Money Wise Quotes

“So in ancient Rome, a person who was content with what he had earned had the option to sit on his wealth and eat a little bit of it at a time, confident that his gold would always maintain purchasing power. Do we have that now? Do we have the luxury of putting all our cash into a fixed deposit, and live off it? In ancient Rome, no one had to worry about inflation, because the amount of gold remained stable.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“As a general rule, then, while evaluating our investments we must remind ourselves to adjust them for inflation, because that gives us what is called ‘the real rate of return’. Even if your investments have grown at 20 per cent per annum last year, if the inflation rate for that year was 25 per cent, it means you’ve lost money. Too”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘A man in debt is so far a slave.’ In our modern times, we have coined a variety of terms that dull the slavish nature of debt. We refer to EMIs as ‘financing solutions’, we speak of zero interest and zero down payments, we hear about floating and fixed rates, but in its most basic form, debt is slavery. The possessions you acquire while you get into debt do not belong to you. They belong to the person who loaned you the money, and because so many of us trade our time for money, he owns your time too, and a tiny bit of your life. In the past, slaves were legal property of their masters. Today, slavery is practised in the form of monetary debt.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“The Way Forward If we’re to live frugally, if we’re to learn how to be more content with less, it seems to me that we have to first tackle these innermost fears and anxieties that compel us to indulge in reckless spending. One of the very first decisions we must each take in our journey to financial independence is to look at ourselves and say, ‘I’m okay.’ Saying it is not hard, but meaning it is. First of all, we must reject the financial script that the world insists on pushing on us. There is nothing noble or normal about working for forty years of your healthy life so that you can live independently in your final twenty. We must all believe that it is possible for us to retire early and enjoy more of life. Financial Independence, if you achieve it, will allow you to do so. Second, redefine success for yourself. Money and fame is the society’s definition of the word. What’s yours? A more loving relationship with your spouse? Bringing up your kids to be independent? Conquering your anger? Learning to dance? We all have passions that we have put on the back burner because of our careers, which we tell ourselves we will pursue ‘when we have time’. Write them down, and pursue them. Make time for them, the same way you make time for your work. Let’s face it; otherwise they just don’t get done. Third, accept that the world is inherently unequal and unfair. Your life is your own, and the only person you can – and should – compete with is yourself. Once we accept this, I think, we will find that envy touches us a lot less. We will welcome failure with good grace and success with humility. Most important of all, we will not run through life as though we’re in a race, and we will not feel the need, perhaps, to buy things in order to show people how successful we are.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“Often we think of prices rising, but the more accurate way of looking at it is a depreciation of the currency. It is not so much that milk has become more expensive, but our rupees have become less valuable because there are more of them now. The other symptom of inflation, one which does not make itself immediately apparent, is that it is a form of theft from the poor and the middle class. Inflation is great for the rich because they can afford to get out of cash into tangible assets as a matter of habit, but for the middle class, and especially the lower middle class, value is being stolen right out of their pockets on a daily basis.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“Money, money, what have you done? You’ve split up a family that lived as one.”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom

“Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man’s world Aha-ahaa All the things I could do If I had a little money… It’s a rich man’s world”
― Sharath Komarraju, Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom