If You Had A Million Dollars...And Only One Million Dollars

   Let's play the "if" game...with a slight twist. What if you were gifted with exactly one million tax-free dollars...with a stipulation that in order to receive the one million dollars you would never be able to work again for the rest of your life.

   Would you be able to do it? Would you be able to live on one million dollars for the rest of your life? 

   It is possible, that much assuredly is true, but the question being put forth is, could YOU do it? 

   Do you possess the knowledge and necessary self-discipline to live the rest of your life (no matter what your current age is) on what proceeds could be generated from an initial cash position of one million dollars?

   There are thousands of people who have acquired a million dollars and promptly blown it - lottery winners, professional athletes and pop music stars are notorious for doing so, but it has also happened to thousands of one-hit wonder novelists, screen writers, promoters, Only Fans product producers, Tik-Tok influencers, trust fund recipients, entrepreneurs who hit on something that worked for awhile...and a whole helluva lot of heirs and heiresses.

   I have known (and still know) a few people who have literally blown a million dollars (and more, much more).

   Quite a few of the aforementioned are/were highly educated, smart, and driven type A personalities (natch) and that's why they were able to acquire a million dollars in the first place. 

   But all of them shared a common trait. They were money dumb.

   Oh yeah, there were no doubt multiple other factors involved, but the biggest factor was (and no doubt still is), they were money dumb.

   Being money dumb naturally implies that they were not money smart, and that's a fact of life for tens of millions of people. 

   Being money smart is not just avoiding being money dumb, btw. It is much, much more than that. 

   To the best of my knowledge, nobody is born either money dumb or money smart, which means both traits are acquired or learned (characteristics? skills?).

   Learning to be money dumb is fairly easy - you just have to ignore the fact that your supply of money is finite and just spend everything you earn on anything that catches your fancy regardless of cost.

   Learning to be money smart is fairly hard - you have to become cognizant of the fact that your supply of money is limited to what you earn and then learn that anything you purchase, be it only food, clothing & shelter or comic books, tattoos, sports cars or concert tickets are all expenses, and expenses need to be monitored and budgeted for.

   Learning to be money smart means learning how to work with money, and learning how not to play with money.

   Let me repeat that: Learn how to work with money, learn how not to play with money.

   Money is not a toy, it is a tool.

   Yeah, there are people out there who are going to scream at the top of their lungs that money is a tool of the devil - that money is the root of all evil, and thus capitalism is destroying the world, and that in a fair, egalitarian society with equitable wealth distribution, there would be no needs or wants and thus needing to know how to work with money would not be unnecessary, blah blah blah...

   We are dealing with reality here, not pie-in-the-sky utopian fantasy bullpucky. All the first-year idjits and Reddit-educated economy reformers can fcuk a duck.

   Idealism has made more people homeless than capitalism ever has.

   Learning to work with money means living in reality, not fantasy.

   I have known hundreds of people from every demographic imaginable over the course of a long and challenging life, and the cold hard truth is that the people I know who live in reality are the ones who accept that learning to work money is literally just learning to be a responsible human being.

   For all those who scream that consumerism is the problem, and that capitalism is the root cause of consumerism, I can only say one thing; pull your head out of your a$$.

   Anti-capitalist activists repeat that lie at the top of their lungs at every opportunity without anything remotely resembling credible evidence, but man do they get to feel all self-righteously social warrior-esque good about themselves for awhile. 

    But I am digressing a bit here. The question, Raymond, is, "If you were bequeathed a million tax free dollars, could you live on it for the rest of your life?

   Think about it. Have you learned how money works? If not, why not? Are you still living in a fantasy world wherein your needs will be taken care of by a wonderfully benevolent government (corruption free, with a bureaucracy staffed by competent, caring individuals who only have your best interest at heart...excuse me, I have to regain my composure here - writing that made me laugh a bit too hard).

   Look, let's get one thing straight. A cold hard fact about government is that it is never going to be free of predatory narcissistic fascists of every stripe that only want to be in control of you and your money, and the bureaucracy in place is only there to aide and abet them in that undertaking.

   This is true of every government on the face of this planet, from Haiti to Norway, from the United States to Mali. Accept that fact and then proceed to deal with it in the best way possible.

   And that way is by learning to work with money, not play with it.

   Fortunately we live in a day and age where learning to work with money is much easier than it has ever been in the history of mankind.

   Because if you are reading this you have access to the Internet, and the Internet is chock full of resources much more reliable and credible than this blog written by a halfwit of dubious background and education.

   That's not self-deprecating character assassination btw, that's just a truth I've learned to live with.

   Anywhatzit, we live in a wonderful time with wonderful resources at our fingertips, be it Investopedia, IBKR, Motely Fool, the timeless advice of Gerald M. Loeb, the incredible insights shared by Beth Kobliner, and even some of what Jim Cramer loves to shout (unmanaged debt is indeed the enemy of prosperity).

   So learn how to work money, stop playing with it.

Disclaimer: Nope, I do not have a degree in finance or economics or anything remotely associated with managing money. I also am not stating unequivocally that all it takes to achieve financial security is learning to work money. I am, however, willing to state unequivocally that learning to work money will do more good for your financial heath than harm.

P.S. No one actually go out and fcuk a duck. It's just an expression.

P.S.S. Insulted by anything I wrote? Damn, you need to develop some thicker skin.