I strongly encourage Technology professionals (and everyone else) to learn some basic personal finance and how to effectively (1) set aside some cash for emergencies, (2) pay off and keep off high interest debt, and (3) invest for the long term, i.e., retirement. But this rambling post which is heavily focused on Troy's personal experiences and anecdotes isn't a particularly great resource for teaching anyone personal finance; nor is it especially interesting.
Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
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Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#12Quite a disagreeable post, in my opinion. > Which leads me to the "but money can't buy happiness" position so many people have repeated over the years. Bull. Shit. Anyone who has ever said that simply doesn't know where to shop. If happiness for you is about things you buy in shops, then you are a shallow person, and you are missing out. A lot. In fact you are poor, but in a spiritual sense. The next statement: "mone…
Eh, to each their own. If Troy enjoys expensive cars, what the hell. It's his money. I'm not into expensive toys either but I don't judge other people for "materialism" and feel superior about my woo-woo individuality / spirituality.
I would agree with Troy's conclusion that "money buys happiness," but take a different tack. Money buys financial security, and financial security buys avoiding many kinds of hardship and grief.
You can have money and be unhappy, and you can be evicted because you can't meet rent and be happy, but it's probably easier to be happy when you aren't worried about paying the bills.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#13Seems he would have done very well out of property as Australia hasn't been affected by 2008 GFC. There are young people that would have invested in property in Ireland before GFC and would have dug themselves a financial hole. This guy doesn't like calling it luck but I don't know what you call different outcomes for investors between the two countries. We are living in the time of quantitative easing, cheap credit and this seems to result in speculative asset bubbles and busts. Dow Jones is over 200% up in last 10 years. I think outcome of central banks printing money at this scale is unknown and puts a big question mark on long term investing and the 'time in the market' advice.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#14Those tweets seem more like something a rapper would do than a security guy.
What have we become?
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#15Quite a disagreeable post, in my opinion. > Which leads me to the "but money can't buy happiness" position so many people have repeated over the years. Bull. Shit. Anyone who has ever said that simply doesn't know where to shop. If happiness for you is about things you buy in shops, then you are a shallow person, and you are missing out. A lot. In fact you are poor, but in a spiritual sense. The next statement: "mone…
> If happiness for you is about things you buy in shops, then you are a shallow person, and you are missing out. A lot. In fact you are poor, but in a spiritual sense.
That's a fair point. From my understanding he was talking about "buying happiness" in a broad sense. Sure he did mention material goods. But also the ability take out time out and being with family and friends and not having to worry about making ends meet.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#16I'm in my (very) early 30s and I found it very interesting. I don't necessarily agree with the entire mindset, but overall is one of the "I should have read it 7 years ago" articles. Most of the "lessons" are not groundbreaking, they are rather things that are obvious and most of us know about. The value for me came from having them all written down in an organized way. It's much easier to refer to something more tan…
here's some material i found useful:
* the concept of savings rate, and relationship with time until retirement. e.g. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
* good books about investment. William J Bernstein has a reading list here: http://www.efficientfrontier.com/reading.htm
* Bernstein also has some advice for a younger US audience here: "If you can", very short book, free download: http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/2books.htm
* the other useful discovery, which wasn't a book, was randomly finding out that i could double my annual revenue for doing the same or easier (but more frustrating) development work by switching to contract work for large orgs rather than being a permanent employee at a small business. this will be very location / market dependent i guess, but perhaps the general lesson might be something like "consider if you could sell your skills in a slightly different market" & being open to exploring opportunities
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#17I'm in my (very) early 30s and I found it very interesting. I don't necessarily agree with the entire mindset, but overall is one of the "I should have read it 7 years ago" articles. Most of the "lessons" are not groundbreaking, they are rather things that are obvious and most of us know about. The value for me came from having them all written down in an organized way. It's much easier to refer to something more tan…
> Most of the "lessons" are not groundbreaking, they are rather things that are obvious and most of us know about.
Possibly. Looking at figures for unsecured household debt where I live I'd say these things are not that obvious. The other point is that fundamental truths don't always seem groundbreaking. E.g. spend less than you earn. Not groundbreaking...but I wonder how many people violate that principle...
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#18>> just take one simple truth away from a glance at it: investments grow over time
This statement is false. The truth is that "investments have grown over time". It's not necessarily true that they will continue to grow over time. The efficiency benefits of corporate growth have been reached long ago and are on the decline. Corporate growth today relies on crooked government policies, stock buybacks and other methods of wealth concentration without value creation - There is no guarantee that it will stay like this; people are already wising up to this.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#19While I’m sure this has worked for Troy his approach is way to high risk for my comfort zone. Dave Ramsey has a great approach that is no doubt slower but more suited to people like me that want a bit more security. Get debt free as fast as you can, get a good emergency fund. Then start saving / investing in low risk funds.
Re: Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
#20Quite a disagreeable post, in my opinion. > Which leads me to the "but money can't buy happiness" position so many people have repeated over the years. Bull. Shit. Anyone who has ever said that simply doesn't know where to shop. If happiness for you is about things you buy in shops, then you are a shallow person, and you are missing out. A lot. In fact you are poor, but in a spiritual sense. The next statement: "mone…
He is not saying all hapiness can be bought with money, but it's quite obvious that many things that make one unhappy can be solved with money, as also many things that make people happy are bought with money.
And I'm not even talking about objects. For most people having something good to eat and a warm cozy place to live is already happiness. A happiness most people in the world can't afford BTW.