Finance Friday: Rich People are Afraid of Leaves

This is a crazy thing to say, right? I thought so when I first heard Dave Ramsey say the same thing on his talk show today. I missed the discussion leading up to that point, but as I listened more it began to make sense. His point was, in my opinion, a very good one. He more or less said that anyone who is unemployed and broke is not trying hard enough. 

Photo courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Mr. Ramsey said that if you go to home depot and buy a leaf blower, strap it on your back and start knocking on doors in an upper class neighborhood, you will feed your family that night. Rich people will not go out and do that work when they can hire someone to do it for them.

As I listened to this show, I started thinking about an experience I had while living in Florida a few years ago. We had a pair of palm trees in front of our home. They badly needed to be trimmed as they had old, dead fronds and seeds hanging from them. We asked around for a price to have them trimmed. The going rate seemed to be about $300 per tree.

I decided that the price was too high. I would do the trimming myself. I borrowed a pole saw from a friend and went to work. Roughly three hours later I had sore arms, a poorly trimmed tree and a pile of fronds that would go on to cost me $100 to dump. And I had one tree still untouched. Looking back on the experience, I would now gladly hand the man my money in order not to have to do the work. I look at tree trimming the way I look at an oil change. I can do it myself, but I would rather pay someone to render the service.

Of course, being a number person and a fan of small business, I started thinking about the man who trimmed trees for $300/tree. Suppose he could beautifully trim a tree in an hour with his gas-powered pole saw. Maybe he has time to trim 5 trees each day and works 5 days per week. Let's also assume he takes a two week vacation each year. That gives him a gross income of $375,000 annually! 

I know there is some overhead cost for equipment, insurance, licensing and fuel... but that is an outstanding income! He has the ability to earn that income because... rich people are afraid of leaves... err, palm fronds.