Money is so important it’s no wonder it and love are often uttered in the same breath.
We need it and never seem to get enough of it. Some people marry for it, are willing to break the law to get it, or even kill themselves if they lose all of it.
On a more positive note, we are forever challenged in deciding the best way to get more of it, save it, invest it, and spend it. For every person who believes in the old saying that money is the root of all evil, there are at least a hundred more willing to ignore it and take a chance anyway.
Despite all the attention given to it and all the excitement created by it, we either overlook the logical side of money or we give it a false meaning or bloated importance it never had. Here, however, and in no particular order, are thoughts to help you be more aware of what are and aren’t the most important ways to look at money.
- Money is simply a medium of exchange. If you have it, you can exchange it for whatever you need or want. If you don’t have any, you can either work for someone and get paid (exchanging your time and effort for money) or sell something you own to someone willing to buy it from you (exchanging what you own for money).
- Most anything can often serve as a substitute for money. For example, during the Great Depression, the Barter Theater in Abington, Virginia, got its name from giving tickets for live stage shows to those who contributed food items that were then passed on to out of work actors from New York who had come there to be the performers.
- Everybody would likely agree that having more money is always nicer than having less. You will, however, be greatly disappointed if you believe it can be used to buy happiness. Indeed, getting too much of it, such as if you were to win the lottery, can easily destroy the happiness you had before you got it.
- Losing money is a bitter experience because it not only reminds you of all the effort required of you to get it, but also the carelessness, ignorance, or stupidity resulting in you losing it. Protecting requires the same diligence as acquiring.
- There’s a great difference between how much money you need and how much you want. How much you need isn’t optional, but how much you want always is.
- You will always appreciate more and be more watchful of the money you have earned by working for it than you will of money given to you.
- If you want to know how to make more money, listen only to those who have actually had to do it because it was necessary or chose to do it because of the challenge it presented.
- Nothing is free, not even money. Somewhere and somehow, someone must give of their time, effort, and expertise to make it possible for anyone to receive anything at supposedly no cost. Also realize that just as someone else paid for what you got for “free,” you paid for what someone else got for “free.”
- The government has no money of its own. Whatever it spends was received from its citizens in the form of taxes and fees. Also, and just like us, if it doesn’t have enough to pay its bills, it must take out a loan.”
- Just as bad money habits are hard to break, so are the good ones. Assume you wisely save and invest your money so you will have enough money during your retirement. When, however, that time comes, that saving habit may be so engrained in your psyche that you may find it difficult to spend what you so diligently saved.
- The more money you have, the more the people who don’t have nearly as much, want yours. Not to cause you to be paranoid over this, but protecting yourself from unsavory characters after you get it is as important as it is while you are making it.
- Realize that money is completely worthless until it’s spent. If you were all by yourself and stranded on a desert island with five million dollars, about all you could use it for is starting fires.
Among the most memorable people I’ve met was a company president in Ohio who, already wealthy, volunteered that it would be nice to have a little bit more. Then there was a rancher in southern Nevada who, with barely two nickels to rub together, admitted he was barely making enough money to pay the bills.
Although widely apart in circumstances, both stressed that no matter how much or how little money they had, money isn’t everything—and perhaps that’s the most important point of all.
