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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • Start saving for retirement now. You can make literally millions by putting away 10% of your income early on. Do it automatically so you never even notice the money gone.

    If you are worried about making the wrong choice and your company doesn’t have a 401k, open an IRA somewhere (Fidelity if you need someone to make the decision for you) and pick a date targeted fund. Set up auto deposit. Never look at the balance.

    You can always make it better later but for now the best thing to do is start. Don’t let analysis paralysis get in the way.





  • You are suddenly super rich. Now all your friends and family expect you to provide for them. Every kindness they offer is suspect, are they doing it because they like you or because they want your money? How can you really know?

    You don’t have to work and can go anywhere in the world. But your friends still have jobs, so you travel alone.

    Some of your friends start to resent your new lifestyle. Others may just be staying quiet. You read about “crabs in a bucket” and distance yourself more from them.

    It’s really isolating, but you meet some other wealthy people and you know they don’t need your money. And… you actually have some stuff in common with them. Yes Ibiza is overrated, but they suggest another place to check out. You go out with them to amazing restaurants that your old friends wouldn’t even appreciate. You can commiserate about how hard it is to get good help these days.

    On top of all that, you slowly start to notice an emptiness inside. You should be happy! You don’t have to work anymore! You have everything you could ever want! Why do you feel this way!?!? Drugs and expensive purchases fill the need momentarily. If try telling your old friends that you’re not all that fulfilled, they’ll pull out the world’s tiniest violin for you. You lack purpose and goals, and feel like you are drifting in a life of luxury completely devoid of meaning.

    If you’re lucky you find a way to have a new purpose in life and accept that the money changed you. If not you spiral and, best case scenario, wind up broke.









  • Like someone else said, it’s a hobby. I spend money on things, they make me happy for a little bit, they make problems for me, rinse, repeat.

    Why do people go fishing when you can buy fish in the store? Why do people draw instead of taking pictures?

    It’s nice to go to bed with all the lights on, press a button and have them all go off. It’s nice to have the doors lock when I leave and unlock when I come home. It’s nice to get an alert on my phone if my garage door is open when I leave. It’s nice that all the lights come on as the sun sets.

    None of these are necessary, but all of them are nice and it would be annoying if I had to go back to dumb lights.







  • As one of the participants in the conversation, thanks for pointing that out. I see that I am being shortsighted and reading a meaning into the comments that may not be there. My vision shortsighted in an election year, a time to influence votes and non-votes, and this particular election year is a dire one.

    So I cast my gaze as far as November, after which I either go back to the work of citizenry or the work of planning to flee the country.

    I can’t deal with the world after January 20, 2025 until after the votes are counted. It’s easier for me to see further up the hill if I know the person I’m talking to isn’t encouraging people to sit out the election, because that is the source of my biggest anxiety right now.

    What will my kids’ future be? I hope it will be egalitarian, where people are freed from the chains of capitalism to have their needs met and allow them to reach their full potential as humans. One where humans live sustainably in the natural and social environments. That won’t be on the ballot in November, but a vote for Trump would likely mean that future won’t happen in my kids’ lifetimes.


  • Agreed. What does that change? I’m still voting for Biden.

    There aren’t any perfect choices in life, all choices of consequence have downsides. Sometimes it’s choosing harm reduction. The man has a solid record of progress with climate legislation, pardoning marijuana possession charges, limiting insulin prices and more.

    Could he do better? Hell yeah. But I’m an adult in a democracy and I understand that a vote is a tool, not a moral stance. I can apply that tool in the most effective way by voting for a lesser evil.

    I also have other tools at my disposal, like money. So I give my money to groups like FairVote that supports Ranked Choice Voting so that, long after the 2024 election, we can vote for candidates instead of against them.

    But I’m not boycotting the system we have unless someone can convince me that Trump will see a lack of voter turnout as a lack of mandate to implement his anti-Democratic, thuggish, racist, sexist plans.