Earning, Saving and Spending Money

During the olden times, the trade of goods is done through what we have known as barter. Goods are offered in exchange for another. However, in this modern time, inevitably, money serves to make everyday transactions and activities possible. Money is offered in exchange of goods and services. Money has become a necessity. With money comes along the power and freedom. Thus, it can be said that today, money has become so powerful that it has almost turned our world around. Money has become so powerful that it has controlled our lives instead of us controlling money. Money can either make or break our lives.

It can either make our life happy or miserable. But, it would be best if money would serve to make our lives better instead of making it even worse. In order to achieve this, we shall consider money management for better money earning, spending and saving. In this paper, we shall discuss how to handle money so that we can manage to control it and not to allow money to control us. We shall discuss how money is earned, spent and saved. In everyday of our lives, we work to earn money so that we can have something to provide for our needs, both at hand and in the future.

However, it has become difficult to earn money, much to earn more money to save for the future. As it is provided by the National Endowment for Financial Education in one of its articles, “Life is a challenge. As the saying goes, just when you are about to make ends meet, someone moves the ends”. From this saying, it can be said that one of the most troubling problems that men have are problems that concern finances not only on how to earn the same but even worst, on how to manage them to make both ends meet and to leave something for the rainy days.
The issue of money management starts with the earning process. We cannot manage something we do not have. So in order to make both ends meet, we should at least try to earn and find reasonable sources of income. This challenge however, can be very daunting to some as problems of unemployment, low salary levels, and even personal circumstances like the lack of education, skills, training and aptitude for job placement can hamper one’s ability to earn money.
However, I do believe that nothing can stop us from succeeding with determination, perseverance, initiative and resourcefulness. It should be remembered that we earn money not only based on employment. There are also those we call as passive income from investments and also other forms on active income from services to which the only capital we might need is patience, and industriousness. In an article fore example written by Huffstetler, he enumerated various ways on how to earn extra money using simple money making ideas.
For example, Huffstetler advised to sell things that we no longer need. This can come in different forms like setting up ma garage sale or selling these items online, one of the easiest and most effective venues where buyers and sellers meet. Try also to earn money from hobbies and activities we love to do. Reading through the rest of Hufstetler’s advice, it can be said that earning extra money is also all about creativity, and productivity. To earn money, we should always try to make the most of our time especially avoiding idled moments.
After the issue of how to earn money is settled, the question now is on how this money shall be spent. Of course, this goes along with the question on how top spend this money in order to allow savings as well. In one of the books written by an evangelist named Bo Sanchez entitled, “Simplify”, he made mention that one of the best answers to these questions is to simplify. These means that we should not live beyond our means, and try to simplify things so that unnecessary expenses should be avoided so that money can go to the savings for future and more relevant use.
Setting money goals or setting expenditure ceilings are helpful in spending and saving money. It is always best to reflect on our spending lifestyle and see if there are some expenses we can forego and evaluate each expense if they are as relevant. Setting up money goals will help to motivate and encourage saving. With the money goals that we have, we can be guided if we are overspending or that if we should try to tighten our belts to fulfil our money goals and to set some amount for the savings.
As it is oftentimes said, money is perhaps one of the bets discoveries men ever made. However, as many discoveries turned into disasters, we should not allow our poor money management skills to turn money into the evil that it has now started to become. Money is something we should to make our lives better and not to make it worst. Thus, we should evaluate our money management strategies particularly on spending and earning so that we may avoid the common fate that money controls us making our lives miserable instead of being simple and more convenient.
As it has been shown, it is very easy to control money. It all boils down to having reasonable sources of money for earnings, proper spending lifestyle and the motivation and det4ermination to save for the future. Works Cited Huffstetler, Erin. “Ways to Earn Extra Money. ” 2009. 9 June 2009 <http://frugalliving. about. com/od/makingmoney/tp/Ways_to_Earn_Extra_Money. htm>. National Endowment for Financial Education. “Changing Your Life Through Better Money Management. ” 9 June 2009 <http://www. managingmymoney. com/>.