THAT OLD GREEN MAGIC

A man wakes up from a 20-year coma and calls his stockbroker. He asks the value of his $75 thousand worth of stock. The broker tells him $4 million. The man almost goes back into the coma. The computerized operator then comes on the line and says, "That will be $5 million for an additional three minutes."

What does money really mean?

When he was quite young, Grandma gave my older son, Tom, $2.00 to spend at the flea market. The first item he saw that intrigued him was a brand-spanking-newly minted dollar bill sold at the booth of a coin dealer. Tom liked the looks of the crisp, encased dollar bill. Though too young to do any serious collecting, he bought it for his $2.00.

As the day wore on and his fascination with the dollar bill wore off, he passed a booth selling toys. He saw a 60-cent squirt gun that looked better to him at that moment than the crisp, newly minted, encased dollar bill. He used the $2.00, $1.00 bill to buy the 60-cent squirt gun.

As we were driving home, my wife Jean and I mulled over the morning events and realized that Tom was not exhibiting the characteristics of a Warren Buffet (or maybe even a Jimmy Buffet for that matter). We, his sensible parents, had walked around a flea market for over two hours. We had seen many interesting items we would have liked to have, but being practical and business-like, we were going to save our money until we got well into our 90s -- then we could get whatever we wanted.

Now Tom, having parlayed his $2.00 to a 60-cent squirt gun with a few pennies left, did not demonstrate good business - not good business in the financial sense. But in the big-picture sense, Tom traded in money that has no value in itself and all day long had in his possession what to him did have value. His parents, on the other, hand drove home practical, business-like and empty-handed.

What good is our money, whatever the amount, if we don't have our squirt gun when we want it?


Lesson: A dollar saved is smart. A dollar spent is fun.