# Hitting 200 HP
![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/cinderclaw.gld/EowH7TcmmGzj2obfFHZQySLvQLhgTaCLujuvfZk9yvia1QbtXAKkcHhBrwi8yeysAJc.png) Today is my 31st post on Hive. From those posts a lot of HELIOS has been burned and a lot of writing has been done. What is the end result: I crossed over 200HP (horray!) and I crossed over 1,000 GLD (also horray!). Which means that very soon I'll be cashing out those GLD tokens to purchase my first real world investment. That's exciting because with real world investments I can make real world dividends to complete my goal which is simple. 1. Make money on HIVE to purchase real world investments 2. Use real world investments to fund purchases on HIVE. A loop which means I keep on supporting the blockchain while also making real world wealth for myself. Which is exactly what I'm proposing *ANY* person can do on HIVE and the reason I have the Great Little Dragons community. Sure no-one else is doing it right now and sure I'm a lone voice in this space. Still, 31 posts and I can see the engine starting to work. A teeny tiny engine... and I still have the logistics of getting value off chain and back again. Plus I still have to figure out which investment to make (likely HDIV etf) but still, I can see things starting.

# Lessons from mom's house
Yesterday there were two things that I came across that I figured would be important for any person to know. Those financial ideas are so basic and so deeply ingrained into my psyche that I don't even think about them twice. **What are they?** 1. Never say no to free money and 2. Money saved is money earned But let me unpack those just a little bit. First: **Never say no to free money** My mom had a bill with the local heating contractor. She got an instant hot water heater for about $5,000. Yes its way more expensive than a regular water tank and the family here thinks she is crazy but...well, I think it is defensible as a long term fuel saver and it does pay for itself. That isn't the point though. She didn't have the $5,000 up front so she was paying 2% interest monthly. She also had another big bill she put on a credit card so she had a $5,000 bill there with 24% annual interest. I'll talk about that in part in just a moment. What did I do? Well, there was no way I was going to let my mom keep paying that kind of interest! I walked over to the plumbing place and asked what payment types they accepted for the bill. They mentioned Cash, E-Transfer, Cheque and credit card. I smiled to myself. I brought out my credit card and promptly paid the bill. No more 2% monthly charge and my credit card gave me $150 cashback for paying the bill. Yes, I could pay with cash but then I don't get the $150 in free money. Same with e-transfer or cheque. I like free money and that's why I say "never say no to it". Of course the very next thing I did was go to my online banking and pay off the debt. **Interests adds up fast** and bills pile up if not paid promptly. Second: **Money saved is money earned**. This is a little less obvious so let me explain. My Mom has money in investments. Those investments are professionally managed and generally earn about 5% return. Investment income is also taxed which costs her about 30% in taxes. Of course this money is needed to fund her retirement so she really ***really*** doesn't want to touch the principal. But in this case? I told her she really had to cash out $10,000 to pay off the bills. I explained it to her very simply. Mom... If someone offered you $500 but you had to give them $2,400 would that be a good deal? She didn't have to think about it. **No. That's a terrible deal**. It was mostly a rhetorical question but then I told her. ***If you keep your money in the investments they will give you $500*** and yes, I really like it when money gives me more money but..... ***If you keep your debt you will have to pay out $2,400*** and I really hate paying out credit car or retail store interest. Yes, if you cash out $10,000 in investments you lose out on the $500 income but pay off the bills and you save so much more money. Thats when it dawned on her that paying monthly interest was a bad idea.

Now for the sake of completeness I could have pointed out a couple more points. First the $500 she gets is actually only $350 after she pays her taxes. Second that making sure she doesn't get into debt in the first place is super important so she doesn't burn through her retirement money. Still, when the expenses have been incurred and the choice comes up? **Money saved is money earned** is important and getting rid of high interest debt was important here.

# Keeping the $150
Now if you were looking you would figure out that I made $150 by paying my mom's bill with my credit card. She actually gave me the $5000 in cash to pay off her bill. I told her she could user her credit card to get cashback but she is almost 80 years old and really wasn't understanding the idea. So, I took the path of least resistance. I used my card, took her money, and returned with the receipt showing that $5,000 was applied against her bill so she was all caught up. She was very happy the bill was finished and that I went to pay it for her. I told her I used my credit card to get the money she could have had and she really just didn't care. Too much work and effort she said. I just sighed and figured, well, she didn't learn the lesson about always getting free money when it was available, but I wrote this article so maybe someone else can learn it :) Thanks for reading... .... and as always, I love comments or even just having someone read to the bottom of my post. :)/center>

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