My kitten ate my bank account.

This year was my attempt to work toward soothing the gut-clutching financial guilt.

How'd you spend your last hundo, Meghan Nesmith?

In the world of young boys with entire hockey teams at their disposal, I was hilariously, bewilderingly, on the "poor" end of the economic spectrum. Both my parents worked full-time: my dad as a lawyer, my mom as a civil servant. We didn’t have things. My parents prioritized education and family: private schools and rental cottages on the ocean where my relatives could stay. It took me a long time to put together that those things cost money, and that we were ineffably lucky to have them. Not until I got to college – a New England liberal arts college, at that – did I realize my family was rich.

A discussion: What is it that happens with money in relationships? I’ve seen it with my parents, with friends: with the exception of infidelity, no one thing has wrenched apart more couples than money, and the value judgments, petty arguments, and power struggles that come with it.