Abigail really is a $15 billion woman. $15 billion is her net worth. The $50 million is her annual income. Think these figures are misprints? They are not.

Monday Morning program members are mostly American and Canadian dentists, veterinarians and optometrists, people with the highest qualifications in existence.  That is why, as a group, we have the highest incomes in North America.

It takes our average member five years to earn what Abigail earns in one week!

A visit to the Securities and Exchange Commission website will show you that her company has paid millions to settle charges for misdeeds of various sorts. Common enough. More crime, much of it legal, is committed on Wall Street before noon than any other place in the course of an entire year. (“Behind most great wealth, there is a great crime.” Honoré de Balsac)

These fines are a part of the cost of doing business for Wall Street. In the same league as wages, rent, heating, cooling, municipal taxes. Where do Wall Street banks get the money to pay these fines and continue to prosper? Where do they get the money to pay the unbelievable incomes of the top Wall Street bankers? You know the answer.

One ubiquitous hidden fee is that of opportunity cost. The commitment to invest in one area deprives us of the opportunity to invest the same money elsewhere, where it might do better.

The cost of education is another example of opportunity cost. The commitment to get that education deprives us of the opportunity of earning money by working at a job.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year and so minimized that opportunity cost allowing him to build a company of global and historic significance .

As another example, Thomas Edison dropped out of public school!  (He did get some home-schooling and mixed his career with education by attending Cooper Union.)

Opportunity costs are unavoidable. Fortunately, we can minimize many other hidden fees or avoid them entirely. Here is how.