Making The Easy Money

Easy money. These words tickle most any ear. Anyone can get rich--just by finding the easy money. The Internet makes countless claims: "Make easy money with little or no effort." "An easy money blackjack system." "Find great opportunities to make easy money." "Easy money home-based business opportunity." Can it really be so easy?

A friend with a small but growing business related a conversation with some of his workers. He pays a fair wage, but they were chiding him a bit about all the "easy money" he must be making. From what they saw, it didn't appear that he really working all that hard.

He told them parts of the story they couldn't see.

"What happens when you leave work in the afternoon?" "We go home and don't show up until the next day." "Right. But do you have any idea what I do when I go home?" They didn't .

"I enter all the work we did for the day into the computer so I can bill the customers. Then I print the bills, fold them, and mail them. The I go through the mail to see who's paid so I can try to collect from those who haven't. I type out bids for potential customers and send them out." They hadn't thought about that.

And did they know what else he had to do? No. "I have to do repair work on equipment in addition to regular maintenance. I have to buy and stock spare parts. If Mr. Cranky calls at 10:30 p.m., I have to talk to him. If Mrs. Fussy has a complaint, I have to listen--like it or not. Then I have to spend some time planning our jobs for the next day. If weather slows us down, I have to reschedule and let the customers know, plus try to work in any special requests." They hadn't thought of all those things, either.

"Do you know what it takes to get you paid?" Just write checks, they thought. Wrong. "There are lots of other details like payroll taxes, withholding, and the like. That stuff doesn't just take care of itself. Then I have to have an accountant and an insurance agent to handle other details. And those guys don't work for free, either."

"Whenever you want to go hunting, fishing, or take a vacation, you get to go. But I have to figure out how to get the week's work done without you. And do you think that the equipment we use just appeared on my doorstep? I've been at this for five years trying to slowly improve the quality and quantity...."

By the time he finished, they seemed more grateful for what they had. What appeared to be easy money had been earned the old-fashioned way: hard work. The only real easy money is that which those who want to get rich quick eagerly give to someone else to help them.

Copyright 2000 James McAlister

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