How much do you really need to survive?  Is there a level where we have much more money than we need?

What is Money? 
A Means to an end.  We don’t like money for its nice green color, but for what money will buy us.

How much money do you need to survive?
If you just want to live you don’t need much at all.  Food, shelter, safety?   What if all we lived off was just the bare minimum?  No car, just buses and bike, no restaurants, no new clothes (all secondhand) and no cable tv.  What did I just eliminate?  Luxuries.  The more luxuries you need, the more money you need to earn.

$40,000 income vs $400,000 income
Your chance of survival doesn’t really increase, but the amount of things you can have certainly does.  Will you eat more food with more money?  No, but the quality of everything you do probably will change.  You’ll drive better cars, eat at better restaurants, wear better clothes.

Why did Ed McMahon complain about losing a 5 million dollar house?  Who really needs a 5 million dollar house anyway? His house had six-bedroom, five-bathroom, 7,000-square-foot house and was worth 6.25 million. I know most of you probably won’t have that much money in your entire lifetime.  The point is, this house is a symbol of success.  It’s luxury and comfort most stars don’t want to give up. Greed?

What’s Greed Anyway?
According to my favorite source Wikipedia; “Greed denotes desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual, especially when this accumulation of possession denies others legitimate needs or access to those or other resources.”

How Much Money is Too Much Money?
When we have more than enough.  When you notice that you have more than enough possessions while those around you have nothing. Consider this fact:

The world’s total wealth is on the order of $130 trillion, and the population is about 6.5 billion, so it would be about $20,000 per person.

image via blaugh 

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