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Maybe you gurus know something I don't. But my small portfolio didn't even come close to touching 10% in the past decade, and my 401K has done literally nothing over the same period of time.
Money market accounts have been good for extra beer $ though.
Isn't this where Dollar cost averaging works? When the market is down you can buy more of something. When it goes up you end up buying less. You place the same bet on the table every month, payday, or when ever you invest. The great part is that when things move up you have allready bought lots of shares that were cheeply priced. Nothing wrong with a bargain. What I find is that the people with little money always jump on the current success bandwagon. The problem is that those that made the money on that bandwagon are selling to those that are excited about it. They can sell because they bought when no one else was buying.
I have a brother that will not buy gold or silver. He can't believe the prices that they are charging. He did spend a long time buying gold and silver when it was not popular. He has sold some of it though. Chances are he will sell off and get his money back for what he has in the investment and use it for other things. He won't sell it all. He likes gold and silver. The people that buy now are the people that will lose when the prices decline. They won't make that large of return on their dollar. They will cry that they bought the gold and are now stuck with it. Over time they will notice that the gold market will not recover to where they bought and they will sell at a low price. I have no idea where the gold market will head. I do know that everything has a cycle though. The people that follow these cycles make lots of money. The market tells them when to buy and when to sell.
So your relative is ridiculously cheap, what does that prove again?
If that works for him, that's great. It doesn't work for me. I hate driving beaters and a 200K home won't be big enough for my future family + my likely 2 or 3 big dogs that I'm going to have. Why am I supposed to feel bad for buying things I enjoy with the money I work so hard for?
My best friend's dad is one of the best lawyers in the state. He's got 4 cars (including a Porsche), 2 homes and about 5 million dollars in the bank/investments
My best friend's older brother is a president of sales (top 5 executive) at a company. He's got a 4 million dollar home and 4 cars. His old company recently sold for 50 million (he got about 20% of that I believe)
Should I go on?
Being cheap works for some people, it doesn't work for everybody. Plenty of people want to enjoy the finer things life has to offer as a reward for working so hard to attain that wealth. Imagine that
Again, this post just shows you are lying, or embellishing yourself a lot.
Please tell me, what does the cost of the home have to do with size? This statement shows that you do not have a concept of such things, therefore it undermines your credibility.
As for the rest, just BS; typical internet perfect life.
You are cheap, you drive a Honda and wear cheap clothes, I would hardly call that spending lavishly; you think it is because again, you do not have a concept of what it is like to make a lot of money, but you think you do, but it shows you do not have a handle on what costs are, thisw is why none of your posts make sense to those who do make a lot of money, or have a lot of experience in life.
If you came on here and posted things that made sense, you would have not gotten the reaction you did.
Look, I don't agree with the OP. I buy very cheap clothing to wear for work. And I keep my eyes open for ridiculous bargains. I recently bought my b/f a very fancy $275 coat (the type that you wear over a suit) for about $20. JCPenny's had this ridiculous sale in one of their warehouses.
I think most of us understand completely what compound interest is. I learned this back in high school playing starcraft. If you start mining for minerals early, you get way way way more money overall than if you spend more money on combat units toward the beginning of the game.
The issue is this. While I don't agree with the OP's extravagant spendings (assuming they are real at all), I don't agree with your version of success either. I'm sorry, but most of us were still in college when we were 20. And most of us were still struggling to make something of ourselves in our 20's. While I know plenty of successful people personally, I personally do not know anyone who made enough to save significantly back in their early 20's.
Why? Because every successful person I know started out with nothing. They spent their 20's to become successful, and finally became successful in their 30's.
Between paying for rent, loan, utilities, and everything else that's a necessity, they'd be lucky to be able to save $300 each month.
Not all of us became a blazing success when we were 20 like you. And not all of us can live so extravagantly like the OP. Some of us actually live in the real world.
Maybe I just think differently than other people. I opened my first investment portfolio at 19 years old, and put a few dollars a month into it every month since then. I have always seen growing assets as more important than paying down debt, given the incredible interest rates on debt today.
I never once said you make incredible money in your 20's. I said the money you put aside in your 20's BECOMES an incredible amount of money. Personally, I rode a bicycle to work/school from 20-25 years old to save money in a portfolio. Maybe not everyone thinks that way.
hnsq, you are perfectly well aware that very few "think that way."
It is pretty sad that most people won't do something as simple as make a few sacrifices to their short term comfort to give themselves a good income long term.
Isn't this where Dollar cost averaging works? When the market is down you can buy more of something. When it goes up you end up buying less. You place the same bet on the table every month, payday, or when ever you invest. The great part is that when things move up you have allready bought lots of shares that were cheeply priced. Nothing wrong with a bargain. What I find is that the people with little money always jump on the current success bandwagon. The problem is that those that made the money on that bandwagon are selling to those that are excited about it. They can sell because they bought when no one else was buying.
I have a brother that will not buy gold or silver. He can't believe the prices that they are charging. He did spend a long time buying gold and silver when it was not popular. He has sold some of it though. Chances are he will sell off and get his money back for what he has in the investment and use it for other things. He won't sell it all. He likes gold and silver. The people that buy now are the people that will lose when the prices decline. They won't make that large of return on their dollar. They will cry that they bought the gold and are now stuck with it. Over time they will notice that the gold market will not recover to where they bought and they will sell at a low price. I have no idea where the gold market will head. I do know that everything has a cycle though. The people that follow these cycles make lots of money. The market tells them when to buy and when to sell.
That's gambling though, not investing.
If you believe that you can follow the trends in the market closely enough, then the more you invest, the more you stand to make. So, if you invested more, and were always right about the 10-12% return, you could easily quit your job.
I have a few friends who got squashed in the market day trading over the past decade, so it's not quite as simple as doing your homework.
Just moving a few things around and you get 10% returns guaranteed easy. It's not like that.
My 401K which was invested in a conservative to moderate profile has lost money over the last decade. CDs and money market accounts do not lose $ because they are investing, not gambling.
None of these things have happened to any of my acquaintances on a major enough level to cause any real problems
Car Wreck - majority of cases, it's your fault for not driving defensively enough
Illness - serious illness, it's very rare
Injury - generally people's fault for not exercising with proper form, I've been bodybuilding for 10 years and never had an injury
Job loss - people's fault for poor performance/insubordinance
Natural disaster - very rare, depends on where you live
Family loss - why would this stop me from succeeding? yea it's a horrible thing but that has nothing to do with my success
Early death - generally people's fault for not having the proper lifestyle. The average guy who lives the way I do lives until about 80 (I don't smoke, drink on occasion, eat a great diet, exercise all the time, am in great shape)
Why won't you just accept that most people's struggles' are their own fault?
I graduated from high school 7 years ago with a graduating class of 700 - I have kept up with about half of them via Facebook. Of my class, 9 of us have gotten cancer (a wide range), 1 passed away. Another was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is no longer able to work. A few have lost limbs due to either car accidents or military wounds. 1 was diagnosed with MS. A handful are caretakers for ill parents, grandparents, or other relatives. And that's just of the people I know and who has been public about their situations. Let's be conservative and say 50 of them are dealing with health issues in themselves or their families that disrupt their studies or career, and also can be extremely expensive (my cancer treatment was $250,000 for 6 month, and I was denied insurance just 4 months before my diagnosis. I was very lucky to have found a job that offered an HMO which still was tens of thousands out of pocket just in time for the diagnosis)
And that's just my high school. I lived in a 6 person apartment in college. 1 had to drop out because of Crone's disease, though he later came back and finished his course of study. Two more suffered from such serious depression that if their parents had not been able to afford counseling, I'm not sure if they would have graduated. 70,000 people between 18-39 are diagnosed with cancer each year (typically in late stages because of lack of health insurance and delay of diagnosis which means treatment is more disruptive and expensive), and the risk of developing a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, autoimmune issues like MS and lupus, and a whole host of other things. According to Life Disrupted: Chronic Illness in Your 20s and 30s transcript, page 1 - EverydayHealth.com, over 600,000 kids with chronic illness turn 18 every year - to say nothing of people who DEVELOP those illnesses early. Even something manageable like type 1 diabetes can be financially difficult, especially if your job does not offer health coverage.
You have more of a chance of getting sick and incapacitated than your house burning down - would you opt to forgo homeowner's or renter's insurance? I did not have wild spending habits before I got sick, but I still look at some of the clothes I bought that weren't as marked down as they could have been and think of some of the things that I did and wish that I had those few hundred dollars in the bank when I got sick. Always, always save for a rainy day. At your income, there is absolutely no excuse. How long could you coast by with $5,000 a month in medical bills plus your living expenses off of your savings if you could not work? Maximize that. You are in a rare situation where you CAN prepare for serious illness. You are also in a situation where serious illness would easily put you out of a job. I could work from home and my job is 100% at my desk and I still struggled against doctor's orders to go to work every day so I could pay the bills. Could you sell cars on chemo? What about from a hospital bed?
It is pretty sad that most people won't do something as simple as make a few sacrifices to their short term comfort to give themselves a good income long term.
This is heading towards derailment, but-
Where should they have learned about investing, compounding interest, and just plain WHERE TO BEGIN?
It isn't taught in high school, and it isn't a part of every college program either.
And then, given that we know the brain isn't fully mature in the early 20s, and they likely didn't have the role models... I find many things sadder than this particular type of failure in abstract thinking.
Maybe I just think differently than other people. I opened my first investment portfolio at 19 years old, and put a few dollars a month into it every month since then. I have always seen growing assets as more important than paying down debt, given the incredible interest rates on debt today.
I never once said you make incredible money in your 20's. I said the money you put aside in your 20's BECOMES an incredible amount of money. Personally, I rode a bicycle to work/school from 20-25 years old to save money in a portfolio. Maybe not everyone thinks that way.
The little money that I managed to save in my 20's were invested in my business about a year ago. Long term wise, it's giving me an income of about 10k a month. I know this is just pocket change for the OP, but that's at least something for the rest of us lowly humans.
Do the math. Either keep up with the previous job I had which earned me less than 60k a year or make the plunge, spend the savings, and earn a significantly higher income.
And no, I can't ride a bike to work. I have clients all over the place. Sometimes, I have to drive to other states.
So, we have the OP that constantly looks down on people who make 70k. And we have you who somehow became a blazing success when you were 20.
Nuff said.
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