131 | Bigger Barns

The "how much is enough?" question has been around since the advent of money and it will remain til the end of time - it's too personal and abstract to work any other way.

One place that many people have referenced to try and construct an answer is the following passage of the Bible...

Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Maybe you read that passage and think it's out of date and doesn't apply to our conversations and relationships with money.

Maybe you read it and find it quite easy to see a bank account, a 401k, real estate, or an ownership stake in a business as modern-day barns that store our surplus assets.

But even if the metaphor is easy for you to see, the practical application of it is as complicated and nuanced as it gets.

Reducing the concept of "bigger barns" to an individual “heart" issue seems like a cop out - like we are letting ourselves off the hook for transparent conversation and real transformation in our relationship with money.

But attempting to quantify it with hard numbers seems like a fool’s errand that ends in arbitrary lines and harsh judgments of our own or others' relationships with money.

As I reflect on it, I don’t pretend to have any answers, but I have so many questions…

If financial wealth is what we need compared to what we have accumulated, how do our thoughts about what we need impact whether we have a second barn or not?

Can you create a second barn by needing less so that what you have accumulated stretches further?

Can you eliminate a second barn by needing more so that what you have accumulated doesn’t last as long?

Does the nature of what you have accumulated - cash, investments, real estate, or owning a business - impact whether your assets are more or less like a second barn?

Does living off only the income of the assets you have accumulated count as a second barn?

What about accumulating enough assets that you never again have to reduce your spending or or even reflect on the quality of it?

If you don’t know you have a second barn, does it count as second barn?

If one person has a second barn, and another person has an identical financial profile, then do they also have a second barn?

If someone passes away and you receive the equivalent of a second barn as a result, do you immediately have a second barn? Or can it become a second barn over time?

Can a certain level of income count as a second barn, particularly if what you need is only a tiny fraction of that level of income?

Even if you give away most of your income, is that income stream like a second barn because you experience the security and power that comes from retaining control and discretion over the resources?

If you use accumulated assets to purchase an income stream, does that make them more or less like a second barn?

If your income is more variable than someone else with the same accumulated assets, does that that make your assets feel like less of a second barn?

Still no answers - only questions that feel like they are worth discussing.

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132 | A Friendly Reminder on Paying Taxes

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130 | A Statement of Belief