A Tale of Two Citizens.
Mike manages the production line at a local factory where he earns $2,500 per month. His days vary depending on which shift he is assigned.
The day-shift generally starts at 06h00 and finishes at 15h00 with standard lunch and coffee breaks in between. Night-shift starts at 15h00 and finishes at midnight, along with similar dinner and coffee breaks. Mike generally works three days on day-shift, has one rest-day, then three days on night-shift, followed by another rest-day.
He gets the standard ten days of paid annual leave which he usually takes over the summer with his wife and two children. God-willing, Mike plans to retire at age seventy by which time his house should be paid off and he will be in a position to live off his retirement income.
Lucy is a single mom who earns $2,300 per month as a freelance writer. Her routine varies depending on the demands of her two children. Her son is enrolled at a good college, however her daughter is still in high-school and living at home.
Lucy usually starts writing or research after doing the school run in the morning. She usually works from home or at her favorite coffee-shop which has a good wi-fi connection. Because she is a night-owl, she often uses the afternoons to go shopping with her daughter or to visit friends – and then works later on in the evenings.
When her son returns home over the summer, she sometimes rents a camper-van for a road-trip or uses a friend’s cabin up at the lake. As she can work from pretty much anywhere, she generally spends the entire summer break from June to mid August on holiday with her children. Same goes for holidays around Christmas and Easter.
Next year, her daughter heads off to college as well. With both children soon to be more independent, Lucy has plans to sub-let her apartment and travel for six months. She is thinking of renting a place in the South of France. Or maybe in Fiji. She hasn’t decided yet.
Retirement is not something she thinks about very often as she loves what she does and, God-willing, she should be able to continue writing for as long as she chooses to do so. Not that she isn’t planning for retirement; she is. It’s just that, when she retires, she doesn’t expect her routine to change very much.
Mike and Lucy illustrate the difference between riches and wealth.
In the above story, Lucy actually earns $200 a month less than Mike. Technically, that makes Mike richer. But who is the wealthier individual here? Lucy has the freedom to move and live wherever she chooses. She also has the freedom to work whenever she chooses.
Riches are the measure of a bank balance. Wealth is the measure of freedom and choice.
Rich Abba, Holy Abba
Most people would trade Mike’s pay-check for Lucy’s freedom in a heartbeat. This is true wealth; the freedom to choose how we spend our time and where we get to spend it.
In my post, Jesus said this, we studied the scripture that says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I believe Matthew 19:25 challenges us to consider that we are richer than we like to admit. This is a tough pill to swallow because most hard-working first-world Christians don’t feel rich.
How can we possibly be rich when we are struggling to keep our heads above water? The answer is simple. We may be rich but we are not yet wealthy!
By that, I mean large salaries may, technically, make us rich – but we still lack freedom and choice. The moment we stop going in to the office each day, our income will dry up and we will instantly become poor.
Investing in Freedom and Choice
Without the freedom to choose where we go, when we go there and how we spend our time, we feel impoverished no matter how rich we may be.
So what brings about such a sad state of affairs? The most common cause is our materialistic first-world spending patterns. It’s in our nature to spend every last dime, no matter how much we earn. Sure, many of our expenses are legitimate purchases for food, clothing, shelter and transport. But we tend to make a lot of frivolous purchases and foolish choices as well.
For instance, we take out a loan to purchase a $40,000 car. Of course, there is interest on this amount so our actual payments over five years will be closer to $50,000. No matter, we think. We can manage $10,000 a year. At the end of five years, we finally pay our last installment. And how do we celebrate? By selling the car for $19,000 and then taking out another loan to buy a $50,000 car!
If we chose to break this cycle just once, and saved that money over the next five years instead, we would have enough cash to put down as a deposit on a rental property. This would, in turn, create an additional income of a few hundred dollars a month not to mention the capital gain over time.
This is building wealth for freedom and choice.
It may not look like much but this creates… choices. And those choices bring about… freedom!
Ironically, for most people to achieve true wealth with freedom and choice as described above would not require any more money than they have right now. Imagine a world where you earned your current salary – only, in this world, you get to choose your hours and you can work from anywhere in the country.
All it takes is some planning. A small paradigm-shift, a different income stream or a lifestyle adjustment of some sort and freedom could be within your grasp!
You wouldn’t necessarily be any richer than you are now – but you would be wealthy beyond measure.