Easy come, easy go...

"A fool and his money are soon parted..." ~Thomas Tusser (1524-1580)

How true this is.

There have been many conversations, both in these blogs as well as between one another, about there being only three ways to come into money: inherit it, earn it, and steal it. Well, although stealing it clearly has it's own ramifications, sometimes we don't consider the significant negative possibilities of inheriting wealth.

Three examples come to mind:

• In high school, I had a good friend who came from an extremely affluent background. For his 16th birthday, his parents gave him a brand new '88 Corvette, fully insured and paid for in cash (yes, I know this dates me... whatever). He proceeded to crash it the next year - after it was rebuilt, his parents paid the higher insurance premiums. When that got destroyed as well, they then bought him a '90 Toyota Forerunner, and kept paying the $5000 per year insurance premiums. Well, his parents suddenly hit hard times a few years back - had to sell their house, and so on... and last I'd heard, this friend of mine was still working in the coffee shops trying to get his real estate licence (he never bothered with post-secondary education until the fountain "dried up"). Oh, and he didn't have a car...
• The summer after my first year of university, I worked with one purpose - to buy a car to use while I was away at school. After four months of tree-planting, house-moving and hardwood floor laying, and putting away what I needed for the eight months of school - I was able to afford a 1979 Honda Civic with manual choke. She wasn't much to look at, but I took care of her... what would I do if something happened to her? I'd used the last of my money on the actual purchase - I didn't have much choice but to keep her up and running. That sweet ride lasted me from 1992 to 1996.
• Finally, there are the Harpers. You may not have heard of them - but they were one of the families that was helped by "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" a few seasons back. The family had fallen on hard times, so the show (plus 1800 volunteers) came in and, on donations alone, tore the house down and rebuilt it to the tune of $450,000US. Furthermore, the Harpers were given 25 years worth of property and housing tax - so, essentially, they were handed a house worth half-a-million dollars, with no costs attached. Guess what I read this week? The bank foreclosed on them - because they'd taken that house and used it as collateral for a high-risk business venture that failed.

Now, at this point I usually tie things up with a neat bow - but I think I would rather hear the thoughts of everyone else on this first...? What do you take from it, and how does it relate to you?

And I would especially like to hear from some of the others who don't regularly contribute or comment on these...

(Note: Significant hints to my personal thoughts can be found both in the title, and subtitle, of this blog...)

~Guy