Intro
Brian Page and I met many years ago through my work with Fathering Together. As the only accredited financial counselor and fair play facilitator, he weaves his personal and professional life experiences into a powerful resource for all parents.
My parents taught me to be smart with my money… you know, save and invest, but have fun when and where you can… but Brian Page takes it a step further to ensure that not only are you raising your children with “money sense” but that you’re building a healthy and balanced marriage as well.
Recently, he teamed up with Kate Mangino (Equal Partners) and Ashley Brichter (Birth Smarter) to “MOVE Your Marriage,” which I’ll highlight in a future recording.
Resources
Modern Husbands: https://www.modernhusbands.com/ & https://substack.com/@modernhusbands
FairPlay: https://www.fairplaylife.com/
No Good Nick (Netflix TV Show, episode 2 has the “chore” auction scene)
Transcript
(captured by Otter.ai)
Brian Page: There where I was teaching teachers how to teach personal finance, and eventually lobbying for personal finance to be required for graduation and a number of states. And, you know, my my wife, continued to get promotions. So three kids, everything's going a million miles an hour. And so, you know, up until that point, she was the the gardener and our in our relationship, nourishing the home. So, you know, I could be the the rose in our in our situation, and bloom in my career, and we flip flopped. So now I'm the gardener, and so she can be the rose in her career, and I'm loving every second of it. And in that journey, I started modern husbands, really just to take, you know, what I was learning and sharing it with the world
Brian Anderson: And I think that, like that story, is so true of so many dads that I've worked with at father together or just met in the the dad space of we need to feel industrious. We need to, you know, feel a calling to be builders, doers, fixers, you know, all these things are kind of ingrained in us. And so to be a at home parent is growing, but there's still a need to do something else, or, Oh yeah, be involved, right? And so I love that you are, you know, I love how you've taken your professional experiences and honed it into something that you know families can use. But I'm just curious, like, how do you how do you make sure you show up for your your kids and put them first when you know something viral happens in your world, or has nothing viral happen? Sorry, I don't want to assume
Page: Yeah. I mean, I got about 30,000 followers, well, 35,000 between a couple different accounts, and get about 10,000 monthly, unique monthly visitors on my site, sure. And yeah, families first. So you know, some comes up. I do that. It's real simple. You know, I families first, and then I built a company around that I do have, you know, when I do speaking engagements, obviously I do need to make sure that I fulfilled those obligations. If I'm meeting with clients, I fulfill those obligations. But the way I have my Calendly structured is where there's unless there's an emergency, you know, like there's not going to be any disruptions. So I do have limited hours where I meet with people and have obligations for that very reason, and it makes life simple, right? I mean, we're fortunate in that way, yeah, whereas my wife is, you know, working really hard and has to do some travel, and, you know, I she's having a great time in her career. It's her turn to shine, and she's really motivated. So I, I wish I would have figured this out sooner, because it's pretty awesome being in my shoes right now.
Anderson: Yeah, and remind me how old your kids are.
Page: My oldest is 22 he is getting his it's like a master's and bachelor's kind of joint program in international economics. My middle one is heading to college this coming year, so I guess in two or three weeks, yeah, and he is going to be a pilot. He by the it's we're cutting it close, by the time he starts college, he should have his pilot's license. He's pretty close on the hours. And then my youngest is a rising senior, so I'm going to be an empty nester in a year. And
Anderson: what does that mean for modern husbands and the work you're doing? I mean, obviously, husbands don't necessarily have to have children, but I'm just curious, like, is that gonna shift?
Page: Gonna make it even easier for me to devote more time, obviously, and energy to the company? Yeah, but I it won't change anything there might I don't have a strong focus on caregiving. I kind of loosely, you know, connect with that, and because I feel like there's a lot of great people like yourself in the space I know fathering together is with someone else now, and Chris and then Paul Sullivan company and dads. So the nature of my work, essentially, is to take all of their, you know, laser focus on caregiving and kind of and prop it up really. So rarely do I contribute to the space firsthand. When I do, it's, it's, frankly, around teaching kids money lessons, right? Because that's my that's my professional background, through activity based learning, and, you know, evidence based learning. And then when I see, you know, things that pop up that look like they're really cool and interesting from other people, I just, you know, I share with the world.
Anderson: well, I love that you're being very humble about this. Because, yes, you are, quote, unquote, just the finance guy, but you've done the Fair Play training, like I have, you've been in the kind of the emotional management, life, management courses and training, so I think where I was driving at is finances are a very emotional thing, right? Like I was talking with someone, maybe even my therapist, about, like, how my parents we were very poor growing up. Like, I remember all my clothes were hand me downs from my cousins, and like, they had, you know, Chris and Patrick and other names in them, and so, like, I remember being at a sleepover and the mom being like, Who's this person? I'm like, that's mine. It's just my cousin's Right? Like, that kind of like, awkward moment for me, of like, oh, we I don't get the designer stuff, like some of my friends, clothing wise, or whatever. And then, you know, over time, they got promotions. They got, you know, some breaks their way. And so by high school, we were fine, right? But, but it was always this kind of, like, money was something we talked about to be responsible, about, like, to be responsible, and like, had a bank account and learned how to balance my checkbook, all that stuff at an early age. But we never talked about, like, how much my parents made, or how we were spending on what or why we got to do vacation this year, not, you know, last year or next year. And so I'm just curious, like, as you're working with families, kids or parents, like, how do you juggle that kind of the cultural issues that that come with, you know, finances and what we do and don't talk about well,
Page: as it pertains to kids, it sounds like that what your parents did was really great, because if they were struggling financially, then it's in the best interest of for you to not share that. So that's called financial enmeshment, when you overshare your financial turmoils with your children, which is not uncommon, and how you handle those conversations is really important, right? So kind of like, you know, when, when parents say continually, like, we can't afford this, we can't afford this, it does create heightened anxiety for kids. Where, if you just kind of change that language a little bit and just say, hey, look, we're choosing to spend our money in different ways, then the kids don't feel, you know, poverty stricken. And as the kids get older and they're, you know, able to recognize where they are in the world relative to others you know, you you start to build a foundation of understanding of where you are as a family, and doing so in a way that's, you know, responsible and highly and prioritizes the kids feeling safe and secure, like, hey, nothing bad is going to happen. But you know, at the same time being recognized that you know you're you're not going to get all the things that the other kids want. And I, I experienced, you know, these conversations with my own kids, not, not where I grew up, in rural Ohio, everyone's kind of the same economically, but my kids went to an independent, private school, and there were, you know, kids who were like, were literally the kids of billionaires. So it's like, hey, you know, we can't afford, you know, a house with a helicopter, you know, like in it, and you kind of chuckle at it, but that's their friend group in some instances. And so you you do have those conversations, but really, what you're doing when you start to and you've opened up a passion point for me, by the way, yeah, when they're old enough, like in high school, you know, that's when it's important to really connect in an intentional way how you're spending money with your values, right? So when the kids are really little, you know, you can do subtle little things, like, if you see somebody who is homeless and the and your children are 789, years old, you give money in front of them. You give them $1 right? And just so you can model generosity. But when you're 15, 1617, one of the like things that you can do is, literally, I saw somebody else do this. I didn't do it. I did it with a budget. But a guy came home with his net pay in cash and told the kids, okay, here are my budgeting buckets. So it's like, you know, like, literally, like he put a piece of paper on the table and just said, you know, food, transportation, etc. You put the cash where you think we spend the money, and at the end of it, you know, you've got this cash allocated all over the table into these different categories. And you know, he's like, No, we don't spend the money like this. And he kind of worked it around. And he's like, look, here's how we're spending our money, and here's why. Because we value, you know, education as a priority for us, and so we're saving for college or private school or not, that private school is better than public, but it gave a sense kids, a sense of like, recognizing that money is like a tool to spend it on the things that you love and the people you love most, not as a way to somehow build this facade of wealth, which is a really unhealthy relationship to have with money. Yeah? So anyhow, yeah, like, there's, there's lots of ways in which you can have conversations with kids about money, and lots of ways you could teach them how to connect money and and the values that you aspire the most in your family.
Anderson: I love it, and I'm just having all these moments of conversations flashing through my mind. Of my girls, we started the envelope method. I think there's probably a more formal name, but they, you know, get 12 bucks a month, and they have three envelopes, spend, save and give, yeah, yeah and, and yeah. And generally it's like, five, five and two. But they can, you know, they can put it in however they want. And there have been months where they were like, you know, we want to give. It's coming up to Christmas time. We have what we need. Can I put more in my give or more my save or, you know, and I'm like, you go and do what you want and, my 11 and nine, so a little bit behind you in development years and such, but my 11 year old will be a sixth grader, and we gave her an Apple Watch. We don't want her on a smart screen yet, but everybody's getting watches or something, right? Yeah, yeah, right. We go down that rabbit hole later if we want but the screens. Yeah, but anyway, but most of our friend group in this area, you know, kids are getting watches, and it has the added benefit of that, it's actually strapped to you, so it's harder to lose a watch over a phone. But being a lot of them are getting Apple money put on there. And you know, she's asking about bank accounts, and she's really starting to just like, blossom in her critical thinking. It's awesome. I love it, but it's also been nerve wracking because my wife and I are like, Oh, we thought we had more time to talk through this, right and and so roundabout way of saying, like, I'm glad you exist, because I think a lot of parents are like me, where we think we have more time, or we'll plan to educate our kids at this point in their journey, because that's what books say, or that's what we read, or our family did it that way, right? And then all of a sudden their friend does something, or, you know, something happens in the world that they just start asking questions, and it's like, Okay, throw out the playbook. We're just going to have to prepare for that conversation.
Page: but you don't have to give in, right? I mean, right? We held off really long on screens, and I want to take two steps back and really commend you for giving your kids an allowance because money, managing money is a skill, yeah, right. It's a skill. And you can't learn the skill unless you have money to manage. There's lectures. Don't work. They have to make they have to be able to make mistakes with money. They have to have like, feel like that one time or another they overspent, and they need to feel bad about it. And then you can use that as an opportunity to acknowledge like, hey, we all overspend at times, and here's why we overspend, and here's a way to protect yourself from it, right? And it's really important, in my opinion, that you're using cash. I like right now, as adults, like, I never use cash. Everything's digital. But for kids, they need to see it and feel it and, and that they have that to use and, and, like, one last point that, like a lot of people, I think, I don't want to say, get wrong. I guess that's kind of like an opinion. But, you know, like the idea that you should get paid to do chores, yeah, like, it's real simple. Like, what if the kids like, well, you know, I've got everything I need. Like, they're getting fed, they have a roof over their head, so I'm good. I'm not going to do the chores. I don't need the money I've saved, right? Like, what are you going to say now? And they're right, they've got you right? So, you know, our kids do chores, because that's what you do as a member of the family. I'm not paying you for chores, right? Don't do the chores. I'm going to punish you. I'm you're getting money to your to and we make this very clear to them, like, this is your money to use to learn and to buy a, b and c. So for example, we set growing up on the kids like, Hey, you have a $75 cap on new shoes, anything that you want to spend above and beyond that. Great, you with your own money. So then they choose times to, like, indulge themselves. I do you have, have you done back to school shopping yet with your kids?
Anderson: No, no.
Page: Okay, I got a little trick, and it works like a charm. So I'm sure you have a budget for back to school shopping. Everybody does. You have a list of stuff from the school that you that you're required to purchase. Okay, so here's what you do. You print that list, and then you take whatever you were going to spend for their back to school shopping, pull it out in cash, right? And, like, if you can, like, in ones or fives, like, you know, it's like, a big stack, and just tell the kids, okay, we're going to do back to school shopping, and here's the list of the things you're required to buy from the school. And as far as everything else is concerned, it's up to you, and whatever you don't spend, you keep. And you've, what you've just done is you've, you've turned the tables from going shopping and having a kid saying, Can I have, can I have? Can I have? Because why wouldn't they? Because, whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly to being like, Here you go. Here's all the money that we were going to spend after you buy your school supplies. If you don't think you need X, Y and Z, don't buy it. And I remember doing this with my youngest for the first time, and like, the first thing that my youngest said was, well, I don't feel like I need new shoes, so I need to buy new shoes. Like, No, keep the money. Yeah, my youngest. So my youngest would spend, like, at the time, my youngest was like eight or nine, and would spend like, very little money, right? Like, super, super frugal. Now, hat tip, my youngest is a rising senior. My youngest works. They have a like a meticulous budget. And we did start investing in a kitty IRA, they have $32,000 saved.
Anderson: That's awesome.
Page: Now, I don't want people to think, Oh, my God, I'm some sort of wizard with all my kids, like, because my my oldest has about 25 $30,000 saved. But he spends everyone so I'll get, like, literally, next week he's leaving for Morocco, and then he's gonna pop a flight to Norway, like he goes, Yes, he's 22 which is good. I want him to like work is about experiences like stress that you got to spend too. You can't just save, right? No Fun, right? But my middle kid has about 11 cents. They're not all they're all different. And you know, I'm continuing to, like, talk to him at the appropriate time, but, yeah, there's gonna be a come to Jesus moment for him eventually. Yes, yeah. So anyhow,
Anderson: I mean, it's like, I remember I went to college, you know, private liberal arts university. It was expensive, got scholarships to get it down. But my sister stayed in our hometown, went to the state school, and because she's a wizard and super genius, basically got enough scholarships where she was getting paid to go to school, right? Because, wow, my parents also worked at that university, so with tuition remission in our city, was it Purdue? Purdue University, so land grant school, you know, not a bad school by any stretch the imagination. But, you know, because it was in our own backyard, like certain percentage of every, you know, they have to have a certain amount of people from that area go to the school, you know, all these kind of rules. But I was like, I gotta get out of here. I'm not meant to live in Lafayette. I'm kind of like your oldest. I need to your oldest. I need to travel and stuff. But I remember my sister guilt tripping me, as siblings do about like, I'm spending more of my parents money by going to these other places and and I was like, if they want to spend the money on me, they can, right? But in the same vein, I worked my took us off the college the summer before I left for college, I worked 12 hour days cleaning apartments at Purdue University, like flipping all the housing for the next school year and making bank. But it sucked. I had a few days coming home in tears just being like, why am I doing this? I hate this. And my mom was like, You're not, I'm not gonna let you quit unless you have a really, truly valid reason, like you're being harassed, or, you know, something, right? Because you're not gonna find another job. And we had an agreement that you're gonna pay part of your college, you know, like they're helping with tuition, but I was doing basically room and board and fun money. So yeah, I had to Bank A lot of money that summer, and now I know everything you need to know how to clean apartment really well. It stuck with me for 20 some years, but it also gave me, like you said, like, that value of money, because everybody else who worked there, there were some college students at Purdue that were on some of the crews, but the main staff that were full time employees, they didn't go to college. They all were blue collar people that had had worked hard lives and no value judgment on white or blue or whatever kind of work people do. But when they would tell us other jobs that they had, like on lunch breaks or whatever, I'm like, Oh God, I probably could do that, but I can't imagine doing that my entire life, and talking with my parents as well, and my dad opening up. And he may have said something in my younger years, but he told me like he didn't go to college right away because he had to pay his own way through college. My grandfather was a very interesting man, but he had to work. My dad worked for about six, seven months to save up to go to college, and he worked third shifts on assembly lines, doing whatever he could to make money. He even kept working. He lived in our church as the janitor for a room, and he would play local coffee shops just to make change some nights with his guitar. And I'm just like, Geez, dad. He's like, I didn't want to not have options, and I wanted to be in a place to provide for whomever I married and had children with, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I was like, Okay, got it. Got it. And so, yeah, all of that value has definitely been passed on to me and in various ways and my sister. But I don't know where I went out, why I went off on that tangent, other than to say, like, we're all different, and yeah, and to go back to your point, money is a tool, right? Like, I want my kids to know that they're more important than money. And I work because I like working, and I have an added benefit of getting paid enough that allows us some luxury. And by luxury, I mean, we can go on a couple of fun vacations, like we went to spring break. We took the girls to Spain to give them an international trip, because we had never been abroad with them. So like, yeah. Like, work your ass off, but if you're doing what you love, the money is, again, a tool, but a benefit. And shoot, there's one other thing I was gonna say, and it's gone. So anyway, yeah, money, it's crazy what it does and doesn't do for us. Oh, I remember I was gonna go back to chores are not to be paid right and right. So we we like, we don't equate. We try to not to equate chores and money. We also try to have to equate, you know, like doing your chores to get candy or more dessert Right. Like we if you want dessert, you get dessert right. But, but we sometimes will say, if you do more, we'll give you about, right? If you go above and beyond, we'll give you something like a bonus, right?
Page: Yeah, but we're what one person suggests telling the kids, okay, like, if you can recognize things that are not being done around the house, that should that should be done that aren't a part of your chores, but nobody's getting around to come, to come to us with a proposal, yeah? Kind of create some entrepreneurial thinking. Yeah, I like that. That's great.
Anderson: Yeah, we've definitely my my oldest. We're letting her ride her bike more and more, like larger circles, like she'll she biked to camp a few times with our neighbor, and I was driving her home one day from some appointment, and she was like, Dad, can I can I ask for more? I've been good, like, I'm building trust, like, can I extend the boundaries of where I'm allowed to bike by myself? And I was like, You know what? And she tends to be a little sometimes over emotional because of being an 11 and stage of life, but she brought it up to me in a very calm way, like very logical and how she was showing the trust that she was building and all this stuff. And I said, Okay, put a PowerPoint or put, you know, put a presentation together for me and mom to hear and and we will, we'll talk about it, but you're already winning me over, so I'll be on your team if you, if you keep it cool and focus. He's like, okay, got it. But the other thing I was gonna mention was we were watching some show on Netflix for kids. No good nick I think, was the name of it. Has some like Sean Astin and some other people are in it. But typical kind of like, laugh track shows that we watched as kids and now, like, great on our souls, because they're just meant for kids. So I'm watching this episode, and they are they have a chore auction, and so the three kid characters are basically bidding on the chores that are on the wall of how little they will do it for and the adopted daughter, who, you know, comes from a broken home, like all these things, is like, I'll do everything for $1 and the other kids are like, wait a minute, we need money. Like, we have to do some chores to earn money. Like, how are we gonna get spending money all this stuff? And it just, it got me really thinking. So I love your opinion, like, how does how do you see that playing out in a real family, and is there, is there benefit to getting them to understand the value of how cheap Will you do something? Because it's still going to take the same amount of time, but I'll do it for two bucks, then I'll get the two bucks, but you would never go below five, but now you're out five, right? So it was just a fascinating moment that the girls and I talked a lot about when the episode was over, because they were like, Can we do that instead? And I was like, I'm gonna talk with your mom. I'm not committed to anything without thinking game theory stuff. Yeah, kind of some game theory, yeah, yeah, some gambling in there, a little bit, yeah.
Page: I guess I like the idea of, like, listing out all the chores and almost doing it, like a, like, a draft, yeah, yeah. first pick, what are you gonna do? It's like, yeah, you know, I, I feel like that when it comes down to, you know, understanding, like the labor market, and, I mean, you're kind of getting into some advanced thinking of opportunity costs and outsourcing and how low, how much is your time worth? I don't know. I don't have any experience with, like, understanding at what age that is important to start teaching. I would think like maybe high school a little bit, but yeah, I don't know the answer that I feel like that one of the one of the ways that is that you can help kids understand how to deal with that would be just to force them to get a job like so for all three of our children, they had to do something, right? So it was either you or an activity, a sport, or get a job like you can't just go to school. That's not That's not life. And I think the value of working for someone who can fire you and then shopping around to try to find a job that you think is worth your time, is how I did it, but I don't know, maybe the other way would work.
Anderson: The characters are definitely in high school, so I wouldn't necessarily do it with my nine year old. She's not ready for that abstract level of thought, I think, as you were explaining, but, but, but, yeah, I think it does put some Well, I will say I like some of the other examples you said instead. So I'll test some of those out.
Page: It’s the Fair Play Method, right? Yeah. I mean, I know it's not the conception, planning execution, but, you know, having a draft and then, like, what I would encourage you to do is, once that they, you know, select the chores, you know, discuss. Well, why did you choose this? So it could be skills, it could be preferences, and then teach them how to do it. Like, teach them CPE, like, for, for example, the guard, like, I'm just going to use the garbage for Bryce, like, he that's his job. And so that means he has to remember to do it. He has to recognize when we need new trash bags. He has to go to the grocery to get the trash bags or put it on the list. So it's not like I just take the garbage out when mom and dad tell me, right, right? So I'm teaching him, you know, that's the conception of like, doing it. And then the planning is making sure your calendar alerts are are on. You know, there's because there's a lot that goes into chores other than the task itself. So my recommendation is to teach him all of those, to teach your kids all of those things.
Anderspon: Awesome. Well, we're getting close to time for our 30 minute window. Is there a win that you've had recently, or a big, yeah, a win that you had recently, either through modern husbands or work with other dads, parents in this space that, like has given you new hope or fueled your tank.
Page: You know, I presented for Hilti. It's a big company on Monday. Was it Monday? Or is it right? Yeah, I think it was no Friday. Presented on Friday for their ERG, and it was focused on, you know, how to bring men to the table to talk about managing money in the home, in particular as a team. And I just had a ball with with of those people. It was well attended. There were like, 40 or 50 people there, and the feedback was, was super positive. And I was like, crying. I'm like, Look, I need constructive feedback for improvement. And they're like, we literally got nothing. Everybody just loved it. And it felt, it just felt really good to step into a space and, you know, help people understand, you know, how they can create systems in their home and bring men to the table to do that, to alleviate a lot of the stress and tension that comes in relationships when you don't do it well.
Anderson: I love that. We'll pause there for the win. I'll put, I'll put links to all the cool stuff that you're doing, but we'll, we'll pause the recording now and thank everybody for listening.
Page: If you need someone to help manage the manage money as a team, or manage the home as a team. I'm the nation's only accredited financial counselor and fair play facilitator, so that's what I'd spend a lot of time doing, is counseling folks, couples, usually, but sometimes individuals through specific circumstances.
Anderson: Awesome. I will make sure people know that in the liner notes as well if they don't make it to the end of the 30 minutes, but, but yeah, for those of you who did make it this far, thank you for listening to me and Brian. It's not we don't just share a name. We share a lot of values and expectations of our family. So thank you all for listening this week, and we will see you again soon. Bye, everyone.
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