A $16.50 or $10,000 hour

The title of this post should better reflect the concept of working smarter rather than harder.  

However, for SEO purposes, posts and articles with specific dollar amounts tend to be more eye-catching.  Thus the references to $16.50 or $10,000 in an hour.

If I gave you the choice of either making $16.50 or $10,000 for the next hour of work that you perform, which one would you pick?

I’ll wait while you ponder it…

Bravo!

You have not only made it over to my relatively obscure blog, but being a person who thinks and reads about money, I’m guessing that you selected the amount that could be a down payment on a condominium or enough to keep your family afloat for a month or longer or perhaps pay for a semester of college.  

Well done!

If you picked the amount that could pay for a couple of burritos or less than a half tank of gas, I suggest that you keep reading and learning more about personal finance.  Making ten grand for an hour of your work is preferable to making under a twenty spot.

Being a guy who strives to be a mensch and a guy who reads, thinks and writes about money, I could not help compare and contrast two money-related discussions that I have had over the past week.

Disclaimer: the facts presented are true and accurate, but I will leave out some key things like names and specifics due to both confidentiality and because when this blog becomes wildly popular and I get closer to retirement and divulge my identity, I do not want to piss off friends and loved ones. 

Nobody would tell me anything if they suspected that it would wind up in a blog or eBook, just like you and I would not.  That is with exception of those who divulge every personal detail including their finances on the web.

Last Sunday

Last Sunday was Father’s Day.  I spent the day missing my own Great Dad while at the same time enjoying being a father to two wonderful children.  I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve such great children, but I hope that it is a reflection of my wife’s and my parenting.  We love our children unconditionally and they know it.  We support their interests to our utmost abilities, as our finances allow. 

It just so happened that my wife’s brother, his wife and their close friend spent the weekend visiting Chicago.  Despite living just a few hours north of us in Wisconsin, my sister-in-law had never been to Chicago.  My wife’s brother had not visited the area in over ten years.  Their friend has been in Chicago many times over the years, but as a delivery driver rather than a tourist.

They spent the weekend in a cheaper hotel on the near south side and visited the museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Shedd Acquarium.

First of all, before I share a financial detail, I want to say that we had a fantastic visit.  My in-laws and their friend were as gracious, engaging and nice as could be.  We got along great, and nobody brought up politics at all until I started running my stupid mouth about the f*cked up way my home state is being run.  In case you did not know, Illinois is f*cked when it comes to its budget, corrupt politics and rampant crime in Chi-Raq.
 

I just cannot help myself when it comes to the sad state of my State.  When they told me that the towns that they are living in are becoming gentrified by new condominium developments being purchased by wealthy Illinoisans leaving the state, it got me going about the massive Illinois Exodus.

After commenting that we are definitely not the type of Illinoisans who can purchase a half million dollar condominium for an extra home (those folks go somewhere warmer than Wisconsin during the winter), my brother-in-law mentioned that he definitely cannot purchase one on his $16.50 hourly wage.

He added that he works hard for that wage.  

He works in an auto body shop.
 

To summarize, he and his wife (and probably their friend) are avid Trump supporters as documented in their Facebook feeds.  Neither of them attended college.  My sister-in-law is a CNA who works in a nursing home for a similar wage.  They rarely travel out of Wisconsin.  One could consider them working class folks if one were so inclined.

When he mentioned his hourly wage, I quickly calculated that I make over three times as much.  I do not think of my wage in an hourly sense, since I attend so many night meetings and also breakfast meetings several times per month.  I have over a hundred sick days on the books, and that is after cashing many out over the years.  I have nearly forty vacation days accumulated, also after having taken a decent (but not enough) amount of days. 

I know that my salary is $110,000 and some change, but could not have guessed the hourly rate.  For the record, I looked it up and my hourly wage is $53.23 per hour.

Of course, our cost of living is far higher than theirs.  We pay for our son’s college education while saving for our daughter’s and Paying Ourselves First every month.  We are the classic middle class suburban family, although with children who are higher achievers than average and me with my aspirations of cracking into the twenty percent.

I would hate to disparage my sister’s brother.  He is a great guy.  But what I want to remind my children is that you could either work real hard like he does for a meager $16.50 per hour, likely without many or possibly even any added benefits, at a physically grueling job that can wear you down over the years, or you could continue pursuing higher education and using your brain and technical skills to potentially make ten, twenty or even a hundred times as much per hour.

Like my brother, you could even use your skills to make ten grand in an hour.

A Ten Thousand Dollar Hour

I would assume that you, Dear Reader, already know this.  But if you don’t, there are lawyers, doctors, stock traders and business owners who make thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of dollars in a day.

I have been part of the middle class since day one, but my younger brother and sister have risen a step above.

Recently out of college, my younger brother traded futures for a boutique trading firm in downtown Chicago.  He would tell me about it, including a star trader who sometimes made six figures by the time the nine o’clock hour would roll around.  In short, he would trade huge positions right at the opening bell, leveraging the firm’s capital in massive multi-million dollar trades. 

I still see this guy around and know who he is, but he does not know that I know who he is.  Of course, he has moved into the real estate investment realm because what else would be a better thing to park your millions in than purchasing depressed real estate during the recent Recessionary years and then leasing them up and selling them for even larger profits? 

The President of the U.S. may be the most well-known real estate investor and developer in the country, but you must believe me when I tell you that there are others who are smarter and better than him, but you never hear their names and rarely read them.

You may read a blurb like “Joe Schmoe Capital has purchased the blankety blank shopping plaza for $8.5 million dollars from ABC Investment Corporation…” without thinking about who actually owns Joe Schmoe Capital or ABC Investment Corporation.  I’ll tell you who: rich, smart guys.

My brother did well at trading futures, but not well enough considering the huge amount of stress and pressure involved while trading other people’s money.  He did poorly on his shot at making millions off of a risky financial position that he had entered into and was invited to pursue other avenues, thus enrolling in law school

As I have previously shared, my brother is a super tough, super nice and super smart up-and-coming attorney.  He has a few cases going that could potentially net him seven figure commissions.  Yes, my brother is going to be a millionaire if he is not already.

I discussed a case with him last Thursday and will not divulge any details for obvious reasons.

The short of it is that he negotiated a higher settlement for a client in the amount of $30,000 by arguing on the phone and sending a few emails within the space of an hour.  Since he charges every single case on a one-third contingency, he netted himself an extra ten grand that hour.  Mind you, there was already a decent offer on the table; he just knew that it should and would go higher, and it did.  His total net for a few hours of work on the case is about $30,000.  

You and I could be pissed that someone could make what it might take us all month or longer to make in one hour of negotiations, but not me.

I do not possess a law license or the knowledge of the court system to know how to squeeze an extra thirty grand out of an insurance company that covers a party that harmed another.  I cannot say through negligence because the insured party admits no negligence or fault whatsoever in the past, present or future. 

I can only write that the insurance company decided to avoid a long, drawn-out court battle against my brother with the added benefit that its client will never be named in public as having harmed somebody.

Readers may occasionally think that my own family spends a lot when I detail months where ten grand or more leaves our bank account, which is most months.  

But I think it a high amount when I hear that someone can make themselves ten grand over the course of several phone calls and emails.
 

My brother did not exert as much energy as my wife’s brother would exert over several months of repairing auto bodies, but he sure did leverage his education, negotiation skills, knowledge of the law and his personality to settle the matter to both parties’ satisfaction. 

Then on to his next big cases, several of which are of the class action variety.

What’s The Point?

The point is that it always pays better to work smarter rather than harder.

As it relates to Yours Truly, I realize that I can only make so much money while working in the field of economic development in municipal government.  I have about seven-and-a-half years to go with it before I must have an alternative source of income.

As much as I enjoy writing and fashion myself as a successful blogger, author and speaker, I am coming to realize that my greatest marketable asset may be my ability to represent a developer in its dealings with a government entity.
 

I could pimp myself out to get things approved for clients who might not otherwise know the buzzwords, veiled threats and Zoning rights that can get their projects approved.  Some communities would approve anything, while others are so picky and difficult (like the one I work for) that it is amazing that anything ever gets built.

What I love is to read, think and write.  

I say “think” because it seems to me as if there are many people who do not think on their own very much.  I am the exact opposite and, if anything, I think far too much about things and have to learn how to take action rather than just thinking about things.

Anyway, my guess is that you make more than $16.50 per hour by doing whatever it is that you do, but you probably do not make ten grand in an hour like my brother did last Thursday.

But if you can better leverage what it is that you are great at, or even better than average, then you are on your way to working smarter rather than harder.

I know that it is one of the most played-out phrases that there is, but I could not help thinking that I would like to work smarter like my brother, than harder like my brother-in-law.

Like you, I would rather make ten grand in an hour someday than a measly ten spot, five spot, single and two quarters.