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

bennettnotes.com

41–50 of 214 posts

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

#41

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

So are you saying that since the big majority of people in the world will never get to your kind of net worth (2 mil++) they will never have real freedom?

Glad that we agree, that's what I believe too and that's why I strongly hate capitalism.

You aren't free at all unless you have enough capital to stop being forced to take any job offer just to survive.

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

#42

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

how is it possible to save 2.5 mil from salary? I am from upper 5% in germany in terms of salary, and I can only manage to save ~10kEur/year, while maintaining decent lifestyle. An order of magnitude lower than you'd need to retire with such a sum after 20 years or so. How do you do that? Genuine question

I live in a sorta expensive area (East Coast U.S.) and have managed to save >60% of my income every year since starting to work, even when I "only" made $65,000 a year. I did it by following a lot of the advice at mrmoneymustache.com.

If I do not retire early and continue on this path, I would probably reach $3.5mil by age 50.

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

#43
The post leaves a question unanswered:

Are you displeased of not having passions because you think it would be a nice, healthy thing to have? Or is it because you have the impression that people that are passionate about something have an easier time monetizing it, and your ventures are failing because of it?

Also, are you sharing this to get some thoughts on the matter? Or to get views for the post and potentially get people to subscribe to your newsletter?

The fact that it's even a question is a big hint of what's wrong with chasing business above everything: you might not even know which of your interactions are genuine anymore. Genuine interactions are a human need, and they are fully incompatible with ulterior motives.

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

#44

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

how is it possible to save 2.5 mil from salary? I am from upper 5% in germany in terms of salary, and I can only manage to save ~10kEur/year, while maintaining decent lifestyle. An order of magnitude lower than you'd need to retire with such a sum after 20 years or so. How do you do that? Genuine question

Germany is not set up to have people get rich from a salary. Everyone has a comfortable life, but it's very hard to get "rich." That's one of the reasons I left Germany

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

#45

“Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew. “What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead…

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver, Summer Day

https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...

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

#46

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

So are you saying that since the big majority of people in the world will never get to your kind of net worth (2 mil++) they will never have real freedom? Glad that we agree, that's what I believe too and that's why I strongly hate capitalism. You aren't free at all unless you have enough capital to stop being forced to take any job offer just to survive.

You don't have to have that high of a net worth if your spending is lower. You only need to save 25x your annual spending to retire. If you only spend $30,000/year, you only need $750,000 to retire.

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

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is it possible to save 2.5 mil from salary? I am from upper 5% in germany in terms of salary, and I can only manage to save ~10kEur/year, while maintaining decent lifestyle. An order of magnitude lower than you'd need to retire with such a sum after 20 years or so. How do you do that? Genuine question

You just can't. And that's how it's supposed to work. Only a very small minority of the population can reach that kind of worth. It's the foundation of this system, no matter if the baselines grows, there will always be rich and poor.

I really don't undestand this "that's how it's supposed to work". Baseline doesn't grow, it only gets worse. Why the hell my landlord, just by the virtue of being born 30-40 years before, was able to afford buying a nice apartment, while working without education, for which I am giving away today a third of my net salary and with 0 chances of buying one, ever?

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Simon Sinek is mostly selling himself. I'm not aware of any scientific research supporting his views.

Is science always necessary during the search for meaning?

That sounds like something an anti-vaxxer would say; haha just kidding

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

#50
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting point of view. Practically, I agree with you, that FU wealth is probably the most realistic way to achieve the freedom required for some personality types to achieve happiness. I am unfortunately one of them, intellectually, I've conclude the same for myself many times over, and have been unable to change my view on this, as much as I'd love to find peace in my sitaution and enjoy life (tm). What's har…

> you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off. I was with you up until here. The total amount of wealth in the world is constantly growing, and you can positively influence it's creation, by introducing new efficiencies or new goods and services that didn't exist before. In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today is much greater than kin…

>In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today >is much greater than kings and emperors living centuries >ago.

I dunno man, I'm average and can't afford N wives, have someone do my dishes, clothes, own and tend thousands of hectares of land for me, father 12 children.

Maybe i'm reading about different kings than you do.

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