Money is stored value. The value of your time, your energy, your resources, your creativity, your skills, and your enterprise. Money is not coins or currency. It is the value behind.
Why Money Came into Existence
Before people started using money, they used a peculiar system called barter system. Imagine you have tomato in your farm. You want chicken. You’d find someone who has chicken and wants tomato. You will then exchange your tomato for chicken.
This system works fine as long as you have tomato and someone with chicken needs tomato. It becomes difficult when you have tomato, but the chicken trader wants carrots and not tomato. Both persons have something to exchange. However, they can’t.
There emerged a medium to help both the parties. And, that new medium is what we now call MONEY.
What Money Does
Money helps you exchange whatever you have for a specific value.
You can exchange your produce for money. You can then exchange your money to buy anything from anyone who’d accept money.
In this case, all parties can exchange their products for a specific money value. That is, if you have tomato, you can exchange it for money. You can use this money to buy chicken from someone who has it. You don’t have to worry if he accepts tomato. He accepts money.
Money Helps You Store Value
Money has another advantage too. You can store money for future use. That is, you can save money for your future expenses. It was simply not possible in barter system.
In other words, you can store the value you exchanged for future transactions. You can store the value – as money.
Now, the point is clear. Money is the value you get in exchange of the value you deliver.
In modern economy, you deliver your time, knowledge, and creativity in exchange of your money. The money you have is the value you have for exchanging something valuable to your employers, customers, or clients.
Money is not a material thing. It is not the number printed on the currency. It is the value of the life energy you have exchanged.