I hope I can convince you that using someone else‘s account is stealing.

Everyone knows that if you go to Target and walk out with a liter bottle of olive oil without paying, it is stealing, right? How does Target make money? It buys the olive oil from the wholesaler and sells it to the consumer for more money. They lose money if you steal the olive oil they paid for.

How does Costco make money? Most of their revenue comes from their yearly membership. They make enough money from membership that they don’t have to make as much money selling their bottles of olive oil. That is how I can buy a two-liter bottle at Costco for the same price as Target’s one-liter bottle. When you share your Costco account with others, Costco doesn’t make as much in memberships. One of two things happens—they raise membership fees, or they raise the prices of their products. If you use someone else’s account, you are getting the services that Costco provides without paying for them. It is obvious when you steal olive oil, but less so when you steal a service. But using a service without paying is the same to a company as stealing a product.

Costco started scanning membership cards on entry a few weeks ago. I am thrilled. Get rid of the thieves. My price will go down.

Look at Spotify, one of the greatest inventions in my memory. They provide an incredible service. They link a gazillion songs to my phone. I don’t pay for each song. My wife and I have the Premium Duo membership, which I highly recommend. She gets whatever songs she wants, and I get mine. If we didn’t have a membership, and I used my son’s membership, I would be stealing the service Spotify sells. See? Simple.

Netflix, Sling, and Audible are the same. Everyone knows that stealing a book from a bookstore is stealing. Stealing an audiobook from Audible or some other source may not seem like stealing because there is no physical product. Who cares? People who buy books don’t care about the paper or pretty colors on the cover. They want the book’s content. If you take it without paying——Stealing. If someone stole the Kindle version of my book, I would be upset.

My son is a computer engineer. I know he’s good because his online color palette app, Tincto is super-cool. I use Tincto when I make greeting cards, but I didn’t understand what he was doing on the computer when I saw him writing the code. It may have been magic. Anyway, he also writes code for a company, and they pay him for it. He and other engineers provide a product to the company, which provides a service to customers. What if my son did this work for a month, and they refused to pay him? I‘m not sure that stealing is the right word for it, but it would be wrong. Same thing.

Taking a good or service without paying for it is stealing, and it hurts everyone. If ten percent of people who use Sling or YouTube TV use someone else’s account, then all the honest members will have to pay more. The same thing would happen if ten percent of people stole their olive oil from Target.

Opportunity cost represents the potential benefits that a business, an investor, or an individual consumer misses out on when choosing one alternative over another.

Opportunity cost usually refers to money. If you buy a television for $1000, you don’t have $1000 to spend on food. We don’t think of the opportunity cost of time very much. I don’t do my lawn. Let’s say I pay the lawn company fifty dollars to mow my lawn. I don’t have the fifty dollars to go to dinner with my wife (If I would have gone someplace cheap). But, if I spend ninety minutes doing my lawn, I won’t have ninety minutes to read a book, talk to my wife, or fish with my son.

When we are young, we mainly think of the opportunity cost of money and don’t worry about time. We might drive fifteen hours rather than spend the money on a flight. We’ll ask a friend to give up three hours of their day to pick us up at the airport rather than taking a shuttle or an Uber. Maybe that’s appropriate when we’re young.

Many people ignore the opportunity cost of time even when they’re my age or older. I ask people in their sixties when they plan to retire. They might say, “six years.” Why? They need the money to retire. Read my post on actuarial tables. We don’t know how much time we have. I recently retired at fifty-five, and patients told me I was so young. They can only say I am young if they know how long I’ll live. If I work five more years and die or become disabled at sixty, then those five years of salary would have cost me fifty hours a week for the rest of my life.

Ryan Holiday quotes Seneca: No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers. I can prove it’s true. If you had a million dollars and knew for sure you had ten years left to live. You’re forced to choose between giving up a million dollars or the ten years remaining in your life. Which would you choose?

In his superb book, Die with Zero, Bill Perkins teaches that money’s main or only value is buying experiences. If you give up experiences so you can earn more money, it is self-defeating. Working until you are 70 when you could retire at 62, costs you all the experiences you could have had for eight years. That is always a loss. I am healthy, but cannot do many things I could have done only a few years ago. No one at 70 can do what they did at 60. Even if you could, you might not want to at 70. Those experiences are lost forever.

I am not telling you what to do with your time or money. I am telling you not to ignore the opportunity cost of time. Watching TV means you can’t read a book. Doing your lawn means you can’t meet your friend for lunch. Working three more years means you miss out on several vacations with your family forever.

If I have a deathbed, I don’t want to lie on it regretting not spending time with my family or doing something meaningful. I certainly won’t regret not working for a few more years to earn a few more dollars.

The best way to use credit cards is to maximize rewards while avoiding all fees.

Credit cards allow you to buy things before you have the money in your bank account. We all know that. If you don’t pay attention to what you are spending, you may not be able to pay off the credit card when the statement comes. That will cost you a lot of money in fees and interest. If you use credit cards wisely, you can avoid all fees and make some money in the process.

NOTE: I get nothing for any of these links. I am not a registered affiliate for any of these cards.

The number one most important thing when you use credit cards is to carry a zero balance. I use credit cards for convenience and for rewards. I consider it a game. If you carry a balance, the ridiculous interest payments immediately outweigh any reward you get. I usually use cashback cards. If you play the game, you can get 5% back on a lot of charges and at least 2% on everything. A single 10% interest payment on an outstanding balance negates it all.

Don’t pay fees. I don’t have any cards that carry an annual fee. If you have a fee of $100, you have to get 3% back on over $3000 in charges to get your money back. There may be a few exceptions where it is worth the annual fee, but I don’t believe in doing it. If you cannot pay your entire balance monthly, or you can’t pay on time, incurring a late fee, then you are better off without credit cards.

Here, I will describe how to pay most of your bills and get the best cashback. If you know a better way, please let me know so I can try it.

Amazon: If you are an Amazon Prime Member, use the Chase Amazon Card. You get 5% back on all charges at Amazon. It’s a no-brainer. I bought a $600 Weber grill, which got me $30 cash back.

Target: If you go to Target or use Target.com, get the Target Circle Card (formerly the Target Red Card). With it, you get 5% off everything you buy in the store or online.

Costco: If you belong to Costco, I strongly recommend the Citibank Costco Card. Sam’s has a similar card; I had it when I was a member of Sam’s, but I prefer Costco in every way, including the card. You get significant cash back. Until a few years ago, the money back had to be used at Costco. That was fine, but when you use the rebate check, you can’t get the 2% cashback for using the card. If your check is over $500, you can transfer the money to any bank. The following section applies if you use the Costco card, and it mostly applies for Sam’s.

Travel: Costco card gives you 3% back. That is generally better than any travel card. The airlines cards don’t deliver benefits better than 3%. Also, the fee is quite high if you get a high-end travel card, like the Delta Reserve. You, of course, only get the rewards when you use that airline. So, I used to use a Delta Amex card, but frequently, United or American had a much better deal or time than the Delta flight. Of course, I have a free membership with all airlines, but I don’t want to spend an extra $300 for a Delta flight to get the reward, especially if the times aren’t good. Use Costco for all travel: Hotels, flights, everything. The reward is cash. Note that Airbnb and VRBO don’t qualify for the 3%.

Restaurants: Sometimes cards with rotating categories give 5%, but the Costco card gives you 3% all year round. If you eat out a lot (I don’t), you may consider using the Custom Cash Card for restaurants. See below under groceries.

Verizon: The Verizon credit card allows you to get $10 off your monthly bill if you autopay with this card. It may only last a year, but that is $120.

Gas and electric charging: Again, use the Costco card. It gives you 4% back at any gas or EV charging station. You don’t have to go to Costco for gas, but it is usually cheaper.

Groceries: I use the Citibank Custom Cash Card. If you eat out more than you buy groceries, you could use the Custom Cash card for restaurants and something else for groceries. Custom cash is cool. Whichever category of purchase you do the most for the month, you get 5%. Everything else is 1%. I use it for groceries and only groceries. Then, I get 5% back on all groceries and 1% of nothing. Therefore, it gives me 5% back on groceries. Again, if you go out a lot, use it for restaurants.

Two Categories of your choosing: With the awesome U.S. Bank Cash+ card, you choose two categories every month to get 5% back. They make you choose a category for 2%, but that doesn’t beat the two cards in the next section. For the 5% I choose internet and streaming, and ground transportation. So my internet is with Mediacom, and I get 5% on that and Sling TV. I also get 5% on Uber.

Apple is easy. Get the Apple card. It gives you 3% on every Apple purchase, including apps and subscriptions.

Everything Else: There are two excellent options. The Citibank Doublecash card. You get 1% when you charge it and 1% when you pay the bill. But you shouldn’t have a credit card if you don’t pay the entire balance every month. So, I get 2%. The other is the Wells Fargo Active Cash. I have them both, mainly so I have a backup in case something happens to one of them.

This is a lot of information. You may not qualify for some of these if you don’t have good credit. Also, I don’t know whether having so many credit cards can adversely affect your credit score. I have been told that if you pay off every card every month, your score improves, but you should check that out.

If you charge a lot, avoid all fees, and always pay on time, this is the best way to use credit cards. You can get hundreds or even thousands of dollars back. Don’t forget, if you pay fees or carry a balance, the best way to use credit cards is not to use them.

I left my medical practice of 19 years last week. I’ve had three parties celebrating my retirement, but I don’t call it retirement. Retirement used to mean quitting a job of 35 years, then sitting around and traveling for a few years. You lived off social security, perhaps a pension, and the money you had saved. I intend to be productive and do meaningful things.

I didn’t quit on a whim. I thought it through carefully. I don’t plan to join another practice or work nine to five in an office. I have other things to do. I hope to write, read, learn, travel, and work with my son on computer-related projects. Is that retirement? 

I may make some money here or there, but not at the level I earned at Allina Health. I’m fortunate that my wife is a physician, so money isn’t an issue. But in a few years, she may leave her practice and join me in my non-retirement.

My daily life will change starting this week. I will no longer go to the office, see patients, come home, and log into the computer to handle calls. I will do other things I find meaningful and productive. I’ll have more leisure time, but I don’t intend to sit around surfing the internet and streaming TV shows. If you find these activities meaningful, do them, but I have other things to do.

Is what I plan to do a retirement? The only material difference between my office job and my new life will be the amount of money I make. I will have a new set of benefits and downsides to my life. Our son has a good job but rarely goes to an office. He works on his computer at home or in a coffee shop. In my new life, I may join him and do my work on my computer. The only difference between us will be that he will make more money in the coffee shop than I will. The benefits of his day will be money and hopefully meaning–for me, only meaning. Many people make more than he does at their jobs, and some make about what I’ll make with my projects. Why am I retired, and the others aren’t? I may sell a thousand copies of a book while Michael Connelly sells a million. Why is he an author while I am a retiree?

It’s all made up. The real question is not, “How to know when to retire,” It’s “Should you continue doing what you are doing?” Every activity I do, I think about the benefits and the downsides. I don’t go to certain places on vacation because, for me, the downsides of crime or infections outweigh the benefits. The same is true with work. I decided that even with the money, the upsides of my job didn’t outweigh the downsides, so I “retired.” Early in my career, when I needed the money to buy a house and pay the bills, the reverse was true.

If you hate your job (a very subjective concept), then find a way to get a different one. If the money is less, decide if the benefits outweigh the negatives. If so, change jobs. If there is no better job, then accept that as a positive for staying in your current job. All choices are like that. Hopefully, at some point, you will be fortunate enough to live a meaningful life without needing a salary. But even then, before you “retire,” you need some benefits of leaving your job. Otherwise, don’t do it.

How to know when to retire is a straightforward question. Think of money as just one of the many benefits of your job. Money is a big upside early in a career because you may have a car payment, a mortgage, and kids to take care of. Later, if your mortgage and cars are paid off, and your kids are on their own, money is less important, and you can concentrate on other things. Sadly, many retirees did not understand the concept when they left their jobs, assuming that a life of leisure is wonderful, even with nothing meaningful to do. 

This post is not for actuaries or insurance people. This is for deciding your future and what to do over the next few years or decades. This will help you determine whether to plan a big trip or consider retiring. In my case, I am leaving clinical medicine after over thirty years, mainly because of what I have learned from a simple actuarial table.

According to the superb site Investopedia, an actuarial table is “An actuarial life table is a table or spreadsheet that shows the probability of a person at a certain age dying before their next birthday.” 

A few are available online, but I use the one the Social Security Administration publishes. When discussing health and prevention with patients, some have criticized me, saying I am being unkind by pointing out their age and life expectancy. But why? I am telling the truth. How can you make rational decisions about your health without knowing the truth? As Marcus Aurelius said, and Ryan Holiday, {https://ryanholiday.net} in his books, taught me, “It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”

You cannot decide if a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer is worth the minor risk until you know your life expectancy. If I knew I had an average life expectancy of a year, why would I do a colonoscopy? Why would I worry about my cholesterol? Why would I work at a job I hate?

Most of the time, even with estimates of your life expectancy, the decisions are complicated, but at least you should know what to expect over the short and long term, knowing there are no guarantees. There are two columns of the table I pay attention to–Life expectancy and Death probability. Life expectancy is the average number of years a person has to live. This is an estimate based on the current trends, and it is based on a person your age of average health. Depending on your health, you can expect more time on average. Be cautious because most people overestimate their level of health. 

So, I will be 55 in a few weeks. The table says I have a life expectancy of 24.27 years. Let’s say 24 years. If I have 24 years left, I will likely be able to do more things with my money in the first eight than in the last eight. Even if I can travel around the world at 75, will I want to? I doubt it. So, that is a reason to take more trips, spend more money, or even retire now. If I were eight years old, I would have a life expectancy of 7.74 years. What would I want to do? But my son is 25. He has a life expectancy of over fifty years. He might want to plan many years ahead.

The more important column of the table is Death Probability, the probability of dying within one year. My death probability is 0.091, just under 1%. At 59, it is 1.25%. That means that in 5 years, the chance I will be dead is about 6%.  If I run a financial retirement calculator, it might say that if I retire now, the possibility of running out of money before I die is 5%. If I wait five years to retire, I will have a 6% chance of running out of life before I retire to spend the money. That is not a bet I want to take. A 6% chance of dying is too much of a risk. I do my best to stay healthy, but I know that things happen. I will retire soon. In fact, I have given my notice and will leave my medical practice on my 55^th birthday.

The actuarial table doesn’t predict your future any more than your budget predicts precisely how your investments will perform. But you have to start somewhere. If you have an idea about how much money you will have at the end of the year, you can decide if you can afford a new car. Knowing your life expectancy and chance of surviving a year, you can decide what is worth doing now or what you might put off for a later day.

Should you move when you retire?

Obviously, it depends on many factors, but the answer is usually “No.” Like any decision, the best approach is to look at as many benefits and downsides as possible. What are the benefits of leaving, and what are the downsides of leaving? It’s that simple. I’m retiring from my clinical practice in about a month. The first question most people ask me is what I will do. That is the topic of a different blog. 

The next question is whether I will leave Minnesota. I ask them why I would do that, and they usually mention the weather and the taxes. Right off the bat, the answer is obvious. If I hated the weather and taxes so much, why haven’t I moved yet? I could have found a job in Florida. There are no income taxes there, and it is warm. I like working for Allina Health, but is there nothing comparable in Tennessee, another state without an income tax. What about Texas?

I haven’t moved to a warm climate without an income tax because I have more important reasons to stay in Minnesota. My wife is here, and my son is here. There it is. I care more about living with my wife and near my son than about the weather and the taxes. That formula will not change when I retire. When I tell people this, they ask what I’ll do when my wife retires. Same answer. I care more about living near my son than the weather and the taxes. I will not move from Minnesota unless my son moves. Fortunately, my wife agrees with me 100%, so I don’t have to contemplate what I’d do if my wife insisted on moving, though she wouldn’t be the woman I married if she preferred warm weather or lower taxes to being near our son.

Let’s think about the two big reasons people with money give when they move when they retire. First, the weather. I grew up in Miami, so I know a bit about moving to a new climate. Minnesota has nice summers and springs and perfect autumns. Winter is cold, though, so far; December this year has been warm this year because of El Niño.

From late February until April, I am tired of the cold weather. So, what? I can suck it up for a couple months, if it means I can live with my wife and see my son every week or two. And if I can afford to retire, can’t I afford a week or two in Florida?

What about taxes? This is even simpler. Minnesota has a top income tax bracket of 9.85%. Since the increase in tax is gradual, if you make $100,000, you will pay $4450.

Patients of mine who spend a lot of money tell me that you need more than $100,000 per month to retire. Let’s set that question aside because everyone has different needs. But you don’t pay taxes on what you spend, only on income. If you spend savings that aren’t in a retirement fund like a 401k, then you aren’t taxed on most of it–you are only taxed on capital gains and income from investments, which are likely less than $100,000. So your state income taxes are likely less than $4450. If you are earning more than $100,000 from investments, then you have enough money not to worry about $4450 or even $10000 in state income tax.

Another point about state income taxes is more important. Let’s say I move to Florida to save even ten thousand dollars in taxes per year. Our son still lives in Minnesota, so we will want to see him. Three trips to Minnesota would cost at least $10000. He could visit me, but do I want him to spend the money and give up his vacation time to visit me so I can save a few bucks?

I don’t see the reason to move when you retire unless you don’t have anything or anyone important enough to keep you where you are. And if that is the case, leave now, before you retire. Life is unpredictable. If possible, be where you want to be right now. Live the best life you can right now. If you are fortunate enough to have people in your life you care about, be near them right now.

Why Is It So Hard to See the Doctor?

A common complaint is the delay and difficulty getting an appointment with your physician, especially your primary care physician. You can wait a few minutes for coffee at the Starbucks, walk into a movie theater, and buy anything at any store without much of a wait. Why is it such a wait for the doctor? There are many reasons. 

Doctors are cutting back. Over the last few years, I have reduced the number of patients I see in a day. A few years ago, I saw 23, and now it is nine. Fourteen openings in my schedule are no longer there. It’s simple to see why it’s difficult for patients to see me. If your favorite restaurant cut the number of tables in half, think what would happen. Doctors all over the country have been cutting back. In my group of sixteen primary care doctors, only four are full-time. It is partly because cutting back doesn’t hurt our take-home pay that much because we are fortunate to make enough money to be in a high tax bracket. If you are in the highest tax bracket, your last dollar is taxed at 50% or more in some states. That means you lose the money for only one when you cut two patients out of your schedule.

Doctors are also retiring earlier than before. As many doctors see it, the benefits diminish over time, like in any career, yet the demands have increased. The number of messages and calls doctors must address has risen significantly, about 500%, in the last five years at my clinic. Couple that with slow increases in pay, and there is less reason for a doctor to work into old age.

The demand for medical visits has increased. One of the reasons is that the cost of an actual office visit is inexpensive for most people with insurance. Virtually all yearly physicals are covered without a deductible, and most office visits have a reasonable copay. People can go to the doctor without much cost since the insurance premium has already been paid. Think what would happen if people could get a minor dent fixed as part of their car insurance. People would be more likely to go to the mechanic to get a ding fixed, making it harder to see the mechanic for other things. What can doctors do? Most primary care clinics like ours are not making money.

Why don’t we raise our prices? If lines are out the door at a donut shop, yet the shop is not making money, they will increase their prices, as Thomas Sowell says in his book Basic Economics. Some people will stop eating donuts or go elsewhere, and the lines will shorten, but the donut shop will still make more money than they did with the long lines. If a doctor or clinic accepts any government insurance, like Medicare, they are not allowed to raise prices, and the lines remain long. The government sets our prices lower than what medical clinics would charge otherwise, so we lose money, or at least we don’t make as much as we would otherwise. What would happen if the government set an iPhone price at $200? The lines would get long, or Apple would stop making iPhones. Same with fancy restaurants.

Government and private insurance pay the same in the United States regardless of the experience or skill of the doctor. We are not allowed to charge more than we do. My wife, a superb Ophthalmologist who has performed over fifteen thousand surgeries, cannot charge more than the surgeon right out of training. Whose lines are longer, hers or the new surgeon? It can take months to have my wife do your cataract surgery. You can see the new guy next week. If your favorite steakhouse had to charge Denny’s prices, they’d go out of business.

Other countries are often worse than the United States. The following is a direct quote on the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario website: “In 2018, 77% of women with an abnormal mammogram who needed tissue biopsy were diagnosed within seven weeks of their abnormal screen date. The 7-week diagnostic interval has remained a challenge and is short of the Canadian performance target of 90% or greater. However, Ontario ranks within the top 3 provinces in Canada on this indicator.” The target for a biopsy after an abnormal mammogram is that 90% of women get a biopsy in seven weeks. Seven days is about what my patients wait. 

A free market, where the seller controls the prices, has its downsides, but lines would shorten. Recently, the price of beef went up. Even I, who could afford it, bought chicken and pork, and eventually, the price of beef settled down. If doctors’ prices increase, people might not go in for minor things, giving us more availability to see serious problems. The problem is more complicated than I have explained, but price controls and taxes are factors. Medical clinics are among the only businesses that cannot control their prices. If they want more money, they must see more patients, cutting into the time we spend with patients. Doctors are increasingly unlikely to add more patients to their busy schedules. Thus, we will continue to have long lines to see the doctor.

What is money sounds like a stupid question. It’s not. The best explanation I have read was in Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Paraphrasing, money is the intermediary for exchanging things between people. The economy, whether for my little family or the entire country, is the allocation of a scarce resource that has alternative uses. I have tweaked his definition of money and put it in more personal terms. I think more about the value of money rather than the economics professor’s definition.

I have always been able to buy the things I need. My father was a physician. We had a nice house and a car, and we never worried about the price of food. I am also a physician, so I can still buy what I need. Money is still the same for people in my shoes and the less fortunate, though some have more and some have less. So, what is money? Money is what it gets you–what it buys. If I have enough to buy food, shelter, transportation, a smartphone, access to health care, and some left for entertainment, do I have everything I need? I buy other things, but I don’t need them. I don’t need a latte from Starbucks every morning. I don’t need to go to an expensive restaurant. And I don’t need a Mercedes roadster.

While most people in the world have electricity, a third don’t have access to the internet, and a quarter don’t have secure access to drinking water. And we talk about needing the latest iPhone. We have a different idea of need. How often does a person “need” to visit the dentist or change their oil? I don’t know. You need access to a dentist and a car first.

I am not saying we shouldn’t go to the dentist or have a nice car. I am saying that we can do better thinking about what money is. It is only what it buys. The issue is that we all have a different idea of what we need and what is important. In my office, staff complain that they don’t have money to fly home for the holidays, but they have a Frappuccino every day (a milkshake with coffee in it) and never pack their lunch. The money that paid for coffee and McDonald’s was no longer available for the flight home.

My medical practice is in a town with poor and wealthy people. Some are on medical assistance, and others take first-class cruises. On the same day, I see those who cannot pay for healthy food while others complain of lost luggage in Europe.

People decide what they need to buy and what the price should be. I might pay 50 dollars extra for a plane flight if I don’t have to arrive at midnight. I will buy a nice road bike to get exercise but stay at crappy hotels. Netflix or a Gym membership; organic food (prove to me the benefit) or better running shoes; a daily pack of cigarettes or health insurance.

On a smaller level, look at the price of apps and subscriptions. Bluehost hosts this website. They put my website online for less than five dollars a month, doing everything but writing the blog posts. At the end of the year, the price goes up to about ten dollars a month. On review sites, Bluehost is criticized for raising the rate so high. Ten dollars a month is high? That is less than Netflix and less than two lattes at Starbucks.

One of the saddest examples is medication. I have had many patients complain about the price of medicines. Warfarin, an old medication for blood clots and prevention of stroke in certain conditions, is inexpensive but has a high risk of bleeding, interacts with food and medications, and requires frequent blood tests to monitor its effect. Some newer medications work better, have less risk, have few interactions, and require minimal monitoring. These medications cost more money. Patients often complain about the expense and choose to stay on the warfarin. Most people say their health is the most important thing. Yet, they don’t act that way. The same people who won’t pay the fifty or a hundred a month for better medication will go out for hundred-dollar meals or pay $900 a month for their BMW five series. Or they will hoard their money and never buy anything.

Saving money sounds like a good idea, and it often is. But you should think about what you are saving for. I save money so eventually, I can concentrate on meaningful pursuits other than my medical practice. I want to have enough money that there is little chance I will ever depend on our son to take care of me later. When I was young, I saved money so that I never needed to depend on my parents or anyone else in an emergency. I never wanted to run out of money until the next paycheck.

Maybe you think it is okay to live on the edge. Perhaps you are willing to spend money now and figure it out later. You have your choices, and I have mine. But see that it is a choice and make it. That is the main point of this article. Most people don’t make a conscious choice.

We all have our own decisions to make regarding what we use our money for. I am no better at these choices than anyone else. I have not been a good example of doing this wisely. My wonderful wife has a saying. Don’t buy things—buy things to do. That is a good rule, but there are gray areas, like whether the coffee machine is a thing or something that leads to coffee and conversations around the breakfast table. An Apple Watch is a toy for most people, but it does help with exercise and general health. I try to buy only things to do, like trips and time with family.

The truly poor may have to choose between healthy food and gas for the car. But many people in the United States are faced with the choice of upgrading to a 70-inch TV or a trip to visit an old friend. Daily Frappuccinos or a gym membership. Three streaming channels or a gym. Remember what money is. Whether you have a lot or a little, money is what you buy. Make a choice. Spend your money or save it. But do it with intent.