﻿Have you ever had the bird and bees conversation with your parents when you were young? Do you
remember how awkward it was? Or if you are a parent and had that conversation with your child.
It makes me cringe just thinking about it. However, what if I was to tell you that there
is even a worse conversation than that? Even more awkward and more painful. Talking to your
aging parents about money. Hi, if you are new to the channel, my name is Tae from Financial
Tortoise - a channel dedicated to creating Personal Finance content for the Sandwich
Generation. Whether your aging parents have their finances in order or they didn't save for
retirement, there comes a point in all our lives when we need to have the 'money' conversation with
our aging parents. But how do we have this conversation? How do we even start? So in
this video, I want to share with you five proven methods that my wife and I personally have used
to talk to our aging parents about money. 1 -
Number One, Ask For Advice If your parents are anything like mine, I'm sure they love to give
advice. Even at my age of 40, my parents still love to give advice about anything and everything
you can think of. What I should eat… How I should drive… My favorite – How I should raise my kids…
Of course, like a good son I try to listen patiently, but most often I’m just nodding my
head without actually listening. But, you can use this trait to your advantage. Parents are
reluctant to open about money because they feel uncomfortable about the decisions they’ve made.
Or they don’t want to feel like they are being lectured by their adult children.
However, if you approach the conversation with a “posture of asking for help,” they
might be more open about their own financial situation. I’ve used this tactic to learn more
about my parent’s retirement plan. “Hey dad, I’m learning more about 401K and retirement plans.
It’s fascinating. Where are you holding your 401k? Are you getting good returns?”
“Oh… You don’t have one? Ok…” There you go you learned something new!
2 - Number Two, Use A Story People relate to stories and so do your parents.
I’ve used this tactic with my parents to get them to speak to an Estate Lawyer. “Hey dad,
do you know the Artist Prince?” “Oh you don’t? Well it doesn’t matter.” “So this guy had a
lot of money but he died without a will or an estate plan. So guess what, this was five years
ago and his siblings are still in probate court fighting over this estate.” In the perfect world,
this would naturally transition to a discussion about what he needs to do and how it would be most
responsible for him to set up an estate plan, so he doesn’t leave you and your siblings to be in an
awkward situation in the probate court after his passing. Or better yet, by having basic documents
such as the “Power of Attorney” and “Healthcare Directives,” make things smoother for everyone.
Most likely it will take several conversations to get your parents to act, but using a story
is a great way to start the conversation. 3 - Number Three, Share Your Own Financial
Experience As my wife and I’ve learned money lessons from paying off our $105,000 student
loans and managing our expenses, we became more comfortable about discussing money in general.
We tried to leverage this by discussing with my parents the lessons that we learned through the
money mistakes, with hopes that they would open up about their finances. This has worked well to help
my parents to not only get comfortable speaking about their finances, but understand our money
habits as well: Money Decisions – Why we make certain money decisions - such as not buying a
new car even though we can afford it. Investing – Or why we don’t obsess over individual stocks like
some people they know. Insurance - Why we opt for a cheap term life insurance vs. the more commonly
advertised Whole or Variable Life Insurance. Due to both language and cultural barriers, my parents
grew up without strong financial literacy. They immigrated to the United States to provide my
sister and I better opportunities. However, beyond the advice of “study hard and go to college” they
couldn’t provide any advice on investing or wealth building. They believed that if someone drove a
nice car, it was because they were successful and rich. My wife and I now know this to be not true,
But my parents would scratch their heads when they saw us downgrade our cars to increase our
savings rate after we got a pay raise. Shouldn’t you be upgrading your car if you are making more
money? I don’t think they’ll ever completely understand our decision making, but opening up
about our money lessons frequently have allowed them to open up about their own perspective
on money so we can learn from each other. 4 - Number Four, Don't Start the Conversation
With Money Many people just have a visceral reaction to the word "money." It conjures up so
many different emotions that as soon as they hear anything regarding money, they either shut down
or spiral down to an unproductive rant. So a good strategy is to not start the conversation
directly about money, but about another topic that could achieve the game goal. For example,
instead of asking your parents "How much do you have in your retirement account?" "Ask them,
what are your plans now that you are retired?" or "Are you and mom planning to take more trips
now that you have more time?" This could open up the door to their lifestyle affordability or even
their thoughts about retirement. The key is to simply start the conversation and see where it
goes from there. In your first few conversations, they might shy away from talking directly about
money, but at least you were able to get the ball rolling and learn something from the process.
If you approach the conversation with a willingness to help and understand,
I firmly believe the dialogue will transition to a more productive place down the line.
Number Five, Anchor Off Current Events Again, if your parents are anything like mine, I'm sure they
have an opinion about everything. From, why are the neighbors so loud to why the current governor
should be impeached. You want to be careful with this approach because you don't want to go down
a rabbit hole of heated debate, but this could be an approach to get your parents to start talking
about something they are interested or have an opinion about, and segway to a topic more
related to their personal finance. I've used this tactic to discuss real estate with my parents and
understand their mortgage situation. When the mortgage interest rates were at record low,
I asked them why they thought it was so low and if they had seen anything like it before. Ofcourse,
this automatically led to them talking about "back in my days, we had to deal with mortgage
interest rates that were 5x what you see today!" But it also led to their thoughts
about refinancing and if it made sense for them or not. The ultimate goal is to learn more
about your parents financial situation with the objective of understanding and supporting them.
In Conclusion There is no one right way or a one-size-fit all approach to talking to your
parents about money. These are some tactics that my wife and I have found success in. Whether you
use some of the tactics listed here or not, the most important lesson is to start. As our parents
age, unless our parents have meticulously planned out their finances and shared the plans with you,
there might come a time when you might need to deal with some messy aspect of their finances.
I'd personally prefer to get ahead and have the conversation at my pace and timing versus
down the line due to an emergency. Also you might be surprised – some aging parents are
eager to have these conversations with their adult children. They themselves have thought about it,
but do not know where to start. They might be relieved that you are bringing up the
topic. You are not going to cover all topics overnight. It could take months or even years.
But if you take the initiative to start today, you prevent the ‘conversation by crisis’ down the
line. Thank you guys for watching. If you found value from this video, please hit the like button,
leave a comment and subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss out on any of my other
upcoming videos. I firmly believe that being part of the Sandwich Generation doesn't have
to mean financial stress. With careful planning and preparation, we can thrive during this stage
of life. Help me spread the knowledge. Thank you again and I'll see you in my next video.