If you’re good in what you do (as in your work), you are rich – This is what my students told me the other day. I’m not coming to school anymore next year because I have to become rich. I don’t expect to create a fortune of 100 million in such a short time, but if I make at least a couple of million and make friends up to the level of 100, I have a chance. On the other hand, if I make 100 million and go back to teaching, how am I going to be received? Will my students accept me as a rich teacher or not? I dare not think about diplomacy. Is richness compatible only with richness? I believe that the biggest test of richness is to walk to work, to interact normally with others, in a nutshell, to have money as an attachment to your personality. If reality bites, no matter how much money a person has, I don’t think one is able to get back more than 5 million, if you count the guaranteed sum of 100.000 in several banks. Well, you should be a complex personality, because the international flow of money is no longer connected to strict criteria, and everything is counted by computers. Well, well, how much money can I make with a smart app? Bitcoin is very often mentioned, but it has been mentioned to me by a very serious banker that it is a shady concept. I must confess that I really enjoy having Swiss francs. I can’t even use them because they are very clean, and they oppose the saying that money is dirty. I think this is the best concept to save, to keep clean banknotes. You simply don’t want to use them. I had the same feeling with the British pound, but I felt that it was a better place for them in the bank. The euro banknotes look too consensus-oriented, according to my taste. At the end of the day, they are unique in the world, because the EU is the only organization with own currency. That is a statement of power. When you make such a statement of power, you can’t play it shy. You assume the power and you show it. Pure ego. In the financial field, at least how I perceived it when I was a part of it, this is the boldest move you can make: signs and colors on a banknote. Everything else is shaped by the market, according to the official statements. Who is who on the market? That’s a good question. The market is as mysterious as the dark net. But I need to focus on making money. The bankers I know will not help me even I’m on my deathbed. Who should I ask for help? I need around 3,5 million and friends with 95 million or simply a good-hearted billionaire. That cannot be, I mean, a good-hearted billionaire, because the billion would feel vulnerable and would run away. If you’re a billion, a good heart makes you feel lost. The best friend of a billion is another billion. My money runs from bank to bank to save me, and this year I received an official protest from my money. First, they believe that Swiss francs are unfair competition, and that’s their purpose, to steal the show with their impeccable manners. Second, they work from dusk till dawn to make me happy, although I’m impossible to live with from this point of view, because I am insatiable, and they get no recognition at all. They expressed the desire to lie in the bank for some time to rest properly because it’s infinancial (which is, according to their point of view, the corresponding word for inhuman in the financial world) to be treated like that. Who uses all the amount on the credit card besides me? The credit card is to be kept as a sign of trust from the financial world, so it’s better not to be used. If my money had its own legislation, it would be called financial harassment for what I’m doing to them. I listen to their complaints, and I present my excuses. I know it’s hard to work for me, but working for me means being alive. I always challenge all my money. I call my money fit money. It’s impossible to stay out of shape if you’re my money. I don’t like lazy money. That’s financial life. I wasn’t the one saying it, Frank Sinatra did it in a specific song. And he was right. By the way, they have wanted a holiday for the last ten years. That should mean for me not to spend money for at least one year. I’m sorry for them, but I’m a woman, so I can’t betray my gender and be money reasonable. And furthermore, money is the only faithfulness I have around. The level of betrayal of the human beings is astonishing, unfortunately.  Well, after internal consultations, they decided that if I don’t smile too much around the Swiss francs and I’m light-hearted after using the credit card, they are willing to continue to work for me. And, by the way, they love to brag about the fact that I have a PhD in intellectual property. It sounds very fancy, and it’s clear that I reject counterfeit money, and in a money competition, that is an advantage.

My inspiration for financial self-empowerment was the Girl in the Green Scarf. I bought a green silk scarf after I saw the movie. Mine is French, by the way. It’s faith’s hand. I am still not able to save money, but I am better at dealing with debts. Well, going back to the movie, what actually saved the leading lady from drowning in fashion debt was love. Love is the official answer for most of the problems of human beings. For the main male character, it was easy. He also spoke Prada. That is what I call fashion love. I found it wonderful that he knew what fits him in terms of clothes and that he was able to ask for the proper suit for the occasion. And yes, money talks. But it depends on the person whether they whisper or scream. It’s also funny when one is surrounded by people who consider themselves rich. They are not, according to the global perspective, but locally, people treat them as if they really were. God forbid to give the feeling that you are paying attention to your spending. That is a crime, and they are really scared to talk to anyone who doesn’t brag about their revenues. You don’t talk to them, you talk to the people who help them make the money. And it’s clear that they don’t talk to their money the way I do. I talk, and I make my money bring added value. If they upset me, I threaten them with the next financial crisis, which seems closer and closer, and that scares them. My money is resilient, but the so-called rich can’t afford to lose their money. My personal view is that if you’re scared to lose your money, you will never become really rich. In every billionaire, there is a defiance of her/his own money. On the other hand, if I need privacy, I just talk about what I bought lately and that I’m in financial trouble. The next second, I can relax because all the others are gone. It’s called debt loneliness. It works like magic every time. In the field of magic, I have to mention the fact that a lot of people are nostalgic about communism, in the sense that the country had paid all its external debt, and that was an extraordinary achievement. I tell them that this is probably one of the reasons why we are now so indebted, because it was really scary to see how the country looked and how poor, vulnerable and isolated we were with 0 debts. That was an illusion, by the way, because, guess what, some states remembered that they forgot to ask for some old debts, and they just recently found the paperwork to prove it. I imagine the key is how you use the borrowed money. If you use them for holidays in which you pretend you are rich, there is a problem. The same with a state: if you use them to brag about mystified data or false progress, then it’s a waste of money. If you use it for having answers and inspiration or ways to move forward, it’s well spent. One needs to pay for the truth and even more for progress. Lies are cost-free, but the truth is available only for the truly rich. You own the truth the same way you own the money. The rest is just pure and utter entanglement.

Still, I am expecting new adventures from the Girl in the Green Scarf. My green scarf is fading in its greenish color, and I need inspiration to start, once again, a fruitful conversation with my money.

Sofia Fodor