Did you know that the last time the financial gap between the rich and the poor was this wide was the Great Depression? For real, I don't make this stuff up. How do the rich keep getting richer while the poor just can't catch a break? I sure don't have all the answers, but one way is interest. Rich folks have money that works for them, leaving them time to find more ways for their growing ocean of money to make more money. Poor people have their jobs, which requires their time (a very limited asset), and they have rising costs of living, healthcare, and inflation to deal with while the wages paid aren't keeping up. It is actually a very sad story, and I don't see anything promising in the future to flatten the spread. So while the rich/poor gap gets wider and wider, those of us in the middle, (somewhere between welfare and billionaires), have to take action to make sure we are headed in the right direction.

You know who makes money off of interest besides rich people? Credit card companies. If you do the math on what the CC companies make off of people carrying a monthly balance, it would blow your mind right out of your ear canal. I kid you not.

Credit card companies provide the invaluable "service" of letting someone make purchases, while giving them the opportunity to only pay some of the balance a month later. Everything after "some of the balance" is the balance you carry. They have all kinds of creative ways to charge interest (9% - $20 APR being normal) on average daily balances or previous balances or whatever. Bottom line, they get rich if you choose to pay anything other than the entire balance each month by due date.

You can turn the tables!

Slow down your spending, pay the total balance every month even if it hurts, and get yourself to a point where you can buy the stock of companies like MasterCard (MA) or American Express (AXP). That way you can make money off them making money off interest. I've been holding MA for a while now and I'm in no hurry to sell. I just might sit on it until Ava is in college. We'll see.

Point being, if you're a thousandaire, you aren't going to make much off straight interest, be it bank savings, fixed CD's or whatever. You might try investing in those who make more money off interest than you can. IE, MasterCard is up 60% year to date (after +4% today). The 0.00001% that your bank is offering you for your fee free savings account just can't compete with that.

I am working on refining (and further developing) an online budgeting tool that I use for our family that I truly believe could miraculously change the financial tides for many families. If that strikes your curiosity, then stay tuned, because I will let anyone who wants to use it for free (and completely anonymously).