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In this engaging episode of Rush to Reason, host John Rush and guest Greg Merced tackle the often challenging topic of guiding children toward financial independence. Through candid discussions and personal anecdotes, they highlight the importance of teaching financial responsibility from a young age. Greg Merced brings his expertise to the table, offering practical advice on how to balance familial support with the necessary push towards self-sufficiency. Listeners are treated to stories of financial lessons learned the hard way and strategies for ensuring that children understand the value of money, the importance of budgeting, and the power of early
SPEAKER 08 :
This is Rush to Reason.
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With your host, John Rush.
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My advice to you is to do what your parents did!
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Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Hour two, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Greg Merced joining us now. He is a family finance expert. Greg, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, John. I’m doing good.
SPEAKER 07 :
How are you doing? I’m doing well. So before we get started, because family finance and raising kids and all that is what we’re going to talk about. But I got a quick story I want to share with you that I think goes along with our conversation today. So I had raised several kids and did raise several kids, I should say. And in one particular occasion, I went are grown. daughter had left and they had gone on their her and her husband had gone on their honeymoon and they came back and they were staying with us for just a few days before their apartment and all that was ready to go and you know how that kind of goes and so we were kind of having a conversation my my at that time you know he son-in-law and i were having a little chat and something came up about the cell phone my daughter cell phone And something to the effect of, you know, something like, you know, can we get an upgrade or, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how the conversation went, but I promptly piped up and said something to the effect of, you guys can do whatever you want to with said cell phone and plan because she’s now on your payroll, not mine any longer. So you guys do whatever you feel like you want to do from this point forward.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow, you’re amazing. I think that’s exactly what we should be doing, all of us. Okay, so question I have for you is, why don’t more do that? So this is how dumb I am, okay? Here I am as a financial expert. I just switched our family over to Verizon and from T-Mobile, whatever. They gave me some credit because I did it. And I I actually went and paid off two of my son’s devices, about $1,000 worth, for him. I’m thinking, what am I doing? Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing. What are you doing? This is what happens when you do emotional things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, good point.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good point. So there is kind of this fine line, and I understand that, right? And I’ve done some good things. I’ve done some bad things. But just trying to, you know, and with cell phones specifically, it’s kind of interesting because there’s a lot of times that you can actually get cheaper plan if you have more people, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, they give you a group discount basically.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you can say, all right, you know, daughter, I’m kicking you off and good luck. And then all of a sudden they’re paying $100 a month for the two of them as opposed to, you know, $40 a month. So it’s kind of like, hmm. It’s a little bit sticky.
SPEAKER 07 :
It is, although I’ll give you my take on that, Greg, and I get where you’re going, and I fully understand, and we want to try to save money and even help as much as we can, although my take on this, and maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is where you can straighten me out. I look at that and say, yeah, I get it. It could be $40 a month instead of $100, but my side of it is, well, yeah. Yeah, but at the end of the day, how do they learn to do this and budget and do things correctly? And yes, I know as parents we’re trying to help them, but are they ever going to learn if I just leave them on my plan?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, no, I totally agree with you. And, yeah, you have to grow up at some point, right? And that means goodbye. You’re off my plan. And so I think there’s a simple answer to this. Maybe this is a meet-in-the-middle thing, right? So if that is something, we want to get the group discount, we want to save them a little money because they’re just starting out, et cetera, et cetera, say, listen, I want to be very clear with you. I’ll keep you on my plan, but you have to pay me. Like, you Venmo me every month, okay? And I’m not going to harass you for it. You either Venmo me or you don’t, and if you don’t twice, I’m just going to cancel you off. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know what? That one… That one I could – and back then, by the way, Venmo – this is long enough, literally long enough in the past that Venmo, believe it or not, didn’t exist at that point in time. I’m not sure that we even had some of the fancy smartphone devices and things that we have now. So a lot of things have, of course, evolved since those days. But I like what you’re saying because that one’s easy. You miss your two Venmo payments to me, and guess what? You’ll find out really quick you’re not on the plan. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Exactly. And maybe that’s the best way to get them off. But clear expectations and try not to make it emotional like I just did. Right. And I think that’s a great that’s a great way to do it.
SPEAKER 07 :
OK, what are some of the… Other things that parents, especially parents, because we’re entering now this time where kids will be graduating from high school or college, or they may be going on to college, or they may be going from college into the job world, and yet maybe mom and dad have been helping them through college, which I’m not opposed to, Greg. In this particular case, my rule was I will help you all the way through college, and I’ll help you get where you need to go. But the minute you get married, you’re on your own, including if you get married halfway through college, you can decide that’s the direction you want to head. Fine. But remember, you’re not on my payroll anymore. You’re on your husband’s payroll.
SPEAKER 09 :
I love it. So I literally have a spreadsheet that says, you know, what is the financial situation here? And it breaks it down just like that. If you’re in college or if you’re married. When you’re married, it all goes to the other column, and I love it. I think that’s a good idea. Now, when it comes to helping through college, I think all parents, well, most parents, want to try to help the kids through college. Here’s kind of what I think is a good idea. Help with rent. Not with tuition. Okay, I know that might sound a little bit odd, but here’s the reasoning behind it. If you help with rent, you’re going to have to kind of keep them safe and protected anyways. Right. And if you do that, then they have to become scholarship experts because they’re on the hook.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s true. No, you’re right. Good point. I like that, actually.
SPEAKER 09 :
And there’s tons of options out there. There’s academic scholarships, there’s sports scholarships, there’s religious ones. There’s a million different scholarships, and that makes the incentives align to where they have to go and hustle that. They just waitress and drive Uber and do whatever they can to make some money to pay the tuition. I don’t care. But if I were you, I’d invest some time into figuring that out, and then you can pay less. I like that. I like that idea.
SPEAKER 07 :
I like that as well because the other thing they could be looking at, which is a whole other avenue I might talk about today – is the trades, because we don’t have enough in the trades. That’s no longer, in my opinion, Greg, looked down upon like it once was. Some folks can actually go to trade school for half the time you would normally go to college and come out earning twice as much as you would with a college degree.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. I think those are great. I think there’s so many, you know, there’s welding, there’s mechanics, there’s hair, there’s makeup, there’s all these different things. And you can do really well with those. And I think that that’s right. We shouldn’t, you know, say, hey, college or nothing, but also say, hey, same deal. If you want to go live at home, but be in this trade school and learn how to weld or do diesel mechanics or or just cut hair or whatever, great. You can stay home and that $500 or whatever I was going to kick in for rent at the college, I’ll just help them with the tuition in that regard. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m in for that. No, I’m in for that. That makes total sense. Here’s a question for you, Greg. I mean, I know when I did this, but I’m not saying I did this correctly. How early in a child’s life should you start talking about some of these financial things?
SPEAKER 09 :
Now, this is perfect. So you should literally start talking about this when they’re young. I’m literally five, six years old. I know that seems insane, but I think if you can teach a kid in a very transparent way, what is going on? And it’s not that hard. You’re sitting on the couch watching Netflix together. You can say, listen, my phone just buzzed and I got the electric bill. And I’m in Denver. It’s hot in the summer and it’s $400. Just let them know that that’s how much it costs. Their eyes are going to open. And these kinds of things are like… What?
SPEAKER 1 :
$400?
SPEAKER 09 :
And then all of a sudden when you ask them to go scoop the dog poop on the lawn and do all those things around the house, they’re going to think, yeah, maybe I should.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I was like you. I started the kids very early. I’ve got another story I’ll tell. I help some of you out there listening because all of my kids are now grown and gone. My youngest, who will join me here at 430, is 33 now. So totally different playing field now for me when it comes to kids and all of that. But one thing that we did when the kids were little, and I did this on purpose, and this is going to sound really out there, Greg. In fact, some people are going to listen to me and think, man alive, John, you were like an ogre as a parent. And I wasn’t. I wanted my kids to learn the financial end of things. And I wanted them to understand what a dollar was. And so when my kids were, I think my youngest, who’s going to talk to me here on air shortly, he was probably no more than 10, meaning my oldest, maybe he was eight, probably eight. And the oldest was 17 or 18. So that’s kind of the spread that we had. And we had seven. So I raised seven kids. And so one year… We were going on vacation and we were planning on going to a very nice place. And I’ll just say we were going to Hawaii. And we told the kids Christmas time that this is what we were going to do. So we gave them plenty of time. We’re going to go to Hawaii in July. There’s seven months ahead of you. And here’s the deal. We’re going to go. But each one of you is going to buy family meal at night once, meaning we’re going to be there for a week. There are seven of you. So you all are going to buy the family one whole meal on your dime, not anybody else’s. And you’ve got seven months to save up. And we kind of gave them an idea of what those meals would cost. So they had seven months to be able to gather that money and so on. And so. My wife thought, oh, man, this is going to be crazy. And it kind of was. And where it really got crazy was when we went to pay. So we’re at a restaurant. Everybody’s on the same page. Everybody knew on the front side what was going to happen. They all had their own little money to be able to do this, Greg. When they actually started to pay, I think the rest of the restaurants thought we were the cruelest parents on the planet because here these little kids are, in some cases, 10, 8, 12, 14, whatever. They’ve got their little pocketbook out, and they’re rattling out this cash to make the – and we said we’d pay the tip. All they had to do was pay the meal. We would handle the tip. That would be mom and dad’s portion of this. But my point was to teach them how much vacations cost.
SPEAKER 09 :
I love it. Are you kidding me? I mean, sure, you got booed by the other people in the restaurant. We did. I mean, that’s such a good thing, and I bet you they still talk about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
They do, and they understood really quickly how much those meals cost. And what was funny is they realized, oh, if I order this, this is what it’s really costing at the end of the day. And in the future, I should be reminded of that when mom and dad are paying.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I love it. I mean, that’s essentially what we’ve done. You know, I create a busy kid and now our kids just have cards that they pay with. Right. Because things change. But it’s such an important thing to teach kids early in life what that means. And, you know, you swipe the card and holy smokes, the money’s gone and it took me six months to save that up. Right. It’s a different world now because it is invisible money, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
In a lot of ways, it is. Yes, you’re right. It’s not cash like it was for my example. As they were using cash, they could see it leave pretty quickly. And we encouraged them to bring enough where they could, if they wanted to buy a trinket for one of their friends or a boyfriend or whatever the case may be, they needed to make sure they had enough money in reserve. Now, I will say I gave my kids an advantage as well because I’ve always been self-employed. I’ve had businesses pretty much my whole adult career, Greg. So they had also an advantage because they had immediate ability to work in the business and earn that money as well. So they did have an advantage that way.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and that is a big thing. And nowadays, you know, a lot of kids are living in very kind of urban lifestyles, right? And it’s a little bit tougher. But, you know, there are opportunities out there. You can go in Denver. You can go mow somebody’s lawn. You can go walk somebody’s dog. You can pet sit. Like, there’s lots of stuff you can do out there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Greg, to your point, yes, there are tons. And I’m a part of some neighborhood Facebook pages and so on. And I can’t believe how many times people ask that question. Where do I find a young kid that will do X, Y, Z? Because A, I need it done. B, I want to help them. And Greg, I just can’t believe how much of that is available because no one does it anymore.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. No, it’s totally true. I mean, a hustling kid, holy smokes, he can make a lot of money and she can make a lot of money. And it is out there. It’s just a matter of entrepreneurialism, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. It’s a great thing. You can teach them right.
SPEAKER 07 :
When is it – let me ask it this way before I let you go. When is that time that all support is cut off?
SPEAKER 09 :
When do you stop the gravy train?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I just stepped on a rake just last week with mine, and he’s 27. Okay. But I would say I think that what you talked about a little bit earlier is a great time. It’s like when you get married or when you graduate college, the gravy train is ending. That is when the ride is over, you’re on your own, fly on your own, done. And you have to start weaning them off that, you know, as you get closer to the station, right? As the train is slowing down, you’ve got to kind of start weaning them off. And I think that’s a good thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
And they’ll want to do it, frankly. And you know what? It’s the best thing you could ever do for them. Greg, how do folks find you?
SPEAKER 09 :
BusyKid.com. We’re just trying to help kids learn about money and how to manage it properly so that they can get out of your house.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. You’re welcome anytime. As you can tell, Greg, you’re in great company.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. Good job.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I appreciate you, Greg, because I think it’s very important when it comes to teaching kids about finances. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, John. Thanks, Greg. Appreciate you very much. And I’ve got a few more things I’m going to add to that when I come back, by the way, for some of you. And, yes, some of you listening are thinking, man, John, you were hard. I was, although I will tell you that right now my kids are self-sufficient. They don’t live off of me. I don’t support them in any way, shape, or form. They have learned how to do these things on their own to their own credit, which I’m very proud of them for doing so. Veteran Windows and Doors is next. And Dave, by the way, would love to help you when it comes to what are the best windows and doors for you and your home. Because, no, it’s not equal like a lot of other window and door companies will tell you. Call Dave today, 303-529-0720.
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, to kind of recap that story, and I might even let Richard chime in here in a moment, but the one thing that I will tell you about that story of my kids all buying a meal on family vacation, and we did it one time, only once. After that, I never made them do it again. I just wanted them to learn what this cost was so they understood in the future what mom and dad were doing to provide these things. And I will tell you that while other patrons sort of looked at us with sort of the stink eye look, The waiters and waitresses thought that was the best thing ever. They were, A, impressed that our kids were, A, well-behaved. Keep in mind, there’s nine of us doing dinner, and our kids were very well-behaved. And we would get compliments from the waiters and waitresses on that. On top of that, the kids paying, they were just ecstatic. A, they couldn’t believe that a family was doing something along those lines to teach kids the value of money. And then, of course, I was giving the tip, and I always made sure that we gave 20% or more to make sure that everybody was taken care of, including the waiters and waitresses. And again, at the end of the day, we never once had a waiter or a waitress or owner even come to us and say, you know, what are you guys doing? This is just nonsense. And this is just, you know, child abuse as to what you’re doing with these kids. And once we were able to have a conversation with the waiters or waitresses and explain what we had done and how much time we had given them, and they had plenty of opportunity to earn this money and so on. And they all did, to their credit. Every one of my kids came with more than enough money to handle not only dinner, but to buy whatever knickknacks and souvenirs or whatever else they wanted to do. And one other thing Charlie and I were just talking about as well, and I’m big on this, and this is just something that I highly, highly recommend and big on, We never let our boys babysit, ever, ever. Too much risk. It’s just there’s too much exposure there. I believe, even to this day, it was this way way back then, and it hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s worse now than it was then. Our girls could babysit. Our boys could not. Our boys had to figure out other ways to make money. They had to mow lawns, plow snow, shovel snow, do things along those lines. They were not allowed to babysit. Our girls could babysit and make some extra money that way, but our boys were not allowed to for obvious reasons. Obvious reasons, I should say, when it comes to that, and I’m still big on that. That was something that I had read years and years ago. I think it was James Dobson way back when that said, you know what? It is in your best interest as parents to not have your boys babysit. And that was one of those things that I just took to heart, and I still believe in that today. I don’t think boys should babysit. Again, it’s not in their nature. I think there’s too much risk. There’s too much opportunity for accusations. And not that it can’t happen even with girls, because it can, but it’s way worse with boys. So I’m a big one on boys should not babysit, period. End of discussion. In my world, it was don’t ask because it’s going to be an automatic no. And everybody that knew us knew that our boys were not going to be allowed to do that. That was just not going to happen. And we didn’t allow that, nor do I think that that should happen today. But back to the whole teaching kids the money end of things. And I can still remember to this day, my son-in-law, that story I told, my son-in-law looking at me like, literally jaw dropping open like, oh, oh, I mean, I got to pony up this from now on. Yeah, you’re ponying up from now on because she’s on your payroll. I am no longer writing the checks. We’re done. And I think parents are very misguided and wrong when they’re married kids to We’ll be right back. This is me talking. Some of you may disagree with me, but you are making a huge mistake in writing checks for your married kids. Period. In fact, like I said, I told Greg this. Once they graduated, they’re on their own. Whether you’re married or not, you’re on your own. Now, most of mine were either on their way to being married or very close to, and we didn’t really have any issues along those lines. But, yeah, I’m not writing the check for you any longer. You are now on your own, and you’re going to be paying for these things on your own, and I’ll stand by that. So, all right, I’ll get a little feedback from Richard here in a moment on this and ask him a couple of questions. Golden Eagle Financial, speaking of finances, is coming up next. And much like we were talking to Greg about getting yourself prepared, financially speaking, this is Al’s expertise. Call him today, Golden Eagle Financial. Find him at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 06 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive. This is John Rush.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. One of you texted in several text messages along the lines of what I was talking about earlier, by the way, which I appreciate. Thank you for all of the text messages. And one thing, too, that I was very big on and my son Richard now can attest to this is I was never one because I didn’t believe in saying we can’t afford that. What I would say were things along the lines and Richard, you can attest to this. I would say things like, you know, it’s either not in the budget or we need to save for that or hey, you guys can help contribute to that or whatever the case may be. I am not one, Richard, you know me on this. I don’t like the term we can’t afford that because that’s a huge negative and it makes it sound like you’re poor. And in a lot of cases, families aren’t.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, especially in today’s day and age, right? You know, you and I, obviously, you’ve done a little bit of traveling. A lot of people have. And one thing that you did for us that was different, this is sort of a side topic, is, you know, you did have us go visit a true third world country, right? And so there is a massive difference, Dad, in a lot of what goes on in, well, and like you say, and that’s not to say that, you know, people should go out and, you know, they can afford, you know, big screen TV or whatever else it is. But a lot of times, and you and I have had this conversation many times, we afford what we want to afford.
SPEAKER 07 :
Families do. You know what? And I think, Richard, great point. I think a lot of times families will tell kids, you know, we can’t afford that, but yet mom and dad just did X, Y, Z. And it’s like, well, wait a minute. You’re being a hypocrite in what you just said because, you know, you just did a, you know, yourselves, you as a couple just did X, Y, Z vacation, but then you tell the kids you can’t afford X, Y, Z. No, wrong answer, by the way.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. I would. Well, and like you said, there’s definitely a difference. And again, like you said, you you learn with kids, you sort of learn the verbiage because there is a difference. Right. You know, there’s verbiage is key for us. For example, we in our family, we we don’t say we will try our best. We will do our best is one thing that we say.
SPEAKER 07 :
Way different, by the way. Good point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Because, yeah, trying, right, insinuates that, well, you know, you could fail versus doing your best is you’re going to do your absolute best. And that’s not saying you will succeed in everything you do or you’re going to get, you know, a perfect score or 100%, whatever it might be, but you do your best, right? That’s sort of kind of how we differentiate that. And you’re 100% correct. When it comes to affording things or spending money, you know, like you say, I think there’s a key differentiation there for a lot of people to say, okay, You know, or honestly, maybe even there’s a thing that is, no, we don’t think it’s in the best interest of the family to purchase that at this point in time. Right. And there may be reasons that go into it, right? But again, it goes back to, you know, that TV. You know, okay, we don’t think it’s a good idea to go spend $2,000 on that TV with, you know, we have X, Y, and Z coming down the pipeline that we need to make sure of, right? I mean, maybe a school, maybe we have a sporting event. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
And you know what? I think, you know, Richard, to your point, I think it’s very… It’s very fine, it’s very fair, by the way, for families to talk about those things where kids might be saying, hey, you know what, we want that next gaming console. Well, for me personally, I would be saying, great, guess what? You start saving up, you start working some extra, you start doing some things here and there. There’s plenty of things for kids to, we talked about this a moment ago, there’s plenty of things for young kids to do to earn that extra money. Great, you want that console? Go buy it. Go save up and buy it. You’re more than welcome to.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. And, you know, my oldest, he’s all about that right now. He’s about to say, well, you know, we can do this or I’m going to go take my money and go do that. There’s another piece of it, too, which is just because you have the money doesn’t mean you should. It doesn’t mean you should go do something. That’s something that we’re trying to teach them right now, which is to say, you know, maybe, yes, you got that birthday money and you’ve gotten some Christmas money over the year or good grades or whatever it might be, you know, because we’re kind of coming to the end of the year. And, of course, the one thing you did, right, you incentivized us to get good grades because you always said that is our job, right? School is our job and it’s our job to do well at it. And if we did well and succeeded, right, then you would reward us.
SPEAKER 07 :
There wasn’t too many things I paid for, but I did pay for those.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. No, we did not get an allowance, right? We did not get paid for chores.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, you did not. That was all part of what was required to run the family.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct, but one of the things you did was good grades, right? But back to what you’re saying, and it’s something that we’ve adopted, but as a family, yes, you can pay for things. And that’s not to say that other families’ priorities are the same as yours.
SPEAKER 07 :
Nope, everyone’s are different.
SPEAKER 08 :
And we have this. We’ve got friends where they like to travel, and they do things that way. And it’s so funny, right, that side note. But finances with families and with friends and stuff are like the most, like your religion is less sacred and less secretive than your finances amongst friends, right? Because no one knows, right? You see people taking trips or going here, doing this, but you don’t know their faith. Some people, Dad, they will go into debt. to go, you know, they’ll put things on a credit card and not pay it, whatever. They will do that in order to take certain trips or do certain things or have a certain, you know, lifestyle. But like you say, in America today, now it’s not how you want to pay for it, that’s a different story, but no, there’s really not… things for most people, I guess kind of everyday things, that you quote-unquote can’t afford. Now, whether you should or not is probably a different question versus if you can, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep. Okay, so before we move on, I did want to get this in. I know we’ve got to go to break here really quick because we’ve got some car reviews we want to… we want to squeeze in. But I told the story with our last finance guest about you kids when you were little and how we decided, okay, we’re all going to go to Hawaii, which is great. But in turn, and I told you guys all this at Christmas, in turn, you guys are each going to buy one meal, you know, one meal out at night, one dinner out for everybody, the entire family. And actually, I think the way we did that was we excluded mom and dad. You guys had to pay for everybody else. You didn’t have to pay for us. You had to pay for each other for that, I believe is how we did that. But roughly you needed to save, I don’t know, $120, $140 to be able to do that at that time. And I told that story, and I said I would ask you, did that scar you or did that teach you how much vacation actually cost?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I will say it scarred me in a way of, I guess, scarring can be good and bad, right? Because with a scar, there’s usually a story that goes behind it. And it doesn’t necessarily always have to be a bad thing because you learn from it. And, yeah, for me, it was vacations are expensive. And I think I told you the other day, I don’t know how we were able to do some of the things we did. And you reminded me, you know, there was lots of saving and lots of planning and looking for the best deals and things like that. But, yes, it was lots of working, lots of good grades, right, to save in order to do that. I mean, at that time, obviously, I was doing a little bit of work around, you know, that house. I think I remember you did some staining of furniture and did some, you know, sweeping of floors and things like that at the businesses. And it was starting in a good way, right, because, well, I just remember – pulling out, you know, my, you know, my little, my Velcro wallet at the time and pulling out my dollar, you know, my, my 50, my twenties at that time, I didn’t even think I had a hundred, but pulling out my twenties to pay and then having to factor in tip on top of it and some things like that. So no, it was definitely a good learning experience and not saying everyone should go to do it, but man, could you imagine paying $120 for a meal for seven kids and
SPEAKER 07 :
You can’t do that today. It’s at least double that or more. And yeah, there’s definitely been inflation. But point is, it still took X amount of time and money for you guys to earn that. And reality is you all did well. And I think, knock on wood, the majority, if not all of my kids, understand the value of a dollar, which I think is very important.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I think so, and we’ve got to run here, but yeah, like you say, it’s those little pieces that, yeah, you can, you know, some people say, well, that’s child abuse or scarring. Well, you know, it’s scarring in a good way because it teaches you value, Dad, so then that way when you do get older, you do appreciate it. We appreciate right now, even with the kids, there are certain things you’ve got to do. You’ve got to go clean out the chicken coop. Do I get money for that? No, you don’t get any money for that. You’ve got to clean out the chickens, and you’ve got to make sure they’ve got water and food, and the dogs are fed. That’s just part of the cost of living in this family.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
We don’t yell at you. We inform you. Now, back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. That time of the week where we do some car reviews. And Richard, you drove a Volkswagen Jetta not that long ago. Talk about that, if you would.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, Dad, this is one of our cars. Well, you know, we had some friends growing up that this was a really fun car, and they’ve changed in a good way, Dad, and I’m going to talk about it. So, yeah, 2025 Volkswagen Jetta, Dad. This is the 1.5 T SEL with the four-cylinder engine, front-wheel drive with driving mode selection. This car, Dad, all in with, I guess, let me see here. Yes, with Destination in the different paint color, which was actually a really pretty, they call it Monument Gray, is $30,680, which is hard to do, Dad. It’s an updated exterior, redesigned 8-inch touchscreen. Unfortunately, there’s no longer manual option available, at least on the lower trims. But, Dad, this is part of the seventh generation Jetta, and this is one of, I guess, my favorite cars to drive just in general because it just works so well. It runs really well, even on our altitude. It just operates. The Volkswagen infotainment system is easy to use. You don’t have a whole lot of buttons. You’re trying to figure out where this thing goes. You’ve got different trim levels, Dad. They’ve done this with the Jetta for a long time. This is the top of the line, and you can get an S, jetta dad for about 23 000 just a little bit over 23 and in this case for about 30 000 all in full equipped which is really hard in today’s market that considering i think the average new car is closer to the 45 or 50 000 mark this is really exceptional fuel economy 29 and 40 for an average of 33 and that’s something that we were able to achieve again 158 horsepower turbocharged one and a half liter four cylinder which works really really well um it’s it’s not the largest sedan out there dad but i was able to have two kids in the back seat and they were able to kind of climb in and out and do what they needed to do uh i don’t know if you’re going to fit four full-size adults in there but just it’s again it’s not meant to do that right this is Well, I guess you tell me. I don’t know if you would refer to this as a starter car, but to me that’s kind of how it feels, right? This is a great kind of first car starter.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, it might be a little larger. I mean, it depends on the person. I guess it would be the way to look at that, Richard. Could it be a starter car? Absolutely. It’s a little bigger than what probably most would use as a starter car, although not so big that it couldn’t be considered one. And price-wise, yeah, absolutely it could be.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that’s kind of the point for me. We could kind of sit here and talk about the features and stuff on it all day. It’s very user-friendly. It’s got charging ports all over the place. I already mentioned easy-to-operate system. The dash is a digital cluster, and you can kind of change it, and they’ve got some different views and modes on there. Honestly, Dad, if folks are looking for a car like this that gets good fuel economy, it’s front-wheel drive, which here in Colorado, Dad, would operate – you know, pretty, you know, honestly, in most of the conditions that we have. It’s got the eight-speed automatic transmission on this car, and you can do the different paddle shifting. I would encourage folks to check this vehicle out, Dad, because it may fly under the radar. And so if they do that, head to the local Volkswagen dealer and let them know that John and Richard Rush from Drive Radio and Rush to Reason sent you.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, the next car that you drove, which is an interesting car, and this one we can both talk about a little bit, because it’s a Mazda, but it’s not all Mazda because it’s got some Toyota technology in it as well, and that’s a CX-50.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, this is the 2025 Mazda CX-50 hybrid, and folks, and this may not apply to many of you, but if you were ever thinking to yourself, I would love a Toyota hybrid technology, but I’m not a huge fan of their interior. This may be the car for you, and I’m not joking when I say that. It’s, again, the hybrid powertrain has joined the lineup for this year. It’s All of the underpinnings, Dad, of the Toyota system generates 219 horsepower. Let me see here. Yep, and then there’s also a naturally aspirated model, Dad, but in this one, this gives you all of the technology that a Toyota would give you in the hybrid, and we have talked about that. countless times, right? I’ll just say it, how good the technology is. But one of our favorite interiors that we get to drive in and sit in down on occasion is the Mazda interior. It’s just got this really nice upscale feel without the price tag. Is that a fair way to say it?
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s a good way of saying it. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 08 :
And price point, real quick, speaking of that, is $35,390 to about $41,470. And in terms of, well, I’ll just say it because it is a Toyota. This is the Honda CR-V, the Toyota RAV4, that segment, Dad. And so, again, if you’ve ever seen a RAV4, but maybe you don’t love their infotainment system or you don’t like where their buttons are put, this literally is a Mazda in every other sense of the word. And you wouldn’t know that it was a Toyota outside of just looking at what is going on inside of it, to be honest with you. And I really enjoyed that piece of it. And like I mentioned, I’ve always enjoyed Mazda’s interior. They did a phenomenal job. It’s got all of the creature comforts on this, I believe.
SPEAKER 07 :
You get more for your money with theirs than you would the comparable cars.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, and I believe, don’t quote me 100%, I believe we had the premium plus version, which I think had heated and ventilated front seats. I know it for sure had heated seats, but it’s got a lot of the other creature comforts that you’d like, Dad, right? You know, dual zone, climate control, things like that. And like you say, you get some of those comforts maybe without the price tag. Last thing I’ll say is maybe it’s just a user preference, right? Maybe you get into one car and you don’t, and that’s why we always tell people to get out and enjoy these things, because you may like where buttons are in a car, but you may get in another car that’s very similarly price-pointed, but you just don’t like how it feels. And there’s nothing else to it. It’s not a bad car. You just may not like it. So I highly encourage folks to get out, test drive it. I really think you’ll enjoy it. Again, 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid. When you do it, let them know that John and Richard Rush from Drive Radio and Rush Reason sent you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, one more that we want to squeeze in here because we usually do these on Mondays and we’ve got a holiday coming up. So let’s do one more. The 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy All-Wheel Drive, which we both drove.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and that’s sort of a mouthful, Dad. But what I will say, and we’ve driven Santa phase before. I will just say this, Dad. Speaking of price point, as we just mentioned, Under $50,000, I don’t know if you will find a car of this size for the same money with the hybrid technology and all of the features that kind of have come along with this. And this was, again, a rare car that you and I both got to drive. You got to drive this car, and this is the first time you’ve been in a new Santa Fe that they’ve actually – It’s redesigned, I believe, yeah, for 2024, so there’s no major changes for this year. But you got in it, and I believe your first words were to me were, wow, this is really nice.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m not—I’ll just be straight up honest. The looks of the car, it’s not my ultimate favorite. I’ll just say it straight up. Although— It grew on me as I started driving it. One of the first things my wife even commented on was, wow, you know, the interior is really nice and it’s spacious and love the fact that it’s got, for example, dual phone chargers in the console where you both can lay your phone down magnet, you know, on the wireless charger end of things and charge both of them. They’ve even got some ports that you can even control or if you want to just charge or if you want to talk to the car through the cord. All sorts of little features they’ve got going on, Richard, that really do separate this car from a lot of its competitors. And at the same time, it runs well, the hybrid side of it. I mean, I drove it almost a week, not quite a week, on a half a tank.
SPEAKER 08 :
I was going to say it’s got an estimated 36 miles per gallon, Dad, which is compared to the 24 miles per gallon on a normal Santa Fe, it’s really hard to beat that. Obviously, I even drove it after you got it and drove around and took the kids to school and did some things that way, and I never put fuel in it. So when you combine your level of driving with my driving and we never had to add any fuel to it, 100 the other thing i’ll say and you kind of mention is folks a lot of times we kind of get in we don’t get into the nitty-gritty of these cars as far as how many car ports and or you know charging ports and some of that they have but you mentioned that this car just it felt well thought out in that like you said you can have two people wirelessly charging their their their phones But then there’s also for the second row passengers, and I think even the third row, you can plug in your USB-C and get fast charging and get some of that just right into the seat back. And there’s grocery bag holders on the back of the first seats, right? So when you’re with the mom and you’re putting that there. And there’s standard third row, Dad, which, again, not saying you would necessarily use this car all the time for the third row because it’s not overly spacious. But there’s just a lot of well-thought-out features on this vehicle that I think maybe people may overlook at times.
SPEAKER 07 :
Agreed. No, again, I was very, how do I want to say, very impressed with this car, liked the car. Again, the looks grew on me, and the reason why I say the looks aren’t my favorite is a little bit of a boxy look, and I’m not a huge boxy kind of car guy, but this car has that. Yet, I will tell you, functionality-wise, if you’re looking for just a really overall finish, Functional car that works well, does everything you want it to do, gets fabulous fuel economy, and has a really well laid out interior, Richard. Tough car to beat, and I’m being very honest.
SPEAKER 08 :
Tough car. And the other thing that I’m going to add to that is, and I think we said it, maybe we didn’t, all-wheel drive. And again, for a car of this segment here in Colorado, being an SUV, and yes, the looks do take a little bit getting used to depending on it. But some people that, I’ve got comments on that too, I had several family members that looked at the car and said they actually really liked the look of it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, it’s one of those either like it or hate it, one of the two, absolutely.
SPEAKER 08 :
And it looked like a more expensive car in a good way, right? And so they did that well. So, no, I’m with you that I think especially that if you’ve got a family, a family of four, maybe even five, but a family of four, you need just a little bit extra room, but you don’t want to break the bank on an all-wheel drive SUV that’s going to get you 36 miles per gallon. Check it out, Dad. Again, 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy. Head to your local Hyundai dealer and let them know that John and Richard Rush from Drive Radio and Rush to Reason sent you.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. With that, Richard, I will let you go. Appreciate you being with us tonight, and have a great week. Sounds good. You guys as well. All right. We will be right back. Don’t forget Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. If you’ve got any issues at all when it comes to your HVAC, your AC unit especially right now, please give them a call. They’d love to help you out. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 06 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back, and I have a minute or so left here of this particular hour, and I should mention, too, that we do have all of our reviews. They are all the car reviews. If you’re looking even at a used car, we’ve been doing reviews for a very long time, and a lot of you will even text me questions. I’m looking at a particular car. It’s got this kind of mileage on it. What should I be looking at and so on? I can answer all of those questions. I should mention this more than I do. We do that free of charge. There’s a lot of folks out there that are buying services on the Internet and so on. They charge you to do those things. We do not. I do not. And one last thing, Ridgeline Auto Brokers up in Boulder, they are more than willing to help you out along the same lines as well. If they can sell you a car, great. If they can’t but they can still be an assistance to you, they are there to help you with that. So between them and I, we can always take care of you. And if you ever have any questions, just send me a text message, 307-200-8222. We’ll be right back, though. Hour 3 is next. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 15 :
The Rich Guy.
