Occasionally I’ll see a headline scroll past that just makes me roll my eyes. Now granted, I didn’t read the article because I’m going to use it as a springboard for a discussion because I see this kind of thing all the bloody time.

People don’t understand value! It’s not that hard!

To start, here’s the article if anyone wants to go read it. Like I said, I’m only going to bother with the headline because the specifics of this actual case don’t matter.

It says, for anyone who doesn’t want to click on it, “‘A family mess’: San Francisco home worth $1.8 million sold for $488,000 — thanks to a healthy dose of family drama. Here’s how things unfolded”

As I said, this is incredibly common online, people saying “but it’s worth X!” No, it’s worth whatever someone is willing to give it to you. If nobody is willing to give you X, then it’s not worth X. That’s not how value works.

I used to see this all the time with people who had bought into the whole Bitcoin stupidity. As it was dying a well-deserved death, they were screaming “but it’s worth X!” Nope. Not anymore. It’s now worth squat. We tried to tell you but you didn’t listen. Now you’ve got a lot of imaginary money that nobody will pay you for. You were an idiot.

The actual truth is, value is fluid. A thing is worth whatever you can find someone to give you for it right now. Tomorrow it might be worth more, or less, there are no guarantees. That’s the problem, people are looking for guarantees. Sorry, that’s not a thing.

The house I own right now, it’s “worth” 3x what I paid for it. At its height, it was worth more, but the market has calmed down a little. I don’t get to insist “but it’s worth X!” It’s worth whatever someone is willing to give me for it, if I was in the market to sell, which I’m not. I wish the idiot realtors who keep calling incessantly, trying to buy my house would just jump off a cliff. At least I can get my frustrations out by telling them, graphically, where they can shove their offer. Most of them just hang up and I’m fine with that. I never asked to be bothered in the first place.

It’s one reason I don’t worry much about value. This is more a topic for my other blog, but it fits in here too. I collect stamps. Always have, always will. I have a pretty extensive collection. I couldn’t care less what it’s worth since I will never sell it. I don’t need the money. It’s a hobby, not an investment. Therefore, I entirely ignore  the ups and downs of the stamp market. I buy what I want to buy and that’s the end of it. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who are only concerned with value. “If I buy this now, it’ll be worth more later!” That’s not necessarily true.

I tend to see this a lot from young people who are obsessed with money, rather than older, responsible people like myself and my wife, who have all the money we will ever need. That’s why you work hard throughout your life, so you don’t have to worry about money. That’s why I can spend my disposable income on hobbies like stamps, because I took the time and effort earlier to make sure I could.

Last week, my wife and I went out to lunch with my sister and talk turned to finances. None of us have any financial worries. She kept talking about wanting to invest the spare half-million she and her husband have in savings and I gave her some advice. I invested my own money for years before turning it over to a financial advisor. Now, I don’t have to worry about it. I’m financially very healthy. I can just live my life free from concern.

A lot of young people though, they are paranoid. Not all, I know, but a ton that I see online. My oldest daughter is just as financially healthy as we are. She has a very good job, she owns her own home and she’s already investing. She’s 27 and set for life, even without what she’ll inevitably get from us when we go. Why? Because we raised her to be financially responsible. My youngest daughter, while she doesn’t own her own home, she’s still doing just fine. She’ll get there when she gets there, but she doesn’t ask us for money, she has plenty on her own for the same reason. It’s honestly not that hard if you understand how to get ahead. Far too many young people today don’t. That’s why they are obsessed with value.

They and their parents did it to themselves. They are the only ones to blame. I find it hard to be sympathetic. It’s not the world that’s changed, it’s expectations and responsibilities. Maybe if these people would act more responsibly, they wouldn’t have to cry and whine about money all the time. Maybe they wouldn’t be on a constant hunt for spare change in the seat cushions. Maybe they could be actual adults. Wouldn’t that be nice?