Sharlyn Spates never clipped a coupon in her life until recently, when she gathered a few friends and started chatting about money strategies. Now she scours the weekly fliers and stuffs her coupon loot into a savings account.
Erik Lindquist grew up watching his parents fight over money and vowed not to let it happen to him. Now he’s organizing a group of co-workers and friends that will help each other learn about money and, eventually, invest.
Interest in stock-picking clubs never rebounded with the markets after the Internet stock bust, but that doesn’t mean Americans are tired of talking about money.
Money clubs have picked up significant momentum since they began to crop up a couple of years ago: Nearly 200 groups are now running through a pair of financial education organizations, and other informal groups are cropping up on the Internet at sites such as Meetup.com. Their aim is not to evaluate price/earnings ratios, but to help members navigate thorny personal finance dilemmas.
“We’re raised to believe that we shouldn’t talk about money, when in fact that becomes very isolating,” said Robert Kenny, executive director of More than Money, a Concord, Mass., organization that has started about a dozen discussion groups (www.morethanmoney.org).
“Adults think about some aspects of money every day, and there’s a yearning to talk about what’s on people’s minds,” said Kenny, who belongs to one of the groups in the Boston area.
When his driving-age son asked about getting a car, Kenny brought the issue to the group.
“Some said that just because you can afford to buy a kid a car doesn’t mean you should,” Kenny recalled. “Others said they had their three kids share one car, and others were very hard-line and said no car until college.”
In the end, Kenny decided not to buy one immediately. He told his son to develop a plan for budgeting for car and insurance expenses and they’d discuss it more after the school term ends next year.
“It’s not that you get really great ideas all the time, but you get empathy and support,” Kenny said.
Spates, 53, who owns a small landscaping business in Temecula, Calif., with her son, started a club in September through the Women’s Institute for Financial Education, a non-profit organization (www.wife.org). The group’s slogan: “Free, Non-Fattening and Fun.”
Members of Spates’ club include a teacher, two managers at financial institutions and another entrepreneur.
“It’s such a great sharing time,” said Spates, who divorced six years ago but only recently decided to get serious about her finances.
“We started talking about coupons and what they are able to save with them. My mom didn’t use them, so I never did. Now I’ve put $75 into savings in one month just from that.”
Lindquist, 25, who works in human resources for a Chicago hospital, organized his group as a limited liability corporation several months ago with a plan to become a full-fledged investment club engaged in picking stocks.
For now, however, the group is on a slow learning curve, educating members about savings and money market accounts and basic investment terms.
“Most of our members have been living life paycheck to paycheck and not planning on the money running out someday,” Lindquist said. Ages in his group range from the mid-20s to late 60s.
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Candace Bahr, a San Diego-area financial planner who co-founded the wife.org group, said it’s easier than might be expected to persuade people to open up about very personal financial matters.
How do you build trust among members without exposing their most private money hang-ups or embarrassments?
Through the Web site, clubs are offered broad discussion topics and ice-breaker games that tend to provide a platform for bringing up specific problems, she said.
Ground rules help too. Members agree from the outset to keep all talks confidential and not to try to sell fellow members on investment products.
The framework helps members relax, Bahr said.
“Walking in, they might say, `Gee, I’m $50,000 in debt and the woman sitting next to me has $5 million. How embarrassing.'”
But in the end, she said, most find common ground and, with a little help from their friends, most find they’re actually getting ahead.
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E-mail Janet Kidd Stewart at [email protected].