4.1. Complete the sentences, adding your own ideas:

1. People may be divided, according to their attitude to-wards money, into …

2. There are no pure types of people, but … 3. The art of saving is …

4. The miser is …

5. The spendthrift is …

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4.2. If you possess a large amount of money, what are the advantages and disadvantages of the following?

Putting it under the mattress; buying a lottery ticket;

taking all your money to Las Vegas; putting it in a bank;

buying gold;

buying a Van Gogh painting; investing in property or real estate; buying bonds;

buying shares.

4.3. Read the information on good and bad points of saving money. What do you think about it?

Considered as a means of storing up buying (purchasing) power, money has good and bad points.

It can more easily be kept a long time than such things as food, which rots, or buildings, which slowly fall to pieces, or ma-chines, which rust. It takes up very little space, and if you put it in a bank, it is as safe as anything in this world can be.

But modern money has some very serious disadvantages as means of storing up buying power. In the old days, when money was in the form of gold and silver coins, the metal in each was real-ly worth the amount stamped on the coin. But the paper in modern paper money and even the metal in most modern coins are worth very much less than the amount written on them. As a result, the buying power of modern money can change very greatly in a short time.

…It is not surprising, therefore, that some people are doubt-ful about the wisdom of saving money.

4.4. Match the questions and answers. Express your own ideas on the problems discussed:

Questions

a) It’s impossible to have too much money — do you agree? b) Would you prefer fame or fortune?

c) Were you given or did you earn pocket money as a child?

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d) What was the first thing you saved up for and bought yourself?

e) If you could buy yourself a skill, talent or change in your appearance, what would it be?

f) What can’t money buy?

Answers

1. Happiness. I tend to think that once I have enough money to buy some new clothes or get a better car, then I’ll be happy. But it never works out like that.

2. A set of toy soldiers. Not the plastic ones you get nowa-days, but little metal ones, beautifully hand-painted. It took me nearly a year to save up for them. if I’d known that they would be valuable antiques today, I would’ve kept them. They’d probably be worth a fortune now.

3. Yes. If you have dreams, money makes them possible. Personally, I can’t imagine having too much money. I’m always broke. Anyway, if I ever felt I had too much money, I’d give it away to charity.

4. Well, there are lots of things I’d like to be better at, but if I had to choose one, it would have to be football — I’d like to be a brilliant football player!

5. Being practical, I’d say fortune, but if I were single with no kids and no responsibilities, I’d go for fame.

6. I was given two shillings a week by my father, but on condition that I behaved myself. If I didn’t behave well, I didn’t receive it. parents were much stricter in those days.

4.5. Read more sayings of famous people about the knack of handling money. Discuss the extent to which you agree or dis-agree with the opinion stated below. Support your point of view with reasons and examples from your reading, your observations or your own experience:

1. Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it. Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790),

American scientist, publisher, diplomat 2. It isn’t enough for you to love money — it’s also neces-

sary that money should love you.

Baron Rothschild (1840–1915)

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3. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797), British political writer, statesman

4. Money alone is only a means; it presupposes a man to use it. The rich man can go where he pleases, but perhaps please him-self nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence to see… The purse may be full and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him… he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1895), Scottish essayist, poet, novelist

5. Money is of no value; it cannot spend itself. All depends on the skill of the spender.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American poet, essayist

6. To acquire wealth is not easy, yet to keep it is even more difficult … It is said that wealth is like a viper which is harmless if a man knows how to take hold of it: but, if he does not, it will twine around his hand and bite him.

Frank K. Houston 7. If you can actually count your money, then you are not

really a rich man.

John Paul Getty