12 ms·

Alright, I'll bite. This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. I wasn't wealthy when I started investing. Hell, the first dollar I put int

by rfc 7y ago

Alright, I'll bite. This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. I wasn't wealthy when I started investing. Hell, the first dollar I put into my long term portfolio was when I was living in my car! I started with ~$200 that I made from doing a collection of odd jobs (mowing lawns, computer repair, moving dirt, etc.). Every extra penny I made went into investing into a moderate portfolio focusing on high yield dividends (4-6%). As I've grown in my career, got married, etc., I've kept effectively the same principles. I now get great passive income after 10 years of doing this and it's only getting better with each dollar we put in. It is possible with the right mindset. In an investing group that I'm part of, my story is the norm - not the exception.

Kye 7y ago
>> "It is possible with the right mindset. In an investing group that I'm part of, my story is the norm - not the exception." Two words: selection bias. That your path worked for you does not mean it's the only wise path for every circumstance. The path of most people around me is their savings get destroyed by surprise medical or repair bills because they were born into poverty and never get a chance to build meaningful savings. So it's better to spend it on something while you have it on things that can't be taken away in a bankruptcy. Most people (in this context) make the mistake of spending it on drugs, worthless trinkets, junk food, etc. Most aren't encouraged to pursue skills that can pay the bills. Or they're actively discouraged. "Crabs in a bucket" is a real mentality. People I grew up around have it. I had to hide my interest in entrepreneurship just to protect it from sabotage. I'm glad you were in a situation that enabled your path! It's great that you were able to thrive through early savings. I don't know when you came up, but cheap and functional cars are hard to come by in a post-Cash for Clunkers world and police are more aggressive with the homeless/car-homed. Your path is not as viable in the US in 2019.
- snikeris 7y ago
  > Most people (in this context) make the mistake of spending it on drugs, worthless trinkets, junk food, etc. Most aren't encouraged to pursue skills that can pay the bills. Or they're actively discouraged. "Crabs in a bucket" is a real mentality. People I grew up around have it. I had to hide my interest in entrepreneurship just to protect it from sabotage. These are the people most in need of the concept of compound interest. If they knew that small steps every day can lead to big outcomes, they would be more inclined to take them.
  - Kye 7y ago
    That's the thing: they do know. They watch rich people earn money doing, from their poverty-clouded perspective, nothing. Learned helplessness is a powerful force. It took me years to break out of it. I can see how wrong it was from the other side, but I also know how useless criticism of people inside it is. Doing what's kept your head barely above water for years seems safer than putting a few dollars away every month hoping it grows higher than the next thing that fails in your car or house. That's if you can get a bank account at all. Everyone knows someone to ask for the number of a good bankruptcy attorney. That's networking when you're broke and defeated.
    - huntertwo 7y ago
      Wasn't familiar with the concept of learned helplessness and found this interesting study looking it up [0] > The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well-charted biologically, and the original theory got it backward. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape. Learning how to help yourself isn't as easy as it seems especially when you barely or don't have the means to do so. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27337390 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27337390
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    My family is mentoring a young woman that comes from a broken background (was abused, grew up bouncing between foster families). She's trying to do everything right: finishing her GED, getting a job, etc. In addition to support from my family and a few others, she is in a formal program to learn how to budget, and has always been willing to be proactive in finding ways to better her situation. But every step along the way, the system is fighting her. Most recently, she's in jeopardy of losing two sources of assistance because she's doing "too well" to qualify. With those gone, she'll likely be making less than she was before she had a job. Our system (in the United States) is seriously fucked up. All of the various programs try to pass the buck whenever they can. The negative feedback loops are overwhelming.
- rfc 7y ago
  1) You have your own selection bias as we all do. I'm not ignorant to that. However, many of the folks that have gone through similar transformations don't come from "easy" backgrounds. They had their own tragedies (financially, emotionally, etc.) that they had to overcome. Being born into poverty is an excuse to sidestep responsibility of your own life. 2) An outside can't sabotage your own idea. Only you can sabotage it. Sure, it doesn't make it any easier, but if someone can change your mind on your definition of "success" then you will never achieve it. 3) Yes, people spend money on dumb shit. I was in the same environment. Keeping up with the "jones" was a thing. Succeeding was also looked down upon. You know what is consistent with folks who came into success from those areas? They said f-that, I'm going to make my own path, regardless of what others say. They had mental fortitude. 4) My first car cost $2,000. My second car cost $1,000. Both I saved up and purchased. If police are harrassing you about being homeless in a car, then leave that location. That sounds like a police state (Cali anyone?). And before you say "It's not that simple to just leave!" Yes, yes it is. In order to change my situation, I literally "YOLO'ed" across the country (no job, nothing) in order to get out. Much like many in this investment group, in order to get out of hell, you have to make huge bets. I live in the USA in 2019. I lived in the USA when I was homeless during the height of the recession. It is easier now than it was then.
  - fuqmachine 7y ago
    > However, many of the folks that have gone through similar transformations don't come from "easy" backgrounds. You just basically said - Folks that go from A to B come from A. Of course! You act as if your situation is the worst possible situation. For example, imagine having to take care of a sick parent and 2 kids and a wife. Imagine being addicted to drugs. Imagine having a criminal or drug-dealing record. Imagine having a disability. Imagine being suicidal. Even if you went through all the terrible things I listed, imagine not having any mental fortitude. Mental fortitude doesn't come easily or at all to a lot of people. This pull yourself up by your bootstraps is a nothing but a shiny pokemon. I came from poverty and I have everything I wanted now. But I also recognize that 99% of the people that were in poverty with me didn't make it out.
  - awayfromhomenow 7y ago
    Congrats on working hard and paying the price for success. There's a saying - "everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there", the same could be said of success and sacrifice. Well done!
clarry 7y ago
A bit of calculation would show that a lot of people have no chance of building "great passive income" in 10 years. They simply do not have enough income to save that much. "I started with $200" tells us nothing useful. I can start with $5 and have great passive income if I'm making $100k and wife is making $70k and both of us are capable of saving a good chunk per year. I can start with $5000 and have little more than extra pocket money after 10 years if my salary is in the $20k to $30k range and I'm capable of saving $100 per lucky moon. GP is absolutely right, compound interest does not do much if you don't have much. There is nothing ridiculous about it.
- exergy 7y ago
  There is most certainly a category of people who cannot save at all because some combination of life factors lead them up shit creek, but there are plenty of low income people who could do with a lesson or two from Mr. Money Mustache. He has various case studies involving low income people and there are legions of journal entries on his forums where people earning pittances have nevertheless saved enough to be secure. Many have saved enough to retire early. Nothing is one-size-fits-all of course, but I'd much rather be surrounded by those kinds of 'can-do' types who don't sit around waiting for life to come to them.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Mr. Money Moustache is a terrible example. He (and his wife) had a $200k+ job within a year or two out of college. He is still working. He is making money off his website and as a motivational speaker. He has to spend a significant amount of time managing his investments to ensure that they keep an average of over 4% return. MMM's lifestyle works well for MMM, because of his circumstances. Those circumstances don't easily carry over to the general populace.
    - journalctl 7y ago
      “Coming up at 11, rich people don’t understand why poor people don’t just stop being poor.”
    - 7y ago
croon 7y ago
Honest question: What's the distribution of savings going into your portfolio in those 10 years? Quick napkin math doesn't grant you any "great passive income" from "$200" and "extra pennies" for 10 years. I'm not trying to be rude, but with incomplete data you're sending both the signals you want, as well as completely opposite signals. The latter suggest that in reality you just made a lot of money for the last 5+ years, which completely invalidates what I think you wanted to convey.
antibland 7y ago
> This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. Do you think you'd say this to the poster's face in an in-person conversation? I find it's too easy to communicate in this way on the Internet, but it appears hurtful and over-the-top. Nasty comments can affect peoples' lives and we rarely see the fallout of how we hurt others in this way. Let's all tread more carefully and be a little nicer to each other.
whamlastxmas 7y ago
Calling someone being poor a "victimhood mentality" is possibly one of the most privileged, out of touch things I've seen on HN. Why don't you go tell all those families on welfare to just go make more money and change their mindset.
- dang 7y ago
  It's bad, but please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - whamlastxmas 7y ago
    I don't really feel inclined to sit by when ignorant prejduce, whether it be racism or classism, happens on HN. Feel free to ban me if you if that's how you want this site to operate.
inscionent 7y ago
Nice personal attack. Your anecdote is nice, but is that is all it is.
solipsism 7y ago
> In an investing group that I'm part of, my story is the norm - not the exception That is a hilarious example of selection bias.
dang 7y ago
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your comment would be fine without the second sentence.

by rfc 7y ago

Kye 7y ago

>> "It is possible with the right mindset. In an investing group that I'm part of, my story is the norm - not the exception." Two words: selection bias. That your path worked for you does not mean it's the only wise path for every circumstance. The path of most people around me is their savings get destroyed by surprise medical or repair bills because they were born into poverty and never get a chance to build meaningful savings. So it's better to spend it on something while you have it on things that can't be taken away in a bankruptcy. Most people (in this context) make the mistake of spending it on drugs, worthless trinkets, junk food, etc. Most aren't encouraged to pursue skills that can pay the bills. Or they're actively discouraged. "Crabs in a bucket" is a real mentality. People I grew up around have it. I had to hide my interest in entrepreneurship just to protect it from sabotage. I'm glad you were in a situation that enabled your path! It's great that you were able to thrive through early savings. I don't know when you came up, but cheap and functional cars are hard to come by in a post-Cash for Clunkers world and police are more aggressive with the homeless/car-homed. Your path is not as viable in the US in 2019.

snikeris 7y ago
> Most people (in this context) make the mistake of spending it on drugs, worthless trinkets, junk food, etc. Most aren't encouraged to pursue skills that can pay the bills. Or they're actively discouraged. "Crabs in a bucket" is a real mentality. People I grew up around have it. I had to hide my interest in entrepreneurship just to protect it from sabotage. These are the people most in need of the concept of compound interest. If they knew that small steps every day can lead to big outcomes, they would be more inclined to take them.
- Kye 7y ago
  That's the thing: they do know. They watch rich people earn money doing, from their poverty-clouded perspective, nothing. Learned helplessness is a powerful force. It took me years to break out of it. I can see how wrong it was from the other side, but I also know how useless criticism of people inside it is. Doing what's kept your head barely above water for years seems safer than putting a few dollars away every month hoping it grows higher than the next thing that fails in your car or house. That's if you can get a bank account at all. Everyone knows someone to ask for the number of a good bankruptcy attorney. That's networking when you're broke and defeated.
  - huntertwo 7y ago
    Wasn't familiar with the concept of learned helplessness and found this interesting study looking it up [0] > The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well-charted biologically, and the original theory got it backward. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape. Learning how to help yourself isn't as easy as it seems especially when you barely or don't have the means to do so. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27337390 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27337390
- organsnyder 7y ago
  My family is mentoring a young woman that comes from a broken background (was abused, grew up bouncing between foster families). She's trying to do everything right: finishing her GED, getting a job, etc. In addition to support from my family and a few others, she is in a formal program to learn how to budget, and has always been willing to be proactive in finding ways to better her situation. But every step along the way, the system is fighting her. Most recently, she's in jeopardy of losing two sources of assistance because she's doing "too well" to qualify. With those gone, she'll likely be making less than she was before she had a job. Our system (in the United States) is seriously fucked up. All of the various programs try to pass the buck whenever they can. The negative feedback loops are overwhelming.
rfc 7y ago
1) You have your own selection bias as we all do. I'm not ignorant to that. However, many of the folks that have gone through similar transformations don't come from "easy" backgrounds. They had their own tragedies (financially, emotionally, etc.) that they had to overcome. Being born into poverty is an excuse to sidestep responsibility of your own life. 2) An outside can't sabotage your own idea. Only you can sabotage it. Sure, it doesn't make it any easier, but if someone can change your mind on your definition of "success" then you will never achieve it. 3) Yes, people spend money on dumb shit. I was in the same environment. Keeping up with the "jones" was a thing. Succeeding was also looked down upon. You know what is consistent with folks who came into success from those areas? They said f-that, I'm going to make my own path, regardless of what others say. They had mental fortitude. 4) My first car cost $2,000. My second car cost $1,000. Both I saved up and purchased. If police are harrassing you about being homeless in a car, then leave that location. That sounds like a police state (Cali anyone?). And before you say "It's not that simple to just leave!" Yes, yes it is. In order to change my situation, I literally "YOLO'ed" across the country (no job, nothing) in order to get out. Much like many in this investment group, in order to get out of hell, you have to make huge bets. I live in the USA in 2019. I lived in the USA when I was homeless during the height of the recession. It is easier now than it was then.
- fuqmachine 7y ago
  > However, many of the folks that have gone through similar transformations don't come from "easy" backgrounds. You just basically said - Folks that go from A to B come from A. Of course! You act as if your situation is the worst possible situation. For example, imagine having to take care of a sick parent and 2 kids and a wife. Imagine being addicted to drugs. Imagine having a criminal or drug-dealing record. Imagine having a disability. Imagine being suicidal. Even if you went through all the terrible things I listed, imagine not having any mental fortitude. Mental fortitude doesn't come easily or at all to a lot of people. This pull yourself up by your bootstraps is a nothing but a shiny pokemon. I came from poverty and I have everything I wanted now. But I also recognize that 99% of the people that were in poverty with me didn't make it out.
- awayfromhomenow 7y ago
  Congrats on working hard and paying the price for success. There's a saying - "everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there", the same could be said of success and sacrifice. Well done!

clarry 7y ago

A bit of calculation would show that a lot of people have no chance of building "great passive income" in 10 years. They simply do not have enough income to save that much. "I started with $200" tells us nothing useful. I can start with $5 and have great passive income if I'm making $100k and wife is making $70k and both of us are capable of saving a good chunk per year. I can start with $5000 and have little more than extra pocket money after 10 years if my salary is in the $20k to $30k range and I'm capable of saving $100 per lucky moon. GP is absolutely right, compound interest does not do much if you don't have much. There is nothing ridiculous about it.

exergy 7y ago
There is most certainly a category of people who cannot save at all because some combination of life factors lead them up shit creek, but there are plenty of low income people who could do with a lesson or two from Mr. Money Mustache. He has various case studies involving low income people and there are legions of journal entries on his forums where people earning pittances have nevertheless saved enough to be secure. Many have saved enough to retire early. Nothing is one-size-fits-all of course, but I'd much rather be surrounded by those kinds of 'can-do' types who don't sit around waiting for life to come to them.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Mr. Money Moustache is a terrible example. He (and his wife) had a $200k+ job within a year or two out of college. He is still working. He is making money off his website and as a motivational speaker. He has to spend a significant amount of time managing his investments to ensure that they keep an average of over 4% return. MMM's lifestyle works well for MMM, because of his circumstances. Those circumstances don't easily carry over to the general populace.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    “Coming up at 11, rich people don’t understand why poor people don’t just stop being poor.”
  - 7y ago

croon 7y ago

Honest question: What's the distribution of savings going into your portfolio in those 10 years? Quick napkin math doesn't grant you any "great passive income" from "$200" and "extra pennies" for 10 years. I'm not trying to be rude, but with incomplete data you're sending both the signals you want, as well as completely opposite signals. The latter suggest that in reality you just made a lot of money for the last 5+ years, which completely invalidates what I think you wanted to convey.

antibland 7y ago

> This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous statement. Do you think you'd say this to the poster's face in an in-person conversation? I find it's too easy to communicate in this way on the Internet, but it appears hurtful and over-the-top. Nasty comments can affect peoples' lives and we rarely see the fallout of how we hurt others in this way. Let's all tread more carefully and be a little nicer to each other.

whamlastxmas 7y ago

Calling someone being poor a "victimhood mentality" is possibly one of the most privileged, out of touch things I've seen on HN. Why don't you go tell all those families on welfare to just go make more money and change their mindset.

dang 7y ago
It's bad, but please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  I don't really feel inclined to sit by when ignorant prejduce, whether it be racism or classism, happens on HN. Feel free to ban me if you if that's how you want this site to operate.

inscionent 7y ago

Nice personal attack. Your anecdote is nice, but is that is all it is.

solipsism 7y ago

> In an investing group that I'm part of, my story is the norm - not the exception That is a hilarious example of selection bias.

dang 7y ago

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your comment would be fine without the second sentence.