One day, as the old man was sipping his tea and enjoying the sunrise, he noticed a rather unusual sight.  Coming up the mountain were three nobleman from three neighboring villages.  One was dressed in blue, from the hat ornamented with peacock feathers on his head to the velvet shoes on his feet.  Another was dressed completely in a rich, dark green, and he had emeralds as buttons on his coat, which sparkled as they caught the sun’s new light.  The third man was dressed all in brown and white, from his ermine-trimmed cape to the thick breeches that tapered into his chocolate-colored leather shoes.   They all looked very determined, and very angry.

“Wise elder,” spoke the nobleman in blue as he crested the ridge. “We have been having a heated discussion all night, and we need your help in choosing a winner in the argument.”

The old man scratched his chin and in a gravelly voice whispered, “Go on.”

“See, oh wise one,” continued the nobleman in green, “each of us is very rich, but in different ways.  We need you to determine which of us is richest, so that it may be known throughout the land.”

“It’s true,” added the rich man in brown, “Sire, I have the largest livery, with carriages and horses enough for all the land’s inhabitants.  My stables produce fine steeds each year, and every summer I have new carriages built that are covered in jewels and painted by artisans who are skilled enough to have painted for the king.  There could be no man more wealthy than I.”

“Hmmmmm….” the old man pondered and looked at the ground.

“While a livery is important, oh wise one, I have the largest manor in the land,” stated the rich man in green. “My manor houses my family and all of our many servants.  We add rooms to it each year, and we fill the chambers with the finest of furniture imported from all over the world.  Surely a man who could build such a manor house is the richest in all the country.”

“Revered elder,” begins the rich man in blue, no sooner than the last word was out of the previous man’s mouth. “While a fine livery and a great manor are definitely signs of great wealth, there could be no indicator more important than land.”  He looked at his two other peers with a smile.  “After all, the people who work my land bring me great wealth each year as crops are harvested, so not only do I start out the wealthiest, but I become more and more so with every passing day.”

The three nobleman looked to the wise man, who was still looking at the ground, doodling in the sand at his feet with a small twig.  Did he hear what they had told him?  Didn’t he realize how important, how serious, their need was to know who indeed was the richest?

Finally the wise man looked up with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. “Why, it is easy to choose the richest man in the land.” He paused.  “The richest man in the land is not the one with the largest livery.”  The shoulders of the rich man in brown, covered in the fur-lined cape, sagged just a little.

“And the richest man in the land is not the one with the largest manor.” The cheeks of the rich man in green became a very complementary shade of red.

The rich man in blue was dressed appropriately, as he was proud as a peacock.  He stuck out his chest, waiting for the accolades to fall on his shoulders.  “And,” the wise, old man continued, “The richest man in the land is not the one with the most of it, so to speak.”  The peacock feather in the man’s hat drooped ever so slightly.

“But what do you mean?” cried all three rich men in unison.  “One of us has to be the richest!”

“In fact,” said the old man, “the richest man in the land is right over there,” and he pointed his gnarled, weathered finger at a small farm nestled in the crook of a valley.  The farm had been owned by one family for many generations and the wise, old man had always watched them with great interest.  The family didn’t have much:  a small house, a small barn, a few small fields and some animals.  It had been that way for generations.  But there was always food on the table and the farmer, his wife and their children had each other, and they always seemed content.

The men looked from the small farm to the wise man to the small farm again.

“You must be joking!” guffawed the man in blue.

“Oh, I’m quite serious, dear sir.  You see, the person who is richest doesn’t have the most, or the largest, or the finest of something. It actually has nothing to do with ‘having’ at all.”

“But how can that be?” exclaimed the men in green and brown.

“You see, my friends, the person who is the richest is not the one who has the most.” The wise old man finished his tea and started to turn toward the sun.  “The richest man,” he finished, as he faced the glorious new day, “is the person who needs the least.”

Who is the richest man?

Photograph © iStockphoto.com/a_Taiga

What else did I learn?

Plan ahead to have the cash you need in your wallet. There were a few times this month where I did not have cash on me because I just hadn’t taken the time to move money from the envelope on my desk to my wallet.  In the one case I remember specifically, I then had to put my dinner bill on my credit card (because I’d already eaten dinner by this point and thought they’d frown on the excuse that I couldn’t pay for dinner because I had no cash…)

My promise to use cash did make me change my behavior. A few times when I was driving home at night I thought I’d stop by a fast food joint to grab dinner.  At a stoplight I’d fish my wallet out of my purse to see how much money I had.  Because there were several times when I didn’t plan ahead, I had $1 or just a handful of change (with in this case, actually did work in my favor).  So, no cash, no fast food and no wasted money on a bunch of fried meals I didn’t need anyway. And hopefully in the future I’ll remember that a better, cheaper dinner was just as easy to grab out of the fridge when I got home.

Using cash saves time in terms of tracking money. In the past, when I used my credit card to buy things on a regular basis, I’d enter the expenses into Quicken and keep the receipts. Then, when the credit card statement came, I’d have to go line by line comparing my bill with Quicken to make sure all the charges were correct before shredding the receipts.  In essence, I was having to revisit all those purchases twice.  This month, I just entered all the cash expenses in Quicken and dumped the receipts in the recycle bin - I won’t have to deal with them again.

Since I’m pleased with the results of this little experiment, I’ve decided to make using cash a habit.  I’ve already gone to the bank to withdraw cash for March.  Now, all I have to do is to remember to put it in my wallet!

I have. I’ve also noticed that when I part with an actual greenback, I feel like I’m trading real, hard-saved money to pay for something. Which is what I’m doing, regardless of how I pay for it. It’s just that this small fact is easy to forget when I swipe a plastic card.

For this reason, I’m reacquainting myself with cash. For the next month my plan is to pay for as many purchases as possible with cold, hard cash. Using cash makes me more aware that when I choose to buy something, I have to turn over the money…meaning it is gone, and I can’t spend it on something else.  This fact makes me equate the value of what I’m buying to the value of the money I’m giving up to have it.   For instance, will I really get enough value from a particular $20 book to make handing over a 20 dollar bill worthwhile? Maybe, or maybe not…regardless of the answer at least I’ve thought through this question before parting with the dough.

Another useful side benefit of abandoning credit cards for a month is that if I need to physically have the cash in hand to make purchases, I can’t buy things I can’t afford.

If you’d like to join me in getting reacquainted with cash, it’s easy to do.  Just go to the bank and take out the money you’d normally spend in a month.  Put the majority of it in an envelope somewhere safe, and put what you need for spending for the next couple of days in your wallet.

Then start trading those greenbacks for your purchases.  I’m guessing that you and I both will think about money a whole lot differently by the time the envelope is empty or the month runs out, and we hope the latter happens first!