A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
stevepavlina.com
A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#2This guy neglects things like... car insurance (which is required in some states), health insurance among other things.
His advice is in the right direction, but fairly blind - telling everyone to jump off the cart, right now.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#3Working for someone else is not scalable.
"Trading time for money"
My creative/artist friends amaze me because they have mastered the art of income diversification (freelancing, multiple P/T jobs, selling stuff on CL, babysitting). While not in the realm of Pavlina's success, they seem to be unafraid of the two things most white-collar professionals may be most afraid of: 1) being laid-off or fired and 2) quitting your job (because they have done so many gigs). Yes, they squeak by but they get by.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#4This isn't advice for everyone - not that the author said it was, of course. But it probably makes sense for the top percentiles.
We say the best programmers are 10x better than the worst, right? But they don't get paid 10x as much. If you're in the 10x ability club (or you think you are) you should be looking for ways to get paid on how productive you are, not on how many hours you put in. You can't change the number of hours in the day, but you can always find ways to boost your productivity.
If you can set up ten web sites in the time it takes someone else to set up one, you need to start getting paid per site, not per hour. When you get paid per hour, every increase in productivity goes into your boss' pocket. When you get paid per project or per work unit, productivity gains go into your pocket.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#5Sounds like a guy selling some kind of pyramid scheme.
Oh wait, he is a motivational speaker, one level above the "get rich quick" folks.
I found his post to be almost insulting (I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me).
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#6For anybody who's read the black swan, fixed income is mediocristan & variable income is extremistan which means that the upside to the variable income lifestyle is a relatively small proportion of people living the glamorous lifestyle that Pavlina is selling but the downside is the much larger number of people who are barely scraping by making ends meet on the same system.
We'd all like to believe that we could be winners but the main thing stopping us is the mostly sensible fear that we might actually discover how much of a loser we actually are.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#7Working for someone else is not scalable. "Trading time for money" My creative/artist friends amaze me because they have mastered the art of income diversification (freelancing, multiple P/T jobs, selling stuff on CL, babysitting). While not in the realm of Pavlina's success, they seem to be unafraid of the two things most white-collar professionals may be most afraid of: 1) being laid-off or fired and 2) quitting yo…
As a freelance designer myself, I can see exactly what you mean @wallflower. One of the up sides of all the economic woes of late is that it's helped me build a resistance to the normal fears that creep in, ie. being laid off or fired. Lose a few clients and you'll quickly learn how adept you are at filling the gaps. Trading time for money is just working for someone elses dream.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#8Sounds like a guy selling some kind of pyramid scheme. Oh wait, he is a motivational speaker, one level above the "get rich quick" folks. I found his post to be almost insulting (I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me).
(I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me)
So, like a pg essay?
Don't get me wrong, I think pg offers great advice after all. I do find it ironic though that there are several "defenders of the religion" here on YC that don't seem to see the similarities between the messages that pg conveys and every other self-help guru out there. (Yes, boiled down, Paul Graham is basically a self help guru.)
pg speaks to hackers, Pavlina, Orman, Godin, 37signals and others speak to people of different persuasion. Each is not selling snake oil, rather the lessons learned from a particularly successful experience. You can discount them or choose to learn more at your leisure.
There's nothing wrong with that, and suggesting he's somehow unethical, or otherwise insulting him because his methods are not particularly of your persuasion is like a Christian berating a Muslim for worshipping the wrong god.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#9Sounds like a guy selling some kind of pyramid scheme. Oh wait, he is a motivational speaker, one level above the "get rich quick" folks. I found his post to be almost insulting (I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me).
Yeah, the guy sounds like a huckster for sure.
And much of his logic is flawed:
"If expenses rise unexpectedly and surpass your monthly income, then you have no choice but to draw money from cash reserves or investments or go into debt. If your expenses later return to normal, this debt may be temporary, but you’ll still end up paying extra interest or losing interest on your depleted savings/investments, which takes money out of your pocket."
The same thing could happen if you earn a variable income: what if you had some large, unexpected expense and also had a bad month for income? Same result, maybe even worse.
The only solution is to live consistently below your means and save up a good-sized emergency fund - that advice works whether you make a "fixed income" or not.
Re: A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
#10Sounds like a guy selling some kind of pyramid scheme. Oh wait, he is a motivational speaker, one level above the "get rich quick" folks. I found his post to be almost insulting (I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me).
(I'm rich, I'm making plenty of money and you are an idiot for not listening to me) So, like a pg essay? Don't get me wrong, I think pg offers great advice after all. I do find it ironic though that there are several "defenders of the religion" here on YC that don't seem to see the similarities between the messages that pg conveys and every other self-help guru out there. (Yes, boiled down, Paul Graham is basically a…
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