Money Magnet

Have you ever noticed the way some people seem to attract money?

My cousin, Katie, is this way. I’d been working in advertising for seven years, and in less than six months she eclipsed my annual salary working part-time as a carhop at Sonic. She achieved this on roller skates.

My mother is this way. In addition to being a successful business woman, she is also a human metal detector. Except that money actually seeks her out. It’s all Pssst! Down here on the sidewalk! It’s me, Twenty Dollars! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Gosh, you’re pretty!

You know that expression, “Do what you love, and the money follows”? Well, I do what I love, and the money follows my mother. In Las Vegas, if the woman so much as winks at a slot machine, it will empty itself at her feet.

This trait is not genetic.

I do not attract money. What I attract is money-making schemes. Everyday, my inbox is flooded with emails from strangers who want to show me how to quit my job and make the big bucks.

“Earn more than your boss!” the spammers scream. “No IQ necessary! Motivation TOTALLY OPTIONAL!”

“Work at home in your ratty pajamas! Earn $1,000 an hour while eating peanut butter straight out of the jar!”

“One hour on Google equals $5,000 — order your Google Cash Infusion System FREE* today! (*If you decide to keep it, your credit card will be billed $69 a month for access to all of the system’s features until you cancel your subscription in writing.)”

And then there’s my personal favorite, the most unrealistic promise of all: “Get paid to shop and share
your opinions!”

That one speaks straight to a woman’s heart. It’s so easy to see the logic. After all, you think, I do love to shop. And I am extremely opinionated. And Oprah did say that a woman’s instinct is her most precious and valuable asset … so, yeah! Why wouldn’t someone pay me to shop and offer my opinions?

I’ll tell you why.

BECAUSE MILLIONS OF AMERICAN WOMEN SHOP EVERY DAY AND SHARE THEIR OPINIONS FOR FREE.

A corporation doesn’t have to pay me to buy their products and say whether I like them. If I spend $9 a day on vanilla soy lattés, I’m saying I think vanilla soy lattés are good. Or I think vanilla soy lattés are good for me, even though soy beans give me gas. The point is, Starbucks isn’t going to buy the whole cow when they’re getting the soy-milk feedback for free.

So what’s the moral here? If I want to attract money, do I have to play coy? Should I be flaunting my assets without giving anything away?

Or is it possible that the answer is simpler than that? Like, maybe money’s just not that into me.