Cameron Huddleston is an award-winning journalist with more than 17 years of experience writing about personal finance. Her work has appeared in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Business Insider, Chicago Tribune, Fortune, Huffington Post, Money, MSN, USA Today and many more print and online publications. At this moment she is the Life + Money columnist for GOBankingRates.

U.S. News & World Report named her one of the top personal finance experts to follow on Twitter, and AOL Daily Finance named her one of the top 20 personal finance influencers to follow on Twitter. She has appeared on MSNBC, CNN and “Fox & Friends” and has been a guest on ABC News Radio, Wall Street Journal Radio, NPR, WTOP in Washington, D.C., KGO in San Francisco and other personal finance radio shows nationwide. She has been interviewed and quoted as an expert in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, BBC.com, MarketWatch and more.

She has an MA in economic journalism from American University and a BA in journalism and Russian studies from Washington & Lee University.

In the interview

• Schools don’t teach personal finance to young students. People have to figure it out as they go along.
• There is a taboo around the topic of money. Friends don’t like to talk about money and many many parents don’t like to talk about money with their children.
• People buy status symbols to give the impression that they have lots of money.
• Wealthy people, au contraire, don’t like to display that they have lots of money.

The Book: Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk 

• 10 years ago, Cameron’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
• They had never spoken about her finances.
• When Cameron found out about her mother’s disease, the first step was to get a power of attorney, giving her permission to run her mother’s financial affairs.
• At this point, Cameron was the sole decision-maker. She would have loved to consult some of those important decisions with her mother.
• Some of Cameron’s friends were going through similar issues and they were asking questions.
• It was at this moment that Cameron felt compelled to write a book, to help others who are going or who will be going through similar difficulties.
• The consequences of not having a conversation with your parents can be lengthy, expensive, and painful. Imagine the family members having heated arguments about how to take care of the parents? Whether to end their lives or prolong it? What kind of burial to have? who would they split their assets? How about if there are kids from different marriages? How much is it going to cost?

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