Money is an effective way of trading valuables. Instead of bartering or trading services, the money becomes a middle man since it has a mutually agreed-upon value.
For nickle-and-dime stuff, though, the answer is Jews.
Because we've decided collectively that money would represent the inherent value of our time. All the things required time to produce the producers then assign a value to their things based on time and resources it took to produce, that value is then paid by you in the form of money, which you traded time to acquire. And so the cycle of consoomerism continues.