having lived in chicago burbs for 18 yrs and city for 3 yrs i def see the merits in both. if i get wealthy i'd consider staying in the city but i don't think i would unless i was well over 5mil liquid. it's too expensive to live a comparable lifestyle in the city that you could even in the nicest burbs.

the parking, space, crime, and raising a family issues are still going to be there even if you are the richest guy in town. you can't just stop traffic and you can't stop worrying about your kid getting mugged -- it happens much more in the city. i guess you could say "pay to have someone watch over the kid at all times." but that's just gonna leave you with a messed up kid.

just out of curiosity, you live near biesterfield rd. in the burbs? grew up v close to there.

Is there absolutely nothing you could do instead that would pay better than what you do now? Of course there is. Even if there weren't, I'm sure you'd grant me that there would be at least one thing you would turn down if you had the opportunity. Hours notwithstanding - my hypothetical alternative has the exact same hours that you get to pick.

So essentially you are, or would be, giving up that excess income so that you can bet sports (iirc). How is that not paying for the privilege? Your argument hinges on some arbitrary cutoff amount where, if you aren't willing to 'pay' at least that, you can't possibly love doing it? Then I submit that you must not enjoy your steaks or Italian or what not, because I decided that if you truly loved a good meal, you'd drop at least 100k on it. Reductio ad absurdum.

Whatever I enjoy but it certainly wouldn't be video games. I'm not saying you can't get enjoyment out of something I'm only drawing a distinction between doing something because of the secondary benefits and doing something because of the benefits directly related to act. I'm alternating between cognac and water. I drink the cognac because I enjoy it. I drink the water because it keeps me hydrated. If not for the secondary benefit I wouldn't drink the water. So I don't actually enjoy the water but I do it because I enjoy the outcome.

I'm not dismissing it. Just claiming that with the exception of the small group of people who are being motivated by ego the rest of us are mostly motivated by compensation and status. When someone says they love their job what they really mean is that they love being a lawyer and all the secondary benefits that come with that rather than they actually enjoy drafting statement of claims or doing legal research. Since the topic is about a hypothetical scenario where monetary considerations are removed that is relevant. How many people who currently make less than $120k/year and has no upward mobility would choose to keep working if they were offered the option of having $110k/year for not doing anything that even comes close to generating income?

Yes. I could make more money. That I don't though kind of supports my position. I do as little as possible to make what I need to maintain the lifestyle I want and to have savings for the future. I could make more but I don't because that would not lead to a better lifestyle so I actually don't enjoy doing it as I won't do it without the benefit.

If by some fluke of nature I found $200M in a very big bag on the street I would do nothing except stuff I enjoy and very few if any of those things generate income. That is the whole point of this topic. We are examining what life would be like if someone had sufficient passive income to maintain the lifestyle they want. I don't believe that most people who were not extreme achievers would work even if now they claim that they love their job.

People who work due to a love of their work are either working in extremely interesting fields, or just really suck. Probably like .01 to 99.99 who actually have the option to decide this for themselves.

A similar ******ed statement is, "I wouldn't know what to do if I had to retire today."

In almost all cases:
To be motivated for status is to be motivated by ego.
To be motivated for compensation is to be motivated by ego.

Instead of regurgitating, you need to address this distinction, which myself and others find arbitrary and only came out after conceding your original statement as untenable.

If your entire point is that most people are motivated for power, money, ego (all of which have sig overlap), then you should have immediately agreed with my analogy, but instead we took another walk around but I guess thats what I get when I start arguments with slow people.

Being motivated by compensation has nothing to do with ego. I value money because it is a means of exchange. It allows me to buy things I want.

Being motivated by status can be linked to ego but is not the same as ego. It depends if they are concerned with status as a means to win a competition with other people or if they are concerned with status for pragmatic reasons. I obviously meant the latter.

And what do you think it is that propels people to buy things not essential for survival?

Many things of which one is ego but that is in no way related to compensation being the equivalent of ego. The topic is comparing working to passive income. I can buy my Mirage with the funds from my big bag of found money as I can from employment income in both cases feeding my ego.

I guess I should have clarified more specifically, even though I thought I had mentioned this. I was talking about once you get past a certain income level to be able to afford to do all you want to do in the limited amount of time you have outside of work that adding more money into the equation has no value. If you add up how much money it takes for most people to enjoy all the activities they want to during the weekday and weekends on average and then figure out an income level where people can afford that then what I was alluding to was that all the people making that amount and more are pretty much in the same boat and that getting to the level above that one seems to be a HUGE jump. Basically the next level would be true freedom without having to work, and no increases in your income are going to get you to that level, nor any meager lump sums here and there. The only things to get to that next level are basically the things that create true wealth.

But also the thread originally was just about giving someone one lump sum of $50k, not increasing their income. An increase in income would be an increase in lifestyle since it's money that can keep coming in to finance changes in lifestyle. And in that regard I was saying that just giving someone that's making like 80k+ a year one lump sum of $50k wouldn't change much of anything in their life except maybe buying a nice toy or financing a few vacations for a year.

Yeah this is what I was referring to here:
This statement here I think represents the difference in views we have since I don't think that just having an extra $50k a year is going to make someone more happy overall if it's at the expense of having a more demanding job. This is very person dependent obviously but I would say that getting more enjoyment out of your work (since that takes up a huge % of your time) is going to have more value in terms of happiness than having more money.

I know a lot of people that are just so worn out and tired during the weekdays that they don't have the energy to even do anything at all with whatever money they make during the week, and I don't think this is uncommon for jobs with people making 70k+ a year. Their only time to themselves is on the weekends and there is only so much you can fit into 2 days, especially if you are tired from the work week. Having some stressful/tiring job would take up more from your waking hours than just the time spent at the job. Once you factor in time getting ready in the morning, time commuting to and from work, extra work that has to be brought home to meet deadlines, and just overall general stressed out feeling, it's eating up a larger portion of someones waking hours than you seem to suggest.

Also what happens when you start talking about married individuals with kids? They all would end up having the same lifestyle regardless of what they make because the time they do have that they aren't at work they are going to be wanting to spend it with their families. So for those individuals, if their free time is spent with families and the rest of their time is spent at work, then the level of enjoyment they get from their job is going to have significant value to their overall happiness.

I agree with this. When I meant someone enjoys what they do for a living I meant the actual work they are doing is something that they wouldn't mind doing with their life even if they weren't making money off it because they genuinely enjoy it. Something like video gamers who turn professional. They went professional to make a living at something they loved doing anyway. Or I guess professional atheletes fit this as well, someone like Michael Jordan who is driven by the actual love of basketball and all the money/fame he received was a result of such but not the driving force.

Yeah exactly. This is what I meant when I was referring to someone finding a job that thye genuinely enjoy for a living. Like theres some people that play poker because they love the game and making money is just a side reward for it, then there's others who play poker because they just love making money. The person who enjoys poker for the love of the game has much more long term value than the person playing for the money because the person playing for money is going to reach a point where the money has less and less utility. I can say that from personal experience since for me making another $50-$100k in poker is not changing anything lifestyle wise, it just adds onto the bankroll and my financial cushion. So once you get to that point you're left with garnering enjoyment from the act of playing poker and if you don't enjoy it well then it starts to suck and take away from your quality of life.

Naw the difference is where is the benefit coming from. Does it come from within you or external factors. If scraping sh*t off the side of the road was considered a prestigious thing and got me on magazine covers and respected well that doesn't mean I genuinely enjoy scraping sh*t off the street. Without the prestiege associated with it it would quickly dissolve any enjoyment you have from what you're doing for a living. I guess the argument can be made that the prestiege and money offering positive emotional reinforcement helps you like your job but I think that's going to be limited/short lived because it's based on something that's a bit superficial. I guess if someone just is in LOVE with making money and the prestiege then it may be enough to keep them driven but I would think for most people that tank would run out of gas in no time.

You're right but like I said, I think this is short lived. People that get into poker because they love making money, well once they have enough money that it doesn't change anything in their life (until making a huge leap and going from like $1m--->10m+) then their quality of life begins to go down because what was previously making them happy no longer is, whereas someone who just loves playing the game is going to maintain that because the actual act of playing the game is what they are happy doing.

Henry is stubborn and somewhat dumb but you must be literally braindead.

No, you simply don't understand what I'm saying. I am not saying that the emotion you get of liking whatever rewards you get from working your job are irrelevent, I was saying that they would be short lived like in the example I gave of the difference between two people playing poker, one loves poker, one loves money. Both will enjoy what they are doing at first but the person who loves poker for enjoyment of the actual game goes further than the person enjoying it for the money. But yes in the beginning they both would be enjoying what they do for different reasons.

This also would apply to your analogy you tried to give of liking a girl for her tiddies and ass. Liking her tits/ass would provide enjoyment up to a certain point but since it's based on something shallow/superficial that would not be enough to last over the course of something like a marriage, as opposed to actually loving who she is as a person. But like I also said, if you loving her tits and ass is enough to keep your love for her going long term then by all means, you're right. I think that's very uncommon and somewhat presumptuous for people that have never tried it before. Same way people that play poker because they love money simply haven't got to the point where making more money is no longer affecting them emotionally and then they are left with the actual mechanism they were using to make money (the game itself), that's the difference.

Yeah this is kind of what I was thinking except I was thinking something like all the people making like $80k a year to (whatever amount isn't enough to retire on really early) like $2m a year would all basically be in the same boat. I agree with your point that the person making $2m a year has a better lifestyle outsdie of work, that's obvious. But the point I was getting at is that I think if the person making $2m a year hates their job and works something crazy like 80 hours a week, then the lifestyle of the person making $80k a year is better because they are spending a higher % of their life doing something they enjoy doing.

If you disregard the fact that if you make enough from your job you can retire early then I would go as far as to say there's no amount of money that you could make for someone hating their job but having to work 80+ hours a week the rest of their life to be happier than someone making $80k-$100k a year but loving their job.

For example, if you have the option of having $100k a year passive income (that will presumably keep up with inflation for sake of example) vs making $10m a year but removing the option of retirement until 70 years old and being required to work 100 hours a week while not enjoying what you do, then the $100k a year passive income will lead to a more happy life. That's kind of what I was getting at.

Hmmm. I see what's going on. I didn't realize how far the internet goes. The OP is apparently from another planet.

He isn't from another planet so much as young and just coming to terms with the reality that he has limited options. His thought process is very typical rationalizing for a early twenty-something.

He's not coming to terms with reality. He's ignoring almost all of it, especially that thing called "the future". And I assume you mean the "-" as a minus sign.

this is way too general and incorrect because it ignores skill level

if it takes a certain skill level to do a job well, then the job may pay better even if it's also fun...pro sports is the obvious example here, but just one of many

also, different people enjoy different things...some people LOVE being a teacher or pilot or detective or doctor

i love managing website products...i'm WAY past neutral on it and yet i also make good money doing it...i'd rather be working on a new product that tens of millions of people will use and enjoy than be on a golf course

an alternative is to find a job you love, so it's not "rotting away at a desk"...something fulfilling and enjoyable...

So basically it boils down to how altruistic someone is.

what i do isn't altruistic, it's just enjoyable to me like golf is enjoyable to others

if i found $200 million in a very large bag on the street, i'd use part of it to run my own company making websites....the only difference being that i'd have more control over the product than i do working for a company

"work smart, not hard"

that's the motto of a successful entrepreneur

more likely much MORE pay with ANY success. It's set up that way.

I actually found this forum from another stock/investing forum site. It seems to be a good forum on business and investing. I like poker, texas hold-em poker actually but I decided a year or two back that it was a waste of my time to play it hours a day and even every week when there are more constructive things to do. That's just me. I play occasionally if ever now. I'm 27. You don't walk in my shoes also. I have never had a cushy nice paying job. I wish you luck with your goals. I'm just trying to do something harder, more challenging and more fulfilling to me.

You should see south Charlotte NC. I guess if you like the country more though....

50,000???? Try 5,000,000 for me to live on, and I don't even feel that comfortable. 40 million sounds about right for me.