The useful Esperanto verb “spezi” is often used when a situation involves money. “Spezi” connotes some kind of transaction. However, the verb on its own means either “to pay out” or “to take in” or “to earn.” This might strike you as odd, that a single word should mean two opposite things! There’s a world of difference between “I earned $3000” and “I spent $3000!”

Luckily, the Esperanto language does not mind slight redundancy, especially for clarity’s sake. As such, whenever you want to use “spezi,” keep in mind the prefixes “en-” (roughly meaning “in”) and “el-” (which is something like “out”). That way, you can make “spezi” a lot more precise, and risk less confusion.

Mi enspezis du mil dolarojn! – I took in two thousand dollars!
La knabino elspezos ok aux dek dolarojn por dulcxajxojn. – The girl will spend eight or ten dollars on candy.