I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

Prominent management thinkers Stephen R Covey, Clayton Christensen, and others (Viktor Frankl, etc) have written much useful material about purpose & direction in life, for maximum satisfaction and fulfillment. Things like ~ "make sure the ladder of success isn't leaning against the wrong wall", and the book "How will you measure your life?". I put some references to them & others (Ctrl-F for "references", near the end) here with some of my own thoughts on direction in life (simple site): http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854588981.html

(I'm modifying it for later update, to add a link to content on "if someone is bored" w/ my ideas on hobbies and other possibly worthwhile things to engross oneself, but in the meantime, that is: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581266.html )

I mean the snarkiness just doesn't have any reflection of reality.

Debt is a killer. I used to have a lot of credit card and personal debt, and was paying over $1,500/mo in interest on less than $100k USD/year. If you get stuck in that trap it's damn near impossible to get out of if you overextend yourself.

A lot of folks grossly underestimate what they spend eating out and drinking. Probably less of a problem now than a few years ago, but coinciding with my credit card debt phase I would have told you I spent "$100, maybe $150" a month when it was closer to $400-500.

If you're not set up for retirement (see below) there's little to no reason to be leasing a brand new BMW. I was absolutely guilty of this and it's tens of thousands of dollars I essentially set on fire for three years. You don't even have to sacrifice the nice car, my 2016 5 series was less than $25k out the door and I got it right after someone turned it in off-lease. My payment is less than theirs was and it'll be paid off before the warranty runs out. I'll then have an "asset" (not really) worth $5-10k, and can get another $25k off-lease car which will cost me less and get paid off quicker, if not in cash.

If you max out your 401(k) you are saving about $20k/yr while only reducing your taxable income by ~$15k/yr depending on your marginal tax rate. A Roth adds another $6k to that if you're under the cap (something like $140k for 2020) and you can withdraw the contributions from that account at any time without penalty. Not helpful for someone making $40k/yr but if you're making $100k it's hard to make a good argument not to max out your retirement unless you live in one of the outlier cities as far as rent and expenses.

There are absolutely the /r/personalfinance types who act like if you go to a restaurant more than once every six months you're going to end up destitute and starving while homeless. And the FIRE community is a borderline cult. But nobody working in our industry, even in super high-COL areas, really has to worry about retirement, even if they've made dumb mistakes like I did that ended up costing hundreds of thousands in the long run.

Time in the market >>> timing the market.

Even the absolute worst luck gives you perfectly acceptable returns on 30-35 year timelines. Multiple orders of magnitude better than a savings account, for sure.

Time and time again the best approach for highly compensated people who don't want to actively manage their finances is to put a chunk of every paycheck into a broadly diversified range of index funds and forget that it exists. In the US this means a) getting your company 401(k) match no matter what; b) putting the rest into a Roth IRA as cash flow/debt service allows; c) putting the rest into the remainder of your 401(k) as cash flow/debt service allows; d) putting the rest into a non-tax-advantaged brokerage account that basically mimics your 401(k) but probably has better fund options.

If people use a specific strategy to 'find their meaning', and they're aware whether or not they've found it, then we can get some idea of the efficacy of the strategy over say, doing nothing specific.

Is it necessary? No, but there are lots of strategies to choose from, and some will likely be more effective than others. Life is short, and I have finite time and energy to dedicate to 'finding my meaning'. I'd prefer to know ahead of time if a strategy is likely to work for me.

Hey I feel you. Same category.

The gist: If you didn't inherit, you are fkd in Germany.

MOST of wealthy people inherit it (and 2/3 of super wealthy inheritance in Germany is former Nazi money). It's unfair.

What helps me get by: I know my life is good, even though exiting the treadmill is most likely not possible. Enjoy what you have, invest a bit and focus on things that make you happy :)