Journalists routinely come back to the office, lean over their neighbor's cubicle and begin a conversation about the news with, "You won't believe what this guy did....," or "She had an idea I'd never thought about before."

These stories we tell each other inside the office are often too informal to be included in what we write. But they're so good, they have to be shared.

My mission in writing this blog is to give you information that's so good, it has to be shared. Brackey

You've got the job of managing your money. No one in school taught you how. But you and I, we can teach each other, how to handle it, how to save for retirement, how to make money last, how to educate the kids, how to make a budget work.

The conversations I have with my readers are fun. Money's important, but discussing it does not have to be boring.

I like the interaction. I welcome the questions. And your ideas. What I can contribute is my years of fascination with this subject. I have lots of experience trying to make the issues clear and the ideas relevant. I have access to timely information that you may not. And there are plenty of experts I can call for help.

Because when it comes to finance, you need plenty of voices. There is very little objective advice. There is no product testing to help us evaluate our options. It's ridiculous.

It's also not rocket science. I firmly believe everyone can "get" personal finance, if they devote a little time.

My goal would be that you never again make some of the most important decisions of your life -- getting a mortgage, buying insurance, figuring out how much money to live on -- with little knowledge and no help.

The way I see it, we're all better off, if we talk about money.

Harriet Johnson Brackey, the personal finance columnist for the Sun Sentinel, is an award-winning business reporter. Her columns for 2008 were named "The Best in the Business," a national award chosen by her colleagues at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Brackey has worked at Business Week magazine and at USA TODAY, where she was a founder and part of the original staff of the Money section at the country's first national newspaper. After nearly 11 years there - spent covering the 1980s bull market, the insider trading scandals, the 1987 crash - Brackey left Washington, D.C., and came to The Miami Herald. She spent the next decade writing a column about personal finance that chronicled the stock market's Internet boom and bust, as well as the popular Money Makeover features.

Brackey also appears regularly as a commentator on The Nightly Business Report, which is broadcast nationally on more than 250 PBS television stations. She joined the Sun Sentinel in August 2005.