You don't really want a million dollars
ryanwaggoner.com
ryanwaggoner.com
What amount of money would it take to solve my biggest problems?
Here are my biggest problems:
1. My father had a massive stroke and died. I miss him.
2. My mother has severe dementia and now acts like a toddler. I miss her too, in a strange way.
3. In the past 8 years, I have lost 5 close friends and family members including the cousin I grew up with who died very young of pancreatic cancer. I miss them all.
4. I have 3 loved ones with significant health problems. I wish there was more I could do to help. Better yet, I wish the would all just get well.
5. I love to build software and would like to build more, better, and faster.
6. The Pittsburgh Steelers (American football) lost yesterday. I'm crushed.
I have struggled with how more money could help (or have helped) with numbers 1 through 4, but I'm not quite sure how.
If I had more money, I could hire a bunch of people to help me with #5, but I think we're all learning that the correlation between having a lot of money and building lots of great software is becoming a very loose one.
I need a billion dollars to buy the Steelers and run them the way they should be run. I need another billion to pay the referees. In the meantime, I'll just sit and suffer on Mondays like this.
Likely this won't help you or me and it won't help your mom or dad, but it might help a lot of people someday.
First one that came to mind: http://www.pictureofhealth.com/
Not to face bankruptcy if a major health problem arises? Not to worry about the cost of college for your children? To own a small home in NYC or SF? To afford competent legal representation if the need arises?
And that doesn't even touch the reasons people want to be rich - like private jets and angel investing and art collecting and space tourism, etc. Have some imagination!
Nonsense:
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/how-to-retire-at-30-on-1-mil...
Not to face bankruptcy if a major health problem arises?
Health insurance isn't that expensive unless you have a pre-existing condition [1]. I won't talk about the college and home ownership questions other than to say that families have figured out how to live happy, healthy lives on far, far less. Go to a good state school, get some scholarships, don't live in Manhattan.
And you're only making my point: you don't really want the money. You want the things that you think only an abnormally large amount of money can buy. Sorry, but that just seems like lazy thinking to me.
1. And my sincere condolences to those that do. Seriously, that sucks and we need to fix the system somehow.
This is a poor answer. Just because other people are happy with something doesn't mean everyone is. What do you mean "don't live in Mahnattan"? I want to live in Manhattan. Who are you to say which of my desires are valid and invalid?
Nobody contests that a million dollars can buy you a lot of very nice things. The point is that too many people spend too much time fretting about going to Thailand when they get a million dollars, while completely missing the fact that a trip to Thailand is maybe $1000. It's mostly a question of priorities, and if you make your whole life about getting a million dollars, guess what happens once you get there? You're likely to start obsessing about five million, rather than retire to that beach in Thailand.
1) you will never live in Manhattan,
2) you will never have a million dollars.
In other words, if you do not have the ingenuity to solve the first, you certainly do not have ingenuity to solve the second.
I've love to buy a sporty Jaguar coupe which costs around 110k over here, but since I don't have that kind of money to spend on a car I make due with my 1998 truck. I'm happy. I'll probably buy a 370z in the next six months. It's not a Jaguar, but I will still be happy and live a free and dignified life.
So yeah... Having a Jaguar, might make me happy. Having a Jaguar might also make me unhappy. The real question is if I need the Jaguar to be happy, and I can truthfully answer that I don't really need it to feel I have a fulfilling life. Once again, if you NEED to have the - enter whatever costly material possession here - to be happy, you're doing something wrong.
source: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117288281789725533-WZ...
edit: The second set of figures was from p.6 of Parenting, Inc., which I believe come from here: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/CRC/crc2009.pdf
You can actually read the entire opening of Parenting, Inc. for free on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Inc-Pamela-Paul/dp/B003V1WDF...
Also from the article:
"Add in extras like private school, a nanny and a flat-screen TV set in a kid's bedroom, and that figure climbs to $1.6 million."
"In San Diego, Jacqueline Jones recently rang in her fifth year with a $1,000 mermaid-theme party. The fête, held at a community pool, included a piñata, pizza, cake, juice boxes, customized goodie bags for 20 and a former beauty queen who arrived dressed head to toe as Ariel, the Disney princess."
"...toddlers in $800 strollers to 10-year-olds with cellphones. But for many families, drawing the line between attentive parenting and extravagance is a tough call;..."
"School itself is just the beginning. It might mean paying $16,500 in annual property taxes in an area with top public schools like Millburn, N.J., ..." (Note: Millburn has a median house price of $1 million, and a median income of $150k/year.)
[edit, in response to your edit: the USDA comes up with $11-13k for two-parent families with income of $57-98k/year. That's about $230k/child over 18 years, for a group of families all of whom are richer than average.]
I wonder how much of this is just people sending their kids to absurd private schools.
If we accept that raising a child is a "full time job" (in reality it is more hours... not sure on the effort though), for their first five years, then all of the food of that full time parent eats, etc. adds in to that cost ;-P
You can argue that they would have eaten that themselves, however if they weren't full time caring, they would be out, earning. So one way or another you need to include child care costs: food and necessities for the primary carer, or day care/nanny costs.
I think that a lot of parents end up spending more than they need to with their children because they pander to their food requests. Learn to cook food that your children will eat, that is a simplified version of what you will eat (like my parents did)!
That said, I must learn to fix my own eating habits, then work on those of my girlfriend with her... then we might actually stand a chance at that last one if we get to that stage :-P
The reason that the government figures are wrong is that, to quote Parenting, Inc. again, they don't include the cost of "maternity clothes, new home purchases and moving expenses, childbirth education and newborn classes, prenatal vitamins and extra fruits and vegetables, of Glider breastfeeding armchairs; of 'babymoon' vacations and bumblee-themed baby showers.
When the Wall Street Journal looked at the suspect government figures in an effort to make them somewhat realistic, it added costs such as sporting equipment and tutoring (which is no longer just for the wealthy-- the average income of a family seeking tutoring for a child is between $50,000 and $70,000) and came up with a total cost of raising a child to age seventeen that rangeed from $800,000 to 1.6 million."
To quote the WSJ directly, "We placed all these expenses on a spectrum, from those that parents and experts say are the most common, up to more unusual -- and costly -- frills. At the lowest end, our estimates came in at about $800,000 (in 2007 dollars) through the age of 17."
So the $800,000 figure is based on a survey of parents to figure out what they most commonly spend on various things.
Alex, do you have any idea how the bottom 95% live?
Statistically or qualitatively?
In all seriousness though, I have no aspirations of living the elite-NYC-preschool lifestyle. That being said, life is about tradeoffs and while some of the expenses might seem patently absurd, others seem like things that anyone might reasonably want for their children: to play sports, go to summer camp, to be able to get a chemistry tutor if they needed one, etc.
That's not to say that all of these expenses are necessary or that your kids can't have just as good of a childhood without them, but at some level enough of these expenses do have merit that there is a tradeoff.
Ever notice how many of the highest performing athletes in the world tend to come from exactly the kind of environments where parents don't have a lot of money to spend on things like sports?
So, maybe it's possible to play sports without spending a ton of money?
In sports like golf, gymnastics, figure skating, hockey, gridiron football, tennis, skiing and snowboarding it's another story.
The sports that require alot of money to play are mainly ways for upper class white kids to avoid having to compete against the black kids and still feel like they are good athletes. At least in the US.
In other words, just the ones that most people like to play and draw the most talented athletes.
This is more whining about how hard it is for the richest of the rich to get by in these trying times, isn't it?
Whatever jackass made this infographic ought to be smacked upside the head with a dirty diaper.
I think you'll do fine.
I got a last minute deal and it cost a few hundred bucks as well.
In other words, what would you have if you invested the cost of children for 17 years? a shitton of money.
(Granted, $20k/year is a hefty spend on a kid where I come from).
Yeah, I'm really skeptical. The median household income in America is way, way less than that and I don't think most kids in America are living in the abject poverty these numbers would suggest.
In fact, I'd bring up the opportunity cost of maturity that having children brings you that you'd otherwise be missing out on by not having them. Maturity that quite frankly, probably saves you more money than you'd lose by having the child.
Having an extra-million to spend on consumption would put you at the ~70K/year level. That's something like a move from middle to barely-upper-middle class consumption levels.
So 1 million doesn't give you an abnormal amount of money to spend unless you spend it all in one place or something.
And your article on "how to retire..." isn't about how to retire at all but how to work with a million dollars and make a fair income, which is fine and good as long as you acknowledge that the person has to ... A) be moderately competent, B) be willing to accept some risks and discomforts (living Texas for example...) C) be willing to keep working (sure, maybe not that hard but still it involves effort, it's not friggin "retirement" in the normal sense).
I'm new in the States and I hear this term is mentioned a lot.
If you're already afflicted with some illness (a 'preexisting condition') then the insurance company has a pretty good idea of what you'll cost them: more than someone like me, who's young and relatively healthy. So naturally, the rate for someone like this is significantly higher.
This becomes a problem when people think of 'insurance' as something that's a prerequisite for life rather than what it is, insurance. This is partially because as more and more people received insurance, the price kept rising and rising, because the individuals don't see them: they only see the deductible. By now, costs are getting to be so high that it's become a reality: you pretty much have to have insurance, because if you don't, and you get seriously ill, you're pretty fucked. Like, "will be owing money the rest of your life."
You hear "pre-existing condition" a lot because it became a political buzzword used to explain why Republicans want to kill your grandma.
In WWII, the US government imposed wage caps in an attempt to stop inflation.
Stuck offering the same wages, companies had to offer other perks to their employees to attract and retain the best and brightest, and often chose health insurance as one of said perks. As health insurance became too common to be considered a perk, and was just thought of as part of the standard package, companies expanded what they covered.
Eventually we got to a place where something as routine and expected as an annual checkup at the doctor's must be bargained down to a $5 copay.
The evolution of health care absolutely fascinates me. There is a pretty common thread of government intervention having far-reaching and often unseen implications.
Medical licensing, for example, is another reason why health care is so expensive. In Ye Olden Times, someone who wanted to set bones would apprentice, learn the art, and then set about it. If you broke a bone, you went to him. After medical licencing, and the expensive schooling it entails, you go to the emergency room, with all the associated costs.
Now, the obvious bright side is that a well-rounded, licensed doctor in an emergency room may recognize a secondary affliction that a bone-setter would have missed. Being forced to go to a doctor for something that's been done by tradesmen for ages probably saves lives.
But, it removes choice, and it raises costs.
How you're willing to balance those three is largely ideological.
Old people are on Medicare which doesn't, to my knowledge, exclude pre-existing conditions.
Yet I entirely agree with your statement.
A million dollars is "not enough to secure a dignified existence in the US" because...
... Human beings require a community for a dignified existence.
Yes, a million won't guard against a health emergency... human beings indeed sometimes suddenly need the full-time attention of a dozen other people for a long time and if that attention comes from only money, it has to be a lot of it.
If you're counting on only money to secure your dignified existence, you're going to need a awful lot of it, enough to secure the mere existence of maybe a dozen people...
Surely this isn't the definition of "a dignified existence in the US", is it?
On the first level, you can retire, buy health insurance and not have any worries. A million would be enough. I would live on a diving boat cruising over coral reefs and code games between dives. (I'd also hire my gf to cook.)
>>And that doesn't even touch the reasons people want to be rich - like private jets and angel investing and art collecting and space tourism, etc.
On the second level, you can get what is high status among the really cool and rich nerds -- your own space program. (-: Well, some people without taste waste that opportunity on curing diseases that kill millions a year, sigh. :-)
This also contradicts the claim that someone wanting a million dollars is wanting "an usual amount of money". With a million dollars you can either:
A. Not work and live on pitance but in the location of your choosing.
B. Add your labor to the money and make whatever income your business skill allows you to make.
These both might be fine activities but neither is activity beyond one's wildest dreams.
One 10million, one can live an upper-middle class America lifestyle anyplace in the world. That would indeed be great but it pretty close to "merely" moving to the next income bracket if one raised median income in the US.
I'd still write code, but with better weather that allows some othet hobbies -- and no stress. Maybe I would hire a few people and start a business. Not a big difference, really.
To get real change in what I do, I'd need a bilion so I could emulate Musk. I doubt I'd be good at it.
I want the freedom to work on what I want to work on AND to buy what I want. I'm tired of saying, "I won't get that TV now, because in 12 months that TV is coming out". Or "lets wait 8 months for the price to drop on that car". Or "do we really need a view?"
It's not that I need less stuff. I'm fairly certain I want more new stuff (and I'll happy donate my old stuff). And it's not like I want to hike barefoot through rainforests. I generally want to spend time doing things like trying to build a new tablet OS. Or playing a full season of Madden as the Vikings. Or doing Sunday Times puzzles in less than five minutes. Or spend a month completely rewiring my houses to have incredible home automation.
I frankly don't see how you do that stuff w/o money. I guess a "million" dollars or the ability to create things by thinking them up.
To be honest, I think your post illustrates the premise of the article. You can do these things without a vast sum of money just as easily as if you had a big wad of cash.
And if your point is that being able to do those projects and ALSO "buy what you want" (e.g. nicer TV and car) will give you much greater satisfaction from your life, you are clueless about human nature. You might get a thrill from these items in the short term, but eventually you'll just want more and better ones. You'll be in the same place (psychologically) as where you started.
And while you argue that I'm clueless about human nature, I'd argue that you are. It's human nature to want more, even if it is only temporary. In fact most things I want to do provide only short-term satisfaction. I know that and I'm fine with that. The things that give long-term satisfaction are generally free, but those aren't the things I want money for.
You make a mistake in your point. The mistake is that you assume that he wants to achieve happiness by acquiring these material possessions like that new TV, an expensive car, etc. He won't, and he knows that. What he'll achieve is pleasure. Short term pleasure, maybe, but so what? Desire for pleasure is natural, and being in a position to get all the toys you want will satisfy that, and keep satisfying it.
It won't fill any holes in your soul or give you long-term happiness, but it's not supposed to. That burning desire to live better is what drives human progress. Look around and see how comfortable our existence is today compared to a thousand years ago. Cars, electricity, phones, heating, plumbing--so much convenience. None of that is necessary to exist, but it's something that makes living our lives much more pleasant. That new TV or car isn't going to give our lives more meaning, but it will make them more interesting and satisfying.
Add it all up and you're barely breaking a few thousand dollars.
Sure you need money. He's not saying you don't need money. The point is that when people say they need to be arbitrarily wealthy because they want to eventually do Y, they can usually do Y for much, much less money than they think. In fact it is usually within their current means.
So stop agonizing about not being rich and figure out how much you really need already.
I've learned to settle to do things I generally "mostly" like. Like, while I like to do software development, I've decided to not start another startup. While I made decent money, most of my time wasn't spent writing code. And honestly, most of the type of code I like to write isn't like Facebook. It's stuff that I get personal enjoyment out of -- deploying to millions of people is mostly of interest to investors.
I don't even think about the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport, not because I don't want one, but I've learned to set my expectations lower than what I absolutely want.
I think most people do the same, although some delude themselves that all they really want is a Honda Civic.
People charter private jets all the time. People of very ordinary means lease and even learn to fly jets.
I haven't looked into it, but I'd bet there is somewhere in Europe that will rent and insure you a Bugatti that you can drive down the Autobahn for a few thousand. Heck, I know for certain you can drive an F1-style open wheeled race car around a track for a couple thousand. You won't even want to go as fast as it can go.
You can get a custom meal by a top ranked chef for one or two hundred dollars. You can't do that every day, but there's the law of dimishing returns on that stuff anyway.
Maid services can be had for several hundred dollars a year. Unless you have a palatial estate (tens of thousands of square feet) you don't need live in help.
I'm not trying to come down on you. I'm just trying to say doing even these extravagant things are not out of reach at all.
I don't want a meal by a top ranked chef. I actually want a private chef. I have a couple of friends that have them and they are very different, in the sense that you have very specialized meals. While I can probably charter Mario Batali for a custom meal for $500 to $1000 a couple of times. Having him staff for two to five meals per day probably costs a fair bit.
For a reasonably-sized house decent maid service will start at $1000/year, and that's just for something like 12 cleanings per year. For live in service, expect a fair bit more.
And again, part of what I want is not having to figure out the optimal way to get a good. I don't want to spend 20 minutes price shopping online for best rates on an alarm system. My time is my non-replenishable asset and you seem to be asking me to trade it in to get a sub-optimal service that only superficially looks like what I really want.
Another thing, I want a full scale gym in my house. I hate commuting to the gym (although made slightly better with a Bugatti). I want a bigger yard, but don't want to move my primary residence. Would be nice to just buy the houses around us.
I'd like to own the Lakers and the Dodgers.
There's a lot of things, and I haven't even really thought about it, largely because its not really in play today.
I hope that is the case, and I hope your posts aren't indicative of your mindset and worldview, because you come across as very whimsical and insecure--two qualities that I can assure you are not conducive to actually generating the kind of wealth you apparently desire.
Sorry, they are. Am I insecure? Of course, I need more money to buy some security!
I bet that 9 times out of 10, "I need more money" should really be rephrased as "I need less stuff"
I personally don't have much stuff because I think hoarding is a disease. But we're moving into an era where the fulfillment we used to get from stuff is being provided virtually. I don't claim this is bad, but it requires monthly contractual obligations (for internet access and cellphone data plans). We value these experiences so highly that we are still willing to shell out a lot of cash, even though we no longer get anything physical in return, and it would all disappear in an instant if we stopped paying our bills. I don't think the appeal of a sudden windfall of a million dollars is going to disappear anytime soon.
some of us have the ability to recognize this and realize that our position is not everyones, or even most peoples, or even realize that one day we might have kids too, and all those older people that say that life is completely different post kids might be right.
Who knows, you could probably take the kids along and home school them from abroad. It would be interesting to learn about history and language while visiting the actual countries. World War 2 looks a lot different in Japan or the Philippines.
Which is a fucking enormous if. I'd bet at least half the people reading the post do have kids. Fuck, it's having kids that makes many dream of dropping everything and running away halfway around the world in the first place!
The deal is they have to be a certain age. I'm thinking around 6 years old. Old enough to not require 100% upkeep, but young enough to not have much else going on.
Kids pre-teen or older would rather be hanging out with their friends than accompanying their parents on their budget travel fantasy.
Of course it depends on the kids, but don't forget that at a certain age, spending a lot of time trapped with parents is the last thing a kid wants to do, even if (especially if?) it's on a bus across Laos, or whatever.
I have money, I'm just kind of uber frugal. It's a nice air mattress, though.
I'm really tired of anti-money meme. Why is it so difficult for people to admit that many things in life come down to money?
This isn't about being Gordon Gekko. You could have the purest heart, but it still takes cash to care.
Some are fine with minimalism. More power to them. But I don't want to exist. I want to thrive.
I'm 24. I realized a few years ago that my highest value in life is autonomy. I want to be able to wake up tomorrow, and say "Hey, I've never been to Sweden," and just hop on a plane, without worrying about a small matter called rent.
What if your boss made you miserable every day, but you can't quit because of the mortgage. Is that any way to live? Me? I think I'd rather die.
Albert Camus said it best: It is spiritual arrogance to believe that one can be happy without money. And I'm a pastor's son; so I should know.
I like money. I want lots of it. A million dollars? Pftha! That isn't even what Felix Dennis called comfortably poor...
</rant>
I'm 28, and I could do that today if I wanted to. And surprise, surprise, I don't have a million dollars. That's my point. Figure out what you want and make it a priority. Don't spend your life working for a big payoff so you can then figure out what you want. You'll never get there.
I want more things out of life than can be easily prioritized. A million dollars would go a long way towards making it so I wouldn't have to make just one thing my priority.
At 30, I'd like to have my own music studio. But rather than simply making do with an M-Box and a cheap mic, I'd like a RME Hammerfall and Shure SM-58s. All thing being equal, money makes life easier.
It's like the old argument about bootstrapping vs VC. How many founders wouldn't want a longer runway while they iterate?
Thought so.
Admit this much: Up to a point, money simply makes life easier. And I suspect that point is WAY past 1 million.
In closing, allow me to post an unfinished poem I began writing a few months ago, as a repsonse to the 'wealth deniers.':
--------AN ODE TO LUCRE--------
We praise the One whose bounty feeds,
And to whose temple success leads,
Who blesses us with cream, with salmon,
All praise to Thee, O God, O Mammon!
The heathen speak against they name,
That thy seekers should hide in shame,
And that your love shall be our ruin,
Let papuperdom be their undoing!
(While on our grills, sirloin is stewing.)
Despite their speech, they too seek rent-
But saying for their Lord it's meant!
Till paid his due, Devil won't relent,
Even God demands his ten percent...
By suffering they have been selected,
Because thy precepts they rejected,
And while they in their misery puffeth,
We enter pearly Gates of Buffet.
Thou sent to us thy sacred prophets,
To lead us to make naked profits,
Who taught us how to raise our station:
O Atlas Shrugged! O Wealth of Nations!
I'll be finishing it soon...
I don't want to work for anyone again. Do I need a million dollars? probably not, but I'm going to need a business that has enough income coming in to support my (and possibly anyone that works for me).
One: you'll somehow get all this money you want, start spending it, and eventually wonder at how you don't feel any different, and somehow still crave even more money, fame, success, etc. Whatever insecurities you had before still subsist--you're still the same you. And whatever respect you think you have earned from the world for being successful feels hollow, if you perceive it at all (because honestly no one respects people just for being financially successful--they are either merely envious or just don't care--and why should they?).
Or two: things go a different way and you realize you don't have a path to making a lot of money (or the path you thought you had closed up), at which point you get extremely depressed and increasingly indignant at how others are "doing so much better" than you, despite how much mental energy you had put into fantasizing about your future wealth and devising ways to acquire it.
I agree that autonomy is a good value. I think for you the best starting point for acquiring that autonomy would be to stop being chained to the idea that having money will give it to you.
As a counterpoint I have more money now than I've ever had, and am at an all-time low in satisfaction with my life.
This situation and others like it are more common with people who put too much importance on money. You can't ignore money, but giving it more weight than its due can actually get you into situations where you're held hostage by it.
Autonomy comes from taking control of your life, not from a certain income. An autonomous person can make the income happen. I know people who make far, FAR more that I but they are shackled to their jobs in exactly the way you describe in the quote above. Does that make me smart and them stupid? Well, yes, it does. Or maybe not stupid, but so lazy they can't be bothered to think about how to get what they really want, which is autonomy.
If you want to have, try, or do something NOW, money can make it happen. No waiting. Life is short. In exchange for money, I would have time. I would be liberated to pursue other things, to answer the call of other motivations. I picture it much like Maslow's Hierarchy: pierce the resource barrier, and you have ventured into the next level. The acquisition of resources and services in general is no longer an issue. Now we are in the realm of the rare, and our internal motivations/desires guide us more.
No need to worry about what kind of insurance you have. No need to pause to ask if you can afford to take an ambulance. No need to decide between this or that. No more dreaming about taking a rocket to the moon.
This is another way to say "freedom", but a general "freedom" is incorrect. There is always the next problem, the next desire. Remove money as a block, and many issues are resolved, while new issues enter the picture.
Of course, a million dollars does not buy all that, but it could sure get me out of my debts and bolster my current investments! Yes, I really want a million dollars. A million dollars buys me time, my most precious resource, time I did not have to spend making that million.
One time I was watching HGTV with my sister. A couple bought a new house because they wanted a kitchen witha view of the ocean. She was incredulous, but I told her that's the very point of money-doing whatever you want to do.
I understand your concern, but it's really just a reminder to vote the article up if you enjoyed it. I frequently read good articles and then forget to vote them up because something else catches my attention. I really doubt anyone is swayed to upvote an article they didn't think worthy because of this message. Just the opposite: some hacker types get worked up because they seem to be allergic to promotion of any kind, and thus won't upvote the article, even though they would have otherwise. But I'm betting that the balance of people who upvote because they liked the article AND because they were reminded outweighs the anti-promotion crowd. Either way, I don't think it's a big deal. Sorry if it offended you.
That way after I read the story, even if I go away, the comment page is still open so I can upvote it when I am clearing up later. In that way I rarely if ever forget to upvote a story I liked.
I don't particularly like having my upvote solicited because it makes the thing seem too much like a popularity contest - the people who lobby end up getting more than the equally worthy ones that don't.
Interestingly, in this case, I saw the "please upvote" message, said to myself "ok let's go upvote on the comment page I have open", and still forgot to do it because I started reading comments.
This thread reminded me to do it. :)
That has been there for a while, I thought he might of changed that to what you wrote but as it is now, it is just asking if you like it to upvote it which is how hacker news works. You don't get this if you don't come from hacker news either.
--Mark Bowden, from Tales of the Tyrant: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2002/05/tales-of-t...
A million bucks, moderately levered and invested in rental property = cash flow for life. You won't live rich, but you'll sure cover your health insurance and some travel budget.
I appreciate what the author is saying, but his thesis isn't really well supported:
> Here’s the reality: if you’re not the type of person who can create freedom without a million dollars, you probably aren’t the kind of person who will get a million dollars.
... What? I'd be willing to guess that most people with a million dollars (which isn't really all that much money these days) probably have not put money second and freedom first. I know plenty of doctors and lawyers that are worth as much and work very hard. I don't know anyone who travels around free-spiritedly and is amassing large sums of money.
http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/how-to-retire-at-30-on-1-mil...
I was really responding to the claim that you can't retire on $1m in that post, whereas the post I wrote today is more about the idea that you might not need to "retire" at all...
For me, it's less about being able to do extravagant things, and more about never having to worry about it.
Do you need a million dollars to achieve financial security? Perhaps not, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
While it's not the only reason why I'm creating my own business, money is a big part of the motivation. Of course I love most of what I do [1], wasting my life doing something that I hate to earn money is also not a smart move. But, yes money is definitely something I want...
For example, I want to be able to have my house, a place of my own that I can modify how I want it, not a place owned by some landlord who places a lot of restrictions on what I can do... I want to be able to go to the expensive 3 stars restaurants, stay at nice 5 stars hotels instead of cheap youth hostels... I want to enjoy luxuries..
[1] Unfortunately growing my business means having employees and delegating some of the fun part along with the boring parts. And managing is not my favorite part of the job.
Sorry, but I'd rather have a million.
I have defined two very specific and (not too horribly) lavish goals: have $0.00 month-to-month debt and to own a house with some acreage in the American Rockies.
But, more money can be put to use: collage scholarships, investing, hobbies, putting away for family, charities -
If one is not wedded to the urban jet-set lifestyle, one can really stretch the money.
Of course there is no point in having a million bucks as a single person. Yes, you'd probably just blow it.
With a family? Million dollars to have a comfortable home mostly paid for, college tuition sorted, no concerns about healthcare costs. If I got a million dollars tomorrow, almost nothing would change. Because most of it would go into securing the future and giving me more time with the kids.
People want a million dollars so they can live a comfortable life rather than trudging through life and then going to the grave.
Yes, you could blow the lot on a car, house, long holiday etc but they're short term gains that won't really change your life that much. After all buying an expensive house will land you with expensive upkeep/running costs.
A sensible person (here in the UK anyway) could pay themselves a healthy wage (£35k p/year tax free) for 20+ years and they can save the rest for retirement.
The downside to this though is, once you've done a trip to Thailand and so on, I think boredom would probably set in so you'd want to spend the time after that doing something meaningful like working for a charity
"People capable of making enough money to never work again are the same people who will never quit working."
One, most of them would have no idea how to use that million in a sustainable way. Take a look at all the lottery winners that end up broke. The article does touch on this ... you don't need a million dollars to do half the things that many people feel they will do when they miraculously land that million.
Secondly, most people are not prepared to put in the kind of work that leads to a million dollar payoff. No, playing the lotto does not count. Getting a big payoff takes hard work, luck, and more hard & smart work.
Far too many people are not prepared to pay the price of success.
so yeah, me and all my filthy capitalist buddies will take the million.
"Young people trade their time and health for money, only to later trade that money for time and health."
Not to retire on, but to remove the need to work to provide a roof and food. So I can risk working on all the things that interest me and them tanking big time.
Some things cost money, but others don't. Many things that people, including me, want to change about their life require an investment in time, effort and thought. However, the first things that come to mind could be fixed with more money, even if those things are really symptoms of something deeper than cannot be fixed with money. Money problems are easy to think about, so we think about them more and see the solution quickly. Enough of that and we put money as a proxy for all solutions.
If you really take a good look at your life and at your hopes and dreams, many things can be accomplished without that million dollars, and other things...can't. Having made that separation, there are things you can do to improve your life without the million dollars. Fixing some of those things may actually make it possible for you to make that million dollars rather than wasting your life by wishing to win the lottery.
From kenjackson in this discussion: "I want the freedom to work on what I want to work on AND to buy what I want."
Oh? And until that happens? What if you rearrange your life so that you can work on what you want, and then figure out a way to make lots of money from that? Isn't that how it happens in startups?
That said, I agree with some parts of the post. If you can make it work, working for yourself in this field will give you the flexibility to live the kind of life you want if you make the proper adjustments. Once you do, seeing the world isn't as expensive as people may believe if you do the right research and strike a few good deals.
It's not for everyone, though. While a couple of my friends, who work in health care(married with kids; one is an RN, the other a radiologist), can certainly try to make lifestyle changes to save more money so that they can travel, I don't know how they would be able to work for themselves.
You're focussing on finding edge cases of people who genuinely need exactly $1,000,000 to pay off a bunch of things that are holding them back that are to the value of $1,000,000 (but even then, there's plenty of places you can abscond to if you want to escape debt - you just may not be welcome to return :)
The essential message in this article is lateral thinking. It's about looking at the mountain in front of you and noticing that there is a way around it instead of having to climb all the way up to the top and go back down the other side.
Of course there are people and situations where this doesn't apply. The title of the article "YOU don't really want a million dollars" naturally invites these comments because he's addressing a large audience of people, many of whom may have legitimate needs for that amount of money.
If it were me writing it I would have maybe phrased it as "Do you really want a million dollars?" and focused on the fact that the question is addressed specifically to the guy at the store who wanted a million to solve "all his problems" in some abstract way.
That million dollars that will solve everything IS lazy thinking. It allows you to say "unless I have that million, I can't possibly solve my problems" without ever giving any real thought, or doing any real research, into whether or not there is an alternative way to solve your problems other than "getting a million dollars" which for most people is an impossibility.
I personally think that the author could have done a better job with this article because although I came to agree with it's premise after reading it twice then reviewing the comments, I was also initially thrown off the scent by listing all of the things I'd do with a million dollars if I had it.
That being said, I don't believe in any sense of lottery providing opportunities for winning money. I don't trust the lottery system in any shape or form. And wishes of winning large sums of money only serves to set your ambition back in life, so I generally avoid it, unless powerball/megamils is above 200m, that is a thing worth gambling on.
The first part of this sentence is so true, and the second part so false...
I know i don't need a million bucks, but I'd sure like more than that.
A friend of mine never cared about his money and is as happy as he can be. Right now he's travelling across the states with next to nothing. I envy the people who can enjoy what's truly necessary in our lives, but saying outright that those people who live this still have this ingenuity, discipline and proactivity to be successful is wrong.
Forcing yourself to live a minimal lifestyle is different actually living it.
I don't really need a million dollars, but if I had it I'm fairly certain I'd get quite far with it.
Sounds kind of weird, but I don't spend my money on much stuff, but I like to travel once or twice a year and eat out with my fiance a couple of times a month. However much money it is that I can pay for my current place to live and do those things and never have to worry about it, then thats the right amount of money.
I've actually had enough money at one point to retire (living on passive income), and it didn't make me happy at all. In fact, I stepped back from life a little, and it made me less happy. For me, in my present level of "spiritual wisdom" (for want of a better term), needing money seems to be a helpful motivation.
I also observe what so many people do who make a lot of money do: keep on doing whatever it was they were doing.
Seriously, though...so what if having money doesn't satisfy you and leaves you wanting more? Why is it taken as a given that being satisfied is a good thing?
My family wants to move to the US (from the UK) and I want to continue working solely for myself. I could come up with a clever investment using the E-2 visa but that'd realistically take a cpl hundred thousand and then involve renewing/funding a business/etc. Or I could spend $500k-$1m on an EB-5 depending on locality. Beyond that, we'd need extra money to cover how expensive the US is. So, yeah, we could do with a million <g>
It's a bias that's not hard to detect. If I examine my own thoughts, I find that 'millionaire' is almost synonymous with 'arbitrarily wealthy' while 'billionaire' and 'trillionaire' don't really hold meaning beyond the literal definition.
When reading a few responses here, I'm taken back with the comment "It's easy for you to preach, you don't have kids". In real life, I heard similar sentiments.
I'm having a hard time trying to understand the feeling when people said such things. Having kids is a choice, no? The same thing with living über-minimalistic life. People who don't have kids may have serious problems too.
Me and my wife, we don't have kids. But what we do have in terms of problems:
1. Selfish, arrogant, and wasteful parents. We helped them a lot and never received a single thanks. They love to have elaborate parties even though they are broke.
2. A 14 years old sister. Amazingly selfish little brat, complete disconnect between what she wants and what our parents could provide. Fucking android for 14 years old, what for? I cannot imagine her coding up some android app.
I don't have a million dollar and far from it. When I was 26, I swallowed the "American Dream" Kool-aid bottoms up and really needed that 1 million dollar:
We bought a big house, with .25 acre land. We owned 3 cars. I did all the stupid things that can only happen if you own a house: upgrading HVAC, kitchen, etc. etc.
Only 1 thing I did that wasn't stupid: paying for wife's school.
Now, we don't own TV, 1 car, 1 couch, < 700 sqft apartment, 2 cats, and 0-10 minutes commute.
When we went through the transformation, crazy things happen. My sisters respect me a lot more. When they want superfluous things and I said no, they listen far more than they ever did. Crazy things happen with the parents too. They listened, twice, when I told them about the elaborate parties.
Not needing money empowered me far more than money ever did. And I'm quite sure that I'm not unique in that regard. My future kids won't have lawn to run around or the latest apple gadgets to pimp around. Their life won't be govern by money. This plan may or may not work, my real life friends would be the judge of that.
To drive my points further, unrelated to my life story, several tech co-founders have told me directly. "The best time to raise money, is when you don't need money".
Extra brownie point: To buy freedom into United States (the easy way), you really need a million dollar. http://bit.ly/9RItQM
Wealth is relative.
You just don't want the burden/responsibility that comes with it.