Comments on: Notions of scarcity: are you hoarding wealth?

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:59:47 +0000

Good wake up call Nina. I go through periods where I become obsessed for a while about money. Usually these are productive periods because the increased consciousness results in positive changes. For example I read about the woman who managed to live on $1/day food budget for 30 days. While even I thought that very extreme, the vast chasm between her budget and ours made me rethink and set a tighter budget. This has been a fun challenge and the reduced budget puts us that much closer to financial independence but it often crosses the line into all consuming focus and that's not really what we're about.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

By: Nina

Nina — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:34:00 +0000

wtto: Thanks for the link to Spade's piece on greed. While I don't agree 100% with what he says. For example:

I hold the basic belief that being rich is wrong. If some people are rich, others will be poor. It is the responsibility of the state and rich people to redistribute wealth equally (clearly they aren't doing a good job).

Yet, he is thought-provoking in so many ways:

I've been thinking about how to apply anti-poverty ethics to a life where suddenly the choice of wealth (by which I mean having more than I need), and all of the insane stuff that it entails may be before me soon. Suddenly, as most of my friends enter their late 20's and a lot of them, like me, are getting qualified to be better paid, greed and capitalism are replacing the firm anti-poverty values my friends purport to hold.

It certainly makes me think and ponder how to create that healthy balance between financial security, helping others and hoarding wealth.

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)

By: wtto

wtto — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:00:10 +0000

I think about this a lot. As a naturally frugal person, (maybe I’m naturally cheap and trying to learn to be frugal instead) I have an instinct to save every penny that I don’t need to spend right now. However, I work hard to make sure that I save only for actual goals of things that I want. I include in this goals of things that are not specific, like an emergency fund and repair funds for big things I have that may break.

But I have to be careful because my relatively cheap lifestyle combined with my saver tendency can mean that I’m saving without a goal. I would rather invest in sustaining my community and people who need a hand now, than just save and hoard the wealth. What’s the point of living and dying with a pile of savings? Why should people in my community who need money now be forced to wait?

My favorite piece by Dean Spade on the topic is this one http://makezine.enoughenough.org/greed.html

Current score: 0 (to vote for this comment, please visit the site)