Each week, BusinessDesk and the NZ Herald’s Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it’s how economics becomes the engine room behind your money. Hosted by Frances Cook.

From rubbing shoulders with rich listers to getting a free education on all things money, a business journalist’s life can be pretty interesting.

The trick is to take all the information you’ve learned and make it interesting for people with busy lives and possibly no interest in the business world.

Economics gets a bad rap, often called "the dismal science", famous for predicting doom and gloom.

And yet, I’ve found the people behind it are often surprisingly cheerful and can tell us a lot about what’s happening in the world.

It’s the engine that powers a lot of our personal finance decisions - if you can get an economist to explain what they mean in English.

So Liam Dann’s new book, that promises to make economics simple enough for a chat over the BBQ, caught my eye. Here’s what school never told you about economics.

For the interview, listen to the podcast here.

If you have a question about this podcast or a question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here, and Twitter here.

Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.