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I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

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Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#61

Post by em500 »

xenocyon wrote: post #37

I think about this a lot, as another frugal but high-earning household that earns way more than we spend, even after maxing out 401(k) contributions. Most people in our position save more than they need partly as a means of hedging personal risk (higher-than-typical retirement and medical expenses, children who grow up unable to financially self-suffice), and partly (IMHO) just because they gain some satisfaction fro…

> Some people also save with the thought of giving away a ton of money at death, but this again holds money out of useful purposes until decades away.

What makes you believe that? The overwhelming majority of savings are held in bonds, stocks and real estate, not in paper notes in a vault. You might quible over the usefulness of savings and investments vs other allocations, but assuming is useless is pretty extreme.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#62

Post by wayoutthere »

xenihn wrote: post #12

I'm honestly so jealous of the husband's situation. 7-figure networth before hitting 30, a 4-bedroom home in a major tech hub, and a compulsively frugal wife who is obsessed with financial planning and amplifying your shared incomes/networths. The dream. This article just feels like a vector to drive traffic towards her sites, though.

I mean, I’m in a similar boat. I did the whole “make it rain” thing for a few years by dripping in designer clothes, fancy restaurants, etc. But that lifestyle made me way more anxious as impostor syndrome kicked in. Having money doesn’t really solve problems; there’s always someone with more who will make you feel poor. Buy a Gucci bag and it’ll feel like half the world is dripping bespoke Hermès. You can’t win.

I live way more frugally these days. I don’t intentionally scrimp and save, I just find it difficult to spend what I make without buying $5,000 purses that will get donated when they’re way out of fashion in 2 years.

I know, I know: first world problems. But it’s emblematic of the wealth inequality in the US: a lot of people are struggling to make ends meet while some people have to invest effort into finding ways to spend the money they make.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#63

Post by danielvinson »

vmlinuz wrote: post #15

Just to be clear, this is a story of a person who has been traumatised by a combination of the worse parts of US and Chinese poverty. It's not a nice story, at all... Also, the two websites she runs, as linked at the bottom of the page - one of them is a blog/content site about living frugally, one is about making money any way you can. They're part of the same problem that the article (probably inadvertently?) illus…

Yes, this is being overlooked by most readers... this article is a woman plainly describing her mental illness.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#64

Post by mruts »

xenihn wrote: post #60
mpeg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like a recipe for marital disaster that she's living this extremely frugal lifestyle despite him making good money and he "goes along with it" (her words)

Yeah, I've made a bunch of assumptions about what the husband is like based on what can be inferred from this article. I'll keep that to myself because I don't want to offend anyone and get downvoted, though a lot of it is drawn from what I was like when I dated someone like the author. She only had to spend half of her post-China childhood in poverty before her mom started earning doctor money, but she still thought…

Hasn’t really helped Japan get out of their 30 year depression, though.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#65

Post by luckylion »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #53
luckylion wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine where mankind could be if we had everyone being able to have the basics, and ample free time to think, to explore, to experiment, to create. Western Europe has vast social safety nets going way beyond "the basics". Yet you don't see an explosion of innovation, culture, art, philosophy or what have you. They may not be related, or a full belly isn't hungry and doesn't look for ways to fill itself.

You do though, you’re just not aware of it. When you look at the cultural life of French cities for example, it’s 1000x richer than the cultural life of an American city the same size. And one could easily argue they don’t cover « the basics ».

That may well be, but that's just one aspect France has generally always been known for (whether it's accurate, I don't know). New musical styles, for example, mostly came from the US in recent decades. Whether Broadway can be compared to Paris' musicals, I don't know. I just don't see the explosion that you'd expect. Europe should have Star Trek technology if that was the case ;)

And sure, you could argue that they don't cover the basics, but you'd have to expand the understanding of basics, tbh. Germany gives you shelter, food, health insurance, money to spend on culture, public transportation, free education including university, a TV etc pp. That's beyond basics in my book. Sure, a car isn't included, but you don't need one either.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#66

Post by isoskeles »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #44
isoskeles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean for a nation as a whole to "take care of" its children? Or specifically, what is it beyond public schools that we'd want to satisfy that? Is it simply better public schools where they're doing poorly, or something else I am missing?

Rights of the Child, https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-te... is a reasonable baseline.

Yeah, this is pretty reasonable.

I'm curious, when you start getting into how to educate children in a way to have them fulfill their potential, how we measure whether or not we're succeeding. I definitely do not think we are (in the US). I also perceive a "will" to succeed, but everyone disagrees on how to make that reality, and I don't believe that this sort of list, while reasonable, does much to help in the way of solving the problem. I'm not saying it's a bad list or I disagree with it, it's just not prescriptive in terms of, "This is how you help children reach their full potential."

(And then we start getting into questions about what is full potential? If we're thinking in a short-sighted way, full potential is probably limited to their usefulness to the economic system balanced with their own relative mental health.)

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#67

Post by thoughtfunction »

mruts wrote: post #64
xenihn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've made a bunch of assumptions about what the husband is like based on what can be inferred from this article. I'll keep that to myself because I don't want to offend anyone and get downvoted, though a lot of it is drawn from what I was like when I dated someone like the author. She only had to spend half of her post-China childhood in poverty before her mom started earning doctor money, but she still thought…

Hasn’t really helped Japan get out of their 30 year depression, though.

I think that more comes from their society aging than being credit card debt levels of spending.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#68

Post by pfortuny »

em500 wrote: post #61
xenocyon wrote: post #37

I think about this a lot, as another frugal but high-earning household that earns way more than we spend, even after maxing out 401(k) contributions. Most people in our position save more than they need partly as a means of hedging personal risk (higher-than-typical retirement and medical expenses, children who grow up unable to financially self-suffice), and partly (IMHO) just because they gain some satisfaction fro…

> Some people also save with the thought of giving away a ton of money at death, but this again holds money out of useful purposes until decades away. What makes you believe that? The overwhelming majority of savings are held in bonds, stocks and real estate, not in paper notes in a vault. You might quible over the usefulness of savings and investments vs other allocations, but assuming is useless is pretty extreme.

Thanks for writing this. Saving is not storing money. It is delaying your right to “use” it, thus allowing others to “use” it now (which is why you expect a return interest).

That is why banks are not evil. On the contrary: they are the basis of a healthy economy.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#69

Post by bradlys »

unreal37 wrote: post #41
martamorena wrote: post #24

The article misses out on the math though. She saves 90% percent of her income? So does she earn 80k after taxes? She would need to earn about 130k+ after taxes to save 90% of her income, given that she is the one who pays all the expenses, which at 1000$ per 3 people is hard to imagine. Even in a small German town, where things are dirt-cheap compared to Seattle, 1000$ for 3 persons is almost impossible. I don't lik…

It's not that hard. She rents the house she lives in for more than the cost of her mortgage. She makes income from that there. They don't own a car. Her husband gets a free bus pass from work. No housing or transportation expenses. So what's left? Food? Her husband works in tech (first Amazon, and now Google!) and saves 100% of his income. And they live off hers. They have like $1.7 million saved from his Amazon stoc…

But it's incredible amounts of luck combined with having a partner who works for a series of big well paying public companies.

Being able to buy a house and rent it out for more than you pay is /hard/ because it's based on luck. No one in a major tech hub could start and do that right now. Houses in the bay regularly sell for $10k/month in total cost but rent for $5-6k. And then immediately say goodbye to 40%+ of your rental income to taxes. It's just not hard - it's luck.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#70

Post by thoughtfunction »

luckylion wrote: post #65
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do though, you’re just not aware of it. When you look at the cultural life of French cities for example, it’s 1000x richer than the cultural life of an American city the same size. And one could easily argue they don’t cover « the basics ».

That may well be, but that's just one aspect France has generally always been known for (whether it's accurate, I don't know). New musical styles, for example, mostly came from the US in recent decades. Whether Broadway can be compared to Paris' musicals, I don't know. I just don't see the explosion that you'd expect. Europe should have Star Trek technology if that was the case ;) And sure, you could argue that they…

France is ahead in fashion and few other art forms. America is ahead in popular art because LA is the silicon valley of culture and has the population of Europe.

After a certain point it's a language and population thing, and France has a language barrier compared to english.

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