Get Rich Quick…Pennies From Heaven

In every man’s life there comes a pinnacle of achievement.  A veritable climbing of the summit of Mount Everest.  The diving to the very bottom of the deepest hole in the Marianas Trench.  A journey to the outermost planet in our Solar System.  Even to some the long trip to Heaven.

Some men may reach this point, strive for more and fail.  Some may grab hold of this point and hang on to it as long as possible, hoping against hope that fate will not conspire against them to rip it away like a cheetah ripping the guts out of an antelope.  Some others may reach this point, realize it, and use it to propel themselves among the Thomas Edison’s, Albert Einstein’s and Leonardo Da Vinci’s of this world.  Where you go when you reach this crucial point in life is what makes you a ticking time bomb of potential, just waiting to spray your little pieces of shrapnel all over the world around you.

Today, ladies and gentlemen – I’ve reached that moment in my life.  For today, standing in the lunch line of our cafeteria at work, I had “The Idea”.  It came to me like a thunderstorm sneaking over a mountain.  Sudden and violent.  Some men are born into greatness, some are thrust into moments of greatness, and some have an incredible idea while buying a $3.99 hot dog.  That last one is me.

So why am I telling you my idea you may ask?  If I tell you, then won’t everyone know it and I’ll lose out on all the benefits?  It’s because, my friends, I feel that sharing this idea will cause a revolution in how we do business.  In how we shop.  In how we handle every single transaction every single day.  This is the idea that will make me a bajillionaire.  And you read it here first.

So what is the idea?  I’ve teased it long enough.  Here is a perfect example of how I’m going to spend the rest of my life so that by the time I retire I’ll be able to afford the beach house we all dream of.

I give you the “One Penny Throwback”

Let’s say you go to McDonalds.  You buy the following:

Double Cheeseburger ($1)
Sweet Tea ($1)
Medium Fries ($1.29)
Apple Pie ($0.49)

Total price                           $3.78 + .06 Virginia sales tax = $4.01

The perfect purchase and the very foundation of the ‘Flying Here in the Middle School of Getting Rich’ set of online classes that I’m preparing.  Note that it’s also the first chapter of the ‘Flying Here in the Middle School of High Cholesterol’ set of YouTube videos but that’s a story for another blog.

So why is it the perfect purchase?

How are you going to pay for this smorgasbord of goodness?  You are going to give them a $5.00 bill.  Is Billy Joe or Bobby Sue in the Drive-Thru lane going to count out the whole .99 cents change?  Of course not.  They are going to give you a nice, green, crisp $1 bill.  And you know what you have just done?  You have made your first penny.

You’re welcome.  You have just robbed ‘the man’ of a penny.  That penny is pure profit to you.  Think of all the possibilities….online shopping, pumping gas, every single transaction can be planned out that way.  Don’t believe me?  Look at these numbers.

Let’s assume that you do three purchases of ‘stuff’ per day.  That’s three pennies per day.  Let’s extrapolate that:

0.21 cents per week

0.84 cents per month

To round off, that’s almost $11 per year you have made with absolutely no effort except for a little planning ahead.  You put that sucker in an IRA or a Roth and boom – you are sipping Dirty Josephines on a beach in Waikiki by the time you’re 65.  It’s foolproof.

And you know what?  You can get braver – you can go for the .02 cent throwback instead of the .01 cent throwback.  You are then doubling your $11 per year.  Throw the .03 cent throwback into your repertoire every now and then and you are retiring at 55.  I honestly wouldn’t go any higher than that – the threats are real and the cost is too great.  Don’t get greedy.

Some may say that this idea is doomed to failure because of all the time spent trying to calculate the price and tax so that you just creep over that magic round number.  Some also said that Orville and Wilbur Wright were wasting their time learning to fly that kite.

You can be a naysayer.  Or you can be a dreamer.  I choose the latter.