MONEY will make you more of who you really are.

Look at where you spend your money and you'll have a pretty good idea about what you value.

Some people might reject this idea and say "I don't value my social life that much".

But when the rubber hits the road, you would choose to go drink at some joint than pay your child's school fees, you would allow your child to join the silly club of izikhothane so you can appear like you got lots of cash, you can drive a flashy car than have your own house.

Following last week's column I received some comments from readers about their true stories.

So you might think I'm crazy to write something as ridiculous as this, but this is so you know that there are people who are truly messed up out there.

Those who attend my money conversations are surprised when I tell them that we don't have a money problem.

I have seen the "not-so-broke people", the affluent people who live in high places; those who are "living large" and buy houses they could afford and fill them up with lots of stuff.

A few years later, they move, sell their houses to buy even bigger ones that will fit the stuff they bought. They buy houses so big and fill it yet with more stuff they don't use.

Ultimately, as a result of all the stuff, they spend more money renting storage houses to put the stuff they have not used.

What a mission. Why not give the stuff to those who need it the most? Why keep such rubbish? What is worse is the food that gets stored in their large refrigerators. The food rots and gets thrown away when others are nearly starving to death!

Let me talk about those who are "not so affluent". I mean those who kind of battle to make ends meet and yet they can manage to spend money buying fancy containers they hardly use, the dinner sets bought for visitors that never come, the brand new, never been used pots and the pressless linen stored away for special people while their children eat food cooked from inferior pots and sleep with old rags they inherited from their grandmothers.

One family man ran a cellphone bill of R12000, while he earned R8000 a month.

Another man rented an apartment for R3000, while paying R18000 a month for a car.

A woman bought a BMW X5 and couldn't drive it because she could not afford petrol.

A young guy used his first job salary to buy a "top of the range" (so he says) cellphone and got a bank loan for living expenses for the month - and you wonder why some people are broke?

Being broke is a choice. When we do crazy things like this we choose to be poor and broke.

Interestingly, when we feel the heat of debt, we have the audacity to blame our employers for not paying us enough.

We chose to be broke because we love it.

If we didn't want to be broke we wouldn't be. It's as simple as that.

Saying you want to have money means nothing if your actions contradict your words.