Money Tips

Money isn't everything, but it sure is hard to live without.

There are different money tips throughout this website so I won't get into all of them here (that's my sneaky way of trying to get you looking at the other pages). Considering how much time, effort and worry goes into money it is surprising that people don't learn more about it.

What I want to do here is give an idea of what money is about and how it works. The first of my money tips is to learn what it really is.

The basic idea of money is simple. Money is an exchange. Let us go back in time, a baker has some bread and the farmer has milk so they swap one for the other, good exchange. What if the baker doesn't want any milk, what he needs is some firewood for his oven. Now they could both head off to the woodsmans house but that would be a waste of the farmers time, he doesn't need wood. So the farmer could write a note saying he will give the woodsman milk if he gives the baker some wood.

There you have the first piece of money. It would be easier if there was something that everybody would agree was valuable and could exchange it for what they needed. This could be gold, silver, jewels or whatever and these formed the earliest exchange items.

Todays money is based on that, and also a lot of trust. Now we accept a piece of paper, government approved, in exchange for our valuables. We then expect the next person to accept that same type of paper and this seems to work alright.

So where do all the money problems come from? In a word, overspending. Poor control of money leads to money problems. I have more on this in the page Financial Freedom. There are few more money tips there. For now I will continue with what money is.

Money and Energy

When you really get down to basics money is only an exchange for human energy. You could throw hundred dollar bills in the air and it would not make the sun shine any brighter, it will not make a tree grow faster. If I gave our dog or cat a hundred dollar bill they would probably just rip it up. When you buy something, say a car, what are you actually paying for? It is the human energy that was required to build the machines that mined the ore, to smelt the metal, build the car, do the advertising and so on.

Here is another of my money tips, money is exchanged for human energy, human energy is exchanged for money. This is most obvious when someone goes to work but there other ways to use this data, please read the pages in the Making Money at Home section.

Money Flows

Money relates well to energy. It gains power when it flows. Here is an oversimplified money flow.

Ray needs his car fixed, he gives Mark the mechanic $100 to fix the car. Mark decides to give his girlfriend a present so gives the $100 to Ann the store owner. She wants some flyers printed to promote her store so Pete the printer gets $100. Now Pete can afford to have yard cleaned up and hires Jane. Jane's computer is not working so she takes it to Ray who also fixes computers.

What has happened here? Mark has earned $100, so have Ann, Pete, Jane and Ray. That's $500 in earnings from one $100 bill! Of course it is more complex than that, the tax will take a bite at each exchange. But then the tax money will be used to pay someone to build a road or whatever.

If you view that as a money circle you will see that the money energy goes one way and the people energy (goods or service) goes the other way.

Does this mean that the money should always be flowing? Not really, some of the money energy should be stored for future use, like a battery stores electric for future use. More money tips, try to store (save) your money where it can still move, like an interest bearing savings account or guaranteed investment certificates. Money stored under a mattress really is wasting its potential.

If you are having money problems I urge you to read Managing Money and Financial Freedom. Then find out How to be Rich.

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