Money Wisdom

 Money matters in life. No one can live without money, and that's the reality of money. Money can do many things, but not everything, and that's also the reality of having money.

Money is emotional. So, you need money wisdom to navigate that reality by creating your own money beliefs and money habits that may affect your emotions when feeling the abundance or the lack of money.

How to live richly if you can't be rich?

Thrift is the answer. Thrift is an alternative lifestyle to your consumerism, materialism, and over-consumption in this material world. Thrift may help you work less, and not be paid for your time. Thrift encourages your positive consumption to spend less and save more.

Money Fantasies

Not being rich, and yet wanting to live richly is one of the most common money fantasies.

An Illustration

There was the story of a beautiful and sophisticated woman in her twenties who wrote to an investment company looking for a list of "eligible bachelors" with earnings of at least $600,000 a year. That woman had her money fantasy in her mind.

According to experts, using "marriage" as an investment is a money fantasy, and no more than a bad investment bargain--just like investing in a "shrinking currency." Imagine the beauty of that woman would shrink over the years, while the $600,000 might grow and increase over the long haul.

So, marrying into money, buying the lottery, and winning at the casino are all money fantasies not approved by God. 

Living by faith, you have no money fantasy, because God is real, including His instructions to humans not to crave for money through gambling.

Money Miseries

Money miseries happen to many who always feel dissatisfied, frustrated, insecure, and insolvent. This mental condition suffered by many is often a result of their constant exposure to the media news of the rich and the famous, as well as their own perceptions of "possessions equal to satisfaction." Spending more than earning and living from paycheck to paycheck (70 percent of consumers, according to The Wallstreet Journal) often leads to struggling with money miseries that end up in going broke. 

Even wealthy celebrities went broke, such as Mike Tyson, a famous boxing champion earning over $300 million dollars, ended up in bankruptcy; and Michael Jackson, a recording artist, singer, and songwriter earning over $500 million dollars, was heavily in debt when he died in 2009.

According to the Harvard Business Review, money and happiness are not positively correlated because wealth can make people less generous and more domineering. In addition, money may not bring out the best in an individual: the more money that individual has, the more focused on self that individual may become, and so the less sensitive to the needs of people around, as well as the propensity to doing all the wrong things due to the feeling of right and entitlement.

The late Robert Kennedy once said: "Sometimes I think that the only people in this country who worry more about money than the poor are the very wealthy. They worry about losing it, they worry about how it is invested, and they worry about the effect it's going to have. And as the zeroes increase, the dilemmas get bigger."

Having little or lots of money makes little difference in living a simple lifestyle. Stress comes from wanting more and much more due to an inflated ego-self. 

An Illustration of Going from Riches to Nothing

Barbara Woolworth Hutton, also known as the "poor little rich girl," was one of the wealthiest women in the world during the Great Depression. She had experienced an unhappy childhood with the early loss of her mother at age five and the neglect of her father, setting her the stage for a life of difficulty in forming relationships.

Married and divorced seven times, she acquired grand foreign titles but was maliciously treated and exploited by several of her husbands. Publicly, she was much envied for her lavish lifestyle and her exuberant wealth; privately, she was very insecure and unhappy, leading to her addiction and fornication. 

Barbara Hutton died of a heart attack at age sixty-six. At her death, the formerly wealthy Hutton was on the verge of bankruptcy due to the exploitation of her husbands, as well as her own lavish and luxurious lifestyle.

Barbara was the unhappy "poor little rich girl", and her life was widely reported in the media across the nation, and her story was even made into a Hollywood movie "The Poor Little Rich Girl."

Yes, many Americans earn plenty of money to live a luxurious lifestyle but end up in money misery with their money blown away. 

Living by faith, you know that money is the second most powerful god. You become aware of the meaning of money in your everyday life with no "money-lust."

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:10)

According to King Solomon, prosperity is not a sign of being blessed, while poverty is not a sign of being spiritual. So, King Solomon asked that he not be left in poverty or in riches:

"Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, Who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonest the name of my God." (Proverb 30:7-9)

Yes, poverty may make a person bitter, while prosperity may turn a person away from God.

Living by faith, you follow the example of King Solomon, letting God be your priority, instead of your concern of poverty or prosperity.

Stephen Lau