Spending on Yourself, Spending on Everyone

What this means

When you spend money, you are trading it for something you think is worth more to you than the money was. That good feeling you get from having the thing is called satisfactionThe happiness or usefulness you get from something you buy or do.. Buying a book you have been waiting for gives you satisfaction. So does buying a snack when you are starving.

Here is the interesting part. You can also get satisfaction from spending money on someone else. If you buy your grandmother a card, or chip in with your cousins for a gift, or pay for your friend's ticket when they forgot their money, you gave up the money and you still feel good. That is real. Making another person happy is one of the things money can buy.

There is a third kind of spending, and it is easy to miss because you never hand anyone the money yourself. Some things are too big or too expensive for one person to buy alone, so everybody in a place pays a small share and everybody gets to use them. This is called sharing the costWhen many people each pay a small part of the cost of something everyone can use.. A whole town paying together can afford a fire department. One family cannot.

Think about what your community shares. Streets and sidewalks. Traffic lights. The public library. Parks and playgrounds. School buses. Firefighters and police. Trash pickup. Clean water in the drinking fountain. Nobody bought those alone. Everyone paid a piece, mostly through taxesMoney people pay to the government, which uses it to pay for things the whole community shares., and now everyone can use them.

People also feel differently about all of this. What you believe is important to spend money on is called your valuesWhat you believe is important, which shapes how you want to use your money.. One person saves almost everything. One person gives a lot away. One person spends on experiences instead of objects. These differences are not right or wrong, and they usually come from how someone grew up and what they care about.

Why it matters

You get to decide what your money is for. That sounds obvious, but most people never actually think about it, and then wonder later why their spending does not feel good. If you notice which purchases actually made you happy a week later, you get better at this fast.

Understanding shared costs matters too, because it changes how you see the world around you. The playground you use is not free. Somebody paid for it, and that somebody includes the adults in your community, and someday it will include you. Things paid for together are still paid for.

Try it

1. Make a three-column chart titled "For me," "For someone else," and "Shared by everyone."
2. Fill the first column with three things a person your age might spend money on for themselves. Fill the second with three things a person might spend money on for another person.
3. For the third column, take a walk around your school or neighborhood, or use a map, and list at least six things nobody could have bought alone. Look for the ones people forget: the crosswalk paint, the storm drain, the street lights, the stop sign.
4. Pick one item from your shared column and find out who actually pays for it. Ask an adult, check your town or city website, or look at a school district page. Write down what you learned in one or two sentences.
5. Now think about yourself. Write down the last three things you spent money on, or would have spent money on if you had it. Next to each, rate how good you felt about it a week later on a scale from 1 to 5.
6. Look at your ratings. Circle the one with the highest number. Write one sentence about what made that one different.
7. As a class, without naming anyone, collect anonymous answers to this question: "What is worth spending money on?" Read them aloud. Notice how different the answers are, and that none of them are wrong.
8. Write a closing sentence that begins: "One thing I have learned about what I value is..."

Check yourself