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How to get rich without getting lucky

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Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#101

Post by maehwasu »

pavlov wrote: post #55
keiferski wrote: post #33

I’m going to take a contrarian view and say: figure out why you want to be rich, first. For most people, money is a proxy for respect, status, power, security, social skills, romantic attraction from others, free time, or otherwise. If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you w…

> ... the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture ... I don't think it's only Western culture that is to blame. Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures seem to have even more ingrained versions of this core assumption.

Correct. Western culture is probably the least materialistic of all major cultures (500M+ people).

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#102

Post by charlesdm »

jerguismi wrote: post #70
adrianN wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips on getting security+free time without becoming rich first?

Live in country which has generous welfare system (scandinavian countries). Here I think people have all the basic needs pretty much covered. You can only get your things messed up if you get hooked up on drugs or alcohol. Though to me living here it seems that people are still all the time complaining and demanding more and more, though we have more safety nets than about any other place on earth.

This has a flipside though. If you do manage to find success (and say, own a profitable business or have an exit), you'll be taxed into oblivion.

It might not be the popular opinion on HN, but I would hate that. Make sure to structure things properly from the beginning so that you can leave when appropriate.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#103

Post by trevyn »

mehrdadn wrote: post #53
trevyn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay people to coach you and to practice with in a low-stress environment. Interestingly, in this same way, money can also buy happiness, through happiness coaching. :)

> Interestingly, in this same way, money can also buy happiness, through happiness coaching. :) Kind of like this? http://mimiandeunice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ME_353_D...

Ironically, that’s weirdly close to how it turns out. My current model is that humans are really driven by avoidance of various types of mental anguish (“suffering”), but can use pleasure and “happy things” to distract from suffering instead of removing the suffering. So after a while the pleasure or happiness seems like the goal.

But, if you decide to stop suffering and are able to achieve that, pleasure and “happiness” actually don’t serve much of a purpose anymore, but you still feel really good; it’s more of a “well-being” sensation.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#104

Post by jabbaker »

trevyn wrote: post #48
zuck9 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does money get you social skills?

You can pay people to coach you and to practice with in a low-stress environment. Interestingly, in this same way, money can also buy happiness, through happiness coaching. :)

I've been interested in finding some kind of approach to practice my social skills in a safe environment, what services offer something like that?

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#105

Post by alanfranz »

davedx wrote: post #88
plop_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have advices for young people in long term investments ?

Put as much of your monthly income into a Vanguard fund as you can afford. Most of my money is in this one: https://americas.vanguard.com/institutional/mvc/detail/mf/ov... You might want to put some into a fund that comprises bonds, though they've performed poorly (for my investments) in recent years. If you're young ( Also: this is a long play. Leave it there.

All those indexed funds suggestions are biased by the fact that the stock market, overall, has increased in value OVER TIME:

http://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historica...

Remember, the stock market does not create money, it's not a fundamental advancement for humanity. That just means that more people poured money into stocks, rather than other investments or savings.

There's absolutely, ABSOLUTELY no reason for which this growth should keep going on in the future.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#106

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

zeth___ wrote: post #89
55555 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you make your money?

Change jobs every 6 months or less, insist on a raise between each one. I'm earning just shy of 300k now. I don't see it stopping in the next decade either.

There is an inverse relationship between salary and the number of jobs available at that rate. I think you will find it harder to continue raising your income just by job hopping. You’re going to need to demonstrate you can deliver increasingly higher value to organizations in order to demand higher wages.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#107

Post by stochastic_monk »

maehwasu wrote: post #101
pavlov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture ... I don't think it's only Western culture that is to blame. Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures seem to have even more ingrained versions of this core assumption.

Correct. Western culture is probably the least materialistic of all major cultures (500M+ people).

It seems to have taken on a literal narcissism in the Snap era.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#108

Post by Xophmeister »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #80
Radle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are misunderstanding what the term consume means? Consuming means using resources on things that immediately loose their value. If you for example buy a house, that's not consuming since the house has inherent value. But if you yourself the newest gaming rig, the gaming rig is consuming the money. This is what Americans mean when they talk about consumer society.

> Consuming means using resources on things that immediately loose their value. You mean like food ? It's literally the first definition of 'to consume' on Google.

Expending resources (i.e., money) for food doesn't cause the food to immediately lose its value. Expending resources (i.e., physical energy) for eating the food also doesn't cause the food to lose its value, as it almost certainly provides more energy and nutrition than is expended in its digestion, thus maintaining the consumer (i.e., a net gain); it may also have additional value, which probably attracted an additional cost to begin with (e.g., superior flavour, scarcity, etc.)

It's an overloaded term, sure, but it's clear that consumables -- i.e., things that need to be consumed to release their value, such as food -- only fall under the category of "consumption" when there's a surplus of value that becomes illiquid. For example, eating a balanced meal when you're hungry is a net gain, while eating 50 pizzas when you don't need to isn't!

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#109

Post by sokoloff »

whataretensors wrote: post #65
plop_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have advices for young people in long term investments ?

Don't listen to risk-averse engineers. You are young, invest in high risk things you believe in. Make it an active investment if you can. Recognize who is giving you boring advice(index funds), look at the risk levels in their life, and then disregard them if they don't take chances on anything. At a young age your risky investment % should be at it's highest. The exact amount will depend on your appetite.

That's a fair thought to entertain and thanks for raising it. As a counter-balancing point, I'd advise considering input from a variety of people who have created financial security or built actual wealth, ask them how they did it, and consider the extent to which your situation, skills, and goals have similarities or differences from their path. (I absolutely agree that full or nearly-full "risk on" is the way to go as a young person during the accumulation phase of your life.)

"Boring advice" works to make multi-millionaires in a predictable, boring fashion, especially when the available timeline is 40-50 years.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#110

Post by maxerickson »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #82
ahmetkun wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have to eat, don't you?

Exactly. So why criticise people for spending money on consumption when they need it to stay alive.

That's an extremely tiresome interpretation of the comment you replied to.

If you give them just the tiniest little benefit of the doubt, it's easy to see that they are talking about the money they had available after meeting their needs and that they probably aren't criticizing people that don't have a lot of such money.

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