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Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

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Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#61

Post by pr0zac »

philangist wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #18

> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money. Ugh.

Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part. > My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve wor…

I had the opposite reaction, that it was said with full self-awareness of the conflicting nature of those thoughts.

The entire article IS myopic, but that's the point. Its a self-exploration of the feelings and emotions experienced by someone in their 20s who just received a lot of money unexpectedly for reasons largely outside their control. In a lot of ways it reads like conversations I've had with my therapist about other (non-money related) topics.

She does a good job explaining her anxieties around finances and the power dynamics in relationships caused by money as well as explaining the personal experiences in her childhood (her friend's parents' and her parents' divorce, the financial collapse of 2008) and the shared experiences of her generation (the first to have less money than their parents) that created those anxieties. She literally says what your last sentence implies.

Yes shes humble-bragging and talking about feeling shes low-maintenance and frugal. She also talks about feelings of bitterness and imposter syndrome and concerns about the future and feeling like she needs to give it all back because she doesn't deserve it.

Shes being honest and open because most people aren't. I mean its titled "Confessions of". I think shes aware. The most important lines in the article are these:

> there are people who feel like they don’t know what they’re doing with the money, and what the money means, and they’re encompassed by anxiety. They don’t realize that nobody else knows what they’re doing either.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#62

Post by McScroogy »

xwolfi wrote: post #33
McScroogy wrote: post #4

Is that person even real? The ending made me doubt it, as it was just a list of things leftists want rich people to do with their money. Like donate it all somehow, and under no circumstances give anything to their kids. Wtf? I worry so much about the world my kids are going to grow up them, that I am trying to give them as much of a financial head start as possible. I don't want them to have to suffer through discri…

It's not just "leftist", it's impostor syndrome. If she had spent days and nights, weekends and had 3 abortions and 2 divorces to come up with a product idea so innovative it liberated people from a common chore forever (like say she invented a way to never have to sleep anymore while having the benefit of rest still here), she maybe wouldn't say it like that. She'd be "fucking hell finally I get something out of thi…

In the leftist mind, nobody deserves any money. Even if she had suffered or worked as hard as you describe, she would still be a product of her privilege, being born at the right time in the right place and so on.

I can imagine this feeling of not deserving the money, but that doesn't mean you should be hellbent on giving it away.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#63

Post by BurningFrog »

jsjsbdkj wrote: post #54
BurningFrog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart people don't play the lottery.

This is extremely condescending. For someone with assets (retirement savings, a house, etc.) playing the lottery doesn't make sense - you could save that money and have a marginally better life just by investing it. For people on the other side of the financial divide, life is basically framed in terms of debt. They will never get on top of the student loans, medical debt, credit card debt, car payments, payday loans…

You seem to claim that people unable to earn a living and/or manage their finances are just as smart and capable as the general population.

That is wildly counter intuitive. Is there any data to support it?

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#65

Post by ilkkao »

bengale wrote: post #52
BurningFrog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart people don't play the lottery.

This always feels like a laboured point. I play a line a week, I don't notice the £2, the lottery pays out a lot to different charities and one day if I'm very lucky I might get an email telling me I won some money. I'm sure there's worse places to lose a couple of quid.

lottery is the only charity work I do

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#66

Post by jsjsbdkj »

BurningFrog wrote: post #63
jsjsbdkj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely condescending. For someone with assets (retirement savings, a house, etc.) playing the lottery doesn't make sense - you could save that money and have a marginally better life just by investing it. For people on the other side of the financial divide, life is basically framed in terms of debt. They will never get on top of the student loans, medical debt, credit card debt, car payments, payday loans…

You seem to claim that people unable to earn a living and/or manage their finances are just as smart and capable as the general population. That is wildly counter intuitive. Is there any data to support it?

1 in 10 americans lives in poverty, which is 25k/year or less for a family of four. Your position is that those are just the stupidest, least capable 10% of people and they deserve to be impoverished? If you work full time and you don't make a liveable income, how are you supposed to "manage your finances" better? If you have a disability and you can't work full time, does that make you stupid for not being able to "earn a living"?

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#67

Post by BurningFrog »

jsjsbdkj wrote: post #66
BurningFrog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to claim that people unable to earn a living and/or manage their finances are just as smart and capable as the general population. That is wildly counter intuitive. Is there any data to support it?

1 in 10 americans lives in poverty, which is 25k/year or less for a family of four. Your position is that those are just the stupidest, least capable 10% of people and they deserve to be impoverished? If you work full time and you don't make a liveable income, how are you supposed to "manage your finances" better? If you have a disability and you can't work full time, does that make you stupid for not being able to "…

The "So are you saying " pattern is a sure sign of someone not worth the time to engage.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#68

Post by throwusawayus »

philangist wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #18

> I’ve been obsessed with men who are smarter than me. (Even when I was younger, at sleepaway camp, I was fixated on the boys who went to the magnet public schools, because I knew they were hard to get into.) Part of it comes from an obsession that my kid has to be intelligent, but part of it is about earning potential, because smart men tend to earn a lot of money. Ugh.

Said with zero self-awareness several paragraphs after humblebragging about how frugal and low maintenance of a person she is. The entire article is so myopic but I think her transactional view of relationships, and framing of them entirely in terms of competition and power dynamics was the saddest part. > My mom has gotten bitter. She said, “You’re going to have more money than your dad and I combined, and we’ve wor…

Parents can be profoundly weird about this sort of thing.

I've had a couple meaningful equity events -- not as large as OP's but same order of magnitude in combination -- and have discussed this with my parents several times over the years. Despite otherwise being of sound mind, they're incapable of remembering it. It's the strangest thing.

I've been semi-retired since my mid 30s. My parents honestly seem to believe I'm unemployed and just can't get a job. They keep offering me money. Recently they keep mentioning how it's such a good time to finally buy a home since mortgage rates are low. This despite the fact I live in a large nice condo that I paid for in cash years ago. They've visited several times.

No matter how many times I try explaining my situation to them, they just can't retain it. It really bothers me. I've given up and just change the subject any time it comes up now.

Overnight windfalls are great, don't get me wrong. But they can certainly impact your family relationships in negative ways.

Re: Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire

#69

Post by ac29 »

mclouts91 wrote: post #13
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #2

One thing that immediately stood out to me was the following quote at the beginning of the article: > You don’t think much about $200,000; it’s not life-changing I'm happy for the author that $200,000 isn't and wasn't a life-changing amount of money for her, but to so many people it would be incredibly life-changing. I could very comfortably live off that amount of money for 10 years. As an alternative view, that's m…

I think she means you couldn’t just leave your job, especially in San Fran

No, but even in an ultra high cost of living area, on a high salary, $200k would let you retire a year or two earlier than you would have otherwise. Might not be life changing today, but personally I get excited at the prospect of money that would give me the option to retire even a few weeks earlier than I would have otherwise, even though that's likely 25 years out for me.
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