There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income. [In a Fox News interview in May 2004]

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.

That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense.

Well, it’s not the amount of money you spend, but how you decide to spend it that matters. “Every day spending choices unleash a cascade of biological and emotional effects that are detectable right down to saliva,” reports Harvard’s Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton in their brilliant 2013 book, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.

Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification — then you learn to value it differently.

Don't spend money on things... spend money on experiences. You'll enjoy life a lot more!

Spending is an opiate to many people, a balm to disappointments, frustrations, emptiness. If the individual transforms that inner distress, there is less need for drugs and distractions.

... the person who possesses wealth is not made happy by having it but by spending it, and not spending it haphazardly but in knowing how to spend it well.

A sovereign government's budget is not like the budget of a household or firm. Governments issue the currency, whereas households and firms use the currency. As the chartalist, or modern money approach, explains, modern governments actually spend by crediting bank accounts. It really just amounts to a keystroke, pushing a key on a computer that generates an entry on someone’s balance sheet. Government can never run out of these keystrokes.

This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.

Being swayed by people playing a different game can also throw off how you think you’re supposed to spend your money. So much consumer spending, particularly in developed countries, is socially driven: subtly influenced by people you admire, and done because you subtly want people to admire you. But while we can see how much money other people spend on cars, homes, clothes, and vacations, we don’t get to see their goals, worries, and aspirations. A young lawyer aiming to be a partner at a prestigious law firm might need to maintain an appearance that I, a writer who can work in sweatpants, have no need for. But when his purchases set my own expectations, I’m wandering down a path of potential disappointment because I’m spending the money without the career boost he’s getting. We might not even have different styles. We’re just playing a different game. It took me years to figure this out. A takeaway here is that few things matter more with money than understanding your own time horizon and not being persuaded by the actions and behaviors of people playing different games than you are.

There are plenty of other ways to get money, including chance, speculation, marriage, inheritance, theft, extortion, fraud, monopoly, graft, lobbying, counterfeiting, and prospecting. Most of the greatest fortunes have probably involved several of these.

And I think the question that the people of Jamaica, just like the people of the United States and everywhere else, should be asking is: If the government is spending money right now, is it on something that is going to help create long-term growth and help people succeed? If the answer is no, you shouldn’t spend that money. Spending money just for the sake of spending money is not -- that’s not the formula for success. But if the money is being spent on what we talked about -- early childhood education; if it’s being spent on infrastructure; if it’s being spent on research; if it’s being spent on building skills for workers -- those are good investments.

Don't spend what you haven't earned.

Avoid financial debt. Don't spend money you haven't earned.

Avoid social debt. Don't spend goodwill you haven't earned.

Avoid calendar debt. Don't spend (free) time you haven't earned.

The disciplined earner can be a guilt-free spender.