Over a couple of beers nearly 20 years ago in San Francisco, my cousin laid out his financial philosophy. There are two types of money, he said: old and new. He wasn’t comparing the Roosevelts to Jeff Bezos. Rather, he explained, old money is the money you’ve already spent. “It’s gone, and it’s never coming back.” And then there’s new money, the money you’ve got to go get. He focuses on the new money, never the old.
I laughed, and let him pick up the check.
Over the years, as the number of digits to the left of the decimal point in my bank account ebbed and flowed, I learned that it is easy to embrace his attitude when I am flush with cash. When money issues are tremendously stressful, however, and I am mired in a string of slumberless, shame-filled nights, bemoaning my financial idiocy, his advice offers little solace.
That conversation from two decades ago is just one of thousands I have had about one of the world’s favorite subjects. Money occupies a special place in human existence, a topic that both bewitches and infatuates us. Consider the rich vocabulary we employ to discuss it: Benjamins, bread, broke, chump change, dirt poor, dough, filthy rich, greenbacks, impecunious, moolah, penniless, sawbuck, scratch. I want to move to England just so I can say “quid.”
My sporadic spells of financial turbulence have taught me to keep my basic attitude about money steady and realistic. A few observations: Money is important. Rare is the soul who gives it to you. Even the well-heeled will prostitute themselves to get some more of it. Spending some on someone else is one of life’s treasures. When money infiltrates love and friendship, fiery conflict is never far behind. If you want it, there is usually an honest way to get some. As a general rule, life is a lot more fun with it than without.
Inside the cocoon of your own thoughts, it is an easy but dangerous assumption to imagine that people around you consider money the same way you do. As safe and reassuring as that idea is, it usually takes but a few minutes of money talk to realize how quickly ideas diverge. Married couples offer spectacular examples, the spender and saver coexisting with a different sense of dollars and cents, proof that opposites attract. Recently, a friend said to me, “I don’t pay much attention to the right side of the menu,” meaning she just gets what she wants, price be damned. Meanwhile, her husband’s rainy day fund likely has its own 401(k) and health savings account. They seem very happy together.
Once outside of the U.S., different approaches to money become even starker. Initially, when I moved to rural Burgundy, France, I gave French attitudes toward money no thought. In the end, understanding the French financial philosophy was critical to my assimilation into French culture.
As is frequently the case in life, it was a combination of the littlest things that added up to the larger truth. To understand how a French person thinks about money, you first need to understand how you conceive of it. Most Americans, I would argue, tend to be comfortable with sums under 20 bucks. A recent standing-room-only crowd at Campion Rink for a high school hockey game didn’t seem to be bothered by the $8 ticket price. At King Arthur Flour in Norwich, the take-a-penny, leave-a-penny cups are often bulging with quarters. The man who mows our lawn told me that the previous residents of our house negotiated his price up by $10. The lines at Dirt Cowboy Cafe in Hanover are proof that people will drop considerable coin on hot drinks.
French culture showed me a new set of financial norms. French folks give you directions to the least expensive gas station, never the closest one. People in our town of 1,500 people told me that they never went to the local cafe for a quick espresso. “I can make coffee at home; the cafe is too expensive.”
A coffee in Burgundy costs roughly $1.40.
Over time, I realized that every person — every person — could tell me exactly how much to pay for a baguette. The locals would love to take a penny at the cash register, but there is no one foolhardy enough to leave one, so those little jars don’t exist in France. Great debate and cost/benefit analysis accompanied food festivals: Does the variety, quality and abundance of food samples on the inside justify the 5 euro entry fee?
Gradually, I realized that a Frenchman and his money are not soon parted. French people, scarred by wars and other difficulties too numerous to list, consider every cent a treasure, and they anguish over the smallest of sums. Compared with America’s easy-come, easy-go concept of cash, the Gallic m.o. forced me to alter my thinking about this delicate subject. My wife and I learned to nod in agreement about the outrageous cost of cheese (so much cheaper than the Co-Op here!). We commiserated with other parents about the escalating costs of school lunch tickets for our kids (4 bucks for a four-course meal. Babysitting included.). Soon, everything — haircuts, wine, newspapers — was cher (expensive) or, worse, trop cher (too expensive). Eventually, we spoke French you can’t find in any textbook, a language full of clues about money. Learning the lingo and mannerisms was fragile and challenging, but also great fun. We conformed every chance we got, even practicing phrases and attitudes with each other at home.
The rewards were unmistakable. See, once we showed French people that we considered money in the same manner that they did, the return on our investment was immediate: The French began to trust us, to open up to us, to welcome us, genuinely, into their world.
It was an experience that proved the most important truth about money: There really are some things that it just cannot buy.
Mark Lilienthal lives in Norwich. He can be reached at mlilient@gmail.com.