Member Spotlight: Rachel Murphy—Helping you coach your teen about money

See Rachel Murphy's special resource page for Samaritan members.

Financial habits are not formed overnight, nor do they begin with adulthood. Rachel Murphy offers coaching and advice for parents of teens in her book I Am Not Your ATM: A Practical Plan for Teaching Your Teen to Manage Money ($11.99 paper).

A different approach to money

Eighty-six percent of couples married for less than five years start out with debt, according to a survey by Ramsey Solutions. The survey also found that money problems are the second-leading cause of divorce. In light of statistics like these, and after their own climb out of debt, Rachel and her husband, Keith, decided to do something different when the time came to teach their own children about finances.

In the early years of their marriage, the Murphys started a company that provided local dial-up internet service, but, a year into the business, they began experiencing financial problems. By the time it all came crashing down, they had amassed $50,000 in debt and had no jobs. The Murphys realized that they didn’t know how to handle money wisely. Despite Rachel’s parents’ super-human skills at managing a missionary budget, their instruction for Rachel as a teen in the 1980s and ’90s didn’t include guidance on handling credit cards, the payment method that now dominates society.

“My parents, like everyone else in their generation, weren’t raised with credit cards, so they didn’t know how to teach us to navigate this new transformation in the way we handle money,” Rachel says.

Working the plan

After their first of five children was born in 1997, Rachel stumbled on Mary Hunt’s book Debt-Proof Your Kids and mentally tucked the information away. Ten years later, she reread the book and expanded the concepts for her own children. Instead of simply telling them about money, she decided to include them into her own spending activities. If she was making a purchase for the kids, she would include them as active participants in the process.

Rachel’s money plan is:

1. Decide what your goal is and write it out.
2. Pick a spending category to start your teens on the plan, such as monthly snack money.
3. Calculate what you’re already spending on the categories you’ve chosen to hand over to your teen.
4. Determine the family guidelines.
5. Introduce the plan to your kids.
6. Help your kids set up a way to track their spending, whether through an app or on paper.
7. Celebrate the fact that your teen is becoming financially responsible.

“Basically, you’re redirecting the money you are already spending on your teens and using it to teach them how to handle money,” Rachel says.

For instance, if your family goes out to eat every Sunday after church, Rachel suggests figuring out the average amount every month that costs for your teen. Then give that amount to them in a lump sum at the first of the month for them to manage themselves.

“Start simple with one or two categories,” Rachel suggests. “If they blow it, it doesn’t really hurt.”

As the teens get older, more expense categories can be handed over to them. By the time they were seniors in high school, Rachel’s children were budgeting for everything from gas for their cars to senior trips.

The most common way parents teach financial concepts to their children is by assigning chores and then setting aside a certain percentage for savings and giving. That’s a good start, but Rachel doesn’t believe instruction in money management should end there.

“I feel like there’s a disconnect,” Rachel says. “We’re really good about saying we need to teach our kids about money, so let’s do the saving/giving/spending jars when they’re little, but then where do we go from there to when they’re out of the house?”

‘Confidence/competence’ loop

When the Murphys got involved in the foster community, they noticed a lack of life and leadership skills among foster children, so Rachel and Keith focused on those areas with the children who came into their care. They also realized there was a “confidence/competence loop”—a link between a person’s ability to accomplish something and the confidence that naturally flows from that accomplishment. Additionally, confidence in one’s abilities dictates one’s willingness to try something new.

It didn’t take long before they decided that all teens could benefit from learning life skills and building confidence. So, in 2019, they created a Facebook Group called Raising Confident Teens Community. They wrote and taught lessons on subjects like easy home repairs, recipes, book and movie reviews, and personal growth, and they spotlighted teenagers who were doing amazing things. In January 2020, they expanded their reach with the “Raising Confident Teens Podcast,” to which the entire family contributes.

Eventually, they reached out to parents and asked what other subjects they would want to have covered in the lessons, and they kept getting the same response: “I wish someone had taught me about money.” That turned into a five-day live challenge on their Facebook Page, where they taught the money plan and finished with a bonus session of their children talking about their own experiences with the plan.

Putting it into print

Based on the traction she was getting from the Facebook Group and podcast, Rachel felt God calling her to put the information into a book so that parents would have a reference guide. I Am Not Your ATM is a concise and detailed explanation of the money plan the Murphys teach. Rachel includes action steps at the end of most chapters and includes examples of everything discussed in the book, including spending checklists and categories, worksheets, and more.

Rachel insists that she isn’t a writer, and she didn’t want to talk about money mostly because of shame. But her desire to help others avoid the same trap prevailed.

“I just want to help people avoid going through what we went through as a young married couple,” she says.

Kingdom building

Getting control over a family’s finances goes beyond theory, extending into the life of the Church and the furthering of God’s Kingdom in the real world.

“If we could have avoided all the money traps early in life, think of the years and money we could have been funneling to other ministries or using to help other people,” Rachel says of her own experience with debt. “It limits your ability to serve in the kingdom and to make a difference because you are basically trapped by your lender.”

If a leading cause of divorce is money, then it would behoove us to take a different approach to how we handle our own finances and how we teach our children to handle them.

“I want my kids to have good marriages,” Rachel says. “I want them to be on a firm foundation and I want to give them every advantage that they can possibly have by teaching them while they’re home. If they don’t have that money stress when they’re married, will my children and grandchildren have a stronger family life because they will have never had to deal with that? What if they never have to deal with that because they’ve always had a good foundation?”

How to pray for the Murphys

• “Money can be such a sensitive and shameful topic. Pray for wisdom and direction so we can reach people the way they need to be reached.”

Kathryn Nielson is a Communications Specialist at Samaritan Ministries.

The Murphys are available to speak at your church or conference about teaching your teens about money or life skills.

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