The Dark Side of Being an American Millionaire! (2024 Edition)

This episode explores the unforeseen challenges and stressors that accompany substantial wealth, revealing that high income does not guarantee personal satisfaction or financial wisdom.

1. Wealth Does Not Ensure Job Satisfaction: Many high earners remain unhappy at work, indicating that income level does not correlate strongly with job satisfaction.
2. Financial Mismanagement is Common Among the Wealthy: High incomes do not prevent poor financial decisions; lifestyle creep and debt are prevalent even among the affluent.
3. Personal Fulfillment and Wealth Are Not Synonymous: The challenges of managing wealth can overshadow the personal satisfaction it might bring.
4. Generosity Is Not Dependent on Wealth: Wealth does not naturally lead to generosity; habits of giving need to be cultivated intentionally.
5. Wealth's Impact on Family Dynamics: There is a significant risk of not properly preparing the next generation to manage and maintain wealth.

1: Introduction

Hosts introduce the topic and set the stage for discussing the complexities of wealth. They question if wealth truly brings happiness.
Brian Preston: "Is there a dark side to being a millionaire?"

2: Job Satisfaction Among the Wealthy

Discussion on how wealth does not necessarily lead to job satisfaction or a stress-free life.
Bo Hansen: "High earning people, still hate their jobs."

3: Financial Wisdom and Mismanagement

The hosts discuss common financial mistakes among the wealthy and emphasize the importance of wise financial management.
Brian Preston: "Rich people still aren't good with money."

4: The Illusion of Happiness Through Wealth

Exploration of how wealth can complicate personal happiness and life satisfaction.
Bo Hansen: "Money should be about flexibility."

5: Generosity and Wealth

Debate over whether wealth increases generosity, with insights into charitable behaviors among different income groups.
Brian Preston: "Rich people still are not generous."

1. Choose a Career for Satisfaction, Not Just Income: Find work that provides personal fulfillment beyond the paycheck.
2. Educate Yourself Financially: Regardless of income, understand and manage your finances wisely to avoid common pitfalls.
3. Set Realistic Expectations About Wealth: Recognize the responsibilities and limitations that come with wealth.
4. Cultivate Generosity as a Habit: Start small and be consistent, regardless of wealth level.
5. Prepare the Next Generation: Teach children about money management and the value of hard work.

Today, we’ll walk you through the top 4 problems that people think will disappear when you become rich. Then we’ll show you how to do things the right way, so you can build toward abundance. We want to bring light to this “dark side” of being a millionaire, and equip you with the tools to do better so that you can truly use money as a tool to live your more beautiful tomorrow.

People

Brian Preston, Bo Hansen

Content Warnings:

None

Brian Preston
Is there bad or even a dark side to being a millionaire?

Bo Hansen
Brian, I am so excited about this, because all the time we talk about aspiring to be wealthy and aspiring to build wealth and aspiring to have resources so that we can use money in that way. However, on the pursuit, and even when people arrive at that place, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. There actually, indeed is a dark side. Yeah. I always think of, like, the lottery dreams, where people are thinking, man, it's this one opportunity to spend a dollar.

Brian Preston
Two, I'll have no more stress or burden. Also, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, I'll be happier. And I don't know if that's truly the case. Yeah, and I don't know that it's even a common thought that that's not the case. Cause 72% of millennials right now would suggest they believe that money can indeed buy happiness.

Bo Hansen
That if I have more money, if I have more resources, then in fact, I will be happier. But I don't know that that's the truth. Now, look, I want to be clear. I do think having money can be a good thing. It's actually.

Brian Preston
It's going to definitely be. I'll call it a lubricant to making happiness easier. I mean. Cause, you know, where you get to eat better food at fancy restaurants, if you want nicer access or sit closer to the stars or the entertainers, that you. To be sure, with more money, you can buy nicer seats at the concert.

But it doesn't necessarily solve all of your problems. You might not have to worry about, like the food insecurity, or shelter or safety or those types of things. But I would argue that there will be other stressors that enter in. There will be other things that you have to make sure you stay mindful of and you bring into the light, or else you might find that getting to that thing that you are trying to attain or getting that place that you want to be wasn't maybe all that you thought it was cracked up to be. Well, and I think that I want to differentiate.

There's a big difference between looking rich and actually being wealthy. And I think in America, we have a problem where we do have people who have good incomes and can cover at a few hundred bucks a month, their fancy house, their fancy car, but it's so much better to actually be wealthy than just to look rich. Yeah, I think what we're going to do is we're going to try to highlight for you four problems that people think will disappear when wealth shows up or when resources show up, and how you can be prepared for those things as you continue to progress in your journey. Because at the end of the day, we here at the money guy, we believe that there is more to wealth than just money. And if you want to do it the right way, you want to make sure you're aware of this dark side.

So we want to bring light to this, though, Bo. We want to make sure that people understand that there actually are four things that you just need to be aware of with wealth. And there's actually even some data points to show that we, there are some struggles even amongst those who have resources and just to be, and how to even overcome. Okay, so let's talk about the first one. This is one of the dark sides of being wealthy is that rich people, high earning people, still hate their jobs.

Bo Hansen
There is this idea that if I could just make more money, then I would, in fact, be happier at work. But turns out that may not be the case. Yeah, I think now, look, this is not only wealthy people. A lot of Americans do not like what they wake up to do every morning. And there's a lot of dread with going to work.

Brian Preston
And that, that seems to be across all income levels, but it does still show up. You would think just because they make more money does not necessarily that they are happier to, to a large degree, more than their, their, their peers. There's actually a study by the Pew Research center that's now found that 57% of families with higher income said that they were satisfied with their jobs. You might think, oh, 57, that's better than half. Well, what's really interesting is you, if you look at the average middle income job satisfaction, it's about 51%.

Not a big change with a higher. Income, aren't that much more excited or that much happier about their job. So making more money must not. It certainly, when it comes to your vocation, lead to more happiness. It also makes sense.

68% of people making over $200,000 reported feeling stressed at work. And that is higher than average, too. I mean, if you think about two thirds and that there's a lot of stuff that comes with that higher income. Yeah. With the added responsibility, there are a lot of different ways that it gets hard to find work life balance.

Bo Hansen
You feel like, okay, now, because I have this higher income, I have to devote more, commit more, and be more present at work, both when I'm at work as well as when I'm not at work. And because of that, half of Americans right now this is according to a study done by Ford, half of Americans say they would rather take a 20% pay cut, or they would choose to take a 20% pay cut if they could have a better work life balance. So they would even choose making less money if they were able to balance their work life better. And I think this, and I see all the surveys that come out by generation, and it does seem like younger individuals have a big focus on this work life balance. And I can even share in my own experience.

Brian Preston
Looking at my neighbors, it's not uncommon that I see a lot of the high income families in my neighborhood. They travel a lot, they're gone. They are working all the time. They're traveling for work all the time. So there are typically some strings with these higher incomes, whether it's working harder, traveling more, there's probably something you're having to give that does increase that stress load, that does increase your ability to not really enjoy your work because it's harder.

Bo Hansen
It is. So let's talk about Brian. What are some ways that you can do it better? What are some ways that you can approach this better? Well, the first thing is, don't pick a career only for the paycheck.

When it comes to the thing that you're going to do for the majority of your lifetime, for all of your working years, you may want to pick something that you actually find value and find purpose in, that you actually enjoy doing. Because if you can find that thing, there's going to be a higher likelihood you're going to have satisfaction on a day to day basis rather than just showing up and showing up for the dollars alone. Well, I think also money. Money should be about flexibility. If you think about.

Brian Preston
A lot of people aspire to have money because they want to. What I think they really want to do is they want to own their life, but really what they want to do is own their time, do what they want, when they want, how they want. So you can use money to buy flexibility and have even more access and ownership to your time. And what ends up happening is, as you end up having career success, you can negotiate your hours or maybe figure out how you go part time or look a sabbatical. These things are possible, but only possible when you're at the correct stage in your life.

Bo Hansen
You won't always be able to have a work life balance. And I counsel a lot of young folks on this. I say, look, you might need to put in more hours early on in your career. You're still building towards that 10,000 hours of expertise. It's okay if early on, maybe you don't have a ton of work life balance, because I'm convinced if you put in that time early, as you do age, as you do get into the messy middle, as you do start to have a family, as you do start to raise kids, if you've put in that hard work early on to establish that foundation, there's a good chance that you're going to be able to be in more control of how you manage your work life balance.

It won't be perfect, but at least gives you a platform to be able to make changes as needed. Well, I even think about how many of our clients, there's a out there on the Internet and you see it. People talk about f you money. And now, look, I'm not going to tell you what all that means. I think most of us are smart, but it's basically, it's having enough money that you do things on your terms.

Brian Preston
And I have seen jobs where if you, if your employer knows you have the resources and the ability, but you still have tremendous talent to offer, they're probably going to recognize that you're going to do things on your terms, so you'll have more flexibility with where you work, how many days you take off, because you can negotiate. Those things still add value to the entity, but it's just you're not in that desperate where you have to, and that puts you in a different power position with your employment. Let's talk about Brian. Another thing that people think will change as their income changes or as their wealth changes, they think that all of a sudden, if I made more money, if I had more resources, then I'd figure out the money thing, I would have it all straightened out. Well, unfortunately, rich people still aren't good with money.

Bo Hansen
That can be a dark side. Just because you have a higher income or even a higher net worth does not suggest that you are fundamentally good at the financial decisions you're making. Yeah, I think this is, I don't know if it's an american tendency, but it's definitely something where as people, lifestyle creep is a real thing, people let their lives expand even beyond what they get in pay raises. And you would think, you know, because the old Stanford study, that's controversial, $75,000. So as soon as people get to 100,000, because if that's stability, where you can pay your bills, 100,100, 5200 thousand, man, you must be great with money at that point.

Brian Preston
The data doesn't necessarily show that. No, it doesn't. Show that at all. Having an high income doesn't exclude someone from being bad with money, because if you look at these stats, 38%, almost four out of ten households that make over $100,000 admitted to carrying credit card debt. Like not using credit cards, actually carrying debt on a month over month basis.

Bo Hansen
And 22% of those surveyed cited vacation and entertainment as a primary reason for that. So it wasn't because they were trying to figure out how to make the ends meet or they were trying to figure out how to put groceries on the table. It was because they were making lifestyle decisions. So even though they have a higher income, they have not mastered making those decisions necessary to actually be good with money. So I love it when you see intersection or with numbers, how they change.

Brian Preston
This has $100,000 and 38%. I thought it was interesting in the show notes, we have one of three Americans with credit cards. This is, this is. So it's the same data point, but now the income's 150,000. Still a third.

So even though these people made 50, you know, 50% more income, it was still close to a third. Could not pay their credit cards off. It's so frustrating. And what's ultimately happening here? I think as.

Bo Hansen
As incomes increase and as your lifestyle begins to creep, the. The pressure and the reality of trying to keep up with the Joneses becomes more and more and more tangible, and you start to feel this push, okay, my friends that they went on this vacation, now I need to go on this vacation. My neighbor, they drive this automobile. I need to drive this automobile. And what you do is you get sucked into this trap of fundamentally, even though you can afford the decisions, you're not actually making wise financial decisions.

Brian Preston
Well, I think this draws light to an adage that I always thought was horrible advice that was around during the nineties and two thousands was go buy the cheapest house on the nicest street. It was kind of a stretch goal so you could build this wealth up into a really nice house. Even though you might be the poorest person on the street, there is so much research that has come out that has shown that if you are the poorest person amongst your peer group or the people you hang out with, you will likely be a lot less happy. So don't fall in that trap of assuming being the poorest person or the smallest house on your street is going to be a good thing. Yes, you might have more home equity because you're on this nice street, but your quality of life will be diminished.

Bo Hansen
Yeah, I think what's really interesting is even at these higher incomes, there is still this lack of understanding with how money works. A study done by the what's next? Median analytics Corporation found that 36% of households making over $250,000 still say that they live paycheck to paycheck now. Crazy. There are, there's some feedback that maybe they don't understand what paycheck to paycheck means.

But think about even what that suggests. Households making over $250,000 cannot accurately discern, am I living paycheck to paycheck, or am I not living paycheck to paycheck? Because we would argue once you begin to get in those income echelons, you ought to know money well enough that you know exactly what you have, where it's at, and what it is doing for you. It should not be a question. And yet, here we are.

Four out of ten families don't have that figured out at these higher incomes. I would like to because I want to pivot and turn it more into an optimistic discussion. How do you actually do this better? And kind of the first thing is if you can start thinking big picture with your money and even putting some boundaries on your behaviors, because we talked about lifestyle creep, keeping up with the Joneses. How easy would it be if you actually made those good habits easy, made the bad habits hard by creating, like, automated behaviors?

Brian Preston
Maybe every time you got a pay raise, 60% of it went to increase your investments, 40% went to lifestyle, those type of things. If you took a big picture of where you want to be in the long term, I think you'd be in a much better place. Yeah, they have this view on. I'm not just focused on how do I get from this week to next week or this month, the next next month. They do have those longer term goals.

Bo Hansen
They do think big picture, wide angle. And one of the things that we see really successful people do well is they don't continue to move the goalpost as they do focus on the big picture. They allow that big picture to have some boundaries. They don't say, okay, well, I want to be in this neighborhood. Okay, once I get in this neighborhood, well, then I want to be in that one.

And then I want to have that home. And they don't want to drive that car. They recognize, okay, what are the things that I truly value? What are the things that actually require me to spend money on or save for or try to accomplish? And how do I focus exclusively on those things and not get lost focusing on things that do not matter to impress people that I do not care about.

Brian Preston
Well, I think a way of putting this is focus on what's enough knowing. Cause you said, know who you are, know how you're comfortable in your skin. I mean, I think you will get to a point as you start having more financial success. You could go buy the bigger house, you could easily afford the more luxurious car. But is it really going to make you any happier?

Are you going to enjoy your life more? You go look around one day and go, you know, maybe what I would truly value is being able to own my time instead of the nicer stuff. So just make sure you kind of spend some time contemplating and even making. That's why I net worth statement every year. Also having good communication with your spouse about goals and long term objectives.

If you can put those things together and actually create a plan, you will be much more set up to understand what's enough and where contentment, happiness, and fulfillment actually live. Another thing I think that you can do as you begin to move up on income and as your wealth trajectory begins to change, is continue to invest wisely. So often people, as they get into higher incomes, as they enter into new places, think, okay, I got to be more sophisticated. I got to be more complicated. I got to figure out something that no one else figured out.

Bo Hansen
There is nothing wrong with being a high income individual that still follows the financial order of operations. Brian, you have the thing. Can you show it to him? You know, I got it right here. It's nine tried and true steps that even if you make 250,000, $500,000 a year, it will keep you on the right path of building wealth.

So don't allow yourself to get sucked into the venture capital deals or the private equity deals. The dumb doctor deals. Yeah, they may make sense, but don't just assume that what got you to the place that you are at right now is not still the same thing that can take you to the place you ultimately want to be in the future. Yeah, there's entire industries that are set up. We call them the dumb doctor deals, where you get to a level of income, you're like, well, man, this is what rich people must do.

Brian Preston
That's part of the marketing brochure. Just be careful. Know how wealth is actually created, know how investing actually works. And if somebody tries to spin your head and get you so confused that you don't even know which way is up anymore, it's okay to hit the pause button and make sure you understand exactly what you're doing with your investments. I love it.

Bo Hansen
Brian, another thing that people think will change as their wealth change. They say, you know what? Things are tight right now. I'm being pulled in a lot of different directions. I just don't have the capacity to be generous.

However, if I just had a little bit more money, if I could just make a little bit more, if I could just fill in the blank a little bit more, then I would be generous. But what we found is one of the dark sides of building wealth is that rich people still are not generous. Well, this is almost like a doughnut. Is that because we have found, is that if you look at giving and generosity, the ultra wealthy, we're talking about 30 million and above, they're actually giving away a ton of money. That's where 38% of worldwide giving is coming from, the ultra wealth.

So a very small segment is still giving a lot of money away. But then, on the other side of this, I mean, everybody who's beyond, there's a lot of data that's coming in that says that most people now in the United States are contributing less to charity than they have in the past. So we have a problem that. Yes, the. And that's why I say it's the doughnut.

Brian Preston
You have just a small portion, but. So you have that group that's doing it, but then you have a whole big, broad section of the american public that is just not giving a lot of money to charity. And that's a problem, because if. If you're not good with a little or you're not good with a lot and you're not paying it forward, there's something to be said with that, is that you're losing focus on the purpose or how to be good with it, because we say that being generous is rewarding, and you're missing that key component to get outside of yourself when you think about money. And that's especially important with money, because if you try to find all your value and purpose out of what you can buy and how much you can spend it, in certain ways, I think you're gonna find it's a lot emptier than you realize.

Bo Hansen
So let's talk about Brian. How can you do it better? You just hit the very first one, is, how do you develop this skill now? How can you figure out, how can I be generous, even if I don't have a lot? If I can be generous with a little bit today, then I have a higher likelihood, a higher propensity to be generous when I have more in the future.

It is a skill that you can develop and that you can hone to through time. And what we have found in our lifetimes, as well as work with successful families. Those people that are the most generous today happen to be the same people that were generous five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago. Even at the start of their journey, they figured out ways that they were able to pour into the people around them and the community around them. Well, I just said the statement because it's one of our key things that we talk about, is that being generous is rewarding.

Brian Preston
We find that. Don't just take my word for it, listen to this. A lot of the research shows giving of time, effort, and goods is associated with better overall health in older adults. I like that. Generosity can also reduce job burnout and create a longer lasting romantic relationship.

So it's better at work, it's better in relationships, and volunteering is associated with delaying mortality. So if you think about. We talked about giving of money, but it just is. The research also shows giving of your time, if you don't have a lot of resources, can still be very valuable to your life. I love it.

Bo Hansen
And as you think through that things, as you think through those things, one of the things I think it would be helpful to focus on is how do you define the legacy that you want to leave behind when you are no longer on this earth? People might not remember the fact that you worked until 07:00 p.m. Every night, or they may not remember exactly what the last year of your net worth statements did, but they will remember that time that you spent time with them, that time that you mentored them, that time you provided an opportunity for them that was not otherwise there. I mean, even in my story personally, I can see fingerprints of all the people that have touched my life and how I would not be where I am today without their generosity. So if you can recognize, okay, when I am no longer here, what do I want people to remember about me?

What do I want people to say about me? And is there a way that I can use my resources and use my wealth to accomplish that goal? I think you'll find that's a pretty fulfilling endeavor, for sure. We go transition to the fourth problem with wealth. And this is one, I think this is.

Brian Preston
And I don't know if it's because I'm a father of two. I know you're a father of three. I don't know if it's because we work with a lot of wealthy families, is that we see that rich people still don't set their kids up for success. This one breaks my heart. There are statistics and I hear you say them all the time.

Bo Hansen
We always talk about how 80% of millionaires are first generation, and I always hear you say this thing, well, that is a great thing that you can pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you can build wealth. However, for that to be true, there has to be a dark side of that statistic. Well, think about this. And this is what the data shows, and it does. To get 80%, there has to be a give on.

Brian Preston
That means there must be a wash cycle, a big washout cycle on wealth. And here it is. 70% of wealthy families lose that wealth by the second generation. So that means your kids are going to spend your money after you pass away. And then if it doesn't all wash out, then 90% lose their wealth by the third generation.

So if your kids don't get you, your grandkids will. So there's, that is a huge problem that this is. You know, people who build wealth immediately washes out with the second and then even the third generation. Why are kids who are given so many heads up opportunities, you know, they have essentially a head start in a lot of ways, on paper, turn out to be washouts. There's, there's got to be a problem with the way wealth is structured or how people are teaching their kids.

Bo Hansen
Yeah, I think what's happening is that they are getting exposed, but they're not getting educated. They might have been taught the basics of investments or credit cards or that sort of thing, but were they taught the skills and the right money lessons that actually matter? It's a different thing to be proximate to money, to be around money, to see money, to see wealth, and to actually understand what things are necessary to create wealth. What decisions had to have been made by the generations before you to create the wealth that you are able to experience. And I feel like a lot of families show the kids this is the checkbook and this is how this works.

And this is what this is without teaching them the hard, softer, less tangible lessons around actually building wealth for long term. I mean, think about it. I mean, financial order of operations, this is actually what to do with your next dollar. Just because your kids know what the stock market is, they might even be able to tell you where the stock market is. If you ask, what's the s and p 500 trading at right now, they might know that.

Brian Preston
They might know what APR or they know how to, you know, go through a transaction at the store or even applying for a credit card. But if you're not actually teaching them what is intrinsic value and what are the behaviors, like the financial order of operations, how you know how to be the general, the field general, for your army of dollars, that is the failure, because as Doctor Stanley, a millionaire next door, talked about, I think a lot of parents, we even do economic outpatient care as kids get. We give them this great life as their children. Then they even go into a young adulthood, and then instead of them realizing, oh, my gosh, I had this great life with my wealthy parents, and now I'm out of my own, parents will subsidize that lifestyle through that economic outpatient care. And these kids never learned the value, the scarcity, or even how to build and grow and expand your army of dollars.

It breaks my heart. It really does. So what are some of the important lessons that we as parents ought to focus on? We ought to teach our kids about hard work. We ought to teach them the value of a dollar.

Bo Hansen
Certainly, if we live in an area of abundance, how do we get them to recognize the value even in a single dollar? How do we teach them how to live humbly, even in abundance? How do we let them realize the consequences of poor decisions? If they have financial mismanagement, where does that go? And then how do we teach them, especially coming from a position of abundance, how do we find value beyond money?

How do we make sure that that's not the goal or the strategy or the outcome that they're striving for, but recognizing that money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to focus on the things in life that really matter? I think this is where wealthy families ought to spend the majority of their time educating their children. Yeah, I mean, it really is. We give them lots of fish instead of teaching them to fish, and that's a big problem. So let's talk about how do you do this better?

Brian Preston
How about, here's a good start, and this is a hard one, because you, you might have grown up in a poor household, and then you've reached, you've made a lot of sacrifice, you've made some good risk, and you've been rewarded now. And you're like, I don't want my kids to grow up in the same struggle I had. Sounds so good. On paper, it sounds, man, so noble. But if you're not putting scarcity in your children's life, how are they ever going to develop that skill that you learned to master and actually turn into abundance and wealth?

They won't. And that's a big problem. Yep. Another thing I think you can do, if you really want to focus on doing it better, is figure out how to let your children fail and feel the consequences. You know, I've got little kids, right?

Bo Hansen
They get a toy, or they get something that they love, but they don't take care of it. They leave it out in the front yard, or they break it, or they don't handle it. Well, while we are in a position now where we could probably very easily replace that toy and just buy a new one and have it shipped within two days, we want them to learn to understand that there is value to the thing that they had. And if we don't take care of our stuff, we won't always be in a position where we can just replace that stuff. So letting them understand the consequences around mismanagement, the decisions that they do make, can be a huge way to teach your kids to not rely on you for the rest of their lives.

Brian Preston
Well, it doesn't even have to be about buying stuff. Let them fail on things and then learn the consequences, but also how you get back on the horse to recovery. I think that that is a skill set that if you come from humble beginnings, your parents didn't mean to give it to you. It's just that if you come from humble beginnings, there's a lot of no. In your life.

There's a lot of chances for you to try to figure this out on yourself. I think sometimes we essentially put bumpers around our kids when you grow up with abundance, and it doesn't make them better for it. And that's why we talk about encouraging good behaviors. Bo, you do something that I think is really important. You talk about give, save, spend.

What do you mean by that? Yeah, for my kids, every time they get money that comes in, whether it be birthday money or tooth fairy money or whatever it is, or maybe chores around the house, we say there's always three things that you can do when you get money. You can give it, you can save it, or you can spend it. And we actually teach them to do it in that order. Okay, let's be generous first, and then let's save a little bit of it for the future, for some future goal, for some future purpose.

Bo Hansen
And then whatever's left over after we've given, after we've saved, then we can spend it. And we want our kids to think through every time that money comes in their possession. How do I navigate appropriately allocating dollars into each of those three buckets? Well, and then this one's kind of a twofer. Because I've talked about encouraging good behaviors.

Brian Preston
How about if you can also add an element of scarcity in there? And what I'm talking about is priming the pump on good behaviors of think about this, your kids turn 16. If you live in an affluent community, it's not uncommon that a lot of your neighbors, I don't know if there's a lot of pressure, because I see it in a lot of my neighbors. They're all giving their kids really nice cars. And I'm just like, I guess we'll see if that turns out to be a great idea.

I think a character builder as well as something that will humble or let your kids see the value of every dollar is let them pay for half of their first car. Now, it's a hard decision. I know that the new modern cars have all those safety sensors and everything else, but I actually exercised this with my oldest child, and I think it was an incredibly good value builder because driving a twelve to 14 year old car can really help, especially if they have to pay for half of it. Show, hey, man, I need to treat this thing with some, some care because I have ownership in this, I have a dollar into this. And then also when your kids get their first job, maybe that car leads to them now having the independent of being able to drive to their first job.

When they start, you know, doing anything that earns money that you have to report to the government and actually file a tax return, do something that encourages them to do like a Roth IRA, a custodial Roth, or start investing and do a dollar for dollar match, just like a good 401K has employer match that primes the pump. Why don't you, as a parent, start the good behavior and start to get some skin in the game of them thinking about money in a healthy way by saying, hey, every dollar you save and invest, I'll match, I'll give. And it doesn't have to be if you're struggling yourself, maybe it's $0.50 on an hour, but you can do some type of encouragement so that they start seeing what good behavior and what good actions can do in the long term. And it also adds that element of scarcity that too many wealthy kids struggle to actually have in their lives. That's great.

Bo Hansen
I think another thing that we can think about as we think about raising our kids and raising them well is show them that true value is not material. Show them that there is more to being wealthy, that there's more to life, there's more to the things that we do and the decisions that we make besides just money. And now there's a little bit of cold water for you. This will only be true for your kids if it is true for you. Are you acting in such a way at home, having such conversations with your spouse, interacting with your kids in such a way that would suggest money's not the most important thing.

It is important and it is a tool, and it's something we want to manage and steward well. But it's not the goal, it's not the reason, it's not the purpose. It's just the thing that allows us to get to the goal, to get to the reason, to get to the purpose. If you can instill that in your kids at a young age, you're going to have a much higher likelihood of setting them up for future success. Yeah, this is one that really gets me because I see so much opportunity.

Brian Preston
You would think coming from money would actually be the chance of a lifetime to build upon what came before you. And unfortunately, it's just not happening. But I do say this, it's okay to spend money on some things. Blossoming memories. I'm all about travel, building memories, because not only do you get to keep that, but I think your kids also will get to have those memories even when you're no longer here.

And that's its own in a legacy discussion form. I think that building memories is such a valuable thing. Focus on blossoming memories over giving them stuff. That's something that's very valuable. But all this brings to really ahead to the fact that wealth, and you said it, I love it.

Money is a tool. It's definitely not a goal. And it's so much better. We talk because we can move past the kids and money, we can talk about just the fact that if you're blessed with a high income, don't waste that opportunity. There's something, I think a lot of people that, it's the old adage, as long as they have money and they can afford their life, $200 at a time for everything they finance, they think they're okay, but they don't really own their time.

They are the slave to the wage of having to cover their obligations. And that's a scary thing. I want you to actually have full independence, full ownership, without any obligation whatsoever. And that's what if you can just invest a little bit of today for that great big, beautiful tomorrow, I think you'll have abundance beyond your wildest imagination. I think that there's nothing wrong with being wealthy.

Bo Hansen
There's nothing wrong with building wealth. I mean the entire platform we have here. How do we help you work towards financial independence and ultimately abundance? But there are dark sides and you need to be aware of those dark sides so that you do not fall into these traps as you reach the next level of your wealth building journey. And we're going to keep loading you up so that we can help you do money better.

Brian Preston
Guys, I'm your host, Brian Preston. Mister Bo Hansen. Check it out moneyguy.com resources for tons of free stuff Money Guy team out. The money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations.

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Abound wealth management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the money Guy show. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial tax, investment or legal advice.