Ask HN: Why are we addicted to getting rich?
There is trillions of dollars in peoples hands that do nothing but buy luxury. What is this ancient desire to be rich? What amount will make you satisfied?
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As long as you're done with your growth spurt, and have your personal style without need to look trendy every season, I see no need to try to buy the cheapest clothes. Affordable, sure, but without sacrificing quality.
- that we are separate/isolated from the rest of humanity
- that we need to be self-sufficient in order to survive
- that money has real value
- that without money we don’t have value
- that almost everything can measured in money
- that making more money is better
- that exploitation is ok and doesn’t influence us
I disagree that the trillions buy luxury. I’d argue that they expose addiction. We are burning our environment, and our personal lifetimes, faster and faster, to add numbers to wealthy peopke’s Accounts. It’s like redirecting to Dev/null.
It is a flow which creates enormous confusion, grasping, suffering, on all scales.
I visualize it as the grey tornado thing from stranger things, on planetary level, but especially intense in the US, a country with institutionalized government corruption and the most barbaric industrialized commercial healthcare in the world.
On the other hand, money can be used to support and express gratitude.
So it’s not really the money, but the hypnosis and the addiction.
1) Financial freedom and security. Aside from ensuring material needs this is important because it provides a good foundation for autonomy - an important part of self-fulfilment.
2) The means to make things happen. I don't want to own things or show off. I do want to facilitate things that I think will be beneficial to people I care about (e.g. help a friend or relative start a business, fund a non-profit, etc).
For a lot of people 'getting rich' means flash cars, big houses, and extravagance. I don't want any of that. I want the means to make my world (the one I interact with) a more pleasant place (for myself and others).
Couldn't care less about fancy cars and houses. I want to push processor speeds forward by an order or two of magnitude, and to make that happen I need funds.
See this website: dollarstreet.org.
Looking at the photos of some of the poorest places, I suppose they're undesirable from my perspective now, but if I moved there and lived there long enough and adapted, I could see myself finding contentment with less.
BTW: how are you going to earn enough in 3 months / year if you are never going to look at a computer again? I can't think of any endeavour where some for of IT isn't in use.
For me, it's not about stopping work. I generally love the things I do, the projects and concepts I develop in my spare time. For me, that's not working, it's a passion.
My second number is all about that, it's about being able to buy the ability to do what ever the fuck I want. Ideally I want a nice plot of land in a relatively remote area with some workshops and enough in the bank where I don't have to worry about bills and I can fund whatever project takes my interest.
Most of my socialising in the past 6 months has been staying in or going to a friends house. A couple times a week, we will cook each other dinner, maybe have a beer and generally just relax. It's basically a "habit" now and 1 that I really quite enjoy, all of our cooking levels have improved and we experiment a lot both with simple dishes and different styles. There's only been 1 occasion when we've all said no and thrown it out, admittedly my fault. I seriously misjudged some chillies, lol.
Also, as cowy said the bay area is 1 of the more expensive places to live. You make a choice to live there, I know it might not be that simple, but it is a choice none the less.
If travellings your thing, on a 12k/y budget you could do most of Europe, Asia and probably more. I did the calculations once when considering travelling for a couple years, of course your not going to be staying at 5* hotels in a gated community, fine dining, but that imho isn't travelling.
I'm single, I have no Children. My share of rent is 400/m, chuck on ~100 for utilities. I live with 3 others. It's north west London, around a half hour - 40 minute commute by train into central. I leave the house every day. I wouldn't agree that it's "barely a step above poverty" as I grew up in poverty and I've probably never been happier, or healthier.
As for watching every penny, yes and no. Usually I spend around 20-30/week on food. Which is more than a friend who is actively trying to watch his spending and minimise his outgoings. What I don't do, any more, is eat out or drink the likes of Costa. I stopped drinking costa once I tracked my spending on it for a couple weeks last year and saw in front of my eyes I was spending ~10/day on, quite frankly shitty coffee.
The eating out part started off last year purely for health reasons, I wanted to trim down some weight, cut down on my processed food and sugar intake. Subjective of course, but I think you would be amazed at just how bad things taste once you've eaten "clean" for a few weeks. For instance last week I popped in to Wenzels and grabbed a sausage roll, took 1 bite at it looked down and thought what the hell is that, that isn't meat. I chucked it in the bin outside the door and grabbed a packet of peanuts. I used to enjoy the occasional pasty but I think my taste has changed.
Food wise, I eat a nice bit of steak once or twice a week, chicken, fish, fresh vegetables and a range of nuts. I spend ~ 120/month on supplements and protein powder. It can be done, just shop smartly and take advantage of bulk buying in combination with offers and you automatically save a fortune. I don't do the whole cook 14 meals on a Sunday thing like another 1 of my cousins but that's because I've tried it and by Thursday I think the food loses its taste.
Just remember little things add up while your on the go, so those 2 coffees, a snack here, bit of lunch there and you've easily spent 15 in a day, multiply that over the course of a year and you've sunk ~4k on crap with little nutritional value, just to keep you going. A travel mug for your own coffee and making your own lunch will save you money in the long run and it doesn't have to be time intensive.
Your best tool for reducing your out goings is a bit of paper and a pin. Sit down for an hour and work out what your spending and where you can save money.
It's the same ancient desire to hunt and survive.
With money you can hunt. Without it you will be hunted.
When you don't have money you become the subject of the force and influence of those who have it.
You will have to live your life on someone else's terms.
What do you really want? Security? Money can get you that (within limits). Identity? Money can get you that, too (again, within limits). Experiences? Money can get you those (pretty much without limit). To not have to work? Money can get you that. So no matter what you want, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that you could have that, if you only had money.
> What amount will make you satisfied?
Legend says that, when asked how much it took to be satisfied, John D. Rockefeller said, "Just a little bit more". He was the first billionaire, and the richest person in his day. If it took more for him to be satisfied, well, you're never going to have enough money to get there.
Now, as I said, this story is legend (so far as I have been able to determine). Still, the problem is that real satisfaction doesn't come from money. The best you can hope for is to have enough to provide for your needs and at least some of your wants. That's as good as it gets, because beyond that, more money doesn't seem to increase happiness/satisfaction.
If you had millionaires and billionaires who lived frugally it would mean no demand for goods and services you and I and most people contribute to. That they can invest in ideas means other people get to work pursuing those ideas.
If we didn't seek to be rich (or even wealthy)and we were all just getting by with "living wages", in the first place, we would still be in a place where there was low demand for things and there would be little spare money to do non-essential things. It'd like living in 1980s India or China or Indonesia.
On the other hand, frivolous consumption is a problem (disposable thises (these?) and disposable thats (those?) contribute to environmental damage.
That said, the best thing we could do is slow pop growth to replacement levels rather than growth. That means educating poor people everywhere and getting them on contraceptives.
Its: "disposable this and that". :)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-can-retire-early-witho...
If I want to live how I live now, I'll probably need to put about $3k aside into retirement each month to retire when I'm around 65!
I find this insane because I'm quite young. The $3k/mo is probably a good number to split between my IRA and brokerage account - but I don't consider my brokerage account to be strictly retirement.
More of "general investing" that I can use, if I need to or decide to, invest in something else in the future... not sure what, but I do not consider it like the IRA in the sense that I will absolutely never touch it (outside rebalancing as I get older).
Anyway... I know of quite a few people who live on 20-30k/yr (with a GOOD backup for emergencies!) sailing the world. Does that not sound fun?!
After you buy the boat!
It was easy enough for people to substitute money for food as the critical thing we need to survive. It's not as easy to give up the instinct of getting more of it everyday.
And why should it be easy? This behaviour meant life or death for millions of generations.
1 billion dollars net, in my bank account.