Simplified Wealth; by Barry Oliver

Growing up in Southern California, some private education, Master's Degree, Deloitte & Touche, etc......whether I wanted to admit it or not I was a Yuppie and my Dad told me so....condo, beamer, trendy gym, vegas trips, 6 figure salary, happy hour on Thursday, always broke and in debt.....but what did we talk about at all of those 'gatherings'? Cars, money and career...nothing more...how shallow? how boring!!!!

When I told my father, who grew up on cotton farm and chicken ranch in Louisiana, I was moving to Central America he almost burst out laughing and figured I would not last more than 6 months. I truly wanted a different life style...simple and wealthy.

Within a month I had sold my condo and beamer and had 2 garage sales and was on a plane to Central America. Everything I owned fit in the Isuzu Trooper I bought. All my clothes, 2 surfboards, mountain bike, boom box, cd's and a toaster. I rented a small house near the beach. My bathroom shelf inventory...razor, deodorant, toothbrush, tooth paste. Shower inventory...soap. This served as my shampoo and conditioner as well.

My Costa Rican wife and I built our own house, mostly just the two of us....while she was pregnant right up until the day before our daughter was born and then again two days after she was born. I kept asking her why we were doing all this work when we can just pay someone else less than a dollar an hour...she kept saying, "It's good for the soul." Sure enough when we were done and I looked at the whole thing I just got that feeling, "Wow we did that." Again, it was simple. Just 700 square feet but it was all we needed. Then we added 2 rooms and 500 square feet and now have one room that is completely empty.

We have no cabinets in the kitchen as all the plates and glasses fit in drying rack. So it's easy....take out of the drying rack, eat, wash and put back in the drying rack. The toaster is a frying pan....

The simple part was easy to figure out....just get rid of everything. The wealthy part, well that has its own meaning to be determined by each user.

I quickly learned what I call the 90/10 rule. In southern California while parked at a stop light to turn left I noticed all the fancy cars turning in front of me and that only 10% of the drivers were smiling. In Nicaragua without all the great wealth that number jumps to 90%. My conversations with my new friends never entailed homes, cars or money but family, friends and interesting stories that made me laugh.

I quickly figured out what wealth meant to me.

Wealth is not determined by how much money I make in a year.

Wealth is determined by how much time in a year I spend with my child, wife and friends. How many puzzles I complete with my wife in a year, how many chess games we play, how much vacation time we have, how many walks on the beach not seeing another person, how many candle light dinners (sometimes mandatory with the power outages). How much time do I spend mountain biking through mist covered mountains through tunnels of trees littered with monkeys. How many family bike rides with Angela sitting right on the cross bars, how many family hikes looking for monkey's and butterflies. How many days spent playing on your own desolate beach, how many days surfing perfect waves with just your friends, how many waves boogie boarding with your daughter in warm water, how much time river shrimping with your whole family, how many days taking your daughter to work every afternoon and on important client meetings. How much time spent listening to music. Reading a book on average every week, playing tennis on your friends clay court, raising 75 head of cattle with your wife's family, raising your own chickens and pigs with your daughter, moonlight crabbing, early morning turtle patrol, building your own house, cutting your own wood for the bathroom countertop and posts,......

Traveling...in one year going to Dubai, Amsterdam, London, Calgary, Miami, Atlanta, Panama, San Diego, Houston, Costa Rica, Italy (twice)

Bottom line......How much time do you spend with a big fat smile on your face? If it is 90% or more then that is being wealthy!!!