The Time/Value of Money

These three forces consumerism, indebtedness, and excessive taxation are largely taken for granted by most Americans, and their casual attitude towards such powers leads to victimization. They know there must be something wrong with their impulsive spending habits, but they have not yet linked those habits to their inability to tune out the media hype that urges them to consume, at any cost. 

These same people long to have more money for retirement, for their children’s education, for vacations, and yet they realize they’re not saving anything. Unfortunately, they have not yet seen the correlation between their enslavement to credit issuers and their inability to save for the future. These people feel overwhelmed by the amount of taxes extracted from their paycheck each month, and by the way that estate and death taxes eat into their savings and investment nest eggs, but have not yet connected big government shearing with their own ignorance about the way the tax system really works. 

Money

These people see tremendous financial opportunity in the world but lack the skills necessary to control these powerful forces and harness the wealth and prosperity all around them. Without a big picture view of how these forces can affect us over time, we may be forever trapped in the moment, failing to understand what we call the “Time/Value of Money.” For those who live from paycheck to pay- check, the daily struggle to survive inhibits the ability to see the true value that money can have over time and the kind of return it can bring over the course of several years. Those who choose to remain in debt do not under- stand that the time it takes to pay off compound interest is affecting the long-term value of their money. The money that they could be using wisely to give them a return over time is instead being paid to creditors, completely stripping their money of any value it could bring them. 

Those who continue to pay excessive taxes, are in a similar fashion, failing to see the time/value of money because they don’t realize the value that their money will bring them over time if they paid their taxes correctly so they continue to let it slip through their fingers even though they don’t need to. People weighed down by consumerism, indebtedness, and excessive taxation have a difficult time understanding the exponential value that money can have if given a little time to grow. The time/value of money can only be explained to a point, and then it must be experienced in order to fully comprehend it. Many of the people we work with are so caught up in the worry and frustration of the moment that they can’t see what’s waiting for them in the future. Others think they already have all the answers about money management. Some of the hardest people we try to help are the financial planners and accountants who have an intellectual base of knowledge on how to deal with money, yet are thousands of dollars in debt because they do not fully comprehend the power of these forces, the emotional impact they can have on lives when they are taken for granted, and how a casual attitude affects the value of their money over time. Are you one of them?