<i>The whole point of accumulating money is to spend it. Sure, you can accumulate more if you don't spend (I actually sorta doubt it, but let's assume it for ar

<i>The whole point of accumulating money is to spend it. Sure, you can accumulate more if you don't spend (I actually sorta doubt it, but let's assume it for argument's sake).</i> I disagree. Once you've learned the basics of investing or stock trading, accumulating capital becomes about increasing your income. Let's look at your laptop & apartment example. Case 1: Super fast laptop & nice clean apartment. I can max out a Macbook Pro for about three grand, and a nice 2br apartment in Boston will cost about $3k per month in rent. With your $8,000 bank account, you'll need to earn at least $3,000 per month from your job just to pay for your apartment. More to save up and purchase that laptop, and even more still if you want to afford to eat. Case 2: Crappy laptop and crappy apartment with $50k. A crappy laptop is about $500 for a really nice netbook, and a cheap apartment in Boston is about $600 per month (for those in Boston, think JP and Forest Hills). Let's invest that $50k in an ETF called "PFF", which currently costs $40 per share and pays a monthly dividend of, on average, .20c per share. That gives you 1250 shares of PFF, for an average monthly income of $250. With $50k, you can buy a $1000 laptop in four months, or pay for almost half your monthly rent. On a forum where people are constantly trying to generate passive income through webapps and side businesses, I'm surprised people continuously overlook the passive income power of large amounts of capital. $50k can buy you $250 a month for life.