Has more to do with wealth than income.

Brown v Board of ed was around 1950, not really implemented fully until the 70s. But hey, those minorities had nothing to bitch about regarding access to education because they weren't eating dirt.

b

Heh.....

You're right of course, a good number of poker pros are really gambling addicts who realized they can keep their **** together playing poker.

Still though.... heh.

is this where ikes comes in with his super-clever and definitely not at all reeeeally old "WELCHER" schtick? yes, it appears that it is

There's a wealth and an income option, I used the latter.

What does that have to do with anything I said?

It's certainly important to recognize that we are all unimaginably fortunate relative to the vast majority of people who have ever lived. Like, it sucks that you can't buy a new Accura off the lot but at least your daughter will learn how to read.

In public school, like an animal

Not at all. Many of the poker grinding guys aren't degenerates. They fall in love with this mythical dream of "freedom" they get from being able to do something they consider a game instead of "work".

The problem with that logic is after a while, that game turns into work except they can go to work and LOSE money.

This post in particular needs to be addressed. While some people will nod and agree whole-heartedly, it's simply not true. By your rationale a person making 25k is in the top 2% of income earners but you're dirt ass poor in the US. If you make 25k in the US you are poor, your children will probably be poor, and their children will probably be poor. Just because some people on the planet can sustain themselves on 3,000 dollars a year doesn't make the person in the US with a 25k income relatively wealthy. Relativity is about the people around you, not the global community.

Relativity is about whomever you want it to be about. There is nothing inherently better about a comparison between yourself and the local community versus a comparison between yourself and the rest of the world. They're just different.

I agree. But by similar logic, someone making 250k and living in an exclusive gated community can sensibly call themselves "middle class" by comparing themselves to the people around them. People scoff at this, sure, but it's worth nothing that to the rest of the world, America is a very real sense an exclusive gated community.

This is really wrong. Read millionaire next door, etc.

You can only compare your situation to people of similar station. I live in America. We have sanitation, clean water, electricity and public education. To compare myself to a subsaharan African simply isn't a comparison.

To refute your point, huge numbers of people the the western world enjoy much of the same. If you make 60k in Denmark you're probably better off than making 90k in the US. Both are a gabillion times better than living in Uganda.



Actually, you are wrong. People like you read books and extrapolate that "formula" for the ultimate success in life. That is far from reality. If you want to eat Ramen noodles and live in a rented 3 bedroom house for 600 each a month while living with 2 roommates and making 70k and becoming a millionaire somewhere around 50, then go do it. That isn't life. It's no where close to life.

Why make money if you won't enjoy some of it? Why work so hard to not help benefit the people you love, for example, your wife and your children? You can easily live a life of a dumpster diver making 25k a year and "be happy". Not many people opt for that choice.

Your sentiment reminds me of all the guys who are 24 years old posting about "having a girlfriend/wife is -EV". You can't put prices on personal relationships. You can't put a price on happiness. When you are younger, these things don't mean that much because all you worry about is monies. When you get older, the money don't mean a ****ing thing compared to waking up next to your child and her mother/your wife.

Life isn't a formula, dude.

I'm going to assume that you didn't actually read the book. The point was certainly not "eat Ramen noodles and live in a rented 3 bedroom house for 600 each a month while living with 2 roommates and making 70k". And if you read it and thought that it was, your reading comprehension is atrocious.

Even without reading the book it should not be hard for you to understand that there is something between "eat Ramen noodles and live in a rented 3 bedroom house for 600 each a month while living with 2 roommates and making 70k" and "really expensive designer suits, Rolex's, Porche's, fly first class, etc."

In fact, just as your last paragraph suggests, the authors found that most of these millionaires next door were happier in general -- not because of their money but because of their meaningful relationships, other pursuits, etc. The designer suits and rolexes didn't bring them significant happiness at all, so they wouldn't get those types of things, which is part of how they became financially rich. But financial wealth is not what their happiness really came from.

You probably should read the book. Or if you did, try again. I think you would find that you agree with most of it.

In all honesty, there is no reason to read the book. If you get the main idea, that's all you need, and the main idea is laughable.

By any calculation of my income and projected return, I'll be worth between 4-12 million by 65 years old (a lowball and highball figure). That's assuming nothing major happens in my or my wife's career where we make a big jump.

Tell me, why would I need to read this book to derive some sort of happiness or formula to success? I've also stated I have nothing remotely extravagant, so if you think I go out and blow 10k a a time on suits/watches/cars/vacations/fly first class, I don't.

You can read all the books and concepts you want, it doesn't give you some deep understanding of life compared to others. You are going after a moving target. A million dollars in 1996 may have been something, but retiring with a million dollars in 2025 (in my case, 2042) is laughable. My daughters tuition costs 250k in today's dollars. What do you think it'll cost 28 years from now? What do you think real estate will cost 28 years from now? You think if I retire with double that million mark I'll be good to go?

I'd say absolutely not.

Cliffs : when someone says "go read X", laugh, because it's deserved. If life was answered by a concept in a book, then all logical people would have it all figured out. Doesn't work that way. Go read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Go read Freakonomics. What, you didn't read all 3? JFC you're screwed.

I don't mean to come off as condescending, I really don't, but I've heard these same things over and over so many times it makes my head hurt.

Wil I agree with your general criticism of the book (haven't read it, just looked up a quick blurb and lol'd), but I think melk is mainly objecting to your definition of rich. TBH a few seconds of thought should pretty easily tell you that acting rich is not being rich, someone can have tonnes of money and live modestly for a whole lot of reasons. Maybe you could say 'rich isn't just money, it's quality of life', but as you already acknowledged you can be living a great life without having the lifestyle of people who 'act rich'. You ask why someone would make money if their loved ones (and themselves) can't enjoy it, but it's a pretty common story for rich people to live modestly and think their kids will be better off long-term if they don't get showered with 10k watches throughout their life.

Congrats on having an awesome wealth projection, but if you're worth 10 mil by the time you're 65 I don't care if you're in a mansion or small house, I'll consider you rich. That said this whole thread is just people tossing around definitions and going in circles so it's not like it actually matters.

Why can't someone living in a gated community apply similar logic? "We have private schools, housekeepers and nannies. To compare myself to an inner-city single mom simply isn't a comparison". I also like the implicit assumption behind "similar station", like if someone becomes sufficiently poor relative to you, you're allowed to assume they don't exist for the purpose of rating how well off you are.

No it doesn't, any more than the existence of more than one gated community refutes the claim that they're insular. In any case, all of them get taken into account when calculating that $25k puts you in the top of world incomes.

I think I'm being misinterpreted here. When I say "acting rich" I don't mean living in your mother's basement and buying Rolexes. I mean not caring about price. I think we can all relate to this in terms of something like fast food. If you go to Wendy's, you probably don't really look at the bill, but the reason you don't look at the bill or care about the bill is because it doesn't matter. If the bill is 7 dollars, or 15 dollars, it really doesn't matter. We can scale this up to other things in life, such as clothes, cars, etc. There are people who don't care about the price because it simply doesn't mean anything to them.

I live pretty modestly. I like my electronic gadgets and I like drinking premium alcohol, that's about all I splurge on. I don't live like a miser, but I feel somewhat guilty about spending large amounts of money when I could be saving it for my wife, or my kid's education fund. I think that's what annoys me about the people who view the income level as rich. If I was actually rich I'd buy whatever the hell I wanted because it simply wouldn't matter. That's just not the case.

I know in the end it doesn't matter, I'm just trying to offer a different perspective. I used to think exactly like many of the people in this thread do. I don't do that anymore, and I think if and when many of the younger people hit their mid 30s, they will be surprised how differently they feel about this very topic.

I just think your example is extreme. We don't have to go out and catch our own food, Nichlemn. I understand your point, but it's so far removed from us that it's unfathomable.

I could actually imagine being absolutely broke, living in government housing and buying food with food stamps. It'd be a stretch, but I could imagine it. Digging a hole in the sand to take a dump in, or collecting rain water so we could have something to drink, I couldn't imagine.

To a very rich person, being broke in America might be similarly unfathomable. Or if we don't go the whole hog of comparing to the world's most impoverished people, what about simply extending the category a bit further, to say, the Americas? Or the top 50% by population of developed countries? There are tons of people in the world who aren't nearly starving Sudanese refugees, yet are still quite poor compared to most Americans.

What gets me is how backward your logic seems. Like, if the rest of the world wasn't so far removed, you've be happy to count them for purposes of rating peoples' class in America? If living in Africa was mostly like living in Detroit, you could say "I'm rich, because I can imagine living like that?" But if all of a sudden they faced a massive decline until their living standards were reduced to what they currently are now, you would go "Man, I can't imagine that anymore, so I'll just pretend they don't exist. I guess I'm middle class now"?

No. I mean, I look at it in relative terms. If I had 4 cars, an 800k house and 7 million in the bank, I'd consider myself rich. But if I then hung out with Saudi princes and experienced their wealth, I wouldn't all of a sudden consider myself poor, would I? Scale it in the other direction.

That's why I'm looking at it in relative terms. If we lived in the Sudan and I had the luxuries of a rich person in Sudan, then I'd consider myself rich. I wouldn't say "well, compared to a middle class American, I'm poor, so these goats don't mean ****".

What am I missing here?

Wisdom.

All those people making 25k should just move to Sudan and live the dream!

Millionaire Next Door isn't some kind of investing book or get rich quick scheme its just a straightforward study of the average person in the US with over $1MM in net worth. Dont mix it up with Rich Dad Poor Dad or some other horrible dreck. There is zero investment advice/strategy in the book.

I read it years ago when it came out and it really does provide great perspective on wealthy people in this country. My experience in dealing with high net worth types in business over the years has certainly been consistent with the book's findings.

Really a great read and honestly anyone who thinks that "people who are rich act rich." really has a lol understanding of reality. Honestly the "richer" someone acts the more likely they are to be leasing a luxury car, maxing out CC's and have zero in the bank etc.

Based on your posts in BFI I think you would actually enjoy the book and you would probably agree with just about everything in it.

I'm curious how you're projecting this. What are the assumptions here? Given your posts in this thread, this feels wildly optimistic, though I guess it's possible you save something like 80K every year. Don't forget that major things often happen when you're projecting over a long period and when you're already in an established career and have upper middle class income, major things that do happen are more likely to be negative in nature.

We've talked about the upper middle class delusion that everyone is well-off, but the other part of that illusion is that your life is on this permanent upward trajectory. Both come from the fact that people who fail to keep up tend to fall off the radar and no longer count as part of anyone's sample.

I can tell you from personal experience that for many companies its a lot more then 2-3 positions to be hired at 100K.

Granted my company may not be the most generous but you would have to look 5-6 positions above that to hit $100k.

This will vary a lot by industry. I have friends in the finance industry and some of them have crazy salaries. (and unbelieveable bonuses)

But I would offer that many, many companies (mind you my experience is all in NYC) are not paying people 100K after only 2-3 promotions.

I guess you can see it that way. I just don't get much out of things like that. I live my life the way I want and I'm very happy and my projected retirement is above what I expected. I already touched on the "act rich" statement, I meant it another way.

Just a simple online calculator with projected stock return, % of salary put into 401ks, current amount, number of years left, etc. The main factor is the rate of return, I put in lowball figures and some higher ones (between 7% return and 11% I think) and obviously got a wide range of figures. I'm happy with all scenarios since I'll be dead anyway. My wife will get it.

Yes, I should have given this more thought. In the industries I've worked the ranges have been about 20k wide bands, so starting at 55k the band could go to 70 or so, then 70-90, then 90-110, etc. It just so happens the companies I worked at had about the same bands. You're right, the number of promotions could vary quite a bit.

I would say 5 is a bit much if you start in the 50k range though. I guess a good average would be 3-4?