Opening Up About Money Matters

My relationship with money started at an early age, thanks to my family circumstances.  Growing up in a low income family in which neither of my parents was fluent in English, I was assigned the fun job of helping write the checks each month when it was time to pay the bills.

From the time I was able to spell consistently, I took over the role of Chief Checkbook Balancer (a lost art thanks to the wonders of online banking). Every month my mother would wipe down the plasticy transparent tablecloth on our kitchen table, which protected the composite wooden tabletop underneath it, and pile up the opened envelopes she had collected in the plastic white mail sorter that was nailed near the entry way to our apartment.

Each envelope contained an unwelcomed monthly subscription -- rent, Verizon, Macy's charge card, etc. -- and I would kneel on one of our dining room chairs, open each one, and dutifully extract the return envelopes and the invoices, separating them into neat piles.

I'd take each bill, record the amount on the bill into the ledger, and deduct it from the balance, adding in updated balance.  I'd then slowly fill out the check, inevitably ask my mother what the date was, and painstakingly spell out the amount owed. With each flurry of numbers, our family checkbook balance would decline.

Sixty-two and 25/100 ~~~~~dollars. 
Eight-hundred seventy-five and 00/100 ~~~~~~dollars.
Three-hundred seventy-two and 76/100 ~~~~~~dollars.
And on and on...or so my 9-year-old self felt.

I'd then write out "paid in full" in the Amount Paid box on the invoice, split the bottom half off, slap it on top of the check, and slide it into the return envelope.  I'd then lick the envelope (some tasted better than others), and put it into the finished pile. In the ideal scenario, postage was prepaid, but otherwise I'd have to jaunter over to our bathroom cabinet where my mom stored a box full of envelopes and stamps to fetch some postage. This antiquated ritual engrained in me the realities of making ends meet.

What this habit developed for me was a strong sense of the ins and outs of household finance, a concept I had only learned was called cashflow when I was in my twenties.  As I've gotten older, I've realized more and more how important those early lessons were.  They really formed my views on money and how I approached the world in general.

At the same time, it was incredibly rare that I ever got into a conversation about money in any setting outside of home.  With most friends, I have talked for hours upon hours over years upon years without ever having to broach the tops. However, every time I talked to one of my friends -- particularly the female ones -- about money, it was something we found surprisingly valuable, unexpected, and refreshing.  I thought to myself, why don't these conversations happen more often? Why aren't more people talking about one of the most influential parts of their lives? It inspired me to create this blip on the internet, to share my experiences and learnings about managing personal finance, and to explore the extent to which it is as much about the personal as it is about the finance. I hope it strikes up some more conversations, and I will feel lucky if you find even just a bit of it valuable and refreshing, if not completely unexpected.