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There is a famous quote that says that money is the root of all evil. I think that statement is wrong. I think that the envy of money is the root of all evil. How can money be evil? Money is an inanimate object, and as such, is incapable of any action at all, let alone evil.

Now envy, on the other hand, is dangerous. Envy is an emotion. A strong emotion. It ranks right up there with love, hate and desire. Envy is not to be confused with jealousy. Jealousy involves at least three people; the person who is jealous, the much-loved person and a perceived competitor. When jealous, it is the much-loved who the person is jealous of, not the competitor.

Aristotle said, “Envy is pain at the good fortune of others.”

We are coming into an exceptional time in our nation’s history. We stand on the cusp of a new year that threatens our financial comfort and holds the promise of new leadership. Never have so many had so much. People, who a few decades ago wouldn’t have been able to purchase a house or own dependable transportation on their meager salaries, have homes, vehicles, boats, several televisions, computers, video games and a lot of nice stuff.

People have a tendency to gauge their own success and well-being by comparing themselves to others. This is envy. What makes it dangerous is the comparison. When you start to judge how well you are doing by the amount of money you have, or the amount of stuff you have, compared to a family member or the couple down the street, you are setting yourself up to be unhappy. When you compare your lifestyle to that of a successful millionaire, you cannot help but realize your shortcomings.

Envy is within all of us. It can be used constructively. It can motivate you to achieve certain goals or drive your ambitions. Wouldn’t it be better to learn to manipulate envy for your own happiness then to let it control you?

My husband and I desperately want to own a home. We envy the people who own the beautiful country homes that we see on our Sunday drives. We talk about our dream a lot. We wonder if the people in those beautiful homes know how lucky they are. We’ve been so tempted to put down a small down payment and purchase our dream house. Then we could be lucky too. But we made a decision to have at least half of the purchase price saved up to use as a down payment and we are sticking to it.

Recently, we’ve noticed several of these homes have sprouted For Sale signs. In talking to some of the local realtors, we’ve discovered that our envy was misplaced. Those people weren’t happy or lucky; they were eyeball deep in debt and will now pay the price.

I’m so glad we didn’t let envy push us around. In reality, we are perfectly comfortable in our little rental home. Owning a house wouldn’t make us more comfortable. When we examined why we want our own home, we threw envy out the window. We decided that it didn’t matter how it looked or what other people thought about it. We want it for ourselves and our own needs. In the beginning, when we started saving and dreaming, envy played a big part in our dream. We are middle aged and everyone we know has their own home, complete with toys, built in BBQ pits and swimming pools. We thought we wanted that too. Our dream has changed. It’s become more realistic and less expensive, more suited to our budget.

The year ahead may be more difficult than this past year. More people may lose their homes and their jobs. Envy will no doubt cause much resentment and possibly even spawn hatred of those who manage to do financially well. I encourage you to stop comparing your life to everyone else’s. Work for what you have and own your successes. Don’t base them on any one else’s ideals. Don’t worry if someone has more than you do. Worry about yourself and your family. That’s all that really counts anyway.

“Is it getting dark outside? Are you having trouble seeing? Turn the lights on!” is the gist of one “Wiggles Tips” segment on The Wiggles television show. These segments introduce the show’s preschool audience to a bit of humor – even they are old enough to know to turn on the lights when it’s dark out.

Newspapers and other media often have the adult version of Wiggles Tips when headlines like “People Are Upset about Gas Prices” appear on the front pages. Why is that news? I often ask myself, thinking back to the criteria for newsworthiness I learned in Journalism 101. Others might say, “That’s stating the obvious.” And we personal finance writers are some of the worst offenders. Personal finance books and articles often state the same obvious ideas over and over, elaborating in different ways:

Don’t spend money you don’t have

The prevalence of credit has complicated this simple advice, but every purchase is still a simple exchange of one thing for another, and those who have nothing to exchange can’t make a purchase. Bobby can’t trade his salami sandwich for Jimmy’s chocolate chip cookie if he doesn’t have a sandwich in his lunch. He might promise Jimmy tomorrow’s sandwich for today’s cookie, but eventually he has to pay up or he loses all bargaining power. He can’t trade food he doesn’t have. Yet many of us are spending money we don’t yet have, promising tomorrow’s sandwich and banana tomorrow for today’s cookie.

Cash doesn’t expire

If you don’t use all your money now, you can save it for later. Yet, our spending often increases to match our income, and we tend to forget that we may have higher expenses and/or lower incomes in the future. Sometimes we do act as though we have to spend all we earn right now or the money will go bad. It doesn’t, of course. Yes, you may lose some buying power due to inflation or risky investments, and yes, you might not live long enough to spend all you save, but in most cases, the money you save now will benefit you in the future.

When offered a choice between two things of equal value, choose the one with the lower price

Companies spend a lot of time and money to convince us that their products are far superior to their competitors’. Sometimes we believe in this superiority even when it isn’t really there; we pay more for products without getting more value. Additionally, limited-time discount opportunities – coupons, rebates, sales – can convince us that we are paying less for something of equal value when we could actually pay less for a product (or at a store) with no special discount. Other times, those discounts do save us a good deal of money. The simple, obvious task of paying less for the same thing can become complicated; another person’s perspective can help us distinguish between real and fake bargains.

You can improve your financial situation in two ways: spending less and earning more

A lot of people want to improve their finances without changing their habits, but unless you can convince your boss to give you a raise without adding to your workload, I don’t know how that’s possible. Either you have to change the way you spend (or don’t spend) money or give up some leisure time to earn more. You can buy less, pay less for what you buy, work more, or find a higher-paying job, but something has to change, and it all boils down to spending less or earning more. All the financial advice I’ve ever heard is some variation on one of these two obvious basics: spend less or earn more.

Buy low, sell high

This proverbial advice for success in the stock market may be the most obvious statement of all, but thousands of people earn a living by trying to figure out how to follow that advice. As with most obvious personal finance advice, there is always room for some elaboration and some disagreements over the best methods of improvement. Even the obvious isn’t always obvious.

I don’t think I’m putting myself out of work by telling you that personal finance blogs and books often state the obvious. Everyone needs to hear the obvious now and then – we see our own lives so closely that it’s helpful to have someone else point out factors we’re missing when we try to make decisions or plans. We can be so used to doing things the same way we always do them or distracted by an unrelated issue or simply focused on implementing one solution that we fail to see a more obvious solution to our problems.

The challenge for personal finance writers is rarely figuring out complex answers to financial difficulties, but rather stating simple solutions in ways that don’t make people feel embarrassed for not having seen the obvious themselves. The goal is to help people improve their own finances by offering them perspectives outside their own. I know I have learned new things from other personal finance writers, even if they do state the obvious; I hope you have, too.