For the last few years I have been saying that I am really going to get a better understanding of money and how it all works-or doesn’t. I can say that I have figured out lots of ways that it doesn’t. Growing up as a child of the 70’s and 80’s, money was never spoken about in our blue collar home. It was presumed that you would have a pension and benefits when you worked or all you had to do was get a 4 year degree in just about anything and you would be guaranteed a decent job. Well ain’t that a kick in the pants.
My parents divorced, leaving my mom, a once SAHM, a single working mother living off survival wages and child support. What I gleaned about money from that experience is how to pay Peter by robbing Paul whilst Mary was coming around. Good survival tactics, but not so great for thriving. I can’t necessarily blame my parents, they can only teach what they knew, and my grandparents were all survivors of the depression and WWII, so anything post 1947 must have seemed like a free for all boom, economically speaking.
So every year I keep telling myself I will finally figure it out, yet I am never really the wiser. I’ve tried reading articles and books about it, but its in a language I still can’t comprehend. Teach me like I am 4. But good luck getting anyone to teach you anything. When I approach the subject with people I know that are successful with their money, they are either offended that I even asked, or they with hold. And throwing the questions out on social media platforms has only rendered responses from people who are in the same proverbial boat. Its like taking advice on how to properly bail water out of a sinking ship. And please, if anyone mentions Dave Ramsey I will immediately block your butt. This is not about how to budget my money, its how does money work?
Is the concept of money so abstract that I am rendered stupefied or is my mind too abstract that I am missing it all? I really just don’t get it. Am I the only one?
The Plagiarist 