From Candy Bars to Investing: Inspiring Financial Decision-Making in Kids - Mari Collins Harris

[00:00:00] I want people to understand that building a financial education for your kids doesn't have to be hard, and the best way to do that is to make it part of a practice, to make it part of your everyday life. Not sitting down with a book and a lesson and pulling your hair out, trying to teach a kid who doesn't wanna learn something.

It can be as simple as like, you made $5 today. Here's what you can buy, or here's what you can save towards. And making it so that the kid is enjoying using money and letting money work for them. So

here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential? Growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, [00:01:00] fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question In this podcast, we'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. You're home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. You guys keep us on the air and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. Thank you for spending some time with us and giving us his chance. My name is Brent. Today my special guest is Marie Collins Harris, which I'm sure I said wrong.

Founder of Catch Shop, and mother of three feral children. I absolutely love that. That's the way she phrased it. Marie, welcome to the show. Hi, Mari, Mari. Nice to, yeah, that's all right. E everyone gets it wrong. Um, hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super happy to be on the show. Uh, I love that you put on your bio three mother of three feral children.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I. I think most [00:02:00] children are a little bit feral because that's kind of our job as parents is to Right, teach them how to fit into whatever culture you're raising them in. But I mean, it, it takes a surprisingly long time and you know, my oldest is eight and I'm still like watching him eat spaghetti.

It's like all over his face and his hands and my tables and the cat. I'm like, How, how have you not learned this yet? So yeah, Carol, children, not all parents have a sense of humor about it. That's what, that's what I always am, am just mind blown by, Sarah and I were doing a parenting class last year at our church.

We had all these, our, our daughters are now 11 and the other ones turning nine next month. Mm-hmm. And we had all these young parents with like toddlers in the group and Sarah said, there it is. I just do not like my children. I love them. I do not like them. Yeah. And the look of horror on some of the parents' faces is like, dude, chill.

You're gonna [00:03:00] have those days, right? Oh, I mean, I feel like I had most of those days in the first year, it was like, you can't communicate yet. And it, I don't know, I didn't have a lot of time spent around kids before I suddenly was in charge of one of my on my own. And so it was like, how come like I'm putting all my effort into making this child.

Healthy and strong and sleeping and clean, and he's not doing the things that I want him to do. Why don't I have control over him? So I think, yeah, I'm sorry that you didn't have a more welcoming space. I feel like as parents, that's the number one thing we can offer to each other is like, yeah, it's hard and you know, we all mess up.

But for us it was, we're all learning. Like we, we've done parent classes before and both of us grew up helping with. Kids, we, we both grew up working in like the church nurseries and stuff like that. My dad was a minister, so I grew up in the church and so we grew up taking care of little kids as long as we can remember.

Mm-hmm. So, [00:04:00] Yeah, it was just so funny to see all these younger parents, cuz I don't feel like my kids are that old. But seeing all these younger parents who have like, you know, toddlers and newborns and going like, how could you say that about your child? Dude, sense of humor. Cause it's gonna be a long 18 years, otherwise.

Yeah, for sure. Having a sense of humor about parenting is the best way to make it enjoyable for everyone because if you're too serious about it, it's gonna just be a miserable time for you and for the kid. Right. Totally agree. Now, Mari, we start the show pretty simple with just a random trivia question.

So are you ready? Oh good. I'm so good at trivia. Which Hollywood director made his directorial debut with dual in 1971? Is it A George Lucas, B Martin Scorsese, C Steven Spielberg, or D Woody Allen? Duel. I've never even heard of that movie, [00:05:00] but I'm gonna go with Martin Scorsese because it sounds like a fighting kind of movie.

Am I right? I will. We'll find out later. We'll come back to that guys. Oh, dual rules. Don't look ahead. Don't up play the game with us. We'll come back to it. Well, yeah. Now I just wanna Google it and see if that was right. I won't. I won't. Okay. It's easy to do when you're doing this on a computer, right? It's like I gotta see, keep myself from doing stuff in the background sometimes.

Yeah. You can see. Yeah. No, I don't do huge introductions. So in your own words today, who is Mari Collins Harris? Um, I am, as you said, the mother of three feral children. Um, I've recently started a company with my husband Nick, and we are trying to help kids learn financial basics through an online shopping app.

So the way it works, it well, I'm not gonna go into that yet. I, we'll get there. [00:06:00] Um, yeah, we'll get there cuz I'm talking about myself. Um, I am. A designer, I am, um, an artist. I am a dancer. I'm a cook, I'm a gardener. I am a person who, uh, really enjoys like the tactile things in life. Um, I really love being around people.

I love conversations and, um, I just, I like experiencing new things, so, and trying new challenges. So that's, that's who I am at this point in my life. Okay. Mari, if you could have, am I saying that right? I'm trying, Mari? Mm-hmm. No. Perfect. Perfect. You could have a conversation with anyone present or if you past, who would it be and why?

You know, I listened to some of your earlier podcasts and so I knew this one was coming and I tried to think of all these people in history that I would like to talk to, and I [00:07:00] realized that I don't really care about what people from the way back days felt or did because we can read about them. So I think my answer is gonna be someone who's alive today and.

The most influential person that I could think of right now is Emily Oster. Um, she wrote a series of data driven parenting books, and they deeply changed the way I approached my own parenting, all from pregnancy all the way through like scheduling soccer and extracurricular activities. And she, she's an economist who brings data to the table instead of just relying on.

The old wives tales of, you know, don't eat sushi when you're pregnant. Don't like, let your baby sleep on their side. All these different things you're told as a parent to be afraid of. She dove into those and sussed out like what actually matters and what, you know, [00:08:00] doesn't really matter in the long run and is likely to be proven wrong in the future.

So, yeah, she, like you said, having a sense of humor about things and not sweating it. Um, She helped me not sweat parenthood quite as much. So yeah, she's out there, she's doing great stuff. If you ever talk to her, tell her I wanna hang out, I will do, will do. I would absolutely be open to having that conversation.

Parenting, it's, it's amazing, right? Parenting is one of those things where there are, you know, a million books on parenting, but in, and you can prep. And you can prep. But until you actually get in the saddle and have your own kids, I mean, I had so many foregoing conclusions about what I would do with kids.

Me too. Cause me too, I've worked with children for so long. Mm-hmm. And then I had my kids and it's like, um, well, maybe not, you know? Yeah. Well there's, there's a difference between like working with kids for your. Eight hour shift and then going and [00:09:00] being able to do whatever you want for the rest of your day or life or weekend and versus like, oh, whatever I do now is gonna affect how my child sleeps tonight, which affects how I'm gonna sleep tonight.

So it's a, it's a longer game to be a parent than, yeah, than a babysitter for sure. There are things you just don't process. It's like, oh, if I say this today, how's that gonna screw up my life? Six months from now, right? Yeah, for sure. If I say I that hard, fast rule, now this is the standard. Am I gonna have to go back on that in six months and then that's gonna mm-hmm.

Kid. Yeah. There are things you just don't process no matter how much you think you're ready until it's your kid. Yeah. I know. I, in our family, we've been really working on like when we make consequences, To make them consequences that we actually stick to and not say like, well, if you don't do this, it's gonna be straight to [00:10:00] bed right now, even though it's five o'clock.

And it's like, we can't do that. We can't enforce that. That's gonna just be a bummer of a night for all of us. So. Mm-hmm. Like snay on the xray, if you can, so, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's highly important, is making sure that you're using consequences that you actually gonna stick. If, if you don't, you lose all credibility anyways in your kid's eyes.

They're like, oh, well, they, yeah, they're gonna screw you for sure. They don't care. They're, they're not actually gonna do anything. Yeah. Yeah. And then that's a huge bite. Mario, what's your favorite ice cream? Ooh, you know, I was, I was a strawberry lover for a long time. Um, but I've recently switched to, um, like any kind of, Peanut butter and chocolate combination.

Ideally, it's gonna be like a peanut butter base with chocolate swirls and maybe chunks of like, you know, [00:11:00] peanut butter cups. That's like primo for me. Ooh, that does sound good. I'm go ice cream, making me stop. Stop recording. Go get ice cream, I think. Yeah, yeah. Mari, what is a talent you have that some people might think is silly?

A talent that I have that some people think is silly. Um, I'm a very good freeform dancer. Yeah. And by that I mean like if I were to be doing choreography, I would be the worst. Like I'm that person in the back of the class who can't get all the moves on time, but. If we're just out and about and there's a beat, it doesn't matter if it's a farmer's market or a grocery store or you know, a bar.

I love to dance. I'll dance with anyone at any time or by myself, so. Awesome. Uh, very free form. No, that's, that's awesome, man. I, I, I think it's a very big [00:12:00] gift to just be so moved by music that you can't help but respond. It's such a joy to be able to move your body and like feel it inside and not just, you know, kind of sit on the side and bounce your head.

Um. Mm-hmm. And I think even like if you're dancing badly pe it still brings people joy. Just that you're a uninhibited enough. What purchase a hundred dollars or less have you made in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life? This one's tough. Um, I feel like I don't buy little things that much that make a difference.

It's like maintenance stuff. Um, but I got my husband a personal sauna for his birthday. Um, he was threatening to convert our hall closet into a sauna, and so I bought him, it's basically like a laundry basket that you zip yourself into all the way up to your [00:13:00] neck, and it has. Like a little steamer underneath.

And so you sit in this chair in a laundry basket with your head poking out and um, and then it steams you. And so I got it for him kind of as a joke, but he ended up using, he used it like every single night of the winter. And then whenever I'm sick, um, I just use it a bunch and it's like cut my colds in half.

Um, I had covid at around New Year's and I was just like living in that sauna. So, um, yeah, it was, it was a cheap joke that turned into a lifestyle change. See, that's a profound impact. That's absolutely fair game. I guess so. I guess so. I mean, there, there's, there are no wrong answers in this show. You, you just can't strike out here.

So what are you most proud of? Um,

I think I'm most proud of the fact that I'm a [00:14:00] pretty reasonable person and I feel like I'm really good at. Admitting when I'm wrong and moving forward and trying to encourage the people in my life to do the same. Not shaming them when they make a mistake. I'm working on that with kids cuz you know, sometimes it's hard, but, you know, letting them back into the fold, um, after a mistake.

And like being able to show love and help them grow as well, which is something I'm trying to do for myself. Um, not beat myself up over. Things that I got wrong or um, chores I didn't accomplish or failures of my past. I'm trying to shake everything off and just keep moving forward. And, um, I think that kind of resiliency, if I can pass that along to my kids, then I've done a good job.

All right. I like that. Resiliency is incredibly important. Underrated for sure. For sure. What is something everyone should know about you before we dig into the [00:15:00] subject today show? Hmm. Um, I. Used to be in, um, a startup in San Francisco. And so one of my jobs there was to take incredibly complex concepts like insurance.

It was mainly around how insurance works and break that down so that it was manageable, little bite-sized pieces of information that. A fourth grader could understand. So that's one of my specialties is being able to like, really dig in, find something that seems really intimidating, and figure out a way to order it and structure it so that everyone can understand it.

Um, especially like adding visuals and cartoons and, uh, illustrations and stuff. So, um, yeah, it's, it's my superpower I guess. Okay, now guys, we've been spending a little time just getting to know who Mari is [00:16:00] before we dig into the show. In the next part of the show, we're gonna start digging into life skills for our kids because there are a lot of life skills that aren't being taught in public education.

Things that we have to deal with as parents and make sure we equip our kids for. We're gonna roll into our first sponsor and we will be right back with more from Mari Collins. Harris, how well do you sleep at night? Do you toss and turn and wake up more tired than when you went to bed? Sleep is commonly one of the critical elements people fall short on in their life.

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I love my GhostBed. I've been sleeping on one for a couple years and it's made a huge difference in how I sleep. Hit ghostbed.com. Use the code, the Fallible Man 30 to get 30% off your order and start getting better at night's sleep tomorrow. Now let's go on to the [00:17:00] show. Welcome back guys. In the first part of the show, we were spent some time just getting to know who Marty is.

In this part of the show, we're gonna start talking about some life skills for our kids. As parents, it's up to us to instill intelligence and education into our children and help them learn the things they need to, and not all the times that gonna come from the education system. Whatever your format of education system is, there are pieces that are missing from that, that as parents, we need to make sure our kids have.

Now, where I wanna start is with prioritization. One of the things that you guys talk about with your program, with your app is prioritization and learning to decide what's important, having to choose for sure. I, I don't think that's something that's taught very often. Not something I expect. No. And I think in the world our kids are living in now, it's harder than ever because everything is instant gratification all the time.

You open up a phone and it's like, I can look at [00:18:00] beautiful people, I can look at beautiful places. I can buy whatever I want and expect it later. Like everything is just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, gimme, gimme, gimme. So we are, we're primed to expect that kind of like, I want it. I have it, but you have limited resources, right?

Like you don't have, well, I don't know about you. I have limited resources, so I, I'm not gonna be able to have every single thing I want. And my kids have even more limited resources and they get, they get a lot of what they want, but, um, it's up to them to choose what's important. And so I think, um, Teaching your child to be able to think into the future and say like, yeah, you want a candy bar right now because there's a candy bar right here, but you've been saving up for a bike.

And if you had a bike you could ride to your friend Max's house whenever you want [00:19:00] to, instead of asking for a ride. Like, what's more important to you having a candy bar right now? Or having freedom and. A bike. And so having, having those discussions is super important to helping children like think about it.

And they're not always gonna make the right choice. You know, like half the time, they're more than half the time. Usually they'll choose the candy bar because it is that instant gratification. But being able to see the results of their choices is equally important because, you know, Then you can say, Hey, you know, you're this close to having that bike.

If you hadn't eaten that candy bar, you'd be there. We'd have a bike, but now we have to wait a little bit longer and that's okay. You know, childhood is the time to learn those skills of like delaying gratification and prioritizing what's important to you. Making a plan and getting there. I, I actually run into this, so I, we do [00:20:00] a host of men's conference every year called the Phoenix Conference.

And I also work in a youth conference deal with the church that I've been part of for like 16 years now. And pre-registration, like the night for the youth conference, we'll have 30 kids pre-register when we're prepping. We buy food for 150 people regardless of what pre-registration looks like, because we, are they just really hungry kids or what?

No, no. Cause we'll have 30 people pre-register chaperones and kids. We'll have a hundred plus people walk through the door in time for registration that night. Mm. Um, people travel last minute. Yeah. People travel from like Oregon and I live in Central Washington. People travel from Oregon to Montana, Idaho, Canada for this event.

It's been around for 46 years now, and we're just, we're just the latest group of directors running it. But yeah, we have people, we'll have a hundred plus people show up at the door every year like clockwork. As long [00:21:00] as I've been doing this. We have 30, right? We have this massive facility rented, uh, thousands of dollars into that.

We had bought a food for over a hundred people, a hundred, 150, and we ended up having to go buy more food almost every year because, you know, you'd think if people were traveling, they'd wanna make sure they'd reserved this spot, you know, and be able to. Get in, not like fly all the way to Washington, show up on the day of and be like, oh, oops, no, these, these are all driving in from like church youth groups in the region, right?

Mm-hmm. But I mean, someone drive seven, eight hours to get here. Wow. But I used to be a youth minister in another part of the state years ago. Seems like a lifetime to go. And I had, I had the same problem cuz I grew up, my parents were like, if you don't pre-register, you're not going. Period. And so when I was minister at this church, The first youth event we had, I didn't have any kids pre-register, and so two days before the parents were like, okay, so you know, [00:22:00] what do the kids need to bring on this trip?

I was like, what are you talking about? Well, what do they need to bring? No one registered. We're not going as a group. My kid wants to go. They should have pre-registered. Well, no, they, I said, you can take them as, as a church group. We're not going. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a lot to coordinate last minute.

Yeah. Yeah. Bringing a bunch of kids with no preparation, like Yeah. Yeah. It roughly, it's all about that foresight and being able to, to see the future, so to speak. And I, I mean, I have the same thing with my men's conference. I had, I think, 12 people, preregistered, we had 80 people there. You know, well, better than the other way around, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's like I, I have this conversation with adults all the time. It's like prioritization, man. Life is full of choices. Pick something and commit to it. Don't wait till the last second. But everybody these days is [00:23:00] like, wait until the last second to make decisions on big decisions. Mm-hmm.

To see if something's well, and you know, I think a lot of people hope, myself included, sometimes hope that like. Oh, maybe at the last minute I will have a better option that I wanna do, or Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe I'll win the lottery, maybe. Yeah. Maybe something will happen that I wanna do more, but almost always I like having a plan better.

Mm-hmm. As long as, um, as long as it's a plan that is of my choosing. Yeah. Getting, getting people to learn to prioritize. Their finances, prioritize their time. These things that you have set amounts of or set resources off mm-hmm. Is, is very, I feel like it's become very complicated for a lot of people these days.

It's just not something we're like, no, you can have it all. No, you can't. No, you can't. You can't have all the time, you can't have all the money, you can't have all the stuff. And so I'm, [00:24:00] I mean, I feel like there has been a move towards minimalism lately, like mm-hmm. You hear about it all over the place, and it's not just minimalism in, you know, get rid of your tchotchkes.

It's minimalism in terms of like what you commit to, how you spend your time. You aren't. Overbooking yourself. You're kind of making sure that you say no enough that your life feels manageable. And it's hard because you know, every day it's, there's. A thing with your kids' soccer team, and there's a thing with your church and there's a thing that at at the neighbor's house, and there's another thing.

And so if you say yes to everything, then you're not really enjoying any of them because you're thinking like, oh, I can only be here for a half hour and then I gotta go do this other thing. So I think it's not just about prioritizing the things you bring into your life, it's prioritizing the way you spend your time too.

Right. [00:25:00] So I, I love that y'all have built this into, as something that is fostered through your app you've built, and that leads, like we talked about finances, right? You catch pri prioritize your finances. I know my youngest daughter does not get this, like my eight year old, my, my 11 year old will stack up money until she can buy something.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Still buy a couple little things. I got two bucks. Let's go to the dollar store for sure. How do you give your children money? We're, we're really careful about that. So my kids can actually earn money. I pay them to learn books. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Uh, I actually go through and, I mean, they have a great deal because I will go and find age appropriate books to teach them things like, Uh, entrepreneurship, marketing, design, economics, stuff like that, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Financial planning. I pay them. I find that age appropriate books. [00:26:00] They have to read the book and write a book report and I mean, it's really simple. Book report. Yeah. And I pay them $10 a book. I buy the book. They just have to do it. That's awesome. Like a teeny, tiny job. That's better. That makes it better.

Further drive the point home. When I introduced the concept, I started with one. Um, have you seen, what's the Ninja series on Amazon? Uh, um, I've seen a bunch of ninja series on Amazon. Yeah. It's the last name. The author is m i n h. They're, they're little kids books. Okay. Um, but they, she had a great book that was, uh, money Ninja and I mean, it was like, okay, oh yeah, yeah.

We have one of. Right. Yeah. And then it introduced the concept of there was more to do with money than just spending it. It introduced the idea of saving, donating and reutilizing it to build more income. Mm-hmm. [00:27:00] Mm-hmm. And so love that. And this agreement with them, they, out of the $10, they keep six, they have to invest two, save one, and donate one.

Nice. It's like the safe spend give jars of days of old, right? Or I guess currently a lot of people still use that, but. Yeah, that's what a cool idea. Um, you're bettering your kids and like teaching them the skills to navigate the world. I love that. And then of course they get the things like, you know, birthday cards, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

They have lots of aunts and uncles to, you know, shop with money and grandparents and stuff like that. But then we, we kinda limited after that. It's, it's things like, uh, we've let our daughter or start mowing the lawn every now and then and giving her 10 bucks for it or something. If they're working towards something, we try and foster ways for them to earn some money.

Mm-hmm. Through helping out more. [00:28:00] More than they would normally do so, but they still have to earn it, right? Yeah, yeah. For a while. Most of the time. For sure. It's, I mean, there's so many different ways to do it and like. Uh, everywhere you look, there's gonna be, you know, you have to do it this way or you have to do it that way.

But I think in the end it's like, are you paying attention? Are you putting the effort in and are you getting your kid excited about this? Mm-hmm. Because like a kid's enthusiasm is the best predictor for how long they're gonna be attentive to that subject. You know, if like, Moneymaking for your kid is arduous and annoying.

Mm-hmm. It's like that's not gonna work out for the long term, but yeah. It sounds like, um, sounds like you have a pretty good system set up. I we're trying lots of things. They have a, they have their own little business. Uh, we've seen like the shops, like Red Bubbles, a website. Yeah, I'm familiar with that.

They, they have [00:29:00] their own red bubble shop. They sit down because I do all the merchandise for my business. I already have the design tools. Yeah, so I sit down with them and help them put together their own designs to sell in Red Bubble as well. Oh, cool. That's awesome. I, I love that you're supporting their entrepreneurship so early.

Um. Yeah, it's, there's a lot of us out there starting our own things and nobody knows how to do it. I wish I'd had that kind of education right when I was younger. Mm-hmm. Well, that's, that's why this is like, I was never taught this, but yeah, we talked about charity a little bit, right? I love this idea of globally teaching our kids to be globally aware of other people, other needs, other ideas.

Yeah. Um, I, I totally agree and like, There's the whole, you know, think globally, act locally. Mm-hmm. And lately, you know, we, [00:30:00] I try and encourage my children to donate to bigger organizations that are more efficient with the money. You know, like Project Aware is like a snorkeling, scuba diving nonprofit that like is rebuilding reefs, stuff like that.

But you know, like for us, we don't live near the ocean. We're in Lake Tahoe. So, It's not changing our lives. We all love the ocean, but we see it like twice a year maybe. Um, but we've been doing more, um, support of like local organizations, making sure that, you know, there's a bike path that goes along the lake instead of cars or going, um, tomorrow we're gonna be doing a cleanup in the, um, along the lake, and it's like a.

Cleanup party, which I think is a great way to get kids starting to volunteer. So it's like a group activity instead of just like you and me are gonna go with some gloves and buckets and see what we can do. Right. It's, it's a bigger idea. Just [00:31:00] the fact that, and I love that you've built this in. Right.

With your planning in your app to have the option to start to enter cause Right. I, I can teach my kids to get money at church or mm-hmm. Like, my kids like to send money to the Australian zoo. Uh, Steve Irwin's old zoo. Hmm. His family runs, they Yeah. Absolutely love, uh, what's going on there that we've never been, we want to go, that's like a dream vacation.

But Well, maybe someday, right? Yeah, yeah. We're, we're gonna get there. But they, they love, they, they like to watch the, the Irwin show or whatever. Um, yeah. Somebody has and stuff like that. So like, I'll put somebody there. We can somebody them. Okay. But it's like, as a parent, how do you, how do you foster that?

How do you teach them? It's like, Hey, you know what? Taking what yours and helping other people. That's, that's an incredible thing. That's powerful. Yeah. And giving them the ability to feel good about it [00:32:00] afterwards. Like, so my kids, um, you know, through catch shop, they'll do donations to different organizations that they're passionate about.

And every time I'm like singing it from the rooftops, it's like two or three bucks at a time. You know, it's not like big donations, but, It's more the act of being charitable that I'm trying to encourage. So I'll like push on social media and tell grandma and grandpa and make sure that my kids are always there when I'm doing it, so that they can hear that I'm proud of them and that they should be proud of themselves.

Because, I mean, we all want a better world, but we also all want to feel like we're appreciated for the efforts we put in. And, um, I think it's so important that kids get celebrated for when they do things well, and guys, I mean, this is one of those things, right? As parents, we, we struggle with these things.

[00:33:00] How do we confer these values to our children? How do we reinforce them and encourage them? How do we even breach some of these things? Because this is something that's going to fall on your head. Mom, dad, both. Doesn't matter who's listening to the show. This is something that falls in our head as parents.

It is, it's complicated to breach. Not every kid is gonna be like, yay, let's talk about money. Mm-hmm. Other than let's spend. Mm-hmm. Right. Introducing these are, these are bigger concepts even for some adults, and so having ways to breach these topics and deal with 'em is really, really important as you invest in your kids.

Now, I wanted to talk about these things because these are things that all of us as parents have responsibility to bring to our kids. In the next segment of the show, we're gonna talk to Mari about her app, the Cut Shop app, and how this can actually help this. I'm really, I'm really excited about this, Mari, because I think you put together something spectacular that's gonna [00:34:00] help parents, uh, actually breach these subjects.

It's way easier. I spent a lot of time with some of these ideas I have with my kids. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, I was like, how do I actually talk about this with an eight year old? Right. I mean, I was, yeah, I knew I wanted to, but I, how do you do having a structure? Having a structure there so that it's not just like figuring it out on your own and throwing ideas in front of your kid.

It's gonna be a lot easier if there's a system in place, and I'm so excited to get into that. So guys, we're gonna roll to our next sponsor. But please, you know, I don't promote things I don't believe in guys. I have never in the history of this show ever talked about an app or a specific piece of technology and said, you need to do this.

This is how, how much I think this is important, guys. I think this is an incredible opportunity because I've seen the importance of my kids' life as I've been trying to teach them these things without having set [00:35:00] tools. This is such an incredible opportunity for you to introduce some of these bigger ideas to your kids in a safe and secure way and make these conversations happen.

So we're gonna roll our sponsor and we will be right back with Morgan Wire. Now, before we go any further, I wanted to share with you guys, I don't always tell you how much I love doing my podcast. Like I passionately love what I'm doing, and one of the things that makes my life better as a podcaster is to work with a company like Grow Your Show.

Grow your show is a one-stop podcast. Do it all. Now I use Grow Your Show for my marketing, but Grow Your Show is literally a one-stop shop. You can record your episode and just drop it off with them and they take it from there. It's amazing. If you are interested in picking up podcasting as a hobby or maybe you're looking to expand your business and use podcasting that aspect, talk to my friends over Grow Your Show.

Adam will take care of you. I guarantee it. I trust him. He's my friend. He's my business. Colleague and I wouldn't trust anybody else with [00:36:00] my show. Welcome back guys. In the last part of the show, we're discussing some life skills that are really important for our kids. It's kind of on our head. The education system isn't teaching your kids this.

You as parents have to instill some of these values and some of this knowledge into into your children. And this part of the show, we're gonna talk about Mari's app, the shop app. Because she is bridging that gap, she is giving parents a way to introduce these bigger concepts and help your children raise more intelligent awareness about finances and priorities and everything else that we've been talking about so far.

So Mari, I, I would love for you to share the story of where Catch Shop started and then we'll go into it from there. Yeah, so it was the summer of 2020 and my then five-year-old really wanted an RC car, and I am a little tight when it comes to the type of things I like to let into my house. We had a [00:37:00] new baby at the time and the idea of like, An RC car just ripping through the yard, running over babies, tearing up plants.

I was just like, I don't want it. I don't want that in my home. But he was willing to work for it and he wanted to raise enough money to buy it himself. And I, how can you say no to that? Right. So, um, I. Gave him a bunch of chores he could do. It was like raking pine needles, putting pine cones into bags, vacuuming, you know, he worked for a while, like several weeks, and finally he had enough money to, um, afford the RC car.

So then he is like, all right, I got it. Let's go to the toy store. But it's the height of Covid. So we're like, eh, not gonna go to the toy store for, I don't know, six months a year. Nobody knows. Um, So we looked on Amazon and we started scrolling. I typed in like remote controlled car, and it came back with literally [00:38:00] a hundred thousand options and a lot of them looked exactly the same.

It was like the same exact picture with a different name and a different price. There was like little tiny ones that are taken in like a closeup shot, so they look big. There were like, Ones that cost $500. It was just, it was all over the place. And so of course, him being a five-year-old was like, I want that one.

I want that one. I want that one. I want this other thing that's not even in our C car, but it's showing up. I just, I want it all, and it's so easy to just click these buttons. And so I was just sitting next to him at the computer, like ringing my hands with anxiety cuz I'm like, oh my God, I do not want my child to buy the wrong thing while he signed into my Amazon account cuz he could do anything.

Like if I step away for a moment, he could look up like guns for all I know. So I felt like I had to sit right next to him. Most likely he would've bought like 12 RC cars. [00:39:00] Um, and so this. Experience that should have been like, yay, you worked hard, you achieved your goal. Let's like get your reward. Instead became this battle between parent and child about, you know, me trying to manage, this one's too expensive, you can't afford it.

That one looks cheap. This one, you know, is inappropriate for a household cuz of the baby. And so all I wanted was a way to put forward. A managed set of options and then allow my child to go through it and on his own time, decide which one he wanted, and then be like, mom, can I get this one? And then all I have to do is say yes.

I just didn't wanna keep saying no over and over and over again. So we looked around and there's nothing out there like that. There's nothing that lets the child shop autonomously, but still allows the parent to [00:40:00] have control over what enters the home. And what purchases are made by the child. So that was kind of the origin story where it was like, wow, this is something that my family could definitely use and we still use to this day.

And I bet there's a lot of other families out there who also want to teach their child how to shop like a smart, educated person, but you don't wanna micromanage it. And so being able to. Get him into the system of catch chop and step out a little bit and let him go through the cycles of yes and no.

Rather than me micromanaging him has been the best thing our family's had. Okay, so sorry, I was digging here, figuring out if I could actually share my screen off my phone. This. So guys, this, this app is a way for you to work with your kids, right? This is incredible thing. [00:41:00] How does this drive it all home, right?

Let, let's walk us through this cuz you guys don't charge for this app? No. We're a free app and we. We basically allow parents and to set up an account for their child, and then both parents and kids can look for things that they wanna add to their child's shop. And so, um, you can look through browse, which is just an assortment of things that we've gone through.

And then like, is it safe, is it appropriate, is it well rated? Like. Basically the things we'd recommend or you can just search and find anything in the world within like, you know, safety boundaries. Um, cuz we have been working really hard to make sure that your child can't buy an AK 47 or like a bottle of tequila or, you know, a blow up doll.

We have, um, safety parameters in [00:42:00] place so that. When your child is on the app, you can feel more secure knowing that it's not the wild west out there. So anyway, you and your kid add things to the shop, then you can send your kid money for allowance, for, uh, reading, for chores, whatever. And then your child has the ability to use that money to save up for a goal and track their progress towards the goal, uh, to buy things.

Or to, uh, donate to charities of their choice. And so when a child does decide to buy something, the, the parent gets an email that says like, Hey, you know, your kid wants to buy, um, a stuffed animal. And so then you can say yes or no, and the parent always has the last say. So, you don't have anything like showing up on your doorstep by surprise.

Um, So, yeah. Um, it is a way for parents [00:43:00] to give their child autonomy and to learn through practice rather than preach. Uh, sorry. I was, I was determined. I thought I could share my screen on my phone. We do have a web app too. Pull up the, the thing so I could see it all on the, if you're watching the YouTube, we're trying here, we're trying.

You have a web app as well. Yeah, if you go to app dot catch shop.com, um, that's the web app, and then you can sign in and see your account. So you can use the app either from your mobile device or your web browser. Ooh, that's good. I like web browser option. I'm, I'm much more likely to sit down with my kids on a web browser than I am on my phone.

Yeah. Bigger screen and drives me insane. Yeah. It drives me insane. Less grabby. Mm-hmm. [00:44:00] Doing it with, uh, my kids on the phone. It's like, the phone's only so big, man. Ok. So here we we're gonna, I'm gonna share this out. We'll go with this. Uh, I can do this. And guys, if you are watching this, are you listening to this?

Okay. We're gonna share it out on the screen. So you might check out the YouTube version of this. Uh, and we're gonna add this in so y'all can see, cuz I just set up my account. I want you guys to be able to see this from the parent's side. So if you're on the YouTube version with us, I apologize, I know this is a podcast guys, this one's okay.

Just download. Same time, just download the app and do it yourself. Yeah, download the app, but, okay. This is the parents' view of it on the web app. Okay. And you've got browsing. Like this is super user friendly. Honestly, I set this up in like five minutes today, just getting my kids settled in, putting some stuff in their [00:45:00] carts, right?

I can go in and look at their cart, go, what does Abby have? Oh, does Abby's count? Nevermind. Can't look at that. One of the cool things, um, that we added is the ability for you to add a custom item. So let's say you're shopping for something very specifically. We had a kid who was really into horseback riding and so she wanted a very specific saddle and it wasn't something that you just find browsing the internet.

Mm-hmm. You can make your own custom product and add a price and a link and all that kind of stuff. Um, but since we added that ability, it's been really interesting because people use it. Not just for buying the saddles, but also like, oh, uh, I'll take you and your friends to pizza on Friday. That'll cost like 30 bucks.

And so the kid is able to like, have experiences or, you know, we're gonna go to Disneyland, that'll be a thousand [00:46:00] dollars. And so the, the parent and child can work together to. Um, price out experiences as well as products, which has been really cool in our family too. That's very, very cool. I did not know that about that.

I'm, I'm liking your app more and more as we, thanks. Yeah. Experiences. My oldest son has been working for probably a year towards, uh, a chocolate tour in Hawaii. And I'm like, okay, well, uh, that's gonna, the chocolate tour is only 30 bucks, but the Hawaii part is a little bit more, so Yeah, that's, that's a good, we got a lot saved.

Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's one of those things where, You are helping your child dream towards the future and save towards something that matters to them. And whether that's, you know, a bike or a trampoline or a video game, or a trip to Hawaii, whatever it is, as long as [00:47:00] your kid is working towards it and focus on it, then you're winning.

So I can put money in here for me. I can have like other family members who send us money like we Yep. In here. Yep. And you can share your child's shop with family, which is really handy at, um, days like birthdays, Christmas, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And the nice part, um, is within your child's shop, which is all the items that you put in, you can hide things like if my kid's been really.

Get buy, trying to buy a lot of horror books. And I'm like, oh, I don't really want these, and they're not age appropriate, so I'm just gonna hide them. And so they never show up again. Once I hide an item, it's gone. Um, and then, When you share your shop with friends and family, they can also see like things that the kid wants that are also parent approved.

It's not just things that the parent decided your child might want. Right. Um, [00:48:00] so that's been, it's fully curable. Yeah. And, uh, the last feature I wanted to talk about is that you can set limits to how big the shop is, because sometimes your kid might add 150 items and it's like, yeah. Those are all cool things, but if you got the last item on that list, would you really be happy about it?

So there's the ability to filter it down to only 25, and you can turn it on or off. But if you have 25 items as a cap, it makes your child have to prioritize what goes in there. It can't be like 25 of the exact same thing. It's, you have to make some choices around what you care about. So I've instituted that on all of my kids' accounts.

So they always are like pushing something out to put something new in. Okay, I love that feature. And, and they can donate this. Yeah. Yeah. You can donate to a wide range of [00:49:00] established, uh, nonprofits or, you know, you can even create, similar to the product, you can create your own. Charitable cause. So if you can't find your church, you could add your church.

Or it could be like, oh, uh, our neighbor Mary down the street broke her leg. Let's save up to buy her a ramp. Or let's, um, let's earn some money so that we can help our friend who, you know, got a cancer diagnosis. And so it doesn't have to be a charity. It can be whatever cause is important to you and your family.

Okay. Now I feel an important part to clarify here is there's not money in the app guys, correct? Correct. Yeah. You're not putting, so you do have to reconcile this with your bank account. Your child is putting money in your accounts, are their accounts, depending on if you have a checking account for your child.

But this sends a bill, [00:50:00] right? And I have to, yeah. So, so the way it works is all the money is virtual. That way if you forget about it or your child forgets about it, or you know, a donation or purchase is made, it's not like the money is gone, it's virtual money. That only exists within the app. And then when your child checks out on something, it'll send you an invoice and says like, Hey, your kid wants to buy, um, these coloring books and sends you to a link where you can go buy the coloring books.

So, you know, it's more of like a way to manage how much money your kid has. So for example, we have a neighbor up the street who's a baker, and we go visit every Thursday when she has her popup sale. And my kid always wants to get like a cookie or something. So it's like two bucks. He's like, oh, I want two bucks.

Now, normally I would have to carry $2 in my pocket to give to him. To give to her, or he would have to take care of it and pay in like dimes and [00:51:00] quarters. But instead I just pull out my phone. I like take out two bucks from his account and then pay the lady. And it's, it's really cool because it takes away the, the lost change, the lost dollars, um, and the whole like money management side for the little kids.

Okay guys, this is, this is an incredible opportunity. The school system is not going to teach your kids financial management, how to take care of their money, how to prioritize spending. This is all stuff you are going to have to teach your children and. We, we, we owe it to our kids. Honestly, I knew nothing about teaching finances.

I knew nothing about finances. When I started learning about finances on my own, that was a really hard shock when I hit 40 years old to realize that I was completely illiterate. When it came to managing finances and understanding the way money works. I spent a lot of my time digging [00:52:00] and learning to teach myself.

And then I thought, oh wow, if I don't know a forties, cause my parents didn't teach me cuz they didn't know. Well, my kids aren't gonna know. They're not gonna learn in school cuz I didn't learn in school, so I'm gonna have to teach 'em this. Your app didn't exist when I started this journey. For me, this would've made it so much easier for me to start having these conversations with my kids and guys, honestly, I just showed you on the screen.

If you're watching on YouTube, I set up an account today. I fully intend on using this product with my children because this will make this conversation so much easier with my kids. Yeah, you have to things, I like to think of it as guardrails, right? Like you're not forcing the kid to do something. You're not forcing the parent to do anything.

But it's also not like the whole wide world is open to someone who's just learning how to do finances. We just put guardrails in place so that you can't make a terrible mistake. You can't lose money, you can't spend more than you [00:53:00] have. It's like the bumpers in when you're bowling. It keeps you on track.

Um, and so, you know, you can choose your path, but it's gonna be a safe one. I, I can tell you factually, I actually know a couple of my listeners who've had the one click Amazon buy enabled on their the ended very badly. Yeah. There's, there's so many stories out there. Did you hear the one about the little boy who bought, I think it was like, $5,000 worth of SpongeBob Squarepants popsicles.

That all showed up frozen at the same time. It was like, it was like a mountain of popsicles that just showed up and his mom was like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Like, how do I, I can't even freeze these. There's too many. So yeah, every couple years I hear another story like that, and I'm like, that's why we get catch up.

Yeah. Yeah. Their son bought a couple hundred dollars worth of [00:54:00] add-ons for a game that they had bought for their kid. It was on their phone. And one click was set up. So he was sitting there buying all these mods and ads. The little stuff they really make money off of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the game. And like, I mean, they've rung up a massive multi hundred dollar bill.

Oh no. And all these little ads. Yeah. It's, I mean, why don't those companies make it safer for kids to spend their money? I wonder like it, it is easy for a reason and, um, Yeah, if, if you stand to benefit from kids making impulsive decisions, you're gonna make it real easy for them. So we're trying to do the opposite.

We're trying to make it harder for kids to make, um, financial mistakes, or if they do, you know, to be able to learn from 'em and take the time to have buyers' remorse. Mari, if our listeners want to get started with your app, What's the process? Process? Um, if [00:55:00] you guys wanna get started with the app, you can go to catch up.com to read more about us, or you can go to, uh, catch up.com/fallible man, um, which will be a landing page and we'll give you guys $10 off.

Uh, anything that we fulfill. So, You probably can't see it, but I am in an office full of toys. So we do fulfill some of the items ourselves. So if you buy from us, we will give you $10 off and I will have fewer toys in my office. So please sign up there and, uh, get your kids started on this journey towards financial independence.

What is next for Ke Shop and Murray Collins Harris. Huh? Um. Well, for me it's probably lunch. That's the next thing on my docket. Um, but for catch up we've been doing some really cool stuff [00:56:00] with ai. Um, which my husband is like the technical arm. I'm more, you know, the design and concept and face of the company.

But he's been, um, Exploring how AI can help us make the app safer for kids. And I think there's a lot of stories out there about like how scary AI is because it's like, you know, generating pictures and stealing, um, stealing jobs and writing essays. But it is very, a very cool tool. And one of the things we're working on is making it so that.

When your child does a search, um, we can automatically block things that are not child appropriate. So, um, earlier I'd said, you know, we have, we have certain things that are blocked. Like we might block beer and guns and stuff like that. But then there's a lot of other stuff that is like, what if it's a water gun?

What if [00:57:00] it's, um, beer pong? You know, there's, there's things where you can't specifically block. A word. Mm-hmm. Because there's other things that apply, um, within that word. So yeah, we're working on making the search even better and safer so that, you know, kids can be free range and parents can be secure knowing that they're not gonna find weirdo stuff on our site.

Awesome. Awesome. Now guys, I know you're all dying to know what Hollywood director made his directorial debut school in 1971. It was So, Martin Scorsese, right? What was Steven Spielberg. Aw, Martin Scorsese. You know what? I had to look it up too. I, I wouldn't have, it's not like one of those random facts I knew off the top of my head.

Marty, you guys are passionate about helping parents build a better financial education and future for their kids. What is the most important thing you want people to hear today?[00:58:00]

People to understand that building a financial education for your kids doesn't have to be hard. And the best way to do that is to make it part of a practice, to make it part of your everyday life. Not sitting down with a book and a lesson and pulling your hair out, trying to teach a kid who doesn't wanna learn something.

It can be as simple as like, you made $5 today. Here's what. You can buy, or here's what you can save towards and making it so that the kid is enjoying using money and letting money work for them. So, um, yeah, I, I hope that your listeners out there, um, Come in, check it out. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it cuz we're always trying to make it better.

Um, and we're just, we're a very small mom and pop shop company, um, on a mission to [00:59:00] make parenting easier for all of us. Guys from The Fallible Man podcast, be better tomorrow because what you do today, we'll see you on the next one. This has been the Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for everything, man, husband, and father.

Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www the fallible man.com for more content and get your own Fallible Man gear.