F**k You Money
If money is what you are waiting for to start enjoying life, you will be disappointed.
The concept of F **k You Money has been around for some time now and through a quick google search I found out that the interest in this term sorts of peeks up and down over time. I wonder what events in our society would lead people to look for this term. Anyways that would be a different post altogether.
So what does F**k You Money mean exactly?
It is the minimum amount of money that one requires to finally say that they are free or at least financially free.
It would be different for everyone since everyone has a different relationship with money. It could be 1 Crore, 100 crores, or even 1000 crore for some. The point is after reaching this amount of wealth the individual would consider himself someone who doesn’t care about money at all.
What’s your F**k You Money Amount?
Whatever that amount is, it sorts of becomes a singular point of reference for us that once achieved, all our lives’ problems would melt away? You start telling yourself that you will do X thing, or you will take the Y trip once you cross that minimum wealth barrier.
The reality is that the minimum wealth barrier is never a static point. It is dynamic, and it will keep moving as your life progresses. (You can read my previous post It’s All Relative! to understand what it means for you to compare yourself against a benchmark.)
Don’t make the mistake of interpreting this concept, that you don’t need money to be happy, you sure do. Being poor sucks!
Being poor takes away all the flexibility in your life. Living paycheck to paycheck is essentially running on a perpetual treadmill. It is only a matter of time before your legs give up or your body breaks down. Take this for an example, about 55 million Indians were dragged into poverty in a single year due to patient-care costs, according to a study by the Public Health Foundation of India. All these people were just one medical bill away from getting into poverty. I am certain a lot of us are not very different financially. This study was published in 2019 before the pandemic was a source of worry for the world. It would not be surprising if these numbers are even higher since.
I am sure most of us or rather all of us would agree that being poor sucks! But, being too Rich is not all rainbows either!
We all know about the richest man on earth, the founder of some amazing companies like Tesla and Space X. But most of us wouldn’t know about this interview that Elon Musk had with the NY times in 2018.
Musk admitted that the workload had made him miss out on his bothers wedding and didn’t allow him to celebrate his own birthdays! And Musk isn’t the only rich figure alone in this issue. Look at the paragraph below from a study conducted on 120 participants with a net worth of more than $25 million.
The point is we are all human and we all suffer from similar anxieties, fears, and 100 other problems and most of us are in a situation shown below
If you spend a lot of your time behind your career path, other aspects of your life will have to suffer. There is just no other way.
So what does F**k You Money mean to me?
Well, I definitely don’t want to live poor and allow my circumstances to dictate my life, but I also don’t wish to be Elon Musk Rich where the cost of money is the work dictating my life.
It is the level of money that allows me to travel when I want where I want. It allows me to buy groceries without checking the price of stuff. It allows me to take days off from work when I wish to spend time with my family or friends. And when I am older it allows me to send my kids to private universities.
Remember the F**k You money is the level which is completely unadulterated and comes with no string attached. It allows you to reach a state of mind where you don’t have to think about money. A wealthy person who has to miss out on his family functions or trips with friends does not have F**k You Money nor does someone who is waiting for their next salary credit.
Ironically, to know you have enough money you have to think about money.
Let me know what you think about your F**k You Money in the comment below!
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