Ever wonder what’s really going on with other people’s money? Or why others seem to be doing better than you are, even though you’re so alike? What would you give to know how others are making it – or not making it?

That’s where I was when I started working on the book Green with Envy. As a financial journalist, I knew a lot about the mechanics of managing money – but in my personal life, there was so much more to it! I was all stressed out – but even my friends and family didn’t know it. Making matters worse was that the couple that moved in right next door to us seemed to have everything so together. They were our age, but seemed to be so much more comfortable. I wondered how that was fair, and why it had to bring me down.

I searched the Internet for some kind of money doctor or for an online discussion of other people going through the same kind of money stress and secrecy. But I couldn’t find anything! That’s when I knew somebody had to start talking about the social side of our money.

Personal finance, you see, isn’t really personal at all! How happy we are with our finances depends a lot on who is around us and how well we’re doing in comparison to them. Sure, most of us don’t want to admit that we “keep up with the Joneses” – but we can’t help noticing what others have, we can’t help being aware how others are doing, and we would love to know what’s really going on.

That’s what I wanted to find out: what was really going on behind other people’s closed doors? What could we learn, and how could we change our perspective, to improve our financial wellbeing, even without touching our money?

I started with our next-door neighbors, then I set out to learn about other Americans’ money. What I found out was that we are all mysterious when it comes to money, things are never how they seem from the outside, and when we bring ourselves to be honest with one another, everyone ends up feeling relieved and better-off. I put together for you a guided tour in Green with Envy. Here’s who you’ll meet in the book, and what you’ll learn that’ll make you look at other people, and yourself, differently:
 
• The Joneses next door: Why they matter to us, and why learning their secrets makes us feel so much better!
• A suburban family that seems to have it all: two kids and a large house with a pool in a gated community. Nobody could tell they were living on credit and sliding into bankruptcy. And yet, they themselves never knew how many of their friends and neighbors were in the same situation.
• The national politicians who are just as stressed about their finances as the rest of us: what they don’t know about the cost of serving on Capitol Hill until they get there, and why they won’t talk about it, even amongst themselves.
• The Baby Boomer’s biggest secret: why they’re not as affluent as they look, and how they’re stressing behind the scenes. The boomers’ Joneses are not specific people – what they need to keep up with are expectations, their own and those of their whole generation.
• The rebel billionaire, who shows us how wealth isn’t all we fantasize it would be. (It’s comfy, don’t get me wrong. But it, too, has its unpublicized downsides!)

It’s time to face up to the money taboo in our culture and talk honestly about our financial issues. By reading Green with Envy, you’re opening the door to a whole new way to think about financial (un)happiness in your life. And when you’re ready to talk about your own money story, you can do that here, in our Green with Envy Files. It’s time to get to know one another, so we can all feel better!