Financial successful beyond your wildest dreams??

[dunkelblau]

I am going to say yes but with a caveat.

When I was 17 I told my mom I was going to retire by the time I was 40. Now this was mostly the impossible arrogance of a teenager. I had almost forgotten about it but my mom reminded me of it in my early 30s and became a goal. By then I was living in Silicon Valley and becoming rich wasn't all that far fetched a goal.

I also had different dreams at different times and circumstances. When I graduated from high school in the midwest my hope was for something like a six figure income and a million in the bank. But after attending graduate school in silicon valley, I woke up to what serious money looks like and my goals shifted accordingly. So while I may be in a good financial position from the perspective of the average American, by local standards it's been a disappointment. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone-- if you look up contentment surveys we're not doing all that well even if the numbers suggest otherwise.

For me this question is completely decoupled from standard of living. Mine hasn't changed since graduate school and I don't foresee any movement even at ten times my net worth. It's really a matter of what have I brought into the world and the answer is less than what I had expected at the time I finished school.

 

[ziggy29]

Well, I guess I'd say we were successful enough that I could get laid off at the age of 47 and I don't feel and significant financial pressure to go back to work -- and I tend to be someone who is conservative to the point of paranoia when it comes to financial planning and forecasting. I may have never made the outlandish salaries, but I did fine -- and saved enough of it -- long enough that in retrospect, I guess it was quite the success even though I only earn about $200 a month these days....

 

[Sniggle]

Nope, I have not. I have a few of my high school friends that have done quite well, and I have an uncle worth lots.

The reasons are many, but it rests pretty much upon the fact that although I am quite capable, I don't apply myself as well as I could. I do get to spend more time with my son as a benefit of not killing myself.

However, I have muddled through and find myself looking good for a slightly early retirement in 10 years or so, with 4 solid legs to my retirement stool (Mil pension, megacorp pension, 401K/ROTH, social security) solidly built, and a probable income in retirement that will exceed my income today.

I think once I cross the finish line and find myself sitting on a beach with my wife I may marvel some at were I am in relation to many of my peers.......

 

[Options]

I can see how LBYM/FIRE personality could well translate into better financial success. Some characteristics of typical LBYMer should be useful in business, like:
- Defined long-term goal (FIRE)
- Ongoing planning towards that goal (finances, post-ER activities, etc.)
- Working diligently towards the goal
- Budgeting discipline
- Maintaining real-world perspective
- Not wasting $$
- Getting the best bang for the buck

I'm sure there's more, but seems to me this LBYMer would tend to be more successful & productive than a rudderless soul who simply shows up for w#rk each morning.

Yep. Every one of them. Squared.

 

[RenoJay]

My net worth is well beyond what I ever expected, but alas, so is my spending.

 

[NoMoreJob]

My net worth is well beyond what I ever expected, but alas, so is my spending.

So true! Funny how that works.

 

[6miths]

Yes I would say beyond where I ever thought in $ terms! But hey, inflation is a bitch! Still all in all pretty good.

 

[jflynn4]

I clearly remember being joked with by coworkers on "being cheap" and "not wanting to live" while I was working and taking vacations to the local beaches while they were traveling to Europe or going on annual high end cruises. I was always being pushed to "get a new car" and, my favorite, "you really need to consider moving to a better house if you want to be seen as successful in this business." I also remember the "suggestions that I was hurting her future" when I sent my kid off to community college for two years rather than a major university. And I recall hearing side comments (that i wasn't supposed to hear) about my wife not working outside the house must be the reason we "struggled so much" with money.

It's kinda nice to be able to now stop by the old workplace and joke around with them about (starting at age 57) having the freedom to do what I want and the fact that I've been able to move to a beach town, have been able to travel extensively throughout the US and Canada (no interest in overseas travel) over the past 3 years. I've even broken down and bought the greatest invention of the past 100 years .... A Kuerig! Of course, I still drive a 12 year old car with 180,000 miles on it (and hope to keep it another 4 years).

Better than I ever dreamed? Not really. Planning, scrimping, and saving weren't part of any dream.

(Though it DOES aggravate the crap out of me when I hear people talk about how those who've managed to ER by doing the right things must've just "been lucky" because everyone knows "it's impossible to do in today's economy." Of course, they're generally having those conversations with each other while sipping on their second $5 cup of coffee).

 

[Bestwifeever]

I clearly remember being joked with by coworkers on "being cheap" and "not wanting to live" while I was working and taking vacations to the local beaches while they were traveling to Europe or going on annual high end cruises. I was always being pushed to "get a new car" and, my favorite, "you really need to consider moving to a better house if you want to be seen as successful in this business." I also remember the "suggestions that I was hurting her future" when I sent my kid off to community college for two years rather than a major university. And I recall hearing side comments (that i wasn't supposed to hear) about my wife not working outside the house must be the reason we "struggled so much" with money. It's kinda nice to be able to now stop by the old workplace and joke around with them about (starting at age 57) having the freedom to do what I want and the fact that I've been able to move to a beach town, have been able to travel extensively throughout the US and Canada (no interest in overseas travel) over the past 3 years. I've even broken down and bought the greatest invention of the past 100 years .... A Kuerig! Of course, I still drive a 12 year old car with 180,000 miles on it (and hope to keep it another 4 years). Better than I ever dreamed? Not really. Planning, scrimping, and saving weren't part of any dream. (Though it DOES aggravate the crap out of me when I hear people talk about how those who've managed to ER by doing the right things must've just "been lucky" because everyone knows "it's impossible to do in today's economy." Of course, they're generally having those conversations with each other while sipping on their second $5 cup of coffee).

Few things are sweeter in life than having the last laugh, even if it is done in private.

 

[brett]

I had the same sort of comments from a former manager. He leased 2 vehicles, kept buying larger and larger homes. I kept my car, which I very much liked, for 17 years. We bought small homes in better areas several times and benefited greatly from their appreciation (we did not experience a real estate bubble where we live).

I have been very comfortably retired for three years. He is probably still wondering how we did it.

 

[Dawg52]

I'm better off than I expected but hardly beyond my wildest dreams. Beyond expectations would be more accurate.

About the same here. Enough money to live the life I want, but certainly not the life of wild dreams. That would be more like lottery winners and who hasn't dreamed of a life like that at some point? But those are unrealistic dreams.

No complaints here.

 

[robnplunder]

+1

No one in my extended family had ever stayed on beyond age 16 at school, let alone gone to college, got a degree and earned enough to actually buy a house. I think I exceeded my parents' wildest dreams, even before I'd moved to America and paid for them to fly out and visit a few times.

Nicely done.

I grew up in 3rd world country's poor area and never thought I would be where I am now. Like you, I was the 1st one to graduate from college in my extended family. Poverty toughened me up, and motivated me to succeed financially. And I am proud to say that I did it the hard & honorable way - no help from anyone, not ripping others off, paying my share of tax, .... Now, I just need to figure out how to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

 

[traineeinvestor]

The numbers are much, much more than I ever thought I would need to FIRE. The lifestyle is about where I wanted it to be. The difference is a combination of inflation, children and moving to live in a very high cost city.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We are trying to move towards voluntary simplicity and just be happy with what we have. It is less work than becoming billionaires.

I read an article about a Silicon Valley investor bitter over something Microsoft did that prevented him from being a billionaire. He was only worth $300 million and had a private plane and pilot on staff. That stuck with me. He seemed less happy than we are even with all that money. If he was a billionaire he would probably be bitter over Bill Gates having more still. There are always going to be people richer or poorer, so if you have the basics met, maybe that is enough and the rest depends on your own personal attitude and not your bank account.

 

[jollystomper]

I read an article about a Silicon Valley investor bitter over something Microsoft did that prevented him from being a billionaire. He was only worth $300 million and had a private plane and pilot on staff. That stuck with me. He seemed less happy than we are even with all that money. If he was a billionaire he would probably be bitter over Bill Gates having more still. There are always going to be people richer or poorer, so if you have the basics met, maybe that is enough and the rest depends on your own personal attitude and not your bank account.

+1

When DW and I go back t our college reunions, we invariably run into classmates (fortunately only a minority) who from a monetary standpoint have a lot (this is an Ivy League school so we are talking real big bucks), but have a chip on their shoulder when they perceive that another classmate whom they deem "not as smart" has more. We've even had folks ask how we can be so happy without having made it into the "multimillionaire/corporate executive/Wall Street club". It is both amusing and sad at the same time.

 

[MBAustin]

We definitely have a higher net worth than I ever expected. Two main reasons:
- I listened to my father and started investing in mutual funds within a couple of months after starting my first job out of college and I've stayed fully invested throughout - never moved out of stocks when the market went down (although I have made my allocation a bit more conservative over the years)
- DH and I are very financially compatible and we naturally were LBYMers. I still remember when we were buying our first house together that the real estate agent was quite annoyed that we would only look at houses about half the price she thought we should look at based on our income. We decided to live as though we only had one income from the beginning so that if I decided to stay home with children at some point, we could manage OK. I ended up staying in the full-time workforce throughout and was the higher earner by quite a bit, with the gap increasing over the years, so we basically switched to living on my salary and saving his salary and my bonuses.

I still clip coupons and shop sales but I try not to sweat over spending money so much anymore. But it's a hard habit to break.

 

[eytonxav]

As to wildest dreams, I think many of us do not set our aspiration levels high enough, or if so, failed to act on those dreams. Nevertheless, as said many times, money alone is not a good measure of success, unlike happiness, and I would always opt for the later.

 

[HFWR]

I have some pretty wild dreams...

 

[NW-Bound]

As to wildest dreams, I think many of us do not set our aspiration levels high enough...

Being pragmatic, I set the limit to my wildest dream to being a decamillionaire. No point in thinking that I could be a centimillionaire if I saw no path for me to get there. And in the 0.1% world, a decamillionaire is nobody as there are a lot of homes that cost that much already. Forget about yacht and chopper!

But in practical terms, I have about 2X what I thought my NW would eventually be, back when I was in my 30s. Of course, money was worth more then. But then, my expenses now are also 2X what my 30-yr-old self thought I would spend in retirement.

So, in short no complaints. I am happy where I am, and if I can maintain this, it's a lot more than many people have.

 

[Alan]

I grew up in 3rd world country's poor area and never thought I would be where I am now. Like you, I was the 1st one to graduate from college in my extended family. Poverty toughened me up, and motivated me to succeed financially. And I am proud to say that I did it the hard & honorable way - no help from anyone, not ripping others off, paying my share of tax, .... Now, I just need to figure out how to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Well done, doesn't it feel good to have achieved all that? Just before I retired I was talking to an ex-pat friend of mine at the place I worked. He had come from a similar background from an industrial town about 10 miles down the cost from me, and now was a very well paid manager and actually a year or two older than me. He said that he would love to retire as well and didn't know how I'd managed to be able to retire at 55. I told him that I hadn't just bought a Mercedes convertible brand new from the dealer, or the latest and greatest unbelievably expensive golf clubs to play at a club that costs $100,000 to join. (I have no idea what the ongoing costs are, but I'm sure it is high). But this was the life that he had aspired to, and achieved, but to maintain it meant to keep working all hours in the day under loads of stress. (I actually worked with him a lot and was a friend of his so I knew how much stress he was under).

 

[daylatedollarshort]

On a world wide scale, many posters here are wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world's population, even in the developed countries -

OECD Better Life Index

"Across the OECD, the average household net-adjusted disposable income is 23 047 USD a year."

 

[Letj]

On a world wide scale, many posters here are wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world's population, even in the developed countries -

OECD Better Life Index

"Across the OECD, the average household net-adjusted disposable income is 23 047 USD a year."

Developing countries like Chile and Mexico bring down the average.

 

[NW-Bound]

On a world wide scale, many posters here are wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world's population, even in the developed countries -

OECD Better Life Index

"Across the OECD, the average household net-adjusted disposable income is 23 047 USD a year."

Thanks for a very interesting link!

I would like to add another excerpt from the above Web page.

"Across the OECD, the average household net financial wealth is estimated at 40 516 USD.

The cost of living is taken into account in income and wealth figures as the reported values are adjusted by Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs). PPPs reflect the differences in cost of living for a comparable amount of goods and services consumed by households."​

But what I find most interesting is that despite all the shortcomings that the US has compared to other countries as people keep saying, the chart right on the top of this Web page, the so called "Better Life Index", shows how life in the US (#1) is better by a big jump from the next countries in the list, namely Switzerland (#2) and Luxembourg (#3).

People do not migrate to the US for no reasons!

 

[Elbata]

I read an article about a Silicon Valley investor bitter over something Microsoft did that prevented him from being a billionaire. He was only worth $300 million and had a private plane and pilot on staff. That stuck with me. He seemed less happy than we are even with all that money. If he was a billionaire he would probably be bitter over Bill Gates having more still. There are always going to be people richer or poorer, so if you have the basics met, maybe that is enough and the rest depends on your own personal attitude and not your bank account.

Played golf with members of a country club. Nice golf course and they were all retired. Got to tell ya, I was surprised by the amount of bithching and complaining. Nice guys though besides that.

 

[NW-Bound]

... And I am proud to say that I did it the hard & honorable way - no help from anyone, not ripping others off, paying my share of tax, ...

That's also how I think I have led my life, except that I did receive some financial assistance to get my degrees.

When the time came to finance my children college education, I figured I could bear the cost, hence never even knew what the FAFSA looked like (did not even know what it was called). My children would not be likely to get any assistance other than low interest loans, but I did not even want to get that.

Anyway, your philosophy contradicts your screen-name. If it's not a tongue-in-cheek choice, would you care to explain it?