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How to get rich without getting lucky

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Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#321

Post by shanecleveland »

I've been listening the entire back catalog of NPR's "How I Built This" blog. The interviewer always asks if their success is due to hard work, skill, intelligence, etc. or luck. All of them acknowledge some luck is always involved. But the best quote I recall, but don't remember he interviewee, was "The harder I worked the more luck I found I had."

Highly recommend the podcast. At first I cherry-picked the interviews I thought I would be interested in, but they are all good, regardless of the company or industry.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#322

Post by vannevar »

This list of aphorisms is riddled with advice where luck probably plays a dominant role, so the headline is misleading. There are reliable ways of getting rich without needing (much) luck, but they take a long time if you're starting with very little capital. But they are proven, they do work, and they generally involve a lot of saving and investing throughout your primary earning years, in real estate or other stable assets. They generally don't involve serial entrepreneurship, which this article seems to advocate.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#323

Post by pitt1980 »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #261

From the article: The most accountable people have singular, public, and risky brands: Oprah, Trump, Kanye, Elon Trump is one of the "most accountable people"? This sentence threatens to invalidate the entire article.

Whole article seems like a bunch of koans, that would be interesting to see fleshed out, or argued one way or the other.

I'd be interested in reading why those four people strike someone as the most accountable people.

But at my current level of worldly enlightenment, its not evident on its face to me.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#324

Post by gascan »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #311
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…

You can learn car & auto repair & maintenance. As someone who knows a lot about car and motorcycle maintenance, repair, and modification, this is not good advice, and I see it all over. You're far better off simply buying a new, cheap compact and taking it to Walmart for oil changes. You will come out far ahead of the person who invests money in tools and space, and time into learning how to do something that is so e…

I actually had meant to type "home & auto repair...". But anyway, IMO most of the value is learning what's going on in the car and the process of diagnosis. Many, many shops employ the "speculatively replace X and see if it fixes Y" iterative process, and being able to avoid that whole process is useful.

You are right, the cost savings on doing your own oil changes isn't particularly significant. Although it's also worth pointing out oil changes are the most commoditized, sometimes-loss-leader service in the business- if there's a cost savings to be had, it's in moderate repairs that are a little more involved but don't require lots of equipment. Replacing an oxygen sensor or alternator, for example.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#325

Post by wtvanhest »

tudelo wrote: post #270
wtvanhest wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to 'work your way through college' now unless you are making $50k/year part-time. State schools start around $10k/year just for tuition. All in costs are $30k/year+. I'm so glad I went to school 15 years ago. Students today are totally screwed.

If in-state tuition is 11k (my case), you don't think you can make that while going to school? Granted, I worked and of course, there were other expenses, so I didn't get out loan free. But it's possible if you're some sort of penny-pinching masochist...

The math is very simple, you need about $30k/year which is $50k pre-tax. That is 50 hours a week at $20/hour with no weeks of vacation + school.

It is extremely difficult to make $50k/year with no degree or experience. That is almost the house hold median income in the US (2 people working). (Currently: $59k/year)

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#326

Post by Retric »

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…

Saving 60% of your income is an achievable goal.

Start at say 25 and that's going to give you a much better than 1:10 chance of being able to very comfortably retire someplace cheap. If nothing else 1 year of work = 1.5 years not working, but at 4% return (over inflation) and 15% investment taxes you can retire in 15 years.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#327

Post by tyrust »

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…

>Your chances of dying before "making it big" and retiring are somewhere in the 1-in-10 range.

I'd like to see how you came to this conclusion.

Painting with broad strokes, one can retire after working in tech for 15-25 years. Start at 25 and they are done by 50. Current death rates for dying between 25 and 50 are less than 0.7% [0]; that's not even correcting for the fact that the wealthy likely have a reduced mortality rate [1].

[0] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db293.htm#age_s...

[1] - https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/cutler/files/jsc160006_01....

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#328

Post by wtvanhest »

muzz wrote: post #285
wtvanhest wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to 'work your way through college' now unless you are making $50k/year part-time. State schools start around $10k/year just for tuition. All in costs are $30k/year+. I'm so glad I went to school 15 years ago. Students today are totally screwed.

College tuition has sort of switched to "sliding scale". For example, 40% of UC Berkeley undergraduate students pay zero in tuition despite the sticker price.

Berkeley is an exception. Most state schools do not offer nearly that level of aid. If you are upper middle class (i.e. parents make $70Ksh-$150ksh), and you don't have exceptional grades, you will pay the sticker price and you will leave school with $20k-$75k of debt. That is before adjusting for the rapidly rising price of college which will no doubt continue rising at 7%-10% per year over that 4 year period.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#329

Post by bigjimmyk3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #22
plop_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have advices for young people in long term investments ?

Go read mr money Mustache (but take it with a grain of salt and ignore the cult bits) and 'the millionaire next door' https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ (the older stuff is better, he's making bank through the blog so caveat emptor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door

TMND is rarely mentioned in these discussions on HN, and I think that's a shame. Despite being a bit over 20 years old, it's a fascinating study of documented high net worth individuals. They also do a good job of contrasting high net worth and high income.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#330

Post by jgalt212 »

passive income is not a good way to get rich. It's taxed a much higher rate than capital gains.

probably should amended to create vehicle that gives off passive income, then sell the vehicle's future cashflows for better tax treatment.

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