The general economic, financial and monetary knowledge and skills in our society are, in my opinion, quite low. Our educational system don’t pay much attention to basic financial knowledge, at least here in Belgium, and for many families finance is one of those taboo topics that never really comes up at the dinner table. What happens, then, when a financial savvy person gets into a relationship with someone who is less so? Or even more extreme, someone striving for financial independence with someone who is clueless about it?

When the British still ruled over the Indian subcontinent in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the British colonial government grew concerned over the amount of cobras in Delhi. From a preventative public health perspective the Raj, allegedly, decided to pay a bounty for every dead cobra. As you might guess, this strategy proved highly succesful and drastically reduced the population of the venomous snakes.

Recently I replayed Far Cry 3, a first-person shooter set on a tropical and paradise-like island that’s riddled with deadly animals and modern-day pirates. The story is mostly carried by the game’s main antagonist, Vaas Montenegro. As the drugged-up leader of the pirates, he often shares his words of wisdom with the player. And it’s one of his sayings that got me thinking.

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When I was a child the lottery fascinated me. And who could blame me? People hitting it big simply by buying a colourful piece of paper with seven or so large magical numbers on it makes for a fascinating and tantalising story to children. I wanted to win the jackpot too. And I still do.

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Football and cycling rank among the most popular sports in Belgium, but sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t consider complaining as our favourite national sport. Even though we’re one of the most-advanced and richest countries in the world, Belgians always find something to complain about. As is clear from media outlets online, it’s not just Belgians though. These days everyone and their dog partakes in what I like to call The Complain Game.

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