← How to Money
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- [00:00]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
Joel
Where do you see your career in 10 years? What are you doing now to help you get there? The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has reskilling courses in a variety of categories like marketing and management to help your income live as long as you do. That's right.
- [00:20]
AARP Representative
AARP has a bevy of free skill building courses for you to choose from because the steps that you choose to take today will help you to love what you do in the future. And that's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org skills run a.
- [00:37]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-IHeart.
- [00:52]
Frances Fry
Hi, I'm Frances Fry.
- [00:53]
Anne Morris
And I'm Anne Morris.
- [00:55]
Joel
And.
- [00:55]
Frances Fry
And we are the hosts of a new TED podcast called Fixable.
- [00:58]
Anne Morris
We've helped leaders at some of the world's most competitive companies solve all kinds of problems.
- [01:04]
Frances Fry
On our show, we'll pull back the curtain and give you the type of honest, unfiltered advice we usually reserve for top executives.
- [01:11]
Anne Morris
Maybe you have a co worker with boundary issues or you want to know how to inspire and motivate your team.
- [01:16]
Frances Fry
No problem is too big or too small. Give us a call and we'll help you solve the problems you're stuck on. Find Fixable wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [01:27]
Joel
Welcome to how to Money. I'm Joel, and today we're talking about pulling the most powerful money levers with Professor Kristen Cariotti. So my guest today says you can't transform the world if you're living paycheck to paycheck. I tend to agree. And money literacy is at the heart of avoiding that fate. And so not only did Professor Kristin Cariotti literally write the personal finance textbook, but she also found a way to make personal finance classes a requirement at her school, which is Mount Mary University. And Kristen, she's boots on the ground, right? She's teaching the next generation how to think about and how to handle money more effectively. And so I'm curious to hear what it's like getting young folks to care about personal finance as much as she does. There's a lot to cover in this conversation. So, Professor Kristen Cariotti, thank you for joining me today on the show happy to be here. And we can get into this in a second, but Professor Cariotti has been a listener to how to money over the years, so that's really cool. And I want to talk a lot about your textbook, but first things first. What's your craft beer equivalent? What do you splurge on while you're also doing the smart stuff with your money in the here and now?
- [02:54]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Love the question. And you can call me Kristen. I would say. My family owns a donut business, and so my husband works weekends. So typically once a weekend, I will get a weekend morning babysitter so that I can go out in the world and be a person, exercise, do whatever I want. And that feels good to me, but it is a splurge.
- [03:16]
Joel
I love that. And I totally want to ask about your husband's donut business and my research. I found out about this, and I'm curious if I drive up there if we can share a donut together one of these days? Maybe.
- [03:29]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Heck, yeah. Okay, let me know.
- [03:31]
Joel
Is it hard to abstain from the donut eating? Given the amount of free donuts? I'm sure that are. They're alluring, they're tempting, they're amazing.
- [03:40]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah. People will see me eat them and they'll say, aren't you sick of them? I'm like, that's why I married my husband, for the free donuts. I still like them.
- [03:51]
Joel
Yeah, yeah, sure. He's a nice guy, but he makes awesome donuts. That's why I'm married.
- [03:55]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah.
- [03:55]
Joel
All right, I want to talk about. Let's talk about that for a second then. Because he runs this. How long has he run the business? And what has this foray into entrepreneurship, this starting a small business, which is not for the faint of heart. What has that taught you about personal finance? Maybe by proxy, but obviously you guys are in this together to a certain extent.
- [04:16]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah. So he took over the business from his aunt and uncle, and he's really grown it a lot since then, I would say. What I've learned is us having to take a lot of responsibility for our finances. He works a lot, a ton of hours. And so understanding how the business works is really helpful for me, especially if he's coming home late on a Saturday because he is delivering wedding donuts. You know, I kind of have a good idea of the profit margin on a, you know, on wedding donuts. So that helps me understand. Okay. You know, it's wedding season. This is where he makes his money, and it helps us be a better team together.
- [04:58]
Joel
Okay. Because of your husband's experience in running this small business. Is entrepreneurship and business ownership, is that something you cover and stress? As someone who talks about personal finance, do you think it's important for people to consider that they should be considering that avenue more than. More than they. More than they do or is like. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on just entrepreneurship and small business ownership overall.
- [05:23]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Absolutely. I think that students really need to understand the trade offs. I'm an economist, so I'm always thinking trade offs, right?
- [05:30]
Joel
Yeah.
- [05:31]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Of the gig economy of side hustles. You know, they sound maybe promising, but there could be a significant trade off with those. So we talk about self employment as like a full time gig. We talk about side hustles and part time work in the gig economy and how to use those options when they make the most sense in your life. So you know, sometimes it might make sense to do some gig work for a small time, a short time in your life. And they can have a lot of benefits, but they also have costs.
- [06:04]
Joel
Yes. And I think especially in the gig economy that we're now fully living in the. The assumption that, oh, I'm picking up this side hustle makes sense for me should be questioned a lot more because maybe it does and maybe it does for a short period of time, but I think a lot of people can become reliant on some of those gigs. And the gigs might not be the best paying and they might not be the best from an income standpoint over the long term. Let's talk about personal finance education. Let's talk about your textbook, because you literally wrote the textbook about personal finance, which is so fascinating. It's just a joke. The people. Oh, the person who wrote the textbook on this. But you did. But you were infusing personal finance into your classes for years beforehand. So what did that look like? What sort of tactics were you using?
- [06:55]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
So I've been teaching economics and business courses for 15 years. What I notice is that students are really hungry for financial literacy. So I could be teaching about just about anything. And a 401k comes up and students have questions. So we kind of stop class and we talk about 401ks. And I was always happy to take the tangent to discuss those things because we didn't have a personal finance course at Mount Mary. We since have added a personal finance course in the last four years. So we didn't have one until 2021. And then starting this fall, we decided to add it to our core curriculum. So all students, regardless of their Major take personal finance as a graduation requirement. It's a 3 credit and it gives us.
- [07:45]
Joel
So they all got to come through you.
- [07:46]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
They all have to come through me or one of our other instructors. But the reality is if it's not required, they probably won't take it.
- [07:56]
Joel
So you said students are hungry to learn this, which fascinates me because where is the disconnect? Most people, at least throughout the American education system for so many years, until very recently, has not been a requirement in almost anywhere. College, high school, anything. Get out into the real world. And if they were lucky, their parents taught them something about money. But most people, completely unlucky, make a ton of mistakes and then maybe go out and learn on their own, hopefully. But many just decades of poor money stewardship. And it's not because it's a personal fault or a lack of or a moral failing. It really is because they don't know anything about the subject.
- [08:41]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, yeah, I believe that we are late to it. Right? I mean, states are just coming around to requiring it. I live in Wisconsin and it's now a requirement in our state to learn in high school, but best practice is to learn it in middle school, high school, college and beyond. So where is the disconnect? That's a tough one to answer. I think colleges and universities are slow to adapt to the needs of our students. But for me and for our institution, we really see it as a responsibility that we need our students to graduate with these life skills because we say our mission is to educate women to transform the world. But like you said in the intro, you can't transform the world if you're living paycheck to paycheck.
- [09:31]
Joel
Well, I was just quoting you. That's what you said. Well, I think of personal finance should be almost like a language requirement because I think you're right because it really is its own language in a lot of ways. So I started taking Spanish when I was in seventh grade and I took it all the way through sophomore year of college and guess what? I'm still not the best Spanish speaker. Sadly, I should be better. And maybe if I'd lived in a foreign country for six months or something, I would be fluent. But I never had that immersion experience. But do you think personal finance should be similar? Because it does have. There's a lot to learn. Again, you wrote the book. There are hundreds of pages about this stuff. So uninterested, we've not been confronted with the material that maybe it should be like a slow drip over a long period of time.
- [10:20]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Absolutely. And I had to learn to write the book in a way that simplified it a little more than I even thought. You know, some students coming into the class maybe took it in high school, maybe didn't, or they took it in high school, but it was a long time ago, or they took it and they didn't have maybe a great instructor or they just. I didn't get a lot from it because it was like a short course or something. So I really had to kind of really go down to the fundamentals. Even talking about the difference between a checking account and a savings account. And where do you put your basic emergency fund? Things that maybe we take for granted or we think that all students know they don't. And so really starting from zero and recognizing that students have to unlearn a lot of things too, that they're coming into the class maybe having learned something from their parents or from TikTok that just isn't correct and they have to unlearn those things. I have students coming in who think credit cards are bad and their parents won't let them get one. Credit cards can absolutely be bad, but we know that no credit equals bad credit. Explaining that to students and learning how to open a credit card account. But use it wisely. Okay, pick one category. You're just going to use it to buy gas and you're going to pay it off each month. Things like that, they have to kind of unlearn.
- [11:49]
Joel
That's a really good point. I hadn't even really thought about that. Yeah, maybe you're indoctrinated in some bad habits that you have to overcome. And so it's not just like starting from scratch. Let me teach you the game plan. But it's like we have to confront some of those pre existing notions of what smart money management looks like. I'm curious too. You decided to write a textbook. Do you remember there was a professor at one point who released an index card and he said everything you need to know about personal finance exists on this 3 by 5 index card? Funnily enough, he turned that into a book too, which just like, okay, you're going to elaborate on this, but do you feel like a textbook was necessary? Any chance that a textbook is overkill and that maybe what we need to know about personal finance can be summed up in less time?
- [12:35]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
So I actually think that the seven steps to Financial freedom, which I borrowed from you guys, is the seven Money Gears. I think that sums it up pretty well. What I love about it is that students can learn it in Personal finance. And not only can they share it with their parents, their siblings, their friends while they're in the course, but they can keep coming back to it. It's like a one pager. Speaking of the index card, it's just a one page. Like, here are the seven steps. And we know that students, they might get to step three, and then they might get back down to step one or step two, and then they have to start over or they share it with a parent. And the parent's like, okay, I'm on step five, but I see they did this out of order. I need to go back and do something different. So I think that they can take that with them. The textbook is the fundamentals, and there's a lot to cover because we cover careers negotiation, student loans, managing debt, buying a car. You know, there's a lot to cover. But if you just want that, like one pager, I think it's the seven steps.
- [13:44]
Joel
I think you're spot on. I mean, I think there, it's, it's why we're over a thousand episodes in here on how to money. It's like there in some, in one sense, like, it is simple and you can teach the basics in no time. And something like the seven money gears is like the perfect inroad, but then it's also endlessly nuanced and potentially complicated for individuals across the spectrum. And so like, yeah, there's. There's just a lot of stuff to learn. And we live in a complicated world and the economy is quite complicated too. So the things that we have to be aware of. You cover a bunch of that stuff in your book. I'm curious, is the main problem when you're teaching students about personal finance that they don't have enough information, or is it that they don't feel empowered or able to change their circumstances? Are you confronted with that dichotomy and people like, I just don't know enough, fill my brain up. Or it's like, no, I feel like I know this stuff, but I don't know how to execute.
- [14:39]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I love that question. I think mindset matters so much. So Mount Mary is a women's institution. And so imagine having students who maybe take on statistically take on less risk, who maybe have less practice in negotiation.
- [14:59]
Joel
And that's documented in studies, right? When you look at female investors, typically they are more risk averse.
- [15:06]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
We talk about that, we say, okay, there is this gender divide, There is a negotiation gap. And just knowing that the gap exists is helpful. Just knowing, okay, you're going to go into a job, and if you don't negotiate, someone else is going to, and they're going to get paid more simply because they asked for it. They might not work any harder than you do. And so explaining that to students, but then also learning how to negotiate, teaching students about compounding interest and how exponential growth works, we can all learn it, right? But there's this bias to understanding or believing the math. Actually, people, there's just like a tendency to believe that there's only linear growth, right. And that we underestimate exponential growth. And so we talk a lot about those things. We talk a lot about behavioral finance. We talk mindset, we talk mistakes. That's one of my favorite topics, actually, is talking about money mistakes, learning from them, resetting after a money mistake. And I tell a lot of my own money mistakes, because what student doesn't love to hear their professor talk about the mistakes they've made?
- [16:21]
Joel
Which ones do you share and how did you learn from those biggest mistakes?
- [16:26]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Well, I bought a house right before the housing market crash.
- [16:31]
Joel
What was influencing you to do that at that point? Was it because you thought it was the right time in your life to own a home, or were you buying into the frenzy?
- [16:38]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I was kind of in a rush to grow up, I think, back then. So this is like 2006. I was ready to own a house, and I didn't really think about, like, the long term. Like, is this the community that I want to stay in forever or for, you know, a while? And I just. I think I was probably a little bit impatient.
- [16:57]
Joel
And so how did that impact your money journey, that. That mistake of buying a house in.
- [17:01]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
06, you know, it probably impacted me for a while because when I. When, you know, we sold that house and bought a different house, you know, those decisions kind of stick with you, and they impact the amount of equity that you can bring to another sale. So also just making splurge purchases, emotional purchases. I didn't fund my Roth IRA soon enough, so I talk a lot about that. I put a lot of graphs up on the board. We use online calculators, so we don't do things where it's like, okay, you have to calculate the value of a stock because it's just not really. We kind of say, like, we'll leave that for the finance majors and personal finance. Like, let's use the online calculators that you're gonna use in the future when you're buying a car.
- [17:51]
Joel
It's like the only thing. When I learned about money as a kid, in school, it was the stock market game. That was the only game we ever played. And it was like, I didn't learn anything from it because I bought Xerox or something like that, which it's such a poor way to teach kids about money. So if we're gonna do it, let's do it right.
- [18:08]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
It's dated. I mean, investing now is buy etf. Here are probably the few that you might want to follow. But the investing strategy is pretty boring. But it's already been diversified for you. And so buy and hold. It's dollar cost averaging.
- [18:31]
Joel
Do you think, and I'm curious, those money mistakes you made, did that ever make you feel like you were bad with money? When we talk about how a person views themselves, their identity, I think there's a lot of people who think of themselves as being bad with money. And is that something you have to confront in class as well, with your students?
- [18:50]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
We absolutely do. So when I wrote the book, I noticed that a lot of the books, they just jumped right in with maybe like, checking, savings accounts or credit cards. And my first two chapters are quite a bit of behavioral finance, quite a bit of exploring your money history and trying to figure out, okay, what was the money environment that you grew up in? Right. So it's called Money Classroom. So what was the vibe in your household? Did your parents or guardians talk about money or not? And then we kind of like, talk about that to say, like, okay, if that was your past experience, what could your future experience be? You don't have to carry that forward for you or for your dependence or your future dependence, but you can change that story. So we do a lot of just, like, examining, like, what. What is your money history and what changes can you make to move towards a more secure. Have a more secure financial future?
- [19:52]
Joel
Yeah, how important are end goals in that conversation? So I think sometimes when you're. When people are trying to teach money, it's like, let me tell you how the IRA works, and let me tell you the. The income limits for the Roth IRA and how much you can contribute to a 401k in a given year. And they're like, okay, cool. Yep, got it. Okay, here's actually the best, you know, One of the ETFs you should consider. And they're like, okay, that makes sense. But then there's no real discussion of, like, the why behind. Why we're putting money aside in these accounts in the first place. So how. How important are end goals in those conversations? In particular with students who are trying to kind of figure out personal finance.
- [20:31]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
So chapter two students are reflecting on their reason for financial freedom. So they're defining their why. To say like, why does this matter to me? So yes, I can do the things and I can put money here and I can put money there and I can pay off my credit card. But like, what is the purpose of working through these seven steps? And maybe that's because they want to start a business on their own, right? Or maybe it's because they want to provide a more secure future for their kid or whatever. So we have them define those and a couple other instructors teach the course too. So sometimes they get fun and they do things like a vision board or they discuss these in class. But I think knowing that why is really important. So that like you said, it's not just like, okay, I did the steps, but are you going to stick with it if you don't know your why?
- [21:28]
Joel
All right, Professor Kristin Cariotta, We've got more to get to. I want to talk about money habits and trade offs and a lot more that you cover your book. So we'll be right back with Professor Kristen Cariotti. My, how time flies 2025. It's going to be gone before we know it. But before it's gone, there's a lot of life to live, right? Including a lot of kid activities, the holiday get togethers and a whole lot more. All this activity though, it can cause us to put off tasks on our to do list. But juggling a million plans shouldn't mean your future doesn't make your to do list. Trust and Will turns estate planning from a when I have time task into a quick, straightforward process ensuring you're protecting your family's future today. Go to trustandwill.com howtomoney to get 20% off their simple, secure and expert backed estate planning services. That's right.
- [22:22]
AARP Representative
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- [22:52]
Joel
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- [23:29]
AARP Representative
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- [23:53]
Joel
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- [24:06]
AARP Representative
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- [24:25]
Joel
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- [24:46]
AARP Representative
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- [25:03]
Joel
All right, we're back from the break. Still talking with Professor Kristen. Talking about the most powerful money levers you can pull. And one of the things that you talk about regularly, Kristen, is habits and just talked about like identity. But identity, really, it needs to correlate to the things that we're doing regularly in our lives, almost like it's flowing out of us because that's who we've become. And we've had habit experts on the show because I just think it's a fascinating topic. But what do you think maybe are the top money habits that you want your students to have to have implemented by the time they're graduating college or entering the workforce?
- [25:45]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I would say one of the, one of the biggest habits is investing even a small amount. So if you look at the seven money gears or the seven steps, it is the habit of dollar cost averaging. So with like a Roth ira, even if it's just a small amount, to show them how interest compounds and how time matters the most. So it's not about the amount of money going, but it's the time horizon and just building up that habit, right? Of like saying, okay, I am a person who invests, even if that's only $5 a month, right? Going into a Roth IRA, or $10 or 15, it's opening that account and taking that action to open it and then setting up a monthly contribution, right? Set it in, forget it, automatic contributions and then knowing how they can change that or increase that contribution as their circumstances change. But you can start doing that in college and you probably won't miss that five or ten dollars, you'll probably forget about it. But waiting to say, well, I'm not going to start investing until like I really have I'm settled. Like I have a full time job or you know, I bought a property, you know, bought a house or something like that. You know, you're missing out on maybe five, 10 years of investing and it's time that matters. So I think that's one habit. I'm really big on investing and I kind of always have been. And I think teaching in a women's college, that that's really, really important. You know, one of my goals is for all students to leave the class, either being investors or seeing themselves as investors and having a plan to invest. Other habits. I think having a growth mindset is really important. And so just learning from mistakes and saying okay. With personal finance, a lot of times we see avoidance behavior where something bad happens, you make a mistake and so you just want to avoid the bill, you want to avoid the emails that are coming. And so having a growth mindset says, I can change this trajectory, I can figure it out, I can ask questions. And maybe that means I have to change my student loan repayment plan, or maybe that means that I have to figure out like a balance transfer, credit card but just having that growth mindset, I think, is really, really important. So I think that goes hand in hand with habits because, you know, it takes that growth mindset to develop those habits.
- [28:20]
Joel
It's like being proactive when you're confronted with a personal finance problem. And the truth is, we're all confronted with them fairly regularly. And that is something that like, okay, wait a got this bill in the mail. How do I proceed? Whether it's. If it's a health care bill, like, do I just pay it, or do I actually dig in to see whether or not this is actually what I owe? Has it gone to my insurance company first? Right. And so there's all these, like, proactive measures we need to take, whereas if we bury our head in the sand or we just pay the first bill or something like that, oftentimes we're paying more than we need to, or we. We just haven't taken the reins of our own financial life. What's the pushback you get from students? Is there a subject or something that you cover where they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that sounds a little crazy. Or do you talk about savings rates and they're like, what, saving 25 or 30%? That's insane. I don't know. I'm curious what maybe you hit on sometimes that just strikes a chord. Maybe in the opposite direction. Or they're like, I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.
- [29:19]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I think retirement is a tough sell to college students because they're so young, right. And so even. Even older adults struggle with balancing or prioritizing your future self with your present self. Right? And so your present self wants trendy clothes and wants to go out to eat, and the future self wants the nest egg. So that can be tough because, yeah, you say the R word.
- [29:47]
Joel
How do you thread that needle?
- [29:48]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, it's tough. I show them. Well, I show them graphs. And so there's some people who are visual. I can say, like, listen, I get it. But if you start here, even if it's just a minimal amount, you get all this, you know, you get this part of the curve on the exponential growth of your compounding interest, and that's where it's at, right? Like, so even a tiny amount, like, early on really, really matters. So I think it's that it's just like, opening the account, right? And so, like, okay, they're like, where do you open an account? So I say, okay, I like Fidelity, I like Vanguard. Those are two great companies to start with. Let's work through the steps to open one today, how do you set up monthly contributions? So just I think working through some of those hurdles together and making that the class. Right. The class can be like actively working on opening a Roth IRA or actively working on, okay, you're looking for a new job and you might want to consider a job that has an employer match for a 401k, like do a little bit of research and even like 30, 40 minutes of research you can see, like, hey, if I apply, you know, at this, I won't name anybody but you know, this organization or institution, like, you know, I would get the same, I'd get paid the same amount, but I would actually get the same extra payment to my future self through the employer match. So doing that research together, I think or having them do that in their assignment can be really helpful.
- [31:21]
Joel
That's so smart, especially that age, like that total benefits package. Like what's my total compensation? Not just the headline number, the annual salary that I'm getting paid. The trade offs, we know this in economics are like an ever present reality. Like it is, trade offs make the world go round in so many ways. Like if I want to sleep in, then I'm not going to get my run in. Or if I'm going to miss breakfast with a friend. Right. So what, what are the trade offs that young people often ignore when they're kind of making some of these financial decisions? Or maybe what are some of the trade offs that feel the most difficult? Is it, oh man, I feel like I'm gonna have to give up all these things that I love and care about. Like I can't go to see Taylor Swift because tickets are $1,200 and that means that I can't do both. I can't do all of these things. How do you talk about that reality of trade offs in personal finance?
- [32:09]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, you know, one thing we talk about is how the fun stuff is what goes on social media and the trade off of you staying home and packing your lunch probably didn't make it to social media. Right. Like, I don't know, maybe meal prep, that's kind of popular.
- [32:27]
Joel
If you can be that influencer, that's impressive, you know.
- [32:29]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, but like for the most part, like you know, paying off your student loans or paying or maybe you got in over your head on a car loan and so you actually decided to downgrade and go with a less expensive car that doesn't make it on social media. So I think talking about those things and just recognizing that like sometimes boring or the less Sexy stuff is just not what makes it to social media or what you see from your friends. But thinking about what are the ways that you can celebrate those choices that you make, I think are really cool. And I think just them sharing with each other, like, I decided to do this instead of this. I didn't go to the Taylor Swift concert. Right. Or I didn't go out with my friends. Instead we decided to all go for a hike or something. I think sharing those decisions can be really, really helpful because I do that stuff all the time. I mean, I'm like, you guys, I'm proud of you, Aldi Shopper. I am a proud person who's like always calling the medical bill and making sure, is this truly the price? Let me do a little investigation. So I think modeling that for students is also helpful.
- [33:48]
Joel
You work with a student population. You've said that a lot of your students are actually living paycheck to paycheck. Many of them are working one, maybe even two jobs as they're getting through school as well. Is it harder or is it easier to reach students given kind of those students, given the constraints they are under? Is. I'm just curious because maybe in some ways they are making an income and they have seen maybe some of the negative realities of living paycheck to paycheck. So you don't have to convince them of that. Whereas if they came from a house where mom and dad were paying for their education, they don't have to work at all during school. Maybe it just, it doesn't feel as tangible. So what is it like teaching a student population that kind of maybe trends in that direction?
- [34:30]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah. So I'd say for a lot of students in college that that is kind of a normal state to be living paycheck to paycheck. It's the foundation that the students have or maybe the privilege that students have had or don't have that can really impact them in terms of learning personal finance and again, providing them that foundation. I think the challenge is teaching to a wide range of money experiences. Some students will come in with no credit card. Some students will come in with one or two credit cards and using them, paying off the monthly or paying off the statement balance every month. And then some are coming in with quite a bit of credit card debt. So it's teaching to the different experiences and where they're at that can be challenging. And so I think actually the seven steps are so helpful because not everyone's going to be on that same step, but we can all talk about them. In a way that, okay, you're on step three, you're on step one, and you are on five, but you missed out on two. So using that as a framework can be something that's. That's helpful. When they do have different experiences coming.
- [35:49]
Joel
Into the class, kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier, connecting it to a goal. I mean, similar thing with the order of operations, having a specific one through seven sort of way to go, versus just throwing out a litany of action items that you could do, giving kind of a, well, this is the most important thing for you with where you're at right now. Did your students tend to identify with that and be like, oh, okay, this is where I'm at? And then also maybe get excited about how quickly they can move. I mean, we get listener emails all the time, and they're like, I'm in money gear three, man. I'm going to plan on being money gear five, like, 14 months from now. And there's something about that specificity of, like, here's where I'm at, here's where I'm headed that can just help move the needle and I think make progress happen a lot more quickly for people.
- [36:37]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, you need a map, you need a guide. And so I think for the same reason there's a ton of research that, like, checklists matter and they work. So the same reason a doctor is going to use a checklist when they're going into a surgery to say, like, okay, these are the things I know have to happen to have a successful surgery that works in personal finance. Right. So the students can say, like, okay, I'm checking things off as I go, and I can see where I'm at and where I have to go. I also love it that they're universal, that if you came in with debt, if you came in with a money education, where you had to learn a lot of things, you still use the same seven steps. Even the age thing. I might have some traditional age students who are 21, and then I might have some students who are returning adult students who are maybe in their 30s or 40s. It's the same seven steps.
- [37:36]
Joel
Are those students who are coming back to school later in life, do you feel like they're impacted differently by the personal finance course?
- [37:42]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Well, they're kind of my favorite students. They really get it and they see the value in it. So I would say because they have so much life experience or so much more life experience that they're able to probably ask more questions or just really understand different Things with employer benefits or, you know, health insurance, HSA reimbursements, all sorts of things. Yeah, but it's great to have those students together, right? It's great to have them in the class because otherwise it's just like I don't want to just be talking about my experience the whole time. I love it when they interact with each other.
- [38:22]
Joel
So I'm curious, do you bring up the word budget? And if so, how do you bring it up? Because there's like this knee jerk aversion, I think, to that word. And most people view that word almost like a four letter word, like it's profane, like, get that out of my face. That's a lifestyle ruiner right there, professor. So how do you talk about that in a way that maybe isn't off putting?
- [38:45]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, I get it. So we call budgets a plan and we keep coming back to that word, right?
- [38:52]
Joel
Like it's a plan, rebrand it, you know.
- [38:53]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, exactly. And we also keep it pretty open on how students want to do their plan. So they can do, if they want to do a budgeting app, awesome. If they want to do a spreadsheet or paper and pencil, like whatever works for them. So we kind of go through like, here are some common ways to budget. But we always do zero based budget. So regardless of the method, the plan is always in a zero based budget. Every dollar has a job. So we use it as a plan, we use it as a tool. And one of the things that we do is we show how, okay, if you have a baseline budget and then you have a future budget and you have a financial goal, and that financial goal is to, let's say you're step one and you want to increase, you want to build your basic emergency fund. Okay, you've got nothing and you need $1,500.
- [39:48]
Joel
What we do 2,467, you know, whatever.
- [39:52]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Are you an economist?
- [39:54]
Joel
I wish.
- [39:56]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
We say, okay, now use your budget and show how you could do that in four months. Use your budget and show how you could do that in six months or whatever, eight 12 months. And so we use it as a tool to say like, okay, here are some different scenarios. And the cool thing about maybe a spreadsheet is that you can just copy it over and say, okay, if we just change the timeline, how can we move these levers and see how we can make change faster or slower? It doesn't always have to be fast, but we can say also, let's say you do pick up some side work and maybe it's not. Maybe it's not like gig work how we normally think about it, but maybe you're like, you babysit or you cut hair on the side, right? If you could bring in an extra 100 bucks a month, how can that impact your goal and your plan?
- [40:45]
Joel
What are some of the biggest lifestyle reactions that some of your students have had? I'm curious. Has anyone ever come up and been like, professor Cariotti, it turns out I just realized this. I can't actually afford the school that I'm going to right now, or I've got to reconsider my approach to student loans. I mean, what sorts of light bulb moments have you seen in the classroom?
- [41:07]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, when we do, when we look at careers, we do research your career and then we do research yourself and then we kind of talk about like, is that a match for you? Because if you are investing in your degree and then there's not going to be a payoff for that. There's a gap there and how are you going to make that up?
- [41:28]
Joel
So have you seen people change majors because of the personal finance class?
- [41:33]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
We don't track that, but possibly what we do use is the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. It's a government website. Again, not the sexiest tool, but it does a good job of explaining what the job outlook is for a certain career. But it also shows you adjacent careers. So maybe you always thought you wanted to be a nurse or go into real estate. Those are two different things. But you look up that job and it's like in their assignment, look up these two jobs that you think you might want to go into and then look at the adjacent jobs. Like, what else is similar to that but possibly has like a better job outlook? And how do you keep your options open so that you can maybe do that? We talk about experiential learning, internships, job shadows, interviews, all these ways to learn more about this career that you're going into. You're spending a lot of money right, on your degree and is that truly the best thing for you? Do that job shadow because it's like free, right? A job shadow is like half a day.
- [42:40]
Joel
Test it out first.
- [42:42]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Test it out and see and learn. Like, okay, I like what they're doing, but what's she doing over there? That looks cool. Or I'm going to sit in on this meeting or this call because it's similar, but it's maybe a little bit different. Or I didn't even know that that job existed.
- [42:58]
Joel
Do you have discussions about dream jobs versus the commensurate pay and the likelihood of success. Like, I think about how a huge percentage of young people, myself included, when I was a little, I was like, I want to be a professional basketball player. And there was no chance that was gonna happen for me. Right. It does. It doesn't matter how much work I put in. It just, it was impossible. Even even though I'm six' six, I just don't have. I have zero talent.
- [43:27]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Sorry about that, Joel.
- [43:28]
Joel
Yeah, I know people ask me all the time and it just rubs me wrong way because they're like, do you play basketball? And I'm like, kind of, but not really well. So yeah, when you talk about that, there is this kind of. There has been this push, I think, in a big part of our culture to say, choose the thing that lights you up and that makes you happy every single day. And I think it's the rare people who really get that ultimate blend of all things where they absolutely love their work every day, day in, day out, and they get paid incredibly well. How do you talk about that? The trade offs there?
- [44:04]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I talk about how job security also makes you pretty happy.
- [44:08]
Joel
That's true.
- [44:10]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
And so I'm a labor economist, so I think a lot about careers and why people choose the jobs that they do. And I also have four kids and I'm probably not going to be the parent who's like, follow your dreams. I'm going to be like, here's a menu of options. We'll see if that works. Maybe two or three will follow that. But the reality is that. But jobs change, industries change. Right. So you might have those hopes. It might not even be there when you get to graduation. But also there's other ways to fill that bucket and it might not be your full time job. So if you love personal training, for example, you might want to go into exercise science and you might want to pursue that as a full time career. Awesome. You might also want to do something else and do that on the side. Right. That you don't have to give it up. There's other ways to fulfill those passions through volunteer work, through part time work and through travel. There's all sorts of ways to do that. I don't think it always has to be your full time job. And like you said, it's often not.
- [45:26]
Joel
Yeah, sometimes when you make your passion your job, you hate your passion. Like it turns on you too. So you have to be careful about that. All right, I got a few more questions I want to get to with you, Kristen. Specifically want to talk about like Fintech and tools that people use to make money progress. I'm curious to hear your take on those and how much your students adopt them and whether or not they're super helpful. So we'll get to a few more questions with Professor Kristen Cariotti about powerful money levers right after this. Tracking your spending well, it might seem daunting, but it's a crucial first step to taking control back. And that's because finances that can be messy and confusing. Well, Monarch Money acts like your personal cfo, giving you full visibility and control so you can stop earning and start growing. Monarch has so much functionality, but the basic dashboard even is just one of my favorite features. You get your net worth, your goals, and crucial budgeting data all right there when you first log in. I love it.
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- [48:58]
Joel
All right, we're back. Still talking with Professor Kristen Cariadi about the most powerful money levers that you can pull to make lots of financial progress in your life. And this has already been so informative. I love just hearing kind of what's going on inside the classroom and the way that young people are responding to the material that you're covering and just like how much you care about this. Obviously, Kristen, I mean this is clearly a passion of yours and something that you've cared about for a long time and you're turning that into a lot of education for a lot of people. You're impacting the lives of young people in a significant way. I gotta imagine they're gonna go forward in like five years from now, be like, yeah, I have this like Roth Ira with like 50 grand in it because of my professor. Like that's a really cool thing.
- [49:41]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Yeah, heck yeah.
- [49:42]
Joel
To be able to make happen. And I hope they reach back out to you because I know that means a lot to teachers too when they get that email randomly or something like that. From a former student. I'm curious though when like we've experienced this massive fintech boom. I think some of it's been good, some of it's been not so good. Those initial companies felt like they were coming from this place like Acorns or just ynab, just some great companies trying to really help people out and translate personal finance into the digital age. But since then I feel like we've seen a lot of companies maybe not preying on people, but not maybe behaviorally taking advantage of people in some ways to get them to do things that are not in their best interest. So how do you talk about personal finance tools? Which ones people should pick up or which ones people should like, avoid when it comes to managing their money? Do you think digital tools are a necessity or helpful or could be the opposite?
- [50:41]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I think do what works. If a tool or an app works for you and you like it, go for it. Don't force it. If you try something and it's not working, I mean, how many apps have you tried and you're like, it's not going to work for me. Sometimes there's a reason why the envelope system worked for so many people for so long. There's a reason why just writing down something in a journal or maybe in your notes app, let's say you're doing a no spend challenge. So you're trying to not spend money for a month or two weeks or something. You can just write that down in your notes app in your phone. It doesn't have to be some fancy tool. So yeah, do what works. And we also take a DIY approach A lot of times there are a lot of ways that students get kind of preyed upon. So thinking about things like debt settlement, credit repair, there's a lot of ways. And subscription pricing models that students use that they can do those things on their own through a DIY approach using free resources. A company can't fix your credit any better than you can on your own. Right.
- [52:00]
Joel
But they'll try to charge you a lot for taking it off your hands. Right?
- [52:03]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Exactly, yeah. And you can do all of that yourself with just learning kind of some basics. So we do quite a bit of education on what's the DIY approach to something making sure that you're not paying for something that you don't truly need. Identity theft is another one. Students using some subscription based identity theft products services and they're really not valuable, they should be spending their money elsewhere.
- [52:34]
Joel
That's one of those things that doesn't really get talked about much in the personal finance space is how much bad but seemingly good stuff is out there for people like credit repair. When you hear the advertisement, it sounds like a no brainer. Yeah, well, my credit stinks. It's in the dumps. I should totally sign up for that. This service that's going to help me out of that. And there are other services like Self, which used to be called Self Lender that is kind of cool and can help you raise your score in a reasonable real way that doesn't cost too much money. But then there's all these Other players out there that will totally take advantage of you and charge you way too much and it is something you could do yourself. How do you talk about realizing or seeing spotting those bad players who will take advantage of you and, or you know, even people who maybe you're just not ready for a financial advisor yet and it is going to be costly. So it's not even that they're bad or they're trying to take advantage of you. It's just that you're not at that point in your personal finance progress where that's necessary. How do you talk to students about like how avoiding the bad stuff and waiting on stuff that they might not be ready for?
- [53:42]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I'm going to add another example and that's life insurance, right? You know, life insurance. Don't you care about your family? Don't you want to protect them? So there is good life insurance, right? And I think we agree that that's term. But other types of life insurance often are being sold to people and they don't really need them. They're being overinsured. So you know, I think comes down to doing your research, just trying to be skeptical, like can I, is someone trying to sell me something? Can I do this on my own? Asking questions, we talk about the different types of financial advisors and so asking questions if you are going to look into using a financial advisor or using the right type. So we get into that. So do research, be skeptical, ask questions.
- [54:33]
Joel
Last question for you. When it comes to learning personal finance, as you know, you have been kind of an avid lifelong learner in this space. You it's not one and done. You don't take the class in college and then you're just set for the rest of your life. You know everything you need to know and your personal finance life is going to go perfectly. So how do you talk to your students about becoming a lifelong learner in this space and maybe some great places to turn or what it looks like to continue to pursue that education once they finish your class?
- [55:03]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I think knowing yourself really matters. They do self assessments in the course and so having that knowledge of like, okay, I value experiences over things. So that's like a money value self assessment or there's one on valuing your present self versus your future self. Like are you balanced? Do you over prioritize one or the other? I think in the class kind of knowing some of those sort of those types or some of those like tendencies can be really helpful moving forward because in the future then they can say like, oh, I'm A person who values experiences over things. That's why I'm choosing this. Or that's why they didn't really feel that good. It seemed like it was a good idea to buy that thing. But what I really want to do is spend time with this person or whatever. So I think that's one thing is just setting them up to know themselves better and then, you know, find what works for you. Is that a podcast? You know, is that the how to Money podcast? It should be. Yeah, it should be. Look at your feed in your social media. Are you following people who are encouraging money management that aligns with your money values? And it doesn't always have to be like a finfluencer or someone who's just talking about money, but it could be someone who's into anti consumption or someone who's into zero waste or something like that. And so kind of curating the information that comes in. But I also recommend a few books. I recommend some people to follow and always tell them that they can always reach out to me, that I'd be happy to hear from them and answer their questions and hear how life's going for them.
- [56:46]
Joel
I love it. Okay, where can our listeners find out more about you and find out more about your textbook? If they want the Granular full on guide to how to manage all their personal finances, your textbook could certainly be a resource for them. So yeah, where can how do money listers find out more about you and that?
- [57:05]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
I have a pretty basic website. It's just KristenCariotti.com and on that website I can make sure that the seven steps to financial freedom are there. So that's just that one pager that you can use and reference over and over. But my book's on Sage Publishing's website and I'm also on LinkedIn.
- [57:25]
Joel
Awesome. It was a pleasure talking with you, Kristen. Thank you so much for joining me today on the show.
- [57:29]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
Thank you.
- [57:30]
Joel
Oh man, that was great. Really glad to have Professor Kristen Cariotti on to talk about personal finances with me today. And I love that it goes like she obviously nerds out about personal finances to the point that she wrote the textbook, to the point that she prodded her college to start offering a personal finance class when it previously didn't exist and then was obviously persuasive enough to get her college to be like, yeah, we're going to make that a requirement for everyone to graduate. And this was before it kind of became widespread really in the culture and some states had it mandatory at that point in time. But Many states didn't. And so I'm just, I think it's fascinating to hear the details of what it looks like to reach especially a lot of younger people who are getting out into the real world, starting to manage personal finances. I mean, for a lot of us, college was our first experience of living life on our own. Of like, I know for me much. I don't know what this says about me, but, like, doing my own laundry, right before then, my mom did all my laundry. My kids now do their own laundry. I've learned from that. But, like, going out there and managing your own finances is a tall task, especially in a world where we're drawn by marketing and images of celebrities and like, just popular culture, the things that it espouses as being good often cost a heck of a lot of money. And so I just love that Professor Kristin cariotti is in the trenches talking about these things with her students. And it sounds like it's having a massive impact. I think just a couple of the big things that struck me in this conversation, I love when she talked about unlearning as a necessity. And the truth is, yeah, we're you listening to this podcast. You're not starting from scratch. You are not like an empty piece of paper where we can just kind of start writing something fresh. Like there might need to be things that are scribbled out. We might need to break out the whiteout, right. And just go to town on some of the pages that you have written, whether it's in the things that you think are the most important when it comes to money, whether it is in the money habits, maybe that you've handled, some of which are bad habits. So know that, hey, what do I need to go back to the drawing board on and maybe rethink what's maybe a money script that's underlying a lot of how I behave and think about and handle my money that I haven't questioned. And maybe I need to go back and question that. So unlearning can be a necessity in making progress with our money. I also really appreciate it and I think this is something we talk about on the show regularly as well. Truly, the unsexy stuff doesn't make it on social media, but a lot of that unsexy stuff is what sets you up for a lot of success, a lot of extra margin in your life and a lot of future optionality. So it's not going to make the influencer hall of fame. Some of those decisions that you choose to make that are better for your ultimate financial reality. It just what struck me when she was talking about that was the basic example in the book, the Millionaire Next Door, which is super old school personal finance book. And when you hold up two pictures to somebody, one of a guy driving or a gal driving a Toyota Corolla in front of a 1800 square foot house wearing just super normal clothes, and then you hold up another picture of someone in a 6,000 square foot mansion and a fancy Jaguar or something like that in a decked out suit with a Gucci bag. Well, which one of these is the financially successful person? And immediately almost everybody would point to the person with a really nice house and car as being the financially successful one. But the truth is being financially successful often doesn't present itself on the surface. The more we spend to show that we are living a certain kind of life, often it's funded through debt, through credit cards. Not always, right? It's okay, some people do have fancy houses and cars and they are also financially successful, great investors and have tons of margin in their lives. But I'm just saying, I guess on average like what is true and the truth is that the person who spends less and invests more of their money is going to be more financially successful and have more future options in their lives. So I was really thankful that she took the time to have this conversation with me today. You can pick up her textbook if you want, a personal finance textbook if you like. I want the whole kit and caboodle straight into my vein. I think it's, it's a really, it's really cool. She did a great job with it. So, so thank you as always for listening to this podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode. We will be back with a fresh Friday Flight episode in a couple days. Until next time, best friend out.
- [62:47]
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- [63:17]
Frances Fry
Hi, I'm Frances Fry.
- [63:18]
Anne Morris
And I'm Anne Morris.
- [63:20]
Frances Fry
And we are the hosts of a new TED podcast called Fixable.
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Anne Morris
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Frances Fry
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- [63:52]
Puzzler Host
Let'S start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings appearance on the puzzler with A.J. jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land?
- [64:06]
Joel
Jeopardy.
- [64:07]
Puzzler Host
Truther believe in?
- [64:09]
Joel
I guess they would be conspiracy theorists.
- [64:12]
Puzzler Host
That's right.
- [64:13]
Joel
They gave you the answers and you still blew it.
- [64:15]
Puzzler Host
The Puzzler listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [64:23]
Professor Kristen Cariotti
This is an iHeart podcast.