Money has become a very important part of human life, it is near impossible to do anything now without money. Money has given people sleepless night, some work extremely hard to get it, some even go extra miles. In this write up we will see why it's so.

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So what is money?

different persons view money differently depending on your need. To answer this question we will define money. Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context.

Functions of Money

The following are the utmost important functions of money. You must be well familiar with all of them.

It serves as a medium of exchange.

It is used as a store of value.

It is a standard for measuring values.

Money serves as a standard for deferred payments.

It transfers value.

Power of Money

The reason that money holds such a power over people is that it provides them with power – to do what they want to do. Some people feel money gives them a sense of personal worth. They feel if they don’t have much money, they are not worth much as a person, and if they have a lot of it, they are indeed of great worth as a person.. In our society we see some rich people oppress the poor because they are rich, the have been situations were a person gets a favorable judgement from the Court because of his or her influence in the society and this influence is money related. In Nigeria we have lots of examples of how money played a part in oppression of people, Land grabbing, arresting of persons and locking them up. There is an incident that happened in my community.

A young man lost the land his father willed to him simply because he was not financially powerful, the richest man in the community took him to the village council and the Chief and the other members of the council voted in favour of the rich man.

The power of Money can also be seen in the social aspect of life, there are certain places reserved for a particular set of persons based on their financial strength, that is to become a member of some organizations you have to register and usually this registration fee is normally high, to gain access to such a club is not possible for anyone who is not a registered member.

Imagine a man whose child is sick and needs an operation but because he is not financially capable of taking care of the medical bills and the child dies, just imagine the devastation in that family
When people work day and night looking for how to make money you can't really blame them, lots of people have devised many means of making money, some go in search of money through fraudulent ways and some through a legitimate way. We have persons who take more than two jobs just to earn enough money to meet their daily needs.

The importance of money can not be under estimated. In the 21st Century having financial power is a sure way of gaining any form of status in the society, be it political power, social and to some extent religious power.