I've always been tip-toeing around out because of some invisible fear of being “exposed” for dealing with interest. It's almost been built up as the sort of boogie man in my mind. I want to face it head first. As an adult in my mid-20's I'm setting my foot down and realizing how foolish my avoidance was.
I've been living with a religious family my whole life and I'm personally an agnostic atheist. Because of the beliefs of my family, there was always this fear around interest and I've avoided it out of fear of “being exposed” for doing anything related to interest.
There's always situations that happen in life especially come tax time and I figured that there might be times where I need to share financial situations or issues that I'm experiencing and I think in the back of my mind I was always worried that I would be “exposed” in my community for dealing with interest but honestly first off, my accounts are private, and second off, if someone is commenting on my financial life unprompted then they can honestly screw off.
I'm somewhat regretful because I had accrued interest from age 18, I think I could have ~10k extra in my savings right now if I had put my savings in an account like that. There's also the issue of my family (other than one of my siblings) not really being financially savvy and I know this is really dumb but I didn't want to deal with the “tax headache” of having interest.
Growing up and being in charge of my own finances and realizing how sheltered I was has put a fire under me and I want to start taking more initiative with my finances.
Any suggestions for how to learn more about this and get started?