Financial Time Travel - A Little Wisdom in a Word Picture

An insightful way to look at borrowing and saving (quote by CPA Brent Esplin, found in a YNAB newsletter, emphasis added):

While physical time travel is still only fantasy, financial time travel is a reality. Modern finance provides us the necessary tools to send money to our future selves through saving and investing and to send money from our future selves back to the present through borrowing.

In other words, when you borrow or use credit, you are forcing your future self to pay for your past self's decisions. When you save or invest, you are blessing your future self (and other persons you love) with your past self's decisions. No ground breaking discoveries here, but a helpful way to capture some financial wisdom in a word picture.

Speaking of financial time travel, the most significant form is summed up by Randy Alcorn's "Treasure Principle" (when you give money away as an act of grace and worship - see 2 Corinthians 8 & 9 and Matthew 6:19-24): You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.