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Couple of years ago, Big payout: - Paid / Allocated money for all taxes - Legal tax evasion planning for future, a lot planning prior to transaction, I don't

Couple of years ago, Big payout: - Paid / Allocated money for all taxes - Legal tax evasion planning for future, a lot planning prior to transaction, I don't want to give $1-10M in tax. I would rather move to a country that I can avoid tax completely or lower it significantly. There is no country in the world that's worth paying $5M extra to just to live IMHO. - Separated wealth into multiple banks and 2 countries (reduce risk of investment) - Went to an expensive holiday and flew first class for the first time :) - Bought a lot hardware, treat myself with simple things. Like hobby hardware, cutting edge hardware. I realized buying an expensive car cost $300K buying hundreds of hobby stuff doesn't even cost $50K and brings me more joy. I was a nerd I guess now I'm just a rich nerd. - Helped relatives a lot, just gave plenty of money - A lot of Sadakah (charity) & Zakah (mandatory in Islam, 2.5% of wealth goes to poor every year) - Invested a lot in real estate, all in cash. Safe long term investments (if you know what you are doing, I have family who does this) - Invested in 4 companies. 2 early stage tech companies and 1 brick and mortar old school business. 2 are very risky and expected to give a return in 5-10 years, if any. Many countries - I'm going to give a very unpopular advice, spend your money. I mean really spend it. I'm not saying burn it (i.e. parties, private jet and yacht) but spend it on stuff that makes your daily life better with the right economical balance. For example fly in first class but don't get a private jet. - Put something like $2M cash aside, for whatever the future brings Most satisfying thing I've done was to help less fortunate. To me $0.5M is couple of percentages in a rich person's increasing wealth but splitting that money to tons of people in 3rd world countries means hundreds of people's live will be so much better. If I were to spend it for myself my life quality might have gotten better by 2% but spending that for other people means hundreds (or even thousands) of people's lives will be 20-100% or infinitely better. (What's the % of life quality improvement when you can start drinking healthy water? or afford food?). Did you know $30 can make someone see again through cataract surgery? [0] When I learned it kind of shocked me and made me question my life and where I spend my money. AMA about charity :) And if you hit jackpot please go and help someone unfortunate, I don't mean someone who cannot afford a new iPad for uni, I mean someone who cannot afford food, clean water, or life changing operation. Think about numbers and efficiency before doing charity and deciding where that money goes. P.S. I'm a Muslim therefore I don't use interest. Which means majority of the traditional investment models don't work for me. That's why I invest a lot in real estate and businesses (who doesn't use interest) rather than stock market, funds, bonds etc. [0] https://www.cbmuk.org.uk/get-involved/donate/ https://www.cbmuk.org.uk/get-involved/donate/

muzani 7y ago
Muslim here. Interesting to hear. I had to avoid a lot of investments, because they weren't so clean. Forex felt like gambling, and many options felt like riba/usury. Real estate seemed a bit off. Lots of friends would take huge loans and rent it out for a little more than what they were paying in bank loans; also felt like usury. But it should be fine if you've paid it all in cash. Probably the big thing I regretted was spending about a year and a lot of cash on a startup which partly donated to temples. Made me realize that wealth really comes from Allah.
- murm 7y ago
  > Probably the big thing I regretted was spending about a year and a lot of cash on a startup which partly donated to temples. Made me realize that wealth really comes from Allah. Could you elaborate what your regret was in this case? I'm confused and don't quite understand what you mean by this.
  - muzani 7y ago
    There's a long story behind this. One of the fundamentals of Islam is to worship Allah alone, and only ask help from Allah alone. The second part is extremely difficult - it's easy to just assume that wealth comes from clever financial planning, hard work, or that knowledge comes from a mentor. But this is egoistic. Especially when you've gone moderately rich off a crazy gamble, you're more likely to dismiss God's role in answering prayers. The story was that someone proposed a startup with some sinful attributes. Think of it as sort of like working for Playboy - you can justify to yourself that you're just taking a supporting role, more interested in the tech, the culture, the articles, could do some good with the money, etc, etc. But the core purpose is still sinful. The plan seemed foolproof. There were contingencies. If the plan failed, I'd still make $X. If it failed really hard, I could bring the code I wrote back to another startup I was a director of. But everything went wrong. The team was horribly incompetent, and couldn't dedicate any time. My backup plans fell apart. People who I trusted backed out. The whole thing was depressing, and I found it hard to get any work done, despite my best efforts and ability. I went in thinking that I had the resources and experience to no longer need to rely on God (or luck), and was proven wrong.

muzani 7y ago

Muslim here. Interesting to hear. I had to avoid a lot of investments, because they weren't so clean. Forex felt like gambling, and many options felt like riba/usury. Real estate seemed a bit off. Lots of friends would take huge loans and rent it out for a little more than what they were paying in bank loans; also felt like usury. But it should be fine if you've paid it all in cash. Probably the big thing I regretted was spending about a year and a lot of cash on a startup which partly donated to temples. Made me realize that wealth really comes from Allah.

murm 7y ago
> Probably the big thing I regretted was spending about a year and a lot of cash on a startup which partly donated to temples. Made me realize that wealth really comes from Allah. Could you elaborate what your regret was in this case? I'm confused and don't quite understand what you mean by this.
- muzani 7y ago
  There's a long story behind this. One of the fundamentals of Islam is to worship Allah alone, and only ask help from Allah alone. The second part is extremely difficult - it's easy to just assume that wealth comes from clever financial planning, hard work, or that knowledge comes from a mentor. But this is egoistic. Especially when you've gone moderately rich off a crazy gamble, you're more likely to dismiss God's role in answering prayers. The story was that someone proposed a startup with some sinful attributes. Think of it as sort of like working for Playboy - you can justify to yourself that you're just taking a supporting role, more interested in the tech, the culture, the articles, could do some good with the money, etc, etc. But the core purpose is still sinful. The plan seemed foolproof. There were contingencies. If the plan failed, I'd still make $X. If it failed really hard, I could bring the code I wrote back to another startup I was a director of. But everything went wrong. The team was horribly incompetent, and couldn't dedicate any time. My backup plans fell apart. People who I trusted backed out. The whole thing was depressing, and I found it hard to get any work done, despite my best efforts and ability. I went in thinking that I had the resources and experience to no longer need to rely on God (or luck), and was proven wrong.