I’m increasingly convinced that the ability to hold on to your money is the highest form of money-making.
I just came across a case on a short-video platform.
The woman at the center of the story was one of the first generation of models in the 1990s. She’s from Shanghai and is now in her fifties.
She earned her first fortune modeling, married a Hong Kong man and obtained Hong Kong residency. The couple later settled in Shanghai and opened several private-dining restaurants. After thirty years of hard work building their business, they had accumulated substantial wealth.
Then the pandemic hit and their restaurant business declined. A friend she’d known since childhood lured her into an investment scam. Over the course of four years, she was swindled out of a total of 30 million yuan in cash. A lifetime of hard work was wiped out in an instant.
The shocking thing is that the scam involved practically no sophistication at all—it was just a con. The scammer told her, “I have a high-return investment opportunity. Give me your money, and I’ll pay you this much interest.” After she got a taste of the returns the first time, she went all in. In the end, she even stopped taking the profits out, letting her money “make more money” in the scheme. Whenever she needed cash, she’d ask the scammer for a little. This went on until the scammer’s funds ran dry and they were arrested. By then, the money had already been squandered, and she lost everything.
From the way this woman speaks, you can tell she has a wealth of life experience, thinks logically and is wary of human nature. She also has the shrewdness you’d expect of a businessperson. And in the end, she really did manage to get the scammer sent to prison all on her own, which shows just how astute she is. Yet even she couldn’t escape a trap built on a crime by someone she knew, her own greed, and the desire to make money without lifting a finger.
It was truly heartbreaking to watch.
At the same time, it’s made me even more determined to stick to three principles as an ordinary person trying to get by in the years ahead:
First, no investing whatsoever. I won’t put money into any project, no matter who pitches it. If I have money, I’ll put it in a fixed-term deposit. If I don’t, I’ll pay into social security and buy health insurance.
Second, don’t dream of making quick, easy money. Just earn an honest living the hard way. If you have the ability, try a small business that takes little capital and carries little risk. If you don’t, just do your job well. A steady stream of hard-earned money is the best kind of money.
Third, I’ll keep being socially awkward, spend more time with my family, and make fewer friends who might be scammers. If I can’t tell whether someone’s a scammer, I’ll just spend less time around people.
Anything else you’d add? I’ll write it all down.
I just came across a case on a short-video platform.
The woman at the center of the story was one of the first generation of models in the 1990s. She’s from Shanghai and is now in her fifties.
She earned her first fortune modeling, married a Hong Kong man and obtained Hong Kong residency. The couple later settled in Shanghai and opened several private-dining restaurants. After thirty years of hard work building their business, they had accumulated substantial wealth.
Then the pandemic hit and their restaurant business declined. A friend she’d known since childhood lured her into an investment scam. Over the course of four years, she was swindled out of a total of 30 million yuan in cash. A lifetime of hard work was wiped out in an instant.
The shocking thing is that the scam involved practically no sophistication at all—it was just a con. The scammer told her, “I have a high-return investment opportunity. Give me your money, and I’ll pay you this much interest.” After she got a taste of the returns the first time, she went all in. In the end, she even stopped taking the profits out, letting her money “make more money” in the scheme. Whenever she needed cash, she’d ask the scammer for a little. This went on until the scammer’s funds ran dry and they were arrested. By then, the money had already been squandered, and she lost everything.
From the way this woman speaks, you can tell she has a wealth of life experience, thinks logically and is wary of human nature. She also has the shrewdness you’d expect of a businessperson. And in the end, she really did manage to get the scammer sent to prison all on her own, which shows just how astute she is. Yet even she couldn’t escape a trap built on a crime by someone she knew, her own greed, and the desire to make money without lifting a finger.
It was truly heartbreaking to watch.
At the same time, it’s made me even more determined to stick to three principles as an ordinary person trying to get by in the years ahead:
First, no investing whatsoever. I won’t put money into any project, no matter who pitches it. If I have money, I’ll put it in a fixed-term deposit. If I don’t, I’ll pay into social security and buy health insurance.
Second, don’t dream of making quick, easy money. Just earn an honest living the hard way. If you have the ability, try a small business that takes little capital and carries little risk. If you don’t, just do your job well. A steady stream of hard-earned money is the best kind of money.
Third, I’ll keep being socially awkward, spend more time with my family, and make fewer friends who might be scammers. If I can’t tell whether someone’s a scammer, I’ll just spend less time around people.
Anything else you’d add? I’ll write it all down.