[00:00:00] Speaker A: In our last episode of 2023, we're going to share some of our favorite moments from this year's my Money stories. Let's get started. Let's get some money from new money new problems. It's the new Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen.
Negotiating compensation, purchasing your investment property, helping your family with money. The highs and lows of, uh, entrepreneurship. New money brings new problems that require new solutions. Join us as we work through them together.
I'm Brenton Harrison, and this is the new Money New Problems podcast.
Hello. My name is Brenton Harrison of New Money New problems, and your host for the New Money New Problems podcast. This is the last episode of 2023, and rather than just doing a random episode, I thought that we would start to establish a precedent, something you can look forward to at the end of every year. So in this episode, we're going to cover some of the more touching, more prescient moments that we've had in our my Money stories interviews throughout 2023. This first clip is from Ike and Ricky forjour, and they share their money story. They are first generation ghanaian Americans. Their parents were the first generation from their family to come to the states, and they settled in Memphis. And Ike and Ricky talked about a lot of themes, but one of them was just the difference between the outside perception from what people believed was going on in their house when it came to money and what was actually going on. Some of the guilt and shame that can be associated with, uh, what you think people feel about how you're doing financially, how you feel about how you're doing financially, and the role that money plays in it. And earlier in this podcast, we've talked about the phenomenon that much of how you feel about money and how you deal with money is fully formed in adolescence. There's very little that you pick up on in your adult years unless you have just some earth shattering event that can kind of dispel some of those earlier notions. And I like that. In this clip, I can Ricky talk about how powerful and visceral those moments were from their childhood and how it is carried even into their adulthood with how they manage their finances. I think you'll enjoy it. Take a listen to this clip. Well, this podcast is about money. So I want to ask you all, uh, as you are navigating this childhood experience, do you recall the first time that you recognized money?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: I think we always knew. Well, Rick and I have, what, seven years between us and when I was coming up was probably more the struggle years when my dad was leaving school, setting up a practice that was, uh, setting up his oral surgery practice in a community where he wanted to serve the underserved. And so watching that struggle of setting that business up and the sacrifices that we had to make at home, when everyone had this perception that your dad is a doctor, people make assumptions for what that means, but that's not the life that we lived every day at home. My mom made the sacrifice of staying home with us, to raise us so she was not in the workplace. In addition to what my dad was doing to advance his practice, he was also very involved with taking care of folks back home.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: He came to America, but he had a whole village back home that he was taking care of. My mom had a whole village back home that she was taking care of. There were a lot of expectations in them. And so I understood money to be something that we worked for as a means to the end. But it wasn't the end, right? It was what money could do for the people that needed it, right. Us getting our needs met, us being able to provide for the folks, uh, who needed it otherwise. And having to sacrifice and not have certain things that you may have thought you wanted for the greater good and not just for what was happening in our house.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Man, I'm going to jump right on that because so. Well said. Because I remember feeling, like, angry as a know, I would see these big packages or cars being bought or whatever back home in Ghana, and yet I can't go on the school field trip or whatever that I wanted to go.
And I don't want to by any means, try to represent ourselves as if we were struggling. I think for the average family, middle class family, we were doing pretty good, but still feeling like you and, uh, remember, our parents are african, so this is not us being spoiled brats, wanting to be able to do more. Okay, this is baseline stuff we're talking about. I have to clarify that. But I remember being angry and then maybe maturing to the point that I understood it right, because maybe by then I had actually had cousins or uncles or somebody come here and I saw how much they didn't have. Or I was able to hear a story about how the living conditions were, uh, around the people that we were helping. But then I remember reaching another point of being confused about why people of our same status seemed to be able to do more than we were doing. That was very confusing. So I think my relationship with money started being formed right there. And I would say it wasn't even about money. It was more about career choices. Because at that point, that stage in life, I think I associated money, riches, or wealth with career choices, which is a mistake.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Ike, you mentioned that you remember there being times when there's an assumption being made about you as a person or your family, right? It's not even just what you're dealing with internally. It is. Okay? People think that we're physician family or surgeon's family. So that means XYz about my parents or about us. And I remember having a conversation with my sister where I said, I guess to me, I don't really care if someone says, oh, you all are Richie Rich. You all do Xyz, because maybe we do. That's not the issue. My issue is when you then assume something about my work ethic or my character. Because I can tell you, I truly believe, as I dig back into why I do what I do, that a part of that is me trying to prove to those people I can be helpful, I can work hard, I can be of value above and beyond what my parents gave me.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: Yeah, dude. I think we shared the exact same feelings and emotions. I remember really dumbing down the things that we did or the things that we had, which, again, were pretty basic. And we were definitely the family that did not see money or value, didn't value people that way at all. But you would have this tension with this person that you feel a true connection with, but they're having ill feelings towards you just because of the neighborhood you live in. But that was something that, I think it made me a little bit more introverted than I probably would have been, because I just didn't want people getting close. I'd hate it when anybody came to my house. I didn't want anybody coming to my house. At one point, man, my parents, they'll probably kill me if, uh, they knew I said this one point. We owned a jaguar, which at the time was pretty hot. I mean, sexy black Jaguar, right?
And a lot of people don't know this, but at the time, my dad had made a decision. We're going to have one car for a little bit, right? We're going to get rid of this other car. Note, we're going to have one car. But when they would pull up within that Jag, that I know was the only thing we had to lug three kids to three different places, and my mom having to drop my dad off at his dental practice, and he's trying to act like he just parked out in the garage, crazy stuff. But when they pulled up to pick us up in the Jag, the hate started right away. And I remember always just wanting to be like, no, you all don't understand.
I think for me that started this thing that I still struggle with today of money being associated with negativity.
So I never really wanted to appear like I had anything.
I don't think being flashy is in me, but even some of the subtle, I'm. I'm always trying to dumb it down, right. And I think it comes from those early childhood experiences.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: So that was Ike and Ricky. And next up, we have my parents money story. We're going to put a link to all of these money stories so you can go back and listen to the full interview if you'd like. But in this episode, we went through some of my parents'background. My mother, uh, on her mother's side is from Belize. On her father's side is very rooted in Memphis. My father is a Midwest brat. He grew up between Milwaukee, Detroit and Chicago. At times in his parents'home, at times living with his aunt and uncle. So we got to see multiple different ways that couples manage their finances. And my mother, uh, also had her own experiences that she brought into their marriage. And in this clip, my dad in particular discusses some of the things that he did and didn't see as a child when it came to couples managing their money, which is a very difficult thing to do together, and how that influenced he and my mother's ability to come together on one accord financially after they got married. Take a listen. So you were raised by a big community and got to experience more than just one family when it came to finances. And when you were in Detroit, you were with auntie, uh, and Uncle Bernard.
[00:10:00] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: So if you could tell me a little bit about them in terms of what they did specifically.
[00:10:07] Speaker D: Andi, uh, taught school, 1st, second and third grade for 44 years. Uncle Bernard worked for Ford Glass company. They managed money together in my own home.
My mother made more than my father as a nurse. And I didn't learn until later that it was the source of some of the difficulty between the way they managed money. I grew up realizing that my mother's biggest cry was if he would just put his money with mine, we could do so much more together. And I was older when I learned that part of the reason he didn't bring his money and put it with my mother's money was twofold. One, he didn't want to face the fact that she made more than him. And two, he didn't want to lose what he would call control.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: When was the first time you all can remember money being a conversation in terms of how you all deal with it? As a couple?
[00:11:20] Speaker E: I think that it was probably out of conflict that some of the money decisions were made or money philosophy was developed. I am a person who has a greater need for security in having liquidity.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Where do you think that comes from?
[00:11:43] Speaker E: Well, I'm sure it comes from seeing money emergencies when I would grow up and seeing my parents trying to figure out. Because you have four children and you have extras in the house, and then, so if there was an emergency, then you had to figure it out. And I don't like emergencies. I don't like the feeling of needing to figure it out. So I would rather have the security of having something there put aside for those emergencies.
[00:12:17] Speaker D: I think that several things got in the way. At the age of twelve, I had an uncle play uncle, one of my dad's eight friends who came to the house. And Uncle Jimmy said, you want to come with me on Tuesday and Thursday nights for 2 hours and make $25? And I couldn't believe that my parents would let me go out and make money on a school night. But I would go with Uncle Jimmy and sweep up the floor of a garment factory in Milwaukee, and I'd make $25 a night. That's $50 a week for a twelve year old kid in the summertime. At the age of 13, Uncle Jimmy asked me, do you want to work with a construction crew with me? And I said, yes, sir. And I was paid out of a safe because it wasn't legit for a 13 year old, no matter how big to work. And from that time on, I had two and three jobs a summer. Every summer I had that kind of money. My parents never bothered me about that money. They asked me, would I pay tithe and offering, but they never said what to do with it. And I developed a habit of, if I want something, I work for something, and if I work for it, you can't tell me what to do with it because I worked for it. And if you tell me it's not enough, I'll go work more. And that was what I brought into our relationship. One, I wanted to make sure that we put our money together, and I didn't want to be my mother and father. And two, I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. And I had to learn a lesson. And the lesson was, you don't have to work more if you just manage what you have. You can still find a way to do, and it was the control of working more that I resisted when we got married.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: This is the new Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen. We'll be right back.
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The theme of the second half of this podcast episode is all about loss. It's about legacy. It's about being aware of the fact that all of these things that we're doing, we don't get to take them with us. And there needs to be a bigger purpose above and beyond just getting up and going to work every day. And I'm really excited to share some of these clips from these episodes because they're all people who've experienced loss in a way that reshaped perspective and have come out on the other side with a, uh, change, not just in how they live their life, but also how they manage their money. And I think that we try to make money this, like, tasteless, emotionless thing. But the fact of the matter is, everything that we experience plays a role in how we deal with money. And fortunately or unfortunately, having or not having money plays a role in what we're able to do for others. So this first clip is from somebody I can only describe as like a brother to me, Courtney Hale. Courtney Hale has experienced a lot of love and a lot of loss in his life. And in this clip, he's sharing about some of the moments leading up to the, uh, passing of his wife, Tia, uh, and then also sharing some of the things that he's learned through his loss and the reason that he continues to go on this journey of increasing financial literacy, which is what he does through his organization, super money kids. Take a listen. At what point does Tia get sick?
[00:16:35] Speaker F: About a year later. About a year living with her dad. She gets sick while we're living with her dad. But we don't have any idea as the severity, though these things happen and, um, these things were happening and we didn't understand. She kept getting diagnosed with pneumonia and, um, we're just kind of going along with it. And she had an instance to where her heart rate dropped extremely low and we had to get her to emergency. And then, um, that was when we found out about the heart condition. And at that point, we hadn't been back into our house for a year yet. And so we go from moving out of our house to paying off the debt, having a kid, because while we're living with her dad, we end up having a kid. So we go back home with our newborn and within a few months, uh, Tia is back in the ER for the second time in less than a year, and her heart rate dropped to levels that I think if it's any lesser of a person, we would have been out of there, right.
Uh, she made it through that. And so from there, lifestyle changed drastically. Figuring out what was to happen next, waiting to see if, as time passed and she was further postpartum, if her heart was going to heal itself. Because there was this idea that pregnancy definitely puts more stress on the body, makes the heart work harder, and as time passes, maybe the heart gets better. And she got better physically, and I think mentally she got better, but the heart never got better, right. And, um, things just got really tough. She would go on to have a heart transplant, and that was the best eleven months of our lives for all of us, for her, physically, for me, for our daughter, that eleven months was great. Within that eleven months, we started a pandemic.
Uh, when people were complaining about being quarantined at home, I was like, man, this is kind of cool being with my daughter and being with my wife. Um, but she passed May 2020.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: For someone who doesn't know you, what is it that you think, not about just yourself, but about your crew, that has allowed you to still thrive and pursue joy in the midst of hardship?
[00:19:19] Speaker F: Yeah, I think that you have to realize, and I've struggled with this, but our lives are bigger than how much money we make in paying our bills. I've struggled with that even to this day. But I think what happened during this period, as the super money kids brand began to develop, is like, this became like, who I was and I can't abandon me. Like, I had swam so far out in the ocean that there was really no a, ah, point in no return. And then plus, you start talking about all the things that I had been through. I had been hurt, had gone through so much hurt. I wanted happiness, and this work brought me joy. And I knew that this work would also bring joy to a lot of families throughout the country as well. I knew a lot of people that were from their own versions of north Nashville throughout the country, and various young people who had all types of traumas, but they had big goals, though, and they just never really saw a way out of what they were going through in the present. And I believe that our work provides a, ah, pathway out of those traumatic experiences. It gives young people the opportunity to dream for whatever they want and live a life that gives them purpose, utilizing their talents. It's like everything that we want as humans.
I feel like our work empowers us to be that and not have to be slave to a temporary problem. And that's what our brand is about. And so, as I remember why I was called to do this work, my personal struggles weren't enough for me to stop doing it because we were creating hope for a lot of other people.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: That was a bit of Courtney's money story. As you can tell, he is a special dude. And in this next clip, we're going to share some of the money story of my professional mentor, Marcus Henderson. I worked in Marcus's firm for 13 years. He's known me since I was eight years old. And it actually goes a bit deeper into this concept of loss, but also this concept of being a first generation high income earner. And again, like we talked about with the four drawers, some of the perceptions from the outside world of what's going on in your household versus what's actually going on in your household. We again go into these topics of being a first or a second generation high income earner and what it means if there's an emergency in the family, or what it means in terms of what you owe to the people who helped you get to the places where you find yourself today. And in this clip, Marcus shares a bit about the final months of his m mother's life and how his financial status even caused some friction between he and his mother. And I think that this is just an interesting moment, probably one that Marcus didn't expect to experience with his own mother. But, again, shines a light on some of these conversations that we've recommended you have with family members so that there's more understanding. In the absence of understanding, there can be friction. So take a listen and hear how that impacted you. Also, your mother passed recently. Yes, I know she was very important to you, as mothers are.
Before she passed she was in a home.
[00:22:44] Speaker G: Mhm.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: And we are talking about some of the guilt that you can feel or some of that residue of success that can alter relationships with your friends.
[00:22:55] Speaker H: Yes.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: There was something that happened with the cost of your mother's home before she died that was even an experience in terms of where you are versus what she expected with your own mother.
[00:23:07] Speaker H: Absolutely.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Can you share what happened?
[00:23:09] Speaker H: Absolutely. So towards the, uh, end of Mama's life, towards five years or so, mom had never really attained the level of success that she expected out of life. Now, a lot of people would call her very successful. But what I have found is that does anyone really gain the level of success they are expecting out of themselves? Well, to that point, mom would never take any money from me. I would be like, mom, I'll take care of it. You all take care of me, I take care of myself. Okay. But she finally got to the point where she would allow for me to take care of her. Incidentals of different things. Well, there became a point where she needed some extreme assistance. Lord knows she got mad. We put her into a place right down the street here from the office, which I think for most people would be deemed as pretty expensive. So what I tried to do was put her there, and I had it drafted out of my account. And somehow or the other, uh, somebody at that place put a bill upstairs so that she knew it was paid for. Well, she found out how much it cost, and she told me that I couldn't afford. That you can't afford to pay for. Thankfully, you know, we had the conversation, and my spouse, yolanda, asked the question, how do you know what we can afford? The room wing question. What? I just. Well, okay, but mama, how do you know? And she couldn't answer the question. So we were able to temper her feelings a little bit with that. But every month she was upset with the price that we were paying, which it was not an amount to laugh at, but certainly, if you're an only child, or if you're a child at all and you have the ability to pay for your mother's care, you pay for it. And there was a situation in a turn where she was going to have to go into assisted living. The amount was going to jump quite a bit, maybe about 50%. I was prepared for it, for that to happen, but apparently mom was not. And she stayed over there for one week, and she had some situations, and they had to take her to the doctor, and she said, look here, let's be clear. If y'all take me out of this room, I'm not coming back. And of course, uh, the Caregiver and everything was, oh, leela, please. You bring you to the hospital, everything's going to be out. She said, now I'm telling you, I'm not coming back. Well, on the way to the hospital, she had a massive heart attack, and she lost consciousness, lost blood to the brain and all of those things. And by the time I got there, she had pretty much made the call for me, and I just had to ask them to take them off. I say that is that, uh, hindsight being 2020, my mother told me that I'm not going to let you pay anymore. I'm, um, not. And I heard her say it, but I didn't hear her say it. And I paid it for about two weeks, that higher amount, and she decided that she was going to get her way.
I bring that up, uh, only because the planning that we do for individuals, it only seems to come in at very important times, very emotional times.
It's not the happy times. Everybody wants to get to a happy retirement. But the truth of the matter is that about 75% of the people out there are ill prepared to retire. So just because you retire don't mean it's going to be a great situation. May mean you're going to go get another job. So the happy instances that occur within our community very much have to be planned opportunities, things that are not something that just happens. Uh, nothing can just happen. You have to plan for it. And the successful clients that I've had the honor to work with all understand that. And they have decided that as much as possible, because even when you do it all the way, as much as possible, I'm going to take control of my finances.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: And now we've come to our final clip from our money stories from 2023. Hopefully, you've enjoyed it thus far. This clip is from the episode of my wife's money story, and it really highlighted the story of Albert and Catherine Groves, her grandparents. They are 96 years old. Matter of fact, on new year's day, uh, Albert Groves is going to turn 97, and they're going to be celebrating their 76th wedding anniversary. So not only have they lived a whole life, really, two or three lives worth of experiences in managing money as married couples and understanding the person that they're with and next to and their differences, but Albert Groves in particular, grandpa Groves has a really heart wrenching story, and I encourage you to listen to that full episode about what happened when his father passed. He ended up being abandoned, really, by his stepmother who'd, um, been taken advantage of financially by some family members later on in his life. And he talks about the struggles that he had trying to put together a, ah, life for himself in the absence of any type of financial head start from his father and how it has shaped his perspective on his responsibility to the generations after him. He is more giving than you can even hear in this clip in terms of the things that he and his wife have done for their family. And he just shares in this brief moment why he does what he does and why he continues to save for future generations, even now at 96, soon to be 97 years old. Take a listen and enjoy.
[00:28:52] Speaker I: All right, so you guys officially have been married for 75 years. I know when grandma said when you initially got married, you guys didn't have much, but as you have accumulated assets, resources, how do you think your relationship with money has evolved over time? The main thing is how you view money. I have a different perspective of money than Albert does. Albert values money. As a matter of fact, I asked him once, how much do we need to save for you to be comfortable? Because he used the word we don't have enough. Save where I'm comfortable. So I would say, how much do we have to save for you to be comfortable? And first he told me, 10,000, 5000. And then he gets that, and he says, I'm still not comfortable. So I says, okay, well, then let's save a little more. So we saved 2020, 5000. Still not comfortable. Now I don't have to go through, uh, a comfortable, because I've never had a time when I didn't have. If I went hungry, it was because I just didn't eat a meal. I don't know what it would be for someone who would like to have a meal and eat beans and hamburgers every day.
I do take into consideration his background versus mine and, uh, try to blend it, but I also try to make myself as comfortable, too. I don't want to be upset with him because he worries about money. I just want him to worry about his own money and then let me have some, uh, that I don't have to worry about. So that's the main thing. Money is very important to Albert. Very important.
[00:30:47] Speaker G: I think of my dad. I think of him often. My dad used to say when he got sick, if I had a steak about so thick, I think I could get well.
All my life I've thought that running through my mind. I thought if you just a steak would get him well.
But he didn't have enough money to buy him a steak.
I said, if I ever get grow big, old enough and get enough money, I'm going to buy my dad a steak. Never got to that point, but I.
[00:31:23] Speaker I: Think it filtered into me.
[00:31:26] Speaker G: Always have enough money to buy a steak.
[00:31:30] Speaker I: Why is it important, even at 96 and 94 years old, to save?
[00:31:37] Speaker G: When my father died, I got $10.
Think of it.
Your dad has worked all of his life, lost his life and what he had left. You get $10.
It's a different feeling for me, I guess when you go through hard times and you've been through hard times and you know how you were raised with no money, not an extra dime to buy a slice of bread, you think about those times. You don't want your children to be able to go through the same problems that you had when you were coming up.
I want them to have something so when I'm gone, they can say, dad left this for me, or mama left this for me.
You'll appreciate it.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: That's all we have for you today. That's all we have for you for 2023. I want to wish you all a happy new year and also let you know that whether this is the first time you're listening or if you tune in every week, we so appreciate the support that you've given us for this first year of the new Money new Problems podcast. And I promise you that as long as we are around, we have more ideas, more stories, more lessons to teach, more value to add, more things to share. We look forward to getting that ball rolling in the first week of 2024. Happy new year from new money new problems. This was the new Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen.
