A Sunday Thought About Money

I’m writing this in our sunroom. From here I can hear my wife Suzie and my four-year-old granddaughter in another room, deep in earnest conversation about fairies. Through the window I can see my grandson in the garden, alternating between kicking a soccer ball and shooting hoops. In the kitchen, one of my daughters sits quietly tying bows onto favours for her upcoming wedding.

A very domestic scene.

But to me, this moment is worth more than the entire value of my investment portfolio. If I were ever forced to choose between them, I wouldn’t have to think twice.

Such a stark choice is unlikely to ever arise, of course. But I suspect most of us would make the same decision if it did. And that tells us something important about money. For all its necessity, all its power, all the hours we pour into earning and managing it, when it comes to the things that matter most, it doesn’t even come close.

And yet money made this moment possible. It bought the house we’re all gathered in, the ball and basketball hoop my grandson is happily wearing out in the garden, the sunroom I’m sitting in as I write this. It provided the comfort and the space that allowed this ordinary Sunday to unfold the way it has.

Money isn’t the point. But it enables the things that are.

None of this is a particularly original observation, of course. But that doesn’t make it any less worth returning to from time to time. It’s easy to get caught up in the noise: the implications of the latest tax changes, the fine-tuning of a portfolio, the nagging question of whether we have “enough,” and whether social security will still look the same in the future. These are legitimate concerns, and they deserve attention. But they can crowd out the bigger picture if we’re not careful.

By the time I finish writing this, the moment I describe will already be shifting. The fairy conversation will have moved on to something else, my grandson might be inside trailing mud and looking for a snack, and my daughter’s pile of finished favours will be a little higher on the kitchen table. Just an ordinary Sunday, doing what ordinary Sundays do, slipping into the past.

But here’s what I’d invite you to consider. The real purpose of sound financial planning isn’t the portfolio itself, or the tax efficiency, or even the security of knowing the numbers add up. It’s this. It’s the house where your family gathers, the garden where your grandchildren play, the unhurried Sunday morning where nothing remarkable happens and everything that matters does.

So every now and then, when the noise of markets and legislation and the question of “enough” gets a little loud, it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself what the money is actually for. Chances are it looks a lot like your version of a four-year-old granddaughter talking to her gran about fairies.