Love & Money: Does It Have to Be One or the Other?

Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it’s greedy or loving.

~ Dan Millman

Update: This post is featured in the Money Hacks Carnival #104: Have You Ever? edition at Rabbit Funds. Thanks Adam!

This post kicks off the week prior to Valentine’s Day, so I thought I’d do a little series on Love & Money. We begin today by looking at whether the two are mutually exclusive. There are many people out there who don’t care to use a budget, manage their money, or even give their finances much thought at all. For some, it’s because they don’t see it as important. For others it’s because they think that paying attention to money makes them cheap, superficial, or unethical. I know. I used to be one of them. Caring about money is often seen as almost, if not downright, sinful:

“When I have money, I get rid of it quickly lest it find a way into my heart.”

~ John Wesley

There are others who believe that money will make them happy. More money will make them even happier, or at least give them a sense of freedom and security:

“It frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.”

~ Groucho Marx

Albert Camus goes to the following extreme:

“It’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.”

~ Albert Camus

As you might have already guessed, I think we need a balance between the two. It doesn’t pay to live at either extreme. I can agree with Camus, at least partly, because I used to be such a spiritual snob. Like many young people, I viewed a lot of issues as black or white. The seasoning of age has taught me that most fundamental truths are grey.

Materialism vs. Spiritualism. Frugal vs. Free-spending. Avarice vs. Altruism. Love vs. Money. I used to believe only in the left side of the preceding dichotomies. Now I know that you can have love without money and money without love, but neither is ideal. I’ll throw in one more quote I like here that sums up the tough balancing act between money and higher ideals:

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.”

~ Robert Graves

I don’t think that a lot of money is necessary for happiness. I’m not sure if that’s what Camus was intimating or not. I just think that ignoring your money and abdicating control over it, regardless of how much money you have, can actually sabotage your higher goals. It’s pretty hard to help anyone if you’ve just shot yourself in the foot.

I revert back to my idea that money is potatoes. It’s a tool to be used for whatever we want to achieve. Everyone will choose to use it differently. That’s where ethics come in. You can choose to do good or evil with it, but money in and of itself is neither.

Are love and money mutually exclusive for you? Is love of money inherently unethical?