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It's nothing that amazing. It requires only a little financial discipline, time, and compound interest. If he started when he was 15 years old with $600 invested and increased that about 4% each year until his death in an account that generated an annual return of 9%, then by his last year at age 92 he would be contributing about $11,800 into his account and would have almost $9.7 million. It's not that unreasonable to expect he could contribute that much each year.
I think it's pretty funny that anyone could say it's not amazing. Sure, the math is pretty simple. But how many janitors (even union janitors) die with $8M? Heck, how many die with even $1M? Lots of folks much higher up the income spectrum than him never accumulate $1M.
Yes, but this man's example is an inspiration for the majority of people to try harder at saving and investing money so they can eventually become financially independent at some point in their lives.
The excuse making that is done by some simply doesn't add up in real life, as his example shows.
Agreed.
Unfortunately, the excuse makers will never stop making excuses. They will always say he had an unfair advantage. They never stop with all the excuses on why it can't be done. And when you prove it can then they move the goalpost and say you can't do it on a modest salary and still enjoy life, etc. The excuses are, literally, never ending.
Unfortunately, the excuse makers will never stop making excuses. They will always say he had an unfair advantage. They never stop with all the excuses on why it can't be done. And when you prove it can then they move the goalpost and say you can't do it on a modest salary and still enjoy life, etc. The excuses are, literally, never ending.
Vermont's cost of living is certainly an advantage. And he certainly earned more than the lowest quintile.
Vermont's cost of living is certainly an advantage. And he certainly earned more than the lowest quintile.
To the best of my knowledge, VT doesn't have a super low cost of living. And it's hardly a news that you would need to earn more than the lowest quintile to amass that level of wealth.
The guy was more than just a Janitor, as it points out he was a very good Day Trader. The article makes it seem as though you can create $9 million in wealth off a Janitorial position and that's just not true.
Plus as others have pointed out, you are stupid to have a significant amount of money and live as if you are Chris Gardner in the Pursuit of Happiness for goodness sakes. I'm a Minimalist and I'm MGTOW, but you can be a Minimalist while still enjoying your damn life!
What the heck is MGTWOW? I wish people would stop with these insane acronyms!
Agree. I mean a LOT of people can work til death in their 90s and make a crap ton of money by saving a lot but what's the point?
The points are many:
--You don't need a lot of material things to be happy.
--People work for reasons other than money.
--Having money gives you the flexibility to live the life you want. As Suze Orman says: First people. Then money. Then things. Most people put things ahead of money and that is why so many live their lives on the verge of a crisis.
Find me 100 more examples of lowly, uneducated workers earning millions on the stock market and then you might have a point.
The problem is uneducated people don't invest in the stock market in the first place. And even if you try to educate them about it, they still won't do it. Heck, lots of educated people still won't do it.
The only way you can get uneducated people to invest is to do it by force of law. Australia has a privatized social security system where the employer and employee both contribute around 7% to the system and I believe it is automatically invested for them in index fund like instruments. The net worth of the typical Australian is much higher than the net worth of the typical American as a consequence.
Yeah, because it's so easy to travel back in time to 1919, right? Would you at least pretend you have a functioning brain?
Ok, so you invest in an S&P 500 Index fund instead. It's easier and cheaper to invest today than it ever has been. But the excuse makers keep making excuses.
The 92-year old man referenced in the story was only behind the optimal time to buy Coca Cola by a matter of a few years. His parents could have purchased him a single share four years before he was born (at an inflation-adjusted cost of $500) and bam -- $9.6 million. Just add time. Face it, he could buy a single share of any number of stocks offered during his youth and make millions. This is a story about the power of longevity and compound interest. So don't smoke and invest in index funds. Same thing. Start right now. No time machine needed -- just youth and some investment capital.
You do understand how long-term investing works, yes? This is not hard to do. Just takes some discipline.
Agreed. If you start investing $350 per month at the age of 22 and get 8% (below the long term historical average of about 10%), you'll have $13,976,033 at age 92.
Agreed. Is it really living if one rarely or never travels, eat out, watch concerts/plays/sporting events, buy new clothes, drives second-hand cars, and works most of their lives never to enjoy their downtime?
One of the point of having money is to treat yourself once in a while and work less.
I know there are people out there who are secret millionaires, but their lives would be considered very boring to the majority.
Yet pretty much every study out there shows that people who live simply are actually HAPPIER than the majority:
....most of the research on consumer finance shows the same thing: people can usually save a lot more if they make saving a priority. Most people don't. Savings is an afterthought--it's the residual of whatever hasn't been spent on clothes, groceries, cars, dinners out, school trips, travel soccer team, college tuition, vacation, etc. Unsurprisingly, there's frequently no residual. However, if people decide how much to save, and then budget their consumption out of what is left, they suddenly realize that they could drive an uglier car, take the kids out of dance class, live with the kitchen the way it is, stay home for a week in August instead of going to Disneyworld, and so forth. And those people are not, as you might think prospectively, made desperately unhappy by these sacrifices. Savers are actually happier than the general population--in part, one assumes, because they're less worried.
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