[HN Gopher] On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming sudden...
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On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class
Author : embeng4096
Score : 97 points
Date : 2022-08-04 14:25 UTC (8 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.residentcontrarian.com)
| legitster wrote:
| I can relate to a lot of this, I was pretty stinking poor growing
| up. Now I make good money. (I still buy used tires from shady
| lots tho).
|
| But even now that I'm making good money, it boggles my mind how
| richer everyone else still seems. Like, how do so many young
| people have a favorite island in Hawaii? How is everyone out
| there affording new cars? People actually picked a college major
| without thinking about cost?
|
| One thing I have to constantly wrap my head around is that being
| _broke_ doesn 't correlate to income. I have a family and a
| mortgage and savings and nothing left over for luxuries at the
| end of the month. But someone working as a bartender can afford a
| new Jeep and go to Vegas 4x a year because they have a good
| roommate situation and they are due to inherit their parent's
| second house one day.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I couldn't help but do the same thing when I was reading the
| article, in the opposite direction: "wait - you had a _wife_
| and you were poor? " When I was young and my income was low or
| nonexistent, it seemed like women could _smell_ the poverty on
| me and I couldn 't even get close to them. It was like trying
| to sneak up on a grazing gazelle - they'd hear me coming and
| just sprint to a safe distance. The more money I made, the
| closer I could get until I finally made enough money that they
| stayed close enough to talk to.
|
| Even now, married 20 years, the author talks about the burden
| on his wife and kids if he went back to being poor - I'm sure
| my wife would just leave if I was genuinely stuck in a poverty
| cycle with no way of getting out, and I wouldn't really blame
| her.
| [deleted]
| lscdlscd wrote:
| That's a very sad way to view the world and people.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| Why would it be sad? Women are attracted to security and
| success. Men are attracted to good genetics expressed
| physically.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Women may, overall, tend to have a different relationship
| to security and success than men tend to. Simplifying it
| to "they are _attracted_ to those things " doesn't align
| with my experiences though.
|
| This worldview is limiting, even insulting, to both men
| and women though and you should try not having it.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Since we're tossing random anecdotes, everyone I know in
| a happy relationship makes less than me.
|
| I'm suppose if I was properly rich and flaunted it,
| certain women would suddenly be interested, but no person
| I'd marry.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| > Like, how do so many young people have a favorite island in
| Hawaii? How is everyone out there affording new cars?
|
| The reality is that oftentimes they simply can't, at least
| according to a responsible definition of "afford".
|
| All we see from the outside is the brand new Jeep, we don't see
| the fact that they're underwater on a 72 month loan with 6%
| interest. The average car loan term in 2019 was 69 months,
| that's insane. Something like 30% of trade ins have negative
| equity.
|
| Even ignoring debt, I've spoken to a surprising number of
| people who make great money and live lavishly but have
| effectively no retirement savings. The level of financial
| literacy in the US is abysmal.
| wnissen wrote:
| I would strengthen your statement to say that almost everyone
| can't afford it. Median household income is around $67K in
| the US, and the median household assets (minus the house) at
| age 65-69 is $75K. So even if a third of your income is being
| replaced by social security, a typical household has not even
| two years of income saved. A 25th percentile household has
| less than 5 months! Most people save basically nothing, on
| net. Even 75th percentile households only have 4 years of
| income. Assuming reasonable investment returns, that's only
| saving 2.5% on average. Pensions aren't expensive, retirement
| is expensive! People, even ones who can easily afford it,
| often won't save.
|
| https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/
| https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-
| percentiles-b...
| reactspa wrote:
| > Something like 30% of trade ins have negative equity
|
| Could you please clarify what this means. E.g., A car "X" is
| traded in for a car "Y". X gets a trade-in-value of $2,000.
| That is, the cost to buy Y is reduced by 2,000. Where does
| the negative-equity in your point apply here please? Thanks.
| legitster wrote:
| Your old car has more debt left on it than you get in the
| trade-in.
|
| The dealership gives me 10k, but it still has a 12k loan on
| it. So on top of the cost of the new car, I am still out
| $2k.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| We can help you out and roll that into the loan for the
| new car.
| davemp wrote:
| These people are likely not maxing out their 401ks and are
| borrowing their current luxuries from their future selves.
|
| Comparing finances to others without actually having all the
| information isn't worthwhile.
| h4waii wrote:
| All platitudes aside, comparison really is the thief of joy.
|
| Lots of people have very different situations from what they
| project (witting or unwittingly), they might be running up debt
| to pay for their lifestyle or maybe they have profitable small
| side businesses, and bartend for the bills and social aspect.
|
| Focus on your journey, and where you are on the path, don't get
| distracted with people "passing" you on shorter, longer, or
| completely different paths.
| legitster wrote:
| Certainly. My point was largely that poor vs wealthy is often
| hard to actually tell.
|
| In the case of the bartender, this wasn't actually a
| hypothetical: I have _more than one_ friend in this exact
| situation - they got one good inheritance, are waiting on
| another, and in the meantime live rent free at a parent 's
| property. In both instances they even get aid from the state.
|
| While they appear poor on paper (and they often describe
| themselves as poor), they have tremendous resources at their
| disposal.
| ishjoh wrote:
| I struggled with this as well and then I started asking people
| about it, I grew up lower middle class and there were some very
| rough stretches of time during my childhood.
|
| What I've observed:
|
| 1) They're not saving for retirement. $0.
|
| 2) They spend a lot using credit. New vehicles with 2k down and
| high monthly payments. High monthly credit card bills.
|
| 3) They have a lot of stuff but are essentially living pay
| cheque to pay cheque. One thing that surprised me was working
| at a company that got acquired and payroll got moved to the
| parent company which had a pay schedule that was 1 week later,
| so they told us we would get paid one week later than we had
| historically. Inconvenient, but no problem for me. Out of an
| office of about 40 people 15 said they wouldn't be able to pay
| their bills. These were all people who made over 6 figures.
|
| Another thing I've noticed is that many people don't look at
| absolute price but instead look at monthly payment, I think
| raising interest rates are going to hurt a lot of people that
| from the outside seem to have a dream life.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Food is huge here
|
| I thought about that recently when I went to the grocery store -
| when I was fresh out of college, making ~$30k/year, I remember
| always going to the grocery store and keeping a running total in
| my head of how much I was spending so I didn't go over $70, since
| I knew my debit card would be declined if I did. Now I don't even
| pay attention to how much individual items cost - I just grab
| what I need.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > Food is huge here
|
| Typically, this is how I measured my success as well: when I
| stopped looking at the prices of things and just shopped or
| ordered what I wanted without too much concern. (Within reason
| of course, because as a former cook when I want splurge it can
| easily hit 4 digits.)
|
| Everything else never felt as a _re-assuring,_ ; I've bought
| lots of cars and motorcycles, signed leases, traveled etc...
| over the years, but nothing made me more comfortable than
| knowing that the food bill wasn't going to ruin my finances for
| the month(s) as it used to before.
|
| I used to live on $100/month for food during university, it's
| partly why I decided to work in kitchens and I know I can
| stretch out a meal quite a lot and not lose on quality. And if
| it's just me, I tend to like simple meals that I can iterate
| upon: a ragu can turn into about 5 different dishes and all
| uses cheap(er) cuts of meat.
|
| But I still remember having to wait to buy things from grocery
| stores like yogurts or juice or pasta only when they were on
| special (loss leaders) and it's actually how I got a pretty
| good at understanding the market dynamics of a food supply's
| value chain, which helped when I ran kitchens and when I got
| into supply chain.
|
| It ultimately culminates in focusing my cuisine on farm to
| tables because eating in-season not only tastes the best, is
| more environmental, but when you're in charge of food costs in
| menu development you can achieve ROIs and ARRs to justify
| larger expenses by buying and sourcing from farms who you can
| count on for price breaks for other items/prioritization for
| other items by buying their entire harvest ahead of planting.
|
| As both a former farmer and chef, this was a huge relief and
| allows you to utilize capital where it's needed most without
| taking as many loans for repairs, labour, training, expansion
| etc...
| legitster wrote:
| I dunno. Even when I was making minimum wage, groceries never
| seemed like a significant part of my budget. I never understood
| people trying to save 10c to get, like, the cheapest mustard
| possible. Compared to the big expenses (rent) food was really a
| small percentage of a budget, especially if you avoid stocking
| up on meat or alcohol.
|
| I remember being much more frustrated by friends trying to drag
| me out to eat at restaurants or throwing away food. Like, one
| sit down meal was worth three days of groceries!
| RealityVoid wrote:
| On a really tight budget, the kind of food makes a
| difference. I used to be living on about 150 USD food budget
| a month in college (non-us). You can bet I used to eat _a
| lot_ of rice.
| azmodeus wrote:
| I remember as a student money was tight towards the end of
| the year and had a budget of about 1.20 USD per meal for 2
| month
|
| It was not easy I rarely ate meat and only cheap meat at
| that. I still felt lucky as it was a temporary thing.
| TheFlyingFish wrote:
| Living on your own vs. having a family (even just a spouse)
| makes a huge difference here. Feeding just-yourself vs.
| feeding yourself-plus-others can make the difference between
| "Groceries are at the bottom of my expense list" and
| "groceries are my second-biggest monthly expense".
| danrocks wrote:
| I have been poor in a poor country and now I'm not. I make mid-
| high six figures and just bought a house. I have five years of
| expenses saved up and could extend it to ten with the right
| moves. Still, sleeping at night is hard, imagining that
| everything could collapse at any moment - I don't know how I
| would explain to my kid that "we don't have money anymore". This
| feeling permeates every interaction I have at work - will I fuck
| up this email to the VP, then get fired, then become poor again?
| Makes for a very unhealthy relationship with work. Sometimes I
| wish I won the lottery - not to buy boats and cars and houses,
| but simply to stop being worried every damn minute of my life.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > but simply to stop being worried every damn minute of my
| life.
|
| You would be worried nonetheless, because your brain will latch
| on to the next anxiety. Just like you thought that having 5
| years of expenses would alleviate your anxiety. What you need
| is a good therapist to work on your anxiety issues.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I can confirm. Grew up poor, now worth mid 7 figures and
| still have money anxiety despite barely spending money.
| Therapy sounds like a good idea lol.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Just to be clear, mid-high six figures is 500-700k/yr
| danrocks wrote:
| Yes.
| tomuli38 wrote:
| mikodin wrote:
| As you likely know, you are at the point where more money won't
| change these feelings.
|
| Therapy or meditation, likely both may help induce a shift. As
| the grip loosens you will find many things begin to change.
|
| "Sleeping well at night", is likely the single most important
| thing you can focus on. If you choose to focus on that, it
| likely will permeate many aspects of your life..
|
| You may find a deeper and more authentic experience and through
| that you may find that you actually have won the lottery. You
| are safe. You have 5 years of expenses - I guarantee you that
| you could figure out solutions to just about anything that
| comes your way in 5 years.
|
| You're no longer trying to survive. It's now time to learn how
| to live.
| 50 wrote:
| A couple lessons I've learned:
|
| "A king is but a foolish labourer / Who wastes his blood to be
| another's dream" (Yeats)
|
| "As a capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the
| soul of capital." (Marx)
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I grew up upper middle class and earn a mid-low six figure
| salary. I used to be quite frugal. Now I'm just apathetic to it.
| I don't care at all about money. I have no particular financial
| goals. I save a lot without trying. But savings scale linearly in
| non risky comp scenarios. And that's kind of boring because
| there's nothing that I could imagine wanting that doesn't require
| orders of magnitude more money than I have now. Aside from the
| vague "retire early" thing.
|
| Not a complaint.
|
| > There's something that people with money say that doesn't make
| sense: that regardless of how much money you have, you run out of
| it just as soon.
|
| This is just a weird thing to me. I didn't feel this was true on
| a five digit salary much less what I have now.
| woweoe wrote:
| This might be a very non American problem, but people forget that
| there are social pressures to follow when you are middle class
| that cost more money.
| legitster wrote:
| In America, it can be all over the place. On one hand, the
| first time I had a corporate job I certainly felt very naked
| being the one guy with a ratty car in the parking lot.
|
| On the other hand, you might have a CEO proudly drinks cheap
| beer and wears Kirkland Signature workboots to the office.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| You definitely won't have a CEO who proudly drives a ratty
| car.
|
| Sorry but it doesn't go both ways.
| ___rubidium___ wrote:
| It's also an American problem. I notice it most in the pressure
| to have a nice front lawn. In some American neighborhoods, if
| you don't regularly cut your grass, people will call the
| police.
| dahdum wrote:
| They'll call code enforcement in a city, or the HOA if you
| have one. You can choose to live in less strict
| neighborhoods, and they're usually cheaper.
| a_nop wrote:
| Participating in class signaling is optional, starting with
| the choice of where to live. I can tell you from experience
| that if you find the right neighborhood, you can have good
| access and security and not have to cut your grass regularly.
| It's a big country.
| Kye wrote:
| It really depends. In some, neighbors will assume you're
| going through a rough spot and cut it for you. It probably
| depends on how many generations removed your neighbors are
| from abject poverty. Too many and they lose touch with how
| easy it is to end up on one side or another of the line.
| legitster wrote:
| > In some American neighborhoods, if you don't regularly cut
| your grass, people will call the police.
|
| If you can afford to live in one of these neighborhoods, you
| are already middle class.
| [deleted]
| stuckinhell wrote:
| This is something I really struggle with. I'm now middle class,
| but the horror of growing up poor still sticks with me. I have
| severe nightmares about being poor again, I just can't go back. I
| tend to overwork, and hoard thing at times.
|
| The most difficult thing these days, is my kids. I'm extremely
| happy that they don't know how bad things can be, but I get
| extremely worried by that too. I get worried, that they don't try
| hard enough because they don't understand how bad things in life
| can get. I get worried that they are far too trusting because
| times are so good and plentiful.
|
| Life can change good or bad in an instant.
| em-bee wrote:
| this shows how big a difference a good social net makes.
|
| i grew up poor, with a single parent, on social welfare
| (because the parent could not work since they had to stay home
| to take care of us kids until we were older)
|
| in germany.
|
| social welfare paid our rent and gave us enough money that we
| could afford everything we needed. (we didn't need a car, and
| we didn't have a tv, but that was by choice. they would
| probably have paid the tv, had we wanted one). i never felt any
| struggle. when i moved out from home, i never needed money from
| my parents either. always paid my own way. i was never rich. i
| just learned to live frugal. and i am not at all scared of
| being poor again, because i know that there is a social net
| that i have access to if i need it.
| diob wrote:
| All I can say is to treat them well and set them up for
| success.
|
| I've noticed folks sometimes fall into the trap of trying to
| give their kids nothing to teach them lessons. Early help in
| life has compounding effects.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> We are slightly terrified at all times of losing these
| things._
|
| This is something that folks that came from The Other Side of the
| Tracks have. I came from there. People my age have grandparents
| (or, in some cases, parents) that lived through The Great
| Depression, and they have this, writ large.
|
| I still basically live pretty low on the hog, even though it is
| not necessary. This recession is an annoyance; not a disaster. I
| lost more money, earlier this year, than many folks make all
| year. It sucks, and I'm not wealthy enough to "shrug it off," but
| I am not existentially terrified. I know that things will be OK
| in a couple of years, and I'm not in danger of burning my
| principal before things start recovering.
|
| I loved his previous article, and I'm glad he's doing better.
| lampshades wrote:
| > When you get a good job, someone will ask you how much money
| you want to dump into your 401k. You will probably say "none"
| because you are conditioned to believe that trouble is just
| around the corner
|
| This was relatable. While never having to support a family of 4
| on 35k, I did have a period of my life where I was very broke on
| my own. When I finally started to climb out of my situation, I
| remember thinking people were idiots for putting money in a 401k.
| You can't get it out if you need it. It took 5 years of stable
| employment before I actually started putting money into a 401k.
| lrvick wrote:
| 20 years ago I was living in a $100 car with 3 immovable doors
| that I had to push start and repair every day. I was working 80
| hour weeks doing day labor in the mornings and telemarketing in
| the evenings. I also sometimes did truck deliveries, street
| magic, random tech gigs from craigslist, PC repair. If there was
| a craigslist ad with a problem I would learn enough to solve it
| well enough to get paid and get referrals.
|
| Any free day I was trying to get better at programming on college
| library computers I was able to use by copying other peoples
| student IDs off sign in sheets.
|
| I made maybe $1500 a month which barely covered food, gas, and
| helping out people even poorer than me while trying to slowly
| save for a vehicle that could make a cross country trip to
| somewhere with other work options.
|
| I eventually got a $1000 vehicle that only needed weekly repair,
| used it to relocate to a more populated area, upgraded to an
| abandoned trailer with borrowed electricity and no septic, and
| got a retail job.
|
| Now I had more time to build tech skills. Eventually got the
| confidence to take on contract coding jobs, and then the
| confidence to do that full time.
|
| Eventually I knew enough to pass interviews and get a salaried
| software engineering role. Then another. Turns out there was
| plenty of demand for some of the skills developed along the way
| doing random coding and infosec gigs, managing cheap DIY servers
| for thousands of users of random open source side projects of
| mine, and building custom Linux kernels for whatever random old
| hardware I could find.
|
| Worked my from software engineering roles into running security
| departments for a series of well known companies by finding major
| security bugs at every employer. Turns out security is one of
| those things everyone seems to think is someone else's job, so I
| always made it mine.
|
| Now I own a home and have a family in Silicon Valley. I own a
| security consulting company where my team and I have several
| audit projects and retainer contracts at any given time helping
| major companies spot security flaws, and build defenses.
|
| Going from homeless to the comfort I currently enjoy was a long
| road. I never fully shake the fear I could lose it all and be
| back on the streets at any time. That is only amplified now that
| others depend on me. I never took 401ks because I expect life or
| the institutions will fail me before I ever see it back. Never
| 100% trust banks because I worry funds will be stolen via
| identity theft or go negative into overdraft hell I can never pay
| back, no matter how high the balance. I always have the need to
| have multiple income sources so no single one of them drying up
| can sink me. The need to learn new skills constantly so I always
| deliver results most others cannot so people keep paying me. The
| need to prep for every worst case scenario I can think of always
| for myself and those that pay me.
|
| In the end, I think this pressure of always feeling a bit chased
| has served me well and still does. I also do not know that I
| would recommend this path to anyone, but I am generally pretty
| happy these days so I will take it.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| And this is why Sweden has a more creative economy than the US.
| The state takes a bit more from the rich so that those at the
| bottom have at least, decent housing, health care, nutrition and
| education.
|
| In a capitalist system the top 10% will always be richer and the
| bottom 10% will always struggle. And this would still be true
| even if a magic genie came a long and made everyone ten times
| smarter.
|
| This isn't a knock on capitalism. Capitalism scales where many
| other systems don't. (I'm looking at you communism.)
| busterarm wrote:
| Ask any Swede. Sweden is a capitalist country. They have social
| programs. They used to have a Socialist economy for a few
| decades but famously abandoned it in the early 90s after
| finding that their GDP had remained completely flat and their
| citizens went through crazy lengths to avoid tax (e.g. ABBA and
| their wardrobes)
|
| Comparing Sweden as an opposing choice to Capitalism doesn't
| make any sense.
| thehappypm wrote:
| By what measure is Sweden more creative? The US is the cultural
| capital of the West, Hollywood, art, music..
| draw_down wrote:
| > Middle-class-or-better people don't like to talk about money...
| You realize you are talking to people who have a problem you
| can't solve for them.
|
| This extends to not wanting to discuss salary with coworkers, by
| the way. The common conception is the bosses want to hold us down
| so they tell us not to talk about it. But I've been in multiple
| situations where I didn't want to.
|
| I knew I was making more, and it wasn't because i was the best-
| in some cases I was lucky, sometimes I just negotiated better.
| But in either case there's really no upside to disclosing.
| diob wrote:
| I disagree that there isn't an upside.
|
| In general, there would be more upward pressure on wages if
| information asymmetry went away. It's especially insidious for
| folks in the lower class, since they don't realize the extent
| to which they are being underpaid.
| draw_down wrote:
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >I knew I was making more
|
| >But in either case there's really no upside to disclosing.
|
| There certainly is upside to discussing for anyone earning less
| than median. But as you write, as long as everyone thinks they
| are earning more than the median, individually they have no
| upside.
|
| Obviously, everyone cannot be earning more than median, but
| more importantly, price transparency shows the movement of
| supply and demand curves, across industries and even across
| businesses in the same industry.
| draw_down wrote:
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Good lord I can relate.
|
| The freaking idea that money makes problems go away is so
| powerful.
|
| That's basically what I noticed as I get less poor.
|
| Automobile problems...pay for it. Medical problems...pay for it.
| Did you get a parking ticket? Pay it. Now you don't have to worry
| about being towed.
|
| America really crushes the poor in many respects.
|
| If the poor had other options, like Job corps, or a sharecropper
| type situation where they can stay rent free and learn skills....
| that would be one thing. But there's nothing available to poor
| people other than to just fucking be poor or get lucky...and
| getting lucky seems like a rediculous way to build a society.
|
| Then you combine that with massive offshoring and automation.....
| It makes you realize capitalism is kind of bullshit if there's 7
| billion people in the world willing to do the job.
|
| It's a total clown world.
| jccodez wrote:
| dollar bill blues. i can relate and you are a good writer. you
| should consider writing a book. there are hungry people who need
| hope. cheers.
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