208. What If Your Kids Aren’t Ready for the Money You Leave Them

What if you spend your whole life building wealth for your children—but never teach them how to handle it?

TV producer Aaron Spelling built a fortune estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet when he died, his daughter Tori Spelling reportedly inherited only a fraction of it. Her story raises an important question for every parent building wealth: Are we preparing our kids for the inheritance we hope to leave them?

In this episode, Laura Sexton explores the difference between leaving an inheritance and building a legacy—and why raising financially confident kids requires more than simply giving them a financial head start.

You’ll learn:

• The three things kids need before they ever receive an inheritance
• Why modeling healthy money habits matters more than simply talking about money
• Why kids need opportunities to earn, save, spend, give—and even waste—their own money
• How small financial mistakes in childhood can prevent much bigger mistakes in adulthood
• How to talk about money with kids without shame, fear, or constant lectures
• Why involving your children in real family money decisions can help them become financially confident adults

Your kids are already learning about money by watching you. The question is: What do you want them to believe about money when they leave your house?

This week, bring your kids into one real, age-appropriate financial decision. Show them what you’re choosing, why you’re choosing it, and how that decision connects to what your family values.

Because an inheritance is what you leave your children. A legacy is what you build into them.

Topics: teaching kids about money, raising money-wise kids, financial literacy for kids, generational wealth, inheritance planning, family finances, money conversations with kids, financial parenting, building wealth, leaving a legacy

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Transcript

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Laura 0:00

You're working hard every single day, and you're doing it because you wanna make sure that your kids have a better life than you had. But you can't just leave them money. You have to teach them what to do with it You are listening to the Money and Legacy Podcast with Laura Sexton. I'm helping families pay off debt, grow wealth, and build a legacy without sacrificing what matters most. This is where money feels easy. Hey, legacy builders. Today, I'm gonna tell you a little story about a gentleman who gained massive notoriety. His name is Aaron Spelling. He produced massive television hits in the '80s and '90s: Fantasy Island, Melrose Place, Charlie's Angels, Dynasty, The Love Boat, Starsky and Hutch, Beverly Hills 90210, and then a couple of my favorites, Charmed, 7th Heaven. You couldn't go anywhere in the '90s without hearing the name Aaron Spelling. And if you had anything to do with TV, you were desperate to get on an Aaron Spelling show because once Aaron Spelling gave you his blessing, you were off to the races. Throughout his time in the TV industry, Aaron Spelling amassed an enormous fortune. Estimates are somewhere between $500 and $600 million. Now, Aaron had a daughter named Tori. Tori Spelling shot to fame on her own right on Beverly Hills 90210. She also played Screech's girlfriend on Saved by the Bell, which is really fun. But Tori also got a bit of a reputation for spending. So Tori was notorious for going out and just doing leisurely shopping trips, and her stepmother, Candy, would say that it would be somewhere around fifty to sixty thousand dollars every time she walked out the door. So when her father passed away, all of his money went to his wife, which, let's be fair, if my husband passed away, I would expect all the money to go to me as well so that I could take care of my kids and myself for the rest of my life and then plan to pass it on to my children. But when you have that much money, you can definitely go ahead and bless your children pretty exorbitantly. But even though Tori grew up with extraordinary wealth, she reportedly only inherited around eight hundred thousand dollars So here's my question to you, my friends. What if you spend your whole life building wealth for your children, but never build children who know how to handle the wealth? Okay, so here's my quick caveat. We don't know all of the dynamics inside of the Spelling family, so this isn't really an episode about Tori herself. Her story just raises a very interesting question. What are we actually trying to leave our kids? Most parents will tell you, "I want my kids to have more than I had." Guess what? Me too. But more what? Is it more money? More opportunity? Do we actually want them to have less struggle? Because some struggle is actually where financial competence is built. If we remove every financial consequence, we may inadvertently remove the practice that they really, really need. Some of us really need a struggle. Your legacy and your inheritance are inextricably linked. An inheritance is what you leave your children. A legacy is what you build into them. There are three things that our kids need before the financial inheritance. They need to see a healthy money behavior. What are you modeling to them? Because they're watching. I say it all the time, your kids are playing follow the leader. What are you modeling for them? Do they hear panic, fighting, secrecy, shame? Or are they watching you plan your money intentionally? Are they watching you be generous and intentional They see your healthy money behaviors, but they see your bad ones too. What do you want them to see? And then once we decide, again, once we decide our desired future and we know who we wanna be, we adjust our money habits to fit that end goal. Your kids need practice with real money, and that comes in a couple different ways. First of all, you need to let them earn money. They need to know that money doesn't just come from the bank of mom. They need to know that money comes from work. You need to teach them how to save money. Some of your kids are gonna be natural savers. Some of them are going to be natural spenders. Your child will have a natural bent. I have one child who is an extreme spender. You put money in her pocket, she must spend it. I have another one that could care less about spending money unless it's something she really, really, really wants. So she will save up to get that. And then I have another child who could care less about money and loves to give it away. Occasionally, yes, we want to let them save it smartly, we want to let them spend it smartly, and occasionally we want to let them waste it. Because a $20 mistake at 10 is a whole lot cheaper than a $20,000 mistake at 25 This is why I am so excited about my book, Rosie Earns It Herself, which will be out this fall The reason we wanna teach our kids to earn money before they spend, save, and give their money Is because there is dignity in the work, because our children value the thing that they received when they had to work to get it, and because this is how the real world works. Our kids are going to have to work to earn their keep. No matter what kind of governmental system we have in, if you're not working, you're not going to have the things you want and the things you need So they need practice, Mom and Dad. They need you to sit down with them and help them. But they need conversations, not just rules. You have to tell them why your family makes financial decisions. Talk about mistakes that you've made in a age-appropriate way, please. Talk about wealth and what wealthy people do. Talk about generosity, and let money be something your family can discuss without any shame My friends, you are going to give your kids something about money. They may not remember everything that you have said about money, but they will remember watching you fight about it. They will remember the things that seemed scary, and they will remember what seemed important. They're gonna remember things about money that are fun. So the question isn't really how do I make sure my kids have no money baggage when they grow up, but rather what do I want my kids to believe about money when they leave my house? They're going to carry something with them out of the house. Do you want it to be money baggage, or do you want it to be a sense of confidence when it comes to money? I'm going to encourage you to go ahead and have one money conversation with your kid this week. It's not a lecture. Bring them into a real decision that you are making in your family. Here's what we're choosing. Here's why. Here's what matters to our family. It's like my husband is flying home from a work trip, and he got notified that he is going to be able to come home a day early. Now, we sat down, and we looked and went through, you know, how much would it cost to be able to come home early. If you have to change your flights, it's gonna be $200. You get home about 12 hours earlier. Is that really worth it? Now, to me, I'm desperate to see him. I, any extra time, I would pay $200 to get 12 extra minutes with him. I am just one of those people that quality time's really important to me. But also moving it around makes things more difficult for pick-up with the kids. It turned into this whole logistics situation, right? But then he got word that he gets to come home three days early, at which point $200 becomes a no-brainer. This is the decision that we actually went through. What do we wanna do? How does it affect the entire family? Not just me, 'cause if it was just me, as soon as you can get here, I want you here, because I am a quality time, close proximity kinda person. But it's not necessarily the best thing for the rest of our family because I'm looking at that $200. I'm like, $200 to buy clothes for the kids, to buy sporting equipment, to put into their investment for college, to put into our investments for retirement. There's so many things that can be done with that money. But then we get down to I get three extra days with my husband? No-brainer. We're doing it, 100%, let's go. There are real decisions happening around you all the time, and whether you're consciously going through these decisions in your mind, you are making choices about money, and you need to teach the children how to do that too. I don't want you to spend the next 30 years on building an inheritance to not spend those years building the people who are going to inherit it from you. It has to be a both/and. If you are going to build an intentional inheritance, my friends, also build your legacy. Spend all that time building the people who are going to inherit it Your children are playing follow the leader, and this week I want them to see you go out and make a difference