Why is managing my finances difficult?

Well, the answer to this one really has to do with our culture.  Because we enjoy the wonders of capitalism, we live in a fluid open market.  Buyers and sellers are motivated to find ways of outdoing and undercutting the competition, causing them to become very creative.  At some point, after there is significant immersion, it ceases to be a sales pitch and starts being a cultural pillar.  Notice Coke.  They became the premeir soft drink, and it wasn’t long before most conversations about getting a drink were, “I’ll have a Coke” instead of a soda.  This doesn’t apply for our midwestern “pop” drinkers.  But credit and loans and other debt instruments became the norm for how we get what we want or need.  Only later, after the commercials sold us, did we start looking at our debt to income ratios and noticing that they were horribly off.  This is partially what happened with our current mortgage/housing market dropp off.