Money Seems to be Everything!

Since I started doing financial planning for clients 45 years ago, I have had a marvelous run of events.  I have seen stock markets melt down, and run up.  I have seen hundreds of savings and loan companies go out of business.  I have seen several Bernie Madoff scandals, and I have seen newly formed companies that started in a home garage and explode into dynamic financial giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook.  What I have mentioned here doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I have seen and learned about money over the years. Money intertwines in all our lives to such an extent that most of the time it controls us.  Money seems to drive the world we live in.  It defines who we are by where we live, what level of education we obtain, the kind of clothes we wear and how much we can travel the world .
Therefore, I say money is everything.  And yet is it really?
Money should not cause us to dump personal relationships, or become arrogant and aloof.  If money issues cause us to lose sight of our true values then it can become a curse.
How can we balance our lives so that money becomes a wonderful tool, rather than a heavy metal albatross around our neck?  I submit to you that you need to see clearly what you want out of life, then allocate your money resources to go in that direction.  To help you see your values more clearly, review these quotes about money and see how you feel about each one of them.  Choose one or two of these quotes that inspire you and implement them.  You will be glad you did:

1. Too many people spend money they earn to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.  — Will Rogers
2. A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart. –- Jonathan Swift
3. Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. –- Epictetus
4. Money often costs too much. –- Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. Everyday is a bank account, and time is our currency. No one is rich, no one is poor, we’ve got 24 hours each. –- Christopher Rice
6. It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success. –- David Feherty
7. Frugality includes all the other virtues. –- Cicero
8. I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too. –- Steve Martin
9. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. –- Benjamin Franklin
10. I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy. –- Warren Buffett
11. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 96, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 206, result misery. –- Charles Dickens
12. Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. –- Thomas Edison
13. What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us. –- Julia Cameron
14. I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for ten years. –- Warren Buffett
15. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore. –- Yogi Berra
16. Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. –- Benjamin Franklin
17. Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time. –- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
18. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. –- Jim Rohn
19. Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. –- Ayn Rand
20. Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can’t win until you do this. –- Dave Ramsey
21. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. –- Seneca
22. It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages. –- Henry Ford
23. He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more; he who loses faith, loses all. –- Eleanor Roosevelt
24. Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. –- Franklin D. Roosevelt
25. Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. –- Norman Vincent Peale