If you are making money, you need to have a point of why you’re making that money:
- To pay the rent so you can live in a city
- To eat good food (not Food Bank donations)
- To save for your future so you can stop working in your old age (also known as retirement)
- To help your kids
- To buy a home
- To buy a car
- …and so on and so on.
If you are earning money at a job but you don’t have a plan for what you’re going to do with that money, then in theory, you shouldn’t even need to work.
(Okay so this isn’t very politically correct, but it’s funny and I love xkcd.com)
To put it another way, it is like traveling.
We like to travel, but if we were to take a plane or drive a car from one city to another, not stopping and just traveling, it’d have no point.
When we say we like to travel (just as we say we like to make money), it is because our goal is to get to another city or place, stop, explore and learn as much as possible about what it’s like to be a native in that city.
So if you are making money only for the sake of making it and watching your bank account grow, there’s no practical difference in having $1 or $1 million.
Have a goal, then try to reach it.
It’s the best way to stay motivated to do what you want to do like get out of debt and have a healthy bank balance.
My extra funds go towards traveling. I think having a goal helps us achieve certain things. Thanks for the reminder.
I disagree to some extent. I think it’s good to allow yourself to earn money without a point. Of course earning money and saving it means that you will have more flexibility later in life. I guess that’s the default point. Earning money FOR something makes us feel like we have to spend the money, even if priorities change and it doesn’t make sense, or we end up with more money than we need. I guess that’s another way of saying what you’re saying, but one thing I’ve seen is that people only try to earn as much as they think they need, versus aiming higher with no real need in mind. I think it’s better to understand your basic budget but then try to earn more- even if you don’t know what the point of that money is yet other than to grow your bank account.