Money keeps outgrowing me

Money has changed meaning to me as I grow older…

Of course inflation has had an impact on the worth of money, but I even see my kids valuing money similarly to the way I did as a kid, so I think what I type still applies today!

When $20 was a lot of money!

I once found about ten $20 dollar bills stuffed up on top of the kitchen cabinet as a kid! I quite literally thought I found some hidden treasure from the previous owners of the house and that I was rich!  At that point (I was 6 or 7), and I had never seen that much money.

At such a young age I thought I was rich! Heck, I even wanted to keep it a secret from my parents! My morals got the best of me though, and I told my mom about my discovery. She actually scolded me, telling me that I shouldn’t be getting into things. During the scolding, she told me she hides money for rainy days, and if I find other such hidden money… to leave it be.

When $100 was a lot of money!

Flash forward a few years (to the time when I was 10), and you’ll find that I’m impressed by the “Benjamins” at this age! While I didn’t own $100, occasionally I’d see them as my grandmother would count money from my grandparent’s businesses. While I didn’t think a few hundred would make me rich, I was still in awe of them!

When $100,000 was a lot of money!

During the age when I was 11 or 12 years old, I was playing video-games with my neighborhood buddies in one of their basement’s downstairs living room.  Just out of the blue, I started thinking about how much money I would need to live life without working. As I did the calculations in my head, I finally figured that $100,000 at 10% interest should be all I need!

Of course, I had no idea that the $10,000 I would make from my investments would be less than the poverty level for a family of 4 in the US nor did I consider taxes…

When $1,000,000 was a lot of money!

Before reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, I use to think 1 million would be the amount I should strive to achieve. I figured that if I made 10% on that amount, I would receive $100,000 annually. I thought I would be very rich at that point. I was 17 years old at this point in time.

When $2,000,000 is a lot of money!

After reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, I realized that I should up my target goal to $2,000,000! I’m not sure if I’ll ever reach that point, but it seems to the best answer. You see, if I had $2,000,000 I’d only have to achieve a 5% return annually to have the income from my investment earn my $100,000 annually. This is still a great target, so far!

Now I think 5 million or more would be a lot of money!

Yes, now I realize that not only do I have to have money from my investment earnings to spend, but I would also need a part of it to invest back into investments, so the portfolio could keep up with inflation. I also realize the 5 million might not be enough, and 10 or 20 million may be a much better number!

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over 5 million though. It would be nice…

What do you think a lot of money is?

-MR

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