Making Others Rich

We spend most of our time making other people rich. Below are four simple examples that illustrate how we make other people we’ll never even know rich in our daily lives:

1) We roll out of bed when the alarm goes off at dark o clock.
While we’re sleeping we’ve been paying for the roof over our head. If we pay $1000 a month for a home loan or rental fee we pay almost $1.40 an hour over the course of the month. Even if our monthly housing costs are only $400 a month we still about 55 cents an hour. We just spent the night making a landlord, home builder, or bank somewhere a little richer.

2) Off to work, we jump in our car and head onto the highway.
Most of us are still making payments on the car we drive, one that depreciates an average of over 35% during the first year of ownership. Monthly payments cost us from $1.10 an hour ($800 monthly) to 42 cents an hour ($300 monthly). The car that spends most of the time sitting in a garage or parking lot is making an auto maker, car dealer, or bank somewhere a little richer.

3) Gassing up, we swipe our credit card and fill the tank.
Credit card rates are ridiculously high for those of us who maintain a balance. For those who use a cash back card, one slip up in payments will cost us an entire year’s cash back. A fat cat in the upper office of the credit card company is now a little richer. Gasoline prices are soaring but we grit our teeth and pay the price. The world’s largest oil companies are turning in record profits; thanks to our continued business their executives are now much richer.

4) We roll into work, dreading the day, and begin the daily grind.
The total cash compensation of your company’s CEO last year including salary, bonus, and stock options was $2,574,717. Did you get a bonus last year? How much was it for? Does, “Thanks for the hard work”, sound familiar to you? We spend at least 8 hours a day working our butts off, making the people at the top very rich.

As I put these everyday examples into words, I realized how screwed up it is. If I stay on my current path I’ll spend most of my life making people I don’t know rich and will probably never be rich myself. Depressing thought, however, there is hope. Read Making Yourself Rich to hear the good news.

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

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