Because one inevitably leads to the other...

College was the worst thing to happen to me, financially speaking.

It was the first time in my life that my income exceeded my needs. I paid tuition, room and board, and I had money left-over.

When I was in second grade I'd get a quarter every day to buy a carton of milk at lunch. Sometimes I would, but most days, instead, I would keep the quarter in my pocket, not get any milk, and after school go home and put it in my piggy bank. By the end of the school year I was loaded. We're talking like, over thirty dollars, which is basically the treasure of Monte Cristo to an eight year-old.

As the years progressed I stopped getting quarters, and therefore had less to save. My expenditures stayed constant, though, at a flat, steady, zero. None.

I wouldn't even spend money on food and drink, things necessary for life, you think I'd waste my money on friovolities?

Anyway, high school rolls around, I get a job that pays under the table, and my saving habits have had no reason to change.

I put away almost a thousand dollars a month my senior year working five hours a week. Zero Expenditures, One Hundred Percent Savings.

Well, as I said, college came next. I wiped out my entire savings on tuition and fees freshman year, but was still working, and it wasn't long until I realized that the money I made during the month was more than enough to pay my monthly tuition bills. I had extra money.

If I hadn't been in the habit of writing tuition checks that money would have stayed in the bank, but paying bills is spending, and I had a surplus of cash.

So I bought. DVDs, toys, clothes, shoes, video games, video game systems, dinner for friends, dinner for me, plane tickets, scratch tickets, books, comic books, everything.

I haven't ever stopped.

And I'll tell you. That's no way to get rich.

And if you're not rich, how can you take over the world?


-t