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I agree with most of your decisions but:

> Completely forget about the price tag when buying small-ticket things: a taxi ride, asking for an extra plate, an occasional flight, paying a round of drinks

Needs a little asterisk, you're changing your lifestyle to one that you probably can not yet afford, be careful with that, these 'little things' really add up over time.

Other than that: Congratulations :)

True :) that probably deserves clarification: I made a clear separation between "spending money" (rent, travels, food, leisure) and "investment money".

Anything spent is either an investment, where I try to keep returns over 5% yearly, or just everyday stuff. I've found that everyday stuff ends up not being very different than my previous spending levels.

EDIT: I also live outside the Bay Area, which definitely helps.

Explains how you can buy so much property with just $1m.

He lives outside the bay area! ;)

Leverage.

"just $1m." ... I can't wait 'til I can say that with a straight face.

...

Granted, it'll probably be when candy bars are $20@. /Le Sigh/

By investing in Berlin and Barcelona, where I've paid from €50k to €150k approx per apartment, and leveraging 50-80%.

Leverage. The Bay Area is an especially bad area to compare with. The single family home I own (and rent out) where I lived before I moved to SV could be purchased 5 times for the same amount it would sell for once here. I guarantee I could not rent it out for five times the rent I charge my tenants.

i completely disagree - he has a small but successful real estate business and has presumably close to or over $1M in assets. he definitely can afford a tax ride, an extra appetizer, or a flight somewhere without thinking about the implications of the cost. if not this guy, then who? do you have to be a billionaire before you can order an appetizer without guilt?

i'll describe the lifestyle you probably can't afford - $20k vacations, $500 dinners, $100k cars, and $1M houses. not appetizers and taxi rides. appetizers and taxi rides are normal things that normal people buy. even normal people who don't have a successful exit under their belt and don't have a successful new business as an investor.

this irrational overemphasis on frugality i always see on hn just seems like a different form of elitism / pedantry to me. since most of us have money, it's just a covert way of signaling an extra level of self-control and discipline (which are usually required to make money, but since so many of us make money, we've got to find novel ways to signal that extra status).

I am honestly curious but is there a link or survey somewhere that says most HNers make/have money?

There have been occasional polls, on topics such as salary, exit amounts, etc. People generally consider the results of these polls unreliable.

OTOH, I agree that it is very easy to double your discretionary spending if you stop caring about "little things". And that can really add up over time. You spend $50 each day, that's $1500 a month, $18,000 a year. A decent salary can certainly support that level of spending, but not so much if you double it.

>"this irrational overemphasis on frugality i always see on hn just seems like a different form of elitism / pedantry to me. since most of us have money, it's just a covert way of signaling an extra level of self-control and discipline (which are usually required to make money, but since so many of us make money, we've got to find novel ways to signal that extra status)."

I get this sense as well and think the signaling theory is a solid one.

I'm thinking this is a part what frequently turns me off of topic specific forums - people have a tendency to want to sort and differentiate themselves. The higher the baseline - whether it's income or knowledge - the more pedantic the self-sorting.

It is a valid strategy to not sweat the individual purchases, but watch your bank account and track your overall burn rate, then adjust if necessary.

FWIW, about 5 months ago, my family started sweating the small things. It's changed our burn rate by ~25%, from disturbingly over income to comfortably under income.

Looking back now, our happiness level is pretty much at the same point. We can't really tell what we we're missing, although I know there are things.

I wish I could vote this up more. So many folks I've talked to who have been 'losing ground' even though their family income was comfortably over $150K (in the bay area) and then done a walk through the 'little things' only to discover $30 - $40K of expenses in there.

Most often it seems that this came about where they reached a point where their income meant they didn't really need to 'save up' for things, which lead to a 'don't care' attitude which lead to spending money on things and experiences that were not expensive but not valuable.

Keep your eyes on the pennies. The dollars will take care of themselves.

Money can increase your effective lifespan. A typical billionair has a staff of about 100 people who take care of all the small things that otherwise sip away time from whatever is left over for normal people after work day. They do not have to worry about doing laundry or tidy up the house or even shopping their own cloths (they have concierge who monitors trends and knows your preferences and sends you whole bunch of cloths to try out on demand). They don't typically waste time in booking a travel or wait for a flight or taxi or waiting for coffee at Starbucks. All these "chores" and "waits" out of the way, they can focus on pure experiences and living it up to do exactly what they want. A typical billionair has capability to have 20X more life experiences than a regular guy. So in effect they can live equivalent of 20 lifetimes in same amount of lifespan.

Of course, in reality things don't pan out exactly like that. Many superrich would eventually be too stressed, constantly keeping scope of their wealth, spend 18 hours a day in work that likely won't be relevant in just a decade, end up in divorce or become substance abusive. But what is interesting to me is that money can actually expand your effective lifespan.

I have often thought about how much happier I would be if I had enough money to not really balk paying for a mid-level sushi restaurant every week or so. Though ultimately I'm not sure how much more money I'd have to make before having that comfort. It would be nice though.

It is interesting. 99% of the time you don't even think about it, or write it off with half a thought as you are busy and want to eat healthy, quality food but occasionally it occurs to you "You know, I don't even have to think about this." and remember a time when you did. Progress is a great feeling.

Kind of same here. And if you are not in the US or in Europe you can actually not even look at the price and just think "What do I want to do?", "What do I want to eat?", ... it's so reliving

Congrats! It does sound like you are making the most of it. :)