Your Money: The Missing Manual

Chapter 14. Friends and Family

"When you get to my age, you’ll measure success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.”

—Warren Buffett

This book has given you the knowledge and tools you need to build a better financial future. Using what you’ve learned, you can boost your cash flow to pay off debts from the past, provide for the needs of today, and fund your dreams for the future. If you put in the work and do the right things, you can get rich—slowly.

But to what end? Money is valuable because it can help you meet your goals. The point of building wealth isn’t the Stuff you buy or the money itself—these things are secondary. What matters is that money can give you freedom: freedom from worry, freedom to pursue your goals, and freedom to spend time with the people you love.

Living a rich life isn’t about making money; it’s about your relationships with other people. Because friends and family play a vital role in your happiness, this chapter explores some ways to balance love and money.

Financial Blueprints

In Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker writes that each of us has a “money blueprint,” a built-in set of attitudes and beliefs that affect how we deal with money. This blueprint is created by exposure to messages about money from friends, current events, TV and movies, and especially family. Unfortunately, most of our financial blueprints have flaws that prevent us from having ...