119. How to Avoid the Entitlement Trap

Do you ever walk into Target for one thing… and walk out with ten? 🙋‍♀️ You’re not alone—and today we’re getting honest about what justified spending is doing to our wallets and our kids.

In this episode, we’re diving into the uncomfortable but critical conversation around financial entitlement—and how even our best intentions as parents can accidentally blur the lines between wants and needs. I share a real-life Target trip, the truth behind our Christmas overspending, and the mindset shift from guilt-based giving to legacy-based modeling.

You’ll learn:

• Why "justified" spending often leads to instant gratification—and debt
  
  
• How overspending on our kids can fuel entitlement, not empowerment
  
  
• The difference between modeling generosity and modeling stewardship
  
  
• 3 simple ways to start teaching your kids dignity, patience, and financial literacy—starting today

🎯 Plus, I’ll challenge you to reflect on your last 3 purchases for your child: were they intentional… or just convenient?

📥 Grab your free "7 Steps to Set Your Kids Up for Financial Success" 

Because your kids aren’t just watching what you say—they're watching what you spend.

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Transcript

Laura: 0:02

hello and welcome to money and career mastery from overwhelmed to ownership. I'm Laura Sexton, your abundance and legacy coach here to help you navigate the world of money, debt payoff, and career growth with confidence and clarity. In this podcast, we'll tackle the financial and career challenges, holding you back, optimize your income and build the freedom that comes with true ownership. If you're ready to break free from overwhelm, create a budget that aligns with your values and design a legacy that empowers future generations. You're in the right place.

Audio Only - All Participants-5: 0:36

Hey accelerators, I hope you are having an absolutely lovely day, and today I'm here to talk to you about entitlement. This is not something that we enjoy talking about, but it's something that we need to talk about because our kids are on the line and when it comes to our kids, we don't wanna accidentally mess'em up. That means we have to be intentional. We are intentional with everything, including our money. So I wanted to tell you about a little trip I took to Target this week where I went with my husband and my best friend and our two youngest daughters, express purpose of buying things for Easter, as well as buying a swimsuit for my oldest daughter and maybe one for me, and already you can tell that the item creep. Was real. We went in knowing we were going to buy a couple of things, and then we got sidetracked by the toy section, which is hard. It's hard not to get sidetracked by the toy section when you have a 2-year-old with you we got stuck there for a few minutes, and then there are the scooters and the workout equipment and the books. And if you've ever been to Target or Walmart or you know, a store, you know what it's like to get sidetracked by the little things. The first thing we did was we walked into the dollar spot and we started picking up things that are on sale in that area because they didn't sell before. So we had a problem. We wanted to buy more than we had planned, and when my daughter's looking at things and asking for things, and I'm seeing things that I wouldn't have thought about needing before I get into justified spending. Now justified spending is pretty much what it sounds like. You start justifying the things that you wanna spend money on. I'm buying this because I need this, because if you have to start justifying it, you don't need it. I'm trying to get to some real world examples of what this looks like on an actual everyday basis. And one of the things that I'm thinking about is Christmas. So when it came to Christmas time, my husband and I had agreed we were only going to buy three gifts each, or three gifts for each of our children. So each of our children would get three gifts. That was the plan. They got 10. Is what it ended up being. So we bought three for each of them. And then there's one other thing that we found for one of the kids. So you have to get something for all of the kids because they have to have the same number of gifts. And then grandma bought something and then Nana bought something and then Lola bought something. Then Uncle Mark bought them something and then, you know, then we're getting stuff from other relatives. I'm just like, oh my. Atlanta, why are we doing this to ourselves? And then you have to put stuff in the stocking and it just, it tumbled outta hand and eventually they ended up with 10 gifts. Once you start justifying things, it can get a little outta hand. We gotta be careful. What does this have to do with our children? Because I, you can see what it has to do with you and how it affects you and your spending and the issues with your pocketbook, right? Me buying 10 gifts for my kids, that definitely affects me. How does it affect them? The first thing justified spending for your kids can lead to a long-term financial entitlement. Hmm. Okay. So what do I mean? Justified spending will blur the lines between needs and wants for both the parent and the child. I did not need to buy each of my kids a gift, so they had the same number of presents under the tree. That's a tad bit irrational. If we sit down to think about it, like, what if I bought one of them a car and then the other one got a bicycle? They get the same number of gifts, but they're not equal. it's not fair. So why? Why is the same number so important? I don't know, but it felt like it was necessary. And when we're blurring the lines, especially with our children, between needs and wants, if I'm constantly justifying, I'm turning a want into a need, by justifying it, by making an excuse for it, I am turning it from this would be nice to have to a necessity and doing that. Leads me to the possibility of more and more bad choices. Financially. I don't wanna make bad choices financially. I wanna make really good choices financially. I wanna make sure that the choices I'm making are good for me in the long haul. And the best way to do that is to not. Make those decisions in the moment, but to give myself space, to make decisions, to make decisions ahead of time. When I'm in a good brain space, when I'm not in the heat of the moment in the store, like looking at the thing at that moment and then trying to justify it, if I start to justify it, I have to walk away because this justified spinning, it normalizes instant gratification. And normalizing instant gratification for our children sets them up for really bad long-term habits. I don't want my children to ever be in a situation where they think I want that. I can justify it and therefore I can put it on a credit card. That's the last thing I want for my children. I never want them to be in a position where they think they can justify spending to the point where they start going into debt for things. But if they're in a state of instant gratification as a child, what do I think they're gonna be when they're 20 and their frontal lobe hasn't? Fully developed, and yet they have access to credit to debt. I don't want that for them. I really don't want that for them because instant gratification means swipe it on a card, worry about it later. I don't want that for my children. So justified spending is what it is, and it can definitely lead to some problems. But we need to shift our mindset, right? We need to shift our mindset from this. Almost guilt based giving to our children. Like the thought there is I want my kids to have more than I had, so I'm willing to give up anything for myself to give them more, more and more. I, and it sounds good. I want my kids to have more than I had, so I'm willing to give them extra. I'm willing to work really hard to give extra to them. But the truth of the matter is they don't need. I'm thinking about, there's one episode of Boy Meets World where Corey, is yelling at his dad, Alan, or he is the main boy in boy meets world, and he's yelling at his dad and he's like, why didn't you ever want me to be more, you never pushed me to be more, all I am is average. And the dad goes, when I was growing up, all I wanted was to be average. He grew up, his dad was a working class guy and was constantly struggling, and Alan aspired to make it up to average, and he looks at his son. He says, well, if my son looks down on average, I guess I've done my job. And it's really interesting because growing up I thought that the Matthews, the family that this show centers around, I thought they were incredibly wealthy and I aspired to have what they had and I didn't understand why Corey didn't want what his family had. But you look at it and you're like, oh my family, I wanna do better for my kids than my family did for me. It's a terrible thing to think. I mean, yes, I want more for my kids. I want them to have everything possible for them in life. But you know what I want most for my kids? I want them to have dignity. I want them to have work ethic. I want them to be proud of where they came from, and I want them to want more for their kids too. They're gonna need some room to grow. So how do we shift from guilt based giving? We feel guilty. So we want to give our kids things to legacy based modeling where we show them what it looks like to build a legacy. Well, the first thing is we remind ourselves that our kids are watching us. They're going to be doing what we are doing and they are going to look at what we're doing and go, well, that's really smart. I wanna do that. Or they're gonna look at us and go, well, that was stupid. I don't wanna do that. Sometimes we don't say it in so many words, right? Like when my mother said that she had filed bankruptcy twice before I graduated from high school, I never said she was stupid and never said her decision was stupid. But I certainly said, I don't wanna do that. I decided I was going to break that cycle. I was gonna be the first link in a new chain. My mother is a very generous person. I love her generosity. I love how much she gives. Sometimes she gives too much to her own detriment, especially of her time. We have to be on the lookout for that. We have to make sure that we're not doing that. Our kids see our limits. They will one day appreciate them. Probably not in the moment. Kids don't like limits. That's not how kids are. But they will respect us for enforcing limits. There is a difference. There is a difference between having a boundary and letting somebody cross it. And having a firm boundary that is uncrossable. It's also really good for our kids to say, not yet, or, let's plan for that. That builds this idea of financial patience and we need to instill patience, especially in this. TikTok world of everything being eight seconds long. You are building patients in children who do not deal with patients well. They are drive through children. When they need to be a sit down five course meal, they are microwave popcorn instead of a slow pot roast in the crock pot. So I think it's time that we implement. Three small ways that we can start teaching our children dignity, patience, and financial literacy, and we can do it today. Literally, you can start these three things today. The first of which is to let them work to earn their money. There's great dignity in earning the money yourself. They don't have to be doing a lot. My kids have very small chores. One of them puts laundry away. She doesn't even have to fold it. One of them puts dishes away. She doesn't have to dry them. They're already dry. And then I have one that helps take the trash out. He can't do it by himself. His father goes with him. So it's not like he has a lot to do. Then my littlest one, her job is to help her siblings. So whoever's doing a chore, she can help them. And if she helps even a little bit, she gets paid for it. I think that it's important to go ahead and say that things like cleaning up after yourself are not things that people get paid for. Doing things because you are part of the family that's required because you are part of the family. Things like picking up your own mess in the living room, helping clean up the living room. Things like putting your dishes in the sink after dinner, making your bed, which is kind of like cleaning up after yourself because you unmade it, so you need to make it. Things like that are because we are part of the family. Those are good behaviors that are rewarded in other ways. But I don't pay my children for good behavior. I pay my children for job well done and half done is undone. You will not get paid if you have to your chore. So there's dignity in work. Let them work. There's dignity in, patience. Let them save up and purchase something with their own money. This doesn't have to be something huge. They don't have to buy a Nintendo Switch. I know you guys heard about that little saga that I had going on with one of my kids wanting to buy a Nintendo Switch. She got it for Christmas. So now. She has to save up for something else. I don't know what her something else is. We're gonna have to work on this because with that one, especially, saving is hard for her. Her spinning muscle is strong, but her saving muscle is almost non-existent, so we're working on it. And then I want you to create a wants list together with your child. You can review it monthly to model delayed gratification. This helps them with their financial literacy because you are creating a budget essentially. You know, how much is it gonna cost? What do we have to do to earn that much money? You are creating a plan. You are creating patience, and if you let them work for it, you're creating dignity as well. Let them have a chores list. I highly recommend having a list of chores with dollar amounts next to it so they know how much they're going to earn for doing the chore, and they get to pick and choose and decide, oh, I wanna do this and I wanna do that. If my children would pick something, I would let them pick, but because they do not pick for themselves, I will pick for them. And yes, that is okay. Parents, you have to teach them how to work sometimes, and that's okay. As a parent, your value is not measured by what you give to your children. You were not trying to buy their love and affection because that's called prostitution. That's not what you want for your children. You want to have them love and respect you. Sometimes that comes with setting limits. Your value is measured by what you model for your children. What are you showing them? Because they're playing. Follow the leader, my friends. They're playing follow the leader. They're not playing show and tell. They don't wanna hear you tell them about what they should and should not do. So I'd love for you to take one small action step for yourself and for your child. So maybe you can do this with me. I want you to pause and reflect on three recent purchases that you've made for your child. Were they aligned with what you value or were they convenient in the moment? Were they done specifically, or were they done flippantly? What were your three most recent purchases for your child? Do they align with your values? That is your research question for the week. Now, I would love for you to, if you haven't already, go ahead and grab my seven steps to set your kids up for financial success. It is a checklist with some added benefits and bonuses attached. You can find that on my website@accelerateyourlegacy.com slash resources, or you can scroll down into the show description, into the show notes and find the resources tab. Just click on it. Go ahead and grab seven steps to set your kids up for financial success. There are some things in there that we've talked about on this podcast. You definitely wanna check it out and make sure that your kids are being set up for success. And, mom, dad, that starts with you. All right, my accelerators. That's it for this week. Go out and make a difference.

Laura: 16:50

thank you for spending time with us today on Money and Career Mastery from Overwhelm to Ownership. Remember, your legacy isn't just about financial freedom. It's about living with purpose, taking action, and building a foundation that lasts for generations. Don't just listen, implement what you've learned and share it with someone who could use a financial or career breakthrough. If you found value in today's episode, help us grow by rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast. I'll be back next week with more strategies to help you master your money and career. Until then take ownership of your future and build your legacy with intention.