How You Can Empower Your Teen to Say, "It'$ My Money" with Patrina Dixon

Listen to today's episode, "How You Can Empower Your Teen to Say, "It'$ My Money" with Patrina Dixon"  as Personal Finance Expert and Owner and Founder of It’$ My Money joins Dori Durbin. Patrina also shares:

• What is "It$ My Money"?
• Why Teens Need Her Book
• Understanding Budgeting
• Making Choices with Money
• How Parents Can Help Teens $
• Where Money Habits Start
• How Her Book Affected Her Business
• Next Steps and Plans
• Free Resources and Connections

Did you love this episode? Discover more here:
 https://thepowerofkidsbooks.buzzsprout.com

More about Patrina
Patrina Dixon is a Certified Financial Education Instructor, #1 Best Selling Author and International Speaker. Patrina is the Founder and CEO of It’$ My Money and she and her team are on a mission to help people transform their lives by mastering money management skills. They teach the skills through various mediums such as courses, workshops, books, podcast, YouTube channel and blog.

Patrina has been featured in Black Enterprise, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Dallas and Atlanta Voyager,  Real Simple, Fox61 and has been featured as a financial influencer by Experian. She is the star and executive producer of her own local TV show entitled It'$ My Money. Patrina has taught personal finance workshops in high schools even as far as Trindad and Tobego.

Patrina attended the University of Hartford’s Barney School of Business, holds a Financial Management and a Womens in Business certificate from Cornell University and is a license insurance agent in the state of CT. Her most notable roles are that of a wife and mom. She loves faux frogs, traveling and  the TV shows: Law and Order and Shark Tank.

Buy her book:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Money-guided-journal-finances/dp/1537639463/

Follow Patrina:
Itsmymoney.info
http://www.instagram.com/itsmymoney_

More about Dori Durbin:
Dori Durbin is a Christian wife, mom, author, illustrator, and a kids’ book coach who after experiencing a life-changing illness, quickly switched gears to follow her dream. She creates kids’ books to provide a fun and safe passageway for kids and parents to dig deeper and experience empowered lives. Dori also coaches non-fiction authors and aspiring authors to “kid-size” their content into informational and engaging kids’ books!
 
 Buy Dori's Kids' Books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dori-Durbin/author/B087BFC2KZ

Follow Dori
http://instagram.com/dori_durbin
http://www.doridurbin.com
http://www.facebook.com/dori_durbin
email: hello@doridurbin.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:28 What is "It$ My Money"?
• 3:30 Why Teens Need Her Book
• 6:00 Understanding Budgeting
• 11:00 Making Choices with Money
• 13:29 How Parents Can Help Teens $
• 17:48 Where Money Habits Start
• 21:35 How Her Book Affected Her Business
• 25:29 Next Steps and Plans
• 27:45 Free Resources and Connections

Transcript

[00:00:00.650] - Dori Durbin
Money for most adults can be an emotionally charged subject. And so it makes sense that we want to equip our teens with the best information we can. We want them to be able to live abundant and confident lives in a lifestyle that they can really afford, but it's hard to tell your teen whether or not they can afford something. However, I would like to introduce my next guest, Patrina Dixon. Patrina is a certified Financial education instructor. She's the number one best selling author and an international speaker. She's also the founder and CEO of It's My Money and she runs workshops, has a podcast and a blog all about managing your money and she loves to talk to teens. I hope you'll enjoy our next conversation with Patricia Dixon.

 Welcome to The Power of Kids Books podcast where we believe that books are a catalyst for inspiring and empowering change. Today I have a guest whose name is Patrina Dixon. She is a personal finance expert and the owner of It's My Money and I love that name. Patrina, welcome.

[00:01:09.510] - Patrina Dixon
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have a conversation with you today.

[00:01:14.220] - Dori Durbin
Oh, I am with you as well. I'm just so curious. You have two books, both named It's My Money, but one is for Teens. Can you tell us just a little bit about what you do and maybe just a tiny bit about your book?

[00:01:28.970] - Patrina Dixon
Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I am a personal finance coach. I've been doing it in March for seven years. I've traveled all over the world, all over the United States and as far as trending out in Tobago, teaching personal finances to as many people as I can. I enjoy what I do and I started my journey with my first book, as you mentioned, entitled It's My Money. It's? Actually, it's my money. A guided journal to help you manage your finances. And it's written for ages 13 to 18. And the way the book is constructed is it has quick hit topics. So I call it All Meat, No Fluff. And it has line pages for journaling. It asks essential questions to reinforce the reading. It also has inspirational quotes throughout a glossary in the back and line pages for journaling. And the way that it was designed was not everybody is at the same place, even at a teenager level, within their money. Some have money conversations at home, some do not. Some learn about it in schools, some do not. So the book was intended to make it personal for the one that is actually reading and journaling with it.

[00:02:41.730] - Dori Durbin
That's great. So they can actually reflect, they can do a transaction and kind of reflect on what occurred because of it. Is that kind of what you're thinking with the journal pages?

[00:02:52.150] - Patrina Dixon
Yeah. So that as well as answering the action questions that are within to reinforce the reading. And like you said, they make a transaction or they run across the topic, maybe then have a conversation with their parent or guardian and then go back and kind of reflect or write their notes on what they think they should do based on what they read or had a conversation about.

[00:03:15.340] - Dori Durbin
Got you. So what brought you to the fact that the teens really needed this? Because I know you have the vision... because we talked a little bit about the fact that some of us around here know that some teens really need this. But how did you discover that?

[00:03:31.410] - Patrina Dixon
 A little bit transparency about my story. Right. I made a lot of money, and I spent a lot of money, and I didn't know how to manage money and always thought that that was something for people who had way more than I had, even though I would say I was living well. Right. And when I learned how to manage money and have an appreciation for delayed gratification and realize how it transformed my life in a positive way, I'm like, oh, my goodness, I want to teach everybody how to do this. And when I learned this, I was a young mom, but I was a lot older than what the book is designed for. And I said, oh my gosh, had I learned this, when I learned all the other topics like science and math and all these various different things, I would have been at a much better place, even at the age I then had this transformation. So I said, I know there's a lot of adults that need this information as well, but I want to start with the young people. I want them to not have to figure out how to repair their damage, credit, how to start saving money after they've spent it, and now have to have this mental change about money.

[00:04:48.930] - Patrina Dixon
Let me start them off before they get in what they call adulthood and doing the adulting and have them understand the value of money, understanding the value of the money management skills and the fundamentals of the basics before they start earning and spending and then need to backtrack from the way that they start. So that's why I wanted to start with young people. That's why I wrote the book. I wrote it in the way that I did and then built from there. So then started working with older audiences once I got that under my belt.

[00:05:24.220] - Dori Durbin
Wow, that's really unusual to start from the kids first. I think that's really impressive.

[00:05:29.690] - Patrina Dixon
Yes. Thank you. When I started working with them and then they started going home, wanting to have conversations with parents, I would get the calls or the messages in my email like, oh, do you also work with the adults? Do you work one on one? So sometimes the parents of the kids that I taught in the room or have read my book or had been given my book from the school principal group or however they got it. Their parents became my clients when I used to do one on ones with adults.

[00:05:57.450] - Dori Durbin
Isn't that something? They probably opened the door for the parents to be able to admit that.

[00:06:02.070] - Patrina Dixon
They needed the help. Absolutely. One of the things that I talk about in my book is budgeting. One of the things, and again, this is just for the sake of your podcast, this is not word for word from the book, but the topic that I talk about in the book. Budgeting is really important and it is not a hard task. It's not a task to prohibit you to do things from doing things you want to do. It actually is an empowering task that if you sat down with your money and wrote down what you plan to do with it, then you know how much you have to do the things that you want to do. So sometimes we go and we spend money before once we get paid. I'm at my daughter's and she said, oh, I'm going to go and buy a sandwich because it's today's payday. I'm like, before you do that, why don't you plan out what else you have to do to make sure that that sandwich is within the budget? I'm sure it was, but it's the point of getting used to the exercise of planning out your spending before you actually do so.

[00:07:09.630] - Patrina Dixon
Because money will spend and you should be the director of how it's done within my book. When I talk about that, now that I think about it, it's almost word for word, but it then has a sample budget sheet with line items and topics that people the age of the book. That's a line to 13 to 18 typically spend their money on to have them thinking about planning out for school activities for a cell phone bill, potentially for going out to eat with your friends, going to the mall. So we're not saying not to do it, but know how much you have from what you've earned. So that could be allowance, birthday money, graduation at this time, know how much you have coming in and how much that you want to spend on the various things that you need to, and realize you may be getting more money the next week. So you don't have to buy everything in week one because you're going to be replenished next week by that job, by that allowance, by whatever, however you get that money in. So that without reading directly from the book, that's a concept that's taught within the book and actually a sample of a budget sheet to have one think about how to go about that process.

[00:08:22.210] - Dori Durbin
Do you feel like budgeting is one of those things that people see as very difficult to commit to or to even focus on trying to do?

[00:08:32.690] - Patrina Dixon
I absolutely do. I find that in all ages, actually, like I just said, I think people think about budgeting, like diet, it's going to tell me what I can't do. Am 100% confident once you start doing it and then you start seeing the change in how you're spending, you will not spend without budgeting. Like, I'm confident of that. Once I see clients because I often get and this is more for adults, I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't have enough to do these various things. And then when they sit down in what I call have the money meeting, which is what budgeting is, you creating the spending plan if you don't want to use the word budget, right. You sit down, this is how much I just got paid. These are the things I'm going to do. And then you realize I have a little bit more than I thought I did because you planned it. Oftentimes what people do is and I'm doing the form, you can't see this, but I'm tapping my card. I'm tapping it at the register, right? And then you do that. You get paid, you go on and about and tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap all weekend long.

[00:09:43.320] - Patrina Dixon
And then Monday or Tuesday, you're like, okay, I had fun over the weekend. Now I'm having Monday and Tuesday blues. Right? I'm trying to figure out what I did. I'm trying to figure out what I can bring back because I overspend. So once you sit down with the money before spending, and this is at any age, yes, it may feel a little daunting, it literally will not go past 20 minutes, but you earn 20 minutes to tell your money what to do because you've worked all week, and sometimes that's 40 hours. If you get paid every two weeks, that's 80 hours. You owe yourself 20 minutes to sit down to direct. That 80 hours worth of income the way that you prefer it to go, because, trust me, if you don't tell it where to go, it eventually will leave out of your account by way of you just frivolously spending because you know you have it. So instead of it just go and you're figuring out what happened, you will know what happened because you're telling it what to do. And that's at any age.

[00:10:41.900] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that's great advice. I'm just imagining teenagers. This is terrible. I'll refer to myself so it doesn't incriminate anyone. I'm imagining getting a paycheck and thinking, oh, good, the thing that I've been looking at for weeks, like Lululemon whatever, or the movie, and, oh, I definitely can do that. And I can take so and so and so and so because I have this extra money with me. And then you go turn around to go pay the bill. That was actually the middle of the week and you didn't realize that you have no money to pay. Yeah. That is huge. Okay.

[00:11:19.640] - Patrina Dixon
Yeah. And think about that. You said something about Lululemon or going to the movies, right? Nowadays, before, like these huge TV, smart TVs, were maybe people that made certain dollar amount or whatever, they had more access to the larger screens and things of this nature. Nowadays, a lot of people have a decent sized screen to watch these various different shows on, et cetera. Right. So when you think about movies, and especially in the day, I'm going to call it post pandemic, a lot of people are watching movies at home. So whatever dollar amount that you would have spent to go to the movies, maybe grab some popcorn from your kitchen cabinet and some chips that your parents have already brought, invite friends over and sit down and watch TV. A movie after movie after movie for a fraction of what you would have paid to go out because maybe your parents don't have snacks or whatever. So maybe that you go to the dollar tree, not the stop and shop, go to the dollar tree and get something. Now it's a dollar, 25% of a dollar and get a few bags of things that you're, you and your friends like.

[00:12:23.790] - Patrina Dixon
And now you have movies at home. You go watch more than one movie without paying for two, you know, seats to do so. And then you can have the snacks you desire versus what's the only thing that they have there and at a fraction of the cost, start to think about how you and what's your why, what is it that you prefer to do? If you prefer to go on spring break in March and you keep spending money on Lulu Lemon every time you get paid, then that spring break in March becomes less attainable because you spent your money all the way up until spring break, right. So maybe you want a new bathing suit to go to spring break. So therefore the weekly movies decrease to watching it at home. So start thinking about what it is that you want to do that's in the future, that if you spent every time you got paid, it prohibits you from being able to do those other things.

[00:13:16.270] - Dori Durbin
That's great. That is great. Yeah. If you were spending, spending, spending and suddenly decided that you wanted to go on a trip, you wouldn't have any money to go or you wouldn't have any money to buy them.

[00:13:25.410] - Patrina Dixon
Exactly right. Exactly right, exactly right.

[00:13:29.650] - Dori Durbin
Now, with your book, besides purchasing it, of course, how do you see parents best helping their kids use your book?

[00:13:40.150] - Patrina Dixon
Oh, gosh. You have to start with the purchase. But I'd say go through if it was a parent given it for a gift or if a child already has it and wants to sit down and read it through with them. That's what I would say. Read it through with them. Talk about it. The book, especially the one that's for volume one, ages 13 to 18, it's intended to have that kitchen table discussion. Right. Let's sit down and talk about budgeting and like you just gave the perfect example. You want to go on that trip. So then spending all the time won't help you get there. However, if you want to do that, then no. When it comes time for spring break and Sally and John and Susie are going, you can also go because you've decided to spend all along regardless. If they spent as well, maybe their situation is different. So personal finance is that it's personal. You may not be able to do the same as the other in the way that they do it, but you may be able to accomplish the same things if you think about your personal situation and how you want to get there.

[00:14:43.240] - Patrina Dixon
So start to think about if they planned, ie. Spring break and it's January and they're planning for that, spending from now until then will prohibit them from being able to go and enjoy. Right. Because it's one thing to go, maybe somebody buys that ticket for your parent or guardian, but getting there and be limited on how you can enjoy the experience may be different based on how much money you have. So start to have the conversations about planning out, thinking about things in the future so that you know how much money you have coming in each time and explaining that math and how it goes away. The other thing is so that's one chapter, right? Budgeting. So then it talks about receiving your first paycheck and what that is, it talks about the banking system. Right? Because a lot of people think young people don't know you need to know how to write checks. Everything is electronic. Yeah, you do. Some places still accept that and when you go into new apartment buildings or maybe even college dorms or whatever. So learning the banking system, how that works, some people, even my own daughter, because I didn't know personal finance like I do now, thought that whenever we wanted money, we just pulled up to the bank and got it out of there.

[00:15:56.800] - Patrina Dixon
She never knew that in order for me to do that, I had to work 80 hours at my employer for them to directly deposit money in there every two weeks in order for me to pull it out. Right. So learn teaching them about how the money goes in the bank so that they understand that you now have the ability to take it out. So talk about the direct deposit. Talk about the ATM card and what that means. And when you do use it, it withdraws from the amount that you put in. So just making being more transparent about the transactions, not necessarily having them being transparent or being transparent with your finances and how much you're making, what you're going out, that's an old family decision if you want to do something like that. But the fact that the banks hold money for you, they don't just give you money because you went there and put a plastic card in there and pushing some buttons, right? So helping to understand how that happens, why that happens, and when it can't happen. When there's no money in there, right? Because like I said, my daughter thought, just go, just pull up at the bank and you can get it there.

[00:17:02.780] - Patrina Dixon
Because oftentimes I would say, I don't have it, I don't have it, I don't have it. So you even have to change that language is, remember we did X, so X will have to wait until next week. So just changing the way you talk about money and not make it seem so like burdensome and things like that, because then it becomes taboo to them, that whole topic. So just going through each of the chapters, understanding what's in there, so you don't get fraught with a topic that you can't talk about. Right? Because you don't do it yourself. And then maybe you'll find maybe there's some tips in there that you'll learn to be able to implement in your own finances, so that as you're executing on those things, you're able to talk about it a bit more genuinely because you're actually managing your finances as well.

[00:17:48.550] - Dori Durbin
Now, I'm going to throw something at you you didn't plan on. I'm curious, do you feel like the belief of how you spend money or how you see the money that you have is kind of an inherited belief from parents to kids generationally?

[00:18:08.410] - Patrina Dixon
Oh, absolutely. That's why I say don't talk about we're unable to oh no, we don't have it. I can't afford that. Talk about money in such a bad way, let them know that, yeah, you go to work so that you can earn money, right? And when it's gone, it's gone. But explain how it leaves. Right, so this wonderful, beautiful house that you have, this big TV that you're bringing your friends and we pay for that. You know what I mean? Like explaining like there's bills associated, maybe have them watch you go through your budgeting process that include line items that they may be unaware of. Admittedly, paying for water before I became a homeowner, didn't know that. Water like what? There's a water bill, there's a trash bill. That is something that's oblivious to young people unless parents take the time to share that with them. So helping them understand, yes, Mommy or daddy or guardian makes X amount of money, but there's certain expenses tied to us being able to have whatever lifestyle that is and they enjoy, I'm sure. So take them through that process. It doesn't necessarily mean sharing with them the dollar amount, but sharing to them.

[00:19:21.970] - Patrina Dixon
Here's a list of things that are associated with what we have to do to ensure we have what we have, whatever that may be. Right? But if it's always, I don't have no, we don't have enough. The connection for them is we don't make enough money and I need to hurry up and make a lot of money and not really understanding we make money here. We make good money and decent money, whatever the terminology is. And that's how we are affording what we're affording. So children can't automatically understand the roof over their head. It's something that just is right. They have to understand there's a cost associated with that. So just helping them get at that the way that the parents or guardians think about money, talk about money and treat money. Yes, I do think that that flows through to generations that come after them.

[00:20:15.190] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I'm just thinking back to even my parents when I was growing up, money was a big issue and then I think you're right. You kind of are dragged down by it. If you don't understand that, you can control it to some extent and or will actually control most of it, right?

[00:20:32.570] - Patrina Dixon
No, you can control all of it. Not only can you control what you spend, you also are very empowered in what you make. And what I mean by that, yes, your employer is going to say this is your salary or this is your dollar amount, but outside of that, you can earn more. Like you can decide. I love this employer and I'm going to do the job that they asked me to do to get the paycheck. But I'm also going to leverage what I know, what I know how to do and what I'm passionate about to make additional money. Because what I'm getting from them no longer suits the lifestyle that I want to have or I just want that for my vacation money, whatever it is. So you really are the conductor, the controller of it all. You just have to be confident and execute on the things that can get you there.

[00:21:22.010] - Dori Durbin
That makes sense. Okay, I'm going to shift this just a tiny bit. Let me ask you about your business. Since you've had a team book that's focused more on helping the teens. How has that changed your business?

[00:21:35.630] - Patrina Dixon
Oh my gosh. I get to go into so number one, there's only 14 states today as we have this conversation and may change when you put this out. So that's all state to date that have personal finance as a required course in high school before kids graduate. Right. 14. I don't know about your state because I don't know what state you're in. The state I live in, that's not the case. So because of that hole, I have been asked all the time to come and talk about personal finance sometimes in the schools directly. I was just in the school earlier this week on Wednesday. It is something that our administration, our legislation knows that is necessary but are slow fall in executing it's being required for high schools. So because of that and because I have a curriculum, because I have the book, I get asked to speak on this topic all the time. I get asked to share my story all the time because sometimes people look at me today and what I acquired, what I have amassed today, that you don't understand. Yeah, I understand because at one point I didn't have a lot, and then at one point I had a lot, but I spent a lot because I didn't appreciate and value what I had coming in and just wanted more and thought materialistic things acquired immediately and faster than the next mid something.

[00:23:00.650] - Patrina Dixon
And then I had a better appreciation of things in a different way. And that's what I talk about and teach. And when people understand that, then they begin to want to understand and protect and be a great steward of what they do have, whatever that amount is, what they do have. And then they want to learn how to make more. And then because in order to when you make more, if you don't master the fundamentals, then the more just goes out the door. More just goes out the door. So it may take a little bit longer to go because it's a little bit more than you have before, but if you don't master it, you are going to spend it without realizing it, because to you, you can just make more and just make more and just make more. So, yeah, fundamentals are important. No matter how much you make, how much you have, it's really important to know. So, yes. So schools asked me to come in. Not only do they ask me to come in and talk, they also purchase my book in bulk. And normally I don't teach from my book. When I go into schools, I teach from the what I'll call the curriculum or presentation.

[00:24:09.220] - Patrina Dixon
And then the books are the leave behind. So hopefully what I've taught sustains because they have this resource that they can refer to even once I'm gone.

[00:24:19.250] - Dori Durbin
That in itself, I think that's a piece that a lot of experts don't think about. The fact that you can be there and you can be presenting to people and they can be absorbing it and with you. And then you leave. So what do you leave with them to keep them going and keep them on track. And I think that's where a book really pays off for people to have. I don't know. Do you feel like it's a little bit of a calling card for you to be able to say, here's my book, let me know what you think? And then it can feed both ways, it can bring you people, it can also seal that connection. Right?

[00:24:54.990] - Patrina Dixon
Oh, gosh, yeah. The book gets me in the door by far. Absolutely. It was the authenticator, if you will, you have a book and it's on Amazon like, oh my gosh, we need to get her. Yeah. So I could have been doing this well before the book was published, but once the book was published, I became the sought after right. And then it has a catchy title, it's My Money. So people would locally would team in the grocery store. Oh, that's my money, lady. Wow. Absolutely. The book definitely helped catapult my career in financial education, for sure.

[00:25:29.360] - Dori Durbin
Now, do you have another one planned?

[00:25:31.040] - Patrina Dixon
I sure do. So I have two volumes out, volume one, ages 13 to 18. Volume two more suited for ages 19 to 25. And I am planning a volume three. It's my money. It's actually my trademark brand. So the books are under the trade mark in the financial space, and it's intended to have a three part series, one, two, and then a third one coming. The thing is, I am always out traveling, going to places, so I got to just put what I would call pen to paper metaphorically, but I actually got to just start hitting the keys on the computer to get the third one out. It's in my head. I just got to get it out on the pages.

[00:26:11.470] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. I think that's the struggle of most busy people is they may want to write a book, but having the ability to, as you said, pen to paper, the time to sit down and actually get it out is sometimes a little.

[00:26:23.550] - Patrina Dixon
Bit tricky, but worth it, just absolutely. I'd be remiss if I didn't say this. My husband and I started a book publishing company to help people along, and now I need to help myself along as well. So yeah, some of the things I learned in volume one, we thought, you know what, we could help other authors through some of the hurdles that I realized after the fact. So yeah, we did do that as well. Our company published my second book as well.

[00:26:52.840] - Dori Durbin
That's great. And the 18 to 20 year old one or 18 to 25, that one is out right now.

[00:27:01.030] - Patrina Dixon
It's volume two volumes. Both of them, volume one and two. Both can be found on my website or on Amazon. My website being it's my money journal info, and it's not is info. It's my money info. Itsmymoney info. Or you can go to Amazon and search for my name. Patrina Dixon. D-I-X-O-N.

[00:27:28.060] - Dori Durbin
Awesome. Well, Patrina, I'm excited about all of your I'm going to call it Curriculum and Books.

[00:27:36.530] - Patrina Dixon
Thank you.

[00:27:37.540] – Dori Durbin
I definitely can tell you're passionate about it, and I know that people will really hold on to this concept and look you up. And I for 01:00 a.m. Going to go buy your book for a certain person in my family.

[00:27:49.910] – Patrina Dixon
Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. I am extremely passionate about the topic in general, more so with our young people, but anybody that needs the information, I would be remiss if I didn't tell this. I want everybody to buy my book. But if that's something you're unable to do, I do put out free financial content by way of a blog. So I blog about. Financial topics, and I have a YouTube page. And if you need some resources, if you go to the resource tab of my website, you'll can get free resources, like a budget sheet and a debt tracker.

[00:28:24.330] – Dori Durbin
Awesome. That's so helpful. Thank you for that.

 [00:28:27.410] – Patrina Dixon
You're welcome.

[00:28:29.090] – Dori Durbin
Well, thank you again, Patrina, and I'm sure we'll be in touch.

[00:28:32.760] – Patrina Dixon
For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. And I hope that your audience finds this to be valuable information.

[00:28:41.090] – Dori Durbin
For sure. Thank you. Bye.