Most people think that the answer to happiness lies in earning more money. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t.
My book Understanding Money isn’t about how to earn a big pile of money. It’s about managing the money that comes your way.
Why would we want to manage our money? Money is just a tool, it’s not an end unto itself. The reason we want to manage money is to gain the maximum amount of happiness from our money. Accumulating money by itself means nothing.
How do we achieve happiness? We do it through becoming solvent, obtaining security, and getting to a state of independence.
Independence means freedom from worry and stress. It’s the ability to meet our obligations without going into debt. So in other words, I don’t advocate being completely debt-free – that would be nice, but a lot of times that’s not realistic. The point is to not have too much debt that it becomes hard to repay.
Happiness and independence come from setting long-term goals and prioritizing spending. I advocate that you spend a lot of time thinking about your long-term goals for your life, and writing them down. Examples of some long-term goals are
- To be more independent financially
- To not spend every dime you make
- To not take on excessive crippling debt
- To live a more balanced life
- To avoid extremes
- To live a simpler life
- To not be thrown into a tizzy when an emergency comes up
- To understand human nature as it relates to money
- To get better at prioritizing
- To get better at planning
- To do things in their proper order
What are your long-term goals for your life? Write them down so that you can focus on them when you are managing your money.
Stay tuned for future posts where I’ll go into more detail on these topics.
For even more on these topics, order my book Understanding Money and subscribe to my YouTube Channel.