4 ms·

What is that number for you? (and others) For me it's pretty dang high. Like on the order of 5-20 million USD in the bank. At some point I'm going to stop work

What is that number for you? (and others) For me it's pretty dang high. Like on the order of 5-20 million USD in the bank. At some point I'm going to stop working. Rent and life expenses where I live currently are probably $100k a year (yes I could live on less or move, but that's part of the point). Let's say I stop working at 65 and I live to 85. That means I need at least 2 million dollars in the bank to keep spending $100k a year and it assumes I die at 85. If I happen to live to 95 or 105 I'd be S.O.L. Also add in escalting medical expenses, inflation, other issues and 5 million in the bank is IMO the minimum I'd need to feel I could discard other money and stop worrying about it. And that assumes I stop working at 65. If I was trying to stop earlier that would go up. I get at some I could theoretically live off the interest. My point is, at least for me > a certain amount of money to cover life expenses + recreation, additional money has diminishing returns. Is generally false. It's usually part of the "if you make $75k a year, more won't make you happier" but IMO that's not true because I'm screwed if that $75k a year stops. Also, source of that point is often misquoted. It says happiness doesn't increase with more money. But life satisfaction does increase forever with more money. Here's an article pointing out the original study did say satisfaction increased as well as a new study that says happiness increase too. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/02/07/new-study-shows-that-more-money-buys-more-happiness/?sh=673fbd5970d5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/02/07/new-study... If I had even more money I'd angel invest. I think that would be pretty fulfilling. If I had even more money there's all kinds of projects I'd like to fund. I expect I'd be pretty proud to fund them.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I never said more money doesn't make you happier. I said more money has diminishing returns, and other things become more important. Even you are only able to suggest things that bring you personal fulfillment as a way you can use more money. This actually supports my point that it makes sense for someone to decline money that doesn't bring them fulfillment if fulfillment is what they're going for.
- asiachick 4y ago
  Maybe, but as someone that turned down $6 million because of my conscience (sold stock solely because I didn't like feeling guilty holding it and it's gone up 4x-6x since then), I could do a ton of good things for others if I had that $6 million. It's not like we're talking about killing babies. Where' talking about signing an NDA or in my case not being 100% on board with a company's behavior in ways that are arguably ambiguous. As an example, if I had New York Times stock and was upset at their hypocrosy of complaining about ad supported companies while themselves being an ad supported company. Whether ads on NYT are good or bad is an debatable point. The point being, nothing the company who's stock I was holding was unambigously evil. But I chose my conscience over arguably trivial issues. In this particular case I think it was a mistake. If the company had been truely evil (by my definition of evil) then I'd be more okay with my decision.
  - woobar 4y ago
    I am sorry, but no, you did NOT turn down $6M. You have made an investment decision that cost you imaginary gains. This is a big difference from turning down a $6M paycheck
    - asiachick 4y ago
      It's not as different as you're making out. There was no reason to believe it would go down (Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc were all going up). I fully expected it to go up. I knew I was likely to lose money by not just keeping the stock. I choose to sell 100% for conscience. I had no other reason to sell. Plenty of money in my bank accounts.
  - ska 4y ago
    > that turned down $6 million By that logic we all (er, at least most of us) turned down $100mm by not throwing $1k into bitcoin at the right time...
    - asiachick 4y ago
      Bad comparison. You'd actually have to spend money to buy into a bet. I already owned the stocks. And further there's the reason. I didn't sell to cash out, I sold solely to stop feeling bad anytime a company's stock I owned did something questionable. It's very comparable, especially given the company in question. I even expected it to go up at the time. It would only have have to go up a few 2% to equal 40k.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

I never said more money doesn't make you happier. I said more money has diminishing returns, and other things become more important. Even you are only able to suggest things that bring you personal fulfillment as a way you can use more money. This actually supports my point that it makes sense for someone to decline money that doesn't bring them fulfillment if fulfillment is what they're going for.

asiachick 4y ago
Maybe, but as someone that turned down $6 million because of my conscience (sold stock solely because I didn't like feeling guilty holding it and it's gone up 4x-6x since then), I could do a ton of good things for others if I had that $6 million. It's not like we're talking about killing babies. Where' talking about signing an NDA or in my case not being 100% on board with a company's behavior in ways that are arguably ambiguous. As an example, if I had New York Times stock and was upset at their hypocrosy of complaining about ad supported companies while themselves being an ad supported company. Whether ads on NYT are good or bad is an debatable point. The point being, nothing the company who's stock I was holding was unambigously evil. But I chose my conscience over arguably trivial issues. In this particular case I think it was a mistake. If the company had been truely evil (by my definition of evil) then I'd be more okay with my decision.
- woobar 4y ago
  I am sorry, but no, you did NOT turn down $6M. You have made an investment decision that cost you imaginary gains. This is a big difference from turning down a $6M paycheck
  - asiachick 4y ago
    It's not as different as you're making out. There was no reason to believe it would go down (Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc were all going up). I fully expected it to go up. I knew I was likely to lose money by not just keeping the stock. I choose to sell 100% for conscience. I had no other reason to sell. Plenty of money in my bank accounts.
- ska 4y ago
  > that turned down $6 million By that logic we all (er, at least most of us) turned down $100mm by not throwing $1k into bitcoin at the right time...
  - asiachick 4y ago
    Bad comparison. You'd actually have to spend money to buy into a bet. I already owned the stocks. And further there's the reason. I didn't sell to cash out, I sold solely to stop feeling bad anytime a company's stock I owned did something questionable. It's very comparable, especially given the company in question. I even expected it to go up at the time. It would only have have to go up a few 2% to equal 40k.