Money can't buy you happiness but oftentimes happiness strongly correlates with the ability to buy and meet the needs and wants.

I find it saddening to see how some individuals earned less than their actual expenditure. This is especially with individuals with family to support.

The desperation to earn more in order to support and make the family happy, makes them vulnerable to ponzi schemes such as quick rich so-called investment with certain amount of money required. These ponzi scheme promoters often showcase photos of them holding sum of money.

Which attracts those who are vulnerable and in the state of desperation. This is further worsened when an individual is lack of financial literacy as well as awareness of financial frauds. Ponzi scheme, whilst it is attractive, it is rather eating up one's money over generating.

Though Ponzi scheme is a problem, personal consumptions behaviour must also be revisited and reflected. Are the consumptions sustainable? Sustainability of one's financial status can be revised through 1) Proportion of expenditure between needs and wants, 2) Saving behaviour, and

3) Outstanding debt.

Sometimes it is not an issue of one's income but spending lavishly on wants including recreation activities, trends as well as luxury lifestyle. While it is true that, "Your money, your choice." Unsustainable spending will put you in a situation where you..

.. have to borrow money from people and this money needs repayment. In a psychological perspective, ability to spend on wants will equate to an increase in happiness. It is one of the ways to keep good state of mental health. It is not wrong to spend on wants, but be cautious.

On the aspect of saving, it requires a lot of hard sacrifices by, somewhat, living frugally. It has been proven that, those who are rich saves large sum of their income to an extent of 75% is saved and 25% short-term personal consumptions.

It does not mean that we have follow that 75% of income to be saved, but to see the importance of saving in order to accumulate wealth for financial sustainability and emergency uses. Saving is a long-term wealth accumulation method to ensure we can survive in an uncertain future

Despite of that, saving can not be met if spending on wants are not forgone at the first place. The rule of thumb is to save first, spend later and properly manage our finance on what and where to spend it. The rate of saving truly depends, better have than none.

Moreover, saving would also mean you will be accumulating wealth for your family's future, not solely for personal benefits. Whereby with more than or just sufficient amount of saving will financially secure a family so that they can afford proper housing, health, education,...

... transportation, compulsory bills and other kinds of investment for the family. Meanwhile on the aspect of outstanding debt, it has been a major deterrence towards accumulating wealth as proportion of income have to be spent on repayments which is a definite loss.

Debt in the context of Brunei is usually in the form of personal gadgets such as mobile phones, tabs and laptops. Having debt to people or certain companies will reduce ones ability to especially save and spend on wants.

While deferring debt payment may be convenient in a short-term, it is dreadful and execrable in the long-term. Instead of accumulating wealth, we are accumulating debt to a point where we are unable to repay back what we have borrowed. Simultaneously, worsening your credit score.

On top of that, it must be reflected if our debt is healthy by looking through if the item we borrowed is what we truly required and worth the pay. Sometimes we loaned a lavish lifestyle such as latest mobile phones just to keep up with trend but is unable to repay debt.

Belief on money can not buy happiness is no longer relevant in this case as it has been proven associated. Being in a state of financially insecure and unsustainable spending creates vicious cycle of continuously worrying about income, simultaneously deteriorating mental health..

as well as relationship with people, particularly family members. In contrast, financially stable creates the sense of freedom aspired by many with financial struggles. Having large amount of extra money to meet wants, debt repayment and family welfare creates lasting contentment

In other cases, learning and applying capitalism knowledge can be beneficial as well especially when our finance is properly invested for a return-on-investment which creates wealth in a long run. But of course, with a degree of risks that needs to be understood.

There is a saying, "The rich is getting richer. The poor is getting poorer." Remains true to this day. One of the most significant reasoning behind it is that the rich understand the functionality of money and it can be invested for a larger return.

Meanwhile the poor often lack of financial literacy that they see money from its sole face value to be spent on consumptions. In other case, there is also income inequality whereby the poor is unable to invest their money for larger return due to budget constraint...

... in which their income can only be spent on daily needs and there is lack to none leftovers.

Some of the key takeaways in this thread are:
1) Danger of get rich schemes/ ponzi schemes.
2) Financial literacy.
3) Income inequality.

All three are good topics to be further discussed and studied!