We’re told as we grow up that the three great conversational taboos are politics, religion, and sex, but in fact, people discuss these subjects all the time. No, the real taboo in our social discourse is money, as I was dramatically reminded this past summer.

My young son and I joined a bunch of old and new friends for a rafting/kayaking/ camping trip down the Klamath River. Of course, outdoor trips like this always speed up the process of intimacy; when you live together with others for five days—without obligations, without cell phones or PDAs, and sharing a latrine—you get to know them pretty well pretty fast. On this trip, the process moved even faster because of the forest fires that plagued northern California. The air was pungent with smoke, and the sun was always blocked, so there was a persistent sense of early dawn—a perfect setting for sharing our innermost truths, I’ve always thought.

Sarah and I had been acquaintances before the trip—my son and her daughter were pals from school—but on this trip, we grew really close. Although the fire danger meant there was a ban on campfires, we nevertheless sat and talked each evening, hunkered down in our low-slung camp chairs, our muscles weary, our kids safely in their tents. We talked about our past and present marriages, politics, religion, health, and our kids, sharing our concerns and vulnerabilities about each of these topics. It quickly became clear that ours was one of those friendships in which any subject could be fully explored.

As the trip grew to a close, we adults began to think and talk about tipping the wonderful river guides who had kept us safe through the Class 3 and 4 rapids. So on the last night, as we were settling into our camp chairs, I said to Sarah: “Have you thought about the tip? I’m thinking of giving a hundred bucks. What are you going to give?”

In the orange glow from the fires 30 miles west of us, I could see the look of stunned astonishment on Sarah’s face. “Oh,” she said, “I don’t feel comfortable discussing that.”

And that door slammed shut.

What is this? Why is money a blacklisted subject we hide behind a veil of secrecy as if we and our money were in some sinister conspiracy together? What made Sarah shut down? After all, I hadn’t asked her how much money she had in the bank or what her bonus had been last year. Nor had I suggested she tell me how many boyfriends she’d had in college or what her SAT scores had been. And the fact is that Sarah had told me some pretty private stuff about a rough patch in her marriage and about her own family history. That she could speak freely about such deeply personal matters made it even odder that she would shut down like a clam when asked what she planned to tip the next day.

What I can’t figure out is why. What makes people so uncomfortable talking about money? My guess is we see money as a measurement of our identity—and thus as a wedge that can separate us. That is, the person who “measures up” higher—i.e., with more money—feels he has to protect what he has from the person who measures up lower, while the person who measures up lower feels in danger of being exploited. I don’t know if that’s it, but when Sarah and I finally talked about her response to me, she said it was because she had indeed planned to give more than I was giving, and the difference—the separation it might define—made her anxious.

But if I don’t know exactly why we clam up about money, I do know the impact of all the secrecy: stress. And that stress makes us do stupid things in our money lives. It takes away clarity about money and cuts us off from any wisdom we might bring to our money lives. It leads us instead into a money madness that impels us toward dumb decisions about earning, spending, saving, investing, and giving money. In my own family, my father and his sister had been estranged for the last 30 years of their lives over a money secret!

I’ve been there too. I’m the guy who could talk a blue streak about my sexual history on the second date with the woman who became my wife—but for the first three years of our marriage never said a word about our assets, our debts, my income or possessions. Those were the conversational taboos I stuck to. And the dumb decisions I made as a result of that madness-driven secrecy were very costly indeed.

Yes, there are good reasons for keeping certain aspects of your money life private, but I think we’ve gone too far on the secrecy side. The money taboo has become so automatic that we no longer have a choice about whether to share or not to share details of our money life; it’s just not an option anymore. Yet most of the time, a secret or lie about money causes us stress, loses us money, and diminishes our intimacy with friends and family. That’s enough motivation for me to re-think what is the real conversational taboo—money talk.

HOW TO GET YOUR FAMILY’S FINANCES IN ORDER—NOW!—FOR 2009

Listen up, parents: It’s time to get your finances in order. With the  new year fast approaching, there’s no time like the present to take  action. Not only will being proactive about your money situation make for a calmer, happier, and, ultimately, more successful year,  but it will get your kids on the right track while they’re still young,  setting them up to have a healthy relationship with the the almighty  dollar for the rest of their lives.

Our kids inherit more than our eye color and height—they also inherit how we think about money and how we behave with money. If, for example, you use money to feel good (buying a new sweater after a bad day, buying your kid a toy when you feel distant from her) you are literally teaching your kids that buying more things will somehow, eventually, fix the problem. They, too, will begin to feel a sense of deprivation—after all, if you did have enough, why would you need to constantly acquire more?  They’ll also begin to believe a particularly problematic falsehood: the best way to ease discomfort is to make a purchase. It won’t be long before their own behavior mirrors the messages they got from mom and dad.

Rather than head down this road for yet another 12 months, take advantage of the New Year to get clear with yourself and with your kids about what your spending and saving will look like for 2009. Why is it important to include your children in this process rather than just let them figure out on their own that your spending is changing? There are two reasons. First, if you are up front with you’re kids about how you choose to spend the family money, they won’t create negative, imaginary reasons for the change.  Just as children of divorce often invent that they are to blame for their parents’ split, children in homes with suddenly- tighter purse strings may come up with destructive, unhappy and untrue causes  for the shift.   Second, if your children feel they are a part of the decision process rather than serfs to your financial decrees, they are less likely to rebel or develop a negative attitude. This is particularly true of older kids.

So how do you decide what needs to be done in the New Year, and how do you talk about it with your kids?

Here are my 6 Top Tips for Creating Financial Family Fitness in 2009:

1	First and foremost: Before getting together with the kids, if you have a partner, share with him or her the money message you got from your parents so that each of you knows what inherited money beliefs you each bring to the table. You may be working with the basic belief that the love of money is the root of all evil, while your partner is positive that money makes the world go ‘round. If you don’t have a partner, have this talk with a friend. Recognize that our adult money activities are driven by childhood beliefs. This understanding can help you turn any judgments you may have about your own or your partner’s money habits into compassion.
2	Complete a Spending Intention worksheet with your partner—this gives you a clear picture of your actual cash flow and allows you to create a spending range for each category of expenses. And, if one of you tends to hand over the reigns when it comes to family finances (happily or begrudgingly), this will help to restore some balance.
3	Remember the value—and yes, the fun—of saving. Our grandparents generally couldn’t overspend much because they didn’t have Visas and Mastercards. If they wanted something, they typically paid cash up front, or (drumroll please) saved for it. Restore this practice with your children. Give them the experience of anticipation, excitement, and accomplishment that comes from saving, and experience it yourself by helping out. If there is something your kids really want this year—a bike, a trip to Disneyland—instead of using the credit card to buy it, develop a matching savings plan. If they save five dollars, you add 10.
4	Speaking of credit cards, let them go. It is wise to keep one or two on hand for emergencies and credit cards can play a role in restoring damaged credit. But generally, they should function as a spare tire, not a steering wheel. Overusing credit cards not only plants you firmly in the debt cycle, it’s teaching your kids—and yourself—that saving is essentially impossible or useless, and that you can have whatever you want whenever you want it. The thorny truth is that you can’t—not without paying the price in interest, stress, and the growing sense that you don’t have enough. If we want our kids to be patient and wise spenders, credit cards are teaching them the opposite values.
5	Sit down for a family money meeting, but take care to strike an information balance. Too much financial information stresses kids out. They don’t need to know all the details of your mortgage, the raise that didn’t come through, or the 401K that’s losing traction. If your intention is to decrease family spending, tell the kids how you are going to cut back and invite them to come up with ways that they can reduce the family’s spending as well. It’s beautiful to witness how children can step into greater maturity and responsibility when their ideas are taken seriously.
6	Finally—and trust me on this—there is nothing that will improve a family’s sense of security and wellness more than giving to others. It is the quickest way to dissolve a sense of not having enough or needing more. Generosity necessarily undermines our feeling of scarcity and sufficiency blossoms. So sit down, put your heads together, and select a beneficiary and an appropriate amount.

I often face conflict with myself and scheduling.

Often I arrive just in time for performances—out of breath, heart racing, adrenalin flowing—and then relish my sense of victory…we made it! No matter how mediocre the play or show or concert, I’ll remember crossing the finish line before an usher might say, “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to seat you after intermission.”

But recently, I’ve been noticing the connection between this behavior and my old style of accumulating money: for years, I was so focused on achieving a million dollar net worth that I never noticed my energy was all about striving and adrenalin, not about what I’d actually do with the money once I had it.

Flash forward to a recent Saturday.

I was commanding my minivan, filled with three adults and five kids, en route to Cirque du Soleil, and I had vowed to allow plenty of time to arrive at a sold-out event as expensive as this one.

The show began at 4pm, and just as planned, we arrived at 3pm with plenty of time to find parking. That’s when my money monster spoke up: Hey—if you have enough time to avoid the overpriced, designated parking and find off-site parking, why not go for it? Plus, you’ll avoid the crowd of exiting cars when the show is over…

I steered the minivan out of the designated Cirque parking and toward a city garage. The first garage we pulled into wasn’t open to the public, and the attendant directed us further down the street. We entered the next garage, got our ticket and parked. The eight of us walked down to the ground floor—only to discover a chain link fence blocking the entrance. After unsuccessfully trying different floors and wondering why the cashier’s office was closed, we saw the sign: Garage open Monday-Friday only.

A wave of panic flooded us adults, and then the kids got it – we’re trapped. We called the posted emergency phone number and were told to exit through an emergency pedestrian door. They would send someone out after the show to open the gate—the charge for this service was $100.00.

We raced to the theater and arrived at 3:55.

During the show, all I could think about was finding away to not pay their $100 retrieval fee. Then I noticed that the fear and anger around this fee were absorbing my attention much more than the performance I paid so much to attend.

So I did the opposite of my habitual reaction; instead of ignoring my feelings, I opened to the anger and fear. And what do you know, they were all familiar! I know this variety of anger and fear very well, because it’s been with me since I was five years old. I did a few money breaths, and my first insight occurred: I don’t know what will happen with the car after the show, but right now, I’m at the show, and I need to just watch it. I instantly felt my heartburn dissolve. My second insight was this: my anger and fear have nothing to do with the actual garage and everything to do with berating myself for being someone who parked in a closed garaged.

Then I had yet another insight: maybe the machine malfunctioned and should never have let me in. In other words, maybe it wasn’t my fault, or anybody else’s fault, either.

And just like that, I was suddenly free to enjoy the show. I still had the possibility of losing $100, but I felt full of life. When the show ended, I was determined to find someone leaving the garage, and I did, so I even got to park for free.

Later, I called the garage owner again and told her I got out. She said, “I’m glad, because the machine malfunctioned. It never should have let you in.”

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