What’s left after you’ve given it all? Just a few questions worth asking.

We work. We earn. We spend.
Some save. Fewer invest. 
And along the way — almost invisibly — we pay. 

Taxes when we earn. Taxes when we spend. Taxes when we save, own, or pass something on. 
Income tax. VAT. Property tax. Inheritance tax. 
‘It’s fair’, we’re told. ‘It’s how societies function’. 
Well, perhaps it is. 

But here’s the truth: 
Every bit of cash you get to keep represents your time, the hours you traded, the energy you spent, something that you’ll never get back.
Yet even that bit which remains isn’t safe. 

The Silent Partner

After governments take their share, another tax arrives — unvoted, unannounced, unstoppable. 
Inflation. 
It doesn’t need a law to erode your savings. 
It doesn’t need permission to shrink the future you’re building. 

Think of it this way: 
You’re forced to save in a currency that loses value by design. 
A tape measure that changes size as you build. 

The Illusion of Control

We’re told to “plan for tomorrow”, but how do you plan with sand?

This isn’t conspiracy. It’s arithmetic. 
A dollar from 1980 is worth 10 cents today. 
A lifetime of work, taxed at every turn, then quietly hollowed out. 

But Here’s the Twist

None of this is accidental.
Systems demand participation. They thrive on predictability. 
You play by the rules, stacking bricks on a foundation you didn’t choose. 

Ask yourself: 
Why save in a system where the rules favour erosion over preservation? 
Why measure your life in units that vanish like smoke? 

No one answers. 

Closing Thought

You don’t own time. You trade it. 
And what you trade it for, what you store it in, matters. 

Taxes? They’re just the visible cost. 
The invisible cost is the sandcastle logic of it all: building futures on foundations that shift by decree.

But here’s the secret no one tells you: 
While the system takes, it also gives roads, schools, stability. 
The tragedy isn’t in the taking, but in the illusion that what’s been taken buys perpetuity.

So when you sit quietly someday, asking ‘What’s left of my time, and of my money?’, remember: 
The only real answer lies in the kind of life you live. 
Don’t measure your time solely in money, but in moments which taxes have no influence on whatsoever.