Why I Have No Money

I just wrote a post over on one of my other blogs, Windmill Tilting about why I have no money.

It's a short post about Christmas shopping and not paying attention to the price of things and what exactly is on sale etc.

That got me thinking that it belongs here too. After all, this blog is about making money, so it should also have a little about spending it.

It's been an observation of mine that people who have money, most of them, are pretty careful how they spend it. That's not to say that they don't buy luxury stuff, expensive cars etc, but that they know exactly where their money is going and for what.

As I mentioned in my other blog, people with money know how much a gallon or litre of gasoline costs on any given day, and they don't buy it if the price is high, unless they absolutely have to. They also do things like check the weekly flyers before going grocery shopping, and travel to the stores with stuff on sale.

I on the other hand, have no idea what a litre of gas costs, or if $5.00 a pound is a good deal on banannas or not. I have never driven past a store because they charge to much for a package of cigarettes, if I need cigarettes I pay whatever they are charging.

In the same way, I seldom know where I am spending my money or on what. Oh yeah, I occasionally realize that buying my lunch every day is costing a small fortune over the course of a year, but hey, I get hungry, I gotta eat....

People with money are usually the ones bringing their lunch to work, and the ones who have a coffee maker in their office and brew their own on the job. Not me, to easy to pop down to the coffee shop and buy a cup of java, two or three or four times a day, which adds up to about $25 a week or $100 a month. Add a donut in there and it's probably closer to $2 a day, or $200 a month. Then let's talk about lunch, usually at least $5 out of the wallet every single day for lunch. Lets see, that is another $25 a week, which added to the coffee and donut adds up to at least $300 a month going out the door on coffee, donuts and hamburgers....

Travel back and forth to work on the transit system is costing me $60 a month, plus a dollar a day for a newspaper which added to the travel is $90 a month, and that is just to get to work and home again. Oh, I almost forgot, I have to drive about 5 miles to get to the transit system, so that is probably another $1 a day for gas. I drive an economic vehicle gas wise, so I suppose all told I don't spend more than $50a month on gas this time of year, but I don't drive much either....

I don't even want to talk about cigarettes, but what the heck, may as well now that I am on a roll....At at least $10 a pack, and a pack a day everyday, that adds up to $310 a month, which added to the total for lunches and travel etc means I am shelling out $750 a month for coffee, lunch and cigarettes. I could be driving a Cadillac Escalade for that kind of money...

The above estimates are probably even a little low, because I didn't factor in things like charities getting a buck or two out of me almost daily, not to mention the bums who hit me up for spare change almost daily....

And then I wonder why I have no money....

Think about how you are spending money, not just on big things like car payments and mortgages. Where does your income go? How much does it cost you to go to work and home, and what do you spend everyday and on what. One of the true secrets to making money is saving it, and knowing where you spend it. It doesn't matter if you make $500 a day blogging, if you spend what you make you will still be poor at the end of the day.

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