I think one's attitude to money is heavily influenced by whether one has ever been without it.
I would guess that the very large majority of Fools are in the fortunate position of never having known real poverty. The knowledge that even when times are tough there is always a reserve to fall back on, whether it be savings, equity in a house or just generous friends and family makes an incredible difference. It means that one can speculate to accumulate, and as we all know, if you have spare money to invest it's not that difficult to make it grow, thereby adding to the underlying level of confidence.
For those fortunate people their attitude to money is, as has been demonstrated in these posts, jolly sensible - it's nice to have it, and it can be entertaining to invest it and see it grow, but it's not at all the main driving force of life.
But for those who don't have that solid infrastructure the acquisition of money is far more important, and often becomes an end in itself, with little consideration of what to actually do with it.
I'm sure we all know people who, in best rags to riches tradition, started with nothing and ended up extremely wealthy. Of course there are some who adjust perfectly well, and gradually adopt a Foolish attitude, but there are many others who continue striving to increase their wealth far beyond anything they could ever hope to spend.
I suspect this is not - or not only - driven by greed. There’s an element of fear there, as well. Such people have been mentally scarred by the memories of extreme poverty and a subconscious terror that the edifice may crumble, leaving them back where they started. Consequently, building wealth is like building a huge barrier between themselves and that poverty.
Strangely, I see an element of that in myself. I was brought up in a reasonably affluent, though not really wealthy family, so started off with that all-important infrastructure. But following a personal disaster in my 20's I lost everything I had and more. I was unable to work, and ended up for a while living on benefits in serious debt. Although I’ve no doubt my family would have helped me I chose, rightly or wrongly, to conceal my situation from them.
But it came as a horrible shock, particularly after living in relative affluence. I'd already accumulated a fair amount of savings, but they went remarkably quickly. Like most ordinary people I had no idea just how little a single man is entitled to in benefits (I don't know if it's the same now) and it really was very hard to manage.
One of the worst aspects was that although the benefits were enough to live on day to day they were certainly not enough to enable me to put anything aside, so any unexpected cost was a huge problem. And that meant that I was constantly worried about such a cost arising and how I would deal with it.
Fortunately I got through it, and rebuilt my life, ultimately becoming fairly wealthy. Like many fellow Fools I now have more than I could ever envisage spending during the rest of my life.
However, even though rationally I know it's virtually impossible I still have a fragment of that irrational background fear of losing everything, and whether it's due to my history or not I've ended up with a rather split personality attitude towards money.
On the one hand I can be ridiculously thrifty, rejoicing when something I was going to buy anyway in Tesco is reduced by 50p, or making sure that room lights are switched off to save wasting electricity; on the other hand I can spend a lot on a bottle of wine or a holiday without thinking twice about it.
Perhaps these odd attitudes are just two sides of the same coin. That memory of poverty makes me cautious about wasting scarce resources, but it also makes me rather reckless - an `enjoy it while it lasts' feeling.
I should also say that I don't give much thought to such matters on a day to day basis - it's just reading this thread that has made me consider it.
But unpleasant as it was I'm overall glad that I did have that experience all those years ago. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of it was that I discovered I could have nothing yet still actively enjoy life, despite the financial worries. I think that many people who worry about ending up in that situation genuinely believe they wouldn't survive it, so that the prospect is far worse than the reality.
Though I suppose the Government has a vested interest in fostering that belief!