Money, Money Everywhere - Part One

Once upon a time, there lived a poor but honest shoemaker …

We all know the story of the elves and the shoemaker. How he and his wife were down to their last crumb of bread and final piece of leather. How he cut that small bit into shoe-parts before going to bed, and then woke to find a pair of Gucci-worthy loafers. How he sold them and bought enough cowhide to make two pairs of footwear, then, when he woke to spike heels and sling-backs, he sold them and bought the makings of four, then eight, etc., and left them each night while some mysterious force worked his creations into reality. Eventually, this enterprising oldster decided to ferret out the source of his success, and, sure enough, he found two elves, singing songs of Jimmy Choo and Prada as they hammered away. And though the elves didn’t stick around forever, the shoemaker led a charmed life ever afterward.

We should all be so lucky, right? We can be. We can steal the money, just like he did.

Wait, he wasn’t a thief! Was he?

Let’s see … he made his money with almost no effort … he contributed only raw materials and capitalized on the generosity of two industrious magical creatures instead of the sweat of his own brow … he claimed the work as his own …

No, this isn’t Harry Potter, and I’m not lobbying to free the elves with gifts of clothing (honestly, that’s how the shoemaker lost his work force). I’m talking about stealing funds in the most legal and purest sense. How?

Well, first off, there’s the miracle of simple and compound interest. We have, or could have, all kinds of elves working behind the scenes for us - we give them cash, they do something weird and mysterious to it (singing heartily of Greenspan and Buffet), and, in general, after a day, a week, a year, ten years, somehow our money has multiplied. Sure, we speak of money “working for us” in investments, but it isn’t doing the actual labor – these arcane little men and women are. Whether it’s the slow but steady growth of bank savings, money market accounts, and T-bills, or the erratic accumulation (hopefully) of mutual funds and individual stocks, we take the efforts of our strange creatures and make it our own. Albert Einstein called compound interest “the eighth wonder of the world,” and that’s as good as saying it’s effing magic. I leave much of that to the masters.

Second, there are “rewards.” Not a big grower of assets, true, but these types of credit cards or bank accounts can help you pay off debt, or even get you free trips and huge discounts on purchases. Obviously these elves are more temperamental – they sometimes ask for yearly fees and really high interest rates in payment. I stay away from them (they’re trolls in disguise) and only use those that are free. The card I use (and carry no balance) puts a percentage toward my home loan’s principal. I also get rebate checks (some in-store only) from Staples, Costco, my insurance company, and various others, but these count only because they are refunds on things I usually buy anyway.

Third, there’s the other meaning of “steal” – to sneak, to move something quietly in the hope of not being seen. Yes, I thieve from myself, every chance I get. My husband’s 401K is growing because of the power (and invisibility) of automatic deductions. We also split his check between two accounts – the mortgage payment is transferred from one (which has no debit card) every month. In fifteen years, this stealth investing (with the help of my elves) has taken our red balance and made it black … with an extra zero.

I suspect I’m seeing only the tip of the magical iceberg in this first category. I know that money is all around us for the taking. And, like the air I breathe, I can have it for little or no effort. All I have to do is recognize it.

And steal it.