A person doesn't realize how fortunate we are

[braumeister]

This ties in to my occasional assertion that "millionaire" is increasingly referring to someone with an annual income at that level, not merely investable assets at that level.
Not everyone agrees with me...

Makes sense to me. When I was young, a million bucks was an unfathomably huge sum of money that would let a person live in luxury their entire life. "The Millionaire" was a very popular TV show that dramatized it every week.

 

[badatmath]

Just bought gas a couple of hours ago. Paid $3.89. Last gas I bought was $5.30. Nice!

It is around $5 here in AZ last I looked.

 

[GrayHare]

Stanley and Danko will have to retitle their updated book to "The Billionaire Next Door".

 

[NW-Bound]

It makes me sad that many of us seem to not remember how hard it is when you're 24 and starting out. Unless of course you jumped out of school into a well paid job? Most don't.

I did jump out of graduate school into a well-paid job. It was enough for me to pay 14% mortgage rate for my 1st home in 1980.

But do you want to hear about my years before that? Nah. I remember it well though.

 

[NW-Bound]

I consider myself fortunate to not have been born when a dinosaur or saber-toothed tiger could have eaten me.

If you were, perhaps you would have the skills to evade the dinosaur, and the strength to fend off the tiger.

 

[momoney]

And that becomes a death-spiral as the government increases assistance programs for more and more people which somebody has to pay for.

And the money from these assistance programs goes back into a lot of the public companies we all invest in. These companies lobby for these big assistance programs. Can the average taxpayer really fight that?

 

[Andre1969]

the "millionaire's surtaxes" doesn't need to drop down to $250k. Inflation will come to meet it and everyone will soon be a worthless "millionaire". I only wish this was a ha-ha joke.

Yep, inflation is a real buzzkill. Back when I first got serious about investing for the future, I figured that if I got to the point that I had a paid-off house and $1M, I'd be happy. That was around 2000. However, I always meant for that goal to be in inflation-adjusted dollars, as I knew that by the time I hit $1M, it wouldn't be worth nearly as much as it was in 2000.

By the time I did hit $1M, in February of 2015, that was like $720K in January 2000 dollars. And that $1M I did hit, would be the equivalent of around $1.42M in today's dollars!

And in order to hit my original goal I set back in 2000 I'd need to be at roughly $1.972M and a paid off house, today.

Still, even though it's not as rich as it once was, I'd say $1M is still a noble milestone. I wonder when we'll get to the point that, thanks to inflation, hitting the $1M mark feels like it's no big deal? Or, maybe it will always be a big deal, as a milestone, but just not really an end goal? Like, for example, $100,000 was probably a goal for a lot of people, once upon a time. And even though $100K isn't enough to retire lavishly on, it's still a pretty major milestone, on your accumulation journey.

 

[Sunset]

Of course, my posit is an academic one. In reality, most of us here should be able to weather a doubling of taxes and prices as noted by the OP and a few other posts.

The good thing is it's a self correcting issue, should some of us be taxed and inflated into the poorhouse, we will suddenly qualify for all the "Free" stuff poor folks get

 

[CO-guy]

Most likely diesels... they call it rolling coal...
Our diesel is quite and smokeless...

Yep! I'm familiar with the term.

We hardly drive at all. We have one vehicle between the two of us. I filled up with gas last Saturday morning and reset the 'trip' odometer as usual. My better-half just returned from her weekly supermarket trip and we've driven 17.4 miles in the past 7 days. Most of that was for my volunteer shift at the local senior center yesterday. Otherwise, we bike around town or take the bus up to the resort to ski/ride.

Obviously inflation will affect us all, but when I'm only filling up once a month, I get the full $1.00/gallon fuel points discount at Kroger every time.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

I honestly can say I never have been in bad enough shape to scrimp just to get by and had to alter my ways

My DB and I were raised by our divorced single DM. She definitely scrimped just to get by. In the summers, I remember her sending the two of us out to 'raid gardens' around the neighborhoods to get a few vegetables to add to whatever cheap dinner she was making for us when I was around 10 or 11 years old.

Of course, while stealing isn't right, she told us to look for gardens where there was an abundance. Like if a garden had 50 cucumbers growing in it, take a cucumber but leave the three tomatoes if that's all they had. If there was another garden with dozens of tomatoes, but not much else, we were to get a tomato from that one.

That was probably the worst off we ever were. I had friends who would shoplift food from grocery stores. I know stealing is stealing, but we were poor and rationalized it as doing what we had to do. Our DM was a heavy smoker, and liked to drink as well, and if she hadn't had those addictions, we might not have had to resort to 'raiding gardens' for vegetables. To this day I've never had a drink of alcohol or smoked anything.

In the fall, I would go door-to-door offering to rake people's yards for $5, and once November came around, we could make extra money shovelling sidewalks and driveways in the neighborhood. When I turned 12 I got a paper route and helped out when I could. Unfortunately, 'helping out' meant DM would 'borrow' some of my route collection $ to buy cigarettes. Sometimes I would have enough to pay for the papers, but not much left over for my monthly 'pay'.

As soon as I got my first 'real j*b', with an actual paycheck, I tried to always put 10% into a savings account if I could. I worked a few j*bs during high school and had three work-study j*bs while in college, but I doubt if I was able to save much more than $1,000 during that time. After college (which I did not finish - long story and this one's long enough) I was able to get my first full-time j*b which paid $3.35/hour. I moved back in with DM, as she wasn't in the best of health. We both contributed to household expenses, but she was still smoking and drinking away a lot of what she earned. I tried to get her to the doctor more often, but she didn't like what they had to tell her, so she rarely went.

Then when I was 24, she passed away somewhat unexpectedly and I became responsible for 100% of everything. That's when I started working two full-time j*bs to try to get the house out of foreclosure and get the bills into my own name. You grow up fast when you're the only one around and things need taking care of. (My DB had joined the Marines and was in Japan)

Around the time I turned 26, I found a much better paying j*b and then was really able to start saving. When I was 30, I read both "The Millionaire Next Door", and "The Armchair Millionaire", and the rest, as they say, was history.

While I wasn't financially fortunate when I was young, Street is correct. I feel very fortunate today. Thank you for the reminder.

 

[athena53]

Yep, inflation is a real buzzkill. Back when I first got serious about investing for the future, I figured that if I got to the point that I had a paid-off house and $1M, I'd be happy. That was around 2000.

I used to hang out on a site called creditboards, mostly for people trying to improve their credit but also discussing other personal finance topics. (I checked- it's still up and running.) One poster said he figured if he could just accumulate $1 million he could invest it at 8% and live happily ever after on $80,000/year. This was around the time of the financial crisis. Yes, I DID tell him the many reasons that would not work.

 

[audreyh1]

What is this Seattle NYC anomaly?

 

[Dtail]

What is this Seattle NYC anomaly?

Hmm waiting for this interesting response.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire]

Jealousy of better off people runs rampant and is the cause of some of the strife we see today though most will never admit to it. Eat the rich is alive and well.

 

[marko]

What is this Seattle NYC anomaly?

Sorry. Not gonna bite on that worm here. I'll DM you.

 

[jimbee]

The aggregate got what they voted for.

You still have feet. You can still vote with them.

More nonsense.

 

[CalBird]

When food and energy cost is such a small percentage of your asset, you don’t pay much attention to temporary/transitory inflation.

 

[Koolau]

More nonsense.

Easy to say. I'm talking "options" not necessarily pulling the trigger. But ignoring an option is nonsense to me.

Depends what you're committed to and what you are willing to pay for the gummint "you" elected. Moving is clearly not for everyone and I'd rather stay and fight in many situations. But at some point, moving becomes a viable option. Check out the ratio of U-hauls into a state vs out of a state. Very telling. Nonsense? I guess it all depends on your own attitude and your willingness to accept the status quo. Likely not for most of us here, but for some folks, it's an economic necessity to move. I guarantee that SOME level of "issues" would make anyone move eventually.

I moved states. Not for gummint issues per se, though my taxes went down - and I'm not talking about a little - I'm talking a lot. As always, YMMV.

 

[kgtest]

Super Blessed.