The true value of money, is it always just a number?

[Janation]

It is hard to manage money nowadays.

I can be proof to that since when I will be having my wage, I usually spend it so quickly that I even leave a debt every month sometimes. It is just that I wanted to give back to my girlfriend or my family, have some times with her, buy her something nice or maybe going somewhere to spend our time alone but then I realized it is not enough so I just wait again next month and then that also happens next month again. Now it is just a loop so it is really sad that I can't manage my expenses at all. Thanks to the cryptocurrencies I am saving now that I have something to look to when I need money in an emergency or something like that. It is just that, when you have money in your hands, I usually think about what to buy immediately not what can I do with it when I save it.

[squatz1]

To the first point regarding the fact that most millionaires and billionaies not knowing about the basic cost of living -- while it is sad, I do understand why it happens. If you're somoene like Bill Gates and worth some amount of tens of billions of dollars, why would you even go to the grocery store anymore and shop expect for personal enjoyment? You'd make more money sitting around and looking into new investments or new things to do with your money, rather then picking groceries.

For them, they'd rather just pay someone to handle all of that and just handle all of the requests of their family. Makes things easier for everyone in the household.

About budgeting and all that: Most people don't do a lot of things, if they would properly budget and invest they'd be in a much better position. But that's just not the case, and that's why most people don't know a lot about their financial life. Either don't know or actively avoid sharing, could be either one.

Money is just a number, but a very important number in deciding what type of financial freedom you have in your life.

[thebutton]

~snip

I understand that in order to save money, it is better for me to shop with my wife, who knows all the prices of the products that interest her.

What!? How on earth? What I thought is that women are shopaholics in nature (just in different levels lol). That's why I hate my girlfriend to go with her in the mall unless I'm prepared for squezzing my pocket . You've got a practical partner dude.

I think those two guys are the women of their relationships... I actually couldn't find from a mainstream search any article where women spend less than guys (although a lot of their clothes are unnecessarily expensive and without pockets - still not exactly hard to add if they wanted to)...

I think that it is not about gender really but rather on the person's point of view regarding their finances. There are guys out there who spent a lot and may not be much on clothes unlike girls but the point is that it is a matter on how much aware you are with your expenses. It might be beyond the scope of the topic of this thread but both genders have their own tendencies to spend as much as they earn for various reasons it may be luxuries along with many others.

[sheenshane]

Geat discussion, but we have different values of money.

Money for me is just really a number but numbers have its own value. Working the whole day to earn money is tiring but you get paid for the value of your hard work each day and the compensation for your work may change depending on its value. Everything in this world has it's own value but knowing it's value differs on how we measure it, is it going to be monetary value or value through the affection we have for that specific one.

Products that we buy or we plan to buy don't really value by a certain amount instead they value how we want it. We may see people who don't care about the price maybe because they are rich but the reason they don't care about the price is that they find the thing valuable to them. Supply and demand also define the value of a certain thing, if many of us love or need the item then we get a higher demand of it so the money that we need to spend to have it will be of a bigger value.

For me at the end of the day yes money is just a number but its value depends on how or to what we are going to spend it.

[justdimin]

If you get really rich, you track your money even better. You guys are forgetting that there is technology at the highest levels right now, you can simply log into your bank app and check what you have spent money on this month or this week or whatever, that is given to you and it is simply just a click away. Plus if you are super rich, all of your accounting is checked by someone in your company probably, which means you can check with just a phone call and get as detailed as you want.

As you can see there is a way that both rich and poor could check what they are spending on, and both of it is quite simple. Is there people who still don't check? Sure there definitely are some, however that number is probably getting lower and lower, we are probably going to see it become zero eventually.

[Rengga Jati]

Money is just a number in a database.

Well yeah, "money is just number". As in this quote above. Money is only a number, but, it depends on how many numbers do you have. It is only a number, but those numbers will define what and who you are.

Moreover, right now, the digitalization of the money has been developing in almost every country. We only have numbers on the database, but we do not hold all of that money in our hands. We don't know whether the money is real nor not. But, we have the numbers that can be used for everything suitable.

..But from what I've noticed, most people don't keep track of how much money they have, how much they're spending and how much they need...

In my opinion, it will depend on each person. Well, probably most of them do that thing. But for those who have lots of money, they will absolutely use the financial consultant to manage the income and outcome of running the money. Of course, how we manage will determine how many numbers we have right now and in the future.

[RealMalatesta]

Money was created so that we wouldn't trade a lot of chickens to get one cow, that was the main idea, a grain tradesman would have to give tons of grain just to get meat, and meat was scarce back than as well and barely anyone ate it, so people would give more and more of it to get meat.

Nowadays the economy improved so much over barter days that we are basically doing it with money and that way we could simply just work and get money and in return we simply spend it on whatever we want, it is a freedom thing, the money as we know allowed us to be a lot more free with what we wanted to with it, even if it was something stupid we are capable of it.

Bitcoin gives us even more freedom, it is money and it is freedom giving like the others but also it is free from the government as well, so everyone is in charge of it and nobody is at the same time. That is freedom, money IS freedom.

[hatshepsut93]

So a lot of the time you see millionaires and billionairs on shows trying to guess the cost of stuff and going majorly out with their guesses (either two high or too low or it's just an arbitrary guess). But from what I've noticed, most people don't keep track of how much money they have, how much they're spending and how much they need...

That's why those people are not millionaires. Poor spending habits are very common, people don't look for better deals, don't bargain, don't control themselves, don't invest money and then wonder why they are so broke.

[verita1]

I only spend the money I can earn. Since I stay within the limit, I know how much the products I buy cost without exceeding my budget
I think that people who don't care about their money limit are not interested in knowing how much the things they buy cost.

[oleg8791]

Fiduciary or fiat money is intrinsically valueless money used as money because of government decree. In other words, fiat is the useless object serving as a medium of exchange. The true value of fiat is a quantity of goods you can afford to buy with this money.

[Sanugarid]

Well from my view it is easy for us to say that the money is just a number but we cannot deny the fact that our revolves with money, if you got no money then you'll be hungry unless you have natural resources of your own so you won't be dependent with money however no matter how hard you try not to look for money there are things that you can only get with money, we are in modern times y'all will get it.

 The value of the money depends on who's hands is managing it, look if rich got $10 it may just look like a cents to him but let that $10 be in poor man's hand and it will be everything for him.

[Harlot]

Is the idea behind money that same as most things, you don't realise it's there until it isn't... Even if you're on a wage, you can't say you check all of your accounts on a daily basis and convert them to fiat (unless you waste a lot of time doing that).

I too don't check on what was left of my money, I don't have any budgeting going on and I don't plan ahead with what I spend but surprisingly I always have money left in cases where I need it even by the end of the month. I guess it is always about your habit in spending or your daily routine on how you spend things that makes you comfortable on not thinking ahead or plan what your will spend. Of course for me when I want to spend something new like buying a car that will just make me plan ahead on how I will adjust my earnings and savings for that car. However I couldn't say the same thing for some people who are living on a tight budget where every penny they spend counts, these types of situation is where people need to always adjust depending on their wage/earnings.

[jackg]

That's why those people are not millionaires. Poor spending habits are very common, people don't look for better deals, don't bargain, don't control themselves, don't invest money and then wonder why they are so broke.

Yeah half of the problem is that, the other half being some people just have more resources to become more successful... Its not the only contributing factor but its one of the things that defines a difference between those with a few thousand and those with a few ten-hundred thousand (at least where wages are pretty high) ...

[hatshepsut93]

Yeah half of the problem is that, the other half being some people just have more resources to become more successful... Its not the only contributing factor but its one of the things that defines a difference between those with a few thousand and those with a few ten-hundred thousand (at least where wages are pretty high) ...

Of course I was only speaking figuratively, an economy where everyone is a millionaire is impossible as long as we have finite resources, and of course good money management is only a part of becoming richer, but everyone would have benefited if they were smarter with their money, people would be less poor for sure.

[Shasha80]

To be honest I was very bad at managing finances, I didn't record my financial income and expenses. So it's always the end of the month,
to experience lack of money. With my income increasing, I still experience the same thing. Then I realized I had to take notes every income
and expense. By recording now I can save from the income I get. Because I can manage my own finances, so I can set the priority order of
needs that I have to buy.

[Darker45]

So a lot of the time you see millionaires and billionairs on shows trying to guess the cost of stuff and going majorly out with their guesses (either two high or too low or it's just an arbitrary guess). But from what I've noticed, most people don't keep track of how much money they have, how much they're spending and how much they need...

That's why those people are not millionaires. Poor spending habits are very common, people don't look for better deals, don't bargain, don't control themselves, don't invest money and then wonder why they are so broke.

Quite right. The truth is that financial management is an alien thing to many of the poor. I am not sure if the rich are good at it. I have no idea. What I know for sure is that the rich doesn't have to care whether a cheaper brand of laundry soap is as high quality as the more expensive one, or buying a 300 mL shampoo would actually save you a few dollars in the long run as compared to buying 100 mL every week or two. They need not bother about those things, but the poor surely must. Well, at least if they want to maximize the limited money they have.

[Wexnident]

Most people on the less fortunate side actually look for deals and bargains 90% of the time. It's like they dare to ask since they know they have it quite hard in terms of finance. Although this leads to saving up, it also leads to them getting scammed through fake or faulty products tbh. Financial management was never easy cause if it was, then hell wives wouldn't even need to hold on to the money of their husbands.

Not to mention the possible changes in the economy that leads to the change in the value of money which reaaalllyy leads to managing finances a pain in the ass. Not to mention that the salary even stays the same even though the prices of products increased overall.

[Naida_BR]

It seems that all of our stable assets are fundamentally flawed like for example fiat it is supposed to function as a currency but it can be controlled whenever a central authority decides to print money out of nothing and inject it to the circulation devaluing the price causing inflation that will eventually lead to the value to a default.

Money is just a number who is determined from the central bank.
If they say that the value of our money is zero then it becomes zero without any objection.
This is what it makes fiat useless and people should start thinking of giving an alternative to the cryptocurrencies.

[fiulpro]

The main problem of the modern financial system is that money is inherently not backed up by anything other than the honest word of the emitter that they are worth. Previously, all currencies were tied to the gold standard, and it was very good, you could always get gold for them.

But at the same time it did not solve the problem.
Gold is an amazing investment but at the same time it is also volatile and there is a reason why the currencies are no longer tied to the gold standard method.

The currency should be accepted and measurable by everyone , not everyone can accept gold and there are many problems regarding it . There is always the problem of paying for small things .

Fiat I do think is great but at the same time , the problem is with it being tied to a countrie's economic development and growth .

Considering how during the 1900 and some early 2000 there were countries being ruled by other nations. The ruler parties already got a head start , they took all the money from the small nations . Now those developing nations are still recovering from the torment through the years and guess what ? They have to measure their Currency against the currency of the country who ruled them , it is sometimes *70 !
This is so flawed , if the economic development of the country is bad , should provide them with additional benefits so that all the countries can easily recover and the poverty can be tackled.

What is better than world peace ??

[abhiseshakana]

Of course I was only speaking figuratively, an economy where everyone is a millionaire is impossible as long as we have finite resources, and of course good money management is only a part of becoming richer, but everyone would have benefited if they were smarter with their money, people would be less poor for sure.

The economy of capitalism has brought humans into hedonism, the view of capitalism is also limited to gathering material as a life goal and forgetting the essence that the more material that is obtained, the more should also be used for the benefit of others, especially those who do not have resources as good as us. A useful program does not have to provide direct assistance but can be in the form of programs that provide benefits such as creating a mobile library or opening a business for disabled employees.

Managing existing money is easier because there is already knowledge, we just need to consistently apply it. What's difficult is how to bring money with all the limitations that we have.