Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Doing the Work

Think of money as a worker. Or yourself as the worker. Pick one. Bad debt is when you spend money you don’t have, and aren’t about to get. So you now have to work for someone to pay for something that doesn’t exist anymore. Slightly better is when you know money is coming, but you spend in advance. So as new workers arrive, you redirect them to someone else. Still, the workers never work for you. Leverage (borrowing lots) is when there is horrible work to do, but you can get lots of other people’s workers (easy borrowing) to work for you. And you hope it works out (i.e. Gambling). Good debt is when you have a good project, with acceptable risk, that creates something of value. You can pay a reasonable salary (interest) to workers, with some certainty, and build. Only borrow when you have a clear plan to create value and have the strength of endurance (Capital repayment) and flexibility of resilience (interest payment) to make that value creation sustainable. The first step to financial freedom is not having to borrow to spend. Finding space to breathe. Borrowing for consumption is the key difference between working for money, or money working for you.

"Bauer beim Umgraben" Van Gogh (1882)

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