audreyh1
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
OK - so we're all smart enough to take full advantage of our good luck. 
Audrey
Audrey
How many are simply lucky?
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mathjak107
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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never confuse genius with a bull market
mathjak107 said:
An excellent point!
Those of us who were positioned to benefit from the bull, through our genius or luck, must now be ready for what comes next. Is the bull to rise again, replay the great depression or will it turn into a sideways market for the rest of eternity?
In the words of a great philosopher -- "Come on punk. Do you feel lucky?"
After being a ultra risk intolerant "investing" only in CDs and having accumulated a large nestegg, I saw how well my younger brothers were doing in the stock market, so I decided to invest a significant amount of my hard saved money at the end of 98. Talk about bad luck. Wish I had stayed in CDs.
If they dont get the desired results they can just blame The Gov, or Welfare, or those socialist europeans or something. It's luck whne they wnat to exp-lain away things. It's their hard workd and all that stuff when things have turned out well for them
Michael Moore
Recycles dryer sheets
We both went to work as Feds as our first "real" jobs after graduating from university. When I found that I could take a multiple-choice test (the PACE) and get a job offer, I was sold! The CSRS benefit package was also an inducement.
Luck was in meeting my sweetheart in L.A. and following her to San Francisco (where she's from). We didn't live an extravagent lifestyle, but racing motocycles generally meant I had limited cash reserves. I also learned that sending a big chunk of my pay out each month to service credit card debt was not very entertaining, so I did get out of that habit, which I guess is something that some people can't claim.
We were in our early 30s when we bought our house in 09/1985, just barely squeeking in before the market jumped and would have priced us out. It drained our (mostly her's as she's always been more frugal than I) savings, and we had to borrow some money from my mother for a month to pad the bank account so we could qualify.
Once we got in the house we went through several refinances over the next five years, moving from the 30 year ARM we had to take to get in, to a 30 year fixed, and finally to a 15 year fixed. We paid the house off in 18 years.
Our experiences with investing have been "unlucky" as we've tended to sit on the sidelines expecting the run-ups to be a fluke, and then finally putting our savings in right before things tanked and seeing quick and substantial losses.
But we did the full TSP amounts (though we seemed to pick bad times to move into the C fund too, so everything is in the G fund - we're really gunshy), we were in the highest geographic locality pay area which both boosted our take home as well as being counted in the retirement comps, and we were GS11/12s for the majority of our careers.
Not having kids undoubtedly helped a great deal, and taking advantages of early outs (with the included financial hit for leaving early) got us both out when we turned 52 (a year apart).
If it weren't for the pensions we'd undoubtedly be working up until "normal" retirement age, if not beyond, because we sure don't have anything like the portfolios many of you do. But we were "lucky" in picking a good career path that provided stable and pretty decent income. Watching our friends who worked in private industry go through layoffs, corporate bankruptcies and the like certainly gave us plenty of incentive to stay Feds.
cheers,
Michael
The CSRS benefit package was also an inducement.Luck was in meeting my sweetheart in L.A. and following her to San Francisco (where she's from). We didn't live an extravagent lifestyle, but racing motocycles generally meant I had limited cash reserves. I also learned that sending a big chunk of my pay out each month to service credit card debt was not very entertaining, so I did get out of that habit, which I guess is something that some people can't claim.
We were in our early 30s when we bought our house in 09/1985, just barely squeeking in before the market jumped and would have priced us out. It drained our (mostly her's as she's always been more frugal than I) savings, and we had to borrow some money from my mother for a month to pad the bank account so we could qualify.
Once we got in the house we went through several refinances over the next five years, moving from the 30 year ARM we had to take to get in, to a 30 year fixed, and finally to a 15 year fixed. We paid the house off in 18 years.
Our experiences with investing have been "unlucky" as we've tended to sit on the sidelines expecting the run-ups to be a fluke, and then finally putting our savings in right before things tanked and seeing quick and substantial losses.
But we did the full TSP amounts (though we seemed to pick bad times to move into the C fund too, so everything is in the G fund - we're really gunshy), we were in the highest geographic locality pay area which both boosted our take home as well as being counted in the retirement comps, and we were GS11/12s for the majority of our careers.
Not having kids undoubtedly helped a great deal, and taking advantages of early outs (with the included financial hit for leaving early) got us both out when we turned 52 (a year apart).
If it weren't for the pensions we'd undoubtedly be working up until "normal" retirement age, if not beyond, because we sure don't have anything like the portfolios many of you do. But we were "lucky" in picking a good career path that provided stable and pretty decent income. Watching our friends who worked in private industry go through layoffs, corporate bankruptcies and the like certainly gave us plenty of incentive to stay Feds.
cheers,
Michael
lazygood4nothinbum
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i was a cheap & lazygoodfornothinbum who got lucky and then wound up with an inheritance ta boot. life, ya never know what tomorrow brings.
Don't know if it is luck or planning but I would attribute the following factors for financial success thus far:
(1) Above average income. Two professional salaries for majority of last 27 years.
(2) Above average saving rate. Lived off of 1 to 1.5 salaries and saved the rest.
(3) Good investmenting practices. Always contributed max to 401ks. Learned about long term market return, dollar cost averaging, low cost mutual funds, efficient market theory, etc. in mid 30s after a couple of false starts with stock brokers and have basically been DCAing after tax money into Vanguard, TRPrice, etc. ever since.
(4) Did inherit some money. It is currently less that 20% of total net worth.
So is that good planning or luck? Don't really know. Sort of like the nature versus nurture debate.
Did DW and I save because we were smart and planned or because we were lucky enough to have depression era parents that drilled in the importance and started the savings habit at a young age or maybe it was the DNA inherited from scandinavian and chinese ancestors that programmed us to save (i.e. store food for the winter) or risk going hungry? Don't know but in either case when the aggravation level goes up at work and I think that I really don't have to put up with this BS if I don't want to it makes me very glad that I did.
MB
(1) Above average income. Two professional salaries for majority of last 27 years.
(2) Above average saving rate. Lived off of 1 to 1.5 salaries and saved the rest.
(3) Good investmenting practices. Always contributed max to 401ks. Learned about long term market return, dollar cost averaging, low cost mutual funds, efficient market theory, etc. in mid 30s after a couple of false starts with stock brokers and have basically been DCAing after tax money into Vanguard, TRPrice, etc. ever since.
(4) Did inherit some money. It is currently less that 20% of total net worth.
So is that good planning or luck? Don't really know. Sort of like the nature versus nurture debate.
Did DW and I save because we were smart and planned or because we were lucky enough to have depression era parents that drilled in the importance and started the savings habit at a young age or maybe it was the DNA inherited from scandinavian and chinese ancestors that programmed us to save (i.e. store food for the winter) or risk going hungry? Don't know but in either case when the aggravation level goes up at work and I think that I really don't have to put up with this BS if I don't want to it makes me very glad that I did.
MB
rogersteciak
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To get a good job (so that you have a good income), get a good education. Then pay yourself first (i.e., fund the maximum allowed into tax-advantaged accounts, along with systematically investing 10% of your gross paycheck into taxable accounts) and live well below your means (i.e., invest your raises rather than spend them). Invest in minimally-correlated asset classes (i.e., large cap, medium and small cap, international, and REITs). Accumulate credit card debt only in emergencies (otherwise, pay them off in full each month) and then pay off that high-interest debt as quickly as possible.
Prepare a long-term spreadsheet on yourself so that you can see how an additional $100 a month of investing today translates into thousands of dollars of wealth a couple of decades from now. This becomes a great motivator because thousands of dollars a couple of decades from now is worth a lot more than $100 a month right now that you would otherwise spend on things you will eventually sell for $1 each at a garage sale.
How do I know this works? It took me a couple of decades to figure it out (I wised up at age 40). I'm glad I went through the struggle to buy a house when I was in my early 30s because that has paid off well also. I believe all it really takes is will power and discipline to become financially independent and retire early and that "secret formula" is available for only $25 in a good book on wealth building.
Prepare a long-term spreadsheet on yourself so that you can see how an additional $100 a month of investing today translates into thousands of dollars of wealth a couple of decades from now. This becomes a great motivator because thousands of dollars a couple of decades from now is worth a lot more than $100 a month right now that you would otherwise spend on things you will eventually sell for $1 each at a garage sale.
How do I know this works? It took me a couple of decades to figure it out (I wised up at age 40). I'm glad I went through the struggle to buy a house when I was in my early 30s because that has paid off well also. I believe all it really takes is will power and discipline to become financially independent and retire early and that "secret formula" is available for only $25 in a good book on wealth building.
planning101
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I like this quote :
What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient, but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, of uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully
by Charles Victor Cherbuliez
On a personal note, I think I'm lucky to find this website!
What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient, but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, of uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully
by Charles Victor Cherbuliez
On a personal note, I think I'm lucky to find this website!
planning101 said:I like this quote :
What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient, but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, of uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully
by Charles Victor Cherbuliez
On a personal note, I think I'm lucky to find this website!
you were lucky to have the motivation to luckily find this forum.
Sometimes it is 90% luck and 10% motivation/sweat.
The 1st apartment I got many moon years ago was just that.
I had given up on finding an affordable apartment through the newspapers and that Sunday, I did not plan to get the Times (saved 50 cents). Late in the morning, I took the subway to meet a friend by 12PM. I went to the last car as usual and scattered on the floor were a bunch of discarted NY times sections (litter bugs), one being the real estate section (thank the lord). I found 1 apartment for $57/month. Turned out to be rent-controlled. Finding the RE section at that moment in time was 90% luck, getting that apartment was a whole other story.
The 1st apartment I got many moon years ago was just that.
I had given up on finding an affordable apartment through the newspapers and that Sunday, I did not plan to get the Times (saved 50 cents). Late in the morning, I took the subway to meet a friend by 12PM. I went to the last car as usual and scattered on the floor were a bunch of discarted NY times sections (litter bugs), one being the real estate section (thank the lord). I found 1 apartment for $57/month. Turned out to be rent-controlled. Finding the RE section at that moment in time was 90% luck, getting that apartment was a whole other story.
Well, I won't vote because I'm not ER'd (28, still too young without a lot of luck )
However, I thought I'd make the point that often you have to put yourself out there in order to let luck happen. Specifically, I won't win the lottery because I never buy tickets.
So you're buying tickets for life's cash lottery when you join startups, when you invest in stocks, when you decide to purchase a house. Any of these actions have potential to generate you a windfall.
I'd be curious to know how many people narrowly missed "being lucky" as well. For example (just one of a few I have already): My wife and I were buying stocks through her company for a few years, and the stock hovered at around $7-8 for awhile. We had obtained a few thousand shares. Then due to some circumstances, we sold the shares to pay off debts (got around $25k or so) and stopped contributing for a couple years. Not too bright. During this time, the stock price rocketed up to the mid 20's. I've calculated that if we'd kept those shares, and contributed for those years, we'd have somewhere in the order of 7k shares, valued at around $180k or so. Not a bad chunk of change for someone as young as us. Anyway, it was certainly a valuable lesson, and we no longer stop contributing to retirement accounts simply because we're having financial issues. I know it hurts too much to miss a good opportunity.
) However, I thought I'd make the point that often you have to put yourself out there in order to let luck happen. Specifically, I won't win the lottery because I never buy tickets.
So you're buying tickets for life's cash lottery when you join startups, when you invest in stocks, when you decide to purchase a house. Any of these actions have potential to generate you a windfall.
I'd be curious to know how many people narrowly missed "being lucky" as well. For example (just one of a few I have already): My wife and I were buying stocks through her company for a few years, and the stock hovered at around $7-8 for awhile. We had obtained a few thousand shares. Then due to some circumstances, we sold the shares to pay off debts (got around $25k or so) and stopped contributing for a couple years. Not too bright. During this time, the stock price rocketed up to the mid 20's. I've calculated that if we'd kept those shares, and contributed for those years, we'd have somewhere in the order of 7k shares, valued at around $180k or so. Not a bad chunk of change for someone as young as us. Anyway, it was certainly a valuable lesson, and we no longer stop contributing to retirement accounts simply because we're having financial issues. I know it hurts too much to miss a good opportunity.
haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I guess many if not most of us have been lucky, over and over. I know I have been. But still, we had the maturity not to piss it away. We might have easily been like so many lottery winners whose net worth goes from $0->$5Million->$0, in the space of a few short years. I haven't earned very much money in my life, but it has had a high coefficient of stickiness. It seems that many here have a similar story.
Ha
It seems that many here have a similar story.Ha
newyorklady
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I knew a girl who inherited 5 million from grandparents, but parents were even richer. She wasted the whole 5 milllion on god knows what and then her parents company went under a few years later. So, you need luck AND brains.
My professor in college told us in the class room once
"LUCK USUALLY COMES TO HARD WORKING PEOPLE, THE LAZY PEOPLE NEVER SEEMS TO HAVE ANY LUCK..."
Now that i am an old man, such statement makes alot of sense. Here is one example, my friends and i studied together in college (group of five), when the the final exam came, all of us know the answer for 4 out of 6 questions and we all guessed for the answer on the last two question.
For some miracle reasons, the guy that study the hardest always seems to get the 5th and sometime the 6th answer correct and he sincerely told us that he guessed at the answer. and he does it several time over.
Amazing. that's all i can say.
For me and TW, all our life "luck" seems to be the case. We worked hard but luck is the major factor for us to be where we are.
life is 60% luck and 40% hard work, that's a 100% true. i know thousands of people work hard everyday and still don't have much to show for.
enuff
"LUCK USUALLY COMES TO HARD WORKING PEOPLE, THE LAZY PEOPLE NEVER SEEMS TO HAVE ANY LUCK..."
Now that i am an old man, such statement makes alot of sense. Here is one example, my friends and i studied together in college (group of five), when the the final exam came, all of us know the answer for 4 out of 6 questions and we all guessed for the answer on the last two question.
For some miracle reasons, the guy that study the hardest always seems to get the 5th and sometime the 6th answer correct and he sincerely told us that he guessed at the answer. and he does it several time over.
Amazing. that's all i can say.
For me and TW, all our life "luck" seems to be the case. We worked hard but luck is the major factor for us to be where we are.
life is 60% luck and 40% hard work, that's a 100% true. i know thousands of people work hard everyday and still don't have much to show for.
enuff
wabmester
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Ceberon said:
That's a good question, but I assume most of those people aren't posting here. For example, I've known people who ER'd around 2000, but had to go back to work by 2001. They don't post here.
I turned down a job with Microsoft in 1987. Bad move.
I turned down a job with AOL in 1996. Another bad move.
Decided to start my own little software company instead. Turned out to be a pretty good move, but I know the net worth of some of those guys who interviewed me at Microsoft in 1987. Ouch! It still hurts....
mathjak107
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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remember we rarely regret the things we do,,,its usually the things we didnt do....................
free4now
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Life isn't fair. Exactly half of the population gets above-median returns on their efforts, and exactly half get below-median returns.
I'm definitely in the half that have gotten better financial returns on my efforts than most. In some other areas of life besides finances I've gotten worse returns on my efforts than most. I'm not lucky or unlucky, just human.
EDIT: changed mean to median... that'll teach me to post late at night way after the median and mean hour for most go to sleep
Anyway, my point is that there is no such thing as "getting exactly what you deserve". If "what you deserve" was the median return on effort, then half of the world gets more than they deserve and half gets less. I suppose we could call those who get more than median "lucky" and those who get less than median "unlucky", as long as we realize that everyone is both lucky and unlucky in different areas of life and at different times.
I'm definitely in the half that have gotten better financial returns on my efforts than most. In some other areas of life besides finances I've gotten worse returns on my efforts than most. I'm not lucky or unlucky, just human.
EDIT: changed mean to median... that'll teach me to post late at night way after the median and mean hour for most go to sleep
Anyway, my point is that there is no such thing as "getting exactly what you deserve". If "what you deserve" was the median return on effort, then half of the world gets more than they deserve and half gets less. I suppose we could call those who get more than median "lucky" and those who get less than median "unlucky", as long as we realize that everyone is both lucky and unlucky in different areas of life and at different times.
shorttimer
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I'm lucky that we realized how much easier it is to save money with no debt and we started living way below our means. We profited from the stock market run-up, but you have to have something in there in the first place. We had put the max in 401K for a number of years by then.
Also, marrying a frugal spouse greatly tipped the scales in my favor.
Also, marrying a frugal spouse greatly tipped the scales in my favor.
Robert the Red
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Maybe he's assuming a symmetrical distribution of returns where the mean equals the median.Robert the Red said:
At least that's what I was thinking.
Yes, but you can bask in the warm fuzzy glow of knowing that you still have ethics, let along knowing that your ethics are intact. Heck, people still talk to you at parties. You don't have the world simultaneously loathing & hating you for buggy software. You didn't single-handedly destroy billions of value of one of the biggest ole-time media companies in existence. I bet Gates & Case go to bed every night wishing they could be more like you...wab said:
Besides, Steve & his cousin Ed are starting to get into trouble over some of their recent investments, overseen by the previous generation. http://starbulletin.com/2006/04/24/business/story01.html And Ed made the mistake of deciding to challenge Hawaii's "junior" senator in the upcoming election without clearing the idea with the senior senator. At least you don't have to go around begging for contributions to pay the bills for your failed election campaign! Right?
