How Much Is A Little

In class, the teacher had told that $1,000,000 is not a lot of money. What is she smoking?

I think her statement reflects our society in a way. Whatever it is, something has us believing that we should be striving for the high life. That we should go after more money. Nothing is good without money. My car is not good enough unless it can repel rain and shoot pedestrians. My watch is not good enough unless it can tell me the time on Saturn and Pluto while underwater measuring salt content, and if my phone can't redirect a satellite and shoot a ballistic missile from a subamrine, I can't be seen with it in public.

Okay...assuming you are assuming I just happened to pick this money up legally, and that I most likely got this from the lottery, would probably wind up with around $700,000 after taxes. I know what you all are thinking. You'd hand it back because if they're going to take all that money out, what's the point right? I hope your father is there to shoot you moments after. You know...the guy who slaved to put you through college. Or life. The one who put you before that hip surgery he really needed or that dental operation that would have made eating a lot more bearable.

Consider this. $700,000 dollars instantly is the same amount of money it would take a person earning $100,000 dollars a year seven years to earn. Most of us are not so fortunate. Most of us work for around $20,000 - $40,000 a year. That means you'd be working for 17 1/2 to 35 years to make that much money. A lot of us are told about how we can hope to make have a million after a lifetime of working and prudent saving.

And no one considers that a lot of money these days. Ask anyone if they consider a million to be a lot of money. (Don't ask in a way that gives them the answer you expect them to) My class just agreed with it like, 'Yeah....pocket change'. If I won $10,000 it would be a lot of money to me. If I dropped ten thousand dollars in the street, I'd stop traffic trying to pick it up. $20,000 and I would feel I could breathe easier in all that I do. I have emergency float to cover anything unexpected. $50,000 and I am an extremely happy camper. $100,000 and, for my standards of comfort, I am rich.

I don't think people go around wanting to be rich though. Most adults think about money a certain amount of the time, but I don't think it dominates their mindset. I think we like spending to the point where it becomes a part of our standards of living. Our income needs to reflect bot our need and our want to spend and so a lot seems like a little.

Well, Ben Franklin said be industrious and frugal (Jewish people get a lot of crap for making sense like this. It's like people have been laughing at them all this time for saving their money and not being dumb. Of course, this is- historically- a race astute at the practice of money management. In fact, there chronic persecution and exodus by various civilizations all over the world was from rulers, kings, and various powers that were loaned money from them and found diaspora a convenient method of dodging on their obligations. Of course we would jeer and snicker. What do they know?) Never took that lesson in, completely, but I hope to never get bad enough to think $1,000,000 is not a lot of money.