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Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

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Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#51

Post by laaph »

mfieldhouse wrote: post #37
dwc wrote: post #27

There's a sad undercurrent to this, as some redditors respond that they find this depressing. While I understand their plight, I do not understand the sustained pessimism for most of the depressed ones. I went to work right out of high school at menial jobs. No college, no big family business. Paycheck-to-paycheck, and any minor emergency like a dead car battery was a financial crisis. I did not "get lucky" on stocks…

To sum up the average discussion about jobs and money on reddit: a victim mentality and belief that we live in the hardest time ever to get a job because of events outside of our control.

It's easy to get that mentality.

I am in a broke period of my life right now. One can easily tell me about how much it is all my fault, but I thought I had enough money to last for two years when I quit my job, I thought I could find a job within six months in the bay area, people could argue that I am generous to a fault and people I have lent and given money to in the past can't or won't help me out now.

So it is easy to have some depression when scraping together a few bucks for transit to a job interview becomes one of the harder tasks. It's doubly frustrating when you get on the wrong bus and wind up 45 minutes late to the interview.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#52

Post by jakejake »

Jun8 wrote: post #20
smackfu wrote: post #9

Easiest way: No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues. That should get you to about a million in assets.

I fulfill all the above (except that I have a son, but he's young so the only big cost is daycare, around 13K/year), so where's my million!? In order to develop a successful model, one should also have negative examples, i.e. people who could have had ~$1M in their mid 40s but do not. The greatest mistakes I made that I see with hindsight are (i) doing a PhD in EE where a MS was more than enough and then taking too l…

Not having kids seems to be the first item in the list for that particular plan, so having a son disqualifies you!

Not to say that's a great plan. Having a life without kids wouldn't be a satisfying life for most people, and so if its a choice between kids and wealth, then most would choose kids.

I do think having kids early probably makes it much, much harder to become wealthy. My friends who had kids in their early 20's are generally poorer than my friends who waited until their 30's. I think a more realistic plan would be something that includes children, but waiting until you've had time to get some type of career started.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#53

Post by girardy »

hkarthik wrote: post #22

Our path to be on track for a net worth of $1 mil: 1) Two good incomes on the professional track. We both have good degrees from universities and don't plan on taking any breaks in employment. Even with kids, there are plenty of great childcare options available. Living near family helps too. 2) Drive paid off cars. Buy new cars if you want, but structure your costs so you can pay them off in 2-3 years max and then d…

1) Two good incomes on the professional track.

I read a book called The Millionaire Next Door that described how getting married and staying married was one obvious way to boost wealth. Not only is divorce really expensive, but married people on average use less space per person than single people.

You can obviously construct scenarios where this isn't true—what if you marry a spendthrift?—but it was still a really interesting point.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#55

Post by mellifluousmind »

seclorum wrote: post #16
smackfu wrote: post #9

Easiest way: No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues. That should get you to about a million in assets.

Kids are cool to have whether you have money or not. Well, if you decide to have kids, anyway, and are responsible for the act of raising a family, either poor or rich or somewhere in between, then its great whether you're saving for your first million or not saving at all .. no amount of money will ever buy the pure joy of raising ones family and watching the growth daily, hand in hand. Its something all humans have…

Kids are cool to have? Nah, I have too much emotional burden to even become a father figure. It is a lot of responsibility, and I bet the joy of having kids is priceless. Cool? not so much.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#56

Post by mellifluousmind »

vaksel wrote: post #21
smackfu wrote: post #9

Easiest way: No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues. That should get you to about a million in assets.

kids are an investment...they are your safety net...worse comes to worst, you can rely on them to support you in your late days if things go terribly wrong. its a good way to avoid ending up on the street...you'll always be able to get room and board with your kids. Since our generation won't get any social security or pensions to live off, we are going to need all the help we can get if things go south.

Maybe in Asia, this "taking care of elderly" mentality is strong. Here in States, I actually think that you are on your own is more true. You can't depend on your kids to take care of you. If you do, you can still end up being on the street.

In my view, kids are not investment. They take out much resources from you, and you do so willingly because you love them. As they get older, they may or may not show appreciation, depends on your relationship with them.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#57

Post by joevandyk »

hkarthik wrote: post #22

Our path to be on track for a net worth of $1 mil: 1) Two good incomes on the professional track. We both have good degrees from universities and don't plan on taking any breaks in employment. Even with kids, there are plenty of great childcare options available. Living near family helps too. 2) Drive paid off cars. Buy new cars if you want, but structure your costs so you can pay them off in 2-3 years max and then d…

For what it's worth, I just bought a new car for $35k. Came with a 5 year interest free loan with nothing down. If you can get that type of loan, you don't want to pay it off quickly.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#58

Post by stevear »

dwc wrote: post #27

There's a sad undercurrent to this, as some redditors respond that they find this depressing. While I understand their plight, I do not understand the sustained pessimism for most of the depressed ones. I went to work right out of high school at menial jobs. No college, no big family business. Paycheck-to-paycheck, and any minor emergency like a dead car battery was a financial crisis. I did not "get lucky" on stocks…

I am really glad someone else has noticed this and feels the same way.

This quote from that thread pissed me off all morning: "If you told the common man any time in history other than the baby boomer generation, that the way to get rich was 'hard work' and 'Budgeting' they would die of laughter."

Every day I feel more and more alienated by the victim mentality on Reddit. It seems to be the only tangible by-product of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

I don't even know why I visit Reddit anymore.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#59

Post by Shaanie »

vaksel wrote: post #21
smackfu wrote: post #9

Easiest way: No kids. Two good incomes. Reliably saving 20%. Mid 40s. No college debt or health issues. That should get you to about a million in assets.

kids are an investment...they are your safety net...worse comes to worst, you can rely on them to support you in your late days if things go terribly wrong. its a good way to avoid ending up on the street...you'll always be able to get room and board with your kids. Since our generation won't get any social security or pensions to live off, we are going to need all the help we can get if things go south.

If you saved all the money you spent on your kid(s), you'd probably have a pretty decent safety net.

Re: Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?

#60

Post by colmmacc »

joevandyk wrote: post #57
hkarthik wrote: post #22

Our path to be on track for a net worth of $1 mil: 1) Two good incomes on the professional track. We both have good degrees from universities and don't plan on taking any breaks in employment. Even with kids, there are plenty of great childcare options available. Living near family helps too. 2) Drive paid off cars. Buy new cars if you want, but structure your costs so you can pay them off in 2-3 years max and then d…

For what it's worth, I just bought a new car for $35k. Came with a 5 year interest free loan with nothing down. If you can get that type of loan, you don't want to pay it off quickly.

There is an interest rate on the financing, a cost for payment insurance, and almost certainly a margin on top of both, but they've both been built into the price of the car.

It's very likely you could have gotten additional savings for paying cash up-front. It's usually cheaper to pass up these offers and negotiate the price down.

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