Money clubs?
November 3, 2008
Just read this NY Times article, Forming a Club to Share Financial Wisdom:
I’ve long lamented the fact that there aren’t as many money clubs as there are book clubs. Plenty of us would be more successful in meeting our financial goals if we met regularly with a small group of like-minded people to lay our finances bare, from incomes to debt to our spending foibles. It would be one part Debtors Anonymous and one part Weight Watchers, a bit like the investment clubs that were popular in the 1990s but with every part of our financial lives under the microscope.
What I didn’t do, but should have, was try to inspire an international movement around the idea. That’s what five women from Vancouver are trying to do with their new book, “The Smart Cookies’ Guide to Making More Dough” (Delacorte Press), and Web site, smartcookies.com.
Much of the book offers fairly basic financial advice, and it will probably resonate best with young women. The silly name, meanwhile, might turn off serious-minded people.
But that would be too bad, because theirs is a story of guts and grit, of five women who leaned on one another to rein in individual money habits that were fairly destructive.
At first I thought, that’d be awesome! And it would be. But what I’d want even more than a money club is a career club, one with members at various stages of their careers. I’d certainly love to get together with people who are financially wise for cross-mentoring but I’m at the stage where, mostly, I’ve got a good handle on the basics and much prefer to discuss at more advanced levels topics like career planning, investing, understanding the stock market, estate planning, insurances, real estate, etc. (Heh, estate planning. I plan to have an estate, someday.) This blog and reading about a hundred other PF blogs scratches the personal aspect of my finance itch rather well whereas I’m ripe for professional development.
What do you think? Would you want to start a money club? Or is there some area or topic that would more effectively contribute to your life?
I treat my blog & the blogs I read as a sort of money club. I like being accountable to people (even if it’s easyt to lie), and I like knowing that others fall short like I do.
paranoidasteroid: I agree, the PF community fills that need nicely.