How Money Can Make or Break Your Relationship

How Money Can Make or Break Your Relationship

Pam Krueger   Fri, February 24, 2023

One of the biggest financial decisions we will make in life has nothing to do with money. At least, not for everyone. It’s what billionaire investor Warren Buffett claims to be the most important decision he has ever made: choosing who to marry.

Love and money are often a volatile mix that makes or breaks a relationship, according to a survey from the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, with “money issues” being one of the leading causes of divorce. However, research shows that couples who are financially in sync often have stronger, happier, and longer-lasting marriages.

That only happens through equal participation in your household’s finances. Sure, relationships involve compromise and sacrifice. But it need not be disproportionate.

Whether your relationship status is on date number two, recently engaged, on thin ice, or together so long you can’t remember your anniversary, here are a few tips to help you build a healthy relationship while preserving your own financial well-being.

Recognize How Your Money Personalities Differ

Turns out, the old adage “opposites attract” may be more fact than fiction. A paper published in the Journal of Marketing Research found that “tightwads” (people who spend less than they would like) and “spendthrifts” (people who spend more than they would like) usually marry each other.

While personality differences cause some relationship problems, it isn’t the real root of money issues. The source of the problem is remaining steadfast in your own financial habits and behaviors. Merging those differences can reshape each other’s financial behaviors in a positive way. For instance, the spendthrift of the relationship starts saving more for long-term goals. Over time, couples can find themselves in a sort of yin-yang of financial balance, bringing out the best in each other.

Consider a study from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis who found that having a conscientious spouse can boost your salary by $4,000 and increase your chances of getting promoted. In other words, your better half may encourage you to change your behavior and take greater risks to pursue growth opportunities you may not have pursued otherwise.

Understanding your conflicting habits is an important first step. Getting there, however, doesn’t just come naturally.

You Need to Talk About Money

In a relationship, the best way to grow financially isn’t through accounting but rather through communicating. Couples who communicate effectively make better financial decisions, according to a Fidelity Investments study. The couples who say they communicate well are more likely to expect to live a comfortable retirement, rate their household’s financial health as excellent or very good, discuss finances together monthly, and say money is not their greatest relationship challenge.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/money-break-relationship-171227255.html

Do I Want a Revocable or Irrevocable Living Trust?

Do I Want a Revocable or Irrevocable Living Trust?

Liz Smith Thu, February 23, 2023

As you get older, there are two major things that you should consider. One is retirement. Having the necessary retirement savings and a financial plan will allow you to live the kind of life you want to live during your golden years. The second thing to account for is what will happen to your estate, and estate planning is not just for rich people. And having a strategy in place to pass on your assets will make it smoother for you and your loved ones later in life. A local financial advisor can help you with living trusts and other estate planning issues.

Defining a Revocable Living Trust

At the most basic level, a revocable living trust, also known simply as a revocable trust, is a written document that determines how your assets will be handled after you die. Assets can include real estate, valuable possessions, bank accounts and investments.

As with all living trusts, you create it during your lifetime. (There are also testamentary trusts, which don’t take effect until after you die.) Assets you place in the trust are then transferred to your designated beneficiaries upon your death. What sets a revocable living trust apart is that you can change or cancel the provisions at any time. Hence, the term “revocable” in its name.

Before we go into more detail about why you should or shouldn't get a revocable living trust, there are some terms you should understand. (You may also want to brush up on the basics of how trusts work.) Also, know that the exact laws governing trusts vary by state. The rules in Arizona or Florida won't be same same as those in Oregon or Michigan.

The person who creates a trust is the trust-maker. You will also see the terms trustor and grantor. All three words refer to the same person. Typically, the trust-maker of a revocable living trust is also the trustee. The trustee is the person who handles administration of a trust – such as keeping track of income and tax returns. One thing that you will do in your trust documents is name a successor trustee. This is the person who will manage the trust when you no longer can. The final term to know is beneficiaries. These are the people, organizations or other entities that will receive assets from your trust after your death.

How to Create a Revocable Living Trust

If you think that a revocable living trust is right for you, get ready. You will have to do most of the work upfront so that the dissemination of your estate is easier down the road. Start by taking an inventory of your assets. Then, think about who you want to inherit your assets and who you can assign as trustee. Once the document is drawn up, transfer any property you want covered into the trust.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/revocable-living-trust-210600597.html

Where Value Ends

Where Value Ends

James Kerr  |  Feb 17, 2023  Humble Dollar

I recently had a revelation about my adult children: When it comes to money, they’re a lot like me—and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing.

I had this revelation while dining with my 25-year-old son at a sports bar over the New Year’s holiday. The food was marginal—it was a sports bar, after all—but the plates came loaded with food. What’s more, the prices were quite reasonable, especially compared to those in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., where Liam spends the bulk of his time these days.

All of this made him quite happy. He has, he told me, three criteria for what constitutes value while eating out. The quantity of food comes first. Second is whether the cost is reasonable. The quality of the cuisine comes last on his list.

In other words, he could get outstanding food, but it would fail his value test if he didn’t get enough of it. His meal would really be a loser, value wise, if that superb-but-stingy dish also cost too much.

Now, let it be said that Liam is currently a law student and has no money. It could be that his criteria will change when he’s a bigshot lawyer earning lots of money, and can afford the best chefs and restaurants in the land.

But I doubt financial success will change his mindset. Why? Because he’s my son, and his frugal, value-based way of looking at money happens to come from me.

I’ve always been conservative about finances. It’s something I learned early on from my thrifty parents, who never made much money but were somehow able to make ends meet for a hungry family of eight.

Through my folks, I learned the importance of working hard, living simply and below your means, paying the bills on time, being exceedingly careful about debt, and socking away every dollar you can for a time when you might need it. While these time-honored principles will never land me on a list of the world’s richest people, I have been able to achieve a modicum of financial independence here in my early 60s.

All that’s good, I think. And I’m happy to say that my financial conservatism has been passed onto my three adult sons, who are quite responsible with their finances.

But there’s a point where frugality and penny-pinching become excessive, and I fear I’ve spent too many years of my adult life in that realm. It’s the part of me that has hesitated to take a fancy vacation because it will set me back $5,000. Or passing on a chance to have a prime rib dinner at a three-star Michelin restaurant and opting instead for a BYOB hole-in-the-wall because it will save me a hundred bucks.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2023/02/where-value-ends/

What Happens to Your Money if Your Bank Fails?

What Happens to Your Money if Your Bank Fails?

Jenny Rose Spaudo  Wed, February 22, 2023

Many of you might wonder what banks do with your money while it’s sitting in your account. But how many of you know what happens to it when a bank has to close down?

Thankfully, bank failure isn’t something that happens often. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), there have been 561 total bank failures from 2001 through 2022. The majority took place during the recession from 2008 through 2011, but zero occurred in 2021 and 2022.

However, just because most people’s banks don’t fail doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen to you. So what happens to your money in that case? And what can you do to avoid the risks of bank failure? Here’s what the experts have to say.

What Happens When a Bank Fails

The vast majority of banks are insured by the FDIC, although some choose smaller deposit insurers. If an FDIC-insured bank fails, the government-backed agency protects consumers’ money by selling the bank to another financial institution or paying depositors directly up to $250,000.

If your bank is sold, your money is typically available in your new account within two business days and your terms and conditions stay the same, said Levon Galstyan, CPA at Oak View Law Group.

“However, it may take longer if a large number of depositors are affected by the bank’s failure,” he added.

Direct Deposits, Pending Transactions and Bills After a Bank Failure

What if you have direct deposits set up through your current employer? If your bank is acquired, you shouldn’t need to take any action. Your deposits should be redirected automatically to your account at your new bank.

However, if there’s a delay and your accounts aren’t immediately transferred to another bank, you might need to reach out to your employer and have them temporarily redirect your paycheck to another account.

“In any case, it’s a good idea to keep track of your direct deposit information and to update it as necessary if you change banks or if there are any changes to your bank account information,” said Galstyan. “This can help ensure that your direct deposits continue to be credited to the correct account and that you have access to your funds in a timely manner.”

Keep in mind that direct deposits and pending transactions differ during a bank failure.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/happens-money-bank-fails-154603575.html

3 Banking Mistakes to Avoid Like the Plague in 2023

3 Banking Mistakes to Avoid Like the Plague in 2023

Story by Maurie Backman • Jan 29

The money you have in the bank most likely isn't money that landed there because you won the lottery or came upon an unexpected windfall. Rather, it's money you most likely worked for by toiling away at your job, and maybe even a side hustle on top of that.

That's why it's so important to pay close attention to your bank accounts -- and make the time to check up on them. It's also important to avoid these big mistakes -- both in 2023 and in general.

1. Not shopping around for a better interest rate on your money

The interest rate you earn on your savings account or in a CD might vary significantly from one bank to another. Even if your bank seems to be paying a pretty generous amount of interest, it still pays to do some research and see what other banks are paying -- especially these days.

A year or so ago, this advice wouldn't have really held up. Back then, banks were paying such a minimal amount of interest that there was almost no point in putting in the time to earn an extra $0.72 in interest in the course of a year.

But these days, banks are paying a lot more interest. You might easily, for example, snag an interest rate in the 3% range in a high-yield savings account and a rate in the 4% range for a CD. So if your bank is paying 3.2% on regular savings but there's a bank out there paying 3.7%, that's a big difference.

2. Paying overdraft fees in your checking account

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/3-banking-mistakes-to-avoid-like-the-plague-in-2023/ar-AA16RzGy

Three Blind Men and the Elephant

Three Blind Men and the Elephant

Please entertain yourself while being very enlightened with this story that is a parallel to  the Dinar - the Dinar Community and Dinar Intel Providers -  It was very well thought out and put together - Thank you Rhino!

Once there were three blind men who were given the task of describing an elephant. Each was led into an elephant pen by way of a different gate.

The first man approached the elephant from the front and groped around the elephant’s trunk. The second encountered the elephant from the rear and grabbed the tail. The last man walked into a leg and felt around that part of the elephant.

Then the men were led out of the pen and asked to describe the appearance of an elephant. Well, being blind, none of them had ever actually seen an elephant, but each of them did have a very real perspective from which to share; and share they did.

They all agreed that an elephant is round. After all, the trunk, tail, and leg are all basically round in shape. But that is where the similarities ended. Before long, the discussion turned ugly. Each man knew that he was correct. After all, he had touched the elephant! You can’t get much closer to a source that than that.

Two of the men, each armed with unequivocal, undeniable, unimpeachable information, felt compelled to argue their cases. They felt it was their duty to convince all other blind people the “truth” about the elephant. These two men looked for every opportunity to pursue their duty, sharing elephant truths.

And other blind people appreciated their efforts and began to ask questions. Some members of the blind community liked hearing about the “trunk” description. Others thought that the “tail” description was closer to the truth. And these two men enjoyed their new-found popularity greatly.

In order to have more things to talk about, one of these same two men, researched Braille articles about elephants. Unfortunately, some of the articles were written by folks with ulterior motives—ivory hunters, ruthless poachers, who cared only about the monetary value of elephants.

The blind man either didn’t know that some of the articles were intentionally deceptive, or perhaps he didn’t care. After all, the articles did provide talking points, which in turn increased his popularity.

The second argumentative blind man was content simply to argue. The louder he argued the more attention he got. Healthy, informed debate is good and productive. Too bad this one fellow would occasionally resort to name calling, all the while claiming to be the only source of real elephant truth.

Nevertheless, he maintained a substantial following among the blind community and, to a large degree, that was all that mattered; much more so than the elephant.

What about the third blind man? Well, he was out there all the time. He too shared his perspective of the elephant, his own brand of elephant truth. His perspective was limited too, but he shared what he knew to be true.

The difference is, this man stayed true to his mission—sharing truth about elephants. He didn’t rail against the tail perspective. He didn’t throw a tantrum when new trunk information got released. He merely shared what he knew and let members of the blind community do with it what they will.

As you can see, not all the blind men behaved the same way. They did however, have several things in common. They all had great connections (which explains why they were selected as elephant describers in the first place).

These connections afforded them a certain measure of special status within the blind community. Additionally, all three blind men had valid perspectives. After all, their descriptions of the trunk, tail and leg were all accurate.

And let’s not forget the last thing they had in common—they were all blind! Special status or not, they were all members of the blind community. Thus, while all of them had real information regarding a portion of the elephant, none of them understood the whole elephant.

Ultimately, the complete truth about the elephant resides with one Person—the Creator of the elephant. If only the blind men knew this. I believe they did. Perhaps all that talk about the elephant created a temporary blind spot.

Go Elephant!

The 20 Most Important Personal Finance Laws To Live By

The 20 Most Important Personal Finance Laws To Live By

By Ben Carlson   December 7, 2020

You could be the second coming of Warren Buffett as an investor but it won’t matter if you can’t save money and get your personal finances in order first. Saving money will always be more important than investing. As the saying goes, you have to crawl before you can walk. As a professional investor and money manager I constantly get questions from friends and clients about what they should be doing better. Here, I’ve distilled it down to 20 rules:

1. Avoid credit card debt like the plague

The first rule of personal finance is to never carry a credit card balance. Credit card borrowing rates are egregiously high and paying those rates is an easy way to negatively compound your net worth. If you carry credit card debt for a prolonged period of time, you’re not ready to invest your money in the markets.

2. Building credit is important

Likely the biggest expense over your lifetime will be interest costs on your mortgage, car loans and student loans. Having a solid credit score can save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by lowering your borrowing costs.

3. Income is not the same as savings

There is a huge difference between making a lot of money and becoming wealthy because your net worth is more important than how much money you make. Having a high income does not automatically make you rich; having a low income does not automatically make you poor. All that matters is how much of your income you set aside, not how much you spend.

4. Saving is more important than investing

Pay yourself first is such simple advice, but so few people do this. The best investment decision you can make is setting a high savings rate because it gives you a huge margin of safety in life. You have no control over the level of interest rates, stock market performance or the timing of recessions and bear markets but you can control your savings rate.

5. Live below your means, not within your means

Living within or above your means is how you end up going from paycheck to paycheck without every truly building wealth. The only way to get ahead is by living below your means and setting aside a portion of your income for the future.

6. If you want to understand your priorities look at where you spend money each month

You have to understand your spending habits if you ever wish to gain control of your finances. The goal is to spend money on things that are important to you but cut back everywhere else. And if you pay yourself first you don’t have to worry about budgeting, you just spend whatever’s leftover on the things that truly matter to you.

7. Automate everything

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://fortune.com/2020/12/07/personal-finance-advice-credit-card-debt-income-savings-investing-money-taxes-retirement/

10 Money Questions I Was Too Embarrassed To Ask

10 Money Questions I Was Too Embarrassed To Ask | Biggest Finanical Mistakes | How To Increase Earnings

Last Updated: August 16, 2022

At age 18 I took out a HUGE college loan… and wasted the leftover money on beer.

At age 19 I got my first credit card… and promptly missed the first payment.

At age 22 I bought my first truck… with an insane interest rate.

Now you may have been born with a degree in finance… but I wasn't – I had to learn everything through the school of hard knocks.  And I was too embarrassed to ask for help.  If I could go back and tell my younger self what to ask… these would be the 10 questions.

1. Am I Being Greedy?

Some of you may think you’re “obligated” to spend. It’s rooted in a belief that saving equals greed. You justify splurges as redistributing wealth. I’m afraid this mindset is warped. Spending less doesn't mean stealing from people don't earn as much as you.

Take my company for example. All the wealth tied to RMRS comes from the value I’ve created. My readers and subscribers find value in the 2000 articles, 700 videos and 200 infographics that my company has made. Advertisers see my content as platforms to promote their products. This value literally comes from nothing. And it's unlimited.

The answer:

No. There’s nothing wrong in finding alternative ways to earn. We must remember that many self-made millionaires these days created value out of thin air. No one was forced to buy their products. People valued them.

2. Can I Afford This Or That?

You receive your month’s pay and feel good. You’re tempted to spoil yourself – perhaps with that motorbike you always wanted? I know you’re checking your balance in the bank. That’s the wrong question to ask.

Obviously most of us would love a nice house and other luxuries. But now’s the time to focus on delayed gratification. It’s not whether you can afford the item in question. It’s really about thinking long-term – seeing more important things ahead.

The answer:

No. Replace the original question with “Could I afford it if I were to pay cash?” This helps you save and set aside money through every “No” that comes about. There’s no need to overthink. It’s automatic. You’re better off with a similar item that's used/secondhand for the meantime.

3. How Many Credit Cards Should I Have?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/10-money-mistakes/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=8n14tPHfHcA&feature=youtu.be

America Is About To Go Supernova

America Is About To Go Supernova

Simon Black, Founder  Sovereign Research & Advisory  February 20, 2023

On the evening of April 17, 1006 AD, a little more than 1,000 years ago, human beings from around the world looked up into the night sky and saw a brilliant light, the likes of which they had never before seen in their entire lives.  Most people thought it was a new star-- the brightest, by far, that anyone had ever observed. Some thought it was an omen or a sign from the gods.

We know now that neither was the case. The phenomenon that everyone saw that evening was actually a supernova originating more than 7,000 light years away from Earth. And scientists now refer to it as “SN 1006”, named after the year of its observation.                   

SN 1006 is especially famous because it is likely the brightest ever recorded in human history.

It was so bright, in fact, that its light could even be seen in the daytime. It was also seen by people as far away as China, Iran, Egypt, and Europe.

A group of monks in Switzerland reported being able to see SN 1006 for three months after its initial appearance, while astronomers in China’s Song Dynasty continued to observe the supernova until at least December of that year.

A supernova, as you’re probably aware, is an exploding star. It’s essentially the final phase of a star’s life cycle.

When stars are born, they’re nothing but gas and dust. In time, they grow into enormous stellar forces that cast their light and power across the solar system and give life to satellite planets. Everything in their domain literally revolves around the star.

But even stars eventually peak… and decline. They deplete their primary resources, and their core begins to shrink. Eventually, with its resources completely exhausted, a star begins to collapse… at which point it can explode in a giant supernova that can cause havoc and destruction across the galaxy.

This is in many ways a great analogy for empire. Like stars, empires are born from often humble beginnings. A handful of people come together in difficult circumstances, and the odds of success are very low.

But with luck, that small group of people turns into a fledgling civilization that continues to grow… and eventually rises into a vast and powerful empire that shines its light across the region, or possibly the world.

Like a star, everything else revolves around the empire; even tiny, distant nations are in its orbit and depend heavily on the empire for trade and economic activity.

But eventually the empire exhausts itself. It eats away at itself, depleting its most precious resources until there’s nothing left.

Just like a star that declines and collapses after consuming all the hydrogen in its core, an empire consumes the very things that made it successful and powerful to begin with. And when an empire declines and collapses, just like a star, the effects of that collapse cascade across the region for years to come.

It should not be a controversial statement to say that the world’s dominant empire today, the United States, is in obvious decline.

The US has steadily depleted and destroyed the very resources that made it so powerful in the first place-- things like freedom, capitalism, self-reliance, social cohesion, reputation, military strength, and fiscal restraint.

The latter bears some additional discussion.

On Friday I wrote to you that the US government had just published its annual financial report showing, among other things, that they lost a mind-blowing $4.1 trillion in Fiscal Year 2022, which was $1 trillion worse than the year before.

Going through the rest of the report, you’ll see them describe the utterly dire situation of Social Security, whose trust funds are set to run out of money within the next 10 years or so. They also forecast the national debt to reach more than FIVE HUNDRED PERCENT of GDP.

But what really struck me about this report... above everything else… was the cover letter; this is the one-page executive summary from the Treasury Secretary right at the beginning of the report.

You’d think with such horrific financial results and long-term projections that the Treasury Secretary would spend her cover letter calling for immediate reform and fiscal discipline.

But there wasn’t a single word of caution in her letter.

Instead the Secretary bragged about how great the economy is, and praised their ridiculous Inflation Reduction Act as “our nation’s most aggressive action to tackle the climate crisis.”

Come again? Wasn’t the Inflation Reduction Act supposed to, you know, reduce inflation?

But they’re not even trying to tell that lie anymore. Now they’re fully admitting that the Inflation Reduction Act was just climate change legislation masquerading as economic support.

The rest of her letter is more useless bombast… making it crystal clear that the people who prepare these reports are just fanatical bureaucrats steeped in their own self-righteousness, as opposed to responsible managers trying to solve problems.

So it’s REALLY difficult to study this annual financial report and not come away with a highly disquieting long-term outlook for the United States.

I’ve been talking about this for years, so this is nothing new to long-time Sovereign Man readers.

I’ve written extensively about the accelerated financial decline of the government. Fourteen years ago when I started this publication, I looked at the trajectory America was on and predicted rising inflation, dwindling freedom, growing social divisions, soaring deficits, and more.

But even I’ve been surprised at government officials’ complete inability to take these problems seriously, let alone come up with rational solutions.

Perhaps some day they’ll finally realize that they’re out of resources and that their star is about to collapse. They’ll look up in the sky and see the brilliant flash of light and realize, “Jeez we really need to do something about all this debt.”

But by then it will be too late.

When people across the world looked up in the night sky 1,000 years ago and saw the brilliant light of SN 1006, what they didn’t know is that the light was from an exploding star more than 7,000 light years away.

In other words, the star had actually exploded 7,000 years prior; it just took that long for the light to travel all the way to Earth and be visible to people on this planet.

Similarly, by the time the inhabitants of Planet Politician see the light of their fiscal supernova, the star will have already exploded long before then… and there won’t be anything they can do about it.

But you can.

You have all the power and all the resources at your disposal to diversify internationally, legally slash your taxes, put away more for retirement, grow your income, generate higher investment returns, protect your assets, secure your family’s future, and much more.

To your freedom,  Simon Black, Founder   Sovereign Research & Advisory

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/america-is-about-to-go-supernova-145937/

Not Dad’s Retirement

Not Dad’s Retirement

Craig Stephens  |  Feb 16, 2023

If you’re in a career you don’t love, consider your investments as the foundation for your next life phase. You may not have saved enough to retire outright—but it may be enough to launch a second act.

My father retired from a 35-year teaching career in 2002, when he was 56 years old. He hasn’t worked a day since. For years, his retirement was the primary model for my retirement aspirations—until I realized my path needed to diverge.  Like many dads, he worked a career he tolerated but probably didn’t love. It provided our family with a comfortable lifestyle in the suburbs of a low-cost-of-living city. Teaching enabled him to be ever-present during my youth, with summers off and time to coach my baseball teams. He took his pension and left teaching without hesitation when he reached retirement eligibility.

I missed his retirement celebration because I was halfway through a 14-month backpacking trip that took me to southeast Asia and South America. Upon my return, I was 27 years old, broke, unemployed and living with my parents.

Though my dating prospects were bleak, I had a finance degree and a few years of information technology (IT) experience in my back pocket. I was ready to return to the workforce. Inspired by my dad’s retirement, I set a goal to retire at age 55, one year earlier than he did, so I’d have the flexibility to travel the world again without the time constraints of salaried employment.

After six months of living with Mom and Dad, I landed a government IT consulting position in the Washington D.C. area, for which I was underqualified and overpaid. My salary snowballed. Backpacking the world trained me to live frugally. College finance courses taught me to contribute to my 401(k) and invest monthly surplus dollars into stocks. The foundations were in place to reach my retirement goal.

But one thing became apparent soon after I started my new job. I didn’t like government IT consulting. I worked on massive IT projects with hundreds of workers. My direct contributions rarely influenced outcomes or led to organizational improvements. I was a small fish in Lake Titicaca.

Job satisfaction was elusive. But I was okay with that because I mainly cared about the salary and benefits. The high earnings allowed me to save and invest to reach financial milestones. My IT career was the path of least resistance to early retirement.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2023/02/not-dads-retirement/

Really Useful Engine

Really Useful Engine

Jonathan Clements  |  Dec 14, 2016

My days are consumed with a hodgepodge of activities—writing books, speeches, radio interviews, my newsletter, blogging and more. What ties all these activities together? More than anything, I want to be part of the conversation.

When I first entered the work world more than three decades ago, I imagined that—once my finances allowed—I would happily retire to a rural area and retreat from worldly hassles. But now that I can afford to retire, I’ve come to realize it’s the last thing I want: The quiet, unproductive life would likely keep me happy for 72 hours before boredom and restlessness set in.

What’s the alternative? As we age, the satisfaction from external rewards—the promotions, pay raises, bigger homes, faster cars—tends to fade. We care less about what our bosses and our neighbors think. Instead, we become more motivated by work that we think is important and that we’re passionate about. These activities can be the cornerstone of a midlife career change and a more fulfilling retirement.

Being “intrinsically motivated” is often viewed as far more admirable than being motivated by external rewards: We’re undertaking tasks not because somebody is dangling carrots or threatening us with sticks, but because we think they’re truly worthwhile.

Yet internal and external motivation can’t be separated quite so cleanly. Very few of us would happily spend our days creating art that others would never see, doing good deeds that others would never know about, writing books that others would never read or cultivating gardens that others would never enjoy. We want to do good work—but we also want the validation of others.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2016/12/a-really-useful-engine/