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Comment by losvedir | Hacker News Reader

Similarly for milennials graduating around ~2008 like me. I had the good fortune to graduate right into the chasm of the financial collapse, so was happy with my little $28k/yr job. But with Boston not as crazy hot as it is now, and a roommate, rent was only $600/mo, with no need for a car. That meant I had plenty left over to put a bit in a low-cost index fund (VOO) every month, and damn, with the S&P 500 going from 800 then to 4,000 now... you can't help but end up with a good chunk of change in the bank!

Graduates now are coming into a hot market, so on the one hand they probably can't expect such appreciation on their investments, but on the other you can get crazy high salaries right off the bat! I seriously think it's far easier to become a millionaire now than any other time in history.

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You got lucky but most people who graduate during a financial crisis pay for it their whole life. It is harder to get your first job so you get a not so good one and you can easily get stuck in a suboptimal situation for years.

That’s likely true. It seems the people who graduated a year or two later were similar in many ways except that the job market was a lot better. And indeed many people with the option chose to get a little extra education like a masters degree rather than graduating for this reason.

In the dot-bomb era, a lot of people ended up with job offers rescinded or were laid off from their new jobs and ended up at least underemployed for 3 or 4 years. I consider myself very lucky to have navigated that period with a relatively low salary but no meaningful time unemployed.

Why did you invest in a index fund? Who made you aware of index funds?

My point is when you know about what to do with your money it’s an obvious one which has payed off for you. Did you learn about index funds from family, friends or on your own?

As a grad from a similar time I never even heard or knew what a index fund was at that time. I was always good with money never spending what I didn’t have and a small amount of savings but had very little knowledge on finances in general. My parents never taught me, they where not poor but not well off, similar friends never talked about money.

It’s only later in life through curiosity and reading financial posts on the internet am I discovering how to better use my money. If someone would of sat me down in the early 2000s to educate me as a young adult I’d probably be well on my way to a million now. As a young adult fresh out of school/college unless you come from a family that is financially savvy it’s hard to know what to do with money.

This is probably why wealthy families create wealthy families.

If nothing else, inflation makes it easier to become a millionaire over time. A millionaire in the early 1900s would be equivalent to someone with $30 million today.

Yeah, with enough inflation 'millionaire' will mean next to nothing.

I finished school around 2008 as well and would have killed to make $28k/yr.

Average salary for a hitman is actually over twice that: https://www.simplyhired.com/salaries-k-hitman-jobs.html

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