Right now, in theaters everywhere, there’s an entertaining, Oscar-nominated movie brimming with A-list actors, and it’s not about an exploding bus or unlikely romance or talking pets.

It’s about the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

It’s hard to make a topic like the housing crisis sexy or even appealing to a general audience (Ryan Gosling is a good start, though), but The Big Short delivers. It takes a corrupt, complicated moment in recent U.S. banking history and makes it digestible and compelling. And I think part of the aim of this movie is to get us to understand the intersection between banks, the economy, and our individual finances. So let’s jump in. Here are a handful of personal finance lessons learned from The Big Short.

Financial Jargon? Confusing as Hell. But the Concepts Aren’t.

In the movie, director Adam McKay gets good-looking celebrities to explain boring, complicated financial terms. Margot Robbie explains sub-prime loans. Anthony Bourdain breaks down Collateralized Debt Obligations. Celebs are easy to understand; financial products aren’t. In fact, most financial products are really, really confusing: from home loans to credit card terms and conditions.

McKay doesn’t think this is an accident. I interviewed him a while back and we discussed how most financial vocabulary is confusing and inaccessible, which means most of us don’t take the time to learn it, which means we make bad money decisions. You can see what else he had to say in the below video.

Take investing, for example. It seems confusing and hard to navigate, so people avoid it altogether, and their money loses value thanks to inflation. Or worse, they trust the wrong person to invest for them, and that person destroys their finances. In reality, the concepts of investing aren’t that difficult to learn, and it’s easy to get started on your own. Don’t let the jargon scare you away.

Financial jargon is like a bouncer that keeps people out of a fancy nightclub. Personal finance isn’t some exclusive bar, though. The concepts aren’t that hard. Anyone can learn them, so don’t let complicated money jargon get in the way of your financial empowerment.

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Even better, there are so many personal finance blogs, forums, and initiatives out there aimed to break it down. You’re reading my blog, so you’re off to a good start. 🙂 But here’s another good place to find excellent resources. I also break down these topics often over at Two Cents and mentalfloss, so bookmark those, too.

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

We all know that, back in 2008, banks were basically giving away mortgages to anyone who applied. After learning about this, Steve Carrell’s character warns a stripper (ah, Hollywood) about the financial doom to come (no pun inteneded). He asks if she’ll lose her home, and she says she has three of them. Three homes on a stripper’s salary? Come on, lady.

That was the problem, though: banks told people they could afford three homes when in reality, they had trouble paying mortgage on one. Eventually, this bubble burst. Federal regulations have tightened up since, but there’s a takeaway:

What you “can” afford isn’t always what you should afford.

When it comes to buying a home, being approved for a $600,000 house still means you have to pay for a $600,000 house, and that’s hard to do when you earn $30,000 a year. But the banks made it seem like it was TOTALLY NORMAL to buy a half a million dollar home on a modest salary.

If you want to make financial progress, question “normal.” It’s normal to take out a car loan, because everyone else does. It’s normal to spend tons of money on groceries, because the prices at Whole Foods say so. And it’s not normal to ask for a raise, because you don’t have any work experience.

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By challenging what’s normal and expected, you could earn a higher salary, save money, and spend on things you care about more. It pays to be resourceful, and that means thinking about what’s best for your own finances, and then following your own rules (certainly not a bank’s rules).  When you buck the status quo and think of money as a tool to optimize your finances, your possibilities open up.

Watch Out For a Turd Wrapped in a Bow

A lot of financial products and services are sold as a benefit to you, when in reality, they’re just meant to screw you over. In other words, these companies try to gift you a turd by wrapping it in a pretty bow.  Here’s an example I Tweeted about a while back:

You’ve got to be kidding me. “Flexibility to Carry a Balance” and pay interest was listed under the PERKS of this credit card issuer. They’re actually trying to sell throwing money down the toilet as a benefit to you.

And really, this shouldn’t be surprising. This is standard operating procedure for a lot of financial companies. Payday loans are another great example. Look at this junk:

Right. Because when you take out a payday loan, you’re super excited to smell money. You’re definitely NOT pulling out your hair because you can’t pay your bills and a 400% interest rate loan seems like your only viable, desparate option.

Going back to the movie, mortgage offers are another neatly wrapped turd.

Congrats, you’ve been pre-approved!

Woah, I get to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest over the next 30 years? It must be my lucky day!

Don’t get me wrong–sometimes you need these financial services (Except payday loans. Stay far, far away from those). Just don’t fall for the idea that they’re doing you a favor. There’s the old aphorism that “if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.” I think that could go a step further: if it’s too good to be true, it usually is–and to your financial detriment.

The Big Short definitely places the blame where it should: the big banks and the financial services industry. Their predatory lending screwed over the entire American economy. As prey, we have the option to fight back. The movie reminds us of the biggest lesson we learned from the housing crisis in general: take control of your finances, because if you don’t, someone else will.