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Comment by GreeniFi | Hacker News Reader

I sometimes wonder how easy it is for the average person to practice prudent financial management when the entire economy is geared towards getting you to spend what you can? The advertising sector and one-click buying works out how to isolate you from your herd and then hunt you down like a lion hunts down a sick gazelle, and you have little to no chance of hitting your monthly saving targets, with the big beasts of the digital economy after your last cent.

If this hypothesis is correct, is there a business here? Financial sergeant major - helping you hit your saving targets. Imagine: “GET THE FUCK OFF AMAZON, YOU SHAMBOLIC EXAMPLE OF AN OVERGROWN MAN BOY! AT THIS RATE YOU’LL DIE A POOR VIRGIN”. Business model: pay my automated system a % of the money it saves you every month. “NOW DOWN AND GIVE ME TEN”.

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It's not that hard to escape the vast majority of advertising. But I think culture is a much bigger part of it. My friends tend to be fairly frugal/easily contented, and I find it pretty easy to be the same way, probably partly as a result. If we were competing with each other to have the coolest car/home/boat/whatever, I imagine it would be a lot harder. Fortunately, we're all pretty unimpressed with people who try to show off by being spendy, and so we're all pretty frugal, and invest our money in assets instead of buying nice things. I think if the broader US had a culture more like that, we'd have much more savings.

You made a great point. Though my friends are not like yours. However I consistently keep reminding myself that I can't and don't need to compare/compete with their expense level.

Other thing that keep me grounded is thinking about earning potential and not just total earnings. Things may be going good for now but it can stop sooner than I expect.

Yeah, I don't know how common my situation there is. Absent that, I think what you're doing (trying to keep mindful) is a good way to stay the course.

Who is smarter: someone who was frugal, saved a lot of money, retired and died or someone who kept spending everything, got whatever he could get for the money, retired and died with 0 in savings?

Unless they can predict the future accurately (I don't know anyone who can), the first guy. The second guy had a lot of potential scenarios where he was destitute for the 10 years before he died.

Also, the second guy probably didn't do the world any favors with his resource footprint, given equal earnings. As a parent, I kind of care a lot about that.

Two problems with that.

Firstly if you want to personify the economy (don't), it has always been "geared towards getting you to spend what you can", from the first markets in antiquity through medieval times. Nothing about the modern economy is new. And please don't talk to me about targeted ads - the entire point of ad targeting is to avoid showing ads to people who aren't likely to purchase something. They're a way to utilise advertising budgets more effectively, but they aren't "hunting you down like a lion hunts down a sick gazelle". Nice imagery though.

Second problem is that there are plenty of modern economies where average people are good at saving money. Germany is the most obvious example: it's the saving savannah of Europe. Germans saving too much money is actually regularly cited by (bad) economists as a macro-scale problem for all of the Eurozone. But Amazon exists in Germany, it has the internet and retailers. They are just financially responsible.

Another good example is Switzerland. It doesn't run a budget deficit, it usually runs a small surplus:

https://tradingeconomics.com/switzerland/government-budget

The Swiss government is also highly democratic, so presumably the Swiss people like it that way (well, sometimes they get annoyed if the surplus gets too big of course).

Way too many people these days talk about ordinary retail businesses as if they had magical mind controlling powers. They don't. But culture can make a big difference.

That business is called "power of attorney" -- you sign over your assets to someone you trust. Problem is the person you trust could steal from you, or just charge a lot for their time and effort.

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