There is a thing I call "cost of ownership" and everyone needs to know and think about it before buying anything or even just being envious of those who have those things. I first really became a ware of this cost of ownership and began studying it in 1983. I had just been divorced and started riding bicycles with a friend who had also recently gone through a divorce. We would meet at his house to go for moderate to long rides from about 2 to 5 days per week. He had been a really hard working business man owning a variety of small businesses making very good money and living on the outskirts of a small village when his wife divorced him. He let her have everything for the two kids and built himself a much smaller house right next to her house so he could regularly see his kids. He had only been divorced about a year or two and she had remarried but he had not. After I showed up and while my friend was getting his bike ready for the rides, we would watch her new husband working his butt off to maintain the house and pool my friends former wife had kept while we went out for nice long rides having fun.

My friend told me that, after he had moved in next door watching her new husband working his butt off to just maintain what they owned, my friend had realized that the slaving fool next door had been him before the divorce and my friend had realized that the more you own, the more you have to work and pay to keep owning it. He said that you don't own property, it owns and enslaves you forcing you to keep paying and working to keep owning the property. He told me that giving all that junk to his wife had enslaved his wife and new husband and freed my friend to better enjoy life. He didn't make the same mistake twice.

As I studied this for almost two decades, I learned that the cost of ownership is very high. The Bible teaches this to us but the liberals have taught us to ignore the Bible and believe their nonsense about owning stuff and even caused us to become addicted to owning as much stuff as possible. Jesus said to not build up our wealth here on earth where the moth and rust corrupt or destroy it but to build up our wealth in Heaven. The Bible also teaches that whatever or whoever we worship, we serve. Basically, if we worship the things of this world, we become slaves to them with our lives and money.

The lying liberal media have and still do teach the false idea that, when you buy something, you just have and get to happily own it forever without any worries or "costs". Once again, they couldn't be more wrong with this simple minded idea.

When you buy something, it automatically begins to depreciate or decrease in value meaning you are already losing money on it when you walk out the door with it. Don't believe me? Go to any garage or yard sale and look at how cheap you can get really good working stuff. That owner paid a huge price to get that stuff new and lost almost all of their investment in that stuff selling if for "dimes on the dollar". And that is only for the little stuff. The bigger stuff costs you much more. As a matter of fact, I have noticed that the more you pay for things, the more they cost you to keep owning them.

Let's take a house for example. Let's say we have a small house costing $100,000 verses a larger and nicer house in the same relative area for just $500,000; forget the multi million dollar stuff. We have been taught by the media to think that, "If I could just win the lottery, I would buy me a really nice big house." And then what? Then you are going to spend a lot more time and money maintaining that house and most people never figure on the cost of ownership which is the main reason most people who do win big lotteries (about 2/3) are broke within three years. They spend their money buying things and don't have any more left to pay for owning those things.

For the smaller, less expensive house, it will cost you much less time and money to keep owning that house than the larger more expensive house will cost you. That is one of two reasons why poor people don't own mansions. Even if some one just gave them the mansion, they couldn't afford to keep owning it because the cost of ownership is greater than their budget can afford. There used to be a TV show where the show would build poor people a larger and nicer home with everyone thinking this was a really great thing helping out poor people and I often wondered how many of those people had to completely give up their homes later because the people simply could not afford to live in those bigger homes. Later I found out that more and more of them were being forced to leave their new wonder homes and some were even ending up worse off because the larger homes ate up what little money they did have and even ran up large bills they now had to pay and who would pay much money for a really nice home in a poor neighborhood? You know they didn't get more than a fraction for their homes of what they would have in a better neighborhood when they sold them. At least some of those people lost their butts.

First, it costs more to just heat, cool, and light a much larger home so that increases your energy bills. Today, the energy bills alone for the larger home can cost hundreds of dollars per month more than for the smaller home. That alone can cause a poor person to lose their new wonder home. Then you will probably be living in a nicer neighbor hood where the snob neighbors will require you to keep your yard up to their standards which will either require you to spend a lot more time working in the yard or force you to hire some one to do it for you, the way most of your snob neighbors usually do, while spending more money on the latest trendy plants and water. It also costs much more to insure a more expensive home than a less expensive home. Then you quickly learn that everything wears out in the larger home just like in the smaller home but the large home was built using more expensive stuff so it will cost you much more to replace that stuff as it wears out.

Then there is the problem the commie's have caused. With their taxes, what I call commie rent, there is very little of significance in this country that you can really own. With their taxes, they have set it up so that they own everything you buy and you have to pay them rent, called taxes, to keep using it. The more expensive the item is, the more you have to pay them in rent. They have a really great racket going. You pay the ownership price, pay and work to maintain it, and they own it with you paying them rent to use it. Isn't that like you buying a rental property to live in and working and paying to maintain it and then having to pay some one else rent so you can live in it? Think about it. Why buy it, just rent it from the rich commie's and save yourself the purchase and maintenance expenses.

With commie rent, most land taxes are about 2% of the "value" of the property. With the $100,000 home, the commie rent is $2,000 per year but, with the $500,000 home, the commie rent is $10,000 per year which is much harder for even a middle class person to pay. That increased cost of ownership is one of the biggest reasons why middle and lower income people lose their homes, after they appreciate in value, in a good economy. The more your big stuff is worth, the more you have to pay the commie's in commie rent to keep it. The really rich people are paying anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in commie rent every year.

The liberals have had a number of fad TV shows selling the idea that, if you just had a lot of money to buy the really nice stuff, you could just happily own it forever with no further problems. Life would be perfect. They make it look like these rich guys with their expensive planes, boats, cars, houses, and other luxury items don't have any problems. Listen, they have problems coming out their butts because of the expensive luxury stuff they own or that owns them. If you don't believe me, check out the difference in cost for replacing the ignition for a Chevy verses a Mercedes. It is also important to know that their more expensive stuff actually wears out just as fast and has the same problems your less expensive stuff has.

A really great example of this is the yachting industry. The liberal media make it look like these people spend millions of bucks on those expensive yachts and then just cruise around happily forever with no problems. I have been enjoying reading the truth on the Internet with all these personal yachting sites. These people are constantly having problems with even new parts for their yachts within just from a few months to a few years regularly having to shell out from hundreds to thousands of dollars to replace stuff again and again along with the time to replace those things.

Yes, they have a good time sailing around but you would be surprised at how much time they spend broken down waiting for parts, working on replacing those parts, and spending tons of money getting those parts, even on new boats. Plus the regular maintenance is incredible. They have to clean the bottoms of those boats to get the critters off at least several times per years for the protected parts and even more often for the unprotected parts. Then there is the problem with corrosion caused by the salt water and air which is a constant and really large problem. My car doesn't break down one tenth as much as their yachts.

I have noticed a trend among the live aboard boating people. Most of them live on their yachts for anywhere from a few months to about 3 or 4 years, move back to land, and sell their boats. Why, especially if it is the incredibly wonderful and care free life the idiot media make look like it is? Because they get tired of spending all of their time and money fixing the boats. I have noticed that most people who get really involved in such things usually quit within about 3 to 5 years and very few are still involved 10 to 15 years later. For example, in bicycle racing, there is an almost complete turn over in participants every 10 to 15 years.

Yes, and they also have those huge mansions the media teach us to drool over. Did you know they have full time employees managing their expensive mansions and fixing every thing so the rich people can have play time? The rich people have to have an entire staff for each significant luxury item they own AND they have to spend quite a bit of time working with their property managers making decisions about fixing and replacing stuff and even deciding whether the stuff is worth it or should just be sold to save money and time. They have a lot of stuff and that means they have a lot going wrong all of the time. The more you have, the more problems you have. Just take a look around at all of the very expensive rich guy mansions, boats, planes, cars, and such that are always for sale and, most of it at reduced prices just to get rid of the cost of ownership. They aren't just selling you great stuff; they are selling you their problems or they wouldn't be selling them at all. Quite often, these rich people go broke because even they didn't understand the cost of ownership and maintaining their luxury items drove them into the poor house.

So the next time you are tempted to envy some rich guy because of all the expensive junk he has that is draining his bank account and taking up his play time keeping it working, maybe you not having all of that junk is a blessing from God. You may get more real play time than he does. Just think about the time and money you already spend with the junk you currently have. How much more money and time would you have to spend for the cost of ownership if you had more junk?

So next time you are tempted to wish you could have something some rich guy has, just remember there is a cost of ownership for everything and you may not really want to pay that cost and are better off where you are. Many are learning that a simple life can be a better life.

In closing, let me share a little statistic with you. The idiot media like to make it look like getting tons of bucks automatically causes you to be happier. Really? First, I have noticed that rich people get paranoid really fast because everyone they know is trying to get and even steal their money. They have very few real friends. Second, the last time I checked, the total divorce rate for the US was 50% but the divorce rate for people who make over $100,000 per year is 80%. Gee, what happened, didn't all that loot make them happier? I guess not.

I have learned that you will find your best happiness with God and not with junk. God will take care of you but you have to take care of your junk. Do the math. Do you really want to pay the cost of ownership for that junk? If so, then enjoy yourself but at least figure out and consider the cost of ownership before you waste your money on the junk. Can you even afford the cost of ownership? Just think it through well first and check with others who have already been there and left.

Just a little food for thought.

Let me state again, not all rich people are criminals. On the other hand, neither are all lower class people. Over the last 60 years of my life, I have known plenty of lower, middle, and upper class people who were good people but I have also known and seen plenty of all three classes who were bad people so that there are lower, middle, and upper class trash. Some times it may sound like I don't like upper class people but the good upper class people are just good people who make more money. It is the trash or criminals I don't like regardless of the class they come from. The trash I dislike the most is the upper class trash because, with their wealth and power, they can hurt the most people, more often, and more significantly. They cause most of the problems in this world. Also, most criminals are liberals but there are some moderate and conservative criminals. The last statistic I saw on this said that better than 90% of the people in prison are liberals and less than 20% of the people in the US are liberals. That should be a real eye opener.