61–70 of 185 posts
It's pleasent to get some new views on this topic if you are used to the typical screaming self-help books or blogs post about getting rich and success (where you never know wether the author is really rich or just a good writer).
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 i…
The growth in the past few years is cool to watch now that we are ten years in and the curve is accelerating; even with the stock market crash in '08.
We are sensible on how we spend but not spend thrifty. We take at least on nice vacation a year and are able to visit family in other parts of the country for holiday's etc. When we invest in equipment for hobbies etc - I tend to buy things that last: Burton snowboards, Patagonia gear (I have a winter coat that is almost 10 years old, etc ...)
There was a monkey wrench thrown into the mix about four years ago but as she gets older her costs seem to be coming down. I'll know more how this affect the long term savings plan when she gets closer to being a teenager.
WRT the top post there (as of right now), you have to be pretty lucky if driving a 20+ year old car is a net gain. Especially if you weren't the owner of that car for the majority of its life. Like with old codebases, there's a lot that can go wrong at any moment and be so difficult and expensive to maintain that it's worth it to just throw it out and get a certified pre-owned. Depends on the car, I guess, I ditched…
with cars you can just buy them used and sell them before they depreciate too much. Buy a 3 year old car, keep it for 1-2 years, then sell it. (if that's still too rich for your blood...get a 5 year old car and keep that for 2 years) Just look at the cars as the cost to own...not actual price you pay. So even if a car depreciates 20% in that time period, you can still drive something decent. A $10,000 used car...will…
The big thing your entire calculation leaves out is the time it takes to do this transaction every couple of years, because there is no way a dealership is going to give you the money you are looking for...
I'd rather do something else with my time to be honest.
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Maybe that's the easiest, but not the most common. According to Millionaire Next Door, there are kids, sometimes only one income, savings of 15%+, and late 50s.
Right. Kids do tend to be a quadruple whammy though: * Basic living costs (food and clothing and fun). * Childcare requires either expensive daycare or a parent not working / limited working. * Money needs to be saved for college. * Require more bedrooms, which drives up housing costs although it's arguable whether this has an impact on net worth. (This may be double-counting the first point, but going from a $100k c…
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…
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…
I have to say I almost wondered if this plan was meant as a bit of a joke. I'd rather spread my income around now on a nice(r) house, some fun hobbies and a bit of abject consumerism, and enjoy life more evenly then save now not have as much fun but end up with more money in the bank later. You'll never get your younger years back.
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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.
Imagine for the millionth time that day, you're yelling at your older kid to do his chores, feed his pets, practice his instrument, do his homework, etc. Or the younger one smells like ass and he's having a meltdown because you want to change his diaper and he'd rather keep playing
I swear, some days I come home and feel like turning around and heading off back to work. So, no, it's not all wine and roses.
But then they do something that shows you're at least semi-competent at raising them and it makes your day.
The #1 expense over your lifetime won't be your house, your entertainment, or your cars. It will be TAXES. If you build a career path that can take advantage of tax breaks you wind up with a huge advantage from the start. For tech entrepreneurs - focus on building your enterprise value. Reinvest profits into GROWTH so that you wind up paying the bulk of your taxes in capital gains vs. personal income tax. On $1m or 2…
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That is crazy talk. The rate for small businesses as a whole is around 50% failure within the first 5 years. There are exceptions to that rule and ways to increase the odds. As an example, 90% of franchise businesses are still running after 5 years.
Anecdata: Walk down a main commercial street in any large metropolis and count the number of completely unviable businesses (these are the ones that turn over their real estate every few months). These are further polluting the statistics.
Though I would argue that as the owner of two retail locations, I am probably better equipped to make that judgement than most.
In my experience, most retail leases are for 5 year terms. I can't imagine that the default rate on those is anywhere near 50%. Most business "failures" likely never got far enough to sign a lease.