Time is Money
I have heard this phrase throughout my life and I always understood it as "time has a cost". Expressed another way, an hour of my time is worth a monetary amount. But I have now come to understand it as this:
Time is Currency.
As in, I want to "spend" my time doing what I want. I am not totally sure which is right, but this subtle difference is an important one I think. Because spending your time chasing money, when all you really want is just time to do what you like, is a poor strategy (pun intended 😉 ).
This is one of the things that became more clear to me as I read the book "The Psychology of Money". It's a book I highly recommend to everyone. And the reason is, we all have to make financial decisions throughout life and we do so with certain reasons in mind. Often times under further examination, these reasons don't make a lot of sense for our own personal circumstances.
This book helps pull back the curtain on the whole concept of money, and how people use it - often times doing so in the way they see others using it. Reading it will have you walking away with some better insight on yourself that will change the way you think about money, and perhaps even your pursuit of it going forward.
Let me share with you 3 key learnings from this book:
1. The difference between rich and wealthy. Rich is a current income. Wealth is hidden - it’s income not spent. Anyone can appear to be rich by spending a lot. Those who are wealthy are so by NOT spending what they have.
2. You can be wrong half the time (or more) and still make a fortune - Genius investor Warren Buffet has said he has owned 400-500 stocks in his life, but made most of his money on 10 of them.
3. The hardest financial skill is getting the goal-posts to stop moving - social comparison will keep you constantly striving for what other people have, when originally you would be happier with a lot less.
There are many more lessons to be found in the pages of this book. It is one of those reads that has the potential to bring much greater clarity on what you are actually working towards and why. At the end, you may find yourself heading in a brand new direction that is better suited for you.