Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to get rich without getting lucky

threadreaderapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 527 posts

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#291

Post by notyourwork »

sametmax wrote: post #280
gascan wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spending a lot of effort on living frugal. There's just something off-putting about the thought of spending decades living frugally There's a whole range there. You don't have to live on ramen. But you can be really aggressive about insurance premiums, utility bills, etc. You can learn home & auto repair & maintenance. You can make major life structure choices (Can your family live with one car?). These all can make…

> Can your family live with one car It's really funny to read that. It's probably very american to think 2 cars per family is the norm. I think if I group the 10 adults I see the most on average, we own 2 cars together. And we are all between 30 and 55.

This depends on where you live though. Midwest basically required a car, living in Seattle and SF my wife and I never need a car. It’s not always as simple as grouping a population. America is big and diverse.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#292

Post by thanatropism »

bootsz wrote: post #227
falcolas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Your chances of dying before "making it big" and retiring are somewhere in the 1-in-10 range. Investing works mostly because of the current trend of artificially propping up the stock market. Any failure in your investment strategy leave you in the same boat as the current boomer retirees who are trying to get back in the workforce. Not to mention, your life is going to be pretty miserable if you're wor…

> Not to mention, your life is going to be pretty miserable if you're working two jobs and spending a lot of effort on living frugal. Agreed. A few follow-up points: 1. Frugality isn't a binary state. There's a balance to be struck. Some people really do waste money on frivolous things that don't actually bring them much real satisfaction, and in that sense being more frugal is definitely worth it. But once you've el…

I just said this elsewhere on this thread, but I'll make it shorter: the hedonic treadmill is a bitch.

If you're having $4 lattes once a week, they're worthless. If you have a $100 dinner twice a year... man, those are nice.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#293

Post by jandrewrogers »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #158

The highest probability for success for the 'everyday person': - Earn as much as you can from your own work. Take a 2nd job, change to a higher paying job, ask for more responsibility and a raise at your current job, go back to school for a more lucrative degree, ... - Spend much less than you earn. Economize, share an apartment, buy an inexpensive car, shop at Trader Joe's and Costco, .... - Learn how to invest. Thi…

Even simpler, it is an equation with three variables: income, expenses, and rate of return on savings. An important point is that you do not need to hyper-optimize all three variables to achieve a good outcome, which makes it adaptable to many lifestyles and circumstances. Hyper-frugality is not the only path. There are multiple viable strategies that can be built around optimizing one or two variables and paying minimal attention to the others.

Frugality (minimizing expenses) is the easiest strategy to execute and it covers the broadest range of individual situations.

I know some engineers that take the approach of aggressively maximizing income, which requires a different kind of investment/sacrifice, allowing them to achieve their goals without hyper-optimizing expenses or rate of return. I would make the observation that this strategy tends to take a human toll, so not for everyone.

The rarest strategy in the wild, because it is the most technical to execute, is hyper-optimizing rate of return. I only know a couple examples of this, including one who went from -$50k (debt with no assets) to financial independence in ten years (and handily beat the S&P500 every single year) on a modest engineer's salary. This requires a deep investment in understanding a foreign domain almost no one is familiar with and achieving a degree of mastery. It has the highest payoff long-term but it also requires the most diligence and effort upfront. Making this work requires an unusual kind of person.

Being frugal and investing in index funds is definitely the path of least resistance for many people, but many people (or their partners!) do not want to live a hyper-frugal lifestyle. Fortunately, there are other options available with their own set of tradeoffs and engineers are well-positioned to take advantage of them.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#294

Post by kpennell »

hoechst wrote: post #278

why aspire to "have way more money than you need"? cause that's what this "how to get rich" bullshit is about. set your focus on what you love to do, not on acquiring more than you need. that probably won't make you happy anyway. if you chose to work in IT because you enjoy it, you're already super fucking lucky anyway. you're sought after and money's good (generally speaking). if you feel like you need more, do the…

You have good points. But I think you'd also probably enjoy Naval's thoughts as well.

There's a great moment in an interview with him where he says that he watched multiple friends get rich and not become happier.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#295

Post by petra »

falcolas wrote: post #244
dasil003 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They tend to hide the fact that they went into the process with an inheritance to fund their their nest egg and are working nearly full time in their "retirement" as paid frugal advocates. Whoah, do you have evidence of this? I mean, yeah, some people have certain advantages, but if they are being paid for advocacy and if it's a trust-fund baby thing that would be really interesting. On balance though, I'm not real…

I found it on his own blog, though it's almost impossible to locate now. Basically he inherited a family house, lived in it for a few years, and sold it for a large sum of money (in addition to holding a $100,000 + a year job and saving from it). As for the paid advocacy, have a look at their financials. You'll see a non-trivial amount of income from advertising on the website and speaking. EDIT: The house wasn't inh…

>> You'll see a non-trivial amount of income from advertising on the website and speaking

Fuck the modern web. Such a bunch of crap.

Someone needs to build a search engine for sites that don't carry any form of advertisement. charge subscription. seems worthy.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#296

Post by thanatropism »

shams93 wrote: post #229
thisisit wrote: post #208

I really doubt you can get rich by not being lucky. I was like Naval and thought many of my achievements were due to sheer hard work. And then I read this article about luck: http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind And I got the book mentioned in the article - The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman. One of the exercises in the book is to think over how things have unfolded in your life - what would ha…

We have all these ideals about hard work but in reality the economy is largely a casino. With crippling student debt most young people have been hamstrung from the gate. Milleneals don't generate wealth like boomers because most milleneals were effectively born into indentured servitude with the exploitation over education. Sure you could try to go without a degree in 2017 but good luck getting your foot in the door…

Unethical idea that just struck me -- why not just flee the country?

You can make a living as an english teacher and translator in A LOT of places.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#297

Post by oliwarner »

Isn't this the tenth how-to-get-rich post today? I guess that's fairly standard, and I ignore them, but they're getting votes today.

I'm a little surprised that —since every other thread on HN is about hacking your diet/wardrobe/matress to counteract the crushing depression you get from your job— nobody is putting one and one together.

There is more to life than money.

I don't want to sound too hippy but there is. There is value in relaxing with friends and taking time out to raise your family, and living with clean air outside a big, machine-like-city.

The struggle to become rich is an immense burden with its own serious costs. You might make it, but I'd suggest you ignore "aspirational" money posts on HN and learn to be happy with what you have. Just strive to be good at what you do. It's not the American Dream™ but you'll get a hell of a lot more from life.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#298

Post by segmondy »

falcolas wrote: post #187
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #158

The highest probability for success for the 'everyday person': - Earn as much as you can from your own work. Take a 2nd job, change to a higher paying job, ask for more responsibility and a raise at your current job, go back to school for a more lucrative degree, ... - Spend much less than you earn. Economize, share an apartment, buy an inexpensive car, shop at Trader Joe's and Costco, .... - Learn how to invest. Thi…

Counterpoint: Your chances of dying before "making it big" and retiring are somewhere in the 1-in-10 range. Investing works mostly because of the current trend of artificially propping up the stock market. Any failure in your investment strategy leave you in the same boat as the current boomer retirees who are trying to get back in the workforce. Not to mention, your life is going to be pretty miserable if you're wor…

You can have lots of fun living frugal. Living frugal doesn't mean not having fun. Having fun is really cheap and free if you set your mind. Walking, hiking, bicycle ride, board & card games. Hanging out with friends at home and watching Netflix. Cooking at home and drinking at home. These are fun and cheap, the fun in it depends more so on the crowd. Going out to party can also be fun but this becomes the difference in spending $20 at home vs $200 in one night. Frugal is buying an old reliable honda/toyota for $3,000 vs picking up a $40,000 entry level benz. So what if you die before you make it? So what? We are all going to die.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#299

Post by sametmax »

notyourwork wrote: post #291
sametmax wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can your family live with one car It's really funny to read that. It's probably very american to think 2 cars per family is the norm. I think if I group the 10 adults I see the most on average, we own 2 cars together. And we are all between 30 and 55.

This depends on where you live though. Midwest basically required a car, living in Seattle and SF my wife and I never need a car. It’s not always as simple as grouping a population. America is big and diverse.

I just came back from the valley, and I get that the american society and infrastructure is encouraging the to use a car. Like Australia.

I also get that, living in a city in France, it's easier to avoid having a car.

yet I note that you could have a motorbike. You could not have kids. You could move close to your work. You could move in an area requiring less car. You could change your job to one not needing a car. You could bike. You could care pool with friends/neighbors/coworkers. You could use public transports. Etc.

But the car is an important artifact of the american culture. You kinda build the country around it, not the other way around.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#300

Post by segmondy »

20years wrote: post #236
falcolas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Your chances of dying before "making it big" and retiring are somewhere in the 1-in-10 range. Investing works mostly because of the current trend of artificially propping up the stock market. Any failure in your investment strategy leave you in the same boat as the current boomer retirees who are trying to get back in the workforce. Not to mention, your life is going to be pretty miserable if you're wor…

This is a good counterpoint and something my Dad points out often. He was very frugal, worked long hours and saved as much as he could so him and my mom could have a good retirement. She passed away at 42, so that never happened. He has so many regrets and wishes he invested more of his money & time in experiences with her while she was alive. I think there needs to be a balance. The trend of working crazy hours to s…

There are tons of people who spent their money living it up and got old and are really struggling and having difficult times with tons of regrets. I suspect more than those who saved and died young.
Post reply on HN