August 17, 2022

Money: The Struggle Between Wanting and Needing



Recently, I read a quotation from philosopher Eric Hoffer that grabbed me with its simplicity. Consider his thought: "Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some."

In other words, the more we have the more we want, and with greater determination. The mindset that "there is never too much" is more likely to infect someone who is already starting with an overflowing basket. 

I find that both depressing, and very true. In most instances, human nature is pretty predictable. In our developed economies the acquisition of stuff, the accumulation of power or influence, and the desire to ascend the social totem pole drive too many of us too much of the time. 

What compels this imbalance in our personality? Is it nature or nurture? Did the way we were raised in regard to money and possessions shape us? Or, does our daily barrage of social media, advertising, and peer pressure warp our values over time? Do we even notice the pressures all around us to conform and do our part to support the economy?

I don't pretend to know the answers. But, one of my weekly writing prompts produced some questions that might help us get a firmer handle on what is going on. I will give you my personal reaction to a few of them, and then ask you to add your experiences and thoughts.

What do you remember your family saying about money during family conversations? I grew up in a comfortable, middle-class suburban household. Therefore, money was rarely talked about. I know my dad struggled with steady employment for much of his working years. But, my mom's teaching kept things steady and any financial problems were never discussed in front of the three boys.  We were not a family that spent much on non-basics, though a yearly family vacation was normal. 

I heard occasional stories of life during the Great Depression. I know my dad had to sell vegetables door-to-door to help support his family; an orange was a typical Christmas present.  I picked up the idea of avoiding the power of instant gratification through examples but not formal instruction. Financial basics through osmosis were more like it.

What is your first memory of making money for yourself? How did it feel? I guess I was born with an entrepreneurial streak. I remember having a paper route early on. Living in Ohio at the time, winters were cold, long, and snowy. My route started at least a mile from my home at the bottom of a long hill from our home. Instead of bags over my shoulders, sometimes dragging a wagon filled with papers was required

Either I was industrious or a bit of a wimp: when the snow was particularly deep I hired a few neighborhood boys to complete my route that day. I paid them probably more than I made but I couldn't face pulling that little red wagon through snow drifts. This "contracting out" my work didn't end well. The boys I hired were not particularly concerned about where the papers landed. Complaints to my boss about having to retrieve a paper from a roof or under a bush forced me to conclude I would have to handle things myself. One winter was enough; I left that employment option behind.

After a move to a less-snowy clime, my next money-making brainstorm was to sell postage stamps to collectors. A 4n amateur philatelist (stamp collector) myself, I bought small, plastic envelopes, ordered stamps from other countries through the mail, packaged them, and attempted to sell my product doot-to-door. 

Not that different from the paper route experience, I lost money. The stamps and envelopes cost more than the few I managed to sell to neighborhood folks. I am sure most bought something from me out of pity, or neighborly concern.

Even so, these two experiences were actually positive for me. Over the years other ideas sprang forth from my youthful brain, some successful, some not. But, the thrill of possibility, of maybe hitting a winning streak keeps me on the hunt.


Do you believe money is a gift, a curse, or something in between? For me, money is a tool. At times it has been a scary reality. When I was fired after moving to a new city, the need to support my wife, two very young daughters and myself brought our financial situation into very sharp focus. 

After solving that dilemma, I have never seen money as anything more than the necessity to provide for the life I wanted for my family. I give my upbringing credit for not thinking of money as some measure of success or status. It was a tool to live, nothing more, nothing less.

I must quickly add that I have been very lucky. My career was successful and was one that paid well above average wages. If I had been in the position to struggle, cut every corner, and not be able to pay for my kid's college or fund our retirement, I really don't know how my attitude might have been different.


How about your experiences with money? Were you given a firm foundation at home, or maybe learned what not to do? How about your first jobs? Pleasant and exciting, or pure drudgery?

"The love of money is the root of all evil." Money, itself, is benign. It is how we think about it and use it that makes it more than a simple method of exchange.



24 comments:

  1. Thanks for this unusually long post, Bob. Get ready to spend the day at your computer responding to comments (ha). After reading this, I am already preparing a similar post for RJsCorner. Thanks for the thought.

    I grew up in a lower-class single parent family. Dad never made enough money to even dream of luxuries. But, he did give us a 35¢ a week allowance. Sometimes it was spent on a Saturday movie and popcorn. Sometimes for a sundae at the drugstore. Sometimes it was saved to buy something more expensive. I too, had an above-average career, but was always a spendthrift.

    Your questions are very Socrates-atic in nature (no such word 🤪) He struggled with many of the same questions. I like one of his most famous quotes that the more he learns, the more he realized he knew nothing.

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    1. I have decided that maturity is a mixed blessing. One leans how to navigate through many of live's challenges. But, on that journey we are constantly reminded of what we don't know and how much we still must figure out. Unfortunately, death ususally comes well before we have mastered our own life.

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    2. Socrates would be pleased with this comment. ☺︎

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  2. I was raised frugal. Turns out we were quite poor until I was in my teens-I just didn't know it. I got a job in town. Married at 19 we made the mistake of taking financial advice from my in-laws. After all, they looked like they were living a great life. Car payments, mortgage, credit cards, eating out...we had it all. Arriving on the verge of bankruptcy at age 26. (and me livid that we had followed their advice and made these choices). Page turned to debt-free, home and mountain cabin, 2 reliable vehicles, travel as desired...all before we were 50. Money became a tool by age 30 when all but the mortgage was paid off. Mindful spending became our MO.

    Oh, the in-laws? Proudly got another full 30y mortgage on their home 10y ago and I really don't want to know how much bigger that mortgage is than their original purchase price. Property values here are about 8 fold what they were then. They've owned it for 43 years now. They have refinanced soooo many times they've likely paid more in fees than the original purchase price. They go nowhere. They do nothing. FIL works fulltime......sigh........so glad we jumped off their advice train!

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    1. Your financial training is probably rather typical. As young people we only see the surface level of someone else's standard of living. Only as our eyes are opened do we see the foundation that myth was built upon and realize the costs, both financial and emotional.

      Congrats to you and hubby for charting your own course and recognizing the true path to success.

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    2. Sadly, the parents doing this coaching should also teach about debt, interest, longevity of loans etc. Affording monthly payments with no end in sight? Cruel method of teaching finance to kids.

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  3. Our relationship with money I think is always a complicated one. I grew up in a working class family, my father was an auto mechanic, and it always felt like we didn't have much money but we had a house to live in that was kept warm in the winter and food on the table so it wasn't that bad. I think it was more a mentality of scarcity that my parents had, perhaps from them growing up in the depression. In any case it left me with the idea that I should work hard to not be poor, that money was hard to come by and easily lost.

    My first job, like yours Bob, was delivering newspapers and though I did that for a year or so and I don't think I ever made any money at it. A few people would run up their bill then at the end of the month move away or stop answering the door. The way it worked I was like a sub-contractor for the newspaper. I essentially bought the papers from the publisher and then resold them to my customers keeping the difference. It only took one or two non-paying customers to leave me with next to nothing. My dad was furious when I gave up the newspaper, he thought I should have worked harder to make it pay, but when you are 13 it's tough facing down adults at their front door trying to get them to pay up. I can say it put me off being "entrepreneurial" for the rest of my working years.

    I've had lots of different jobs over the years. I worked for 10 years before I put myself through university, so it was quite late before I was in a field of work I actually enjoyed. Of course starting late that meant in the same year I left university I got a new "entry level" job, bought a house, got married and we had our first child. With all that, the mentality of scarcity I grew up with became my reality.

    Raising our daughters, working at my career, paying the bills, saving for the future, it sure didn't leave much left over. We had modest family holidays and often they were what are now called "staycations". Our friends seemed to be jetting off for week's vacation in the Caribbean while we were playing board games at home. Once when I was explaining to my youngest daughter why we couldn't afford something she looked at me and asked "Daddy, are we poor?". I assured her that we weren't but I guess she saw in me the same scarcity mentality that I saw in my parents. I suppose the apple not falling far from the tree is more true than we like to think.

    But I was also relatively fortunate in my career. Despite a couple of layoffs during a particularly deep recession I was able to keep working, sometimes just on short term contracts, and we were able to stay on track, pay off our mortgage, put my daughters through post-secondary education debt free, move ahead in my career, and also build a good sized retirement account. These days some people think we are "rich" and certainly we have a comfortable retirement but it's still hard to shake that scarcity mindset. I have to keep reminding myself that it's okay to spend the money that I saved for retirement in my actual retirement. I guess the "hard to come by and easily lost" approach to money is still with me.

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    1. Frankly, your consistent reminders to spend some of the money saved for this stage of life has had an effect on me. Betty and I have commited to a rather aggressive ( for us) travel and vacation plan for the next few years, while we have our health.

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    2. Glad I was able to help you see things a little differently when it comes to spending what you've taken decades to save. I think spending your retirement savings in your actual retirement is a typical problem for retirees. I think I am so consistent only because I have to continually keep giving myself that same message.

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  4. As the oldest of six kids in a lower middle class rural family, my neighbors quickly realized I was a hard worker. The first job I recall was washing all the outside windows on an elderly couple's house. I was young and stupid enough to climb to top of a step ladder when it was perched on shaky ground while leaning on the house for balance. I still can't believe I did that. And when I was 12, I spent the summer babysitting five kids while their parents worked...the oldest was 10! Again, how did I do that? Who knows? We got a small allowance, but I always wanted spending money, and moved on to carhopping at the local A&W once I was old enough, as well as playing the church organ -- a lucrative job that paid well into my college and early married years. Our family made one trip to a nearby city at summer's end, and with all my savings, I bought myself great school clothes that couldn't be found in the Sears catalog. :-)

    Money was a pretty loaded subject in our home, and my dad perpetually looked for bargains. He never got past that, and when I owned my own home after a divorce, my mailbox was knocked down by some random kids one night. Dad and I went to Home Depot where he tried to convince me not to spend the extra few dollars on the quick setting cement to reset it. I still laugh about that. (I bought the quick set.) I have four living siblings left, and each in our way has crazy ideas about money. Of course, I don't think mine are crazy. LOL.

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    1. Your story kind of supports the nature and nurtue narrative. You were born with genes that prompted you to figure out a way to accomplish your fjnancial goals.

      Your dad's nurture part helped shape how you view money...quick set cement...need I say more?

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    2. If we all got one message from my dad it was this: "You have to learn to paddle your own canoe." All you have to do is mention that in a family gathering and we're all in stitches. My dad worked hard but he also expected all of us to as well. And we all got the message. :-)

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  5. We had enough, and sometimes got a bit more. Getting one-2 new outfits and shoes for school clothes felt huge and appreciated, while knowing some of my friends got whole new wardrobes. I hope I raised that same mentality that life is better appreciated when some things bring joy.

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    1. Until their teen years my grandkids usually had wardrobes of hand-me-downs.

      Now that clothes are a bit more important to their public image, I will be interested to see how their choices are affected by that childhood of necessity and not want.

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  6. I had a tough childhood emotionally and my father constantly made remarks about how little money we had. Not because it was true but because he was a cruel person. But I somehow was born with some kernel of common sense that always saw me through financially. It just seemed obvious to me that you didn't spend more than you earned and for my entire life I have been mystified by those who do. Houses with more bedrooms than you need? Expensive cars that took you to the same places my used cars took me? I just never got it. Not that I don't have my blind spots, I now spend a lot of money on clothes and books, more than I need to, but I have plenty of money to do so. Honestly, even with generous charitable giving, we have more money each month than we can spend.

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    1. Your father did what a lot of people seem to do: use money to control their environment and those around them. The fact that you overcame that stumbling block is impressive.

      In our society size matters, as does the public image that is projected. To not fall into that neverending rat race is to have an excellent chance at a fulfilling life, based on what makes you happy, not others.

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  7. I started investing in my companies 401K as soon as I had a job where I could. I didn't know much about investing but every year when I got a raise I increased the percentage I was investing as I figured I wasn't getting that extra money before the raise so I wouldn't miss it going to my 401K. When I changed jobs I stuck to contributing the same amount and my new company automatically enrolled me in a Roth IRA account which had a 50% match of my contribution in the ROTH. I picked several funds and stuck with them over the years I changed them but I kept my Blue Chip Growth fund so I invested in the top 200 companies in the country during growth years. I lost much on paper during the dot com but, 9/11, 2008 etc. but it always came back. I watched a special on PBS where some elderly people sold their 401K investments out of fear and lost almost everything. Most of what I learned about money I learned from my wife. We pay cash for our cars don't carry high credit card debt. I drink coffee at home, take a bag lunch, eat leftovers, eat at home mostly. Now we feel we can spend some of our savings to enjoy life. As Dave Ramsey says, “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”

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    1. A good friend of mine did what you mentioned...he panicked during the 2008 recession, sold everything, and was seriously hurt financially, enough so that he and his wife had to move in with his daughter.

      Like you I saw large paper losses during several downturns, but watched them all come back during recoveries.

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  8. I grew up on a subsistence farm. I often joke that we were the original organic farmers 'cause if we didn't grow it, kill it or pick it, we didn't eat. That wasn't far from the truth. In retrospect, the diet was fantastic with homegrown vegetables, fruit, pork, beef, poultry. I remember getting electricity and that changed the need for cash with monthly utility payments. My parents worked hard and that was an ethic instilled in me. Debt was to be avoided if possible although I've always borrowed for homes & vehicles then worked diligently to pay them off as quickly as possible. I remember saving my allowance for a new bike. In my teen years, my mom promised more autonomy when I earned my own money. I worked regularly during my high school years as an aide in the local hospital. The first money I earned away from home was assisting my neighbor who was a school janitor. Some would say I'm frugal to a fault but my frugal ways have served me well. I like to think I have a healthy relationship with money. I'm currently debt free and don't worry about repairs or budget or financing the balance of my life. You might say that was a nurturing process given the examples and counsel of my parents but I have a sister who spends like there's no tomorrow yet complains about not having enough money. I am very capable of staving off immediate wants for long-term gain.

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    1. Your sister has an extra helping of the acquisition gene, apparently.

      Unless someone lives in rags, keeps food cold with an ice block, and uses kerosene lamps instead of electricity, I have no idea of what too frugal means. That word can be either a compliment or a weapon. Your choices and satisfaction level means the former, in your case. Good for you.

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  9. Thank you for the thoughtful topic, Bob. As always, I really enjoy the engagement here. Personally, I find money to be very complex, and I think Chaucer probably was right in the quote you mentioned. I think money has a powerful way of working on people in subtle ways, and I suspect I am not even aware of the influences of money on me and my behaviors. I do think money can reflect values and even shape those values in quiet ways. I found some very interesting historical accounts about how money has been used in different societies for control of ideas and agendas, but I don't want to bore anyone with the history. If someone has a lucrative job, he might be inclined to fit in or avoid rocking the boat because of money. I suspect we all want to believe we are creatures of principle, but I think the power (or perhaps perceived power) of money can have strange effects on individuals. I sometimes wonder how much money (or fear for that matter) can alter how people behave or even their core identities. Then again, people may be more resistant to these influences than I first considered. Ultimately, I think money is really complicated, both personally and socially. I can see how there are intersections with time (debt/investment/compound interest), reflections of values (what people are willing or not willing to do), and expressions of desires/fears/identities. Again, many thanks for the topic!

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    1. I really appreciate your thoughful comment. Money is a powerful force in our lives and I agree that we are probably not fully aware of how it affects our attitudes and reactions.

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  10. I recently read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, and she contrasts the culture of scarcity in developed economies with the culture of bounty that characterizes many indigenous societies.
    I grew up in a working-class family where money was tight, but we always felt secure that we would have what we needed. We children were introduced to the value of money at an early age. I got my first allowance, 2 cents per week, as soon as I was able to count, and it didn't take me long to figure out that if I saved my allowance for three weeks, I could treat myself to a nickle chocolate ice cream cone. Children in our household were also sent on errands like walking to the grocery store to buy a small list of items or going to the bakery across the street to buy rolls for hot dogs, or to make the rounds of utility companies uptown to pay the monthly bills (in cash), or to go upstairs to the landlady's to pay the rent -- so we knew what things cost. I suppose my first "job" was at age four, when my father took on an extra job cleaning a doctor's office every Saturday. The whole family went to do the work, and my job was dusting. I started to do babysitting for pay at around age 12 or 13, and I got my first "real" job as a supermarket cashier at age 16.

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    1. I see a movie or children's book in this comment, Jean. You had tremdous lessons very early on that have stuck with you for a lifetime.

      I completely agree with the suggestion that how you view your childhood is rarely affected by financial circumstances. Family, love, and support is the currency children need.

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