March 29, 2024

Your Money: The Power of Raw, Honest Stories About Money

REYNOLDS: I could be their mother, daughter, sister or co-worker. I could be them.

LIEBER: Hence the book. And its profane subtitle, which echoes the name of your website. In the book, you call out the “tighty whitey sanitized language” that gets in the way of raw honesty in this realm. But why excrement?

REYNOLDS: I was standing by the foot of my husband’s bed in the intensive care unit, and I turned to my friend when I still couldn’t get into my husband’s phone, and remembered that the will was drafted but not signed and I didn’t know if the life insurance had been on autopay and I hoped nothing bounced and didn’t know if he had disability insurance or not. And I just said, “Oh, my God, I don’t have my shit together at all.”

And if that was happening to me, what was going on with everyone else in the I.C.U.? It was like the camera zoomed in and pulled out at the same time: We were all so screwed, and none of us had any idea.

LIEBER: Gaby, you write about what you call the three buzzkill musketeers of getting better at money: shame, embarrassment and anxiety. Does talking bluntly about our money stories and failures dispense with those feelings, or put us at a bigger risk of experiencing them more acutely?

DUNN: I’m still very bad with money. It’s about relatability. I was just going over my taxes with my accountant, and I was crying. But at least I’ve made crying about taxes my brand.

I record my accountant so I can listen back. I Google words, and I’m thinking really hard, and it’s just not coming, and I’m crying because I guess the conclusion is just that I’m an idiot.

REYNOLDS: You know that systems of oppression are set up against you in all these other ways, but this is the one you buy into in many ways. This is the one you listen to.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/your-money/gaby-dunn-chanel-reynolds-vicki-robin-interview.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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