I think the recession definitely made people much more open about talking about finances. I think that money was probably the last taboo subject to talk about. Sex and the City got us talking about all kinds of new things (wiggling my eyebrows) in the bedroom. The recession brought the hush-hush world of money and how you get it to the forefront.
Now that friends were losing jobs left and right, companies were downsizing or going belly-up, people were unable to sell their homes (raising my hand) and people were living even more hand to mouth than ever before, Americans were forced to truly examine their spending habits and figure out if how to actually save and live within their means (shocking concept, I know).
I am not the best at living with a budget, but I have fallen in love with Mint.com. It is a FREE online tool that pulls information from your checking, credit card, student loans, assets, mortgage, etc. and helps you track spending, savings, investments and even vacation expenses and see how you do month to month with spending. It sends you alerts when things are seeming a little higher than expected and lets you know how much to save monthly for things like college funds *shudder* and retirement. It even does pie charts (LOVE). Since I am such a visual learner, pie charts and bar graphs are my friends (hi, my name is DrDrama and I am a big dork).
With the help of Mint and a lot of discipline (and better-paying jobs, of course) we have gotten rid of all of our unsecured debt in just 7 months. WOOT! So I probably shouldn't go to J. Crew today, hmmmm....
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