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| Picture by Stuart Miles from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net |
Money is a very touchy subject for people. People don't like to go into specifics about it. They have a whole bunch of facts and figures thrown at them, they don't really know how it works so instead of asking questions, they just kind of wing it. This may or may not work. So today I just want to talk about some things and point out some resources.
First: Money is not evil. People who have money are not evil. True, not everyone "earned" theirs and they inherited but that doesn't make them bad people just because they have stupid amounts of cash. I do also understand that there are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part it is true.
Money is a necessity not a want in today's world. People use to just be able to trade some fur for some grain, or work a few hours for some food back in the barter days. Now, money is our barter system. I give you this and we exchange through dollar bills. It is how it works.
Second: Everything you do costs money and is affected in some way by money. It isn't just about brand names and high priced stuff, it's about everyday living. It costs money just to sit at home. There is gas, electric, rent, cable, internet, and water all needing to be paid each month if you're sitting at home or not.
Third: It affects your health in what you can eat and when you're able to go to the doctors. It not only affects things like affording insurance but having yearly physicals or just going to the doctors or emergency room when things get really bad. It is the difference between being able to get something checked out and taken care of with a simple antibiotic and doctors visit to ending up in an emergency room.
Fourth: For better or worse money is important and so is financial knowledge. It is something people need to know about and understand so they can keep more of it and use it for what they need and want.
In high school we probably had a class where we learned how to write a check and balance a check book. I'm pretty sure that was about it. No one talked about how it affects everything in your life, or about interests rates, credit scores, bank accounts, feeds, fines, CDs, IRAs, 401ks, and all of those type things. Unless your parents talked about it, which a lot of people don't talk about money, then there is a good chance people's knowledge come from either life fails or maybe a little bit of research.
So where do we start?
