what is your attitude towards money?

I agree that without money, its almost impossible to survive in this world. I would say the people who see the value of money most are those who lacks it to the point of "hurt", when they don't have any money to buy food for themselves and their family, to find shelter to live on, not able to buy decent clothes and similar situations. When we are having enough money to live by, we won't feel so much pain so we can afford to say that money is not very important in a person's life. Try to say this to a starving person, and he won't accept what you say but rather wants you to share some amount for his hurting needs to at least survive. Then there is those who see money coming in abundance in their lives. Are they really evil and bad when it happens to them? I would say it depends, if they get that money through bad means then they could be bad but if they work decently and intelligently or wisely, they could be blessed prosperity and a whole lot of money coming on a regular basis. I stay with my idea that money, no matter how large or small it is, is simply just an energy and there is nothing good or bad about it. If you take a piece of wood or paper, they are all energy and this also holds true with money. It's people who gives value to it, saying this wood costs nothing and can't be used to buy things while this paper called money is worth a lot, depending on the numbers written on it. LOL

That is exactly true. You look rich, can I borrow money? LOL

Yes, I agree with you. Money is not good or bad. We use it to survive in our daily lives. Who can survive without money and any possession at all? No clothes, no shelter, no food? No one. Money is what we need.

betty, you make a good point that money is a necessity of life. THe thing that I can never understand is why people are willing to throw money away on gambling. Personally, I feel like I work way to hard to earn money that I would never throw it away be gambling.

I also believe in betty's opinion that money is a necessity in life, and I also can't believe why people waste money through gambling as aireanna pointed out. One probable reason is that they have adequate money to burn and they are addicted to the fun of being in the casinos. Sad that many people who are into gambling loses most or all of their money in the end and come out poor.

BetterDays4Me, it is not just those that gamble at casinos. Think about all those people that waste money on the lottery. It is like so many rationalize that it is only a few bucks, but it all adds up overtime. I was standing in line behind a few people as I had some items to return to the store. I was shocked to hear people spend $6 - $10 on lottery tickets. I was shocked. I mean here a lot of us are striving to make an extra $10 a month; whereas, these people were throwing away the same amount of money in a single transaction all in the hopes of winning a large jackpot of money. The worst part is the statistics of actually winning are so low that it is more like throwing money away in the trash; then gambling.

Hi dorannmwin, we do have very similar attitude about money. I also don't think we needed to be a millionaire to be happy in life, but I do reserve it as a possibility. Anyway, I see that having enough money to pay our bills and have some extra for our 'wants' gives us some sense of security.

Yes, money does give us financial security. Is it really possible to live in a world where we have enough money for all our needs, bills, and some extra for wants? I just mean look at the debt of all these countries. It seems like living in debt has become a way of life. Lately, the whole main topics on money are about paying down debt and living within our means. Even when we strive to live within our means, we have things occur like high tax bills and the prices of everything in the market doubling. It seems like lately the market keeps interferring with our attempts to have money in our pockets. I am not even referring to buying extra things that we want in life. I amtalking about buying the basic necessities.

Yes, it's easy to see how money gives people freedom to travel anywhere they want and to buy things they desire. I believe you have given us some good ideas on how to prepare ourselves in any business endeavors which makes a lot of sense as we don't want to end up having no profits at all in the end, and worst still to lose money due to not analyzing the pros and cons of our planned business. Anyway, maybe you could share with us what kind of business you are in right now and maybe we would want to try it out ourselves.

I have no business. I guess I was just thinking that way after watching Shark Tank. It is favorite show to watch every week. I have also taken some accounting, finance, and business classes in the past, so perhaps that is why I find this show so intriguing. Sometimes the people on this show have good ideas other times they come into the Shark Tank and make such blundering errors in their presentation. I just like to watch it. I think in some ways you do gain some interesting insights. Right now, I am unemployed. So, I am trying to find a teaching job. Otherwise, I am just trying to earn some money online. I have noticed that as money keeps getting tighter I get even more creative. Budgeting now takes on more of a forecasting when funds will be available; then assigning how to best utilize those funds for paying for bills. In addition, it is totally driving me crazy the way that the price of everything has doubled lately. A lot of the stores are resorting to tactics to get us to spend more money. Like you only get the discount price if y. ou buy 10 items or you have to spend so much money to get the sale price. It is driving me crazy the tactics that I am seeing lately by stores. Perhaps, the issue is that I see right through their tactics. It is like I understand what they are doing. As prices keep rising and it becomes harder to save money, I am starting to really see the value of money. Money gives us purchasing power and everything that we buy creates an opportunity cost because if we buy one item we have less money to purchase other items. The economy is a total mess. I keep hoping that the market will right itself to equilbrium, but it seems as though it continues to struggle to self correct itself. Personally, I think a lot of the issue has been all these artificial attempts to kick start the economy back into a growth model. None of them have worked so far. I mean look at the high unemployment rates. It is like the government here does not understand that by creating more jobs, we will expand the economy with more people having money to spend. Instead, we just keep getting more and more economic instability because we do not know what the economy holds. The result is that more people are holding onto their money, so less spending effects the economy.

I agree that it's difficult to respect oneself if we are not capable of making money for ourselves. Anyway, I also know people who are afraid of being corrupted by money so I think in these cases they repel money. So I would say our beliefs about money is one key to either attracting it into our lives or repelling it. If we think 'rich people are crooks', we repel money because we don't want to be labeled as crooks, but if we think that rich people are people of integrity and wisdom, then we could be attracted to want it more into our lives. For now, these are all theories for me and also ideas taken from all the books I read in the past.

Ah yes, many people would term that 'financial security' where you feel secure because you have enough money to care for all your needs and all your family's needs, and enough money reserve to be used for unexpected expenses.

I would say many people desire things, and I myself desire to own a house someday, the car that I desire, more interesting gadgets, a bigger tv, lots of books, fitness equipments, and many other stuffs that makes life more interesting. I guess you're right in showing that what we do should be consistent with what we desire to have. I think many people desire to have more money but doesn't do anything to get closer to that goal.

I understand where you are at, asjujohn. I do believe environment has a lot to do with our attitude about money. When we are surrounded by people who judges us with the amount of money we have or the lack of it and treats us with respect or disrespect in accordance with this, then it would only be understandable that we would tend to treat money more importantly and try our best to be on the 'respected' side by gaining more money. Nobody wanted to be treated with disrespect and scorn. On the other hand, some other environment has people around them that doesn't care much if you have lots of money or not but still treats you with love and respect. In this type of environment, there is no sense of urgency to try to make better of our financial state because we don't feel any threat whatsoever if we are lacking in finances. If that same person is transfered to an environment that I mentioned first where respect is dependent on how much money you have in the bank, then I am sure his attitude would change a lot.

Hi airasheila, Good luck to all your plans! I wish you realize all of them and make them come true :) I believe all you mentioned above are important in the process of doing good financially, and every little bit helps towards that goal. Another idea I have about money and prosperity is that ideas can make a person rich. That is why getting as much good ideas as we can to improve ourselves financially or even become rich is very helpful. Simple ideas have made a lot of people millionaires. That is why I consider continuous searching and study could really be very helpful to at least to place ourselves in a much better state of finances.

Hello vidhyaprakash, I would say too that money can't buy happiness nor good relationships. So I believe it's important not to focus our lives only on making money, but especially those aspects that can't be bought by money.

Yes, we have the same belief. Maybe because many people use money in an evil or wrong way, so that is where some people get the idea that money is evil. I would say that money has power in it due to the power given to it by people, and due to this many people make use of it to give themselves power, even the power to do bad things. So let's take care of our intentions of wanting to have lots of money because we might end up in dangerous zones. It's so easy to want to have more money in the desire to help those whom we love, to keep away from debt, to always be able to pay our bills on time, to use it for some pleasurable things and experiences like traveling and stuff, to help others in need, to give in charity or help our closest relatives who have need of it, and many other good intentions in wanting more money.

Hi mariemay, you seem like a successful and responsible business woman. I believe it's very important to take care of one's business as many people I know put up a business without much thought and care and ends up failing in their chosen businesses. I observe that many successful people are responsible and diligent. You mentioned the word 'trust' which I believe is one of the most important factor when doing business with other people.

It's great you pointed out that people are usually influenced greatly by their environment, and people who were born poor have the tendency to steal from others while those who were born with a silver spoon never thought of stealing at all but their tendency tends more on being selfish. I like the term 'energy imbalance' and I think this is a true term which happens to many people, and I don't know exactly how those imbalances happens but all I know that it exists. I heard about 'eft' or emotional freedom technique which are used for releasing those imbalances and brings more balance in our energies. I've been trying this and seeing some good results but not significant enough to absolutely say they work wondrously, but I could assure that they do work. You could check them out in youtube as they show many ways they use eft techniques in many areas of our life.

Good point, mhaiXCs10s! So that means money could be used for evil by a sinner and it could be used for good by a saint or a good man. Yes, I believe it is we humans who give opinion to things, even to inanimate things like money.

You are right, surekharathi so that is why if ever I make a lot of money I want to be in the few who uses my money in a good way. In terms of having a relaxed life, I want to be low key and also hopefully I earn due to my online works which is not stressful at all for me.