Financial Education in Schools. Dr. Billy Hensley

[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: There’s no question that personal finance can be a complex and often confusing topic with so many different products, services, and terms to understand. It’s no wonder that so many people feel overwhelmed when it comes to managing their money. Would a financial literacy course have helped you on your path?

[00:00:17] Do you think every teen should take a financial literacy course before graduation to help with financial foundational skill sets? The good news is that there are organizations like NEFE, National Endowment for Financial Education that are dedicated to helping people understand and take control of their financial wellbeing, and that includes teens.

[00:00:36] 30 years ago, NEFE began their commitment to further the field of financial wellbeing, and in celebration of this milestone, my team and I have created this special series called NEFE in No. Each week for the month of November, I invite an employee of NEFE to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing personal finance education in the US today.

[00:00:56] In this episode, it’s my pleasure to have president and CEO of [00:01:00] NEFE, Dr. Billy Hensley back again to discuss a recent NEFE poll that explores the need for effective financial education in. To learn more about nephi’s recent article and poll, most adults support financial education mandates, visit nefe.org or click on the link in this episode’s show notes.

[00:01:19] I’m Bob Wheeler and this is Money You Should Ask, where we explore why we do what we do when it comes to money.

[00:01:47] Billy J. Hensley PhD is the president and CEO of the National Endowment for Financial Educat. Since his appointment in 2018, Hensley has led Nefi through the development and execution of its first strategic plan, [00:02:00] sharpening the organization’s mission, vision, and core values, and cultivating broader transparency and effectiveness.

[00:02:07] He is charging the organization to redefine financial education through more focused philanthropy, research and collaboration. Dr. Bailey Hensley, I’m super excited to be back with you, part two. Yes. At FinCon talking to all things NEFE. You know, we were talking statistics a little bit earlier. Yeah. About the L G T Q plus community and there’s some other stuff that NEFEs been looking at.

[00:02:30] An interesting poll. You mentioned this statistic, right, that 88% of people polled are interested in seeing kids have to take some financial

[00:02:41] Dr. Billy Hensley: literacy courses. That’s right. We did a national poll, we released it in April of 2022, and we said, Do you think every teen in the country should have to take a financial education class to graduate from high school?

[00:02:54] And 88% of Americans said yes to that.

[00:02:58] Bob Wheeler: That is surprising cuz Americans don’t [00:03:00] agree on a whole. And I’m wondering about the other 12% , like, Right, right. But hey, that’s a pretty good percentage. Mm-hmm. , do you think that that will have to be mandated at a federal level, or do you think this is gonna have to be a state because the states control the education and Right.

[00:03:16] All that, So how do you see this unfolding?

[00:03:19] Dr. Billy Hensley: Well, education is a locally driven thing. It’s driven by largely local property taxes or some sort of state funding mechanism. So it’ll have to happen at the grassroots state. In some states, even district by district or even school by school, every state is different in how it structures requirements to graduate.

[00:03:37] And it may state superintendent of education sort of advocates it, or the state legislature and in other states where it’s sort of bottom up, if you will. Yeah, grassroots. It may be that enough districts find the value in this and advocate. That there becomes a FOMO thing, right? Oh, well so and so school district requires this or has this as a guaranteed course to [00:04:00] graduate.

[00:04:00] Why aren’t we doing this? Why are we withholding this from our kids? So it’s different tactics in different states, but there’s great broad support for this.

[00:04:07] Bob Wheeler: I was thinking in my mind though, the feds could maybe step in and say, If you do the programming, we’ll give you this much more for education. I mean, they do that sometimes, right?

[00:04:16] Enticed with, uh, federal.

[00:04:18] Dr. Billy Hensley: They do occasionally, they may do some sort of block grant initiative, meaning states can apply for funding. Maybe they tie to other initiatives like workforce development initiatives or career and technical education. There are different ways that that Federal Department of Education can incentivize this.

[00:04:35] Yes.

[00:04:35] Bob Wheeler: And what do you think N’s role might be in all of this? Now that you’ve got the data, will you go to local school districts and try and help them, I don’t wanna say mandate, but help write the curriculum for a course that might be required?

[00:04:50] Dr. Billy Hensley: Well, our work will largely focus on helping state legislatures understand and departments of ed or even school districts how to do it.

[00:04:59] That’s the [00:05:00] thing with some of the requirements of the past, some of the mandates of the past is they’ve been unfunded. The teachers weren’t given any professional development on how to teach the topic. You know, if you go from something not being required to, something being required, there becomes a huge gap if you don’t provide any kind of professional development or training for the educators.

[00:05:18] And so our work is to make sure that it’s quality and effective. You know, we’re very intentional by adding the word effective in front of financial education. A lot of things can call itself financial education, but in our mind, that bar and the standard has to be high to make it worth it because you want it to work well.

[00:05:36] It’s too important to just sort of check a box and move on to do one workshop, one lecture, and then you’re finished. What we want is well trained teachers. We want quality curricula, we want evaluated materials, relevant subject matter, things that students can relate to and understand, and maybe even start applying immediately.

[00:05:56] Teens are consumers, middle schoolers are consumers, and so are children. [00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Bob Wheeler: Do you think that lack of financial literacy is just a problem in the US or is this something global? Because I think your statistics are mostly us, like I’m just trying to figure out why we are so lax and so not seemingly having previously cared that ourselves or children, future generations are getting this super much needed information.

[00:06:23] Dr. Billy Hensley: Well, if you go back far, Financial education was part of compulsory education. Wow. I have textbooks in my office, math textbooks that were published in the 19 teens and financial decision making, financial calculations, money management, were part of all of those math textbooks and multiple grade levels.

[00:06:44] So it was part of basic compulsory instruction. For many years, things kind of go in and outta favor in education. That’s just typical, you know, in any, in. And funding. All these things sort of help rank things, but our financial lives are [00:07:00] more complicated now. There’s more need now to sort of understand the financial landscape and how to navigate that.

[00:07:06] And these measures of financial literacy are actually done at many countries across the globe and the US is barely in the middle. Wow. Yeah. We have very complicated financial. Regulation, depending on where we are at any moment in time, can be stronger or weaker. Products can become more consumer friendly or less consumer friendly.

[00:07:28] But the theme here is that this is a global issue.

[00:07:31] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Well it seems to me that the less financial education I have, I don’t even then know the rules. So, you know, I became a cpa, not because I’m like, I love rules. But I wanna know what the rules are. So can I push over there? Can I push over here? But if you don’t know the rules, you can’t win at the game.

[00:07:48] You’re sorta, it’s on the house. Right? Right. So I just wonder about this piece where we’re like, uh, financial literacy.

[00:07:56] Dr. Billy Hensley: Well, there’s this interesting dynamic in this that [00:08:00] we’re in and financial education, financial wellbeing, if you. Some people feel that education alone is enough, because if you give people enough information, then they can make the decisions that work for them, and then they know so they can do what they want with the knowledge.

[00:08:14] And then there are people on the other far extreme of that who say the financial landscape is too complicated for the average consumer. We need to sort of regulate enough protections that they can’t make mistakes. And then you have the truth, in my opinion, , which is in the middle. You know, access to quality education.

[00:08:34] So you know how to launch, you know how to navigate your financial life, that there’s enough risk in the consumer products that people can take on the level of risk that they want in their life. That there’s enough consumer protection, that the bad players are kept largely at bay. We know that there’s no perfect policy solution to anything.

[00:08:50] Right. Right. And then we’ve got a balance of all of that, depending on the person and their needs and their risk level, their risk tolerance, their education. That they can sort of [00:09:00] understand how do you navigate the personal finance ecosystem, if you will. And then there are all the things that underpin all that.

[00:09:05] We talked about that in the previous episode about socioeconomic status. Mm-hmm. and sort of starting from behind almost, if you will. Yeah. And so when you have all of that layered in and then you have no access or very limited access to quality free financial education, and you don’t have access to good products and so forth, it creates an imbalance in the financial e.

[00:09:27] Bob Wheeler: How do you think technology plays into financial literacy? Like I know during the pandemic kids are working from home, their parents may not be able to afford the internet. They may not be able to afford an Apple computer. Right. And so now I have even less access to information even on the internet.

[00:09:45] Right. About how to educate myself around financial

[00:09:48] Dr. Billy Hensley: literacy. Yeah. Well FinTech, that’s the phrase we all use. Mm-hmm. as described this, it gives an opportunity to. Participate in the system. You have more opportunities. You have more opportunities [00:10:00] to use sort of regulated insured banking products. And so there’s a phrase in our industry called financial capability, right?

[00:10:06] So financial literacy is sort of the measure how you build knowledge. You know, financial education helps you build knowledge, but you have to be able to apply that information, right? Right. So if you can’t, if you don’t have access to good products or a bank, or if you live in a banking desert, meaning there’s not a lot of secured insured financial institutions close.

[00:10:26] But FinTech can help you participate. So when you know the information and can apply it, that’s financial capability. Right. And so if you have too many products and not enough education or vice versa, there’s an imbalance.

[00:10:37] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting you’re talking about regulated and all that stuff.

[00:10:41] There are some companies out there and maybe they’re regulated and maybe they’re insured. I don’t always still necessarily know that I trust them . Sure. Right. I don’t know. Cuz the blue one looks like the green one, sorta looks like the yellow one, but maybe they’re not all. And maybe that comes with financial literacy, but like how do I know when, Yeah, [00:11:00] yeah.

[00:11:00] This is the one I can tru like this is the

[00:11:02] Dr. Billy Hensley: technology. Well, there’s a lot of noise and that’s why we think education is so powerful. The more you know, the more confident you are, you know which questions to ask, you know what markers to look for. The average consumer isn’t necessarily looking for a very complicated, nuanced, high risk.

[00:11:22] Or a tool, but financial education can really help people sort through the noise and know how to advocate for themselves and then know when to ask for help from someone who thinks about this and breathes this all the time. I mean, that’s the great thing about this poll we did the 88% of Americans, it’s because a lot of people would have felt more empowered, right?

[00:11:42] This, my opinion, my interpretation of the data, they would’ve felt more empowered to navigate their own financial life. We also asked, Do you wish you had taken a financial education course? 80% said, I wish I had taken a course as well. I also want others to do it, and that number’s higher because they’ve realized that the financial [00:12:00] world we live in is much more complicated, more nuanced.

[00:12:03] And they also wish that they had taken that. And you mentioned the other 12%. We know a little bit about the people who didn’t say yes. Mm-hmm. , it’s largely people from lower income backgrounds, people of color, and lower income. Because there’s a lot of financial shame, right? In financial education, we blame a lot.

[00:12:22] We point fingers, we harang people for taking student loans, right? We do a lot of things instead of just helping people navigate where they are and understand how they got there. We don’t ask a lot of open-ended questions. We just say, Oh, there’s a lot of judgment there. And I have felt that in my own life for decisions.

[00:12:39] I mean, I went to a private liberal arts college and took student. But what we don’t understand is that for some kids, that smaller nurturing environment is what helps you graduate and graduate on time and understand how to navigate the social cues of work life that you don’t get at these large schools that are quote cheaper, but you actually still get [00:13:00] more value.

[00:13:00] At least that was my experience. And so I think people aren’t ProfIn ed sometimes when they have had a bad experience. And so our goal is to improve it exponential. So that, that we get that number to a hundred percent.

[00:13:13] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m thinking with my own clients, Steven, and with myself, like I know enough.

[00:13:19] So how about a house? And I’m going through the closing statement, right? And I notice that the realtor has charged me for the property tax already paid, instead of giving me credit for the property tax, right? When you flip it, it was about a $5,000 loss on my part. And I look through it and I go back and I say, You actually owe me 2,500.

[00:13:38] You took it from me. They had to cut me a check for 5,000 bucks. But most of my clients look at that stuff and they just go, Well, they trust the escrow person did it, so trust them. Right. And the escrow person says, Well, the computer did it, so I trust it. Mm-hmm. . So what would you say to somebody that’s out there?

[00:13:54] They’ve already finished high school, they’ve already finished college, maybe. They’re [00:14:00] embarrassed. Yeah. They

[00:14:01] Dr. Billy Hensley: don’t know, right? We don’t want to admit, we don’t know. We want to be financially sophisticated. All of us do. I think that no matter where you are in life, no matter how much money you make, no matter how many courses and books you’ve read, there are always gonna be mistakes.

[00:14:15] And so understanding how do you advocate for yourself? How do you double check things? I think confidence is a key when it comes to managing your financial. Not over confidence so that there’s so much confidence, but nothing of substance behind it. But it’s how I feel when I look in the mirror. I was like, God, that guy’s handsome.

[00:14:34] But then all the rest of the world was like, No, sorry, but . Well, but all kidding aside, having the confidence to advocate for yourself is powerful. And you may have had a class in high school a few years ago, but it doesn’t mean that this is not a lifelong. Financial decision making is an ever-changing landscape.

[00:14:55] Mm-hmm. and things are going more and more to computers. I just found a mistake [00:15:00] recently. The staff teased me because I still balance my checkbook. I take a literal ledger and write down every debit card transaction and every check, which are very few checks. Right. And write them down and balance it because you just never know when someone’s gonna make a mistake.

[00:15:13] And I have found two recently. I had gone two or three years with zero. Most of the mistakes are my own math. Right. Mistakes. But I have found two recently, and they were small dollars, but small dollars add up. Well, they do. And

[00:15:28] Bob Wheeler: I think a lot of people just think, if I’ve got money in my bank account, I don’t need to look at the charges.

[00:15:32] Professional

[00:15:33] Dr. Billy Hensley: did the form. You don’t question it, but it always pays to continue and advocate for your own bottom line. And sometimes that’s tedious, but it’s

[00:15:41] Bob Wheeler: important. Yeah, it’s interesting, that piece about being confident. Yeah. You’re talking about as a cpa. A client will gimme information, and yet I still am optimistically cautious.

[00:15:53] Right? Sure. And I’m skeptical. And even when a client will go, No, I didn’t have any other information. I’m like, I’m gonna pull an [00:16:00] IRS transcript just to check. Yeah. And I’ll go, Oh, you had like 300 transactions for capital gains. What? Oh yeah, that’s right. Like, yeah. Like, they’re like, You’re crazy, Bob. This is it.

[00:16:10] Wait a minute. Right. And so I think for me, part of being c. It’s having a little bit of skepticism. Mm-hmm. and a whole lot of curiosity and a willingness to ask other people just to double check because there is so much going on and there is so much noise and there is so much information, and it’s a big ask sometimes for people that don’t live in this world of finance to be able to navigate that so easily.

[00:16:34] Dr. Billy Hensley: Right. Well, you’re exposing yourself constantly. If you have a complicated relationship with money, which I think a lot of us really do, you’re constantly asking your. Just to share all these intimate details. I mean, renting an apartment is the most intrusive thing. Buying a home is so intrusive, you know, if you borrow money to put in a pool or whatever it is you’re doing, it’s a very intrusive process.

[00:16:56] And if you have sort of a complicated relationship, you want to sort of hold [00:17:00] back or you feel like, well, that’s not your business, or, You can’t fully engage in what it is you’re trying to do if you can’t sort of put that out there. But we’re all humans. We all make mistakes. And I think it’s important to verify what you’re talking about here.

[00:17:13] Bob Wheeler: Well, and it’s certainly when you buying a house, it’s very vulnerable. Oh, that’s your income. Oh, I thought you did better. Oh. Oh, that’s disappointing. Disappointment, right? Yeah. And like it’s very vulnerable. Mm-hmm. and, Oh, well you shouldn’t have got in the car if you knew you were gonna get the house.

[00:17:29] Right. And it’s so funny, I have some clients right. They’re trying to sell a business, right? This happens a lot. They’re trying to sell a business. They don’t wanna pay any tax on the profit, but they want to sell it, showing that it’s super profitable. And I’m like, You get one or the other. Right? Yikes.

[00:17:43] Yeah, and trying to navigate that with people. I’m like, You can either buy a house or save on taxes, but I can’t do both for you most of the time. And it’s so interesting, even with my clients that are bringing in six figures, high six figure. Going, This doesn’t make sense, Bob. Mm-hmm. , something’s wrong.

[00:17:59] Right. [00:18:00] And I’ll walk ’em through it and Okay, I got it. But they’ll come right back. Wait a minute. That didn’t make sense. And we’ll walk it through again. I breathe a lot when I work with clients because, and I know this for them, it’s like a foreign language. Right? Right. And I gotta go slow and not shame them or go get it already.

[00:18:18] Right, right, right. I know I’ve gotta create that space so that they can sort of

[00:18:21] Dr. Billy Hensley: get. Absolutely. And I think if we continue to advocate for quality financial education, thoughtful engagement with your finances, with the professional when needed, sometimes even when you feel like it’s not needed, it’s still necessary.

[00:18:35] Right, Right. And being honest enough to just face that we’re at 15 states now that they’ve either implemented it or it’s in the process of being, I. 15 states that are requiring every student to take a full semester, at least one semester of financial education to graduate. So I think we’re gonna start creating a stronger generation of people as long as our financial [00:19:00] education endeavors, lifelong Pursuit continues to evolve and adapt to the financial landscape that we existed.

[00:19:07] We can’t look backwards. We can’t think that, Oh, well I got this running tally in my head and it’s, it’s the way I’ve always. Well, there’s three things that are significantly changed, for example, in your life that you haven’t accounted for. It’s like the young people who buy a house without budgeting in what it’s gonna cost to have a kid at some point, like childcare and so forth.

[00:19:24] It’s, it’s a very expensive enterprise, but if you qualify based on current income and things like that, So we want to continuously evolve that, and we’re at 15 states now. There are a lot of other states that are offering it, or maybe individual school districts. We want to get that to 50, but we wanted to get to 50 quality.

[00:19:43] Bob Wheeler: I think that’s so important. And I’m laughing about the house thing. When clients will tell me they’re buying a house, I’ll ask ’em if they factored in the 50,000 for the additional furniture and all the stuff that’s not working currently. Right, Right. Cause it’s all gotta be new furnace, water heater.

[00:19:56] And, uh, you’ll like, what? What? Yeah. You’ll [00:20:00] see, you’ll see. And we spend, we spend all the time. I mean, I look at my house and I think that costs money. That costs money. That costs money. That cost everything in there at some point. Costs some money. Yeah. And we’re making financial decision. Hundreds of times a day.

[00:20:13] Do I bring my lunch? Do I eat with friends? Do I have that second drink? Yes. Do I get that? Do I get that? Do I, Having a pet is incredibly expensive,

[00:20:21] Dr. Billy Hensley: right? Especially one that’s ill. Right? And

[00:20:24] Bob Wheeler: we don’t factor that in, or even our own health factors into our financial landscape. If I’ve got an illness that’s debilitating or long term, I mean, there’s so much stuff that it can feel a little overwhelming.

[00:20:38] For most people. Did you have any financial literacy classes either in junior high, high school, college?

[00:20:46] Dr. Billy Hensley: I did not. We did some workshops at my undergraduate institution. The director of Alumni relations did some workshops for juniors and seniors, so I enjoyed those. I went to a couple of those. It [00:21:00] wasn’t part of the discussion in the nineties when I was in college, I graduated in the late nineties and we just weren’t really talking.

[00:21:07] I think there was a class at the vocational school. I didn’t take it, but it was probably because I was in a college prep track. And classes like that aren’t considered part of the college prep track, sadly, because the irony is that effective financial education helps people who are borrowing for college to borrow better.

[00:21:26] They take fewer private loans, they take more subsidized loans, they graduate with lower balances on credit card debt and student loan balances. So that’s the irony is that it’s not a college prep. Course or used to not be, but that’s who can really benefit from it or amongst all students. So, yeah.

[00:21:45] Bob Wheeler: All right.

[00:21:46] Well, Dr. Billy we are at the Fast five, and again, we’re at FinCon Fast five, brought to you by NEFE, one of our favorite nonprofits, National Endowment for Financial Education. Awesome. Awesome. All right, we’re gonna have a little fun. Okay. What is the best car you [00:22:00] ever had?

[00:22:01] Dr. Billy Hensley: The best car I ever had. Wow. Because you love cars.

[00:22:04] I do love cars. What’s the best. Can I give two? Yeah. . All right. I make everything too complicated. The first I bought a Mustang. Nice. When I was young, like kids do. I loved that car. It was so much fun to drive. And then I had a BMW five 40. Wow. That car was so much fun to drive.

[00:22:22] Bob Wheeler: That is cool. I think I drove used cars for like my first five cars, so I’m like,

[00:22:26] Dr. Billy Hensley: Wow.

[00:22:27] Yeah, My Mustang was used.

[00:22:29] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Okay. Right. But so the BMW was not, It’s a Mustang. All right. When getting a car lease or buy. Yep. And which one do you like better? Cuz you like to have a new car every couple of years.

[00:22:38] Dr. Billy Hensley: Yeah, I’ve done both. I think it just depends on sort of your own demeanor and how you feel about that.

[00:22:43] I think if you are not a road trip person mm-hmm and you want a lower payment and it’s like a temporary gig and you’re not gonna live somewhere long, at least, maybe actually a better option for you. They can be restrictive though. You know, if you have a car, if you have a payment or if you, whatever, you can just sell it.

[00:22:58] So I think you just have to go into [00:23:00] that eyes wide open. I don’t feel strongly either way, to be honest. Yeah. There are camps, man, that they are in tall. I’ve done both. I don’t whatever, whatever, whatever. It

[00:23:09] Bob Wheeler: floats around, whatever people, whatever. All right. What’s the least expensive trip you ever had?

[00:23:13] That was the most fun.

[00:23:15] Dr. Billy Hensley: I love to go home to see my family in Kentucky. Sweet. You know, it costs, Well, sometimes it doesn’t even cost that because I use Miles , you know, I travel a lot for work. I travel a lot personally, so I will use Miles and I will fly to usually Cincinnati or Louisville, and I’ll drive down to East Kentucky and just being in the mountains, the Appalachia Mountains, it feels my soul being with my family.

[00:23:38] Good food. I talked about food in the last episode. That costs little and provides so much joy.

[00:23:44] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. That’s awesome. And the Blue Ridge, all of the, The Smoky Mountains, everything, Yeah. Is just one of the most beautiful. It is. I think it’s the first or second most visited park in the

[00:23:54] Dr. Billy Hensley: country. Yeah. The s Smokey Mountain.

[00:23:55] Yeah, it’s right. And you know, fun fact the Appalachian Mountains and [00:24:00] then the northeast, sort of the New Hampshire, Vermont for the fall. They’re basical. The most brilliant, vibrant colors you can get because it’s still like the pure woods. Yeah. That were here when the white folks showed up. Yeah. And sort of ruined everything.

[00:24:14] Right. Cut ’em all down. Yeah. We still have a lot of their native trees and appalachias.

[00:24:17] Bob Wheeler: Great. Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. Was there something as a kid that you really wanted but weren’t able to get? And do you have it now? ,

[00:24:27] Dr. Billy Hensley: I think having a nice car at 16, you know that a lot of kids got cars and I could drive to school.

[00:24:33] Mm-hmm. , I just, I didn’t get. I did get a car. When I started college. It cost me $3,995 a Plymouth Sundance. It was five years old. It had like 60,000 miles on it. My payment was $135 a month. I had to turn off the air conditioner when I went up a hill cause the engine was so weak. . But it was a fun little car to drive around and go to school in.

[00:24:52] But I didn’t get a car when I turned 16. I didn’t get a new. A friend of mine got a Mercury Cougar brand. You know, I was so envious of that. [00:25:00] Uh, man. And I look back at it now and I’m like, Why did I care? But you know, when you’re 16, your brain’s different. What if that stuff

[00:25:04] Bob Wheeler: mattered? Yeah. Look, when I was a junior in high school, I bought a Plymouth Fury three.

[00:25:11] It was like 1970. It was 1980. No, it was 19 76, 78 for me. And it was like 70. I paid 200 bucks and I had aluminum foil to help connect the battery to the. But you know, in college everybody loved that car. Right? Everybody else drove like a Mercedes and all that stuff. Oh yeah. My car was the car that

[00:25:30] Dr. Billy Hensley: we could go, couple of polys, we would’ve had a, we would’ve had five.

[00:25:33] Yeah, you could

[00:25:34] fit

[00:25:34] Bob Wheeler: 80 people in a Plymouth . I mean, it’s pretty amazing. When was the first time you flew on an airplane and you remembered like, Wow, I’ve

[00:25:43] Dr. Billy Hensley: stepped up a notch. The first time I’ve flew in an airplane was in college. I went with my friend, she was looking at graduate schools in Chicago, and it was 99.

[00:25:54] Continental Airlines and we connected through Cleveland back when Continental had a connection. And so we went from [00:26:00] Lexington, Kentucky to Cleveland to Chicago and it was great fun.

[00:26:04] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, I grew up in a small town and I think I was one of the few kids, cuz my grandparents were in California, so I was the only kid, my siblings and I that had been on a plane, been on a train.

[00:26:14] Yeah. Been outta state, been outta the city. like it was, It was a small town when I was growing up. Planes sort of nice. As long as they land. As long as they land.

[00:26:23] Dr. Billy Hensley: Yes. And now I’m a hundred thousand mile a year person. There you go.

[00:26:25] Bob Wheeler: You go. There you go. So we are at the m and m spot, Money and motivation. Do you have, I know you gave us one before, but I’m gonna put you on the spot and ask for a second one.

[00:26:35] Do you have a financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom you could share with the listeners?

[00:26:40] Dr. Billy Hensley: Well, this is philosophical. My grandfather, who I mentioned in the previous episode, used to say that your value is much more than your bank account. Mm-hmm. . And I think if we can embrace that and believe that, then all the rest of it is just details.

[00:26:55] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, where can people find you and [00:27:00] NEFE online celebrating their 30th

[00:27:02] Dr. Billy Hensley: anniversary? Yes. Twitter at Dr. Billy Hinsley. Dr. Billy Hi. And at N E ERE org or NEFE.org website. Awesome.

[00:27:13] Bob Wheeler: Well, we’ll put all that in the show notes. Dr. Billy Hensley, it’s been such a pleasure. We love what NEFE does out there, educating people and collecting the data, so thanks for the work you do.

[00:27:23] Dr. Billy Hensley: No problem. Happy to do it, and hopefully it helps everyone else do their job better.

[00:27:36] Bob Wheeler: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Did you learn something new about your relationship to money today? Maybe you have a friend who has some financial blocks or beliefs that are holding them back. Please share this podcast so they too can get off the roller coaster Ride of Financial Fears and journey towards financial freedom.

[00:27:52] To learn how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit the money nerve.com. That’s nerve not nerd. [00:28:00] We’ll be back next week with another perspective on money and the emotions that bind us.