A Better Conversation About Money
Financial literacy teaches people how to navigate the system. True financial education would show us how the system works.
I once interviewed a financial advisor who had written a best-selling book telling people to build wealth by forgoing little luxuries like lattes. When he called me for the interview, he said he was in line at a Jamba Juice, cheerfully adding that he was flagrantly violating the central tenet of his best-selling books.
I’m not sure why he volunteered this information to a reporter. Maybe it was his equivalent of driving to the interview in a luxury car or flashing a diamond-encrusted watch. Follow my advice and you can live like me! Jamba Juices all day long, baby!
Still, I basically agree with his advice. If you skip treats like cold brews and cinnamon rolls and instead stash that cash in an IRA, you can amass a healthy nest egg over time.
This was the kind of advice I repeated often in the personal-finance stories I wrote during the 2000s and 2010s. I took the advice, too, and I’m glad. But my stories were limited. My job was to provide counsel on how to navigate the sys…