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Old 07-15-2018, 06:41 PM
 
2,307 posts, read 3,818,778 times
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37. Definitely think more about death than I ever did. Health issues these last 6 months really ground everything to a halt. Was in the hospital for 4 days with appendicitis. Then had appendix removed 2 months later. This past May was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and then had a colonoscopy to boot. While I feel physically fine now, having all these things happen within such a short time period can definitely mess with your head. Prior to these last 6 months I had never spent a day in the hospital and rarely even ever had the common cold. The spin on this is that I feel that going forward my life will be better now that I had to learn the hard lesson recently. I've made health and lifestyle changes for the better as a result. In short I'm using these last few years if my 30s to prep for my 40s haha.

Financially I've begun to become much more of a saver. Even though I have a work pension to look forward to and a fairly well funded 403(b) fund going for me I have more or less lived my life "cash poor". That is a change I've made as well for myself lately.

Professionally it is an odd discussion. I feel "bored" with my profession but only because I reached my professional goals without really knowing it? When I went into the hospital last January my boss visited and left me with this statement "You've spent most of your life caring for others, maybe its time you cared for yourself". The last few months while going through recovery and other health issues I took a look around and reassessed my goals for my career. My assessment? I'm at a point now where I'm fine with what I've accomplished. There are greater more important aspects of life to consider than your professional reputation.

I walk more. Less for the exercise and more to be outside enjoying God's creation before I leave it. My mom and I say "I love you" after every phone convo. Something I never was able to express verbally to her. My dad and I hugged as grown men for the first time recently. I am no longer competitive with those around me nor envious of their achievements.

But I do wish i was maybe 5 years younger haha.
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Old 07-17-2018, 06:50 PM
 
80 posts, read 49,794 times
Reputation: 408
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanLB View Post
I'm 35, I suppose the biggest difference for me versus 25 is just feeling more battle-weary, like at 25 I was on the path toward my dreams and had endless optimism that I'd get there. At 35, I've accomplished a few of those dreams but not the ultimate prize and I continue to hope that my efforts will pay off and I'll get there. It's like knowing you're still young enough to have lots of time to get there, but you're not so young to be complacent, so work hard and don't waste time. I think about that a lot. Don't let the time pass, seize control over it.
In my 20s, I was a dreamer and had this vision of an interesting, fulfilling career where I would be surrounded by bright and professional people.

Now that I'm in my 30s, I just care about maintaining a well paying job, hopefully one where people leave me alone, and I can do what needs to be done until retirement.

I'm also very done with trying to make friends and pleasing other people. I have my family and that's all that matters to me.
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Old 07-17-2018, 11:21 PM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
7,087 posts, read 8,585,304 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blondebaerde View Post
30s: "I need to be exceptional at (something) that I can monetize. Where I am exceptional currently, cannot be."

40s: "What degrees provide highest bang for the buck? Ah: Ivy League, business!"

"Hey look, I monetized it!"

"Hmm, that doesn't work as well as it used to. Where are my pills?"

50s: "How do I get out of this rat race. Hmm, the models say about another nine years of work, maybe 11, and can retire extremely comfortably."

"Rent, don't buy: boats, broads, aircraft."

"Hey, I'm the only one who actually practices what I preach!"

"Whoever said 'money can't buy you love' was obviously high on acid. It sure can, and does, buy (or enable) a helluva lot more of everything enjoyable in life."

I'll report up more as they come to me.
HAHA I love this post. So true. My dad always told me that his friend said, "If it flies, floats, or ..." fill in the blank, "Rent it." Yet he bought both a plane and a few yachts. Sure enough, they are all money pits. I don't care if I had as much money as him, I personally would never buy those, just not worth it to me. Anyway I feel safer on commercial jets, they're just so much larger and such a rare case where any accidents happen. Plus, first class to me is perfectly amazing enough, I usually fly coach (ugh). I have never had any interest in boats, just not my thing. I get sea sick.

I think money only doesn't buy happiness if you're already an unhappy person. There are some people, there is no making them happy. Nothing can change that. But as a tool, which money is, any tool can get the job done in the hands of a skilled craftsman, right? If you can't figure out how to spend money to improve your happiness, I can only conclude you're either clinically depressed or just plain stupid.

I am fortunate that in some ways I don't have expensive tastes in everything. Basically, I have expensive tastes when it comes to housing, I really want the best. When it comes to food, my sister in a heated argument told me I have "white trash" taste in food, because I don't like caviar, don't like seafood much (I do like lobster, but meh, it's not something I eat more than once every two years), and my idea of a great meal is some BBQ food that I can get next to me for $13.50 for the biggest meal What can I say, fancy restaurants don't do it for me, they have completely pathetic portions, never enough to make a grown adult full unless they're very, very old or a woman, perhaps, and I don't think the taste of sea bass comes anywhere close to the taste of pizza, hamburgers, or spaghetti. It's like opposite world, all of the cheapest food is always the best, and all of the most expensive food tastes bland or like garbage. What a great world honestly, if it were the other way around and you had to be rich to afford pizza and burgers, and I was stuck eating fish every day, I'd be depressed as hell.

Rich people will eat anything if you tell them it's expensive though, I swear. The ego is apparently so big for most rich people they can convince themselves that even fish eggs are delicious if you just tell them poor people can't afford them. Uhh, yeah, poor people aren't missing out. A 99 cent cheeseburger from McDonalds is a hundred times better and more edible than fish eggs, don't care what they cost.

And if we're talking about healthy eating, honestly, I'd rather just blend my huge 30 ounce protein shake that costs me about $3 in raw ingredients than eat some bland healthy meal. No thanks.
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Old 07-20-2018, 02:04 AM
 
Location: Ocean Shores, WA
5,092 posts, read 14,772,776 times
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I am in my 70's.

I have no idea what I thought in my 30's, 40's, 50's, or 60's.

I actually have no idea what I thought yesterday.
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Old 07-20-2018, 04:29 AM
 
80 posts, read 49,794 times
Reputation: 408
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanLB View Post
HAHA I love this post. So true. My dad always told me that his friend said, "If it flies, floats, or ..." fill in the blank, "Rent it." Yet he bought both a plane and a few yachts. Sure enough, they are all money pits. I don't care if I had as much money as him, I personally would never buy those, just not worth it to me. Anyway I feel safer on commercial jets, they're just so much larger and such a rare case where any accidents happen. Plus, first class to me is perfectly amazing enough, I usually fly coach (ugh). I have never had any interest in boats, just not my thing. I get sea sick.

I think money only doesn't buy happiness if you're already an unhappy person. There are some people, there is no making them happy. Nothing can change that. But as a tool, which money is, any tool can get the job done in the hands of a skilled craftsman, right? If you can't figure out how to spend money to improve your happiness, I can only conclude you're either clinically depressed or just plain stupid.

I am fortunate that in some ways I don't have expensive tastes in everything. Basically, I have expensive tastes when it comes to housing, I really want the best. When it comes to food, my sister in a heated argument told me I have "white trash" taste in food, because I don't like caviar, don't like seafood much (I do like lobster, but meh, it's not something I eat more than once every two years), and my idea of a great meal is some BBQ food that I can get next to me for $13.50 for the biggest meal What can I say, fancy restaurants don't do it for me, they have completely pathetic portions, never enough to make a grown adult full unless they're very, very old or a woman, perhaps, and I don't think the taste of sea bass comes anywhere close to the taste of pizza, hamburgers, or spaghetti. It's like opposite world, all of the cheapest food is always the best, and all of the most expensive food tastes bland or like garbage. What a great world honestly, if it were the other way around and you had to be rich to afford pizza and burgers, and I was stuck eating fish every day, I'd be depressed as hell.

Rich people will eat anything if you tell them it's expensive though, I swear. The ego is apparently so big for most rich people they can convince themselves that even fish eggs are delicious if you just tell them poor people can't afford them. Uhh, yeah, poor people aren't missing out. A 99 cent cheeseburger from McDonalds is a hundred times better and more edible than fish eggs, don't care what they cost.

And if we're talking about healthy eating, honestly, I'd rather just blend my huge 30 ounce protein shake that costs me about $3 in raw ingredients than eat some bland healthy meal. No thanks.
Not all rich people need the best of everything. I have a multimillionaire family member, a business owner who lives in a single story, suburban home and drives a Corolla. He looks and acts like your average Joe, and the only way you would know he has a lot of money is if you asked him.

As far as money making you happy goes, it sure has made me happy. I enjoy taking a trip overseas every year, and that sure isn't possible without money. I'm also financially planning for retirement, which I know I will love, and that requires money.
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Old 07-20-2018, 05:34 AM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
7,087 posts, read 8,585,304 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyedyeguy View Post
Not all rich people need the best of everything. I have a multimillionaire family member, a business owner who lives in a single story, suburban home and drives a Corolla. He looks and acts like your average Joe, and the only way you would know he has a lot of money is if you asked him.

As far as money making you happy goes, it sure has made me happy. I enjoy taking a trip overseas every year, and that sure isn't possible without money. I'm also financially planning for retirement, which I know I will love, and that requires money.
Yup, definitely agree with you there. I'm not big on traveling, I don't want to sound boring I just mean that it's not high on my list of things I care about, but my GF and soon to be fiancé is HUGE on traveling, so that means... I will be traveling :P lol. What does make traveling way better is money, at least. I'm trying to put this in a way that won't sound spoiled, but basically let's say that you absolutely love hiking, it's the greatest thing ever for you, then it makes sense you'd be willing to drive 2 hours to a great hiking spot and 2 hours back. If you kinda sorta like hiking, like it's ok, but not your favorite, you may not be willing to drive more than 30 minutes to hike. That's how I am with traveling. If you told me I can travel once a year but fly coach to Europe, stay at mediocre hotels, and eat mediocre meals, or I can just save my money and stay home, nah, I'm good, I'd rather stay home. For me it's high class hotels and first class travel or forget about it. I just don't value travel THAT much that I want to go through such a huge hassle for it. If I loved travel, I'd probably be willing to do it no matter what the conditions. So I agree having extra money to be able to travel in style, now that sounds like fun, that sounds like my kind of travel.

When it comes to lifestyle and money, I'm not about "showing off" but I appreciate the nice things. I don't typically have that many people over to my house, so it's not about my house being better than someone else's house, but I really appreciate a luxury house with all of the amenities that make it feel like home for me. What I don't care about is nonsense like special Amazonian wood floors and Southern Italian granite or whatever things that cost a lot more money but that I don't really appreciate. I do appreciate nice hardwood floors, because carpet is a nightmare for cleaning purposes and stains easily, so that's a practical thing for me. Lots of space is necessary for what I want to use my house for, so that's something I appreciate. I enjoy a modern aesthetic and nicely finished interiors, but I don't want a $20,000 front door that was imported from wherever so I can tell my buddies look at my fancy door. No, I want the most airtight, perfectly built door, which is probably steel, and that's cheaper (amazingly enough...) than a fancy hardwood door. So for me, I guess you'd say I appreciate the quality and performance that comes from nice things, but not the "status symbol" value. I wear jeans and a T-shirt, all of the time, with no watches, nothing expensive ever on me, because it makes me comfortable and it's the most practical attire for living.

I'm the same with cars, but the difference is I do just love beautiful cars. I don't care about status symbols. I personally find a Rolls Royce hideously ugly, I can recognize they are luxury cars with a lot of great material crafting, but they are very ugly to me and don't say "fast and flashy," which is my style. I'm a Ferrari / Lamborghini (Aventador, Murcielago, etc.) guy not an Aston Martin / Rolls Royce guy, in other words. Ultimately, though, I want the performance of a fast, well handling car, and I love a beautiful car, but I wouldn't buy a Rolls Royce like some girls buy a Louis Vuitton, which is to show off status (the bags are hideous, absolutely hideous!). I would buy a supercar because it's gorgeous and I enjoy beauty and performance together.
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