Teaching Kids Financial Independence - Episode 45 (Classic Episode)

In this hard-hitting episode, we are joined by Rob Phelan, a high school personal finance and math teacher who works with ChooseFI to implement a financial independence (FI) curriculum in K through 12 schools. Rob discusses his own journey into personal finance, the importance of teaching kids about financial literacy, and the launch of a free K-12 financial education curriculum sponsored by the ChooseFI International Foundation. Rob's message emphasizes the significance of avoiding lifestyle inflation and making thoughtful financial choices, especially for those who are starting on their careers, to achieve long-term financial independence.

About our guest:
Rob Phelan is a high school personal finance teacher in Maryland where he lives with his wife and son. Rob is a Certified Financial Education Instructor and owner of The Simple StartUp, where he guides 10-18-year-old entrepreneurs through starting their first businesses. He is a co-creator of the ChooseFI Foundation PreK-12 Personal Finance Curriculum which was created to help our youth learn about money from the ground up. Outside of the classroom, Rob is a super-advocate for financial education for kids and is very active in the community and on social media, sharing information parents, caregivers, educators, and business leaders can use to help the youth in their lives learn about money.

Mentioned Links  and Resources:
Rob Phelan's Books
Contact Rob
ChooseFI Pre K-12 Financial Literacy Curriculum
The Simple Startup
ChooseFI Podcast
FI 101 (free adult financial literacy course)
The Playing with Fire Movie

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Naseema McElroy: All right, nurses on fire. I have the honor of having Rob Phelan joining us today and we are going to learn about how to teach our kids about financial independence and Rob works with Choose FI to implement this Fire curriculum in K through 12 schools. And so, Rob, I'm going to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your background because it does have a lot more to do with nursing than you might think.

And then we'll talk about this fire curriculum that you are a huge part of in the Q, choose a high community.

[00:00:40] Rob Phelan: Hey, Steven. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So I am a high school personal finance and math teacher. So what am I doing on a nursing podcast? But as like teachers and nurses, like we are both kind of aligned a lot in terms of our outlook in terms of how we got into the profession, the reasons that we do the things we do.

And in terms of personal finance, like a lot of the lessons that you would have for a teacher are going to transfer over to nurses as well. And then we're going to talk about educating kids, which Everybody's got kids. So it's going to be a very applicable conversation. I think we're going to have for your audience, but to answer your question, I got into personal finance and financial literacy because I was tasked with teaching it in my school.

My principal came to me and said that we have this opening to teach this financial literacy slash math class, and I ended up being chosen to do that, and I. I knew nothing about money at the time. My wife was the financial guru in our house. And so I, I had to like really start digging deep into what is this financial world, how does money work?

And that was a, a long road to get to where I am now, but it was so fun to learn about all these different concepts and. It was, it was a great journey to really discover a lot about myself and then also be able to share that with kids as well. And then for myself, like I'm 30 years old. I've been teaching for six years.

I came originally from Ireland. So that's where my parents live and my siblings as well. And it's, it's been a quite a transition to go from Irish culture to the U. S. culture, but I've been here now for about eight years. And It's been such a wonderful experience to be able to grow up in both the U. S. and Ireland and then also still be able to live in the U.

S. now and share in all the riches that come with living in the U. S. So I don't know the interesting point that we want to talk about is that my mom is in fact a nurse. So I, I am very close to the nursing world and I also get to teach about, 10 graduating senior nurses every year that go on to become our future nurses, which is always fun to see what they do and how they go and develop their careers.

So what is it you want to know exactly about my mom's nursing career?

[00:02:50] Naseema McElroy: I just want to know how your mom became a nurse and how that nursing impacted you and how it's actually helped you

[00:02:57] Rob Phelan: too. So I remember asking her that question. Like why did you become a nurse when I was probably in elementary school and we had one of those projects where you had to go like interview your parent about like, why did they go into the career they did?

She had one of those moments where she witnessed an accident. I think it was a car accident. And she saw the ambulances come, she saw the medical professionals there, and she just was immediately like enthralled with how amazing and awesome these people were. And she's I want to work in the medical profession and particularly nursing was the one that stuck out to her.

So she got her nursing degree and then decided to specialize in labor delivery and eventually became a midwife as well. Ends. So I grew up with a nurse for my entire childhood and she is awesome. Like she is a super mom. She did her job amazingly. And then also raised four children. I think we're all turning out pretty well so far, no issues yet.

But it did turn me off. The medical profession in general, I will say. So growing up with a mom who was on call would be disappearing at different hours. You saw her come home with the beeper back then and you're like heart sank a little bit and you're like, all right, she's probably gonna get called out tonight.

So either we'll have my dad home, or there'll be a babysitter coming in, depending on. What happens and it just was something that's, a child, you don't get it. Like you're just like, mom's disappearing. Mom's going to work. Not realizing of course, like the amazing thing she is doing while she's at work.

But it, yeah, it definitely was something that was like, I don't want that for myself. I want a job where I'm in full control of my hours and I don't have to work at night. Was that a, that like driving force? Yes. And then when I went into teaching, I was like, I don't want to work June, July or August either.

I'm just, I'm just lazy.

[00:04:45] Naseema McElroy: Those are benefits. Okay, listen, and I, but I love that your mom was actually able to take you back to Ireland. Right. And so she was a nurse here in America at first.

[00:04:56] Rob Phelan: Yeah. So she did her training in Ireland and then took advantage of, there was visas on offer to come to the U S because I guess there was a nursing shortage at the time.

So in her twenties she was not married yet to my dad, but they were engaged. She decided, you know what? New adventure. I'm going to go live in New York for a couple of years. And my dad was able to follow her like a year later. And that was a, something that she, I don't think she saw lasting as long as it did.

So it was supposed to be kind of like a couple of years of books for this new country. We'll try it out, see what happens. And it turned into 11 years and she was able to work in a hospital in Long Island, New York. And I think she really loved what she did. She was able to get her master's degree as well.

And I'm pretty sure the hospital had some hand in helping pay for that. So she got her master's in midwifery and became a qualified midwife while out here. And then she and my dad made the decision when I was about, I think it was 10 years old, that they were going to move back to Ireland with my four siblings who had also been born while we were living in the U.

S. And I think one of the driving forces behind that was, A, all our family, so their extended family and brothers, sisters, and so on in Ireland, but also that college in Ireland at the time was paid for by the government. It was completely free. And since then there's been a couple of fees brought in, but you are still sending a, a child to a four year undergraduate degree for about like less than 10 grand.

Wow. Wow. It was, it was a great geo arbitrage move in terms of like money that they were going to save. And, I'll talk to my dad now and he's yes, that was hands down one of the reasons why we did it. Yeah.

[00:06:31] Naseema McElroy: So you were able to graduate with your degree with no debt. So that gave you really big head start in life and kudos to your parents for understanding the importance of making sure that you started off With such a leg up. So, but you did leave Ireland move back to the States and eventually Became became a teacher. Awesome. I love teachers and my partner's a teacher as well.

So yeah He's an educator. I should say he's a superintendent. So

[00:07:02] Rob Phelan: He's an important educator. Don't tell him that though. Right.

[00:07:11] Naseema McElroy: So, yeah, so now you're teaching financial literacy. So you got on that path, you, you started learning about personal finances, stop leaning on your wife to handle all the bills. And you got on that path to teach financial literacy. When did you connect with the ChooseFR people?

[00:07:29] Rob Phelan: So I started with Dave Ramsey, got very deep into that because I really liked, I liked Dave himself.

He said crass, really blunt it tells you exactly how it is and kind of yells at you a little bit. Yeah, I gravitated towards that in the beginning. Cause I was like, all right, I got to get my finances in order. I got to get my butt in gear. And get out of debt. So my wife and I, she didn't want to hear anything about the podcast, but she was like, okay, there's some sort of plan here for getting out of debt.

I'm on board with that. And we got out of debt in about a year and a half. And that was some of her student loans. I took out a really small student loan for grad school. Just to, it was actually on advice just to build credit that I took out a small grad school loan. And in hindsight, I probably didn't need the loan.

I could have built credit other ways, but it wasn't a bad. Thing overall, since I didn't take out like a hundred thousand dollars, it was 10, 000 and we had some new cars to pay off as well. So we made those, financial decisions that were not the best when we first started our new careers.

I started teaching and it went from a salary of 12, 000 a year up to, I think it was probably starting on 40, 000 a year. And so, yeah, the money came in and I was like, yes, spend it all, get all the nice things. And so that led me to, once we got out of debt, I started looking for more, like you get to, you get kind of the end of Dave Ramsey, you almost graduate from his stuff.

So you get to the baby steps where you built your emergency funds and it's just kind of like invest and give, and that's where it stops and there's not really much more after that. So I was like. Looking for more, I started experimenting with more podcasts. So I came across choose a buy afford anything stacking Benjamins.

Like those were the three that I really listened to on heavy rotation. And when I was tasked with teaching this class, I went through it the first time using actually the Dave Ramsey curriculum. It was okay. It had a lot of gaps in it. There was certainly some of his ideas that were in there that I didn't fully agree with.

They weren't quite fire ideas. So I looked for something else. Couldn't really find anything that was great. So I. Reached out to choose a fight to Brad and I asked him, I want to create a financial independence curriculum. Are you guys interested in being a part of that? Can I, can I work with you in some way?

And they were like, yes, absolutely. We are thinking the same thing. We've got some wheels in motion already, but yes, let's make this happen. So I was able to come on board with choose a fight. And with two other people, we created a K through 12 financial education curriculum that has a financial independence lens to it.

So it's not just about the financial literacy component, like learning what the word mean and how things work. It's also about the behaviors and the mindset that you need to get to this idea of financial independence.

[00:10:05] Naseema McElroy: I love it. And the most important thing about it is, is that it's a hundred percent free.

[00:10:12] Rob Phelan: It is 100 percent free. It is fully sponsored by the ChooseFI International Foundation. So they have a lot of really cool people who said, you know what, this is so important that any barrier, barrier to entry, such as a cost or a fee. It's not worth it. So we want to give this away 100 percent for free.

Any teacher, educator, homeschool parent, parent in general, like you can go access these lessons and use them whatever way you want. You can integrate them into your teaching curriculum. You can say, I want to do some of these activities with my kids at home. It's fully open and able to be used by anybody.

So we're really excited about that because it is going to be launching at the end of January. So hopefully by the time this airs, it will be up and available at choosefi. com forward slash K 12.

[00:11:00] Naseema McElroy: Awesome. And I will put the link to that in the show notes. So you guys don't want to miss this free curriculum.

Even if you don't have kids in school, I'm sure that you can definitely benefit. From it for yourself. So, yeah, check out that shoes F I curriculum. And can you highlight some of the most important points that people can learn or what kids can expect to learn through the curriculum?

[00:11:26] Rob Phelan: Yeah. So when we went to make this curriculum we as adults ranging from I was in my late twenties at the time to I think the other, the oldest person was in her late thirties. And I was We asked, well, what should a graduating high school senior know when they're going to leave high school that would prepare them for the financial world and is still a relevant lesson for them?

So we started with the tenants of financial dependence, which is earn more, spend less, invest that difference that you create, and then enjoy the journey along the way. So from there, we're like, okay, so earn more. We talk a little bit about entrepreneurship. Like, how do you create income? How do you negotiate for a higher salary?

How do you get that higher salary in the first place? So in the curriculum we started with the tenets of financial independence, which is to earn more, spend less, invest the difference, and then enjoy the journey along the way. So when we started with earn more, we thought about things like we want to teach kids about entrepreneurship.

How do you earn money? How do you create income for yourself as opposed to having to rely on an employer? That's something that I feel like is a really useful lesson for anybody to learn. But if we can teach that at the high school level, imagine the doors that is going to open up where you're suddenly like, you have that mindset that my only source of income doesn't have to be the job that I have.

Like I can create money if I need it. So that led to creating a whole unit about entrepreneurship, which is really exciting. And you see that kind of go down to the elementary level where you started talking about opening a lemonade stand and just that idea of selling a product and how you make money that way.

So really cool to see that go all the way up. Through the different levels, then you start talking about, well, how do I get a job and negotiate a salary for that? So if I have a job, right, how do I negotiate for a higher salary? If I'm just starting out, how do I evaluate jobs based on what is the kind of total value of that job?

So when you. Take into account the salary, the benefits, the other perks that may become with it. What is the true value of a job as opposed to just the dollar figure that you might be getting for it. Then you start going into the spend less, which is what we hear a lot about in the financial independence community.

Like how do you cut costs down? So we're talking about making smart buying decisions, talking about needs versus wants. What do you truly need? What is a want? How do you practice delayed gratification on the things that are wants? So you're always trying to keep this idea of having that gap between what you make and what you are saving and spending so that you're building a nest egg for the future.

So you're always coming up with this idea that you're going to earn more than what you spend and that difference is something that should be invested along the way. We talk about credit and how you can manage credit effectively. Talk about investing different types of investing that you can do.

Investing in yourself, investing in the stock market is an obvious one. The real estate market is another. And then return on investment for things like college. So if you're going to get a degree, like a nursing degree. How much did you pay for a nursing degree to get a good return on your investment? So the general rule be don't pay more than one year salary for your degree.

Yeah So yeah, as a teacher if I'm gonna be earning 40, 000 as my degree It does not make sense to go to the private school down the road here, which charges 40 grand a year for that degree And especially in things like education. And I'm, I'm going to hazard guess that nursing is probably the same, that the name on the degree.

So the issuing body doesn't really matter that much. What matters is, can you do the job that we're hiring you to do? First

[00:14:49] Naseema McElroy: it's, can you pass the boards? Then can you, can you do the job?

[00:14:54] Rob Phelan: Yes. So you're probably looking for at least a college that has a good reputation for getting you to that level, to be able to pass the boards.

Yeah. But beyond that, does it really matter whose name is on that degree? Does anybody ever see it?

[00:15:07] Naseema McElroy: It doesn't even matter if you have a higher degree. I'm like way, I have way too many degrees for my job. And I get paid the same as a nurse that has a community college degree. So there you go.

[00:15:18] Rob Phelan: Yeah.

Yeah. Like the, the teacher with a, imagine if Harvard has a teaching degree, like if you have a teacher degree from Harvard versus the local state school, like it does not matter. Nobody knows the difference. It's not displayed anywhere. You don't get paid any differently. So making that smart decision about where you're going to go to college is.

A really big conversation that I have with my seniors. And if I do get the opportunity to talk to juniors, that's a big one for them as well. So trying to prevent kids from making those bad decisions in terms of getting huge amounts of student loans for a degree that's not going to pay back.

What they needed to to order make it for it to make sense.

[00:15:53] Naseema McElroy: I think that I love that because it's a huge paradigm shift because I just remember when I'm graduating from school, my, my counselors are like, get into the best college that you can. Here are the loan applications. Here's like a scholarship site, but you know.

And whatever. Yeah. Just, by any means necessary, go to the best college, not even really fully understanding what I even wanted to do with my life. Like I said, I could have got a community college degree and been a nurse 10 years earlier, so, it's totally different and I love this emphasis on making sure that your degree is gonna.

effective in relationship to your career. And that's just not talked about enough. And I know, especially for parents nowadays, the pressure is on to kind of get your kids in the best school and making sure that you can pay for their school, even if that means taking from your retirement account, just because that's what you're supposed to do.

But I feel like this curriculum is super powerful because it gives you the tools and empowers you with the knowledge to know that. Things can be different and you can set your kids up for a strong financial

[00:16:57] Rob Phelan: future. Oh, and yeah, the, a conversation that I have with my seniors and it kind of stops them in their tracks a little bit is the statistic that came out last year.

And I forget who gave the staff, but I think it was that for current retirees or people around their sixties, seventies, the highest debt that they have is typically a mortgage and then student loans. So, people going into retirement are still carrying student loans because they're taking them out for their kids.

And then, of course, well, when you stop working and you don't have income and we're not preparing as well as we should for retirement, which is a big problem that's happening in society, well, now kids are being responsible for their parents and they're kind of having to pick up the tab a little bit because their parents are still paying down so many different debts.

And it's, yeah, it's like you want to, you don't want your parents have to take care of you. You want to be independent of them. You want them to be independent of you and you can make better decisions in the beginning. That helps that. Well, why not? So in my school, we do have a lot of future nurses that come through and I kind of mentioned that already.

So in Maryland, I don't know if this is true across every state, but particularly in my county, we have a career technology education program where the schools in my area group together. Okay. There's one central location that will do different kind of career technology programs, and one of them is nursing, so I have a lot of students who in their 10th grade, 11th grade year will go and part time start working on getting their nursing credentials, and I believe they come out with a CNA certification by the time they are seniors, so I get a lot of my students who maybe are with me in the morning doing this financial literacy curriculum, and then the afternoons are going doing They're nursing classes, and it's really fun to see the impact that it has on them because they're already kind of that little bit more future minded.

They already have an idea of what they want to do. They've got a better plan about, like, how they're going to get this degree. And then they're starting to make. Decisions that can really impact in the future. So you'll see those kids are the ones that will really evaluate like what college they're going to go to because they already know what degree they want to do.

They know roughly now how much they should be paying for it. So if they were trying to decide between 2 or 3 schools, they're making better decisions about it, which is so nice to see. And so gratifying. It's one of the most gratifying parts of my job. I don't really get to get the feedback from them that they learned a lot, but I get to see in the background, the decisions that they are making.

And, I'll see kids who are starting brokerage accounts because they're like, you know what, I'd like the sound of this investing thing. I want to get started. The ones who are working part time, I've seen some good starts, some Roth IRAs while they're in high school. And that's really awesome to see.

Could you imagine if you start a Roth IRA at 17 or 18 and you're putting like a hundred bucks a month in there, it's not. Huge, but I mean, but

[00:19:36] Naseema McElroy: balling, yeah,

[00:19:38] Rob Phelan: A hundred bucks a month, you could stop at 25 and just let it ride. And you've got a million by the time you're 65 and then if you just keep contributing, that day comes closer and closer and closer to financial independence is so easy if you start at that age, yes,

[00:19:50] Naseema McElroy: yes.

I love it. And you're just setting these nurses these future nurses up to not even start off a life that's full of lifestyle inflation and doing the things just because other people are doing it. But you're setting them up with the tools to be able to become financially independent in a short amount of time, if that's what they wanted to do.

But yeah, the, and they could retire early, but the, the ability to make work optional is super empowering, but I also think it makes you like. As nurses, a better nurse, because you can just focus on being the best nurse. And I feel like it's the same as teachers. Like we come, into our field because we're givers and we have this service mentality, but oftentimes our finances does get in the way of our ability to function in our full capacity.

So I love that just from the jump, these people have the tools to be empowered. In. In their career. So this is awesome. And then Rob, you also are working on something a little bit special to teach people how to be empowered financially. So can you share that with us?

[00:20:58] Rob Phelan: Yeah, so it's I know it's a topic that you talk about.

We hear about in the fire community a lot. This idea that you don't have that limiting belief about yourself anymore that as a teacher or a nurse, we are. Worthy, willing, able to actually build wealth. Like we don't have to be just givers. We can also take care of ourselves too. And it's it's something that I struggled with a little bit in the beginning, like I got into teaching.

Oh, I didn't get into teaching for the money. That's the way to say it. I got into teaching because I liked working with kids. I love being able to. Basically to teach. I love being able to see them learn something new, develop their skills, grow as a person, become better people. And then I liked the working hours.

Like it was, it was part of the reason I chose teaching as a career. The idea of summer's off was something that I had in the back of my mind because I always knew I wanted to have a family and I always looked at other teachers and I saw that the amount of time they got to see myself doing, and then I actually really loved teaching when I started as well.

But I got to. I have the opportunity this year to write my own book. And that for me was like a huge step out of my comfort zone and a real limiting belief. I had that, I'm a math teacher, a physical education teacher, a personal finance teacher, like none of those spelled book writer. So I had to get over this idea that I had to be an English major to write a book and instead be like, well, I've got.

A message. I've got some skills. I've got knowledge that I think are valuable to other people and something like this doesn't exist already. So the business mind to me is kind of like, okay, well there's a business idea here. It just happens to be in the form of a book. So this book is called the simple startup, a beginner's guide to starting a business.

And it's geared toward, it was originally geared towards high school students. So I was like, all right, there's nothing at the moment that really helps guide a teacher and students to start their own business. But then I realized, this is very applicable to most people out there. This is that first step that a lot of people don't know how to take when it comes to creating your own income.

So it is a workbook. It has 12 chapters in it. It takes people from coming up with a business idea all the way through, writing that business plan, getting the marketing strategy going, figuring out how you're going to finance it. How do you track the finances of your business appropriately?

It's not super technical. It's not like your I don't know, think of some book that's very fancy and expensive that teaches you how to start a business. It's not that it is the, the beginner level one. So this is the one that gets your business up off the ground. And then if you find this and you really like, you can take it further or you can keep it as that small side hustle that, it manages itself very well and you can kind of keep this thing going.

So that was a huge project for me and it is going to be published at the end of January. So yes, it is just on the verge of being released. And hopefully again, by the time this podcast comes out, it will be on bookshelf. So it should be in Amazon, Barnes and Nobles. Most major booksellers, it's going to be really exciting.

And we

[00:23:57] Naseema McElroy: will have the link in the show notes for that book. And I'm super excited to share with my community. So Rob, what's one last thing you want to impart on these nurses? There's one major lesson that nurses who are aspiring to be financially independent should know. What would that be?

[00:24:16] Rob Phelan: I would say I'm, I'm going to talk to the beginner nurse.

So the one who is just starting their career out, you've got, you've gotten used to living on a lower income. You're starting off in this new job. You're increasing that income dramatically probably with this first job. Really take time before you start inflating your lifestyle. Don't feel like you have to match the lifestyle your parents had right away.

So you are going to build up to that. You're just going to have lots of time to have all the fun things. You don't have to deprive yourself from the beginning. Like you can still do fun things, but it's got to be with a plan. And then for those existing nurses out there, you've got to unwind it a little bit, probably.

So if you have a little bit trouble with lifestyle inflation, you got to try and unwind it. You got to try and unravel it. Think of the things that you truly value in your life. So if you haven't seen the playing with fire documentary there is that really great lesson in there that Scott talks about with his wife, Taylor, and he asked her, what are the 10 things that you value most bring you the most joy and happiness on a daily basis?

And she listed those out and they realized that none of the really big expensive things in their life are on that list. So it caused them to get rid of their expensive car, their expensive home. And then. Downsize their life to one where they still had those things that brought them joy, but at a much cheaper rate, and then they were able to invest that difference and really, really accelerate that path to financial independence.

[00:25:39] Naseema McElroy: Yeah, that's awesome. I love that movie. And I recommend the documentary and I recommend people watch it and it's on Amazon now. It's super accessible. So if it's something that you want to stream, I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. So Rob, how can people get in contact with you? And can you share those important links again, one more time?

[00:25:58] Rob Phelan: Sure. So, you will find me on choose a fi. com as part of the team there. If you want to reach out on Facebook, I am all over Facebook and most financial independence communities. You will find me there. So you are always welcome to reach out with any questions. Thoughts, ideas. I love to hear from you.

My book, the simple startup. com. I have an email link there. So you're welcome to reach out to me that way as well. And the curriculum will also have my name and Email I'm sure splashed across it somewhere and that is at choosefi. com forward slash K 12.

[00:26:31] Naseema McElroy: Awesome. Awesome. And all the links will be in the show notes.

And thank you so much, Rob, for joining me. This has been so great. I love hearing your story. I love that your mom is a nurse teller. I said, what's up? Thank you for taking time out to share with the Nurses on Fire community.

[00:26:48] Rob Phelan: Thank you so much for having me and good luck to everyone. Thanks.

Hey there I’m Naseema

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