Retirement Reality Is Catching Up With Me

I am an idiot.

That, at least, is the impression I get from personal finance websites and magazines and books. They all seem to say I’m doing pretty much everything wrong when it comes to my financial life, basically because I don’t pay that much attention to my finances.

Now, I understand that nobody buys a magazine that affirms our choices and tells us we are in good shape. No parenting magazine could last long if it didn’t suggest that its advice will make the difference between raising a future Ivy Leaguer and a basement-dwelling knucklehead. Money advice, to be profitable to the advice giver, must start from the position that you’ll go broke without this help. In publishing, sex may sell, but insecurity sells even better.

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