Loaded

2 Money Messages

Money never stays with me. It would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it find its way into my heart.

—John Wesley, cofounder of the Methodist Church

We Don’t Talk about Money

Do you want shut down conversations, lose friends, and alienate people? It’s very simple, really. Just ask someone how much money they make.

More than religion or politics, more than personal health problems, more than taxes, and even more than death, people rank money as the single most uncomfortable topic of conversation. According to a survey published by Wells Fargo in 2014, nearly half of the people polled said that money was the most difficult topic to talk about. It’s not surprising, really. In the modern Western world, a society that highly values independence and personal success, we know that as soon as a number is spoken, judgments will follow. What’s more, we seem to understand intuitively that a person’s views about money are deeply linked to their overall value system, and differences in opinion about how much is enough, or too much, can quickly create a cavernous divide between friends.¹

Contrary to popular belief, the rich don’t talk about money any more than the poor. Quite often when I speak to groups about financial psychology and money management, people bemoan the injustice that children who grow up in wealthy households are far more equipped to handle money when they are grown than their lower-income peers. There is a popular ...