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“I Don’t Know Where to Begin”

Don’t Bitch

Getting Over the Unknown

I am one of the fortunate people who really like what they do for a living. One of the main reasons I enjoy my work is that it takes me out into the world. About once a month I travel to far-flung places such as Phoenix (Arizona), Pasadena (California), Fort Worth (Texas), or Fort Wayne (Indiana) to talk to groups of people—often groups of women—about money. My favorite part of these journeys isn’t the half-hour or so prepared speech I get to give. It’s the question-and-answer session that comes after. Some of the questions are always regional (“Is now a good time to buy a house in this market?” or “What do you think of the future of the big national corporate conglomerate that just happens to be based three miles down the road?”). But others are so wide-ranging I can count on them being raised whether I’m holding court in Detroit, Duluth, or Des Moines. Someone generally wants to know: “What’s the best way to choose a financial adviser?” Someone else typically asks: “Should I be buying long-term-care insurance for me or my parents?”

But the question I get asked more than any other—the one I get asked every single time—is the following. It’s never first. In fact, it’s often last . . . as if the person speaking waited until the moderator said, “We have time for only three more.” It usually comes out of the mouth of someone who feels a little silly asking it—who prefaces her question with an apology to me and the rest of the audience for being “so basic.” And it goes like this:

I don’t even know where to start. I mean, really. I feel like I know so little about my money that I don’t even know where to begin. Can you point me to a book or a magazine or a website or something that can get me going?

Sometimes, the floodgates really open, and the questioner ends with the complete truth, confession-style: “I’m tired of feeling like a total idiot about my money.”

I have to admit, the person who asks this question immediately becomes my favorite person in any crowd. Not just because she dug deep and was honest about wanting help. But because now that she’s revealed that she’s looking for help, I can do something for her.

As I collected—via e-mail—letters and excuses from women around the country about why they don’t take a more active role managing their money, this feeling of total inadequacy popped up again and again. From young women, older women, women with college and graduate degrees, women in the workforce, stay-at-home moms . . . in other words, from all types of women, in all parts of the country.

This one, from Rebecca, a stay-at-home mom, is typical:

For anything else in my life, I would get on the Internet, read some articles, talk to some people I know, and make a decision. But I’m paralyzed when it comes to money. I don’t even know where to start.

Jennifer, a publicist, put it even more succinctly:

I don’t know where to begin.

This Is Where You Begin

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