If There's A Cure For This, I Don't Want It

Every one of us has our own ideas about what it means to be wealthy.

Your idea may differ from mine.  What my wealthy uncle and two of my wealthy friends may consider wealthy probably differs from my notion of it.

For some people, it may mean being able to send their children to exclusive colleges, while for others it may be owning a large residence and a vacation home.  Perhaps some fancy cars too.

For you, it may mean having half a million dollars sitting in your bank accounts.  For my rich uncle, it may be ten times that amount.

For others, true wealth may be having one's life balanced and organized so we are free to pursue any dream or happiness.

The $86,000 Question

I have mulled over this blog for at least four years, reading and taking notes about things that caught my interest and that I would like to share with others.

A few years back in 2010, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School produced a study that claims a salary of $75,000 is the key number to make people feel generally happy with their financial situation.  I recall reading about the study quite a bit when it first came out and also when it was rehashed many times on other websites and blogs over the years.

According to the study, the lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness.

Think of it as more like $86,000 now, since the 2010 study is now eight years old.  Per the inflation calculator at Savings.org:

In my own case, I do not feel particularly wealthy, having surpassed the salary of $86,000 several years ago, but I do feel solvent, usually able to pay all of my family's bills and debt obligations while occasionally having a few bucks left over.

Due to extenuating circumstances (isn't it always extenuating circumstances?), things are tighter this month after we paid for our son's newest acquisition, a vintage professional-level trumpet from the fifties.  This is a rare piece and should hold its value fairly well, with no more of them having been made for decades.  However, as I paid my wife's $4,600+ Visa bill last week, that was not the thought that was going through my mind.

Oh yeah, we need to repair our minivan and make some home improvements too.  Our daughter now takes classes at a high-end private dance studio to stay sharp and improve at a cost of about $300 per month.  We had to purchase several textbooks for our son, who started his third year of college last month.  I took the whole family to Ravinia a few weeks ago and took my mother to see and hear Tony Bennett last weekend, both of which were somewhat costly outings.  I've been doling out the cash to my kids as if I am a human ATM

Like I said, extenuating circumstances this month.  Just like every month.

The Wealth Cure

If there is a cure for wealth, like Donna Summer said over forty years ago in 1976, I don't want it, I don't want it.

I have read nearly one hundred books in what I call the "Change Your Way of Thinking/Improve Your Life/Become Wealthy" genre in the past year or so.

One of those is The Wealth Cure: Putting Money in Its Place by Hill Harper.

I saw it at a used book shop for a few dollars, and figuring that I might take a tip or two worth more than that to me in the long run, via blogging about it or publishing an e-book to make future income, and to perhaps learn something, myself, along the way, so I could not pass it up.



I also want to mention that in the hundreds of books that I have read in the past few years, I cannot recall any others written by an African American, and the author's sharp appearance on the cover also drew me in to part with the three bucks, roughly the cost of a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

Harper has other bestsellers to his credit, acted in CSI: NY (I will confess that I have never watched one episode of any of the CSI shows), and holds a B.A. from Brown University and both a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a master's degree from the Kennedy School of Government.

This is one seriously smart dude!

What Does It Cost To Be You?

Harper poses the question of how much it costs to be you.

Money is the biggest stress inducer in the lives of Americans.  We worry more about it than our marriages, our health and our children.  This Money Mensch can attest to that, as a few hours rarely go by that I do not stress over money or the lack thereof.

We get caught in a never-ending cycle of spending and debt, which can lead to overindulgence with food, alcohol and other substances, which in turn increases our stress and harms our health even more.

Hill writes that our lifestyles cost too much.  Amen to that!

Being stuck in an unrewarding job and afraid to make a move because of crushing debt and the never-ending slew of bills that come in every month can be soul destroying and make you feel trapped.

Almost a third of Americans say they would need $3 million in the bank to feel as if they were rich.  I would say that number is about what I would claim as an amount to make me feel rich, rather than just well off.

Hill writes that if the cost of being you is too high - if the spending has you feeling trapped so that you cannot see a way out - then you are not free and you cannot lead a fulfilled existence.

This is where he introduces the concept of a Wealth Cure.

Your Wealth Factor List

It is very true that there is more to life than money.  But I will tell you one thing - money sure can make your life better.  Just ask anybody in the lower classes who live in crime-infested inner cities with lousy schools if more money would help them.

Hill writes that true wealth isn't the value of your bank account but the value of the items you have in your life account.

He advocates examining your life and identifying what provides you with a deep, enduring sense of well-being.  He provides a sample of what he calls a Wealth Factor list.

Here is a sample of what my own list might resemble:

1. Time to take my family to outdoor nature areas like forest preserves, hiking trails, the lake and vacations a few times per year.  By the way, in our case, "the lake" is Lake Michigan.
2. More family time at home with the TVs, iPads, computers and video games turned off.
3. A date night with my wife at least six times per year.  This does not sound like much, I know, but over the past five years I seriously doubt that we have gone on six dates, just the two of us, in any given year.
4. Sex with my wife more often.
5. A night out with my best buddy at least four times per year.  As of late, we have just met about halfway between our homes two or three times per year.
6. Visit my widowed mother at her house, the one that my parents purchased in the summer of 1973 a few months before I turned three years old, once per month.
7. Some small amount of recognition at work beyond just keeping my job for another year.
8. Being more charitable with my time and money.  Start out by giving a little more each year to Ronald McDonald House, my favorite charity these days.
9. Publication of at least three e-Books by the close of next year.  I will most likely start by creating a few e-Books comprised of compilations of these posts. I do not anticipate any becoming best-sellers, but I do anticipate selling several copies per month.
10. Continue trying to address my own health issues including fixing my long-neglected teeth. Having had my first-ever root canal a while ago and having visited my primary care physician this past Thursday for a follow-up (my Lisinopril prescription was increased from 5 mg to 10 mg per day), I am doing better in this regard.

  Money = Circulation of Energy

My favorite aspect of Harper's book and one that has been stuck in my mind since reading it is the concept of money as energy.

By shifting my concept of money as energy, it has helped me move at least one step closer to my own Wealth Cure.  I can literally use my money as energy, paying my home's electric and natural gas bills and filling my car with fuel.

Or I can use it to make somebody do something, like expend his or her energy preparing and bringing my family food to eat, I can make a mechanic expend his energy and use his shop's tools to fix my car or I can use it to make a third World laborer working in a sweatshop make shirts, pants, undergarments and shoes for my family to wear.  Sorry, but this is the truth of where and how the clothes that we purchase at Kohl's every month are made.

We can use our money to make Kohl's supply chain ship those clothes from Indonesia to the northwest suburbs by ship, plane, rail and truck.

The biggest portion of our property taxes, around seventy percent, goes toward the energy and expenses that it took to construct buildings, playgrounds and educational materials for the good schools in our district and to pay teachers, administrators and support staff (including my wife) to make those schools much better than average for our State.

The school district's budget amounts to many millions of dollars per year, but we can see the energy that this money converts to in accomplishing one of our family's primary goals, providing a great education for our children.

While thinking about the abstract concept of money as something used to circulate energy, it makes a certain amount of sense.  I sell my expertise and energy on a salaried basis to my employer and then I, in turn, use the proceeds of that energy to pay for the energy output of others.

I like and accept the concept put forth that money represents the circulation of energy when we pay someone for a service or product.

Dumbest Money of All

Harper writes that credit card interest payments are the dumbest money of all.

If you continue purchasing on credit and do not pay off the full amount at the end of the month, you are allowing interest to accrue and the item can wind up costing twice as much as its original price, which is definitely a dumb use of money.

According to Value Penguin:

• Average American Household Debt: $5,700. Average for balance-carrying households: $16,048
• Total Outstanding U.S. Consumer Debt: $3.4 trillion. Total revolving debt: $929 billion
• 38.1% of all households carry some sort of credit card debt.

Interestingly enough, if you combine the first bullet point with the third, it indicates that about one-third of households carry credit debt, so the $16,000 or so in those balance-carrying households, divided by three because two-thirds do not carry the debt, is why it averages out to a little less than $6,000 per household.

My own household has many months when our three combined credit cards (my wife's Bank of America Visa, her Kohl's card and my Chase Visa card) add up to around $2,000, but we strive to pay them all off every month.

By striving to become credit debt free, you are giving yourself the chance to start saving more money for your own future rather than just enriching the banks that issue your credit cards.  In our case, we definitely need the money more than J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America do.

From Fear to Courage

Hill's book details his shifting view of money and what is important in life due to a health crisis.  He worked to overcome his fear of death, writing that it is inevitable and to truly enjoy his own life, he had to release himself from that fear.

Part of Hill's Wealth Cure was to embrace a shift in perspective and attitude.  Away from fear and toward gratitude no matter what God put in front of him.

It will take more than a few paragraphs in an inspirational book or a few sentences on the Money Mensch blog to shift your attitude, but reading about how the author decided to appreciate the things in his life whether he had one hour, one year or fifty years left in his life made me think about being more courageous with the time that I have left on this earth.

Find Work That is Your Passion

Hill cites something written by one of my top five favorite authors, Stephen King, in his book On Writing, which I have not yet read but will.

King describes finding work that is your passion: "Writing is not about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends.  In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well...When you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head."

Of course, making millions, becoming famous, making friends and getting laid isn't so bad, but that is not the point of this post.

A middle class guy like me with nearly twenty-five years into a pension fund and many obligations including a mortgage, college tuition, and dozens of expenses that add up to $8,000 to $10,000 per month cannot exactly walk away from my job.  We'd be sunk!

Hill advocates finding happiness when you take control of your life's direction, working to achieve your own Wealth Factors, particularly the ones within your control.

You can use achievements of your goals along the way as stepping stones to a greater sense of well-being.  It can be scary for you and me to be honest with ourselves and admit that this is our lives, here and now, and that we must commit to being happy with it.

Achieving your goals can be like stepping stones to a sense of well-being.

With today's tight job market and automation coming to take more and more jobs year after year, if you are gainfully employed, you would be well-served by appreciating the good aspects of your work and try to find some happiness in what you are doing.

More than half of all people feel stuck in their jobs.  Hill writes that unless you are a careful observer of your own thoughts, you are living by default. Do you believe that you can change, or that you can't?

I, for one, believe that I can.

Case in point, launching the Money Mensch blog after pondering it for some time.  I realize that it is just one voice in a sea of financial and self-help bloggers, but I can assure you that you will learn more from reading my posts, even if it is summarizing something that somebody else wrote, than reading about someone else's lunch or watching cute pet videos.

Thanks for reading and now I can donate Hill's book and the two others that I read last week to a Little Free Library.