How important is money to you?

[Itsallaguess]

IAAG mentioned that money gives you choices of what to do. But for me just as important is what I don't have to do. Anything I don't want to do I can pay someone else to do for me.

It's the same thing.

Someone asks Lootman to do what Lootman doesn't want to do? FY.

Yes, one of the choices I was referring to might well indeed be 'Not that...'

It is a point worth clarifying though, as it's potentially an equally liberating choice in many cases, and perhaps even more so in some instances, especially when it comes towards the end of a long working life, as AiY has quite rightly pointed out....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[dionaeamuscipula]

So what interests you in money?

C

I'm over 60 and my youngest just walked out the door on her last ever journey to primary school. So it's pretty likely that we've got another 10 years of having a dependent child, and even with a reasonable sized pension pot, I'm a long way short of meeting her needs, so back down the coal mine I go.

DM

[kiloran]

I'm lucky to have reached the point where I don't think about money very much. I'm retired, have sufficient funds to cover any reasonably foreseeable care costs for me and my wife, and don't have any dependants. I used to have an active interest in investing to try and grow my pot of gold, but it's now a far more passive approach to try and simplify my finances, so I moved away from HYP having realised I have no need for the income, and moved to a limited number of more growth-related passive investments (a few ETFs and ITs).

The driving force to grow my finances is to maximise my value when I die, to pass it all on to local charities.

--kiloran

[SalvorHardin]

I see former colleagues who earned more than me still working hard, living a stressful life and I wonder why they still do it. Perhaps they need to fund a lavish lifestyle?

I also sometimes wonder why some clearly very well off people here continue to want to make more money. Why? What is the motivation? Why not be happy with what you have?

Lots of people who earn a lot have very little put away for the proberbial rainy day, never mind early retirement. They've grown up spending all of their income and every time they get a pay rise it's rapidly spent, often on "Keeping up with the Joneses" and other forms of conspicuous consumption. There's a saying that these people are "all fur coat and no knickers". Asides from pensions through their employment their primary method of obtaining wealth is buying their home.

I used to come across a lot of people like this at clients' workplaces. They often confuse income with wealth and find it impossible to save to any great degree because they get caught in the trap of buying consumer goods and services (e.g. holidays) on credit.

Why make more money? Well, if you've got into the habit of making money by investing it's fairly easy to carry on doing so in retirement. Also more money means more options, including being able to cope when a hostile government imposes massive tax rises and confiscatory policies (such as Labour's 2019 election manifesto promise to confiscate up to 10% of the shares listed on the UK stockmarket). Much easier to emigrate to a capital-friendly country if you've got a few bob tucked away.

It's not just the freedom of not having to work, for me it's the fact that if I want to buy most things then I don't need to worry about finding the money. It's being able to buy what you want (within reason) without having to think how you're going to pay for it.

Like in March-July 2020, when I had to stay at home in shielded lockdown but could not get any local food deliveries and didn't want to impose on non-shielding friends (I didn't leave the house and garden for four months). I spent money like water getting all sorts of stuff off Amazon, eBay and Marks & Spencer, spending four times as much as I would normally do over the same period whilst buying a lot of "contingency items" such as spare radios, computers, mobile phones and survival equipment. Most people would have to exercise considerable caution over spending at that sort of level.

Many wealthy people continue to work because they enjoy it. Also many people's work forms such a strong part of their outlook on life that if they gave it up it would remove a huge part of their life. Not me!

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

I've always been focussed on money. My Dad was a BP petrochemicals exec and was always working. Plus his Older Bruv, Dad, GrandDad, etc. were a family of accountants stretching back in time. I love numbers, have always had aptitude for these things.

When I was a teen, the wheels fell off a bit. Mum and Dad divorced (I was 14), I rebelled big time, left home at 16 (bedsit costs helped by Dad), and I bummed around getting wasted, and playing with Motorbikes etc. till I was about 18 when I saw sense and applied for Maths and Science A levels (fortunately I'd hung around at home long enough to get decent O levels). Fast forward a little and I graduated from Uni, at age 25 years, and in reasonably short order found work in computer programming, gave up bikes, took car test, met Mel, got first mortgage (£33k house), got married, had kids.

I've always run a "balanced budget" as best as possible, cleared mortgage when I could, cut up my credit card, have zilch credit. I basically hate debt because, IMHO, it means someone has control of an element of one's being, and I'm a recovering control freak . I don't really spend very much at all on myself, except on books, and any spare money for me is currently to help bankroll my daughters (16 and 19) and help Mel out with what she wants (she manages the bills) above and beyond her Screwfix sales assistant salary.

I'm into investing now, since as of about 4 years ago, I realised that most peoples attitude to pensions might not leave them with much money to retire, and I realised that keeping cash in a bank account, was just an invitation to waste on futile house and garden projects. Now I'm hoping to sensibly amass enough so that I can "start slowing down" professional work wise at about age 60 (7 years away), and hopefully still be able to help the kids when ness, and live in reasonable comfort.

But I still wonder whether I'm actually more into numbers than money as such, and whether it's possible to make saving / amassing money into a bit of an obsession.

Matt

[88V8]

It's been a long time since money was important.
It's important when you don't have it.

Up until I married, my credit card was maxed out, I was still living 'at home' and had zero prospect of anything else.
Then I married someone who was careful with money by upbringing and temperament, not obsessively so but enough.
Not a seismic change. Mortgage at 15%+, we were skint.
That began to change after 14 months when I changed jobs for a 35% uplift in salary. Then after a year another 50%.
And a few years later the wife got a better job and a relocation loan which helped us move to a better house.

Meanwhile the benefit of being skint was that we had developed strong DIY skills. And over the decades the savings in making your own clothes, curtains, learning to cook instead of eating out, learning plumbing electrics bricklaying decorating carpentry joinery car repair, the savings really add up.
Now, if anything needs doing, it rarely crosses our minds to employ anyone.

And we've never been into buying new stuff, or expensive holidays. Never bought a new car.

On the input side, two people in reasonably good salaried employment for 30+ years, putting money aside not deliberately but just because there was a surplus. So at age 57, in a job I didn't enjoy, I did some sums and decided I could retire and I did.

Now we have more than enough income, but have not changed our DIY habits or our spending habits, so we don't spend it.
Tinkering with our investments as I do, is quite unnecessary really.
A hobby? One might say so.

I suppose it's over forty years since money was important. Since then it's never been a limiting factor. The main limitation for many years was my long commuting/working hours and the limited time available to do stuff and my slow DIYing.

So I end up where I began. Money is important when you don't have it.

V8

[greenrobbie]

I was brought up in genteel poverty in the 50's/60's. Hand-me-down clothes, mocked at school for old-fashioned football boots and old-style woollen football socks. My mother went hungry from time to time to keep us from hunger. I had the opportunity to go to University, the first in my family. Habits of frugality went very, very deep in me, I was determined that my life would be more materially secure than my parents. After a lifetime of work I early-retired 7 years ago and now have more money than I can sensibly spend, and as close to zero chance as is possible of running short of money the rest of my life.

I sleep very well, the continuous low-level stress of working life has vanished. I no longer fear not being able to provide for my family. We don't have particularly extravagant tastes, but I can buy things without needing to save up and justify to myself and my wife. It's been difficult to shake off some aspects of frugality: I can now buy decent claret from a wine merchant when for decades I would buy cheap supermarket wine most of the time. We have money saved up to pay for care/nursing home fees, so we will be able to leave a reasonable inheritance to my son.

So, it is peace of mind that money has brought me, the certain knowledge that we won't go hungry, we will have a secure and watertight roof over our heads, and we will be able to pay for care in our declining years if we require it.

[Pendrainllwyn]

Very important if I am honest. I've worked hard for it. I think about money a lot but don't worry about it. I like the simple things in life so money has rarely made me happy but it has eliminated a lot of hassle and worry. That's worth a lot. Money has given me financial security and, i'll admit, confidence and self-worth. Money gives me peace of mind whilst my daughter studies what she is passionate about regardless of the limited commercial options her field may lead to. I'll always be a saver and don't feel a need to keep up with the Jones's despite living in a wealthy community but I'll spend and be price insensitive when I want to.

A few years ago my parents were looking to down-size but were struggling to sell their house. Mum was very ill and Dad was desperate to buy their new more manageable home. I gave them the money and they paid me back when they finally sold. The value of that was priceless.

Pendrainllwyn

[UncleEbenezer]

So I end up where I began. Money is important when you don't have it.

V8

I'm inclined to agree. Though that's tied to living in a money-oriented society.

On the other hand, I also like this attitude.

[20thcenturyboy]

So what interests you in money?

C

Money has only started being interesting to me now, at the age of 53! And that's because it's only now that I'm starting to contemplate my own mortality, and more specifically how I'm going to make ends meet until I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Up until now I have been exceedingly lucky. I have never been unemployed. I have never been poor. I have never been starving and I have never not had a roof over my head. I have always been able to do what I want without having to be interested in money, or even worry about it. I certainly never spent much time thinking about how to make much more of it.

I think also that there was simply less financial information around 20 or 30 years ago, and so the opportunities to be "interested" in money were fewer. These days there is so much info available to research (and so many more financial products) that "money" can become a full time hobby!

[vagrantbrain]

I find the utility of money extremely important

Similar to a few other posters, money was very tight during my childhood (1980s/early 90s). Frustrating when all my friends had Nike Air Jordans, holidays to Majorca and SNESs while I had Mikes (fake Nikes), caravans in Scarborough and a second hand VIC20. Now I like to have enough on hand that I can (or could if I wanted to) buy whatever I want without worrying about paying for it. I find satisfaction in seeing some £200 running trainers or a £400 outdoor jacket I like and knowing I could now buy it if I wanted to because of the life choices i've made (I rarely do actually buy!)

Having also ran up a lot of debt when I was younger and spent 3 of my "best" years in the equivalent of an IVA, and had done some really crap jobs because I really, really needed the money and missing meals to pay the rent, having enough to cover a year or so of living expenses so i'm never in that situation again is probably one of the most important things to me.

As someone else said having some FY money is brilliant - when a poor manager starts berating you and hinting at consequences then knowing, or even telling them, that you come to work because you want to, not need to, is hugely satisfying!

I like making a profit at work - it's my job to and a reasonable profit margin on a project means i've done something productive.

[zico]

For me, life is about making choices, and money interests me because it gives me more choice (or perhaps more accurately, it gives me better options to choose from).

I was brought up in a family that pretty strictly prioritised essentials first, then possible luxuries later (often never), which has instilled a cautious budgeting and "value for money" approach in me, and I still get some kind of buzz from getting a bargain or good deal. I tend to consider choices in terms of what would I prefer - a long-haul flight upgrade or a complete holiday for the same money (so the flight upgrade never wins out!). The value of money to me is that we've both been able to retire early and can travel widely (or could, pre-pandemic) and that although we don't often choose to splash out, we know we can do it as and when we want to. I'm now in the fortunate position of trying to work out (sensible) ways to increase our spending, having made very conservative assumptions about likely income and expenditure post-retirement.

With investing, it's like a hobby, I get personal satisfaction out of managing my finances to best advantage (despite not achieving that aim over the past 12 months!). But then, the pandemic crash taught me that I'm far keener about trying to preserve my wealth than taking risks to increase it further. Harks back to the old adage about money only being important if you don't have enough. I also enjoy putting together my own itineraries for foreign holidays, getting both a more tailored holiday and also some buzz out of saving money in the process.

[nimnarb]

Take a rather different attitude now to many here. Few health issues, well more than a few so yes, preservation of capital is obviously important for a rainy day, and they seem to be coming in buckets, but spending it to enjoy it whilst you can, be it a high end motor, condo, villa, first class seats(hmm that’s been short on the agenda over 18 months). Just now feel I should splash out and to a certain extent what will be will be as you never know what the next day might bring. So I live it and been living it up whilst I can. Yes money is important but seen so many stash and save until it was too late for them.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I'm lucky to have reached the point where I don't think about money very much. I'm retired, have sufficient funds to cover any reasonably foreseeable care costs for me and my wife, and don't have any dependants. I used to have an active interest in investing to try and grow my pot of gold, but it's now a far more passive approach to try and simplify my finances, so I moved away from HYP having realised I have no need for the income, and moved to a limited number of more growth-related passive investments (a few ETFs and ITs).

The driving force to grow my finances is to maximise my value when I die, to pass it all on to local charities.

--kiloran

Are you aware of just how close Yorkshire really is to Scotland

AiY

[brightncheerful]

Even it I wanted to i cannot afford to retire (misspent youth).

I find it easier to repay debt than save, I find that when i spend savings I begrudge the spending. As i have to work to accumulate I begrudge that it doesn't take long for the money to quickly go. For example it can take me a year to save up enough for our annual holiday but the whole lot is gone in a fortnight. Probably it's my expensive taste or as a friend suggested standards too high.

Also i find it it easier to help others make money than to make it for myself. Hence i undercharge and even though I have increased my minimum fee by just over 25% since last year (inflation, etc) probably it is still too low. I am sure that many of my clients wonder how i manage, probably think I have a private income. If only. I am conscious that my costs are rising and although it would be simple to avoid or reduce them it would also mean having to give up on the few things left to enjoy after working.

For example, the price of the monthly massage that i have had for years - my personal health 'insurance' - which until lockdown 1 was £45 will be going up from £50 (in 2020/2021) to £65 in September this year. I daresay there are others that charge less but the person that I go to is excellent.

I thought Mrs Bnc was high maintenance until we got a puppy. Puppy eats healthy food, no junk. I totted up the retail value of the cans and packets of dried food in the cupboard and it approaches £500.

The only thing currently I am irritated about is that my bank has written to say that from July 2022 it will be charging me £14.95 a month for my bank account which for the last 26 years has been free of charge.

[Lootman]

my bank has written to say that from July 2022 it will be charging me £14.95 a month for my bank account which for the last 26 years has been free of charge.

Ouch! Please tell me that is some kind of special account, and not a bog standard current account?

Perhaps it is only a matter of time before high street banks try and charge us for making interest-free loans to them.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

my bank has written to say that from July 2022 it will be charging me £14.95 a month for my bank account which for the last 26 years has been free of charge.

Ouch! Please tell me that is some kind of special account, and not a bog standard current account?

Perhaps it is only a matter of time before high street banks try and charge us for making interest-free loans to them.

Indeed spill the beans! I hope it's not a Barclays current account.

[Lootman]

my bank has written to say that from July 2022 it will be charging me £14.95 a month for my bank account which for the last 26 years has been free of charge.

Ouch! Please tell me that is some kind of special account, and not a bog standard current account?

Perhaps it is only a matter of time before high street banks try and charge us for making interest-free loans to them.

Indeed spill the beans! I hope it's not a Barclays current account.

It might not matter which one. If one High Street bank gets away with this, the rest will quickly follow, and there may be no place to hide.

[nmdhqbc]

money does not make me happy but it makes being miserable a hell of a lot easier

[scrumpyjack]

There is still plenty of scope to get free banking or banking where the bank pays you.

Banks would like to gradually push us into paying for it. I can't believe any bank is trying to charge 14.95 a month for a bog standard current account.
They may have added various freebies, like insurance etc, and are now trying to get you to pay for the package.

I have used NatWest for over 50 years. I voluntarily moved a few years ago to a paid for account (£2 per month) because the credits that came with it ran to about £20 a month in cash). They have tightened up but I still get £10 cash credit each month (£4.50 for up to 2 direct debits and £1 for opening the mobile app once), so they are paying me £8 a month for the priviledge of providing the current account to me.

Change your bank!