The Nuclear Families Evangelist
The Nuclear Families Evangelist
The "F" Word: Finance in The Blended Family
In today´s episode of the ‘Nuclear Families Evangelist’ (A podcast that debunks the mythologies and biology by exploring the dynamics and relationships in blended families), host Traci Dority-Shanklin (Managing Partner at Sisu Partners) talks with guests Heather Hetchler, a columnist at Stepmom Magazine, a wife, a mom, stepmom, a thought leader and a coach for blended families with learning to step at e-learning platform for blended families.
The second guest is Ed Vargo, who has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry and is the Founder of Burning River Advisory Group (A Wealth Management Firm that specializes in working with women experiencing significant life events, divorce, retirement, widowhood, etc.). Ed is also the founder of ‘EnlightenHer’ (A new women’s first financial education and coaching company).
Both the guests are sharing their thoughts and tips for blended families learning to communicate honestly and effectively about finances.
Resources Mentioned
· Traci Dority-Shanklin: LinkedIn Instagram
· Heather Hetchler: Instagram Twitter
· ED Vargo: EnlightenHer (Website)
Contact:
Traci Dority-Shanklin: LinkedIn Twitter Facebook
traci@sisupartnersllc.com
website: www.nuclear-families.com
I have a fantastic show today. I am hosting two exceptional guests. My first guest, Heather Hetchler returns to the podcast. She is a columnist at stepmom magazine, a wife, a mom, a step-mom and a thought leader and coach for blended families with learning to step an e-learning platform for blended families. Hi, Heather. Welcome back to the podcast.
Heather Hetchler:Thanks, Traci. It's good to be here.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:My second guest is Ed Vargo. He has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and is the founder of Burning River Advisory Group. A boutique wealth management firm that specializes in working with women, experiencing significant life events, divorce, retirement, widowhood. He is also the founder of EnlightenedHer, a new"women first" financial education and coaching company. Hi, Ed. And welcome to the show.
Ed Vargo:Hey, Traci. Good to be here.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:So before we get started, Ed. My audience knows Heather, but I would love for you to share with our listeners what Burning River is and its core mission.
Ed Vargo:Yeah, thanks. I'd love to spend a few moments. Burning River Advisory Group is my wealth management business. We've been in practice for twenty plus years. And during that time we've spent most of it working predominantly with single women and women led households, I wouldn't say exclusively, but predominantly. So that makes us somewhat of a unicorn in the financial services industry. It is an industry that's very male focused and a big part of our mission is to try and make personal finance, more accessible for women in particular. And as an offshoot of that, we've also started a new company called EnlightenedHer. And EnlightenedHer, has grown from this idea that women need to be more empowered when it comes to money. You know, and as a wealth professional wealth manager with Burning River, our ability to work with large groups of people is limited, right? That's a very personal business. It's very much one-on-one. So at most we can work with maybe a couple of hundred households and that's not nearly enough to make a real impact across the spectrum of women. And so EnlightenHer was designed and developed to try and bring our knowledge of personal finance instead of being, helping just a few people, but making it more of the big tent, trying to reach women. We call it kinda starting out and starting over. Our focus really is on say, starting out would be someone new to finance, whether your kid's graduating from college and starting to learn about the world of finance, or maybe you've ended a marriage and you're looking to start over and get going and take the bull by the horns when it comes to the financial side of things. So that's really where our passion and our focus lies today is trying to educate on a much broader level versus maybe what I've done in the past tyears.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:I love this, really love this because this is something that I had actually tested as a business idea in my niche. So my niche is in the multiemployer benefit funds world. And I feel like retirement literacy is a real problem. Because you've got a lot of union members that just don't even know what they have. They have these retirement plans and are not really sure what they're going to have upon retirement, which I think is a really huge need. So I love, and I have two daughters and I, myself am a woman, obviously who in spite of working in the financial services industry has really taken very little ownership of my financial picture. And that's something that I want to get into as we progress in this conversation, because I don't think that's an uncommon thing. I think society and for other reasons has dictated the way women have approached finances. And so, this is exciting. So how did the two of you meet?
Heather Hetchler:I was actually at a networking event for women and I sat next to this lovely woman Melana. And we started talking and I was sharing with her what I do for blended families and women going through divorce. She is a co-partner with Ed. She shared with me what she did, and we just really hit it off. Neither of us joined the networking group, but we became friends and I was invited to share on second Saturdays, which is an in-person workshop that Ed offers for women going through divorce. So it's a wonderful program in person, three hours. They bring in a mental health expert. That's where I came in a financial expert, which is where they come in and an attorney. And we sit with women and we talk about all three areas and we educate them. And I just was so impressed with the work that Ed and Melana were doing and just kept working with them and connecting with them and love the whole mission of EnlightenedHer. And as, as a woman and as an educated woman, myself, I shared with them one day, I didn't really know anything about money. Right. I was raised in a house where get married and your husband will handle the finance. And here I was college graduate master's degree. I had no clue what I was doing, and I was embarrassed to ask for help because I thought I was supposed to have my stuff together. And then when my first marriage ended, I was really clueless about how to start over, and I had to get my act together and I wish I would have had something like EnlightenedHer to help me. And so I'm just really passionate about what this offers to women, what this can help us do for our daughters and just the importance of what EnlightenedHer brings, because it's just such an unmet need.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:I'm really looking forward to hearing more about it. So I guess what courses does EnlightenHer teach? If you could just give me, an outline that would be great.
Ed Vargo:Yeah, up to this point, we've primarily held these divorce workshops. So that's where it started and where we're still currently doing those divorce workshops several times a year. And actually right now we're in the midst of putting together an online divorce course. We just had a meeting of the minds the other day with all of the professionals involved. So there's attorneys, divorce attorneys, mental health therapists, financial advisors, and we're putting together a divorce course to help women no matter where they are in the process. So think of it. If you're pre-staged, as you're thinking that your marriage may not pan out the way you would like. And so this idea of divorce is starting to come online and you're thinking, and you don't know anything about it, right? So we're going to develop a course designed for that stage of the process. And then of course, as you progress through this, there's the you're in the midst of it and your needs when you're in the middle of divorce is very different than when you're at the front end of it. And so we're going to develop a second course in association with the first, and then finally we have post divorce. Now that we're at the end of this process, I'm looking to set forth on this new life. What do I need to do? There are three separate courses that you could step into a la cart. Or you could look at getting them all together to help you navigate through the entire process. So we're immersed in that right now. And then coming online thereafter, once we get through this is we're going to probably focus on that starting out course. And that's really taking this mindset of"Hey, I'm graduating from college and looking to take on the world, but oh yeah. This money stuff. What do I need to know about this money stuff?" Because now I have five daughters. So now my girls are between the ages of 16 and 23. And so they're basically that person. And so, as a financial professional, I'm looking at well, what did they know about money? They know, what I've modeled for them. They know what I've taught them being around me all the time, but they still wouldn't know how to go out and select benefits, how to choose retirement plans. They don't really know how to think about money. And you think about that, like how much money matters in every aspect of our life. And yet you mentioned financial literacy and how there's a real problem with financial literacy. It's very true. And so these kids, are getting these first jobs and they have no idea what to do with their money, but if we could get to them early, get the foundation built. Help them understand how to not make the mistakes that a lot of us have made over the years. They would be so much better prepared for every other area of their life. Now money can't make you happy, but it can certainly help keep you from being stressed out and anxious and poor and going down a bad path. So that's, a long way of answering the next course coming online is probably going to be this quote unquote, starting out course for college grads.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:It sounds like your core coaching at the moment is divorced women and the young person just coming out of college. Is that correct?
Ed Vargo:That's accurate. Yep. So we think of it as like transitions, you know, where, where money and life intersect. Those transitions are really important, and from Burning Rivers perspective, my wealth management business, our focus is squarely in those moments, those complicated moments where life and money intersect and where money's complicated enough on its own. But when you have these major life events, divorce, death of a spouse, you're transitioning into retirement. Now that the stakes are so much higher and it's so much more complicated, right? So getting good professional support and guidance is critical. And then from the EnlightenedHer side where we're kind of taking that mindset, but these transitions of obviously divorce is a major transition. And then just getting started. That's a transition. It's not as obvious though, you know, it's not a sudden like crisis and that's why it doesn't get enough attention, right? When, when you have something that's a crisis, that's kind of thrust upon you. You pay attention, you have no choice, but to pay attention, divorce is one of those things, but just when you come out of school you're just trying to do the right thing with money, there's no crisis, you know, so the urgency to get something done just isn't there, which is why these problems persist and why women haven't made the gains in the world of finance nearly as much as they have in other areas of their life. And so it's something somewhat unique and we're just trying to be on the front end of that solution.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:I believe that a crisis is looming as evidenced by the significant economic events coming faster. And I believe that that retirement crisis in America will be one of these crisises. Like it's just. I don't think we are teaching our kids how important it is to plan for the future.
Heather Hetchler:And I wanted to add to, for those of you that are listening. And step-mom's, if I recently did a two-part article interview with ed for step-mom magazine, and it's an excellent resource for women to start for step-mom's in particular to start looking at finances from the context of the blended family. And actually if you go to EnlightenHer.com backslash step-mom, we have dedicated a whole page for step-mom's. So we do work with all women in and step-mom's do have a different layer of complexity when it comes to finances in their families. And so there are resources specifically outlined on that page that will help step-mom. So if you are thinking about, you know, what, yeah, finances are a big stressor in our family, or I really want to teach my stepdaughters. I really want to teach my daughters. There's some excellent resources there that they can go to.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:Thank you. And we'll do put a link to that in our show notes. So, for our listeners, please check out the show notes. I brought the two of you together, really to talk about as we know this taboo subject of finance. The, the dreaded F word, if you will. I again have spent 20 years in finance and I have, as I've said, a deep concern about financial literacy. So I think this is a critical topic for blended families, but frankly, all families will benefit from this. So money is one of the top reasons that couples break up and or file for divorce. So why do you think money or finance is often a dirty word with married couples and especially blended families?
Ed Vargo:Money in general is it's difficult for people to talk about money for whatever reason, right? There's just not enough communication around how money is handled in a relationship. Part of that is men and women think about money very differently. And if you were to do any research on it, or think about this more directly, like when women think about money, their perspective tends to come from, what will this money do for me? What role does it play in my life? Will it allow me to not have to work forever? Will it allow me to take care of my kids? Will I be able to take care of my family or do some things that are, for my lifestyle and men tend to think about it a little bit more tangibly, like they're focused more on like how much money can I make, right. And what's the return on investment? It's a measuring stick. It's more of a yardstick for how they're measuring their own success and neither way is right or wrong. It's just a difference in terms of how we connect with money. And so there, there isn't that recognition, that money means different things to different people. And so what naturally happens in a lot of relationships is that the more interested party. Does more of that work. Right? So if you're more interested in money as a husband, let's just go through the stereotype, but it's there for a reason, right? So like, if you're a woman coming into this and you just don't connect with money, you don't really like it that much. And the guy's,"Oh, I kind of liked this. I'm interested in the return." I measure my success by that. You have a tendency to turn that money decision over to the spouse, to the husband. And so now what we have, and you live your life, you do this in all other areas of your life, right? You have a division of labor in terms of how household chores and kids and those kinds of things. The money is just another part of that. What will that does? It sets up a situation where there's not much dialogue. Right. No, one's really talking about money. And so now that sets up an imbalance in your lives and as you start to get it, and because money has a special place in our life, right? Money is unlike anything else in that it's fungible, meaning it can be readily turned into something else. Think about that. I think if there's, is there anything else in your life that you could just take and turn it into whatever you want there really isn't right. But money is. So if you want to greater education, you can go get better educated. If you want to go on a vacation, you can buy a vacation, you can do all sorts of things with money. And so the power that it holds in our lives is paramount. It's above all else. And so what ends up happening in, in these relationships is that when we spend money inappropriately, Or if we're not talking about how we spend money, we attribute like we're getting a divorce because of money, but it's not really the money. That's the problem. It's our lack of have conversation about what does that money doing for us? Like the wife might be thinking we should be putting our money towards our kid's college education. And he might be thinking that, maybe we should put it towards vacation. Cause that's, it's for the family, but there's no communication. And so they blame it on these money issues, but it really is they're not on the same page with values and how they use their money in communication. And then they fight over money, but it's really not the money. Again, they're fighting over the use of money. And if we keep focusing on money as the problem, instead of our ability to communicate and getting on the same page with how we should be using this money in the context of our lives, the problem doesn't get solved and it often doesn't get solved. If that makes any sense.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:No, it totally makes sense. I'm wondering if blended families actually are at an advantage here, because if Heather's work is to come to fruition, which I'm sure it does. In many cases, people enter these blended families with a lot more of eyes wide open. And are you finding that this is an easier conversation? Maybe Heather, you can address this f or couples either newly in an, in a blended family or in a blended family that have come to you because things weren't working. Are they more open to having the conversation, the real conversation about what is this money supposed to do for us?
Heather Hetchler:So Traci, that is a good question. And you know what I found in working with step moms and families, especially as they're preparing to blend is they are talking about all those topics, right? They're talking about how are we going to merge our money? Are we going to have separate accounts? We're going to put our money together, How are we going to parent? Where are we going to live? They are talking about all those, but just like they have those conversations about okay, what kind of kids do we want to raise? They oftentimes don't talk about the tactics. So they have that overall kind of strategy agreement, okay, we want to raise, accountable, honest, compassionate kids, but maybe dad has a more permissive way of parenting and step-mom has a more, rigid way, right? So their tactics aren't aligned. The same thing can happen with money. They want to save. They want to, compartmentalize what they pay for, but they oftentimes don't talk about the tactics. And I think, well, I know what happens a lot of times in step families is something that Ed talks a lot about is financial infidelity. Step families, let's just say an example. Step-mom is upset because ex-wife keeps asking for more money, right? Husband tells his wife, she wants more, she wants us to pay for soccer camp. She wants us to pay, you know, the stepmom feels disrespected. She feels like they're getting taken advantage of, she gets upset. She ends up fighting with her husband. So what happens? He stops telling his wife what's going on because he wants to keep his ex-wife happy so he can keep his wife happy. Then the kid comes over,"Hey, mommy. So happy you paid for soccer camp." And the step-mom's what you did, you did what? Because he took cash out and paid for paid her. So now we're fighting because it's not even about the money. It's about the disrespect. It's about the lying. And we see a lot of that in step families to minimize a neutralize argument. We start giving and using money in ways that we're not sharing with our spouse.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:Yeah, And that's something that we definitely are going to dive into. Cause I think it's a very common theme. And as Heather knows, Ed, I come from a blended family. And, I'm also in a blended family. I have the perspective of this happening to me on both sides, where I was the recipient of this infidelity in terms of being a child who actually got something that the step mom didn't know I got. And then I also have the situation where it happened with my husband. I want to back up to what you, your point earlier Ed about children learning habits, from their parents and the concerns that we all share, about how we are financially preparing and educating our children. At least with mine, they play games that give them money to spend or allow them to make,$500 in the game for delivering pizza. How can parents teach responsible money management and skills within the confines of what they're looking at? And both to our children and our stepchildren. Do you have thoughts around that?
Ed Vargo:Yeah, I definitely do. I think. The most important thing. First, I think a lot of parents put pressure on themselves in this area. In a lot of areas in parenting, but in this area in particular. I don't know anything about money. I don't want to teach them the wrong thing. And so they don't do anything. So they're concerned about harming them more than they are helping them neck in that case. And I think just relax, just, you're not going to mess up your kid when it comes to money, you don't need to be a PhD in finance. So to teach them some very core things and that's all you really need to do that the younger they are the less complicated it needs to be. So I think the first thing is just to model the model, good behavior model, what you think is important for them to know about money. Okay. And so of course that begs the question. What should they know about money? I think from the earliest stages we want to teach our kids about, about spending money on things that are meaningful to you. Right. Like, cause we have a limited supply of dollars. We all have limited supply of money. So we can't just spend our money on anything we want and expect to be happy. So we need to just figure out, okay, what's really important to us. And as us parents, if you model that and in your language and what you do, that's going to be more important than anything you could possibly do. So I'll use myself as an example, right? So I haven't sat down with my kids and say, oh, here's how personal finance works A to Z. Here's what you should do. We've never done that before. But what they know, what they've learned over the years is that spending money. They don't like to spend money, on just stuff like they, they don't want to like my, my, twenty year-old or 21 year old. She's if a shirt costs more than$7, I'm not buying it. Seven dollars for a shirt, where you can buy a shirt for seven bucks. Well, if you go to the thrift store, you can, right. So she's not concerned about buying clothing and spending a lot of money for it, but she likes to go out and eat, like to dine out with friends and family. So she'll spend money in that experience. Okay. So in our family, we spend money on things like experiences, doing stuff together, enjoying time together, but we're not big on buying a bunch of stuff. We don't have the latest iPhones. We don't drive the fanciest cars. We don't live in the nicest houses in the biggest house. And so those types of things, but we take vacations that are probably far and away- nicer, if you want to say it that way than what other people might do, especially with the family of seven. So the point to that is, is we as a family and my wife and I decided that look, we're willing to put our money. What's important to us is the development of our kids, our family structure, and spending time together, creating experiences and lifelong memories. That's really important to us. And so we will put an inordinate amount of our money toward those experiences. Conversely, what we don't value is. You know, as an example, we don't drive fancy cars. I know people love their cars and that's not a value judgment at all. It's just saying that we sat down, we figured out what was important to us. And then we aligned our money decisions with that. Now that takes zero financial knowledge, right? It just takes an understanding of who you are. What's important to you and then demonstrating those behaviors to your kids. And so I think that's so important. And when we talk about money, we're not afraid to talk about money in front of our kids. We don't vilify money. We don't worship it. We don't knock. People have, who have a lot of money who don't have money. We don't put any value judgments on money because sometimes this happens more, I think, with women than men, but sometimes we can vilify money. You know, like the money's is bad. We shouldn't talk about money. That's not proper. And all those things hold people back money is so important in our life that we should be talking about it and we should communicate about it. The value part is not placing it on a pedestal and saying we should hold money above all else. And so it is a circular conversation the end of the day, but it begins and ends with our values. What's important to us. And then knowing that the better we are at aligning our money with those values, chances are the better our life trajectory is going to be.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:Yeah. I think it's an interesting, it corresponds to this idea when you are trying to find your purpose, right? You have to know what your vision is. And I think that's, it's the exact same idea is by knowing or know what your core values are, but core values for money may be like integrity or never lying or on, you know, honesty is a core value, but what about what is my core value around money? And, that's, that is a very good place to start for our listeners is to think, what is it that I really, want this dollar to do for me? And then and does that align with what my value is, or my deepest desire is in terms of my financial picture? I have a question for you. Heather does a parent and a step parent need to approach their children. And they're stepchildren differently or the same when they're dealing with money matters or conversations around money. Do you think, as a step parent, are you addressing it slightly differently with your stepchildren than you are with your own children?
Heather Hetchler:I think it's almost really dependent on the family and you have to have a relationship with your child to be able to talk about those types of topics. And so for some stunt parents that may work, if they have a very, healthy, close relationship that may work. But if they don't it's much better for the biological or adoptive or foster parent to talk to the child about, especially about a topic like that, then it would be, I think the most important thing is really to see their parents and their step-parents. To see them, both practicing healthy money habits. And I do think for women that if you, as a step-mom, if you do have a healthy relationship with your stepdaughter, you can be a good and positive role model when it comes to money. But if you don't have that relationship, don't beat yourself up and she's watching, she's picking up on things and just continue to model what it looks like to have a healthy relationship with your money.
Traci Dority-Shanklin:I think that's, the important piece for me. And it was a transition I made as a step parent is really this idea of modeling As a step parent, you have a limitation on how much impact your, you can have. I actually think this is true for your own children as well, because they get to a certain age and your impact starts to lessen, or they're not listening in the same way, but they are always, always, always watching. So really good advice. We are going to pause our conversation with Heather and ed here, but we will return in the next episode to dive deeper into financial infidelity. Heather and ed will share their thoughts and tips for blended families, learning to communicate honestly and effectively about finances. You won't want to miss it. I'd like to also think all of our listeners for tuning in to the nuclear families, evangelists, where we enlist experts in humor to help unlock our hidden, super power of being blended. Like you, I live and breathe my nuclear families every day. I am a wife, a mother through marriage. A mother again, through adoption, and a daughter, half-sister, and stepsister from my very own eccentric family, with multiple marriages, multiple divorces and multiple blended families. See you on the next episode of the Nuclear Families Evangelists, where we debunk the mythologies of biology with a lot of love, forgiveness and humor. One conversation at a time.