I wanted to write this short post as a reaction to a phenomenon I saw yesterday at a discount store: hundreds of people were running around in a discount store, which sold many items at extremely low prices. People were virtually falling over each other, just in order to get the cheapest item available. I got curious, and went in.

If there is one thing I learned during childhood and my teens, it is how important good friends are. Then, during education and throughout my career, I learned in addition to that how important a good network is; not only in respect to the many social contacts, but also to opportunities which may arise through the network, for example a job posting at the company you always wanted to work for. Many job postings nowadays are not even publicly advertised, as they are being filled through existing networks of friends, co-workers, ex co-workers, family, etc.

For quite some time I was pretty obsessed with money; I wanted more, bigger salaries, huge cars, the list is endless. This obsession started when I moved to a larger city right after I graduated, and I felt really bad to be at the bottom of the ladder, just starting my career from scratch. I saw BMWs and Porches driving around, peope I met were bragging about their brand new penthouse in the city center, a Maserati comes by with a 20-year old blonde at the wheel. I got so caught up with what I …

As soon as you spend money, it is gone and you will never get it back. Surely you will earn some more money, but it is not the same money. You have lost the money, unavailable for investing it, unavailable for paying back debt. Looking at things differently, you may actually have spent much more on your purchase.

Surely you know the process: you arrive at a club with your friends, pay high entrance fees, and at the end of the night you spent another 100 Dollars and you try to compensate for the high costs during the rest of the week. However, clubbing does not need to be all that expensive.