IT IS not about getting more money, it is about learning to put material stuff in perspective.

These past two weeks I met four people who seem to make more than enough money so they don't have to live from pay cheque to pay cheque, but they still do.

I saw their budgets and, interestingly enough, when asked why they lived on the financial edge, they all said they were not earning enough money and if they made X amount of rands more per month, they would be fine. This is a very dangerous belief to have - to think that more money is the answer. Don't get me wrong, having more money can indeed help with your financial situation. But if you cannot properly manage and control the money you have right now, what makes you think you will properly manage and control any additional money you receive in the future?

It won't make any difference if you earn more money because you will repeat the same mistake.

For example, if your income was R10000 per month and your debt was R6000, you have a debt to income ratio of 10:6. Let's say you receive a significant boost of another R10000, making your monthly income R20000.

Guess what? Your debt will probably increase to R12000 if not more. This is called Parkinson's Law: As your income rises, so do your expenses. When you have additional income, you feel like you have more buying power so you get a more expensive car. When you do this, your instalment goes up, insurance and other running costs will be higher. Of course you will want to go to more expensive restaurants, buy more expensive clothes and other good-looking gadgets. At the very least, the majority of people under these circumstances are highly likely to end up with the same amount of debt or get trapped into acquiring even more debt. Get the picture?

Parkinson's Law, my friends, is the biggest reason why people live from pay cheque to pay cheque and are just never able to properly manage and control the money they have.

Financial experts suggest solutions like making a proper budget, tracking your expense and save first then pay your bills instead of the other way round. But people still live from pay cheque to pay cheque. Why?

The odds are stacked against most people nowadays. We live in times of massive advertising, loss of job security, ease of shopping, credit cards galore, materialism and consumerism. People fake being rich via credit cards because we are living in a society where people are being daily conditioned to judge others by what they have, not by who they are. I'm reminded of Proverbs 13:7: "Some who are poor pretend to be rich, and the rich pretend to be poor."

There's nothing wrong with having stuff, but learn to put it in proper perspective. Pleasure from material things is temporary and, as human beings, we are able to adapt to whatever environment in which we find ourselves.

People who think amassing is the end-game will climb to the top of the materialism mountain and realise that there's not much else on the other side. As they look down the mountain, they'll find other people struggling to get to the top. Let's change our perspective this year.

Thedream@winniekunene.co.za