Mom, Are We Rich? Breaking the Shame Around Family Money Conversations w/Suzy Reidman
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Do you worry your kids will grow up to be entitled and clueless instead of kind, humble humans?
This is the episode for you.
Wealthy families are SO bad at talking about money.
Your advisors tell you that you need to “protect” your money and your heirs, right?
But that protection backfires when you create a vault of secrecy your kids can’t crack.
In this episode, I’m joined by Suzy Reidman, fellow inheritor and founder of Family Wealth Dynamics, for a behind-the-scenes look at what it means to grow up rich.
We cover our personal experiences, how we talk about money with our kids, and promo our workshop on raising money-smart kids in wealthy families.
🗓️ Schedule a FREE call to talk one-on-one about your struggles around kids and money and to build a path forward for your family.
Transcript:
Hey, I'm Katherine and thanks for joining me at Heir Necessities, the podcast that turns complex financial information into real talk for Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z inheritors. I'm a certified financial planner, a wealth manager for inheritors, and an inheritor, just like you. Each week on this podcast, I break down a different topic related to generational wealth and inheritance. My goal is that you can come here for the expert, understandable advice that you need and stop trying to manage your inheritance by asking Google or ChatGPT what to do.
Meet Suzy Reidman: Family Wealth Dynamics Founder and Inheritor Coach
In this week's episode of Heir Necessities, I am so excited that I'm doing something different and I'm joined by a very special guest, my friend, fellow inheritor and coach for inheritors, Suzy Reidman. Suzy is the founder of Family Wealth Dynamics. She is an empathetic guide for families and individuals who are navigating what it means to be wealthy, to be an inheritor and to try and live that journey authentically.
She is a trained coach and mediator. Just like me, she draws on her own personal experience as an inheritor to guide families through some of the hardest and most challenging parts of money conversations.
Upcoming Workshop: Raising Money-Smart Kids in Wealthy Families
I'm especially happy to have Suzy as a guest on the podcast today because this fall we are putting on a three-part workshop on raising money-smart kids in wealthy families (Register here!). We're gonna talk more about the workshop at the end of this episode, but I just wanna promote it here because I'm so excited that we're putting it on. We've had a ton of interest already and we've been talking about how we can really bring our personal stories, not just our professional experience, but our personal experience growing up as the children of wealth, if you want to use the technical term, into this workshop to help wealthy parents figure out how they can raise kids who are smart with money, who are kind, who are empathetic, and who are capable of carrying family values around wealth into the next generation. So, Suzy, welcome. Great to have you here.
Suzy (02:12) Thank you. It's really great to be here. And I think we have a little bit of a problem already because now and then I use ChatGPT to figure out what to do with my money.
Katherine Fox (02:22) We all do it a little bit. It's more like the ChatGPT spiral, right? Where you don't have answers and you're like frantically just asking it question after question to try and get to the answer. And then you realize it's 3 a.m. and you're still stressed. That's really what I want people to avoid.
Suzy (02:37) My favorite is that it speaks to me so nicely. It says things like, "It's great that you're thinking about this and here's another way to think about it."
Katherine Fox (02:42) Right.
Suzy's Journey: From Growing Up Wealthy to Founding Family Wealth Dynamics
Suzy, I'd love if you could just share a little bit with my audience how your personal experience led you into founding Family Wealth Dynamics.
Suzy (02:57) Yeah, I'm happy to. So like you, I grew up in a family of wealth, though it wasn't something that was ever spelled out or very obvious in my family. I'd say the way that I knew that we had money was a lot when our horses—we had horses, so that's one way. And then when the horses would need veterinary care, they would always receive great care. But we lived in a humble house and my parents didn't talk a lot about money, but there was always enough of what we needed. It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I inherited an income-producing property and hadn't received a lot of training from my parents on how to steward that well or what their expectations were for me. At the time, both my parents were alive. So my dad had purchased this property and it was part of his estate plan to hand these down to his children before he passed away, which was great estate planning. And I think that his main concern in sharing too much about this with us beforehand was that it would be a disabling factor. If we knew what we had coming, then it might limit what we were willing to do with our own lives.
The Challenge of Inheriting Wealth: Avoiding the "Disabling Factor"
I mean, I think that's a great concern for parents to have because money can be disabling if you have so much of it. What's the point in figuring out what to do with yourselves because you don't really need to. So getting that income-producing property in my late 20s at a time when I still wasn't really sure—I hadn't found my footing. I was a CrossFit coach and a personal trainer, both jobs I really enjoyed, but wasn't making a lot of money yet. I decided with that property to utilize all the income from it to purchase my own rental real estate in the town where I live. And that led me down the journey of really taking ownership of something I'd been given that I didn't earn, but was still mine to figure out how to steward and own and manage well.
Different Family Approaches: Open vs. Private Money Conversations
Katherine Fox (04:52) It's so interesting to me because we obviously—we've talked about this together—that we have gone through so many of the same experiences and we have so many of the same thoughts and feelings and so many similarities in our kind of background and money story. But sort of my personal family money story is so different in that I really was brought into conversations around family wealth and around what was mine as a teenager. And it was very open and transparent, like "this is the money in your name, this is what you have access to." And then that, as I got into my mid-20s, late 20s, when you were getting your first income-producing property, my family was bringing me into discussions about the family's net worth like beyond just the assets that I had access to. And it's so family dependent, right? There's no right or wrong way to do it. But I'm curious from your perspective looking back—you sort of got your first information about family wealth and what might be available to you or that there would be things available to you in your mid-20s. Do you think that that was the right time for you? Or do you think as you think about parenting your own child, looking into the future, you would have done something differently? Not to criticize our parents who are all lovely people and well-meaning, but as a thought exercise, more than a criticism.
Parenting Wealthy Children: Finding the Balance Between Humility and Transparency
Suzy (06:25) Yeah, no, I agree. I do agree that our parents are all doing the best that they can with the information that they have and with the kids—the unique kids that they're raising. I do love in your story that your parents started having in-depth conversations with you about money early on. And to be fair, my parents did start talking to us about money earlier, but I didn't know about the property that I would be inheriting. I did have—they had brought us into conversations with financial advisors when we were teenagers. So that was really good. I appreciate that they did that. So there was some awareness of, you know, the publicly traded assets that were going to—were in an account that was destined for us. There wasn't a lot of talk about how to be rich. I think there is a real negative connotation in the past. And I think there's still carryover now toward wealth and having money and that it's something that you should not talk about. It's prideful to talk about and I think a big chord running through my family was humility. Like how do we display humility in how we view ourselves, how we treat other people? And so, gosh, to answer your question, I am doing it differently with my son. I'm having a lot of open money conversations. He's only six, but I really want him to grasp what it means to have money, what it doesn't mean to have money. I want him to understand what money can do for you and that he will have money, more money than most kids if all goes well. And I want him to understand what that means. It's not something to brag about. It's not something that really needs to define him, but it's his reality. So I want him to understand the reality he's dealing with, little by little as he grows up so that all of a sudden it isn't a brand new thing when he's older that he has to understand all at once because now he's faced with having to manage these assets.
"Are We Rich?" Children's Book Series: Teaching Kids About Money Through Stories
Katherine Fox (08:25) And on that subject, you actually have something exciting that you're working on. So can you share a little bit more about that?
Suzy (08:31) Yeah, thank you. So I'm working on children's books. Like I said, my son is six and I'm writing a series. The series title is "Are We Rich?" As you know, as a mom, that's the sort of question that kids ask, "Mom, are we rich?" Or "Dad, are we rich?" Or "How much money do you make?" And they want to know. I want to give them—the kids and the parents—somewhere to go with questions like that. So this first book that I'm writing is called "Bobby and Billy: A Tale of Two Homes."
And it's a relationship between these two best friend boys who are on opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum and how they handle this relationship where one boy obviously has a lot, a big house and a lot of new toys and the other boy has a smaller house with older hand-me-down toys and lots of kids in the house and the way that they come to understand that it's not the things that you have that make you happy, but loving what you have that makes you happy. And so there's also a section in these books where parents can have conversation prompts of just starting the conversation with little kids of "What makes you happy? What makes me happy? Is there ever something that you've bought that you thought would make you really happy but didn't?" So it's not hammering in like a profit and loss statement. It's talking about the auxiliary topics around money like happiness, fulfillment, purpose, and that all kind of has a core in money. If money is like the hub, then these topics or these books are like spokes, conversations that can slowly lead to understanding money on a deeper level for kids.
Creating Open Family Communication: Books, Conversation Starters, and Breaking Generational Patterns
Katherine Fox (10:08) I am personally really excited to get my copy and share it. My kids are even younger, four and two and a half. So, especially the little one has no idea what's going on, but I just love the approach that you have of having it always be something that exists. It's so important, as we think about the things that our parents did that we wanna do differently as parents, the parenting philosophy that we have adopted is like, I don't want there to be things in my family that weren't talked about, right? Like money wasn't one of them. We always talked about money. We're a money-loving family, right? We like to talk about it. We like to think about it, what it is, where it came from. But there were other things that my family didn't talk about and that kind of now I'm like, I wish that those things had been more of an open conversation. For example, like our children were made using an egg donor and we were really intentional always about like we have books about different kinds of families and we have a book that talks about our egg donor and talks about like we made a little story about our personal, you know, fertility journey.
And so I think thinking of money in the same way is really helpful. And I think that your books are going to serve such a needed purpose there because like when you talk about your family, if money is prideful, if money is something that you have a hard time talking about, how do you start those conversations and just giving parents a tool where like, we can just read this book and then conversations will follow. And we can practice using those muscles, especially for those of us who grew up in families who weren't open about money and who don't have sort of an inherent level of comfort talking about money or wealth or finances.
Money as Family History: Generational Wealth Stories and Legacy Building
Suzy (11:50) Yeah, and on something that you said there, I think money is also such a great window into family history. So if it can be shared in story form, a child can start understanding not only how their parents earned their money, but how their parents before them established, whether it's a business or real estate, established themselves and give so much context for this family that they're growing up in. And the richness isn't so much about money, but the richness of what you've come from. I think that's very valuable for kids. And money can be part of that story. It doesn't have to be eliminated from it. Like my family, horses are a common theme back as far as many generations as I am aware of. And it's—and it's still one that I get to carry on. And I'm so proud to be able to have horses still. And that's something that my family loves talking about. We share horse stories whenever we're together. And we know like, gosh, there's dozens of horses and names that we can say and then someone will think of a great story around that. And I would like it if money could be talked about in that same way without it being a charged topic. But this is what grandpa and grandma built. And then this is what dad did with the step up that he got from them. And now this is what you can do with the step up that you got from your grandpa, from your grandma, your mom and dad. And now what are you going to do with it? And then what's your legacy going to be? Because the legacy builds on each other. It doesn't have to always remain what the original intent was, but it can be built upon and become something so much more than anybody originally thought it could be and I think that's amazing.
From Childhood Cash Register to Real Estate Empire: Suzy's Entrepreneurial Journey
Katherine Fox (13:34) Yeah, yeah, you put it so well as ever. I wanna go back to something that you talked about growing up in your family, money—like your family's focus on humility and money. I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but money being kind of this prideful thing. And now to the point where this is something you talk about openly, you're writing a series of children's books to teach your son about money. Talk to me about your journey getting comfortable in this space, from getting that first income-producing property to now where you are today.
Suzy (14:12) Okay, so I will say, I think I personally have always loved talking about money. Yes, I think so. And I think I've told you this story, but your audience might like it. The first purchase I made, like a big thing that I saved for was a cash register from Office Depot. I was 10 years old and I'd saved up—it cost $110 and I saved up that money. I was so excited and it was, you know, plug in and it had all the keyboard and it printed a receipt and then you press the button and the cash drawer opens. So money has always been something that I really enjoy. I love talking about and with that cash register I would—I had a little office store in my house where I would go collect office supplies from my parents' offices and then resell them to them. So I had a real strong entrepreneurial streak.
Katherine Fox (15:01) Oh my gosh. If my children did that, I would literally die of happiness. My life would be complete.
Suzy (15:10) My parents weren't nearly as happy about it. They would be upset that I was asking that I was pricing up the items that they'd already purchased and making them buy them back after I'd stolen them. I think I earned a few dollars.
Taking Ownership of Inherited Assets: Building Your Own Financial Team
So yeah, I've always been comfortable talking about money, my family not necessarily, but I think I was destined to, in my life and career to be able to talk about money somehow, have it be a part of what I do. So it was, let's see, in my late 20s, once I started taking ownership of that property, because there was actually real money coming in then that I had to figure out what to do with. And so as I really dove into real estate investing and understanding how to manage that asset class, how to budget to buy a property, how to manage the money when it was coming in, the expenses, and really understanding from jumping into what that entailed. Then that led me down the track of what about the other assets that I'm holding and the ones that are managed by a financial advisor? What is it exactly that the advisor does, is this somebody that I want to continue working with, or is it just someone that my family worked with? Could I do this myself? What value are they bringing here? And I ended up really needing to build my own team of advisors. I love having a financial advisor, and I think it's important, but I think it's important for inheritors to figure out what they need and not just stick with what they've inherited—the people and team that they've inherited because those a lot of times—something that I've seen is that team doesn't really serve the inheritor as an individual. They see them more in terms of the family, the whole family context, and they really see their client as the mom and dad or the wealth-creating generation or the older generation. So for me, switching advisors to ones that understood my goals was really a crucial step in me taking ownership of my money and my life. And money and life go right together. I think if you're not taking—if you don't really believe that the money is yours, it's hard to believe that your life is yours either.
The Psychology of Inherited Wealth: "If You Don't Believe the Money is Yours, Your Life Isn't Yours Either"
Katherine Fox (17:24) I've never thought about it that way, but that's like such a deeply profound and true thing that I think is like, it's so true for my clients. I'm just gonna like say it again, I'm processing this in real time, but like "you don't believe the money is yours and your life isn't yours either," and it's just... It's so true and you see it in the fear that inheritors have and then, you know, if we're talking about parenting while rich, if you don't have this comfort level with your own wealth, then how do you bring your kids into it? Like if you had this, you know, this weird sense of like, unreality—I don't know if unreality is a word, but let's make it up—where it was just like, it's just confusing and you don't necessarily have a good model of what it should look like when a family is talking about money in a healthy way. And I think that's a big reason, right? That we put on this workshop. Kind of bringing it around, if people are interested in this conversation. If you've listened to this episode and you wanna know more about raising kids while rich. This is a pretty good example of what the workshop is gonna look like. Obviously it's gonna be a little bit more technical, but this is me and Suzy, right? This is our vibe. We really want to share with people our stories and also what we've learned personally and professionally in a way that feels accessible and really in a way that's different from the scarcity mindset that a lot of advice about money and kids boils down to this need to preserve wealth and the fear that if you tell your kids too much, they're gonna spend too much, they're gonna be ungrateful, they're gonna be lazy, trust-fund kids, right? We all have these really negative stereotypes in our heads about what rich kids grow up as. And that, I think, holds a lot of families back from open, honest communication about money. But these fear-based narratives, they are what create the situation that people are trying to avoid because it's exactly what you said, right? Suzy like if you don't believe your money is yours, then your life isn't yours. And if your life isn't yours and like, well, what does it matter if you just go and do, you know, like fuck-all whatever? I will curse in the webinar. I hope that's okay with everyone. Suzy probably will not. She's a much softer person than me.
Breaking Fear-Based Money Narratives: The Open Palm Approach to Wealthy Parenting
And so really giving an alternative to that like fear-based preservation, kind of grasping-based narrative more towards like open, healthy discussions about family money and everything that it relates to.
Suzy (20:11) Mm hmm. Yeah, I like the image of an open palm holding things with an open palm that it doesn't have to be so tightly grabbed onto. And if you visualize these conversations with an open palm where things can come in and things can flow out and nothing is so severe or so scarce, like you were talking about, nothing's quite as scary as it seems when you're grabbing onto it so tightly. And the ability to have the conversations and to ask the questions that oftentimes inheritors are really afraid to ask, just getting it out there, getting what's stuck inside out there and knowing there's other people that are feeling the same things that are wondering the same questions, that can be so healing and provide next steps forward. If you know that you're not alone, it really gives a person a lot of clarity.
Resources and Next Steps: Our Parenting Workshop
Katherine Fox (20:56) Yeah, well I think that is the perfect note to end on. If you want to know more about Suzy and the work she does at Family Wealth Dynamics, if you want to know more about our parenting workshop starting in September (register here!), links to all of that are in the show notes below. All of our contact information, a link for you to sign up for that series. Keep learning with us. And if you have any other questions, always shoot me an email, shoot Suzy an email, and we'd love to continue the conversation.
Suzy (21:31) Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the webinar. That'll be great.
Katherine Fox (21:34) Suzy, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for joining me. And I'm sure that you will be back on a future episode of Heir Necessities.
Suzy (21:41) Thanks, Katherine.
Let’s take the next step together
Understanding how to talk to your kids about family wealth isn’t easy. Inheritors can encounter a wide variety of different situations requiring knowledge and finesse to manage. If you need more help, you can reach out to Katherine Fox, CFP® and CAP®, a financial planner for inheritors, to learn how Sunnybranch can help you work toward open and transparent money conversations.
