Launching Financial Grownups

Learn how to give the young adults in your life the knowledge, confidence, and motivation to make adult money decisions, and create their own strong financial foundation and independence, so you can all live richer lives. In Launching Financial Grownups, popular personal finance expert and Certified Financial Planner Bobbi Rebell gets candid about the very real-life challenges of getting young adults to choose to be financial grownups and develop their own financial foundation and security. She shares her own personal setbacks and solutions (both from her own past, and as a parent), and walks readers through the ups and downs of financial adulting milestones. Rebell has put together a practical and specific adulting launch plan for parents of young adults along with tips on how to open money discussions, the questions to ask your children, the most effective listening strategies, when to step in to stop them from making mistakes, and when to let them learn from their mistakes. Launching Financial Grownups provides the tools to help your teen or young adults navigate the challenges of adulthood including debt, credit cards, peer pressure that leads to bad money decisions, negotiations, how to manage their own household, different investing opportunities, insurance needs, charitable giving, the legal documents they need to have in place in case of an emergency, what they need to know about your finances and even starting to think about their retirement planning. All this while also addressing recent demographic trends driven by the pandemic including young adults moving back into their childhood homes, and becoming financially dependent, after having been independent. Launching Financial Grownups offers: Solutions for parents who want to avoid ‘cutting off’ their kids at a seemingly arbitrary age or life milestone and are looking for more supportive solutions to get their young adults to be well adjusted financial grownups. Strategies for parents to protect their own financial well-being and retirement resources. Advice from top parenting and money experts including “How to Raise an Adult” author Julie Lythcott-Haims, “The Price You Pay for College” author Ron Lieber, “Grown and Flown” co-author Mary Dell Harrington, Tori Dunlap of “Her First 100K”, “How to be a Happier Parent” author KJ Dell’Antonia, Tonya Rapley of My Fab Finance and Jean Chatzky, author and CEO of HerMoney Media Essential for the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and everyone who is vested in the financial success and independence of young adults, Launching Financial Grownups is a must-have financial resource for long-overdue and timeless advice in an engaging and supportive package.

Foreword vii Preface xi Introduction 1 Section 1: Prerequisites 9 Chapter 1 Orientation 11 Chapter 2 The Family Ecosystem 23 Chapter 3 Blind Spots 31 Section 2: Core Curriculum 43 Chapter 4 D Is For Debt 45 Chapter 5 Career Foundations 57 Chapter 6 Homeroom 69 Chapter 7 (Lifestyle) Inflation 77 Section 3: Graduate Studies 83 Chapter 8 Exit Strategy: Getting Your Kids To Pay Their Own Bills 85 Chapter 9 Paycheck 101 97 Chapter 10 Jobs with Benefits 105 Chapter 11 Grownup Investing 125 Chapter 12 Grownup Home Economics 139 Section 4: Electives 149 Chapter 13 Generosity 151 Chapter 14 Driver’s Ed 155 Chapter 15 Cultural Studies 163 Section 5: Exmissions 171 Chapter 16 Til Death Do Us Part 173 Chapter 17 Stepping Back: A Parental Pep Talk 183 Epilogue 191 Notes 197 Acknowledgments 199 About the Author 201 Index 203