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.

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.

What is work-life balance?

What is work-life balance? Wikipedia defines it as the interface between work and personal life. Wikipedia is wrong. There is no such thing as work-life balance. Work is life. They are the same thing.

Yesterday, we had friends over for a dinner party. My wife and I cleaned the house (mostly she did), set a nice table, chopped vegetables, made sauces, cooked the salmon and side dishes, and served everything. After dinner, we cleared the table, my wife loaded the dishwasher (she is the world’s expert in efficient dishwasher loading), and after I went to bed, she cleaned the house. This morning, I emptied the dishwasher and put in another load. (I think I got about half the dishes in the dishwasher she did last night.) 

If my wife and I worked at a restaurant doing everything I just described, they would have paid us money, and we would have gotten a tip from the customers–in my case, nine percent. At the end of the shift, we might have complained about the job and how much we hated it. Some would say we needed a better work-life balance. 

How is what we did at home different than what hosts, cooks, busboys, servers, and dishwashers do for work? Nothing. They are the same thing. I often give general medical advice to friends or relatives. (I don’t give specific medical advice because that’s improper, but I tell them what home remedies to use and whether they should see their doctor.) I don’t consider advising my friends to be work, but I get paid money for giving similar advice at the office. If you pick up a friend at the airport, it’s no different than working for Uber and picking up a customer.

So, it’s work if you get money for it and not work if you don’t? That makes no sense. The only difference between cooking for friends and cooking for money is the benefit you get from one or the other. We decide that cooking dinner for friends is fun and working for a restaurant is not. Giving advice to a relative is good, but going to the office and doing the same is work and causes burnout. Uber for money is work, but picking up a friend isn’t? Ridiculous.

Tarzan said, “Only a fool performs any act without reason.” So, what are the reasons for working at a restaurant or doing the same thing for friends? Everything you do has upsides and downsides. Working at a restaurant gives you the benefit of money. We can spend that money on things we want. Hopefully, we also get some pleasure from providing a good experience for the restaurant’s patrons. The downsides are the effort we put in and the time we spend that we can’t spend doing something else. We didn’t get money from our friends, though they brought hummus, veggies, and wine. (I didn’t drink the wine, but the hummus was superb.) Other benefits of hosting the dinner were the pleasure of providing a good experience for our friends and our enjoyment of their company. Our time and effort were the same as if we had done it at a restaurant.

What we do in our personal lives is often identical to what we or others do at work. The only differences are the upsides of the activity. We decide that it’s work if an upside of the activity happens to be money. There are some downsides to working at a restaurant that don’t happen at home. I can choose the time of my dinner party, and they would make my schedule at a restaurant, but once I get there, the job is the same.

The point I’m making is this. Every activity has upsides and downsides. Think of them and decide what you want to do. Try to consider everything. I am leaving my medical practice in a few weeks. It’s a big deal because I’ve been a doctor for over thirty years. After I retire, I will still be active and productive, and I have many projects lined up, some for money and some for pleasure. I have decided that the upsides of practicing medicine no longer outweigh the downsides. Maybe someday I’ll decide that the upsides of hosting a dinner at my house no longer outweigh the downsides, and we’ll go out more. The money they pay you for your job is only one upside to that activity–the upside defines it as work. If the money and other positives outweigh the negatives, keep doing it. If not, then stop. Don’t consider what we call work to be any different than any other activity. Don’t try to improve your work-life balance. Work is life.

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.