With credit cards you spend what you haven’t got and you go into debt more than you should.

In this country is almost mandatory to have a credit card. If you pay the toll booth with a Master Card it does not work and in many toll booths the payment is automated so you can not pay in cash. The only thing that works is the credit card.

But unless you have to go down the highway every day, you don't need a credit card to live.

Leaving our credit cards at home

From now on we decided to organize our domestic finances differently: at the beginning of the month, just after getting our salaries, we’ll withdraw a certain amount of money to take in our pouch, let’s say $ 100, and leave our credit cards well keeped at home.

The problem with credit cards is that you do not control what you spend because you do not see money coming out.

The card payment gesture appears to have no impact on the domestic economy, when it is just the opposite: it is the easiest way to spend without counting, the beginning of the disaster of your finances.

Now we get our only credit card for certain major expenses, such as shopping the month or going on holiday, when it is safer to pay with a card.

And to go shopping we make a list and we set a limit amount to spend that we should not normally exceed.

Having the cash in your wallet helps you to control it better, to count how much you spend, to think twice before buying anything and cheer up when you see that you can buy something extra for you with bills you didn’t spend.

All this is part of a healthy economy.

How are we going to control money with a credit card if you don’t see it?

Domestic economy the old way

I  remember the old days when the women in my family handled money at home. And although salaries were not very high, they always had money for everything. There always was a bill out there and they had provision for all expenses, then they went to the hairdresser, family outings or any other extras.

And as there were no credit cards, they could not spend beyond limits and have the bank account in red numbers.
The credit card has stolen us the pleasure to enjoy money because it is more convenient to have it, because it is safer if someone steals you, but mostly because it is easier to spend what you haven’t got.

I'm not saying we have to go back to those old times, but why not enjoy money as before?

A physics professor calls a colleague about a problem with a student who has just had an examination.

The teacher wants to give a zero to the student, but the student thinks he deserves full marks.

So the other teacher has to be the referee and decide on the problem.

And here's the examination’s question: How can you calculate the height of a building with a barometer?

And the answer given by the student was:

- "You tie a string to the barometer and glide it gently to the ground, then calculate the length of the string, that gives the building height."

This solution gave a perfect answer, but it was not the answer the physics professor expected, so they decided to give him a second chance and agreed to allow him 6 minutes more to find the correct solution using his knowledge of physics.

And the 5 minutes passed by ...

But the student had not yet written anything!

One teacher asks:

- You don't know the answer, do you want to leave?

And the student replies:

- On the contrary, I have many answers to this problem, I'm just trying to choose the best one.

And finally responds:

- You put the barometer on the roof and let it fall down while measuring the time it takes to hit the ground with a stopwatch. Then using the formula: x = gt  / 2, this is the height of the building.

But this wasn't either the answer the physics teacher expected, but the teacher that acted as a referee decided to give the student the maximum score.

After the examination was over, the referee professor called the student and asked him:

- You told me you had several solutions to solve this problem. Could you give me another one?

- And the student quickly replied:

- If, for example, you put the barometer outside in a sunny day, then calculate the height of the barometer, the length of the shadow casted by it and the length of the shadow casted by the building. After a simple rule of proportion we find the height of the building.

- Very good! - Replied the teacher, what were the other answers?

- We climb upstairs with the barometer while we mark the height of the barometer on the wall from bottom to top. At the end we count the number of marks to get the height of the building measured with the height of barometer unit.

And then he gave other answers:

- You can also tie the barometer to a string and swing it like a pendulum. Then you can determine the value of g at the floor level and at the roof level. Then you can calculate the height of the building from the difference in g.

And finally he said:

- There are many other ways to solve this problem. The simplest way may be to get down to the basement and knock on the door of the janitor's house and tell him: this wonderful barometer will be yours if you tell me the height of this building.

Finally the teacher asked if he knew the answer to the other teacher expected of him and admitted that yes, but that he was tired of teachers trying to teach him how to think.

This is a true story, that of Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics in 1922 ...

What can we learn from this story?

Obviously, we can draw many lessons from it, but for me the most important thing is to always seek alternative solutions to a problem! Our education teaches us that usually there is only one solution to a problem, the famous dogma of mathematics ... but it is wrong!

We live in times where we need more imagination (and more action), as the sources of income, the more you have, the more security you’ll get. Here are some more solutions that will likely help you to live in prosperity and ignore the crisis ...

The idea is to get out of your comfort zone and try new things ... If you're like everyone else, you will have the same results as everyone else ...

And you, what lessons do you take from this story?

Have you ever imagined how the world would be like without money? Recently I was talking to a great friend of mine who was explaining to me his ideas about money and this made me to think about it.

According to him, an ideal world would  perfectly run without money because everyone could contribute according to their ability and receive according to his need.
Money is needed only because of the exchange of the property on which our society is built, if there were any other way to organize society then money would not be needed.

This long conversation made me think about many questions:

• Why do we think that in a perfect world there would be no money?
• If we remove money, would this make a perfect world?
• And since we are talking about an economy of services, who would organize the equivalences?

In ancient times people used barter to get things: I give you a goat in exchange of four sacks of wheat, but who said that a goat was worth four sacks of wheat?

With barter one of the value scales is time: if it takes six months to raise a goat, for example, this is worth more than a crock pot that you can manufacture in one single day.

In our modern times we would need an enormous reorganization to determine a worth scale to sustain a balanced economy without money.

In my humble opinion money is not the cause of all the ills of the world, that would be a very easy way out for some who try to evade responsibility, but human condition should change to adapt to the new organization.

But if money is not the cause of all evil, why do without it?

Have you watched the film "In time" with Justin Timberlake? there's a good example of a world without money, a world in which time is the universal currency, when someone wants to get something he’d pay with a portion of his life time and work’s salary is time, more life to live.
The horrible thing is that when someone didn’t have anymore time left just died.

But going back to the main subject here's what I think of money:

•     It is a world heritage whose price has to be determined fairly.
•     It is a tool that we have to learn to use.
•     It's what we exchange for something that has value, but money itself has no value, it is only a tool.

What do you think?