My bank routinely scans clients’ accounts and automatically offers hassle-free loans to the eligible. I’ve been their client for a year now, and I haven’t received an offer when I’ve hoped I’d see one. Well, a few days back an offer appeared. For $15′000. Not much? Think again. I could live at least year and a half from that sort of money, not far from Prague. So it’s two years’ worth of basic needs, all calculations expecting I wouldn’t have to pay it back during that time, and I wouldn’t have any other income. But I have a job that covers my needs, so I don’t need a loan to survive.
Even if I omit that I’d have to pay back about 50% more within 5 years, and that the world is in crisis that might get hella worse and I might lost my job, and money might lose their value dramatically, I am stuck with another problem. What the heck would I do with 15 grand?
Car? Car is useful, but I don’t have a license, and I don’t really need it. House or apartment? That would be madness with such interest rate, and anyway, absolutely not enough to buy one. 150k would be more like it, and I’d have to pay it back my whole life, which is absolutely not what I intend to do. What else practical could I use? Furniture, sure. But since I intend to move world, I don’t want to spend money on something I’d need to lug around. So even if I did, all I need is a chair and a few shelves instead of bulky cupboards. $1000 would be more than enough. Appliances like fridge and washing machine, I have available.
Digital camera? Sure, DSLR would be awesome. Except that I wouldn’t use it that much, and I can buy more than sufficient equipment for $1000. $2000 if I was a snob and bought good lenses and tripods and stuff. Yes, I know, there are professional cameras/equipment that could chew ten grand like nothing, but what for? I would enjoy it for a while, then put on a shelve for a month, never really using it to its full potential, paying $300 a month for next five years. OK, I need a new computer. That’s something I use every day. But… I’ll be a selfish bastard and buy one worth over $1000 that more than covers my needs, and? I’ll buy ten, twelve computers? Five computers and four high-end laptops? Ugh. What else would I like… cell phone? OK, that’s $750 if I try hard.
OK, traveling is good, right? Sure it is. You broaden your horizons, you experience stuff, you’re hopefully getting smarter. But I don’t feel like traveling all the time. Super-expensive trip would only make me feel bad for paying so much for an experience that I would remember whole life, and pay for it equally long. Normal trips aren’t that expensive, but then again, there’s only so much time I can spend when I have a job and there are activities that I enjoy that don’t require traveling. And currently I don’t really have an imagination for places I’d want to visit. I do want to travel, but you need to be in an accessible mood to really soak in and enjoy the experience to the fullest.
OK, what about selfless stuff? Gifts for friends. Sure, gifts are awesome. But there is such thing as inappropriate gift, even when it comes just to the price of it. OK, I could buy laptops or gadgets to my male coworkers. They know how much I earn, they know how much such things cost, there is a kaleidoscope of awkward feelings they could have. Most probably, any true friendship would go to hell quickly. Don’t get me even started on female friends. The list of possible things that could go wrong is amazing, given that most of them are taken. Another option would be to just continuously spend money on small gifts, meals, drinks, that kind of stuff. Once again, it could either take a general direction of them trying to use me, or them feeling awkward for not being to pay back. Also, I don’t want to encourage that kind of irresponsibility.
Charity? OK, 15k over 5 years is an average of $250 a month that I could give to charity. Paying back the interest to the bank, it would make $125 a month that would NOT go to the charity, but to the bank. But I don’t trust charitable trusts. Even if they’d be honest, they still operate with overhead, and none of their causes have any real, permanent effect. Hell, and why would I spend $375 a month on charity, when there are billions going into arms? Let’s say there’s just a billion per month spent on arms. It would take 2.6M idiots like me to match that kind of money and give it to charity. Not to mention that money spent on weapons are almost directly countering the effect of charity. Thanks, no, I’ll rather help people personally, there is still a lot of opportunities.
No, I didn’t expect money to buy me happiness. I knew that. I knew money don’t have any real value, once they cover your basic needs. But seriously, I wouldn’t expect not to be able to come up with a way to reasonably spend $15k, in a way I wouldn’t regret. And I am an impulsive buyer. I’m pretty bad with money. OK, I would probably spend that kind of cash rather quickly if they were just mine and not a terrible, possibly crippling loan. Still, I’d buy a PC, maybe a new lappy, new cell phone, some furniture, pay back my loans, support my family, buy some gifts, take a vacation, buy a DSLR. Still, that isn’t $15k. I’d probably try to freelance for a while, and work on my projects, but I know I wouldn’t be able to discipline myself to being productive enough.
So yeah. I’m not too corruptible, at least not with money.