Relationships Sundays

"Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don't want..to impress people that they don't like." --Will Rogers

At some point, you’re going to have to have a conversation about money — with a spouse, a roommate, your kids, your aging parents — but did anyone ever teach you how to talk about money? Nobody ever taught me! So, here we will help you have this difficult conversation. Not just to give you the tools to be capable of doing so, but also, hopefully, to demystify talking about money a little bit. The next time it comes up, you may even enjoy the conversation, instead of grabbing the check and putting it off until next month (along with the credit card payment).

Let’s Talk About Money

Why Is it So Hard?

Picture this. You’re in your favorite coffee shop, catching up with your spouse/partner/friend. You’re smiling, laughing, having a great time. All of a sudden, the face of the person across the table from you gets quite serious. 

What is it, you ask. Is everything ok? 

They tell you they actually have something important they want to talk to you about. 

Money. They want to talk about money.

Check, please!

If you’re like me (and most people I know), the idea of talking about money makes you immediately uncomfortable. Why? For the last decade I have been speaking all over the world about money. What I’ve found is that, for all our cultural differences, one thing we seem to have in common is that we were taught to never talk about it! We were told it was impolite. Unseemly. A faux pas. Fascinatingly, it’s totally all right to talk about stock markets or the economy in general. The financial networks talk way too much about that version of money. But that’s different. When it comes to talking about your money… the message is …. just don’t.

The other reason we don’t talk about money is because money equals feelings. I know, I know, if you were taught anything about money in school, it was probably that it fits into calculators and spreadsheets. It is supposed to be rational, cold and calculated. 

But how many of your money conversations would you describe that way? Not very many, I’m guessing. 

Money, in fact, is an incredibly emotional subject. And since nobody ever taught us this, for most of us, our first conversations about money are kind of like running into an electric fence that we didn’t know was electric. It’s shocking, to say the least. 

Money is not a math problem. It’s a proxy for our moral foundations, our most cherished dreams and our deepest fears. It’s important to have a sense of precisely what that conversation is going to be like, before you have it. You wouldn’t want to sign up for a boxing match without having a clue who your opponent is. Would you?

How to Start

I have a powerful exercise to help you get started. It’s a technique I’ve carefully crafted over thousands of hours working as a financial adviser. It’s called “Just Start.” 

Here’s how it works: Grab the person you want to talk to about money. And… just start.

That’s it. 

Just. Start.

Think of it like ripping off a Band-Aid. It’s probably going to hurt a bit, but you have to do it anyway. So just do it. 

I promise you, it will be hard at first. And the differences between you and you partner will be pronounced. I grew up worried about money. For me money was about scarcity and security. My wife grew up in a family where money was used as an opportunity to build a business. For her, it was about abundance and freedom. When we got married, we had no idea that our different views of money might require years of work to reconcile. 

So we had to just start (using the Just Start™ method, of course). It was very painful at first. We made every mistake. We still often do. But we did start, and we haven’t stopped. 

Our situation is not unique. We all bring baggage to relationships, and that baggage often gets unpacked right in the middle of conversations about money. Simple things like a shared bank account or a credit card statement can bring issues to the surface that you had no idea were there. So this will probably be hard. Give yourself permission to be clumsy at first. Expect it to hurt a bit; expect it to be emotional. That way it won’t be a shock when it is. Remember that no one has taught or modeled how exactly to do this. And never forget that your relationship is more important than the money you guys are talking (or fighting) about.

Friends & Acquaintances

Do you have a friend who you talk about money with?