Not to the statement I was responding to made by ValueNZ.
Printable View
On ST there is a different set of people, probably top 5% wealth wise. I did see a Herald article about a guy with no debt and 4 ml plus his house working at 69 because he felt worried they would run out of money. Obviously just did not want to stay home and didn't like fishing or golf.
I know people on two average wages, paying over a 1000 a week to the bank, with kids in school. Others paying rent in the same situation. It is not easy out there.
For a number of years I used to live on 20k out of my 48k salary and save the rest (drawings really) because EVERYTHING was paid for by the business. Rates, insurance, car, the lot. All I had to worry about was food, clothing and medical at that point. Even food I had a large part free. How much you spend isn't always discretionary.
A guy I met who told me one of his workers lived on $1000 a year, this is about 20 years ago. Grew all his own food, went nowhere, single living on a farm, I have to use caps here. THAT'S NOT NORMAL.
I have never earned much money, instead went for the low spend method to being comfortable. In NZ most the best things are free or very cheap. Worked one of the best jobs there is, postie, and used the spare time wisely, trading on shares and betfair.
Saved as much as possible and put it all to work, now a few years off full retirement and in a very comfortable position. The difficult part for me will be changing to a mentality where I start spending that money, so my overall wealth starts to decline. My miserly nature will find that tough. I am already thinking to keep working past 65 as I enjoy it, tried retiring a few years ago, and did not really enjoy it.
Need to be more like my father who timed it to perfection, ran out of money and whisky pretty much at the same time he expired.
So well done and doing ...I admire you both's positive thinking...money and its happiness is overrated in my humble view ...one can be really happy without much of it ...just about basic necessities ....more one has causes more trouble ...more often then not ...all the vices and associated troubles come from that ...EGO is one of the biggest trouble associated with money / easy money etc .
Wish u luck and happiness :t_up:
There is the whole FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) where people can really get their expenses down to incredibly small amounts and then end up in the position where they can retire in their fourties if they started young.
Whether you actually retire or not is another story, as a lot of people enjoy work. Whether you do retire or not is irrelevant... what is important in my view is getting to the point where you have the option to retire asap. That way if you do continue to work it will be fantastic because you will only be doing it because you actually want to, not because you have to.
My goal is to get to a point where it makes more sense to manage my portfolio rather than work a full time traditional job. I love the idea of reading annual reports, fund manager reports, letters to shareholders, ect all day. Buffett got there at 25, I'd be happy to get there by 35.
Yeah, for sure.
As I say - the main thing is having the option.
That is all that money means to me - options.
So I am not worried about having a specific amount of money for the sake of it. If you are completely driven by ego, then you won't ever feel fulfilled...whether you have $1M, $10M or $1B sitting in the bank.
Even if you worked up to a portfolio of $1M (a lot of money to most, but not some astronomical value in 2024) and it paid a net 3% dividend yeid that would be $30K a year (or $578 a week). That would give the average person a lot more options in life, including the option to only work part time.
And if you start early enough, getting to $1M is not a herculean task for most. And by the time you hit $1M I expect your dividend yield would be much more than 3%.
You definitely do not need to be worth hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions of dollars to have options and life and feel fulfilled.
$750K - $1.5M of income producing assets would be more than 'enough' for the vast majority. They may not be flying private jets around the globe, but I think they would be just fine with very little stress in their life (well, financial stress anyway!).
As has been pointed out, vast sums of money can also be problematic for some as it leads to bad behaviour driven by ego.
I get what you're saying. Cash probably has little utility to anyone past probably $5-10M, but at the same time having a massive NW means you can do enormous good for the people around you. Family member gets sick? You have the ability to get them private healthcare with no noticeable loss to your NW. It's those sorts of situations where you want deep pockets.
Plus, it gives you the ability to be extremely charitable. Say you're worth $50M at 65 earning 10% a year, you could easily donate $2.5M every year to any charity you want, live large spending 500k whilst travelling the world and still have your NW increase each year. There is no way you could do nearly as much good for society if you were only worth a million.