

I just let it hang there. I just wanna, I'm like, I'm not saying

Tre 2:15

anything. I don't repeat that. I'll repeat it even more of that. Now that I have told you that if you choose to not prepare for the eventuality that you die, not get a will not name who's gonna look after your children, not make sure that they're not have enough life insurance. If you need life insurance to provide for this child, then now it's gross negligence because you know. So it is absolutely no excuses. If you have a child, you're responsible for this child.

Sierra 2:46

Mm-hmm.

Tre 2:47

It is on you to make sure that if something happens to you that. They are looked after.

Sierra 2:54

Mm-hmm.

Tre 2:54

It's as simple as that. And when you have kids, all the parents will understand that there's so much stuff that happens. It can get very messy, et cetera. So make these adjustments, make these changes before they come. Right. Take the time. While the only thing you have to be concerned about is. Less stuff than you will have to be concerned with afterwards 'cause you won't be sleeping afterwards and all that fun stuff. But take the time beforehand.

Sierra 3:24

Okay. I'm like you. You lost me a little bit. so what you're saying is basically do it before you have the kid.

Tre 3:31

Yeah.

Sierra 3:31

start

Tre 3:31

a will, there's nine months of the kid growing inside of you.

Sierra 3:34

Yeah.

Tre 3:34

Right. Thank you.

Sierra 3:36

Yes.

Tre 3:37

You know, it's a lot of time in the oven and afterwards everybody always says the same thing after you have your first kid.

Sierra 3:44

Yeah,

Tre 3:44

because you have, you think you have a little time beforehand and then you have a kid and you realize

Sierra 3:49

when you say you're busy before you're like. And I, I hate saying that because Yeah, it's like, before we had kids, I remember parents would be like, oh, you don't know what tired means in all these comments.

Tre 4:01

Yeah,

Sierra 4:01

well, like, but at, at the same time I understood what they were saying, but. You know me. I'm like, just because that's true doesn't make it untrue for me. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. It's like you, you only know what you're experiencing, so it's like you are tired, you are busy. Trust me, it's going to get harder. So,

Tre 4:19

so I'll take the opportunity beforehand to prepare. Prepare for that eventuality. Yeah. Prepare, do a will. Make sure you have enough life insurance, do all that stuff beforehand.

Sierra 4:29

To put this in perspective, it is currently what, 1130 at night and unfortunately the podcast that we had prepared is having issues in processing. So we have to get this out. That's why we ended up doing this episode.

Tre 4:44

at 1150 at night.

Sierra 4:45

Oh, it's 1150. Even better.

Tre 4:46

1150. So if we're home

Sierra 4:47

and then

Tre 4:48

lot of this, I'm gonna edit and try to get it out for tomorrow.

Sierra 4:51

Life is a little crazy. So we are, we're telling you from. From a place of true experience that you need to get these things done, get these

Tre 5:02

things done. Okay. And then what, what else did we change? What else?

Sierra 5:05

we changed our budget and we changed.

Tre 5:08

So 'cause of the way that we, we budget, it's um. We, I do what I preach, like we control our expenses and then so we have another separate account for her with her name on it, just like we have all the other other accounts and we put aside money for the stuff that she would need, right. right.

Sierra 5:28

Yes,

Tre 5:29

and then we started, I, every time that account hits, I think, I think it's about $1,500 in that range. take a chunk of it and put it into her investment account for her, for other things, whether that is for her when she has a vehicle in many, many years, or doing to, like, do dance lessons I don't know, or something, the money's going away for her so But the going away for her, we they got for me. I don't want to have to say. No. To big things if I don't have to. And part of that is just spreading that cost over the course of many, many years instead of suddenly having to come up with a lump sums. Just

Sierra 6:14

Yeah.

Tre 6:14

You know, because she wants to do something. I dunno. So just about prudence to just stop putting money aside

Sierra 6:20

Yep.

Tre 6:21

Early often makes a big difference.

Sierra 6:23

Yep. And the reason like it sometimes gets a bit high is because we started putting money away before she was even born.

Tre 6:28

there was there's stuff that needs to be bought before she's even

Sierra 6:29

Yeah.

Tre 6:30

Yeah.

Sierra 6:30

But even then we weren't sure on certain things like feeding, like what was she gonna need formula? Was she like, how much are diapers? You don't know a lot of this stuff before you're a parent. We joke that we, we'd walk by the baby aisle. How didn't exist? It didn't exist, didn't exist before. It's like, oh, I can just mentally ignore that whole section. And then you get pregnant and you're like, oh my goodness, has this always been here? Like, all these things in stores. But anyway, so now, yeah, figuring out the costs of things and, and all that. we had to budget for it. So Let's keep cracking on to be fair. Okay. I thought we were gonna talk about, You being a financial planner and what you're going to teach Ariyah.

Tre 7:16

Oh, is that what you wanted to talk about?

Sierra 7:17

Well, that was my idea originally.

Tre 7:19

Okay.

Sierra 7:19

But what do you, no, I don't wanna like overturn the podcast episode.

Tre 7:24

We

Sierra 7:24

decided again, it's been a, it's been a hard, it's been a hard day. I am not gonna lie.

Tre 7:28

Um, okay, what else did we, what else did we change? Decide what we.

Sierra 7:37

I can't really think of anything off the top of my head,

Tre 7:40

honestly. That's about it. I like, we did the way, we

Sierra 7:42

did the budget, we did the, well, what else really is

Tre 7:44

cause of the way that we do the budgeting and everything. Um, the decision around you going on maternity leave and then like staying at home afterwards and stuff was a really, it wasn't much math involved. It was okay. We already knew that, whether the numbers would make sense or not. Mm-hmm. One thing that we did do for tax side, the tax planning side for the future when you was on maternity leave, just like we were doing beforehand, was we've, we always separated your income from mine so that we can put that aside and point directly to their funds as your money so that if, We ever needed to or whatever that we could, we, there's tax opportunity, tax planning opportunities that come, come along with you having investments as a lower income individual Yeah. Versus it being in my name, things like that. It was, uh, but that was already in place. That's not really something we changed because of that.

Sierra 8:42

Yep.

Tre 8:43

Okay. Anything else? Not really.

Sierra 8:45

I feel like that was, that was all we really changed, which is why you're thinking, wow, this is a short episode, like a really short episode. What if we added my part? If If people care to learn, my idea was, here's how I would open it. Okay, wait, I had something in my head and, as per usual, I'm like, oh, where is it now? it was like, What would you teach your kid about finances if you were a financial planner? Well, you're about to find out, because I'm a financial... I'm not allowed to say that, am I? I'm a. This is what you say? Yeah.

Tre 9:24

Oh, okay.

Sierra 9:24

Yeah.

Tre 9:25

okay. We can do that then quickly.

Sierra 9:26

so what would you teach or what are your, like let's just say like top three or top five things what would you teach Ariyah as a financial planner about money?.Y.

Tre 9:39

cashflow. I'm not, I'm not actually sure exactly how we're gonna do chores and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And how we're gonna do earning money.

Sierra 9:46

mm-hmm.

Tre 9:46

It's a hard one because you hear and read so many competing things. Mm-hmm. So, uh, for example, one of the things that, um, people talk about is that it's really important to. That not every chore is paid. Right? Like there's certain things that are expected of you and those things are part of being in a family.

Sierra 10:08

Yeah.

Tre 10:09

And at the same time, there are like extra things that maybe you do pay for and allow them to earn money in. Mm-hmm. And, and do that. One thing that I'm definitely not gonna do is just give money for giving money's sake. I think that it's really, really important that. You tie a that they have to earn it right? I'd also really like to encourage some type of entrepreneurship. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do that originally.

Sierra 10:36

Mm-hmm.

Tre 10:37

I would try, like But that was me for sure. Like I would, when I was during school, I would buy sweets and stuff like that and then go sell it. 'cause I didn't get, I I didn't get pocket money or anything like that. And that taught me work ethic. Look at the world a little bit differently from a really early age. And I think that's important.

Sierra 10:56

Oh yeah. I never would've done that because I didn't get an allowance either.

Tre 11:00

What did you do for. Money.

Sierra 11:02

I would do work like stuff outside of like how you said, we didn't have like chores where we would get money. So like I would go help the neighbor like pick the weeds in between their like stones or whatever.

Tre 11:17

And

Sierra 11:18

they would pay you? They would pay me. Sometimes it depend, it depended like, Yeah. I'm like, how did I get money? I know I had some, like,

Tre 11:27

you just get given it.

Sierra 11:29

I don't know, to be honest, like, I just probably looked for it on the streets. Okay. I'm like, okay, my childhood was not that bad. I'm not gonna lie. funny. Like you

Tre 11:38

You a Did a great childhood.

Sierra 11:39

I had an amazing childhood. Yeah. No, I, I'm just saying, I'm trying to, I the money side of things. I remember, like I've already said before in the podcast, like I'm a saver and I remember when I would get money. It was like, I'm never letting this go and that, but that's not to say like, my mom wouldn't, like, I was never wanting for anything majorly, like I'd have to wait, if that makes sense. Like, I wouldn't just be like, oh, I want this toy, and she'd go out and buy it. But if we really wanted something, we'd have like, we would say it and then we'd wait for like. Events where we would get presents, if that makes sense. Like, okay, grad gift, or like a, every year we had like a family day kind of thing where we would do gift exchanges and stuff. So we would get things like that. So it's like I, it was not like an immediate thing, but I guess I didn't pay for it myself either. So I don't know how you would look at the, like, all my needs were met, so I didn't. I don't know. I'm like, I didn't really need money.

Tre 12:43

Yeah.

Sierra 12:43

Mom would just get us what we needed or, or even wanted, but it wasn't always like

Tre 12:48

when exactly you wanted it.

Sierra 12:49

yeah. It wasn't like we had everything just handed to us for sure. Like there was. But I would have money. So anyway, it doesn't matter. This is not about me. We're, I want to get a lot of that. You're not going to, but I, I wish you would.

Tre 13:04

No,

Sierra 13:04

probably not. Oh, yeah. It's too much.

Tre 13:07

I And I, I just, I think it's a really important skill to develop. I was talking with a client and they have a, a, a son and a daughter, and the son is extremely responsible when it comes to finances and they definitely have taken after the dad. And the the daughter is a lot more like once or the night is willing to throw money away, spending, right? Mm-hmm. And it's like, I'm sure part of that is just a personality thing to a

Sierra 13:39

degree.

Tre 13:39

Yeah.

Sierra 13:39

I think we've talked about that. The, like savers versus spenders.

Tre 13:44

Yeah.

Sierra 13:44

Oh, we just watched that, guy talk about what, what were the words? I, Ben Felix.

Tre 13:51

Yeah. Saver isn't it Saver versus Spender?

Sierra 13:54

Tightwad.

Tre 13:56

Oh yeah.

Sierra 13:57

And,

Tre 13:58

oh, I can't remember

Sierra 13:59

something else,

Tre 14:00

but it

Sierra 14:00

was on the

Tre 14:00

Diary of a CEO.

Sierra 14:02

Yes. What words they used were kind of funny, but. It made sense that there's two camps of people and they often ended up with each other in relationships.

Tre 14:11

Yeah. And that's like the worst type of parent. 'cause if you both think about money differently, then it's gonna create conflict.

Sierra 14:18

Yeah.

Tre 14:19

Versus two people at least there's less conflict within the

Sierra 14:24

Yeah.

Tre 14:24

Within the relationship.

Sierra 14:25

Yeah. We still have to figure out how we approach that type of stuff. Mm-hmm. But I know it's, it is a hard one. It's, raising, raising a, raising a child in an environment, like in a privileged environment. Mm-hmm.

Tre 14:43

When you didn't come from privileged yourself

Sierra 14:45

mm-hmm.

Tre 14:46

Is like, it's very. Because you obviously want them to have the similar values that you have, but part of the values that you have came from not being privileged.

Sierra 14:57

Yeah.

Tre 14:57

And you're like, okay, well then you now need to, you're not saying no to things because you can't.

Sierra 15:03

You can't.

Tre 15:03

You can't,

Sierra 15:04

yeah.

Tre 15:04

You're saying no to things because

Sierra 15:07

you're trying to choose their trauma. You're

Tre 15:08

trying to choose, yeah.

Sierra 15:09

You're trying to rub some dirt in it and build character. and so now I feel like I'm an abusive parent. If I'm like, I'm choosing your suffering for you. They're gonna

Tre 15:20

be, no matter what you do, it's just gonna be trauma. At some point, it should be. either they gave me too much or too little or maybe something. Gosh,

Sierra 15:28

it's always, yeah, there's no way to do it. Perfect.

Tre 15:31

No, but we'll try to be as intentional as we can, I guess.

Sierra 15:34

But it is kind of hard. That's a good point of view. It's like it, it's one thing when. Because kids ask for things regardless. Of course, kids want, want, want. So it's one thing to be in a situation where you're like, especi, for

Tre 15:48

me, I didn't really ask for stuff,

Sierra 15:50

but you wanted, because if you didn't want, you wouldn't have done all the stuff you did to get your pocket money.

Tre 15:56

Yeah. I just knew the answer ahead of time, so I just,

Sierra 15:59

yeah. Stopped asking you just, you just found a different solution. Didn't mean you didn't want.

Tre 16:03

That's funny. I feel like that's

Sierra 16:04

the nature of kids. Like that's just the nature of kids. It's like you see things. The more you see, the more you want. Mm-hmm.

Tre 16:09

I remember when I was little, I to build this big Lego set remember I did like math to figure out all the like factored out like math, the area calculated the area of the Lego that I would need, and then my Legos that I would then need to buy in order to build this castle that I wanted to build.

Sierra 16:26

Wait, what do you mean by factored?

Tre 16:28

myself for sure, like I calculated how many Legos I would need, like the square footage. Of the size of the Lego,

Sierra 16:35

don't they just come in a box?

Tre 16:37

No, that wasn't how I wanted to build it.

Sierra 16:39

that dude, you like, was the cheapest way I could buy secondhand Lego.

Tre 16:44

I drew the colors and stuff like that. Like, so I knew how many colors I wanted for each one. Yeah. And then when I added it, like when I, 'cause I, I didn't go secondhand. That was like, I priced it out according to like lego land.com or whatever, do UK or whatever. and it, it came out for like 2000 pounds for the,

Sierra 17:00

oh my gosh.

Tre 17:01

It was like,

Sierra 17:02

Where those box sets at? Not doing that. No. $100 Doesn't seem that bad in person.

Tre 17:08

At the time, I probably had a total of 20 pounds entirely. I was probably 11, 12 when I did that.

Sierra 17:18

And you're like, I think this will work. Nope.

Tre 17:20

No, not at all.

Sierra 17:21

Yeah.

Tre 17:22

yeah, I know. So that, that's,

Sierra 17:23

but I think those things are like, again, those things are. important for kids. Yeah. I remember I did a, a presentation at a school when I worked with, a different credit union. My, the first credit union I worked with and I did a presentation at a school. And one of the activities, it was, we had chocolate bars and we gave each kid a chocolate bar. And we were like, you can eat that chocolate bar now or save it. And we didn't tell them. And maybe this is like, I've heard some people be like, dang, that's a harsh to kids. 'cause these are like second graders or like whatever, fifth grader, I don't know, whatever. Um. Anyways, the kids that ate their chocolate bar, that was it. She got her chocolate bar. The kids that saved their chocolate bar, after the presentation, got another chocolate bar. I'm like, yeah, are we bad people?

Tre 18:21

No. that was the lesson that probably stuck with them for a long time.

Sierra 18:23

The instant gratification thing is. Yeah. Such an important, I think that's something again, for both of our stories, different routes, different ways of like doing things or like having our wants met, but the lesson of instant gratification was the same. It's like just because you want something right now, don't

Tre 18:43

mean you get it

Sierra 18:44

And that's the hard part when you're a parent who is able. To give it all right now, or maybe not all, but you know what I mean? Like a lot of it Yeah, you could if they want the Lego set, what like Sure. Why not? Like you, you could,

Tre 18:59

So that's something I guess I would try to instill in her would be, it would be like value.

Sierra 19:04

I think that's the biggest thing, like from, I mean, I'm obviously not the financial planner in this conversation, but I would definitely say

Tre 19:11

it's not really a financial planning thing though, right? Like it's a financial values thing

Sierra 19:17

But I think people would be like, oh, you're a financial planner. What are you gonna teach your child? Like you're the expert. Right in something

Tre 19:23

I would stress like the basics. I would, it would be a case of, okay, you get, if we do do pocket money in some degree, it would be like, okay, well we put some aside for savings, some aside for spending, some aside for giving. You know, like we would do that. On a, like, that's how we, I would teach mm-hmm. To manage money. Right. Yeah. but I would teach her really, really early about investing.

Sierra 19:49

Yeah.

Tre 19:50

even if that meant like, oh, you invested in the bank of Dad and dad doubles your money every six months, you're not gonna get them in the markets. But I would teach her about the power of delayed gratification. Yes. As soon as possible.

Sierra 20:04

Yeah.

Tre 20:05

Because again, I, the way I would see it is Ariyah would inherit anything that I've built, and I would want to make sure that she's a good steward of anything that is left to her.

Sierra 20:18

mm-hmm.

Tre 20:19

She doesn't make crazy decisions and damage not only her, but her family or whatever.

Sierra 20:25

mm-hmm.

Tre 20:26

it's a fine lineup. I also don't want to obsess about it.

Sierra 20:31

Mm-hmm.

Tre 20:32

But that, I think, will depend on her attitude towards those things. 'cause maybe she's naturally like you. Right. And she's a lot more. Cognizant of that type of thing, but who knows?

Sierra 20:44

Who knows? Well, I wanna recap then, 'cause you said a few things, but again, I'm like tying it back to the one core value then realistically, it is tied to everything when you're dealing with money. Whether it's cashflow, 'cause you said cashflow management, teach the power of investing like in the markets. Um. T that all ties back to teaching value. Like what is value.

Tre 21:14

Mm-hmm.

Sierra 21:15

And I think that's a big principle for you regardless, because we've talked about that, like not trading your time necessarily for money. That's like, and viewing money as value. Like I'm trading my value to get value.

Tre 21:27

Yeah. Using it as a tool instead of seeing it as a, yeah. Like assigning so much to it, right?

Sierra 21:35

Yeah. You wanted to say value there, didn't you?

Tre 21:37

Yeah, I did, but I didn't, it was like too many

Sierra 21:39

times

Tre 21:39

many times.

Sierra 21:43

I

Tre 21:43

value. Yeah, I do. I want her to learn how to see money appropriately, learn how to see money appropriately, I guess. Yeah. Especially in the modern society when it is kind of made up.

Sierra 21:53

Yeah, for sure. Literally, yeah. It started

Tre 21:56

Hey. A A piece of hope..

Sierra 21:59

Yeah.

Tre 22:00

Hope in a paper form. Yeah. So to sit, to view it appropriately and to, to make good decisions, of course. That's something that I would try to

Sierra 22:10

mm-hmm.

Tre 22:11

Try to instill. Yeah, absolutely. From a, from an early, early age. Same for like giving and like having a gift to friends and stuff like that, but work for it herself, right? Mm-hmm. as I will not be the one buying her a gift be giving a gift to a friend and I'm just paying for it. That's like she will have to contribute to it, right? Whether that's by doing a chore and then she gets a little bit money, and then I'm gonna give her the. $3 and then she's gonna give me back for $3. And when we go to the shop to pick out the $30 toy, probably, 'cause who knows what inflation will be at that point.

Sierra 22:47

Inflation, that's what they cost right now.

Tre 22:48

It's

Sierra 22:49

gonna be like $300 by then.

Tre 22:51

fair. but those type of things, those that like going through the motions, it seems dumb to a, I think maybe to somebody that doesn't.

Sierra 23:00

The CRA does it all the time. They love to make us go through the motions. Lemme see the paper trail,

Tre 23:06

I think it's important that somebody is like. Like they exchange their, they go out work hard for something. Mm-hmm. They then have to go and give that back. Right. I think that's very different than that just Dad, I'm just buying them the gift to give to their friend. I think you, No, I think it, I think it means more, right? When you went out and you earned it. I think it also gives the child a sense of accomplishment. Yep. For sure. Things like that. So there are things that, yeah. I guess I'm hoping to instill in Ariyah, but. It will. It will always, as always, it will always start with cashflow. Cashflow, cashflow, cash flow, Cashflow, Cash flow, everything. Everything, Everything, everything comes off the back

Sierra 23:47

of that. That is not, I don't know what I thought you were gonna see, but I don't think it was that. I was like, it all depends on who she is, like as a person. No

Tre 23:55

cashflow

Sierra 23:56

is, it all stems back to cash flow. Everyone.

Tre 23:59

Yeah, that's the, that is the cornerstone of finances. You're gonna do it well, you need to master cash flow.

Sierra 24:06

yep.

Tre 24:08

Anyway.

Sierra 24:09

that's it.

Tre 24:09

That's it.

Sierra 24:10

Hopefully that episode will be live in a few hours.

Tre 24:17

Perfect. Okay. See you guys in the next one.

Sierra 24:21

Bye.

Tre 24:21

Bye.

Speaker 24:21

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Plain English Finance Podcast. Tre Bynoe certified Financial Planner. Chartered Investment Manager is a financial planner with TCU Wealth Management and Aviso wealth. You should always consult with your financial, legal, and tax advisors before making changes. This podcast is provided as a general source of information and should not be considered personal investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell at any securities. The views expressed are those of the individual and are not necessarily those of Aviso Financial Inc. Mutual funds and other securities offered through Aviso wealth, a division of Aviso Financial, Inc.