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Good morning,
I recently finished The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel, and it changed how I think about money in a quiet but lasting way.
It did not make me want to earn more money.
It helped me become clearer about how I want to use it.
One idea appears throughout the book:
Money is a tool you can use.
But if you are not careful, it will begin to control you.
That sentence stayed with me.
I realised how easily we judge how other people spend their money.
Someone buys coffee every day.
Someone spends money in ways I would not.
It is easy to think they are careless.
But judging spending is like judging someone’s route without knowing their destination.
What looks unnecessary to one person may make sense to another, because their life is different.
Their income may be higher.
Their responsibilities may be heavier.
Their priorities may not look like mine.
So I have stopped judging how others spend their money.
Not because every decision is wise, but because people learn how to use money from their own lives.
Their experiences shape their choices, just as mine shape mine.
Another lesson from the book became very clear to me.
There is no single rule for what spending leads to happiness.
What fulfils one person may feel pointless to another.
Most arguments about money are not really about money. They are about different lives talking past each other.
That made me think about how I want to live, early on.
No matter how much money I earn in the future, I do not want it to define who I am.
I do not want money to become a signal, a comparison, or a way to measure my worth.
Once money becomes a symbol of how other people judge you, you lose control of it.
Because of that, I am clear about one rule.
I do not spend money to please other people.
If something does not genuinely make me happier, calmer, or more capable,
and if it does not serve a real purpose in my life,
then it is not worth spending money on.
Not because it is expensive,
but because it creates distraction instead of improving my life.
The book also explains something simple but important.
If your expectations grow faster than your income, you will never feel satisfied.
Happiness does not come from constantly asking what is missing.
It comes from appreciating what is already in front of you.
When life is simpler, small rewards feel meaningful.
When you expect everything, nothing feels special.
What I am choosing to take from this book is not a strategy.
It is a way of thinking.
To use money as support, not identity.
To spend intentionally, not emotionally.
To build a life first, and let money quietly serve it.
That feels like the right direction.
See you next Sunday,
Yousaf