A very good piece of thought by Seth Godin, a famous marketing guru.
1. The amount of money you have has nothing to do with whether or not you're a good person. Being good with money is a little like being good with cards. People who are good at playing cards aren't better or worse than anyone else, they're just better at playing crazy eights.
(nhiều tiền, giống như giỏi đánh bạc, chẳng liên quan gì đến việc là người tốt hay xấu, đánh bạc giỏi là chơi bài nhiều, vậy thôi)
2. Money spent on one thing is still the same as money spent on something else. A $500 needless fee on a million-dollar mortgage closing is just as much money as a $500 tip at McDonalds.
(tiền không tiêu việc này thì việc khác, 500$ lãng phí cho món vay mua nhà triệu đô, cũng giống 500$ tiền boa ở tiệm ăn nhanh)
3. If you borrow money to make money, you've done something magical. On the other hand, if you go into debt to pay your bills or buy something you want but don't need, you've done something stupid. Stupid and short-sighted and ultimately life-changing for the worse.
(vay tiền để đẻ ra tiền thì tốt, chứ để mang nợ, mua sắm thứ không cần thiết thì đúng là dốt)
4. To go along with #3: getting out of debt as fast as you possibly can is the smartest thing you can do with your money. If you need proof to confirm this, ask anyone with money to show you the math. Hint: credit card companies make more profit than just about any other companies in the world.
(thoát nợ càng nhanh càng tốt, lưu ý: là các công ty thẻ tín dụng lãi nhất thế giới)
5. There's no difference (in terms of the money you have) between spending money and not earning money, no difference between not-spending money and getting a raise (actually, because of taxes, you're even better off not-spending). If you've got cable TV and a cell phone, you're spending $4,000 a year. $6,000 before taxes.
(chẳng khác gì giữa việc tiêu tiền và không kiếm được tiền, giữa việc không tiêu tiền và được tăng lương)
6. If money is an emotional issue for you, you've just put your finger on a big part of the problem. No one who is good at building houses has an emotional problem with hammers. Place your emotional problems where they belong, and focus on seeing money as a tool.
(tiền chỉ là công cụ, đừng có quá quyến luyến, chẳng ai xây nhà giỏi lại có vấn đề tình cảm với cái búa cả)
7. Like many important, professional endeavors, money has its own vocabulary. It won't take you long to learn what opportunity cost, investment, debt, leverage, basis points and sunk costs mean, but it'll be worth your time.
(giỏi về tiền, như các chuyên môn khác, cũng nên biết các thuật ngữ: chi phí cơ hội, đầu tư, nợ, đòn bẩy, điểm phần trăm, và chi phí chìm)
8. Never sign a contract or make an investment that you don't understand at least as well as the person on the other side of the transaction.
(đừng ký hợp đồng hay đầu tư nếu không hiểu gì, ít nhất cũng phải hiểu như đối tác của mình hiểu)
9. If you've got a job, a steady day job, now's the time to figure out a way to earn extra income in your spare time.
Freelancing, selling items on Etsy, building a side business--two hundred extra dollars every week for the next twenty years can create peace of mind for a lifetime.
(làm thêm)
10. The chances that a small-time investor will get lucky by timing the stock market or with other opaque investments are slim, fat and none.
(nếu đầu tư nhỏ lẻ, rình thị trường, cơ hội thành công hầu như không có)
11. The way you feel about giving money to good causes has a lot to do with the way you feel about money.
(thái độ của bạn đối với góp tiền từ thiện tương tự như thái độ của bạn với chính đồng tiền)
12. Don't get caught confusing money with security. There are lots of ways to build a life that's more secure, starting with the stories you tell yourself, the people you surround yourself with and the cost of living you embrace. Money is one way to feel more secure, but money alone won't deliver this.
(đừng nhầm lẫn tiền bạc với an toàn, cuộc sống an toàn còn có những câu chuyện bạn kể cho chính mình, bè bạn, chi phí sinh hoạt v.v..., tiền chỉ là một phần)
13. Rich guys busted for insider trading weren't risking everything to make more money for the security that money can bring. In fact, the very opposite is starkly shown here. The insatiable need for more money is directly (and ironically) related to not being clear about what will ultimately bring security. Like many on this path, now they have neither money nor security.
14. In our culture, making more money feels like winning, and winning feels like the point.
15. Within very wide bands, more money doesn't make people happier. Learning how to think about money, though, usually does.
(nói rộng ra, tiền bạc không làm con người hạnh phúc hơn, học cách nghĩ về đồng tiền mới thật sự như vậy)
16. In the long run, doing work that's important leads to more happiness than doing work that's merely profitable.
(về lâu dài, làm việc có ý nghĩa mang lại hạnh phúc hơn là làm việc chỉ vì lợi nhuận)
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