Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so boring to be a frugal rich person. So what if you have millions in the bank if you aren’t having fun? You can’t take it with you.

Because having no debt/paying for my kids college and giving them a leg up in life is more fun.

Honestly money is not the source of most of my fun nowadays. My relationships with friends and family are what give me joy and we have enough to have wonderful parties and go on (not super fancy) vacations with them. My hobbies- art and gardening and reading, also give me fun and joy and don’t cost a ton.. We would do this regardless of whether we were millionaires or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they allocated percentages to each category. Not sure I'd call all business owners dreamers (a guy with 3 dry cleaners is a dreamer??), but if you took savers/investors and regular business owners, that's probably 90% of all millionaires.

I think the guy with three dry cleaners could absolutely be a dreamer, if he built those dry cleaners from scratch and figured out how to make them successful. Sure, that seems like a boring business but running any business requires moving parts -- business owners often have big schemes around boring things like POS efficiency. But that's how they make their businesses work. If the guy inherited his first business or his parents were doing this, not so much. But if he had a vision for creating wealth by offering a service a lot of people need, and figured out how to do it, he dreamed big and made it happen. That takes guts and perseverance.

Of course, the dreamer who built wealth as a musician or a best-selling author sounds cooler. But the nuts and bolts of making that happen aren't that different -- you have to have a vision and you have to work hard and you have to convince other people that your vision is worthwhile. The guy with the dry cleaning business has more in common with the successful musician than either of them have in common with a law firm partner or someone in the saver-investor category, even if they have the same net worth.

Anonymous wrote:I'm the saver-investor I guess. My income of ca $35k was never high enough to save anything other than a down payment for a small condo. After over 10 years of paying the mortgage, I sold the condo and put equity into market. The stock went up ca 500% in 2 year.
Never had a job that offered 401k, there's not ladder to climb in my industry, and I don't want to own my own business in my 40's. I love working part time now and taking 1-2 month vacations several times a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so boring to be a frugal rich person. So what if you have millions in the bank if you aren’t having fun? You can’t take it with you.

We’re the saver/investor type. One reason is because we have to be if we want to get rich, we don’t have the personalities for the other types.

But to address your criticism, we do get to have fun with it. Once the mortgage is eliminated early, that frees up a lot of cash flow. Some for more investing, but also a lot for additional vacations. Also, we have a system where we’ll still making steady contributions into investments, including tax-advantaged vehicles, but we’re also happy to draw dividends from a portion of the portfolio for fun money.

It’s also a lot less stressful when you know that your money is (generally) returning more than your combined income. It takes away a lot of the anxiety around work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they allocated percentages to each category. Not sure I'd call all business owners dreamers (a guy with 3 dry cleaners is a dreamer??), but if you took savers/investors and regular business owners, that's probably 90% of all millionaires.

Mr. Jefferson was definitely a dreamer!

Anonymous wrote:It’s so boring to be a frugal rich person. So what if you have millions in the bank if you aren’t having fun? You can’t take it with you.

Anonymous wrote:I wish they allocated percentages to each category. Not sure I'd call all business owners dreamers (a guy with 3 dry cleaners is a dreamer??), but if you took savers/investors and regular business owners, that's probably 90% of all millionaires.

Anonymous wrote:We're some mix of the first three. We save more than half our income. We climbed the ladder at our companies by being very highly educated, garnering a large salary to enable #1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so boring to be a frugal rich person. So what if you have millions in the bank if you aren’t having fun? You can’t take it with you.

Because having no debt/paying for my kids college and giving them a leg up in life is more fun.

Honestly money is not the source of most of my fun nowadays. My relationships with friends and family are what give me joy and we have enough to have wonderful parties and go on (not super fancy) vacations with them. My hobbies- art and gardening and reading, also give me fun and joy and don’t cost a ton.. We would do this regardless of whether we were millionaires or not.

Different stokes for different folks, I guess. I am an introvert and do not get joy from friends, family, or other relationships. I get lots of joy from money, both from having it in the bank and from the things it can buy (home renos, etc.).