A Typical Wealthy Habit: Payment Consciousness

Do you also have such people around you:

Knowing that you can write, they always ask you to help write this and that, treating you as a free editor;

Never spending money to learn anything, and if there’s really a need, they go everywhere to freeload on free public courses;

When encountering problems, they don’t seek professional help, but prefer to spend a lot of time figuring things out themselves…

On the surface, these people seem very good at managing their lives.

But when you get closer, you’ll find that they are not only disliked everywhere, but their own lives are also unremarkable.

Writer He Quanfeng once said: The way a person makes and spends money largely determines the full picture of their life.

Truly wealthy people not only have the mindset to make money, but also have the consciousness to spend money.

01

Yiwu merchant @Xiaozhi opened a factory producing baby teething toys.

An e-commerce customer would ask him to help print a batch of labels and stick them on the teething toy packaging every time they ordered goods.

Initially, when the customer didn’t buy much, Xiaozhi casually helped with the labeling.

But as the order quantity gradually increased, the time for labeling each time took nearly an hour.

So he proposed to the customer to pay 0.2 yuan labor fee for each label.

At that time, the customer could earn about 2 yuan for each teething toy sold. Even including the labor fee, there was still considerable profit margin.

However, the customer had no intention of paying.

Sometimes saying, “Isn’t it just casually sticking a label? Is it necessary to charge money specifically?”

Sometimes playing the emotional card, “We’re old customers, don’t earn this extra twenty cents from me.”

Only after confirming that Xiaozhi wouldn’t budge did the customer reluctantly have netizens ship directly.

He would rather label himself than spend an extra penny on it.

Xiaozhi couldn’t help asking, “You can handle labeling alone now, but what about when business picks up later?”

The other party was dismissive.

Actually, Xiaozhi’s teething toys had always been well-recognized in the market.

If the customer had used the time spent on labeling to think of some marketing strategies, there would have been complete opportunities to multiply the store’s sales several times.

You’ll find that many people in life are like this.

They take everything for granted, but whenever they’re asked to pay, it becomes outrageous.

Lacking payment consciousness, not respecting others’ labor, and unable to see the essence of value exchange.

Such people, even when opportunities are right in front of them, will hold themselves back due to their mindset of not spending money if they can avoid it.

There’s no free lunch in the world.

Thinking that saving equals earning, actually every penny freeloaded will eventually be repaid in another way.

02

CSDN blogger @Zhang Kechen once designed a set of C++ code to solve a certain engineering problem.

Afterwards, he uploaded this code to a forum he frequented and set it for paid download.

In his view, since he had spent more than a month of effort on this code, if it could really help others, charging the price of a cup of milk tea as a service fee was reasonable.

Soon someone private messaged him, asking if he could share the compressed file of the code.

Meaning, I won’t pay for the download, just send it to me directly.

Zhang Kechen directly ignored the person.

More than two months later, when Zhang Kechen was browsing the forum, he accidentally came across a post by that person.

In the post, the person was still asking about the problem that could have been easily solved using his code.

There’s a line in “Upstream”: “The best state toward wealth is not refusing, not being greedy, and knowing how to allocate.”

Many times, wealthy people are more willing to spend money than poor people, not just because they have more wealth.

But because they often have clearer goal orientation.

They know how to use the resources at hand to achieve goals more efficiently, thereby obtaining more returns.

Rather than focusing their thoughts and energy on how to spend less money.

This reminds me of Channing in the American TV series “2 Broke Girls.”

She was originally an entrepreneur’s daughter, but due to her family’s bankruptcy, she ended up working as a waitress in a restaurant.

During this time, she discovered that her colleague Max was selling a kind of cake that, although tasting good, looked ordinary.

Channing immediately used her two months’ salary to enroll Max in a food presentation course.

Max was initially angry, thinking that the content taught in such courses could be found anywhere online.

But feeling sorry for the money already spent, she had to seriously attend classes with Channing.

After half a month of learning, the cakes Max made became much more attractive, and sales began to increase continuously.

Channing, through cooperation with Max, quickly earned back the course fee and opened her own cake shop.

Media personality Liang Shuang once said:

“People who can distinguish priorities in spending and are willing to pay for growth can struggle at least 10 years less.”

Many times, free is the most expensive.

Once you have the mindset of freeloading, most of your life will be wasted in aimless seeking.

Even if you’re lucky enough to find useful resources, you won’t take them seriously because they don’t cost money.

You must give to receive; without giving, there’s no receiving.

People who spend money to buy time and people who spend time to save money are destined to live different lives.

03

Investor Feng Lun once consulted a friend who ran a consulting company about a project he was evaluating.

The friend happened to be in the related industry and directly solved Feng Lun’s problem over the phone.

The first thing Feng Lun did after hanging up was to have his assistant send a pricing inquiry to the other party.

The friend immediately replied by email, saying it was just a small favor and didn’t need special pricing.

Even the assistant felt that Feng Lun might be acting a bit too polite.

Feng Lun’s answer left a deep impression on me: “When someone’s one sentence can make you earn 1 million, but you’re unwilling to pay 10,000 yuan for that sentence, gradually you’ll never hear words that can make you money again.”

Life is your own business; no one has the obligation to help anyone change.

Paying for things that help you is not a matter of politeness, but a necessary cultivation.

People who can really make money have the consciousness not to freeload and will stay away from people who freeload from them.

Famous lawyer Liang Bin has this habit.

Every time relatives and friends come to him with trivial disputes in life, he directly hands out a business card.

The card has his law firm’s address and contact information, and according to different legal fields, marks the billing standards per hour.

Many people show an embarrassed smile when they see the card, saying they’re just asking casually.

Some even get furious, accusing him of being too stingy, charging money for just a few words.

But precisely because of this habit, the people who stay around him are friends and clients willing to pay for his consultation.

And it was from among these people that Liang Bin received several big orders, gradually making a name for himself in the industry.

Actually, the process of paying is itself a process of screening.

As Liu Run said:

“People you’re willing to pay for are definitely those who sincerely serve you; people willing to pay for you are also definitely those who genuinely recognize you.”

Spend money on meaningful things, leave time for people who respect you.

Create a value-oriented magnetic field for yourself, and wealth will naturally follow.

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I deeply agree with this saying: “The purpose of money is not in accumulation, but in use.”

Money saved from freeloading won’t make you wealthy.

But the habit of being petty and the character of being stingy will bind you to a mediocre life forever.

Wealth only flows to those who best match it.

When you get used to paying for valuable things, your life will become valuable.