No, the real use of money is to serve as a medium of exchange, to ultimately be used in the service of others. Any notion of buying one's "freedom" is a delusion at best.
The real use of money is to buy freedom
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Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#32buy freedom? from whom are you going to buy it? who has a freedom for sale? do they have excess supply of it? or would they build a one for you? or are they going to sale you their own one?
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#33Tim O'Reilly on money: It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations! Source: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...
Beside the accidental car reference, this seems applicable to Elon Musk.
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#34Great post Paras. However, I wish you would have addressed what you do with your new found financial freedom. I suppose running your business takes up most of your time. That's fine as long as it's enjoyable I guess. The question here is, if something, what would you have done differently ? Or, going forward, what are you going to do differently ? Also, the modern economy is poised against us in terms of preserving t…
There's an interesting thread on Quora titled 'What does it feel like to be a self-made millionaire under the age of 25?' http://www.quora.com/Becoming-a-Millionaire/What-does-it-fee... As you will read through it, terms like insecurity, worry, surprise on unchanged happiness levels would be quite common among the answers. I have been thinking a lot about investments and have concluded that my main criteria is minimu…
Handy Tip: Add ?share=1 at the end of the URL so others don't have to log in to read all of the answers.
Thanks for sharing, it was a good read.
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#35It's possible to go to Antarctica with someone else's money. That's the satisfying thing. Make it a win-win arrangement (I'm not talking about freeloading).
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#36The importance of money is a matter of perspective. Anyone that has the author's attitude toward money has never been poor. Ask a homeless person, or any of the 50% of the US population that has a net worth of zero or less what their opinion on money is, and it will be markedly different than the author's. The opinion that money doesn't matter is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford.
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#37We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies
- Walt Disney
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The good thing about being rich is that you could be poor whenever you want. What? Name some rich people who are now voluntarily poor! I'd happily bet that 99.9999% of multi-millionaires never choose to be poor in their lifetime. But I'm sure lots of them feel amazing about thinking how they could help people.
I believe that was sarcasm however warren buffet is a good example. He's giving all his money away and leaving his kids squat because he doesn't want to create a legacy of trust fund descendants but they certainly won't be poor.
> and leaving his kids squat
His children's charities are getting billions of dollars as well.
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#39"the pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value." Freedom is fallacy.
Those two statements don't really connect.
Money has value because people think it does, but also because it represents economic value. Once you can buy enough economic output to sit at the top of maslow's triangle then you're free to pursue whatever arbitrary things you please.
It's not an abstract concept, it's a cold hard fact that's held true for centuries.
Re: The real use of money is to buy freedom
#40The importance of money is a matter of perspective. Anyone that has the author's attitude toward money has never been poor. Ask a homeless person, or any of the 50% of the US population that has a net worth of zero or less what their opinion on money is, and it will be markedly different than the author's. The opinion that money doesn't matter is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford.
The author is from India. Based on that fact, there is a 95% chance that he lived most of his life in poverty comparable to the bottom 5% of Americans.
See figure 7: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServ...
It's also worth noting that he's writing this from the perspective of a far more materialistic and status-based society than the US.