Chapter 28 art of spending money

What is the art of spending money? Because some people have right and wrong when earning money, and have anxiety when spending money, and also cause right and wrong, so now spending money is more difficult than earning money, why? If the money we are talking about is just spending money on food and clothing, it is not difficult, but this money is very limited.The key is to spend the extra money. For example, if you have 10 million today, you can buy a five- to six-million-dollar house, a car, and miscellaneous things. Basically, these are the living expenses.But suppose you still have a lot of money, what do you do with the rest of the money?

In fact, when I talk about spending money, I mean expenses and expenses other than general living expenses. The key to the art of spending money is to coordinate three things well, which is very important to many so-called richest people. How much does a person usually spend in a lifetime?According to estimates, it is about 3.6 million to 5 million, which is basically enough for a white-collar worker who works in the company all his life. The so-called enough means that you have a house and a car (the house and car can also be mortgaged), You can educate your children, take care of the elderly, and then take a vacation every year-now vacations have become very cheap. Going to one place a year costs only 10,000 to 20,000 yuan in Southeast Asia, and Europe may be a little more expensive. This is good for the middle class. It's not that stressful.The so-called problem of spending money on art or not is more aimed at people above the middle class.

The first thing is to find the balance between spending money and happiness. A while ago, two domestic bosses bought two yachts in Shanghai and invited me to visit them.They held a party, and the 66-foot yacht was very luxurious, worthy of being called a "mansion" on the sea.Another time when I came back from Hainan, I caught up with Gulfstream to promote it, and let us take that plane back. "Gulfstream" is the Rolls-Royce in the air. Now I know that two friends in China have ordered it, and this kind of luxury consumption is increasing.I know that many friends around me have bought houses with hundreds of millions of dollars, and one of them will be installed in October. Let us visit it, and it is also in Shanghai.There are many such extravagant consumptions that emerge in endlessly, but how to spend money to find more happiness is a big problem.In many cases, spending money is not directly proportional to happiness. It does not mean that the more developed the economy and the more money you spend, the higher your happiness index will be; the highest happiness index in the world is a Gulf country, not Europe, not the United States, or Not Asia.

So what is happiness?Happiness is freedom, happiness, health, satisfaction, sense of achievement, respected by others, etc. The sum of these series is happiness.If you spend money on an airplane and don't feel safe, that's spending money but not happiness.Why do Gulfstream aircraft have anti-missile systems on them?Now the richest man in Russia, Abramovich, owns a super submarine that can dive 3,000 meters underwater in case of a crisis. This submarine is equivalent to a small joint fleet.This shows that he lacks a sense of security. Even though he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, he has become more and more insecure, because he attracts too much attention, and terrorists and everything will hunt him down. He has indeed been assassinated several times.

So spending a lot of money does not necessarily lead to happiness.The art of spending money lies in whether you can increase your freedom, happiness, security, respect, and personal self-realization by spending money.Therefore, we must find a point between spending money and happiness. If we spend money and be respected, we will be very satisfied and happy.Gates should be said to know the art of spending money very well. He donated tens of billions of dollars and spent the money all over the world, but his life itself is not extravagant.I once heard ordinary people comment on Gates at a food stall in Boao, just like we comment on a leading cadre, saying: "Gates is a really nice person, he is approachable, and he doesn't need the government to receive him when he gets off the plane. He goes directly to the meeting place." Yes. He is such a big boss (laughs), he can totally exaggerate. Because in China he has businesses, cars, and people, but he doesn’t make a big show, show off.” Gates He wins respect by spending money, and he finds a balance between spending money and happiness, and achieves the goal of being respected and self-realization of personal value.

Wang Shi donated his money—all his income other than salary, for example, to the mountaineering association. He used a small part when he climbed mountains, but most of them were used by others. In addition, he also promoted mountaineering in China The activity has driven many people to participate in this sport, so he has a sense of self-realization and has been respected by people from all walks of life in outdoor sports.He should be able to get a feeling of happiness by spending this money, and he himself has climbed Mount Everest. This process is a kind of happiness, which is the art of spending money.

In addition, you must gain a sense of security when you spend money.Many people have no sense of security after spending money, such as squandering, repairing graves, and exaggerated vicious consumption; such as the conspicuous high consumption in China today, yachts, private jets, including private trains in Europe. On the road, the brothers specially set up a carriage, and they are very arrogant in the carriage. This is a luxury consumption that once existed in Europe.This kind of consumption often does not bring social respect and a sense of security, so it may not be a consumption related to happiness, that is, spending money does not bring happiness, but brings more anxiety, more anxiety you There will be a lot of fear, and with a lot of fear you will become a slave to money.

The second art of spending money is to manage desires and balance money and desires. For example, if I want to eat meat, if I don’t have meat, I will buy it, and obtain a sense of happiness through the means of satisfying desires and resource expansion; if I buy meat and eat it, I will be happy.But why people all over the world who follow this path can't solve the problem of happiness in the end?The reason is that desires are always faster than the means to satisfy them, and desires can never be satisfied.For example, before the meat is bought, you want to drink again, so when the meat comes, you want to drink again, and your desire shifts; when the wine is brought, you feel that the wine is not good, so you want to drink foreign wine; foreign wine comes You feel that the environment is not good, so you have to drink in a better environment.Therefore, desire always rises faster than money, and the contradictions on the road of satisfying desire through money are always increasing.

We didn’t know there were yachts before, you don’t have this trouble, you think we can just have a car; after you order a car, read the newspaper, and there are yachts, maybe your new desire will arise before the car arrives.Money can never catch up with the pace of desire. This is the reason why human beings have many troubles in the world. Few people say that with money, desire stops there.If you take a closer look, when our wages increase, our desires begin to change immediately. When we raise wages next month, our desires have already changed this month. Once the wages are in our pockets, we feel dissatisfied.So if you want your money to buy happiness, you must master the art of spending money. In fact, you must control the growth rate of your money and manage your desires well.We usually make money at a pace like walking, but our desires grow very fast, so no matter how much money you spend, you will not be able to satisfy your desires, and you will never be happy.

So how do you manage your desires?The one that best manages desires, the one that makes people feel the most satisfying, and the one that can be happy with very little money is religion.Politicians and economists teach people how to let the accumulation of wealth catch up with the growth of desire; while religion adopts another method, regardless of the accumulation of wealth, but to slow down the growth rate of your desire, or let the structure of your desire There is a change, a change in the direction in which your desires grow.For example, let you care for others, increase this desire, and reduce the desire to eat meat.So you don't have to let your wealth run, but you should stop your desires, then pray for religion, ethics, and changes in your other values ​​to manage your desires well.If one day you manage your desires well, even if your money doesn't grow as fast, your happiness will increase.Therefore, in a society of money, you should especially learn to manage your desires, manage the growth rate and direction of your desires, and the composition of your desires, so that your sense of happiness will continue to rise.

When we manage a company, it may have been tens of millions or hundreds of millions in the past, but now it has a scale of billions or tens of billions. At this time, how do you manage desires to be happy?I think our team can cooperate well, in fact, we want to manage well.For so many years, our team has been relatively stable in terms of desire control, that is, moderate growth without that kind of extreme profligacy. We hardly play golf. We are relatively simple, basically just eat meat, and there is nothing wrong with it. As for the habit of extravagance, the company will not pay attention to a lot of exaggerated things, such as buying a Bentley car worth tens of millions to show off.Our reception is also very simple and normal.We have managed this desire well, so once we spend some money, we still have a sense of happiness.Solving the balance between money and desire is one of the art of spending money. The reason why many people collapse is because they can't grasp this balance. The third art of spending money is to find a balance between self-interest and public welfare. When you have more money, you must face a problem of self-interest and public welfare, which is your own business and everyone's business.We also include small teams, such as your community, which counts as everyone; the public and cities count as everyone; human beings, the earth, this is everyone.At present, quite a few people in China have mentioned corporate citizenship and social responsibility. I think there are three things that need to be paid attention to when dealing with public welfare. One is some positive factors in Chinese traditional culture, ethics and morals require us to accumulate virtue and do good deeds, such as repairing bridges and roads, taking care of the village, helping the weak, caring for others, caring for the surrounding environment, and so on.This all belongs to the category of moral requirements, and it is also the spirit that has always existed in Chinese culture for thousands of years. These spirits will prompt some wealthy people and most citizens to think of doing something that cares about others, even if you donate blood voluntarily, even if you do a charity event Activities, as volunteers for the Olympic Games, we should follow its requirements when we have the ability, because if you don’t follow this, you will have moral unease, which is equivalent to having money but you have no moral sense, which will cause inner pain. The second issue that needs our attention is that we have accumulated a large amount of property, especially after social progress, a considerable number of people have obtained the accumulation of personal wealth through professionalism, hard work, intelligence, and competition. How do you give back to society?When the United States was just developing, I encountered these topics. Many people created wealth through competition, and individuals had money, but there were weak and weak groups in society, and there were so-called class differences and disharmony. In the West, the methods proposed by Carnegie and Rockefeller are private property rights, the private enterprise system, and individual freedom, which cannot be destroyed.After creating wealth, how can wealth owners give back to society?We still adhere to the principle of individualism, that is, these rich people decide how to use their wealth to give back to the society. The government does not care, and we must adhere to liberalism; at the same time, we must insist on using the money efficiently, just as efficiently as earning money .For example, if Gates' money can't be brought, he can sprinkle pepper noodles everywhere.Bill Gates said that he kept reading "The Gospel of Wealth". This article fully expressed the social ideal of the wealthy people in their era, that is, money should be managed efficiently. Another point is to insist on arranging the use of money while you are alive, not after you die, because after you die, the money may fall into the hands of some incompetent people.For example, when we die, our property goes to a certain foundation. Although this foundation is called a social welfare foundation, if there are corrupt officials messing around in the middle, the money will be wasted.So, where is the money going?It must be a place that the state cannot manage.For example, traffic, although this road is not good, but because the government collects taxes, it will pay for repairs, so there is no need to use it.It should be used in aspects that the government cannot control but that are particularly needed for social progress, such as donating to hospitals to develop new drugs, because some cutting-edge drugs are too late for the government to manage. There are three major foundations in the United States, namely Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Sage. These three foundations have established a method for the rich in the United States to use their wealth.This is what I think we should pay special attention to.In response to the current problems in Chinese society, many people question social differences and wealth polarization.How to solve this problem?I am in favor of using Carnegie's method to solve it: invest in public welfare undertakings. This method can not only maintain the effectiveness in the field of production, but also solve the contradictions caused by disharmony and social differences in society.The method chosen by Buffett and Gates is to follow the rational path pointed out by Carnegie and other predecessors. This is the most promising path.