Letter From The Editor: Why It’s So Important To Have “Difficult Conversations” About Money

Talking about money is just plain hard. We’ve been taught since basically birth (or at least as soon as we could talk) that talking about money is impolite. It’s just not something that you are supposed to do. It could make someone feel uncomfortable. It could make you feel uncomfortable. If you need evidence that people really aren’t talking about money one need only internalize this one stat: per data from Fidelty 43% of Americans don’t even know how much their spouse makes. Yeah, it’s that bad. Here’s the problem with this let’s not talk about money thing we have going on: Money is at the center of pretty much everything that we find important. And I don’t mean wealth, I mean money. Money means the ability to eat every night, to put a roof over our head, to make sure our children get a good education, the ability to afford to relax, to pursue our passions, to make sure that we spend our old age in dignity. The list goes on, and on, and on. In other words, it’s not something that any of us can afford to not talk about. Not talking about money means that we remain in the dark, unable to make better choices because we aren’t sharing and learning and growing from each other. It means that that gender pay gap can stay wide, that we will continue to take out student loans with terrible repayment terms, and that we don’t help the people we love to better their financial situation even when we think we should. That’s why over the next few months we are making our focus at The Money Manual the difficult conversation around money that we need to have. A few of the things we want to cover over the next few months: How to talk to your parents about money as they get older. How to ask for a raise at work effectively. How to learn from our friends about money. How to talk to your partner about debt. How to have an honest conversation with yourself about your financial situation. And a lot more. Have a difficult conversation around money that you are trying to have, but struggling with? Drop us a line at contact [@] themoneymanual.com. We look forward to breaking the stigma around talking about money one difficult conversation at a time. –Leah Bourne, The Money Manual Managing Editor