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

421–430 of 527 posts

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#421

Post by gascan »

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.

I completely agree, it's kind of nuts. It was only maybe sixty years ago that nobody but the rich could really afford two cars, and yet here we are today where it's basically taken for granted as a basic requirement of life in much of America. Which is why I wrote it that way.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#422

Post by sametmax »

billbrown wrote: post #417
sametmax wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Or you can just have a car? Why is not having a car an ideal for you? Why do you have to bike? Can't you just walk places? I don't have a car because society is telling me to have a car. I have a car because it's faster to get places I want to go; it's damn hot in the summer; and it's great for carrying around purchases and the family.

I'm just amazed, not mad.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#423

Post by notabee »

dpark wrote: post #274
falcolas wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, within the last decade, watched a housing boom in my hometown go bust. I watched hundreds of houses stay vacant for many years. And it wasn't just houses going vacant, it was even many more houses being vacated because they were bought by people who built houses. Watching something that once was a "sure bet" go bust is very humbling. Watching those speculators go bankrupt by the hundreds is very sad. It made me re…

Long term investment isn’t speculation. That’s why we call it investment . Yeah, if you are dumping money into a bubble hoping to cash out at the top, you are taking a major risk. If you’re investing long term in an asset with literally centuries of history of growth, then you’re probably going to be okay. And realistically, what’s the alternative? I guess government bonds?

Long term investment is speculation if it's predicated on an economic system that requires infinitely increasing growth on a completely finite planet with diminishing resources and no clear guarantee that we can fix any overshoot by going interplanetary in a cost-efficient way, or that technology will always magically step in to create enough new efficiencies to further exploit the resources that are present.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#424

Post by sametmax »

notyourwork wrote: post #404
sametmax wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I guess you are convinced your generalization is sound in basis. Not everyone can afford to move closer to work, that’s a silly assumption. Big cities that lend well to public transportation are not affordable for everyone. You can’t always move closer to work, what if your spouse and you work on opposite parts of a region? I suppose next solution is one finds a new job or quits. Life’s not as simple as your naive po…

If I guaranty 5 million dollars in 3 years for somebody that can go without a car for so long, half of america would find a way.

It's just a matter of priority and way of life, with constraints yes, but a choice none of the less.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#425

Post by kentm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #237
rdiddly wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall right, Mr. M.M. defines retirement basically as financial independence, regardless of how you spend your time. Working because you want to is very different from working because you have to, so I'll buy it. And as far as I know, he and his wife earned their money in tech jobs. The math is believable: let's say your household makes $130,000 a year (which I haven't done), and lives on $30,000 a year (which…

To live off of $30k/year, you only need $750k saved, not $1MM (@ 4% annual withdrawal rate).

The 4% withdrawal rate has been challenged, and one shouldn't use it as a guaranteed safe rate. It included massive bull runs that may not be repeated going forward. A lot of research has predicted lower real rates of return (around 4% average) in the next date.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#426

Post by rtx »

dpark wrote: post #274
falcolas wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, within the last decade, watched a housing boom in my hometown go bust. I watched hundreds of houses stay vacant for many years. And it wasn't just houses going vacant, it was even many more houses being vacated because they were bought by people who built houses. Watching something that once was a "sure bet" go bust is very humbling. Watching those speculators go bankrupt by the hundreds is very sad. It made me re…

Long term investment isn’t speculation. That’s why we call it investment . Yeah, if you are dumping money into a bubble hoping to cash out at the top, you are taking a major risk. If you’re investing long term in an asset with literally centuries of history of growth, then you’re probably going to be okay. And realistically, what’s the alternative? I guess government bonds?

Gold.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#427

Post by mateo411 »

mattm wrote: post #407
20years wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For the misers out there (like me) who don't like spending money, the way I avoid this is set X% to be automatically transferred to a savings account that is my fun money. It helps a lot because mentally I've written off the money immediately and I can enjoy spending it without worry.

This is also helpful if you are a spendthrift. Simply set %X to money that you are going to save. Put it someplace which will take at least a few days to access.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#428

Post by Jack000 »

tyrust wrote: post #327
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…

>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 morta…

I don't think that's the right way to look at the graph. It says that out of 100k 15-24 yr olds 74 died, and also out of 100k 85-1xx yr olds 13k died. This is purely a measure of death rates and doesn't take the age distribution into account.

to get the probability of dying before 50 you have to look at the total number of deaths/pear, distributed by age: https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-209-x/2013001/article/11867...

the area under the curve for 0->50 looks about 1/10 of the overall, so I'd say the op is about right.

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#429

Post by [deleted] »

gascan wrote: post #421
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.

I completely agree, it's kind of nuts. It was only maybe sixty years ago that nobody but the rich could really afford two cars, and yet here we are today where it's basically taken for granted as a basic requirement of life in much of America. Which is why I wrote it that way.

[deleted]

Re: How to get rich without getting lucky

#430

Post by [deleted] »

sametmax wrote: post #424
notyourwork wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you are convinced your generalization is sound in basis. Not everyone can afford to move closer to work, that’s a silly assumption. Big cities that lend well to public transportation are not affordable for everyone. You can’t always move closer to work, what if your spouse and you work on opposite parts of a region? I suppose next solution is one finds a new job or quits. Life’s not as simple as your naive po…

If I guaranty 5 million dollars in 3 years for somebody that can go without a car for so long, half of america would find a way. It's just a matter of priority and way of life, with constraints yes, but a choice none of the less.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN