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

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

#91

Post by ahelwer »

mellosouls wrote: post #61
pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

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…

I think while you don't have "FU money" it's important for money to be the main focus of your life You may feel very differently when you are looking back on your life near the end of it.

Don't overweight the opinion of someone on their deathbed. I don't think optimizing your life around how you'll feel about it during your final five minutes is a good way to go. Dying is a very lonely experience (every living thing goes into death alone, etc.), so of course your thoughts will be overwhelmingly focused on family friends etc. during that time.

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

#92

Post by bumby »

HEmanZ wrote: post #77
artemonster wrote: post #14

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

In the USA top 5% income is about $300k USD[1]. With the relatively low tax rates, I would expect you can take home at least $200k (depends on the state). Like the original poster said, it's not that hard to live off of $50k in most of the US (even in the bay or NY, but you live like a college student). That leaves savings of 150k USD/yr from one source of income. Many families have two working professional adults an…

>Many families have two working professional adults and can almost double these numbers

It happens, but only if you have a loose definition of "many". If a family makes $531k, they are in the top 1%

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

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

#93

Post by analognoise »

uniclaude wrote: post #82
pyrrhotech wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

salaries in the Bay Area are very high, and if you avoid the common pitfalls, you can save a lot. Personally I made about $200-220k average during my 10-year career and lived on 30-40k while saving the rest and investing mostly in equities (of course taxes take a big chunk). Now I spend $50k-ish but I pay for everything for me and my fiance. I plan on spending $75kish once we have a family of four eventually which is…

To anyone confused by the explanation (as $220x10 Given the market of the last decade, investing everything above the 30-40k expenses and income tax in the S&P500 and re-investing the dividends would have brought GP there. Not really sure about how one can make it with 30-40k including rent in the Bay Area, but this sounds like the most reasonable takeaway for most readers.

Live like a hobbit while never marrying and being in the top .5% of all tech salaries for a decade.

You might as well get the advice "marry rich" - it's probably more likely.

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

#94

Post by glitchc »

It's okay to make money and enjoy it. Don't let anyone shame you out of it. It's one of the most sophisticated games on the planet: There are many ways to play, the metric is easy to measure and rewards are immediately tangible. If it sparks joy, keep doing it. Stop only when it doesn't.

Me, I enjoy accumulating knowledge. It gives me great joy to know things I didn't know before. I will keep doing this until I stop enjoying it. To each his own, and the freedom to choose is the best part of living in the US.

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #10
nicoburns wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 99.99% of the world can't be happy? Don't you think it's quite selfish of you to prioritise achieving this for yourself over allowing a greater number of people to have a more reasonable level of wealth?

I shouldn't speak for everyone. For me personally, I was happyish during my career but I'm definitely much, much happier now that I'm wealthy and retired. And it's not a short term buzz, I've been retired for 2 years and the feeling hasn't worn off. I know it sucks we don't have unlimited resources for everyone in society to be free and 100% happy. Maybe someday we will with full automation. In the meantime, most peo…

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by scythe »

>I have no real interests or hobbies. If I was shopping for myself I’d probably just buy another book on “growing your side hustle” or one of the many “building a startup” books.

Cool, were you born this way? Have you always had no interests? When did you first realize? Okay, I'm being sarcastic.

Problems like these might go away on their own. But if you want to actively solve them, you have to look inward, not ask the audience. I don't know what you like; I know what I like.

Consider therapy.

The reason I suggest therapy is that I'm sensing guilt. Guilt is a sometimes but not always indicator of repressed emotions. Repression is a possible explanation for a lack of interest in pleasurable pursuits. But I, the anonymous Internet stranger with fifteen minutes of mental bandwidth to offer, cannot possibly plumb deeper than that.

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

#97

Post by ghaff »

dusted wrote: post #78
jimbokun wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I bet the quality of health care available to you exceeds the imagination of those kings and emperors. The probability of fathering 12 children, if anything, is probably inversely proportional to your wealth, these days. Not sure owning and tending thousands of hectares of land has much utility in and of itself. It was a proxy for generating wealth, like someone owning a lot of equities today. But the question is…

>But I bet the quality of health care available to you exceeds the imagination of those kings and emperors. This raises the question of what should be included in the definition of wealth. That king probably had one or more personal doctors, people they more or less owned, whose sole purpose and responsibility was their well-being. Even if the efficiency of that person might have been low, it's certainly a lot more t…

>That king probably had one or more personal doctors, people they more or less owned, whose sole purpose and responsibility was their well-being.

(Assuming we're talking a couple hundred years ago or longer.)

Who didn't have access to antibiotics, vaccines, or any of a plethora of other modern drugs, germ theory of disease, anesthetics, etc. etc. I'll take an hour of a modern physician's time and access to hospital/pharmacy. Thank you very much.

Quantity doesn't always beat quality.

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

#98

Post by castlecrasher2 »

artemonster wrote: post #14
pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

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'm just revising my investment strategy so I'm no expert, but the book The Richest Man in Babylon (https://www.amazon.com/Richest-Man-Babylon-Magic-Story/dp/19...) helped me put finances into perspective. While it's stuff most of us already know (save money, make more money), the way it's presented helped me realize what I need to do now to be financially secure later.

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

#99

Post by mastax »

throw0101a wrote: post #87
pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

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…

> You don't have freedom if you don't have a lot of money and you can't be 100% happy without freedom, at least in my experience, though I know opinions vary here. The amount of money one 'needs' depends on a lot of things, like cost of living in the area you happen to be in. While US$ 2.5M may not seem like a lot in the US, one can live like a king in may other areas. One doesn't even need to live in one particular…

Never thought I'd see Sailing Uma on HN. That's the dream, just waiting for starlink to have more coverage.

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

#100

Post by professor_v »

wayoutthere wrote: post #86

Here’s the rub: the system is rigged against you. If making money is your only interest, you’re going to be frustrated and in a continuous burnout cycle. American / Western capitalism is dominated by entrenched interests and unless you have an “in” in the form of family connections, a prestigious degree or simply a large bankroll to start, it’s really, really hard to break free. This is by design as it keeps workers…

> Women / men of this age tend to be attracted to people who are interesting rather than wealthy.

I seriously doubt this. Looking at myself I care a lot less about 'interesting' people than I did in my twenties. Maybe interesting is a euphemism for social capital, but social capital is greatly linked to wealth anyway.

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