You Don’t Understand Money Until You Work Minimum Wage
Money varies vastly in value depending on who’s pocket it's in. This is why.
The Different Values Of Money
Money has a very interesting property, it holds different value to different people. To one person a certain sum of money might be the down-payment on their future home. To another, that same sum is nothing more than fun money to burn on a weekend with friends. What differentiates these two people?
You might be inclined to stereotype these two characters by making the assumption that one has more money than the other, and can therefore justify their more half-hazard spending. However, these two hypothetical people are in exactly the same financial situation. The only difference:
Perspective
The former has the perspective that money has the potential to positively and significantly affect their future. The latter person instead views money as nothing more than a means to enable their present wants and desires. There are plenty more examples, but what I want to discuss is where these varied perspectives come from.
I suspect the answer is buried in some quite complex psychology, primarily stemming from the environment one grows up in, and potentially later in life an eye-opening experience that shift the previously established perspective. I’m going to describe the epiphany experience that shifted my perspective from viewing money as a store of tradable value, to a store of my time.
My first experience of owning money came in the form of monthly pocket money from my parents. It wasn’t much, but it got my younger self familiar with the transactional value of money and the fundamentals of saving and spending. The problem was I had no personal experience with the money earning process. Thus, I didn’t associated money with the time it took to earn it. At the time, assessing the value of a transaction in my head came down to what proportion of my savings was the purchase, and whether I found it worthwhile.
My New Perspective
I was still young when I started working minimum wage at a café. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there because the work was somewhat rewarding and the staff nice. That being said, the work could be tough and the day’s long; especially when understaffed on a regular basis. It was then that I experienced my perspective shift. I started to associate the value of money with the hard worked time it took to earn minimum wage.
My mind inadvertently shifted to judge the value of a transaction relative to how much I would have to work to earn the money back. Suddenly that coffee wasn’t £3.50 anymore, it was half an hour's work. Those movie tickets were now 2 hours' work, and that dinner I was treating my partner to was now a full day of slaving away.
This completely warped my view of the value of money. It made me appreciate it for what it was, a symbolic representation of my work. It’s a view that I carry with me to this day, and one I think I’ll hold on to for life.
This model makes me financially conscious to save and build my wealth, whilst also giving me the freedom to spend money on thing I find worthwhile. In other words, it gives me the balance of financial responsibility, whilst allowing me to spend money on things that bring me joy without any guilt.
And this model scales. As I grow older and my time is worth more (raises/promotions), my spending increase; but I still maintain the financially responsible balance that disables me from living outside of my means. And the same is true for the reverse.
I encourage you now to reflect on how you value money, and then ask yourself how accurate that perspective really is.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this piece and hope you gained some kind of insight from this. If you enjoyed it and want to see more, give me a few claps and a follow. It really encourages me to keep doing what I love. If you agree or disagree, leave a comment and let’s talk about it.
I want to start using this platform as a way to spread some love to other small but talented writers, so I’d recommend this emotional piece that touched my heart somewhat: Another Christmas Without Love by Uwem Daniels.
If you want some more thought-provoking work by me, why not try out: Why Life Seems Harder The More Competent You Become?
That’s it for now, have a fantastic rest of your day.
