From The LA Times
By Shira Boss

We’ve got enough money worries at home. Then we leave the house, and the show begins. The acting. The cover-ups. The secret sizing-up of others. How are they doing so well?

We can’t figure it out because almost nobody talks honestly about money. To make sure we’re keeping up, though, we gather clues, make assumptions, try to piece it together. That’s where we go wrong. What we’re really doing is living a big financial fiction.

I’ve been digging around for the last two years to find out the truth about Americans’ finances — and why we can’t stop thinking about other people’s money. I got interested in this when my husband wasn’t working and we were stressing out over money (all the while telling others that things were “good!”). What made it really bad was the head game. We convinced ourselves that “everyone else” had it so much better. A young couple moved in next door, and we heard they’d paid cash. They renovated. The woman had an incredible wardrobe. And she stopped working to have kids. It all seemed so easy for them.

We should mind our own business, of course. But let’s face it, it’s the American way to notice those who are better off than we are and to want what they have. (Otherwise, how would we keep our standard of living so high and always getting higher?)

My investigation started with our next-door neighbors. Surprisingly, when I asked, they told. They did have a mortgage after all. The renovations? Home equity line of credit. Her Marc Jacobs clothing? Credit card. And the distressing $21,000 balance had been kept secret from her husband. This was none of my business, but — it made me feel better.

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