Money and personal finances for the most part, are still considered a big taboo. Most of us don’t know the salaries or bank balances of our coworkers, friends, or even family members. We can try to guess based on their occupations and lifestyles, but we really have absolutely no clue.

Since my husband and I haven’t been working in over five months now, I’ve been wondering what our friends think about our financial situation. I don’t actually care what they think, I’m mostly interested in the psychology of it all. I imagine some people have opinions or ideas. It’s not everyday that two 30-somethings just stop working for months and tell their friends and families “no, we’re not ready to look for jobs yet.. just hanging out.”

My theory is that because we don’t have many discussions of money outside of our own home, that we tend to project our own experiences and ideas about money onto other people – it’s what we know. I imagine some friends think we must be crazy and are perhaps living off of credit cards, going into debt. Some might think we had MASSIVE salaries in the States and came back with half a million dollars in the bank.

I caught up with a friend from my last job on the phone a couple of weeks ago and I told him we’re still unemployed but not looking for work at the moment. He made a joke about how we’re probably sleeping in til 2pm and eating cans of beans. I laughed awkwardly and went along with it but this immediately made me think – this guy probably doesn’t save any money. Now I know that I’m doing what I’m saying our friends are probably doing – judging/speculating/guessing what another person’s situation is. But my thought process is that he knows we haven’t been working for months, and if we haven’t been working for months, we’re probably running out of money, trying to live frugally etc.

So why couldn’t I just say to him something like – “No, we actually saved a decent amount over the last few years so we’re OK to be unemployed for a while.”

A relative made a comment a couple of months ago when I told her we don’t have jobs yet: “You guys must have a lot of money saved.” I awkwardly laughed in response to this one too, “haha, yeah….” (you know the ‘yeah’ where your voice trails off as you hope your conversation-partner gets the memo that you don’t have much more to add to the conversation and will quickly change the subject?… that ‘yeah’). I still wonder what would have happened if I’d responded: “Yeah, we have close to a couple hundred thousand in the bank so we’ll be okay for a little bit.” Maybe I would have made her uncomfortable, or maybe we would have had an open conversation about salaries and saving. I have no idea. Because we don’t have those conversations.

I think finances are still taboo because of shame. We feel shame if our salaries or bank balances aren’t as high as others – but I didn’t know I would also feel some sort of weird shame that my bank balance is now high enough to fund a work hiatus with no change to our lifestyle. I don’t want to discuss it (OK clearly I do because I started a blog – but hence why this blog is anonymous) because I don’t want people to think I’m bragging; I don’t want to appear that I think I’m better than anyone.

I don’t know what the answer is here. I don’t know how to have these conversations, or if I even think it’s appropriate to have these conversations. I think maybe the best way to start is by having easy conversations about the best credit cards – how we’ve been able to fund vacations with our credit card points. Or what the interest rate was on our car loan – how we paid our car loan off 2 years early. I just wonder if we all talked more openly about personal finances, if people would have more knowledge and be in better financial situations.