Episode 16 : Wealthy Homeschooler: Family, Faith, and Finances

A lot of people think that when wanting to build wealth, it means that you're greedy. But what if it actually means that you're being wise? Today's episode flips the script with the idea. We're talking with a mom who's built her family's financial future from the ground up, and she's doing it with purpose, faith, and generosity at the core.

But before we dive in, be sure to like, follow and subscribe to the Cash Kid Podcast so you don't miss out on more episodes that help you learn how to earn, save, and invest money earlier in life. Alright, let's get started. The Cash Kid podcast is underway. So you've got some cash maybe from an allowance or that money your grandma gave you for your seventh birthday.

Here you go, sweetie. Woo hoo. Thanks Grandma. Whatever it is, what are you gonna do with it? Spend it hide of the way or maybe invest it. Let's start learning how to make that money grow. Time to learn how to be a cash.

Today's guest is on a mission to equip families, especially homeschool families, with the tools, mindset, and biblical foundation to build lasting wealth and raise kids who are financially confident, generous, and wise. Stephanie is also known as the Wealthy Homeschooler on Instagram is a first generation multimillionaire, a devoted wife and a mom to four kids, and the creator of the Finance Blueprint.

It's a parent led opening go system designed to teach kids how to earn, manage, and grow their money through real life applications at home. She shares her real life journey from going to survival mode to strategic wealth building. All while homeschooling her kids and in keeping her faith at the center of it all.

Stephanie, welcome to the Cash Kid podcast and first off, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Stephanie: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. So my name is Stephanie. I'm a mom of four. I live in the Maryland Baltimore area with my husband Ryan and our four kiddos. They are 10, 8, 6, and four.

We do homeschool. It'll be our sixth year coming up this fall, which is wild. But my background is in elementary education. I taught for eight years in second and third grade. Then I moved into real estate. I grew a really successful real estate career. But when COVID hit a lot of things shut down, especially here in Maryland, and it got harder to take my kid with me.

On all of my appointments, which I usually did, I incorporated them a lot into my life. And so I switched gears. We decided to stay home and homeschool the kiddos, and I put my real estate license on hold and started building some online businesses and opportunities to supplement that income and started the Wealthy Homeschooler page.

Gosh, it'll be two years this upcoming February, just sharing our journey.

Cash Kid: That's really amazing in how you took something and allowed it to become part of your life. So you currently have 162,000 followers on your Instagram page. Oh, at Wealthy Homeschooler. So why did you start this page and what was your mission?

Stephanie: Yeah, so I started this page really to share our journey with building generational wealth and using multiple streams of income to do really hoping to inspire others and hold ourselves accountable too. It's morphed as it's grown and become far more than just a finance piece. We now look at wealth building throughout our entire lives and really living intentionally within how we parent and how within our marriage and within our finances, our faith, our health.

And we share now a variety of different tools for people to use systems within their home that we use here within our home too. To help us build that wealthy life.

Cash Kid: And I really love that your tagline let's build a wealthy life. And you describe your family as a first generation multimillionaire, homeschool family.

What does that mission look like in a daily life?

Stephanie: Yeah, that's a great question. Wealthy life for us looks like living intentionally in all aspects of your life. And so whether that be in how you handle your finances or how you are, building that relationship with your children or your spouse you know what you're, the focus that you're putting into your health and your faith.

And so we really, for us, that looks a lot of systems that we're putting in place. We have four kids, so life is crazy. And so it's a lot of trying to navigate this busy life while staying really intentional and on a path of purpose and a really purpose driven life.

Cash Kid: So you often share that your wealth built building journey is rooted in biblical principles.

Can you explain how your faith has shaped your views on money, work, and stewardship?

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. Money tends to be taboo to talk about for a lot of people, especially if you're a Christian. But we believe that God owns it all and we are just stewards, right? So we trust him with the process.

And that means that we're working hard. We're making sure that we're using our wealth building as a tool not just for ourselves, but for others, to be generous. And teaching our children to do that too. And faith really keeps us focused on our purpose. And when you look at it from that lens.

You really start to understand how God is at the core of everything that we do. And he gives us food that we need in order to live the life that we want.

Cash Kid: Yeah. And going off of what you just said, there is a common misconception that being wealthy and being godly don't go hand in hand. What do you say to the people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of Christians pursuing financial abundance?

Stephanie: Yeah, that is a big one. I get that question a lot. Wealth isn't bad. The love of money is. If you make that your sole focus, that is when it becomes bad. Wealth is biblical. It's a tool to bless others. And I actually did a post on this the other day because I've gotten so many questions about it and I shared some of my favorite scripture that aligns with this.

And so I'll share a few with you. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. That's Proverbs 13:22. But remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth in Deuteronomy. You'll be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.

That's in Corinthians. So there's a lot in the Bible, there's a lot within scripture. He just wants to make sure that you're using it in the right way and that your focus doesn't become solely on money. So I think when you look at it from that perspective it starts to make sense and you start to see it as a tool and that he's given us this opportunity to do good with it.

Cash Kid: Yeah, no, I really like how you set that into the words and use scripture to help you. So in your content, you make it clear that it isn't just about money, it's about legacy and impact. How does your faith play into the kind of legacy you're building to your kids and your community?

Stephanie: Okay. So for us faith is at the foundation of our legacy.

None of it matters without our faith. So we wanna raise kids who love God who serve others and who live boldly and who understand that wealth is a tool, it's not the goal. And so that's really what we try to communicate through our page, through our products that we share, and how we teach kids to manage money and how we teach them to steward it in a way that is following their purpose.

That God set forth for them.

Cash Kid: So tell us about your finance blueprint, like the course that you sell, and how can it help families start this journey to building a wealthy life?

Stephanie: Yeah it's our newest product, the Finance Blueprint, and it is a step-by-step guide to teaching kids about money management and wealth building.

But in a way that's really super kid friendly and easy for parents to communicate, even if they maybe are not as knowledgeable about certain aspects of finances and wealth building. And it came about because my husband has, he's a CFO so finances are his jam and he loves talking about them and he

started having little conversations with our kids at the dinner table about what is an asset and what is a liability and precious metals and all these different conversations. And then he was like, I wanna sit down and I wanna start meeting with them like once a month. And teaching them about some money management concepts.

And he had this idea for this thing called Pigs, which is an acronym for personal investing, giving and savings. And that's the foundation. Money management. And so we developed this little monthly finance meeting with our kids and started teaching them how to earn some income around the house. Not through chores, but through like extra jobs, like, vaccuming out the car or cleaning out the basement or some of the bigger things.

They could earn income and then they would take that income and they would, choose where to put it each month, how much are they putting in investing, how much are they putting in giving in their savings? And then how much do they want for personal spending? And then we started paying them a penny on every dollar they were investing in that, teaching them compound interest.

And so it grew into this awesome monthly meeting with our kids in this cool like blueprint for them. And we've been doing it for over a year now. So we turned it into a guide specifically for families. And it tells you exactly what to do during a meeting, how to set up, how to set it up how to pay your kids, why to pay, why, to teach them how to pay themselves first.

What cash flow is. And it just goes into some of the core foundations of money management and wealth building.

Cash Kid: Yeah. And I think that is so important because what we talk about a lot on the podcast is that a lot of reasons that like kids and other people were so behind is 'cause

as you said earlier, money was kinda like taboo and it wasn't really talked about amongst families and it really could set people back 'cause they didn't know what they were getting into. So I really like how you guys set down one day outta the month and literally like talk about it, teach 'em about it, and then give them ways that they can do more with it.

Because I think that's super important, not only for your kids, but just to help them in the longer run. Homeschooling and family finance can both feel overwhelming. How do you design your system to feel fun and approachable for both parents and kids?

Stephanie: Yeah as a homeschooling parent, I know there's not a lot of room for anything extra within our days.

Sometimes just getting through language arts and math can be a lot. So we wanted to make it a system that was easy for parents to implement and that kids would really enjoy and would be something that, wouldn't stress everybody. Yeah. So it made it very simple visual. It's fun, it's interactive.

We actually, you, while they're working on their income throughout the month, you know you're not really meeting, you're not meeting until the end of the month just once. It's very doable for anybody out there. But we use these pigs, we. Each category of personal investing, giving and savings has a little pig character with a poem and a story about the pig and that talks about them.

So there's like Stanley to saver and there's Ivy the investor and Ivy waters her little tree and it grows, and her apples grow on her tree, and that's her interest that the kids are earning. And so they get to color it in and it's really interactive and easy for kids to digest even at a younger age.

Our 4-year-old does it too. And while she may not pick up as much as our 10-year-old does yet than just hearing those little bits and pieces, she starts to understand it. So we tried to keep it as simple and visual as possible for kids.

Cash Kid: Yeah. I think that's really important because sometimes there's lots of like really tough aspects to comprehend when it comes to investing, and I feel like setting it down to a standard that other people can understand and helping them have a chance to like actually know how it's working and like what stuff does, but down to like how they can understand it is really important to help them grow financially in knowledge as well.

So you emphasize creating multiple income streams as part of your family's approach. Could you share with us what those streams look like and how much you involve your children in the process?

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. So we started realizing the importance of multiple streams of income in our early thirties, which is a little late, to be honest.

We wish we had known sooner but we read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. Sure. You right?

Cash Kid: Yeah.

Stephanie: I've read it's, yep. So good. Recommended all the time and it really opened our eyes up to the importance of multiple streams of income in this life that we wanted to build for our family. And I had just gotten into real estate, so it was the perfect opportunity for us to start looking into investing in some long-term rentals.

So we do have five long-term rentals, and then we have a short term Airbnb. We bought that one. This will be three summers ago. That one is really fun because we purchased that one and it's in another state. It's in North Carolina. So since we homeschool, I moved myself and all the kids down for three months and we lived in the beach house and put it all together and they were 100% a part of the process, which was really cool for them to experience.

So we bring them in as much as we can. When we go rent, when we go hunt for properties, we're bringing them in when we're analyzing a property to see if it's a good return on our investment, my 10 year old's sitting there looking at that spreadsheet with my husband. So we have real estate as some of our streams of income, obviously our brokerage accounts.

We're actually about to open our son's first brokerage account. He has over 500 in his investing pouch in the finance blueprint. So he's ready. So we're debating whether it's gonna be some Bitcoin or a, a normal brokerage account. But we'll see. And then we also have obviously some online income with digital marketing and affiliate marketing with our digital products and then our normal brokerage accounts.

So we've really tried to diversify as much as possible and we're teaching our kids to do the same. Now we incorporate them into our business so they, when you go on the Wealthy Homeschooler page, you will see them in my video. I don't like to show their faces, but I do, their bodies are in there and you can hear their voices.

And since they're a part of it, we can pay them. So we pay them through our business. And then that goes into a Roth IRA for them. And that's how we started incorporating them. But they're really a part of every conversation we have. We don't hide any money or business conversations from our children.

They're, we always have them out in the open with them or invite them in to just listen and interact and give us their opinions too.

Cash Kid: Yeah, I think that's really smart incorporating them with everything that happens. And also you said that your 10-year-old started is, has $500 now to start investing open the brokerage account.

Yeah, so I actually started investing when I was 10. And I think $500 was the exact amount I had 'cause as a 10-year-old and like whenever I was younger, I get my money from like the birthday and Christmas and stuff. I just never spend it. I'm, that's just like personal preference. I was just, I hold onto my money as long as I could.

And so I had $500 saved up in my wallet. And when I found out about investing and I really liked it, I really got my parents to open me up a green light account. I started investing, I set my $500 in. It really is helpful 'cause you have a savings and a spending, a giving and a investing account and it gives you a debit card.

And so it really helped me manage my money and see how everything was going. And now I have helped open one up for my younger siblings now who are 10 and seven, and they both, they don't have it on like as much of a scale as I do, but they have both started investing and they have really started to see the impact.

And for families starting from scratch, no wealth, no financial education, what's the pivotal step, first step that you encourage them to take?

Stephanie: Oh, okay. Make the decision to be the catalyst of change. It has to start somewhere. And it only takes one generation to completely transform the future of a family.

It takes one person. So I, that is my probably biggest piece of advice is it doesn't matter where you come from, whether you come from, wealth or not. You need to make the decision that you want to do it, and then you need to act. Start small doesn't have to be a lot. Like you said, you started with $500 and you're investing and you just saved that up over time.

And you don't have to know everything to begin. You can learn along the way. There are so many tools and resources available right in our fingertips now to learn everything that we need to learn about finances. Make the decision to be the catalyst of change,

Cash Kid: Part of finance, sure you have to have knowledge and stuff, but another part of it is you have to be mentally aware of it and know how that you have to change.

Especially as like Dave Ramsey and stuff and lots of other people, when they talk about people in debt, it, they tell them that you are gonna have to change the mindset of how you act around, and so you have to changeand be the catalyst of change, as you just said. And so I think that's really important.

Before we close, is there anything that we haven't asked you that you would like to share with our audience?

Stephanie: I really just think that, I just wanna stress that you don't have to come from wealth to build wealth. You don't have to come from wealth to be the reason why your family gets on a completely different financial path.

Like you just said, it's a mindset. Wealth is totally a mindset. And that's the most important place to start. And like we said, to just start small. Even if that's just taking a look at how you're spending and seeing where you can cut something out. Even if it's just that coffee run that you're going to get.

I love a good coffee run. I had to cut my coffee run out recently. So if you need to cut out your coffee run in order to be able to put that money towards something more important like a new path for your family, like adding to your 401k starting a new brokerage account or starting a 529 for your kids, whatever it might be.

You need to make that decision and do it. And just because you didn't come from wealth does not mean that you cannot, that you can't build it. Yeah. Yeah,

Cash Kid: exactly. And that's one of the points that's pointed out in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it doesn't take wealth to have wealth. You can come from anything.

Stephanie: It does misconception for people that they think we have to come from a financially stable family to have a great future, and that's not the case.

Cash Kid: Stephanie, we really appreciate your time and your expertise. Thank you for joining us on the Cash Kid Podcast and boosting the financial knowledge of fellow Cash kids everywhere.

Be sure guys to go follow Stephanie on Instagram @wealthyhomeschooler. If you like this episode, be sure to share it with someone today and help us as Stephanie's tagline states to build a wealthy life. Remember, anyone can be a cash kid. You just have to learn how to become one. Cash kid out!