Why is it we just can’t talk about money?  I don’t mean what the next stock tip is or what part of the US is worst hit in the mortgage crisis – people talk about that all the time, and the media is full of those stories.  The fact is, as a culture, we don’t talk about how you and I make our income and how we spend it, save it or give it away.  

Even the Internet, home of the whole world’s collective wisdom and folly, has trouble talking about the areas where money touches our personal lives. You can find stories under “business and finance” – but what if it’s more about “family and finance”?  There are many places to find articles about “debt consolidation,” but precious few that know what to do with an article about “debt management”.  If you look for an appropriate topic under the category “home and family”, you’ll find plenty of room for household hints, great gardens and delicious dishes, but nothing where you can really talk about what it takes to run a home: money. 

It seems our collective wisdom is missing the important link that connects money to the activities we do every day: buying groceries, working, driving our cars, spending time with our loved ones.  Instead, we leave the important area of finance to the “money experts”, where it is discussed in terms like “the markets”, “investments”, “real estate”, and “lending”.  While these financial tools are useful, they are a very small piece of the overall money puzzle.  They are the piece where the average person feels their eyes glaze over, and mumble a passive “show me where to sign”. 

Is it any wonder that so few people really know how to use their money to create abundance?  Or that many people are now facing some very real personal crisis because learning about money seemed “too difficult”?  They learn the rules of the game as they go along and sometimes they never learn the rules - or worse, they learn that half the rules are wrong altogether. 

The problem is that money remains for the most part a ‘taboo’ subject that many people find intimidating to discuss in any detail.  Many people will talk more easily about sex than account balances or income levels.  And, there is still this underlying perception that financial professionals are nothing more than sales people peddling their wares. And professional investors must be lucky, shrewd or have done something illegal. 

Every aspect of your life in Western society is affected by money: the clothes you wear; the place you live; the car you drive (or don’t); where you work (if you do); who you know; what you do for fun; even what you eat.  Yes, the technical aspects of markets, interest rates, economics, product features and industry regulations are extremely important, but without a clear understanding of the impact money has on your life and that you can have control over the money (or lack thereof) in your life to live the lifestyle that you desire – the technical aspects will continue to overwhelm, confuse and create more struggle, stress and intimidation for the average person trying to make sense of what to do with their money to stay ahead of the economic turbulence.  

Money is far too important to leave on the financial pages of the newspaper, or in the “business and finance” sections of the online article directories.  Money topics need to have a prominent place in the “lifestyle” sections of magazines, article directories, newspapers and even TV and radio shows.  Wherever people go to find out how they can make their personal lives better, there needs to be a place to better understand the vital force that makes it all happen: money.  Then we can learn the rules of the game so we can have money working for us as a powerful tool to living our lives the way we want to play the game.  We can learn the rules because we are able to ask questions because we hear real life issues that relate to our own situations.  When we learn to talk about money, we learn to master it and that is where we will see the biggest positive results – in life and in money.

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