Think Outside The Piggy Bank

a clarification or two

Yikes! I lost 8 subscribers in one day? If my calculations are correct, that means that 80% of subscribers (I had 10) told me to go take a hike. At best that means you got bored, but at worst that means I offended you, and if that's the case I truly am sorry. As opinionated, and unwittingly tactless and undiplomatic as I may sometimes be concerning topics I'm passionate about, at heart I hate conflict, and don't like to unduly offend.

If it was Tuesday's post title that led you all to flee, yeah, it was probably in poor taste. But I love words, and wordplay, and sometimes get carried away without thinking about the impact. More likely, it was the post content, or maybe my tone? While I still think that in many cases how money is handled can be more important than the actual amount, I probably didn't word it well, and may have left the impression that people are always to blame for whatever financial state or predicament they're in. And that's not the case.

I also want to clarify a couple of things I mentioned in Monday's post. When I referred to myself as poor, I was basing that upon the fact that my annual net income of about $12,000 is over $5,000 lower than Statistics Canada's 2006 poverty line of approximately $17,500 for a single person in a city with a population 500,000+. Having said that, in many ways I don't consider myself poor because I'm able to pay my rent, cover my bills, indulge in a few "wants" now and then, put a bit aside, and am fortunate enough to carry no debt. In that sense, I may even be richer than most! And then there's the definition of rich. See that's part of the problem too, because we tend to throw those terms around not knowing what people actually mean when they use them. I guess for me being suspicious of those who are or want to be rich meant those having or pining for millions. That kind of money I can't even envision, and can't identify with those who can, if you know what I mean.

Like I said, if I've offended, I'm sorry. But it could also just be a lack of interest that drove you away. Have I mentioned yet that I tend to take things personally and have a bit of a thin skin? Guess I'll have to work on that.

Monday's money question 2

In response to my what is money anyway? post, a friend commented on another site and asked me:

1. what does money mean?
2. what does money mean to you?

Both good questions, and because I couldn't come up with intelligent, succinct (and possibly amusing) answers right away, I mentally filed them under the "reply when thinking cap is found" category. But the truth is that these simple looking enough questions are bigger than they appear, and one of the reasons I started this blog. The dictionary definitions of money in that post I wrote struck me as being dull and dry and lifeless. I mean they practically put me to sleep as I was writing them, so I can well imagine what it would have been like reading them. Where is the emotion I thought? The excitement, and energy and pizzazz? Because really, money CAN be pretty exciting, and if it's a major source of fighting for couples, and possibly more taboo than talking about sex (do you, like me, get a bit riled when someone straight out asks what something cost you?), then it's got to be more than what my dictionary failed to allude to.

But I still haven't answered the above questions even though I did find said cap. And that's because various posts on this blog will be my attempt to explore and find those answers. All I know for sure right now is that my relationship with money is an ambivalent one: I'm not particularly good at making it (although I excel in stretching it), tend to be suspicious of those who are or want to be rich, am wondering if I could be a poverty addict as I'm comfortable being poor (poverty being relative of course), am sometimes resentful at having to support myself (completely unreasonable I know), and am downright fascinated by how money snakes through all of our lives relatively unexamined. Where was the course The Meaning of Money that I certainly would have signed up for in school?

So bear with me, my friend, as I work my way towards those elusive and hard to pin down answers. And what about you? Have you figured it out? How would you respond to those questions? Post here if you like!

what is money anyway?

I mean, we all recognize it when we see it, but what exactly is it? According to The Houghton Mifflin Canadian Dictionary of the English Language, money is: 1. A commodity such as gold or silver that is legally established as an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities and is used as a measure of their comparitive values on the market. 2. The official currency, coins and negotiable paper notes, issued by a government. 3. Assets and property that may be converted into actual currency. 4. Pecuniary profit or loss. 5. Any unspecified amount of currency.

Okay, I get that, but why does it still strike me as strange that we've all managed to agree that certain pieces of paper and small metal objects constitute money, and others don't? Why does the whole exchange ritual still seem slightly bizarre? And why does the above definition seem so incomplete? Where is the psychology of it all? Because to me, money just feels like so much more.