I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.
That said, I do, like Buffet, live in a nice house. I’m not depriving myself. But it’s also very approachable by any successful employee of a company (maybe salary of a director or VP of any large company could afford it). It doesn’t represent what I could afford if I wanted to really get into the elite neighborhoods of my city. I don’t really enjoy people in those areas. They tend to always talk about money in one way or another (vacations, private schools, cars, houses, maids, nanny’s, etc). Nothing wrong with it I suppose, just not my jam and not how I want my children raised and not the people I want as my neighbors and peers. I’ve always been much more envious of those unsuspecting rich people that drive clunker cars or live in modest homes and mow their own lawns but then you find out they paid for 16 grand children to go to college or something random like that. That’s the kind of thing I’d rather be known for than the guy with the Ferrari or yacht (even if they weren’t mutually exclusive).
> I don’t want other people seeing me as flaunting wealth
Lmao.
Edit: I rarely do this with HN but I'm getting troll vibes from you and so I clicked on your comment history where you lay out your unfortunate financial situation in a comment ("I have 500€ in my bank account, 3k debt and 30 years of work left ahead of me") and it all makes sense that you are just resentful or jealous. My only constructive advise is you should try not to have this attitude on HN, there are plenty of wealthy or good-to-know people here and any chance conversation could turn into something that shifts your life's trajectory. If the breadcrumbs show that you're just a troll you're basically building a wall between you and those people.
For one, I like to have a connection with the place I live and the physical objects I use like my car and home- the fact that they are old things I fixed up and maintain myself gives me a sense of place, connection, and pride- just buying something expensive that someone else prepared for me would feel infantalizing and unsatisfying. I enjoy deeply understanding and being part of the history of the objects and tools I use, in a way that can’t be purchased.
Also, I think a lot of consumerism and conspicuous consumption comes from a sad and depressing place of anxiety that you aren’t good enough to make friends or find romantic partners without doing this. Many people don’t directly want or enjoy conspicuously expensive things, but are hoping it leads to social status or approval. But this inevitably means resigning yourself to essentially buying the company of people that don’t actually like you. At the extreme end you see some famously wealthy people so anxious about not being perceived as wealthy enough that they glue tacky fake plastic gold on everything they own because they’re afraid of looking poorer than billionaires. That type of narcissism is not a happy way to live, and will turn off the kind of people that would have built a genuine emotional connection with you.
Modern society is too narrow minded about what wealth means. To most people it means fancy watches, cars, homes, etc. To me wealth is about time and freedom. I can pick up the tab at dinner for a group of 12. I can afford to keep my 1972 Schwinn bicycle in tip top shape or my grandfather's jacket mended when it breaks. I can afford to rent forever if I want. I'll never work a job I don't like, I can just quit. I feel more wealthy this way than if I owned 3 lambos and had to work to make ends meet.
Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it.
So what was the point of him living a frugal, simple lifestyle? I would argue that its just something he was used to and found joy in, and thats ok. Some people like that. Others might want to use their money to unlock new experiences that come with it. Thats ok too.
Does this ultimately come down to Taste?
It is hard to judge what is enough. While a Civic is a perfectly good car, it certainly isn't the safest, nor does it have the best riding experience. Once you get into attention to details, what is "enough" often means mediocre.
I want "good enough" from a crazy perfectionist. Like Steve Jobs' Apple.
My girlfriend years ago thought it was incredible and amusing that I was working a fancy tech job and drove this old car around. We are now happily married.
These days, I could buy a Bentley with cash. But I don't need one.
Warren Buffet's example is an inspiration that should be followed by more people who go into debt buying crap they can't afford with money they don't have in order to look rich.
Besides, I am not wholly convinced that improved safety tech is a replacement for the type of safety first engineering used in every tiny detail of those old cars, that mitigate certain types of accidents and injury that won’t be addressed in crash testing.
Many old cars have excellent rewards visibility without needing any camera- no camera will compare to a first generation Porsche Boxster with the top down for example, where you can directly see behind you by looking back. Volvo wagons are great like that also.
I also, as a rule never back anywhere that I haven’t seen directly just a few seconds before. I always back into parking places so I can see them facing forwards and not back up when starting out, and if I do need to back up when starting out I walk behind the car and look around first and then immediately get in and back up.
Tech really won’t help you here- safe driving requires looking where your vehicle is going with your own eyes. The field of view of a backup camera is insufficient- even if you have one, it’s usually better to be looking directly behind you and not use it. I see cars with backup cameras and sonar hit each other in parking lots all the time, because they thought the camera was a replacement for looking and situational awareness.
By your logic, we should all drive gigantic monster trucks. Lunacy.
Also, I already have a mom who worries about me. She likes the car. I don't need to be mothered by a stranger on the internet thank you.
Personally, I buy new, and keep putting my car payment into a savings account once it is paid off. If I can't afford to put that money into savings, I can't afford a new car payment. I'm only allowed to do non-routine repairs from those funds. It's amazing how much you don't want to crack into that for a car once it grows to a few thousand. It's the most powerful visual impact of savings I've come across.
Car payments have a way of disappearing into an upgraded lifestyle when you don't have to make them, and then they come out of savings when you take a loan for the car.
Honda Civic may be the ultimate car for that. I bought a pickup 8 years ago that I hope will be a 20 year car. Buy something with a reputation for 200k+ miles.
You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy.
I didn't grow up here—my wife did. Very early on, when I first visited Omaha, she drove me by his place. After three decades or so in California, I retired and we moved back to her hometown. Buffett is still there.
Well that seems like an assumption! Plenty of people are happier with nicer things. I don't think we need to tell people what should make them happy.
Happiness is unsustainable. However, contentment is an attainable goal.
So no, not only 6 weeks
You are now unable to get joy from a TV smaller than the largest one you've ever bought. Many people are unable to get joy from a car costing under 10k, let alone 2k.
The things you own end up owning you.
You seem very sure about what does and doesn't make other people happy!
n=1. For the general population:
Are they truly happier, in the sense of being more content? Or are they just deriving more temporary pleasure from the hedonic treadmill they're on?
You can probably tell which one it is, by how long their happiness with their house / car / TV / fill-in-the-blank lasts, before they start thinking about trading up to an even nicer fill-in-the-blank.
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard wrote a great book on happiness, here's an excerpt I enjoy which talks about the difference between pleasure and happiness, in two parts. [1] [2]
1. https://www.matthieuricard.org/en/pleasure-and-happiness-the...
2. https://www.matthieuricard.org/en/pleasure-and-happiness-the...
It's not a bout moralizing but recognizing how the reward centres of the human brain work:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
I would recommend the recently published book The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel, or check out the interviews he's done in recent months on it:
* https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-...
It's not about being frugal or cheap or spendy, but on recognizing human psychology and what actually brings most people happiness. See also the 85-year Harvard study on the topic:
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11575524/
* https://the-good-life-book.com
* https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...
> The data showed the happiness gap between wealthy and middle-income participants was wider than between middle- and low-income participants.
And the apparent reason:
> He said: “A greater feeling of control over life can explain about 75% of the association between money and happiness. So I think a big part of what’s happening is that, when people have more money, they have more control over their lives. More freedom to live the life they want to live.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/18/mone...
There’s many other research that corroborates this view. After some point increasing income didn’t increase life satisfaction. Usually somewhere in the low upper-middle class region.
That's the common assumption that this research repudiates.
> These findings are counter to a widely covered 2010 study that found happiness rises with income, but plateaus at around $75,000.
He studied much richer people:
> Killingsworth also used data from the ultra-wealthy (people with a median net worth between $3m and $7.9m), which is often lacking and difficult to obtain.
> The data showed the happiness gap between wealthy and middle-income participants was wider than between middle- and low-income participants.
> His study also found wealthy individuals were “substantially and statistically significantly happier than people earning over $500,000 each year”.
The biggest thing anyone can do in their life is figure out exactly what makes them happy, and spend their money there. Don't let society tell you. People on this site likely care about computers and spend a disproportionate amount of their money on them, and that's ok. I don't care about cars or TVs, but I care about experiences and comfort so will spend money on travel and upgraded plane tickets.
I also care about agency, so tend to save money rather than spend. I want the freedom it provides more than what it can buy - typically.
Maybe if the basic needs on the average person were taken care of then random displays of extravagant wealth would be acceptable. But when something as simple as getting a rotten tooth extracted or a filling on a front tooth is too much "luxury" for many working class citizens, it is a complete misallocation of society's resources.
Before you go on about how saying it's "good" or "not good" is a value judgement that I'm not entitled to make -- you're damn right it is, and I'll do what I want.
They are happier… for a limited time and then want 'more':
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
'Upgrading' things can lead down a road where problems arise:
Speak for yourself. There are a lot of aspects to being happy, and having to not want for things certainly helps.
> But you can do that without any money.
Well...
Material things can contribute to happiness, or detract.
Balancing the things we spend our life on, relative to an understanding of what makes us happy, is going to be an idiosyncratic exercise. Assuming that X won't contribute to the happiness of person Y is some deep projection.
There seem to be many kinds of happiness too. Would I remain happy if I lost my house? Yes. I have gone through enough ups and downs to know that. But would I feel as fulfilled? No. I have gone through enough ups and downs to know that.
There are a lot of aspects to being happy, and having to not want for things certainly helps.
I would give you a better answer here but it appears you thought misquoting the conversation was clever so I'll simply leave you corrected.
I even experience this with food. If I am on a strict diet for 2 weeks and then have a "cheat" meal, a previously normal meal feels like a satisfying feast.
If I splurge on food for 2 weeks, even 3/4th a pizza doesn't satisfy. I just want the other 1/4th.
It is really why we have so much wealth as a society but so much discontent. It is like believing there is some amount of alcohol that would satisfy the alcoholic. It just grows the desire for more while contentment is harder and harder to achieve.
I am pretty sure this is just a property of the dopaminergic system.
If a bigger house makes you happy because you have space for your hobbies and you don't need to fight with your family members for space, buy a bigger house.
The whole "money doesn't bring happiness" thing is bullshit unless you are a Buddha.
A mansion in Malibu isn't going to make me happy, because I wouldn't know what the hell to do in Malibu. An upgrade from a 2-bedroom to a 4-bedroom home with a garage so I don't have to smell laser cutter fumes anymore and hack a ventilation system out a bedroom window? That very well might.
As someone who upgraded from a 2 bedroom flat to a 3 bedroom house with a garage, I concur. Having a place to store my bikes and other “dirty” tools that’s not inside was such an improvement to my quality of life that I tell people to always look for a half decent garage when they buy. Especially if they also like cycling!
Happiness is binary. You're either happy with where you are or where you're heading or you're not.
It sounds to me like you haven’t rode a bike in a long time. I recommend you try it and get back to me.
When I got my first bike as a kid, a cheap "mountain bike" with 24" wheels that probably weighed more than my current road bike, I was at maximum happiness. I was not at only 40% happiness because it didn't have a carbon frame or a Di2 groupset from the future. I was at 100.
Later when I got my first road bike I was at 100% happiness again. But nothing can make me happier than I was with that first, heavy bicycle-shaped object. It might equal it but it's impossible to surpass.
Hard disagree here.
Ask a 4 person family stuffed into a one bedroom condo if buying a larger 3 bedroom home would make them happier, I'd imagine to 99.99999% of them the answer is yes.
I upgraded my road bike 2 years ago from an entry level one to a nice racing bike and each weekend I ride a 100km route, that sure as heck makes me happier than riding the old slower and heavier bike.
We just took our extended family on a vacation for a week. Money sure as heck made us happier in that instance.
It is true that cash can't fix all issues in life but any one who says money can't make you happy is either lying or doesn't have money.
Run a simple thought experiment in your head. If you woke up tomorrow under crushing credit card and medical debt and it was suddenly paid off, would that make you happier?
YouTube has plenty of videos of people calling in with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year in income and somehow they are still broke and in debt. Live below your means, save the excess income into an investment portfolio, keep doing that until you have enough money to live off the interest. Don't even think about buying a Rolex until you have so much money coming in from interest that you don't even know what else to do with it. Even then, remember that the Rolex, like anything else, requires maintenance, but that if you make someone else happy, they can take care of themselves.