Financial First Aid

There is the story of the old king who sent three servants on a quest to gather the world’s most imprtant knowledge.  Upon returning the servants presented their discoveries one at a time to the king. 

Proudly, the first servant brought in stacks and stacks of dusty manuscripts to the king, who declared that he hadn’t the time to read all of them before his death–so “off with the servant’s head.”  Seeing the calamity that befell their friend, the other two servants quickly consolidated the information they had collected. 

The second servant brought the king much less information than the first, but unfortunaltely his fate was the same. 

The last servant’s time came and he presented the king a small piece of paper.   The king read the information, smiled, and then declared a rich reward for the last servant.  

So what was the condensed wisdom of the world that pleased the king?  The wise servant had written:  “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  (For a more historically-accurate account of a this expression, see TANSTAAFL.)

Advertisers long ago learned that nothing catches consumers’ attention quite like the word free.  But is anything truely without cost?  No!  Although some items may not require a financial expenditure, every action requires an expenditure of time.  Do you want to spend your limited time and resources on the pursuit of that “free” toaster, or on other things of greater importance?  The wise Financial First Aider will stay clear of those costly, free opportunities.

It’s a reality of life that most people don’t have enough resources to meet all of their wants.  (In fact, it is this fundamental conflict resulting from unlimited wants and limited resources that keep economists employed.)  Most people don’t want to face this reality because they have been told (and believe) that if they just work hard enough they can have all that they want.

However, even the wealthiest people, while they can consume more, are constrained by resources, the most limiting resource often being time.  Everyone, unless it is their first or last day of life, has the same amount of time in a day. Regardless of how many houses or cars the wealthy (or the rest of us) accumulate, they can’t create more time to use and “enjoy” them. Also, research indicates that all that additional wealth has little impact on their personal happiness.

If we quit using all of our time and energy trying to accumulate everything, and focus on fewer things, we can have almost everything that is really important to us.  Therefore, the first task in this most difficult process of changing attitudes and behaviors is to identify what is really important.  One Financial First Aid exercise that will help is The Five Most Important.  If we aren’t spending our time and money on what’s most important, we are wasting both.