“So if one doesn’t know how to make use of it, Critobulus, then money must be kept at such a distance that it isn’t even included among one’s assets.”
Socrates, in The Estate Manager, by Xenophon

This time of year a credit card can seem to take on a life of its own. It’s like a badly trained dog: we tell ourselves that it does what we command it to do.

But too often our card ends up being an incarnation of desires that it would have been better for us to curb. Part of this problem is in how we think about money. Current understanding and practice encourage us to think of our money as fundamentally our own and for us, and its use as subject to our whims and desires. In the view of most people—including many with traditional moral values—as long as we are not patently profligate with our money, or using it for morally evil purposes, then it is just fine to use it any way we see fit….

Please go here to the  Porch Republic where I have posted a reflection on taking a new approach to money in our households, with a memorable lesson from Almanzo’s father in Farmer Boy.

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