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There is a class of pure gamblers who'd enjoy flipping a coin for a large portion of their net worth. In my case I will say that I have no interest in flipping coins for a millions though. I think it would have be at least $2 million if I won and $1 million if I lost to play that coin flip game. I guess looking at the long term returns of stocks vs bond that seems to about the right odds I am getting. Which is why like NW I'll keep my AA between 60-80% stocks, unless there are structural reasons that change the relative returns.
Even though I don't really have major spending plans, I have been watching/helping my mom give away her money to those she cares about and it provides a significant pleasure to both her and the receiver. I have too many year ahead of me to do this in a major way, but I am looking forward to doing when I get older. Yesterday I gave a big check on her behalf to my sister, and it actually shut me sister up for a full 10 minutes. Priceless
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I like money, though I do not have immediate use for more of it. But I'll find something, I am sure.
And there are only 2 ways of making it that I personally know: 1) working, and 2) by investing. For 10 years prior to full retirement, I had been making the low 6-figure with my part-time consulting work, and it quite often was enjoyable highly technical and specialized work. I stopped because I felt my time was running out, plus my children already got to the financial independence state (hope they will continue to prosper). So, this leaves investing as the only way now. And that's what the OP was asking about.
I never like gambling. I do not know any card game, or rather could not remember any game rule that was taught to me. Investing is more like a chess game; it's not over in one instant deal of cards. More than a chess game, even if you have made a mistake, you can change your mind once you realize the error sufficiently early, and still come out OK. It's also about fighting your inner greed and fear as well as the faceless crowd out there whom you have to bid against some time.
About what to use any extra money for, my sister-in-law just contacted my wife to see if we want to donate some more money to the 3rd-world charity organizations we have been giving to. I told my wife to go ahead, though we will not give as much as last year.
I have heard many people who have visited 2nd and 3rd world countries report back on the amount of joi de vivre present in the air and on faces.
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I wonder if we have a tendency to romanticize life in poorer places? I wouldn't mind betting that many of those people would love to have our incomes, if not our culture.
... people adept to life's hardship and still can find laughter. It is also easier to deal with poverty if you are surrounded by it...
Unless one is laying on the ground, all shriveled up from hunger, and waiting to die with flies crawling on the face, he usually has some relative happy moments: a better meal than normal, a successful harvest, an extra bonus or a raise from his employer, a loving gesture from his sweetheart. But it does not mean a poor person in a 3rd word country would decline a chance to migrate, legally I will add, to a developed country where he has a better opportunity to earn a better life.
