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Comment by unknown_apostle | Hacker News Reader

Well it looks to me like 1980 is a mirror of 201x.

Low valuations vs super high valuations. Brash and hawkish central bankers vs anxious and dovish central bankers. 20% vs negative yields. Nobody even considering financial investments vs E-trade babies. Bruce Springsteen vs 20-something hedgies. Lowered debt (because of 60s and 70s inflation) vs record debt. Fear of inflation vs pining for inflation.

Why not follow the analogy? In 1980 people were lining up for gold when they should have been buying stocks and paper. Why not put 5% of your savings in gold? Like coins or GLD or something.

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I haven't the faintest idea what your comment means and by the time I understand all this finance shit to even put together a comment like you did, I'll have given up all my hobbies and free time along with my job.

Fuck I hate finance so much. Googling for like a year and I still haven't the faintest clue what to actually do with my money.

Just going to keep it all in cash and call it a fucking day.

Take 1/2 your money and dump it into a lowest cost index fund you can find. Ignore it for 40 years. Do whatever you want with the other half.

And really what to do with the other half is what most of investing is about. If you have a lot of money then many people try and beat the market, which generally means they lose it all. Others hedge for bad times, which is a good idea if your wealthy and care about downsides more than upsides.

However, if you are like most people you can invest in other things. Save for unemployment, pay off your debt, pay for education, start a company, buy a house, buy solar panels, or buy a Prius etc. Chances are there are non 'investment' options that are better than the stock market after taxes, but it really depends on you and what you want to do.

pay off your debt: none

pay for education: none

start a company: definitely not

buy a house: nope

buy solar panels: nowhere to put them

I literally have nowhere to 'put' my money except instruments. I already have all the instruments I need. Just finished selling off a good 80% of my possessions as well. I've hit my limit for 'desires'. My only goal now is to make that $20k/year off investments. So you say put half in there and sit on it, but I don't actually have anything to do with the other half.

Getting, ~20k/year for a long time takes something like 500+k with more money being safer. I am going to assume you want to do this to retire early. So, my advice is this, stick with the 50% long term investment and ignore this money. It does not exist until your 65+.

Second, dump the other half into the same basic investment, but treat this as your early retirement pool. When you can make it to 65 with this money then "retire." The other half plus social security will last your retirement, and this half is your FU money.

Edit: To be clear when 1/2 your money is ~280k @ 50 ramping up to ~500k in @40 you can very likely pull out 20k/year till 65. So 1 mill total @ 40 and 560k @ 50.

Why do this? Well your expenses will rise faster than inflation. As you age you just need more help and have more health issues. So retiring as soon as you can is risky unless you living on a small chunk of your nest egg.

PS: By retire I don't mean living on a beach someone, just no longer forced to work a job for food. Further, social security is actually a significant amount of money if your single and had a good paying job for ~25-30+ years.

Wow thank you.

Yes my goal is to hit 20k/month just to cover my basic expenses, at which point nearly 100% of my income can go towards my accounts. I'm 23 right now making $100k USD (in Canada it's around $125k). Expenses are $1500/mo, rest just sits in the bank.

I figure if I keep working until I'm 40 (my cutoff age), it'll be much loftier. I also don't plan to live past 65 for personal reasons.

When I say 'retire' I really just mean ROI covers life expenses in full, otherwise my sub <20k/year expense lifestyle will do until I die. I still plan on working, just putting all that money into savings.

With this new information, how would you adjust your plan? Also can you please clarify the @50 and @40? Do you mean 50% and 40% respectively?

Thanks.

@50 and @40 was shorthand for 50 years old and 40 years old.

The point was the older you retire the less money you need. But, also retiring ASAP is often a poor idea as you tend to worry about cash more the less you have. If you are going to keep working then it's a purely theoretical exercise and you can quickly get far more savings than your lifestyle will ever spend.

I would also say 65 can feel rather young when you hit 65 or you might not make it. However, planning to have money indefinatly adds peace of mind even if you never spend it.

@23 just dump it all in a low cost index fund and ignore it, in 10 years you can rethink the situation. You could easily be married with kids or something. Also, get a solid understanding of the tax implications of what your doing. Some people say having X months of cash on hand is important but selling stocks is hardly the end of the world the real issue is tax deferred accounts can have withdrawal penalties.

> I also don't plan to live past 65 for personal reasons.

Can you go into this?

I may one day end my life out of exasperation at the culture I live in bearing down with demands for a certain conduct that I cannot sincerely present, but this future isn’t real to me either, just like no future is real, because I don’t currently feel compelled to commit suicide. I do, however, feel that my frustration will progress. Often it seems like what is expected of us in the industrialized world is akin to joining a traveling sideshow and lumbering around in clumsy costumes, doing a song and dance for the simple delight of some abstract, blurred-out crowd. None of my friends or anyone I know are real either. They are all becoming the same person. Isolated hand crafted social networks. No particular philosophy or ideology to bind them except the mindless packed egalitarianism that the media sold to them in a nice little bundle.

Clothing. Beats. Startups. Money. Let's get fucked up bro. You thinking DORSiA tonight bro? It's all pseudo. Even the people who are 'into shit' are usually into it just deep enough where they can virtue signal others of the same depth, then jerk each other off about how fucking amazing they are for being the x% of the population into $y hobby. It doesn't matter what club. The attitude comes in all themes - classical music, startups, etc. Most of it is an illusion, I've only met maybe 2 people in my entire life who've dissolved their ego's (no I am not one of them).

We've abstracted human connection and communication to such a disgusting degree we're most likely never turning back.

And please spare me the mental health responses.

Why would you choose death over, say, removing yourself from the environment? Couldn't you move to another country(assuming you had the resources), or move out into the forest and live as a hermit?

Is there something more specific you could talk about with this? "with demands for a certain conduct that I cannot sincerely present". Are we talking about something like being gay in an anti-gay society, or something far deeper about the basic structure of society?

Sorry for pressing, I'm just very curious in your point of view.

>Why would you choose death over, say, removing yourself from the environment? Couldn't you move to another country(assuming you had the resources), or move out into the forest and live as a hermit?

>Is there something more specific you could talk about with this? "with demands for a certain conduct that I cannot sincerely present". Are we talking about something like being gay in an anti-gay society, or something far deeper about the basic structure of society?

If I dress my thoughts up into a book with a narrative it might be just good enough where people excuse my depravity as 'wit'. I'll wait until I publish and if it goes nowhere, then I'll end it. Until then I'll keep pretending, and it's the pretending that kills me. Most people are lost. I get overwhelmingly sad when around people because I can't help them. Too much empathy and self awareness. I honestly have no idea. Just being around people makes me sadder than if I wasn't around them. What actually makes me happy is not chilling and hanging out, but teaching someone and watching them learn and seeing the resultant joy that brings. That's why I greatly enjoy getting lost in music and playing with friends. There's people I know where I honestly don't know a single detail about eachother's lives, we just play and communicate that way.

I don't mean to impose, but your comments here and others above sound exactly like my diagnosed schizophrenic brother when he's not medicating. You might consider visiting a psychiatrist.

Can you go more in depth on that?

65 is a long time from now; your viewpoint on many things is likely to evolve.

I would encourage you to plan your finances as if you'll live to 90+, such that any decision to exit early will be driven by your own volition and not by financial stressors. No mental health argument here; I'm just trying to keep it practical.

With all due respect you don't know me. My viewpoint on all things is likely not to evolve. I'm at the end. There are no more 'viewpoints'. Perspective/viewpoint/ideology only go so far. Thanks for asking.

Why do you think your viewpoints won't evolve?

I remember how bound to philosophy I was in high school. Every new concept was amazing and gave me strength. It's been years since I've been moved by anything I've read and I don't know why, but it's not for a lack of trying. I also don't think it's a case of "oh you're young" because there's only so much literature out there, and with the internet + basic life trivialities mostly optimized and handled, the amount of time to take in information is an order of magnitude larger than past generations.

Just way too much information way too quickly.

Have you ever thought of writing your own thoughts down in a more extended form? I think the world only benefits from a plurality of viewpoints, not just viewpoints of the common.

You're right, I don't and didn't mean to overstep.

Consider putting your money into a business you know, equity, or rental property.

The idea is that rather than holding liquid exchange media (money), you make that money work by investing it on a productive venture.

Investing in the stock market (or an index fund) is similar in many regards to starting your own business or putting the money into a partnership or investment property: you're investing financial capital (giving someone else the ability to buy stuff -- liquid exchange medium) in return for an ownership interest in the return.

On balance, investing in stocks is cheap, has little by way of management obligations, and (notable exceptions notwithstanding) tends to produce pretty good returns over time, especially as compared to holding cash. Your investment is also fairly liquid, as stocks themselves can be sold (converted to cash) at any time.

No, it's not risk-free. But it's a pretty decent risk, and in general you're in the same boat as everyone else.

I just asssume they're no better than listening to "Mad Money" once they throw terms like doves and bulls around. I'd suggest you read actual books on personal finance and investment. For market stuff, 1929 the great crash by Galbraith would probably work as a crash course. Sorry for the pun.

Edit- by "no better" I mean if I can get 80-100% of your content from a common source then I'm better sticking with the common source.

> I'd suggest you read actual books on personal finance and investment.

Oh boy have I ever. And not a word was retained. Total gibberish. No idea how I can code but not understand finance.

Honestly, I don't have the time to 'get into' finance beyond reading up a couple hours a week. Just need a simple guide, my only goal is to leave my money somewhere for 20 years and not touch it while it grows so I can make $20k/year off my investments eventually. Not looking to day trade or do any of that. Been looking at Canadian Couch Potato (I'm in Canada) and Mr Money Moustache.

I don't have any lofty aspirations. I only want this apartment to be paid off for free every month, at which point I'll have the freedom to wake up every day and do whatever I want.

I'm also in Canada and I follow the passive investing Couch Potato approach which I've converted to pseudo code here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11528787.

That said if investing doesn't interest you just use a Robo advisor like Wealth Simple (Toronto based). You will pay maybe 0.2% more in fees but your performance will be the same as the couch potato approach, and you'll never need to think about investing.

Buy VTSAX (or any other broad-based, low-fee, 100% stock mutual fund) and call it a day. Fees will eat your lunch far more than you think. Even a difference of 20 basis points (0.2% or 0.002) matters, IMO. Don't pay a fee unless you're 100% sure you're getting more than the fee in value. That's why I love Vanguard (no connection, other than satisfied customer). When you get 5 or 7 years away from needing (not just wanting) the money, then start to scale into REIT or fixed-income strategies to reduce your risk exposure. While you're more than 10 years away from needing it, I think you want to be full risk-on for stocks.

Then, come back in 20 years and upvote this. :)

Check out real estate investment trusts. I think you may get your residual that way.

Will do, thanks. RE: Housing - I've always had a gut feeling that tying your money into an asset like that is a terrible idea because of the infinite number of potential money sucking risks along the way. It seems like something you'd 'get rich' off of on paper, but when you try to sell for that price you'll find nobody is buying. Don't want to end up in that position and again, that's just a gut feeling, didn't really read up on it.

REITs are traded on the market, (pretty much) just like a stock. So you don't have to worry about liquidity being too much of a problem. One example of a REIT is [1].

However, if you really just want to park money for 20 years, you probably want a target year fund like [2] which will have higher risk now (stocks, REITs, etc), and rebalance to lower risk (Bonds) as it gets closer to 2040. It's literally the definition of set it and forget it.

[1] https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0123&...

[2] https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0696&...

edit: I should add, I'm not your financial advisor, and I don't have a fiduciary duty. You should consult with a financial advisor (who has a fiduciary duty) before making any decisions about investments. However, target year funds are frequently (one of) the best decisions for many people.

REITs: -are publicly owned on the stock market -have a legal obligation to pay out 90% of their operating profit through dividends -can own/operate myriad forms of real estate assets, but I'd suggest sticking with REITs that actually own real estate and not mortgages.

That's like, just my .02 though.

Maybe this is a good book: "A Fool and His Money" by John Rothschild. Containing such gems as "Never buy the June call nor sell the October put simultaneously, unless you know what they are".

Comedy gold about the overfinancialization of everything. As early as 1988 no less!

Btw if "overfinancialization" is not a word, it should be.

Yeah I've read it all. It's way too high level to make use of.

My suggestion: if you care to understand the comment, highlight the parts you don't understand, and maybe venture a guess as to what it actually means.

Finance both is and isn't confusing. The language is obfuscatory. Many of the concepts are actually pretty straightforward. There are the occasional kinks.

Just invest in a "target 20XX" index fund if you're that unwilling to learn more, IMO.

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