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Time is indeed a very major thing, but it’s more accessible than most realise - I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures, and that’s ample for me to n

Time is indeed a very major thing, but it’s more accessible than most realise - I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures, and that’s ample for me to not need to work for a living and live very comfortably. Frankly, once you have even $1M in free liquid capital, you are in the endgame, as money makes money far more efficiently than labour. I spend perhaps 20 hours a year farting around with our finances, place some bets, and that’s it. I decided to go full on idle-rich when I was still practically a pauper, and have grown my worth significantly since. Perhaps my sample pool is skewed, but the billionaires and centimillionaires I know live pretty modest lives in general - yes, they fly first class, stay in the best hotels, and all that jazz, but they’re unpretentious, and you wouldn’t know them from the upper middle class family sat at the next table. In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt. The guy who looks like the janitor probably owns the place. I think the single biggest thing wealth buys is not giving a shit what other people think. You don’t have to play status games when you know you’re the big dog in the room, even if nobody else knows it. I mean, I take perverse joy in showing up at places looking like I just crawled out of a gutter, because I know it doesn’t matter - my money is good.

st-keller 1y ago
I also like showing up at places and don’t give a shit what other people think. It’s even more fun not being wealthy at all.
mykowebhn 1y ago
I agree with this so much. I'm not your level wealthy, but I don't work, live comfortably, and I'm happy. I prefer not to eat at expensive restaurants, but I enjoy restaurants that serve good food. I don't really want to fly to an expensive city and spend lots of money. I'd rather spend time in nature, hike, try to ID plants, and spend time with my wife and our animals.
- madaxe_again 1y ago
  Yeah, that’s pretty much our schtick too - we live off grid in the boondocks of Portugal, and our idea of a holiday is to go spend a month hiking somewhere or other. Spend my days hauling gravel and digging pits. It’s good.
  - mykowebhn 1y ago
    Really? What a coincidence. Where in Portugal? We live in the Algarve near the border with Spain.
lordnacho 1y ago
> In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt. This is so strangely true. I arranged a dad's dinner once, and we had a drug dealer there. Stereotypical hard man, wife dressed in branded clothes, fancy car, very obviously not in the line of business that he pretended. Trying extremely hard to flash how he used the private airport. Seated with him was an actual billionaire, one whose family made their money a while back so you wouldn't know if you hadn't come across it before, like me. This guy just behaved like a normal middle class dad. Dressed like everyone else, ordinary SUV. No flashy moves. Other two I know in that class are also just ordinary. No supercar, just a Merc or upper end car. They send their kids to private schools that ordinary top 5% people can afford, but no big arm movements.
ffwd 1y ago
This could be true but it depends on the person. Marc Andreesen is a billionaire and he wears Rolexes quite prominently. In fact a lot of rich people wear Rolexes lately.
lm28469 1y ago
> it’s more accessible than most realise > I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures We must have a very different definition of "accessibility"
- rwmj 1y ago
  Anyone on a programmer's salary should be able to get to low 7 figures in a decade, and better in 2 decades. In fact I'd go further and say that if you're on a six-figure salary you really must do it. We can't be sure our privileged position will continue for too much longer.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    lol, lmao even... Most devs aren't even making 100k a year, even in the US the median is at like 120k. Let's say you make 100k a year in Berlin, you're already in the top 1% so "accessibility" is out of the equation at that point, that's 4.8k net. Let's say you manage to invest ~60% of your salary, that's about 3k a month, 36k a year. Now let's say you get 8% return per year (which you won't), you're barely above 500k after 10 years. So yeah sure, if you're in the top 1% to begin with, and live on what basically amounts to your local minimum wage while investing everything else, you can get to 1 million after 15 years or so... Ah, and don't forget the tax man, he'll take his 20-30% cut on your million.
    - rwmj 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - lm28469 1y ago
        > £100k/year Well first off £100 != $100 != €100 Sorry but you're completely delusional if you think literally "anyone on a programmer's salary" can make 1 million in 10 years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm not saying you didn't do it, I'm just saying it's not "accessible", nor the norm, nor representative of the vast majority of devs. https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/ https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/ The median software engineer salary in Europe is under 60k euros, which is £50k. Show me how you make 1m on a 60k euros salary in 10 years, even if you paid 0 income tax and invested every single cent with an average 8% annual return you'd still be under 1m. > Anyway, stay poor, I literally don't care. Looks like you can't buy your way out of arrogance

st-keller 1y ago

I also like showing up at places and don’t give a shit what other people think. It’s even more fun not being wealthy at all.

mykowebhn 1y ago

I agree with this so much. I'm not your level wealthy, but I don't work, live comfortably, and I'm happy. I prefer not to eat at expensive restaurants, but I enjoy restaurants that serve good food. I don't really want to fly to an expensive city and spend lots of money. I'd rather spend time in nature, hike, try to ID plants, and spend time with my wife and our animals.

madaxe_again 1y ago
Yeah, that’s pretty much our schtick too - we live off grid in the boondocks of Portugal, and our idea of a holiday is to go spend a month hiking somewhere or other. Spend my days hauling gravel and digging pits. It’s good.
- mykowebhn 1y ago
  Really? What a coincidence. Where in Portugal? We live in the Algarve near the border with Spain.

lordnacho 1y ago

> In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt. This is so strangely true. I arranged a dad's dinner once, and we had a drug dealer there. Stereotypical hard man, wife dressed in branded clothes, fancy car, very obviously not in the line of business that he pretended. Trying extremely hard to flash how he used the private airport. Seated with him was an actual billionaire, one whose family made their money a while back so you wouldn't know if you hadn't come across it before, like me. This guy just behaved like a normal middle class dad. Dressed like everyone else, ordinary SUV. No flashy moves. Other two I know in that class are also just ordinary. No supercar, just a Merc or upper end car. They send their kids to private schools that ordinary top 5% people can afford, but no big arm movements.

ffwd 1y ago

This could be true but it depends on the person. Marc Andreesen is a billionaire and he wears Rolexes quite prominently. In fact a lot of rich people wear Rolexes lately.

lm28469 1y ago

> it’s more accessible than most realise > I am only marginally wealthy, high 7/low 8 figures We must have a very different definition of "accessibility"

rwmj 1y ago
Anyone on a programmer's salary should be able to get to low 7 figures in a decade, and better in 2 decades. In fact I'd go further and say that if you're on a six-figure salary you really must do it. We can't be sure our privileged position will continue for too much longer.
- lm28469 1y ago
  lol, lmao even... Most devs aren't even making 100k a year, even in the US the median is at like 120k. Let's say you make 100k a year in Berlin, you're already in the top 1% so "accessibility" is out of the equation at that point, that's 4.8k net. Let's say you manage to invest ~60% of your salary, that's about 3k a month, 36k a year. Now let's say you get 8% return per year (which you won't), you're barely above 500k after 10 years. So yeah sure, if you're in the top 1% to begin with, and live on what basically amounts to your local minimum wage while investing everything else, you can get to 1 million after 15 years or so... Ah, and don't forget the tax man, he'll take his 20-30% cut on your million.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - lm28469 1y ago
      > £100k/year Well first off £100 != $100 != €100 Sorry but you're completely delusional if you think literally "anyone on a programmer's salary" can make 1 million in 10 years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm not saying you didn't do it, I'm just saying it's not "accessible", nor the norm, nor representative of the vast majority of devs. https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/ https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/ The median software engineer salary in Europe is under 60k euros, which is £50k. Show me how you make 1m on a 60k euros salary in 10 years, even if you paid 0 income tax and invested every single cent with an average 8% annual return you'd still be under 1m. > Anyway, stay poor, I literally don't care. Looks like you can't buy your way out of arrogance