Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 52 of the Listening Time podcast.

Thank you all for listening. I hope you’re all doing well. I want to remind you that I have my advanced podcast available for Listening Time Family Members. So, many people have asked me to do an advanced podcast because they want to improve their listening even more and reach an advanced level, and they want to be able to understand native English when people speak at normal speed, so I decided to create the perfect resource for this. So, if you become a Listening Time Family Member, then you’ll have a new advanced podcast episode on the fifth day of every month, so: May 5, June 5, July 5, etc. So, make sure that you click on the link in the Episode Description below this episode. It doesn’t matter if you’re listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever… you can go below this episode and click on the link that’s in the description of the episode. That’s patreon.com/listeningtime

And when you click on that, it will take you to the membership page and you can become a Listening Time Family Member and then you’ll receive my advanced podcast on the fifth day of every month. So, the purpose of this advanced podcast is to help you understand native speech when people speak at normal speed. So, of course, in this podcast, the normal Listening Time podcast, I’m not speaking at normal speed. I’m speaking a little bit slowly and more clearly than native speakers normally do.

But in my advanced podcast, I speak at normal speed, how I normally speak in my everyday life. And of course, I provide the transcript to help you understand what I’m saying. So, your goal with the advanced podcast will be to make each episode understandable. When you first listen to the episode, it will be difficult, but if you use my repetition method that I always talk about, then it will eventually become understandable. Maybe after the fifth time that you repeat it, for example. You want to try to understand 100% of each episode. And this will help your ears become accustomed to real sounds… how words and phrases really sound in English when people speak at normal speed. So, this will be a great tool for you. So, make sure to go to patreon.com/listeningtime and become a Listening Time Family Member so you have access to that. Again, the link is in the description below this episode.

And I just want to mention that in the next episode of listening time, in Episode 53, I’m going to be talking about speaking English. So, I know a lot of you have been asking me to give advice on speaking English. And so, I’m really excited because I’m going to do an episode dedicated to that next time. So, make sure that you come back for Episode 53 so that you can get my advice on speaking English. Alright, so in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about money. This is a really important topic, so I’m sure it will be interesting for all of you. So, we’ll talk about that today. Remember that you have the transcript available for this episode in the Episode Description. So, just go down and click on that link if you need the transcript. And please remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful, anyone you know that is learning English and could benefit from this podcast. Alright, let’s get started.

Okay, so let’s talk about money. So, money is a very important tool that we use in our everyday lives. And you can do different things with money. You can spend money, you can save money, you can invest money, you can do different things with money. So, let’s talk about each one, and we’ll talk about different habits and different philosophies regarding money. So, first, let’s talk about spending. Alright, so when you spend money, this means that you buy things or pay for things with the money that you have. So, a basic rule would be that you shouldn’t spend more money than what you have. You shouldn’t spend more money than what you earn, for example. If you earn 50 dollars this week but you spend 60 dollars, that’s probably not a good strategy for managing your money.

In the past, this wasn’t that easy to spend more money than what you earn. But nowadays, it’s very easy to do this because of credit cards, right? So, I know many people that spend money before they actually have enough money to pay off that payment, that debt. In English, we use the phrasal verb “pay off” to mean that you pay some debt that you have. And the word “debt” just means money that you owe. So, for example, if the bank lends you money to buy a car, you have a debt with the bank. You owe the bank, and you have to pay off that debt eventually. And if you don’t know, the word “lend” means someone gives you money, but you’re expected to pay them back in the future. Right? So, if the bank lends you money, that means they give you money now, but you need to pay them back in the future. And the opposite of that is “borrow”. So, if you borrow money, that means you ask someone to lend you money. Okay? So, that’s “lending” and “borrowing”.

So, of course, you want to make sure that you don’t spend too much money. You don’t want to spend more than what you’re earning, because then, you’ll have a lot of debt, and it can be hard to pay that off. So, people need to spend on certain things like essential items. “Essential” just means very important or necessary. These are essential items. For example, groceries that you buy from the store, your rent that you pay on your apartment, the utilities… “utilities” just means electricity, gas, water, WiFi, things like that. So, of course, everyone needs to spend on these essential items and essential goods, but of course, we also spend on non-essential items sometimes.

So, what are some examples of non-essential items? Well, for example, we often buy things that we don’t actually need, but that make us happy. So, if you already have 20 pairs of shoes, you probably don’t need another pair of shoes, but you might want another pair of shoes. So, you might spend on these shoes. You might spend money to buy these shoes because you want to. And so, this isn’t necessarily a problem, of course. But if you have a lot of debt, and you don’t have a lot of money, this could be a problem. You probably shouldn’t be spending on non-essential items if you don’t have the money to spend. So, if you have a lot of money, then it doesn’t really affect you. But if you don’t have a lot of money, this could really hurt you financially.

So, every once in a while, I think it’s good… it’s perfectly normal to “splurge” in English. The word “splurge” means when you spend more money than you need to buy something that makes you happy. So, I think it’s perfectly normal to splurge once in a while. So, for example, if you don’t usually go to expensive restaurants, and you don’t spend too much money on food, but once in a while, you like to go to a really fancy restaurant, and take your wife on a date there or something like that, then I think that this is great. Once in a while, you can spend more money and really enjoy yourself because it’s not something you do every day. You don’t go to fancy restaurants every day. So, it’s okay to just spend that money once in a while. So, splurging can be perfectly fine if you do it every once in a while, but not every day.

So, some cultures and some people think that it’s normal to spend all the money that you earn. Usually, they get their paycheck. In English, your “paycheck” refers to the money that your employer pays you every week, or 15 days, or every month, or however often you get paid. You get a paycheck. So, usually these people get their paycheck, and then they spend all of this money, and then they wait for their next paycheck, and then they spend all of that money. And they do this again and again. And it’s very normal for them.

So, many people around the world do this, and many people have to do this because they don’t earn that much money and they need to spend all the money that they earn to pay for their essential items. So, of course, sometimes you don’t have the choice, but many people actually have the choice of whether or not they want to spend all of their money or save some of it. And some people choose to spend all their money when they get their paycheck. So, other people prefer to save a percentage of their money or save a big percentage of their money.

So, let’s talk about saving So, when you save money, this means that you put aside a certain percentage of the money that you earn. In English, the phrasal verb “put aside” means that you save some money. So, when you save money, you put aside a percentage of what you earn, and you keep it in your bank account or somewhere else. So, saving money helps you accumulate money over time. When you “accumulate” something, that means that you get more and more of it, right? You get it, and it grows over time. So, if you save money, you accumulate money over time, and you can save for a specific purpose. For example, some people save money so that they can buy a house or buy a car or something like that. Or other people just save money in general. They don’t necessarily have a big expense in the near future, but they want to save money in general so that they have more money in the future.

So, you can save for different reasons, and you can save different percentages of what you earn. So, I know that in some cultures, it’s normal to save maybe 10% or less of what you earn, and I know that in other cultures, it’s normal to save a lot more. I talk to certain students that save a lot of money. They save a very high percentage of what you earn, because it’s normal in their culture to do this. So, saving really differs around the world. When something “differs” this just means that it is different, right? So, the idea of saving and the practice of saving is different in different countries. So, it’s all about preference, it’s about culture, and it’s about your personal needs. So, some people really feel more secure when they save a lot of money, and other people feel secure even if they don’t save a lot of money. So, I don’t know if there’s a magic number of how much you should save. I think that everyone should examine their own situation and decide for themselves.

So, saving is usually a good thing of course, but we don’t want to just save a ton of money for no reason, and then we die, and there’s all this money in our bank account… and that was what we accumulated our whole life and we never used it. That’s probably not a good idea either, right? It’s not a good idea to spend more money than what you have. And it’s probably not a good idea to just focus on saving and accumulating the the biggest amount of money that you possibly can for no reason, right? There’s probably a good balance between these two extremes.

Okay, so lastly, you can invest your money. When you invest your money, you put it in some resource or spend it on some thing that can actually make you more money in the future. So, this has a few purposes. Of course, some people invest because they want to make more money in the future so that they can protect their wealth. When you “protect your wealth”, this means that you make sure that your savings or your money doesn’t lose value over time, because there’s always inflation. “Inflation” refers to what happens when your currency, like the dollar, the euro, etc. loses value over time. So, when inflation happens, that means that your currency, your money, loses value. So, if you have the same amount of money in the bank today, and you have that same amount of money in the bank in 10 years, that amount of money is going to be worth less in 10 years than it is now because of inflation. So, many people invest money so that they can protect their wealth, so that they don’t lose value over time.

So, that’s a good reason to invest money, because if you’re making more money every year, that means that you can probably beat inflation, right? Inflation won’t drain the value of your money completely. When we say that something “drains” something else, that means that it takes that thing away. So, if I say that a certain activity “drained me of my energy”, this means that it took away my energy. It lowered my energy down to almost zero, right? So, investing is good to protect your wealth. Some people invest because they just want to make more money. They want to have more income. In English, “income” refers to the money that you receive every month or every year. For example, when you work, you receive an income, your paycheck, right? So, some people want to have an extra income, so they invest and use this as a way to give them an extra income so that they earn more money, right? Or some people invest because they need money for retirement. They’re planning to retire in the future, and so they want to invest money now so that they have a lot more money when they retire.

So, what are some ways that you can invest your money? Well, you can invest in the stock market, of course, right? That’s a common investment that people can make in most countries. And you can invest in real estate, right? This refers to houses and buildings and things like that. So, if you invest in a house today, and the house becomes more expensive in the future and rises in price, that means that you made money, right? Because now your house is worth more money. So, that’s another investment. You can also invest in precious metals. “Precious metals” refers to gold, silver, things like that. So, this is a pretty safe investment because gold and silver are always valuable. Right? They’re valuable because they’re very precious resources, right? They’re important resources in our world. So, this is usually a safe investment as well.

And you can also invest in different currencies. If you think that one country’s currency is going to rise in value against other countries’ currencies, then you can invest in that currency, and it will probably benefit you. And one other type of investment that’s becoming really popular nowadays is cryptocurrency. So, many people like investing in cryptocurrency more than in other currencies because they see more value in this. They see more potential in this. I am not an expert in investing, so I have absolutely no advice to give you on what you should invest in. That’s everyone’s own individual choice.

So lastly, let’s just talk about whether money can buy happiness or not. This is the age old question that people like to ask. In English, when we say the phrase “age-old question”… an age-old something, it means that people have always asked this question, right? It’s a very, very old question. People ask, “Can money buy happiness?” And I think that the answer is “no”. I don’t think that money can buy happiness. But of course, I think that money is a tool that can help us in our everyday lives. If you have no money, and you have no way to buy your essential items and goods, well, you’re probably going to struggle in life, right? In English, when you say that you “struggle”, this means that you have problems, you have difficulties doing something.

So, if you have no money, and you have no way to buy your essential items, you’re probably going to struggle. So, money is an important tool, but I don’t think that it can buy happiness because there are many, many people that have a lot of money, and they’re miserable, right? They’re not happy. They’re not satisfied, because there are many, many other things in our lives that are more important and that make us even happier than money, right? So, I don’t think that we should have the philosophy that if we make more money, we’re going to be happy. I don’t think that’s true. I think that there are other factors that are more important when it comes to being happy.

Alright, why don’t we stop there for today? Remember to become a Listening Time Family Member to receive my advanced podcast episodes so you can reach an advanced level of listening and understand native speakers when they’re speaking at normal speed. So, click on the link below this episode in the Episode Description: patreon.com/listeningtime and become a Listening Time Family Member today. And of course, if you need the transcript for this episode, you can also find that in the Episode Description below this episode. So, click on that if you need it. And remember that the next episode is going to be a very special one. We’re going to talk about speaking English, and I’m going to give you some advice in that area. So, I know that you won’t want to miss it. It will be very beneficial for all of you. So, I’m sure you’ll enjoy that. Alright, well, thank you for listening to this episode, and I’ll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.