My Latest Huffington Post Piece!
Another must-read HuffPo piece by Tanene Allison: “Talking About Personal Finances – The Final Taboo?”
As you blog readers may know, I’ve become a bit obsessed these last few months about retirement plans and general financial smarts, and having discussions about those topics. Since enough of my friends have asked: Whatever made you suddenly start talking about this so much? - I have decided to write a bit more.
Below is the start of my latest HuffPo piece, and you can click through for the rest. It’s about class divides and class jumping, wealth in relation to gender and race, and some thoughts on why it is still so taboo to talk openly about financial topics, even when having those conversations and sharing that knowledge is the only way for people to work themselves into more stable financial positions.
Feel free, of course, to cross post if interested. Also, I would love it if any of you felt moved to comment, such as I think such topics might bring out the haters, so you know, nice to have some lovers in the crowd as well! XO!
Talking About Personal Finances – The Final Taboo?
One of the most radical things I’ve ever seen was posted on construction paper and hung on a wall at a San Francisco housewarming. Two friends of mine had purchased their first home and invited the community to a housewarming with invites entitled: “Two Black Folks Bought A House In Frisco!” (With the increasing rates of Black households moving out of San Francisco, this is in fact news.)
These two black folks both happened to also be community organizers, and their housewarming was on a warm October afternoon, filled with a mixed crowd spanning generations and all of life’s diversities. In between the potluck spread of a brunch and the running children, there was a wall covered in construction paper squares, taped together and written on in marker. Upon closer examination, this wall was covered in incredibly detailed financial information, explaining how these two women came to buy that house. The exhibit highlighted their incomes, educational debt, monthly expenses, financial plans for an upcoming child and how much they had saved, as well as how much they had to put down for the house, and how much money they had to borrow, and from whom, to make the purchase. I had never seen anything like it before.
In 2009, America is still learning how to talk openly and honestly about race. We’ve moved forward a lot in talking about sex, religion, gender and sexual orientation, although there is still a lot of work to be done on all fronts. On the whole, however, over the last forty years, we have turned a lot that was once taboo into less taboo conversation topics. And yet, it is still rare to hear open conversations about financial details.
