By David Berky

Tom Monson, the Vice President of Simple Joe, Inc. was giving a series of free seminars on personal finance to some people in his neighborhood. Many couples and individuals were scheduled to attend but only two or three were showing up.

Tom and I discussed the situation and wondered why attendance was so low. Why were these people not making their appointments? We didn't think it was the time of day. The time and place was very convenient to all the invitees.

We knew they had an interest and several of them had expressed a desire to learn more about finances directly to Tom. But when it came to showing up for the seminar they seemed to find other things to do.

As Tom and I were discussing this he commented on the behavior and attitude of some of the people who had shown up for the first two seminars. At the first seminar, Tom noticed that several of the husband & wife couples seemed a bit uncomfortable discussing financial matters with each other.

Much of Tom's seminar involved recognizing and evaluating your current financial situation, setting financial goals and ways to measure your progress. But he was having a hard time getting the couples to discuss financial matters between themselves.

It seemed as if the topic of finances was taboo. They were perfectly willing to sit and listen to a lecture, but when it came to discussing the topic between themselves, they were hesitant and almost shy with each other.

Tom and I tried to guess at why this situation would be occurring in couples that had been married years. Some of the ideas we came up with were things we had never considered before because of our own situations and habits.

We also learned something about each other, the different ways we look at finances and the techniques we use in our own homes.

One of the first things we speculated on was the idea that maybe the topic of finances was always taboo for the husband and/or wife. Maybe they grew up in a household that did not discuss finances publicly. It was not a "proper topic for dinner conversation" or it was a private matter just for parents.

I have seen this in some people I have talked with. Many are hesitant to discuss finances for fear of revealing something about themselves or their situation that they may be embarrassed about. We all have made bad and even disastrous financial decisions.