Are You Making Good Money
It’s coming up to Christmas 2017. You will see your relatives that you haven’t seen for a year and
find out what everyone is up to. You probably spent a few hundred dollars on the fantastic plastic to make a show of how well you are doing whether you are or not.
There was a movement suggested this year that everyone not spend moneyon xmas presents. It didn’t get far I don’t think as I haven’t seen it on social media since.
One year when we were broke because I was home raising two babies, I spent $80.00 (a lot at the time but probably enough for milk and bread and maybe a few veggies now) on ingredients to make xmas cakes. We had 5 families we wanted to give a ‘token’ gift to, to celebrate our friendships and everything they had done for us during the year.
I spent hours and hours soaking fruit, mixing, baking, icing and decorating 5 fantastic xmas cakes. They were all family sized as these families were all having their extended families over for the big xmas you see on TV.
My husband still wanted to buy them another gift each – a hamper or something, probably a bottle of alcohol. So he wanted to spend another $100 each on these people. We had a massive fight over it. We simply did not have the money and that was why I had spent hours and hours making cakes. To buy them would have cost each family about $50-$80.
The need to look like you’re making good money even when you’re not is inherent in everything we do. Conversely those making a ‘lot’ tend to look like they’re scratching to make ends meet (Mark Zuckerberg Facebook for example).
But what is good money?
Is it enough money? There is never enough money. Is it more than you are making? Is it enough to buynice things and show everyone how great you are doing?
Or is good money ethical money? Money that does no or less harm?
There is a movement in the millienials and creeping into Gen Y about ethical money. Where does the product come from and who gets the money? Where is the money going? Who does it benefit?
For example, buying petrol is ‘bad money’. Buying a bicycle instead is not necessarily good money but it’s better money if you think that way.
We think we have a choice about where our money goes and what it does but we don’t. We just don’t. We love to think we are being morally superior by buying ethically sourced coffee beans, but we are still drinking coffee. I love coffee as much as anyone I am not blameless here, but I’m aware of all that goes into getting beans from point A to my cup and the waste that leaves behind. I know it’s not sustainable. Very little of what we do in a ‘modern’ world is sustainable at all.
So what sustains us?
The idea that we make good money and are better than you.
None of it is good money. Or bad for that matter. It’s money. There is always someone with more and better. We can’t get off the rat wheel, we can only know that we are on one, and do our best.
So what is best for you? To spend the money you don’t have to make yourself look good in front of your family or tell them the truth – you know what – it’s been a really hard year – here’s something I made to share at the table.
It takes great courage to stand and face this scrutiny for we know in our hearts that we will be talked about and ridiculed for the entire year and bets will be placed as to whether we bring a plate or a present next year.
I don’t care anymore about what you think. I’m broke and here are the muffins.
Get over yourself because it’s not going to take too much for the whole thing to come crashing down and you will be ahead already, you already realised that it can’t go on like this.
Just don’t be smug when they meet you down there and ask for the recipe for those muffins.
Want to read more? Check out Wall Street Minimalist
And for the Scholars Using big data to understand consumer behaviour on ethical issues
