Dollars and Sense
By DAVID UFFINGTON

Finally -an entertaining book about money. Even the title is amusing. If you've ever wondered what other people are doing with their money, "Green With Envy: Why Keeping Up with the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt" (Warner Business Books, 2006) by journalist Shira Boss is worth a look.

Why do other people seem to do so much better financially when they seem so much like us?

The American Dream pushes us to excel and to exceed even our own wildest dreams. Says Boss, "We're trained to gaze up one level from where we are and to aspire to get what those people have. Once we accomplish that much, we're looking up again. By cultural design, there is no end to it." When we don't get what others have, and what we expect to have, the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head.

And we pull out a credit card.

Or dip into the kids' college fund or our home-equity credit line. Or make any number of other unwise financial moves. The debt spiral begins.

Boss points to a way out of this: taking a look at our expectations and attitudes about having and not having, and talking to those who appear to have it all. "Appear" is the operative word because there are secrets behind closed doors, especially with those who are expected to keep up appearances.

She offers factual accounts of how others get into financial messes, and how to get out. There's the wife who keeps running up debt because the family will take care of it by handing over money when the debts come to light; the husband who has credit-card payments down to a science (if he makes X payment, it frees up Y dollars); and congressmen

who can't afford to maintain two residences, both in Washington, D.C., and in the home state, and resort to sharing apartments or sleeping in the office.

The cause of our tension, says Boss, is the gap between reality and appearances. Easy credit, the lure of advertising, and the feeling that frankly we deserve more cause too many of us to ignore our financial problems.

If you've ever bought something you couldn't afford, get this book.

More information: http://greenwithenvythebook.co m/Write to David Uffington in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL32853-6475 or send e-mail to letters.kfws@hearstsc.com.

(c) 2006 King Features Synd., Inc.