Wu Jun - My View of Money (Part 2)

We continue with yesterday's topic, and here I share with you my other four points of experience with money.

What is the essence of money? It is actually a quantitative measure of ownership and use of various resources, which in turn can be divided into natural resources and human resources. How to understand this sentence? Let's look at two examples.

If you're lucky enough to pick up a diamond, you have money because you own a portion of natural resources; if you buy a piece of land to build a house, the money you spend is exchanged for the natural resource of land. The same is true for the ownership of human resources. When you spend money to buy a car, in addition to exchanging a little natural resources such as steel and rubber, you actually spend money to buy the time of workers on the production line; when you ask a nanny to clean the room, it is actually to buy their time; of course, if you spend money to play games in the game hall, you buy the time of engineers in companies like Tencent.

As for why companies like Tencent can enter the gold every day, it is because they grasp the psychology of people who play games, and know that people who play games are willing to take out a lot of personal resources to exchange for that moment of pleasure. Of course, you have money because you provide your time to do useful things for everyone, that is, the result of commoditizing your time resources.

Therefore, the amount of money each person has reflects the total amount of social resources (both natural and human) that he can mobilize in the future. One person has 1 million savings and another has 10,000, and the former has access to natural resources, or can use 100 times the working hours of others. Of course, what natural resources you trade for money for, what you use others to do, is your business.

If you understand this essence of money, you can understand why I say, "Money is your own only if you spend it." When you spend money effectively, it is equivalent to effectively using social resources, and using social resources, it is possible to get more money, which is a virtuous circle, then the meaning of money is reflected.

If the money is left unused, it loses its meaning, and eventually God will take it away. Many people say that they are reluctant to spend money to enjoy spiritual products and services, which is actually to make themselves lose the possibility of using resources to progress. Of course, if you waste money, such as burning 1 million in cash (whether you actually burn it or run to the stock market to burn it), you are actually giving up your ownership and use of resources. When you think about mobilizing resources again, you find that you can't mobilize them.

If you want money to be used to the fullest, the best way is to use it to make the day better. For the three concepts of "yesterday, today, tomorrow", I have always felt that yesterday, whether good or bad, cannot be changed. If we've had a good time in the past, that's our luck, and we must thank God and those around us for that. If it's not so good, it's not too late to live today.

For the future, many people have unrealistic fantasies, and when I was a child, I always dreamed of a particularly good future, but after going to college, I valued today more, because there was too much uncertainty in the future. Using money to improve the quality of life today is one of my principles, not only to enjoy life, but also because the future is developed on the basis of today. Spend your money effectively and put yourself at a good starting point to have a good future.

As for whether to "save money", I think anyone needs a little savings to be emergency, so that they can get out of the predicament in the unfortunate event of one in ten thousand. But sacrificing your current life in order to save money is not worth it. This is my second understanding of money.

There is a price for getting anything in the world, and we talked about money yesterday, and indeed everything else. A lot of times we want to get some of our favorite, the most beautiful things, and that's human nature. Seeing someone you like and wanting to be with him or her forever; seeing something you like and wanting to have it; seeing spiritual wealth, such as fame, you also want to get it.

But getting them all comes at a cost, and more importantly, when we gain something, we can lose others. So for a lot of things that we want (whether on a human, material, or spiritual level), my principle is that they should make our lives better, not cause us trouble.

Some people ask me privately, "Do you buy luxury goods?" "And I said buy, and maybe even bought quite a bit, because they're really good. In fact, I probably do a lot more research on luxury goods than many people who regularly shop for goods and dry their babies. However, when I buy luxury goods, there is an important principle, that is, I can't make my life worse.

So, the things I buy for the sake of exhibition and showing off, I don't do. In the first two years, the media reported that young people used their kidneys to change their iPhones, which is really not worth it, because his life will be worse in the future. Not only that, but it is not worth it to lower the food standard for two months in order to buy an iPhone. I have seen many people in China, in order to make the house a few square meters larger, reduce food and clothing, and give up all entertainment and enjoyment.

In the United States, I have seen a similar situation, buy a big house, all aspects of life must be very careful, 10 years of driving a car can not be replaced, the family has no money with furniture, had to buy a bunch of simple furniture from IKEA, buy food always wait until there is a discount coupon. At this time, whether it is an iPhone or a house, the trouble brought to life exceeds convenience.

In fact, most of the industrial products have no collection value, if a rich girl, buy a bunch of LV or Chanel bags, change one every day, it is enough; if you hide in the closet every day and are reluctant to use, in fact, it is equivalent to wasting the resources that can be mobilized. I have seen many girls save money to buy a bag of 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, never reluctant to use, I always jokingly said, "Then why do you buy it?" "For what you like, if the price is to make life very bad, forget it, this is the third point of my view of money."

Money is earned, not saved, and everyone understands this truth. However, for most working-class people, the biggest distress when it comes to money is that they feel that they don't have enough money to spend. In fact, this is true not only for the working class, but also for the rich. There is a psychological survey in the United States, and when you ask how much money you have, you will feel free to spend.

People with an annual salary of 20,000 say that it is good to have forty thousand, while those with an annual salary of 40,000 say that they need 80,000... The last annual salary of 1 million, said that it needs 2 million, anyway, are twice the current income. Why twice? Because people with an annual income of 40,000 can't imagine how people with an annual income of 1 million spend money. Why do people with an annual income of 1 million feel that the money is still not enough to spend? Because when I get to that income level, I want to do more and spend more money.

Bloomberg told him that when he was mayor of New York, a billionaire came to him and said he was willing to pay $1 billion to improve public education in New York City. After thanking him, Bloomberg said that the annual budget for public education in New York is $25 billion, implying that $1 billion will not be as helpful as he thought. The rich man never contacted Bloomberg again after he left. I tell this story to say that even for billionaires, there are times when there is not enough money to spend.

Since we don't have enough money to spend, we always want to earn more. But there is an efficiency problem in earning money, by extending the working hours to earn money, this method is obviously not advisable, anyone who can easily earn money, is to improve the efficiency of earning money per unit of time. I mentioned in the first letter not to be a pseudo-worker, and in the 21st letter, I mentioned the relationship between sesame seeds and watermelon, which is actually about the efficiency of work.

Work efficiently, naturally earn money efficiently, but in addition to making money more efficient there is a secret, here I may wish to share with you, that is, must master some skills that most people do not know. If we think clearly that money is a quantitative measure of resources, the more scarce the resources, the more valuable they are, then you have skills that others will not have, you are a scarce resource. Today, everyone knows that skills are worthless, such as driving.

A while ago, a reader asked me, saying that a well-known person said that the future society can eat all over the world as long as they master English and computer technology, and asked me what I think. I say, you have to see if he raises his children in this way. In my opinion, those two skills will be the least valuable in the future. 20 years ago, you were fluent in English and had food to eat, and today you are a person living in the city who can speak English, and even if you can't, the translation software is good enough.

As for computers, in the future this skill will be the same as driving a car, and everyone will be able to do a little. Today if you have the ability to drive a car like an F1 racer, of course, you can also mix well, in the future your computer level reaches the level of top engineers, you may be able to make a lot of money, but if you can only write two lines of code, the streets are full of such people, maybe there is food to eat, but certainly can not make a lot of money. Everyone, whether doing things for themselves or for others, must find ways to have unique abilities. This is my fourth understanding of money.

The last and most important one. If you have a lot of money, as long as you don't take drugs, don't raise a junior, don't gamble, it's not easy to spend it, but if you want to increase your wealth through investment, you may quickly go bankrupt. There are many big families in the United States that have gone bankrupt in a generation or two, none of them have spent all their money because of buying things, or even because they have spent money because of drug addiction, raising a small three and gambling.

In the 84th issue of Luo Jisi, Mr. Luo told the story of Malcolm McLean, the inventor of the container, and at the end of the story, he achieved great success, changed the world, and in fact, he became one of the richest people in the United States at his most brilliant time. However, the story does not end there, and eventually McLean goes bankrupt and owes more than a billion dollars in debt, and this is only due to an investment failure (oil investment).

Similarly, the Hunter brothers, one of the richest families in American history, went bankrupt after a failed investment (a silver investment). I've spent more than a week talking to you about the risks of investing, because once it happens, it can ruin a person's life, or even two generations. So be especially careful when others tell you that you have the opportunity to invest and make a fortune.

That's how I understand money and material things. Finally, good luck to all!