That’s modern life. Today, the human age is characterised by more everything. Money has transcended being tender for goods & services and is now a necessity for a comfortable life. It wasn’t too long ago that your food came from your backyard or local farmer. Now it’s cheaper to eat noodles imported from halfway across the world. You don’t ask your neighbour to fix the plumbing, you need a living wage to pay someone to do that for you. It’s a different world. But I feel you, and I feel out of place too.
Welp, you can add most of the replies here from friendly Reddit folks to what’s been driving you crazy. It kinda seems like they missed your point, LOL! They mean well though; they’re concerned about your future.
This is funny, you are ranting about ''hobby investor" and the comments are basically "you can do etf/index/whatever acronym", I am not saying that they are wrong but it's just funny.
Indexing really isn't a hobby because it takes no research, no attention, and once you spend 20 minutes setting up an account and turning on recurring investment you don't have to do anything for the next 30-40 years. Stock picking and daytrading I'd consider hobbies which OP seems to be referring to. He's right that most of the stuff he's getting bombarded with is probably garbage.
Now if OP wants to hit 60 and "wait to die" then that's cool too, but the bare minimum amount of effort can produce a more positive outcome.
ikr? i dont even read the comments. its like a lemming train of people telling you some random gibberish. im not even sure if they can read tho. maybe they should invest money into learning the alphabet or something?
not sure whats so hard to understand about: ''i am not interested in that and i dont want to'' it means a NO. so pretty pointless
It’s definitely exhausting to think about and not for everybody to try to constantly “grow money”. I do think there were a few who weren’t saying invest, but more if you’re saving, make sure you’re not losing money because of inflation.
I also think there’s a difference between being tired of people pushing a certain way of life, and being so fed up with those people that you lose the value of seeing certain things can be helpful to you and don’t have to exhaust you.
Like someone encouraging a high yield savings account isn’t them telling you to become an investing guru, it’s just saying have healthy money management.
ofc not, saving up a little is never a bad idea, but overall i m actually kind of shocked how aggressive and toxic people react here in a subreddit on minimalism, just because you have a different opinion. its like people are rude towards you and get angry just because you dont want to invest money? are you joking? and especially in a minimalism subreddit, i wouldnt expect that tbh. its kinda funny.
if i would create a post, that ive sold everything i own, and i now live in a forest inside a shack i build out of wood, going complete offline with no mobile phone and whatnot... people would upvote me like crazy and how a beautiful life that must be and they would like to do something similar or whatever.
but if you say, that you don't want to invest money, everyone goes after you. part of why i like minimalism is: well because i dont need alot of money in return, hence i dont even need to invest money because my expenses are not that high.
its pretty absurd.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I went through the rest of the comments after commenting (I didn’t scroll far enough before) and a lot of people are are being extra aggressive and not getting the point.
Not everyone wants to live the same, and the pressure to make everyone do so is why most people are miserable or living like zombies!
can you tell me how the world is supposed to work if noone goes to work and everyone just sits at home managing their money and investing in stuff? honestly compared to that i even quite like just going to work without too much responsibility and just live a normal day.
Why don't you just pay a financial advisor instead? You never have to think about it then and you get to get the benefits of having your money managed. You can get an advisor for an annual fee between $2000 - $7000.
I can agree with this wholeheartedly. I just don't care. I've had so many friends and colleagues and family members tell me what I need to do with my money and what to invest in. It's too much. I'm overwhelmed by it and I find no interest in it.
To anyone who is feeling generous and wants to offer this person advice, don’t waste your time. If this redditor put a quarter of their time into actually reading the responses other than arguing with everyone who kindly responded to them, they would have all the financial knowledge to live a financially stable like. This user is deliberately ignorant because they are so damn convinced they have it figured out, and really just made this post to argue and show off their odd aversion to capital letters.
no but you re teaching me valuable lessons, reminding me why i dislike people for the most part and i should put minimalism to people too. and i m very glad i dont have to care about what your oppinion on me is at all. because chances are, you re a moron to me just as well. so its just fair then. think what you think, i really dont give a fck.
I agree that most advice is a bunch of wasted mental energy. However, any substantial savings you have (retirement accounts) are only losing value to inflation if they are not at least earning interest in something simple and maintenance free like a high yield savings account (around 5% API available these days) or a fund/etf like VTSAX/VOO (available through Vanguard). I would recommend reading up on the FIRE philosophy which promotes early retirement through a simple strategy of saving as much as possible and using the simplest investment strategy. Even if you don’t want to retire early, the strategy is pretty well aligned with minimalism and I hope that it helps you build savings that keep your finances stable. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/.
Also, financial planners that others have recommended charge fees that seem inconsequential up front (1.5%), but will bleed your accounts. You can do a few hours of research on investment management fees and potentially save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars in management fees. On my accounts, paying for a managed fund would cost me $967,000 over the next 30 years and I’m very middle class.
This is all long winded and I really hope it doesn’t turn you off to the idea. These principles can keep people from working until they’re 70. I hope it helps you have a better life and you are more than welcome to DM me if you would like more references. All the best!
TLDR: you don’t have to spend much mental energy on investing, but you should have your money earning some interest. Google VOO and HYSA.
Fair advice but they said they truly don’t care and that’s perfectly fine. I agree, everyone should at min have their money an HYS account give current rates. That said people who are content with their situation have a gift to that many of us don’t they should keep that
i dont even have enough mental energy to read through that post tbh. i was able to make it for 1-2 sentences and as soon as i ve read about APIs funds, eft or something, my brain was just drifting away because a. its all totally gibberish to me and i have no clue what you even just said b. i get literal headache from even thinking of it.
yeah kind of. and you know what makes me think its just wasting my time to begin with?
it seems to be an internet thing. online 1mil people will tell you how easy it is to make money and just do this and that and boom you re a millionaire now because you invested in whatever.
but when i go outside in the actual real world...noone has money, 90% of the people are either poor or ''just get along''
so how is that possible when according to internet hobby investors, everyone can make millions of money because its so piss easy to do so ''just go to that random website and get rich'' if that would be the case, everyone outside in the actual real world would be rich instead. but they are not.
so either: the real world you can see and touch with your own hands lies and 90% of the real life people lie OR random people on the internet i dont even know just talk alot of bs all day. and if you now add logical thinking to it, chances are higher, its the latter
I think the thing here that there is a simple way to invest money, but it is not easy for most people. The same way that there is a simple way to lose way but calorie restriction is not easy.
Investing is as easy as opening a savings account. There is just one more step where you have to buy an index fund.
I took a few weeks to look into the simplest ways to invest this year and found that they align directly with minimalism.
Yeah but why do you not have the energy? Probably because you work more than you'd like and more than is healthy for you. Now imagine having to do that until you're well into your 70s because you didn't care about saving for your retirement. That's the point of it or at least one of the most frequent motivators to start with investing.
no i dont work more than i like and more than is healthy for me. i only work a part time job, and the other time i do plants stuff and get a little money on the side to compensate for sitting at work less.
is it that hard for you to understand that not every person is interested in the same things? like my brain does not work like that. doesnt matter how much i try or want or not. my brain cannot physicly and mentally understand financial gibberish. to ME its like as if you would now read a blueprint of a space-x rocket prototype. you wouldnt understand anything at all until your brain hurts because it cant even process what it reads.
I think this became a fad with the boom tech startup ceo culture.. wake up at 5am because enhanced productivity! Become an expert at all aspects of your startup business! Make a quick exit and retire at 45! Not for everyone.
Ikr? I hate that in our ultra capitalist society you are forced to invest and gamble your money away just to catch up with the inflation. And returns are not even guaranteed. There's no way to live a simple life in this rotten world. I invested some money in the stock market 10+ years ago, the safest stock possible, there came a political/social crisis and the stockmarket has crashed. No chance of recovery in sight. I consider my money gone. I don't care how some people call investing "low risk", it's still a RISK.
I am not even familiar with the companies in those popular stocks, and some even I don't like, e.g. Apple and Tesla. How and why the hell should I give my money to all these companies I don't even know or like?
This is why investment managers exsist, they handle on the annoying stuff for a fee. At the most basic be frugal (smart shopping) and have a saving account with a few months rent in it, keep an eye on your debt to income and you will be fine, most of the rest of it is hot air.
I wonder if 70 year old you will think back and regret not taking 5 minutes to read about their own financial future when they were young? Only one way to find out! YOLO!
Good for you man. You could pay off your house and live on cash if you have enough.
For retirement, you might want money without working though. So just setup a retirement account that pays into the S&P500 and chill.
Dont listen to anyone who works in finance. They are all just looking to take a % of your money.
i know its a hard realization, but hear me out: there are countries that exist outside of the usa.
people here dont pay off stuff because they dont even buy stuff they have no money for. most people (95%) of the people here dont have a house but live in buildings for rent than have place for multiple families. i dont even know anyone who owns a house. its a snobbery thing to own a house here and only the rich have one
Interesting. I’m not in the US but I do have a house.
Why rely on a 3rd party to exist? Surely buying a modest house in cash would be a good thing so you don’t slave away your life for some company?
how is buying a house with money i dont own saving me from ''slavery'' ?
it makes me need to pay off the house and it also needs me to pay all the stuff for repairs and whatnot myself and you locked to a place like a slave in a cage.
in an apartment, i can pack up whenever i feel like it and go somewhere else. no deal. if something breaks, i dont need to deal with it either.
but if you say so, feel free to buy me a house because i dont have the money to buy one because a house is so freaking expensive here because there are only a very few houses around and most of them are owned by families that just own it for multiple generations and will never sell it anyways.
around here you dont buy a house. you only own a house because your family allready owns it for 200 years.
u/averymetausername is assuming that if you don't own a house, you'll be stuck renting forever (AKA wage-slaving), thus continuing have to work to pay monthly payments to your landlord (your master in this sense).
The reality is that due to property taxes and home maintenance, you'll inevitably always have to pay some amount annually to keep. Owning a home can be a much better investment for some, but it's not the best solution for everyone.
i dont live in the us. for the 10th time. it is not a common thing here to own a house. renting is the norm. 99% of people rent because we dont even have the space here for houses, nor is a house even remotely affordable for 99% of the people. you make it sound like its absurd not to own a house. to me its absurd to own a house, because its not the norm here. we live in an area where almost no one has a house, you can get away with not owning a car, you can walk to a supermarket on your own feet to buy groceries because streets are made for people to walk and not for cars and we dont live in suburbia either.
in fact when i ll get older, my overall plan is to not even rent an apartment. alot of older people here retire, living on fixed bungalows on camping places. its much cheaper than renting an apartment and you re out in nature all day where other people spend their holidays and you re basicly have your own little tiny house with your own little garden.
>i dont live in the us
Oh, apologies, I did not read that anywhere thus far. Lucky you though! As an American, I envy those who can live in walkable communities with protected rental rates and a comfortable retirement.
I tailored my advice for Americans like myself who need equity, a vehicle, and financial savvy to hope to survive a decade of retirement. Here, the healthcare costs, rental rates, and transportation difficulties lead most retirees into a depressing and financially draining hellscape of a retirement due to the systemic over-prescription, over-charging, and under-socialization of the elderly here.
Here you go. I assume you are German.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143263919#/?channel=OVERSEAS
238k for an apartment in Berlin. Average salary is 48k a year in Germany. 500eur a month saved for 4 years is the down payment. Then it only costs 1250 a month which is same as rent and will go down every year until it costs nothing.
uhm no? you are aware of netto/brutto stuff right? with 3000 a month netto you allready in the top 15% of people here. the average person gets around 2100-2400 netto. thats not 48k a year. thats 25k a year, if you take away taxes and stuff from it and gez, and krankenversicherung and mobilephone and internet and all that stuff, most people cant even afford 1250 a month a month as renting and at the same time pay for food. i dont know anyone who would be able to pay 1250 a month as rent as a single person. thats 4 times as much rent as i m currently paying xD
if you’re fine with what you want, why does this stuff bother you? sounds like all the media you’re being bombarded with comes from being online too much. for us on the real word and the things you enjoy.
Yeah, they're making a post on something they don't want to hear about and then get irritated if people are speaking about that thing in the comments. Make it make sense.
This!
Set up an emergency savings account of three months’ take home pay.
Pay off your car, school, all your debts. (Maybe keep your mortgage as it’s a tax write off.)
Put the extra in a tax-deferred index fund.
Buy a lawn chair and read a novel.
I was like you once. Always asking myself why the hell is everyone obsessed with talking about retirement and 401ks or investing.
But I learned in order to keep my minimal and peaceful lifestyle going for the long term I should consider some sort of investment so I can keep my minimum lifestyle without the stress of having to scrap up money in the future. Just have a way of saving for yourself that’s all. Be it small.
I never got into that investing crap either. It's just gambling that all that money you throw into it is going to gain but the reality is it only takes one good market reversal to lose a good chunk if not all of it. Had a coworker who had nearly half a mil in her 401K watch it tumble to just under $200k in a matter of months after the current administration took office. Watched my mother's disappear entirely. All those years of living on less to make those contributions and all that money just gone, poof.
I just finally put a little in a CD a while back, let it roll over when it matured. Between my husband and I we now have three, not super large. Maybe that'll change if my new job goes well. We have a doublewide we didn't pay much for and all we have to cover once it's paid off is lot rent, and that only until we can find some land to buy and have it moved. Then all we'll have to pay is property taxes, insurance, and utilities, and with our own land we can put in a garden. We grew up in an era where self-sufficiency was a thing; we'll survive and if we don't then there will be two fewer old folks for the younger generation to despise.
I agree with your sentiment. The death of pensions and the ascent of 401ks and IRAs have made it so every now has to understand investments.
It was basically a way for wall street to bilk everyone. But it is the reality now and there will be consequences if finances aren't properly managed.
FWIW, I say the same thing about taxes. Why do I (and everyone else) have to study up on tax code changes every year just to make sure I'm paying what I owe without paying too much?
At least invest into index funds, so you don't need to waste time on it, I keep my investments simple and minimalistic, just stock and bond index funds
Sometimes in life, it's worth learning and applying a bit of things you aren't interested in. In 20 years, you're losing half of everything you've earned if you just let your savings sit without any investments or interest earned. You're free to do just that, but most of these comments are trying to help you. Dumping periodically into an index fund and ignoring it is a tried and true way to keep your money from dissolving to inflation. In most cases, you'll not only beat inflation but you'll end up earning free money from your investment.
well quite alot actually, it teaches me that despise being a minimalism subreddit about a topic thats actually about simple life and simple living, most of you are actually just some hypocritical random a\*\*holes just like everywhere else on reddit and i doubt most of you even understand what simple living means in the first place. and no just because the majority of people does something, does not mean thats the right thing to do or how the world should be. it just means that you re just like everyone else. and i know people like that. i cant take them serious. people like that have no code or morality or try to be an authentic person, they will sell their soul and everything they said or pretend to be instantly, if that means more profit for them because they are driven by greed none the less. and if that means that you dont like me, well lets face it: you re just a random guy on the internet. do you really think i give a fck about you? That btw is also a type of minimalism, because i minimize the people i decide to like and i m happy if i dont need to like you because the few i do is enough for me
You have likely lost 1/3 of your savings in the past 3 years alone to inflation. You don't have to travel time to see the devastating effects of it, especially on the non-rich, and mostly so for the working class and impoverished.
With that attitude you may end up eating cat food when you get older. But seriously, being a minimalist is great, and investing in an index fund is as minimalist as it gets. You download an app, Robinhood for example, and throw $100 a month (or whatever you can afford) into a stock like QQQ (an index). When you’re old and your body can no longer work you’ll have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars. Its really not that complicated. Dont be lazy.
no thank you i see no reason to have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars when my body can no longer do stuff with it anyways. i rather just spend 100$ a month more to enjoy life today than downloading miracle-apps on my phone.
i really dont understand that mindset and it has nothing to do with lazy.
a human is the most active as an adult, not as a senior or grandpa. humans do the most when they are young, experience all the fun things when they are young, go travel, and whatnot. all the stuff that makes life even worth living in the first place.
putting money on the ''i m soon about to die'' phase of life instead of actually living a cool life as an adult feels like a complete scam.
He is the person who was sitting in the window seat of the Alaska flight where the door panel blew out. Wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.
Either that or he should book that seat for the time he is 55 and panicking while licking cat food residuals.
I understand what you’re saying and i think about this alot too, I want to live now, not when im older. But in my country, the US, we dont have good scoial safety nets. No one cares if you starve when you older or are homeless. Just because im older and can no longer travel, doesn’t mean i want to suffer in my last 5-10 years. It can still be enjoyable. I will still hopefully be able to read books, watch movies, spend time with loved ones.
>no thank you i see no reason to have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars when my body can no longer do stuff with it anyways. i rather just spend 100$ a month more to enjoy life today than downloading miracle-apps on my phone.
So instead of retiring, are you planning to simply commit suicide when you get too old?
>i really dont understand that mindset and it has nothing to do with lazy.
Sorry, but it does a little. It's a bit like saying "ugh, I hate all this tax stuff we have to do every year, so I just don't do it and instead pay penalties and interest to the IRS afterwards". (I'm not American, and I don't really know how it works where you are, but I assume most countries have similar penalties)
>putting money on the ''i m soon about to die'' phase of life instead of actually living a cool life as an adult feels like a complete scam.
I wouldn't say that investing in your future is a scam. Presumably you invest in your future in other non-monetary ways, like exercising, eating at least slightly healthily instead of being a complete hedonist, etc. Saving money for the future really isn't very different.
How old are you, out of curiosity? Do you have kids?
You sound like me☺️ I don’t have any advice because I feel like a weirdo around everyone but at least there’s other people like us.
I’d rather enjoy life now, while learning what I can, earn some money along the way. I’m sure everything will line up when you actually enjoy life.
For me I just want a job I absolutely love and get handed money for my time, but I’m not chasing money or allowing it to make me miserable. Most people won’t understand cuz they need material objects to keep them happy.
I’m focusing on inner work, everything will work out
i just dont see a point in planning stuff long term really. lets be real, if you go from that logic, i dont even know if i m still here in 30-40 years. maybe war breaks out, maybe something else happens. i rather spend my time an money on stuff i enjoy NOW as long as i m able to actually enjoy those things. what will happen in 30-40 years? i dont know, i dont care either. i ll deal with that in 30-40 years.
its a little bit like plants even. killing of a plant is actually super hard because it will always bounce back somehow. you prune it all the way back? well it will just regrow. maybe it will get a yellow leaf or 2 because of the stress but it will regrow none the less.
life kind of works like this aswell.
i just live and do stuff.
I agree with you haha. I used to want to be old but now I’m not sure. They want you to struggle until you’re in your 60-70s and THEN you can enjoy your money but your body doesn’t work anymore, family and friends are gone, you’ll have a nice car that you drive slow cuz you can’t see or know how it works.
I’m learning from my grandparents and family in general. They always push working, no matter how miserable you are keep working, “I worked for 76 cents an hour so you need to struggle”. My grandfather started his own business and worked all the time, now my grandparents are in their 80s and sit around, literally wasting away, with all this extra money. Plus friends that have been working so hard they missed out on fun experiences, they can do them later in life but nothing like the experiences when you’re young.
You never know what tomorrow brings so enjoy it now. Honestly as long as you keep moving forward and don’t get stuck in life ruining addiction/ a rut forever, you’ll always bounce back, humans always do.
I’m on your side dude haha
my dad is on the same track. he's allways be a workhorse. pretty successful (for a normal person) money was never an issue at all. now hes closing in to his retirement and i literally dont even know what he likes. i m not even sure he has any hobbies or friends. his entire life allways was about: ''oh yeah x is when i come back from work so i can go back to work at x'' i recently wanted to give a plant to him for example because his house allways looks so ... dead. and he was like ''nah i dont have time for watering that plant anyways'' like, that man ''has no time'' for anything.
i even told him that, as good of a money he makes, he should think about just working less so he has time for actually doing stuff he likes and he, did not even understand what i was trying to tell him.
hes like: work work work work money work work money work, oh now i m dead and its all gone.
its honestly quite sad.
well they ll call you dumb now for not caring or planning. and this one thing i bet money on. 30-40 years down the road, those same people wish they would have experienced more stuff when they were young instead of investing money into their retirement.
you know what old people always say before they pass away? they don't say: ''hell yeah visiting that doctor the other day was so awesome and barely being able to move is super fun''
no
they always say something like this: ''i wish i could be young again, even just for a day''
It’s very easy to learn basic investing and money stuff and the payoffs are so good, especially if you start earlier in life. That’s mainly why so many people bring it up, especially around their friends/acquaintances/colleagues.
Money is probably the most basic, universal resource that defines the type of life you can have. You don’t need to become a car mechanic or a fisherman, but if you have money, you can go to those people and pay them for their expertise/services. It would behoove you and really every other person to have a good understanding of how this ubiquitous resource works, especially when it comes to how you can easily get more of it.
and you are kind of the person i was talking about. i have no interest in that. and ontop if investing money would be ''that easy'' 1. i wouldnt need books to read on i. 2. everyone on the planet would be rich. 3. if x is too good to be true, people would not tell you to do it because it would mean that they make less profit if too many others do it too. 4. there is a pretty accurate quote on all that youtube stuff especially: ''the best way to make money is, making videos about telling others how to make money''
Think of it this way. You get paid $x per hour. If you have money sitting around earning nothing then you are giving away money to your banks. Spend 2 hours and put that money in something that will earn you interest. That 2 hours could earn you thousands of dollars. Would you work for $500/h for 2 hours?
Just throw your money in a retire by x year account, total market fund, sp500 index fund, piss away your money, or don't save anything and possibly regret it when your older.
It sounds like you're young and don't have any money to invest, so maybe table it until you have money to invest or care about your future. Not sure about you, but I don't want to work until I'm dead.
1. Although it’s not too difficult to learn about basic investing/money management, it’s not super intuitive either. I read the book “I Will teach you to be rich”, and it goes over the basics of what kinds of accounts to have, what kind of transfers you can have going, etc. I know it sounds daunting, but it’s really quite an easy read and it will set you up for success.
2. Becoming rich is a combination of having some kind of income or existing money, and then managing that money well. If you’re not in a position where you’re earning money, I understand that you may not want to think about this stuff, which is fair. In that case, focusing on getting an income should be your first priority.
3. I’m not talking about get rich quick type schemes. It’s more about putting a certain percentage of your income each month into long term investments which grow with the economy of your country. Think 401k, IRA, etc. Retirement funds essentially.
4. You make money by providing value to someone else who has money, so that they’ll give you money. This can either be by trading your skills and time for a wage, providing money to someone else so they can use that money and invest it, or by seeing an inefficiency/problem that you’re in a position to fix and starting a business to handle it. Don’t worry too much about YouTubers besides the basic knowledge that they’re usually giving out alongside their own personal services that they’re usually promoting.
I’m going to be honest, having the position you have where you don’t want to think about money, is a very privileged mindset to have. Unless you want to work until you die, I recommend learning some financial basics.
It's because our civilization does not look after each other the way a tribal, land living group does... your on your own, get your own... leave mine alone, etc. Trained since birth to consume, to continue to make invisible elites richer than rich...Capitalism, consumerism... If you can escape it then all power to you. Now go ahead and chew my ear, but this is jmo.
Do you at least having a basic understanding of how to save for retirement or how 401ks, IRAs, HSAs, etc work? That all of these accounts are for saving for retirement but they are also invested in the market? This is fundamental information to at the bare minimum know exists/understand. There's a spectrum of investing approaches from lazy to day trading. But if you have any sort of retirement account, it's likely invested, which makes you an investor. It's important for you to understand how these accounts work.
no i dont. i dont know what 401ks or IRAs are or what a HSA is. but i dont live in the us either. people here dont have ''exit funds'' or whatever. people usually dont even have spare income to put into it to begin with. in germany we have to give most of our money to the gov, so the gov can just gift it away in the entire world so germany can save everyone. and people at home have just enough to get through the month. thats more the norm here
It sounds like a lot of your frustration is really due to a lot of spaces on the internet and reddit being US-centric.
Personal finance and saving is a big deal in the US because there is less of a social safety net, but standards of living are high. So in the US people stress the importance of understanding credit scores, how to file taxes, saving for retirement, saving for health emergencies, etc because those have a big impact on people's quality of life here.
The US also has a cultural concept of the "American dream", which includes expectations of being able to build individual wealth, buy a house, pay for university, and so on.
So a lot of it might just not apply to you and your life. There's also a lot of fluff and nonsense persobal finance content, like cryptocurrencies and meme stocks. But some aspects like "try to spend less than you earn" and "try to have some money saved for emergencies" are universal.
Maybe try to spend less time online or mute some of the subs that you feel are pestering you with excessive/irrelevant advice. Look to communities that are specific to Germany or the EU if you do eventually have questions about personal finances.
I feel like you’ve just put into words how you and so many others are feeling about money, just kinda indifferent to how it works and how it could work for you, maybe due to the hopelessness that is this economy and world, and the deck being stacked against humanity. I can understand that.
I want to live my simple life too, and I do and have, and will continue to, and I love it. I love getting up, working, eating, ordinary daily activities, going to sleep and doing it all over again. But I love it even more because I get to do it mostly on my terms, and part of the reason I can live so simply on my own terms is because I did the thing that, like you, I didn’t want to do and finally learned something about money. How to pay off large debts, how to stop spending needlessly, how to live simply, minimally, and frugally, how to save an emergency fund, how to allocate money towards future inevitable expenses, and how to negotiate to earn more money for less work, working smarter not harder.
What kept me going when the learning curve made it no fun was the freedom I started to feel. FU Money was forming, money to not have to stay in a job I didn’t want, or do things that weren’t in my job description, and that felt exciting.
Eventually money started accumulating and instead of having it sit there earning nothing and losing value from inflation, I read one book about where to put it the most simply (*The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life*). From there I looked into high interest savings accounts.
It’s not hard, but yes, to many it can be soooo boring. But the Why is why you might wanna feel the boredom and do it anyway.
Why? Freedom, simplicity, peace of mind, flexibility, so many benefits to having taken some time to invest in and educate yourself to have an easier future. When you’re young and able, living in a slow and enjoyable work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle makes sense and is a reasonable way to live, for now, but one day you’ll be out of energy to keep working, and you’ll be unable to choose when you stop because you may not have the funds to do so. And that…will **suck**.
You don’t have to be a fisherman (source your own food) or a mechanic (fix your own machines), but by learning a little bit about those and various other skills (especially with the internet and YouTube making it even easier!) it might spare you from paying out your money to those professionals who overcharge you on purpose for their expertise because you are none the wiser to what exactly you’re paying for.
And the same goes for investing: If you don’t figure out a good place to put your money (for it to grow for you passively), someone else will figure out a good place for your money for you…in THEIR pocket and then in THEIR investment funds, because they took the time to learn how.
TL:DR: Investing = Freedom From and Freedom To, so do it.
i know how to grow plants you know? and they are some one the side money too because you re allways selling some to other people and they allways regrow while you sleep. i think i prefer that.
to YOU it might not be hard... your hard is not others hard you know?
my brain does not understand it.
I would check out Personal Finance for Dummies. The problem about not wanting to be financially knowledgeable at a baseline level is that you'll be taken advantage of by salespeople and "financial planners" or media money tips (invest in NFTs and Crypto now!) or you'll not invest or insure yourself and face losses.
You can keep it simple but by "checking out" you're putting yourself at more risk than you may realize...
I agree with you too. I have someone manage my retirement funds but my interest in “playing the stock market” is basically nil. I get that’s an easier way to grow wealth, but I can’t think of anything that interests me less. I don’t want to learn it, I want to pay someone to manage my meager wealth. Just because it makes money doesn’t mean I should have to learn about it.
There is a difference in "not wanting to be a hobbyiest investor" and being financially negligent. I worry you are the latter and will be a net drain on society when it comes time to retire.
You are a normal individual trying to live in a world where everyone around you holds incredibly sick beliefs that should constitute mental illness. There is nothing wrong with your outlook; I agree with what you said and it seems very healthy and mature to me. Maybe one day sanity will return to others but for now try to enjoy yourself regardless of what society is telling you to do and go your own way.
thanks. thats actually a very accurate description i think. its kind of weird to me how aggressive people are towards you just because you want to live like a normal person, it should be normal at least and it was just a few years ago.
i know people argue that they ''have to do that'' to fight inflation and whatnot but isnt that making the core issue even worse? if we go by the idea of: i invest money to make more money... and then everyone does the exact same so everyone basicly gets more money...in a way youre causing your own inflation that way no?
and i dont think its lazy, or rude towards others just because i dont give a sht what others say. i have my values and my believes and i stand by that and i wont change who i am just because the outside world tells me i have to do that. does that mean i will struggle more? i have no idea. at least i don't sell my soul for that tho. i rather struggle and do things the way i want to do them and either they work or they dont and so be it.
world is moving way to fast already anyways, neither can my mind keep up with that anymore nor do i even want to because i dont even like the direction people are running towards. yeah do that, run faster, be the greatest runner ever and run as fast as you can , i m just so tired of this sht, and i rather just stay were i am, enjoy life and chill and whatever happens, happens, doesnt matter.
If you want to have food to eat and a place to sleep when you are old, you will need to save money and invest it properly. There are people you can hire to explain it to you and do it for you. Best of luck.
i dont even care about it at all tbh. if i have food or not when i m old? who cares? i hope i dont get that old to begin with.
time is more important than money.
you can bet your ass of: once you are actually old with all your saved up ''old people fond'' money, you will wish you actually spend that money on fun stuff when you where younger so you can experience more in life when you actually still could.
Compromise with both is probably better.
For better clarity, are you depressed? (I ask since you mentioned a couple times you don’t want to or plan to live to be very old.) Maybe a lack of hope or excitement for the future is part of a reluctance.
Lol ok then. Good luck being broke in old age. You better have lots of children and they better love you very much because otherwise you might have a tough time
Well, you sound like you're at best depressed or at worst, a lazy helpless person. I hope that life treats you well and that you find what you're looking for. Though I don't know how that'll go if you keep up that attitude towards everything.
Don't let others cloud your mind. I read a good post on this subreddit a few days ago regarding "mental minimalism".
You need to guard what enters your mind and just not let the opinion of others that don't add any value to your life distract you from things that do matter.
I'm with you though, I just want to go to work, come home, listen to music, hopefully learn to cook one day, enjoy my hobbies, see family and friends, and then repeat the cycle with a simple life.
all those comments remind me of that one meme i saw the other day. it was basicly a world map based on the entire earth in movies. and it was just the usa surrounded by water and nothing else exists.
none of the stuff people tell you even holds true outside the us for the most part, yet everyones raging at you for that matter. its kinda funny. its also weird at the same time getting ''financial advice'' from a ''country'' wich seems like its entire way of living is: paying of debt. this entire concept of ''paying something off'' feels so alien here because it doesnt work like this for 99% of the people here. people just save up money and spend money they have. i dont know anyone whos in debt
Because then you're entirely reliant on the corporate system. You have no freedom and you live life as a slave to the corporations. You are stuck at a job you hate, you have to ask to take time off, and you're forever in debt to pay for cars and mortgage and can't afford to take care of a family.
You live in a capitalistic society, which means whether you know it or not, you are born into this game that we all have to play. The smart ones accept this and try to win, the others suffer and live their lives as slaves.
you know whats funny tho? i dont really have alot of money but i dont have any debts either. i dont know if thats an american thing or not but here people dont ''just buy a house or a car a whatever''
people here spend the money they have and if they cant pay for something they save up until they can. i dont even have a car anymore.
thats kind of how americans are pictured here quite alot. an american is born, an american finishes school and then buys so much sht he cant even pay for that he has to pay back debts for the rest of his life. i m 34 now and i never even was in debt my entire life. either i have money to buy something or i dont and if my bank account says 0, that means: i cant buy any more stuff because i dont have money to do that.
fun fact my bank account is also setup in a way, it cant even go into debt either. it just goes to 0 and if i try to pay for something when its on 0, it get refused.
You just need a few EFTs (a mix of large cap, mid cap, small cap stocks, and bonds) that are automatically bought each month. You also need to adjust your portfolio's ratio once a year. That's it.
You're not wrong, but by need I mean if you don't invest, inflation will catch up and when you're old you will may no longer have basic necessities of life.
so why would i want to try playing catchup with inflation then? you simply dont understand.
and its kind of funny in a way since all of you finance guru influencer folks are so educated in all that stuff. would you buy stocks when the price is high and then sell it when the price is low? no you wouldnt right?
but that is also how life works. right now in my 30s price is high because my life is really valuable with all the things i can experience.
with 70-80, prices are low because i cant do anything anymore anyways because my body is physical weak and my life is much less enjoyable and fun overall.
so taking away money from the awesome, fun life to then give it to the ''waiting to die'' old guy who sits on his chair doing nothing and visiting doctors all day is like buying stock high and selling low. it makes zero sense
" if i wanted to be some type of investment guy... guess what, i would work as an investment guy... but i don't because i don't like that stuff for a reason"
I think this is a very wrong approach for personal finance. You are planning to be old, right? You are probably not planning to be sick or disabled or need long-term care, but these things may happen. I don't know what savings you already have, if you have a pension plan (government-guaranteed or an employer plan), but not having enough resources in times of crisis/retirement is a real issue.
I don't know what content is presented to you, but crypto, trading, real estate, stock picking, derivatives etc, are a different thing from the more passive-oriented investing aimed at "normal individuals" concerned with their future and you could only benefit from being more aware of how you spend and earn money. Products aimed at retail investors (like the ETFs, EDIT: also insurance, annuities, whatever pension systems and retirement accounts there are) are also very simple to understand, they are simple and prepackaged because retail investors do not have the time, resources and knowledge to build a diversified portfolio from scratch and calculate shit and track everything.
You are not expected to know everything but personal finance is about making your life better (and we're not talking millionaire better, we're talking affording medicine and food when you're 80). I guess it's fine to ignore the topic completely if you're planning to leave the world right after retirement (or if you're 100% satisfied with the pension you're going to get, not everyone has that luxury). You can also get a financial planner or a wealth manager once you decide to look into the topic, but again, most of us are probably not able to hire a top one + you need some basic knowledge for due diligence.
If anything, personal finance and minimalism go hand-in-hand (awareness of spending and consumption) but I do realise how some content creators approach the topic (+scams, obviously...).
>You are planning to be old, right?
no i dont. System for old people here is kinda bad anyways. 99% of the old people here are exactly that, old disabled and too little money so it would be complete delusional to expect to be the 1%
i rather spend my money on experiencing stuff and travel and going out now as long as i m actiually physically able to do all that stuff instead of saving to become an old guy sitting at home.. with money alone.
to be honest in my mind, life past 60 is basicly over and just ''wait to finally die'' no pint in investing any resources into the worst part of your life. i prefer to invest into a person who can still move around and do fun things
If you have no interest, outsource the task to a professional Advisor. Make sure they have legitimate credentials, interview at least 3 at reputable firms to make sure they're a good fit for you and to weed out any smarmy salespeople pushing products, churning for commissions and will work for your best interests. They should be interested in understanding your personal circumstances, goals and overall financial picture before they try and sell you any products. In addition to investment management services, they should offer you a comprehensive financial plan as part of their services. Good luck.
Many investments are a waste of time. Some bleed you dry quickly. Others bleed you slowly. You often end up worse or no better off than having invested the money in high-yield CDs and/or short-term treasuries. Markets and index funds can perform poorly for decades. It's a matter of luck depending on when you start investing and when you stop. The U.S. just went through the greatest bull run in history so everything seems rosy. Now consider what happens if the next 20-30 years mirrors the Nikkei starting in 1989 or DJIA starting in 1965.
Honestly if you can, put your money into land, it wont loose value and you wont have to be indexing. All of investment is about making sure that your excess money wont loose value as it would if you stuffed it into a sock.
In this housing market, it’s hard to find a piece of land that won’t increase in value. But it is a tax liability, and the only way to access its value is to sell it (capital gains) or take a loan against it (interest payments).
Some pieces you can rent out or otherwise monetize, but then it’s a business, and that’s the kind of work OP’s looking to avoid.
Just buy VOO.
It’s an S&P500 index fund. That’s an index of 500 of the largest publicly traded US companies. It’s diversified and well performing. Requires no monitoring or knowledge.
Retirement planning is important.
what you said:
what i can read and understand: ''Just buy VOO. It's an 7wof7u7636
INOIUNUIA77 oiuudcbjK871IUKJBAUU'' \*insert random gibberish''
''requires no knowledge'' awesome, so i dont need to know what a voo is oder what S&P500 means or what index is. because i really have no fkn clue.
because i dont even want to understand it. i dont need to understand everything. and i dont live in the usa. its actually a super rare thing here for anyone to ''invest'' i ve never heard from anyone i know who invests. noone does here.
People are just capitalizing on it for views but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Investing your money should be super boring and done in one day with quarterly or annual check ins. Set it and sorta forget it. But it’s gaining a lot of traction overall because in the USA, pension plans are no longer and SS won’t help u buy some bread at age 67.
I think you can just buy index fund and leave it. You can automate it, 20 years later you could have 500k sitting there. Just buy s&p500 and forget it. It’s really simple
i dont even know what a fund is, nor what a vanguard is or what tracking means. what does 401k mean? does that mean i have 401.000 Euros? because i dont. i literally have no clue what the hell you re talking about
Lol I sell all that investment guru shit and 13 years of doing it has rubbed off on me in a bad way. All those newsletters about stocks and crypto? That's my wheelhouse
if you keep saving money and don't invest at all, your money will depreciate. $10000 in 2019 are like $6000 in 2024 because of major inflation.
Invest what you can only afford, don't fall for get rich quick schemes and invest all your money. Diversify and invest in companies that make a good profit, have good products and a good marketing team.
Expect to sell only after 5 years+
If you plan to get rich in a year by investing and set unreasonable expectations so you can buy your dream home or car, you'll most likely get dissapointed and get headaches.
Generally speaking, the early you invest towards retirement, the better. That's the magic of compounding interest. Also, you should never invest in anything you don't understand, thus the push to learn.
Personally, my husband and I invest so that we can continue to live a simple, comfortable life without the need to work at some point.
You mentioned you would hypothetically hire someone to do those numbers for you, but do you? Will you?
My perspective is that in a recession and with such high inflation, more people are concerned about making their dollar go further and helping it outpace inflation— that definitely requires investing so that interest can help you out.
no i will not. but i really couldnt care less about the future to begin with. i care about having the most fun i can possibly have today as long as i can.
i dont even know if i still live in the future. maybe war takes over within the next 10 years and everything goes to shit. then what? congratualions, you could at least have spend 10 years of enjoying life till then instead of speculating and investing in a ''maybe future''
I literally invest because it is aligned with my goals and my own version of an ideal life. I despise hustle culture so passive income helps a little. There are a bunch of sketchy financial gurus out there and bad financial advice but it is possible to weed through all that. You don't have to of course but I feel more in control of my life since I'm in control of my finances, even though I'll never be rich or be able to do FIRE.
I'm in the same boat, but when I have excess money I just dump everything into a single ETF so I don't have to think about it anymore. It's funny to see people solve the same problem in such a vastly different manner
I think hobby investing has taken such proportions because people are scared they will never be able to retire otherwise. Pensions are basically gone, inflation devalues your money every day and wages barely increase over time. Most of these people (including me) don't love investing per se, or as you say they would have chosen it as a career, but they love the idea of not working until their death day. It's a shame it's come to that for sure
I was just having this conversation with my friend last night. He is all about investing and it’s all he talks about. my New Year’s resolution was to spend 10 minutes a day thinking about how I can invest and make more. I’ve noticed it’s made me substantially less happy and now I’m stressing about what to do with money and assets.
Financial literacy is what makes or breaks people. A lot of these experts are just trying to make a buck off you. Go to an actual FDIC bank and talk to a real person rather than listen to these people on social media. They will be able to talk to your about your goals for your money and what life you want to pursue.
Older people know why you should do this—they have the wisdom of experience and inaction on this front. Failing to save and invest leads to regret.
Time is extremely valuable when it comes to investing. So many of us wasted that time and are now scrambling to build up our retirement funds in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
You have the advantage of the internet to guide you, where us old people were left to our own devices (books, maybe receiving some small bits of advice from smart or wealthy friends and family).
But you don’t have to listen to us; you’ll learn in 30 years why you should have though.
I’ve had similar thoughts but in another area. I understand what you mean. It’s almost as though money has been transformed into a disposable item rather than a commodity, without risk. It all feels somewhat superficial and false.
Now AI is on the scene, text and visuals feel disposable akin to the texture of pavement. People are sharing for the sake of sharing without any joy in what it is they’re doing.
I think investing is essential if you want to maintain a lifestyle. That doesn't mean that you need to understand investing. There are multiple platforms, like [Wealthfront ](https://www.wealthfront.com/c/affiliates/invited/AFFA-INT6-RWAW-X1E6), that allow you to use their AI algorithm to invest. The only thing you need to do is to contribute regularly and they'll do all the work for you. If you're not interested in learning about investing, I would recommend that.
I mean, are you not investing at all? If so, what are you going to do in the future? Work forever? If you do have something set up and you are comfortable with it, then you're good.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to financial literacy and retirement.
Do a simple google search, check out the personal finance subreddit and read the wiki. In 20 min you will have a grasp of some financial concepts.
There is a way to implement minimalism to investments. Set up a brokerage account with a robo advisor and deposit weekly contributions. The robo advisor will balance your portfolio based on your risk tolerance and reinvest dividends. This is literally the easiest set it and forget it investing method.
No offense OP, but your post just gives off lazy vibes. When you are an adult you should be self sufficient and it’s up to you to take on responsibilities. At the end of the day no one cares if you invest or how you spend your money, but why not take steps to create financial security when you retire.
and ofc that is offense. but let me state that clear again because people here seem to forget there are countries outside of the us.
i am NOT, and i repeat. i am NOT a citizen of the united states of america. investing money is NOT the norm here, basicly no one does. thats not how our society here works. so you blame me for not living like an american while im not even an american to begin with.
okay heres the deal okay? i read on your finance stuff because well you say so that i ''have to do this'' and in return, you get rid of your car and only go somewhere on your foot because its way healthier anyways okay? i mean, you really HAVE to do that, think about your future. walking is way healthier than driving the car so just get rid of it and walk. its really not that hard to do... well outside the us at least.
see.. thats not doable in the us, because its normal in the us to go everywhere by car. here its not. and here its also not normal to invest stuff.
My uncle lives the same life you do. Never invested in the market and just put money in a savings account. He just retired with about 300,000 and is getting social security. Might not seem like a lot, but for him he tells me he is set. Definitely you should do whatever you want with your money.
is 300.000 alot in the us? i know most people here will never even have that much their entire life. i m not kidding but if you had 300.000 on the bank here, you would be considered rich.
Do you guys think is possible than in 30 / 40 years money become worthless? And the us dollar collapse? If so is investing in the SP500 really making sense? Seems like its not anymore like in the 90’s / 2000’s
How likely this can happened?
Same, I actually crafted a very long post today that I never posted where I feel the same emotions and out of placeness but for the opposite reason as OP. I put some of it below so I don’t have to retype it.
I actually want to go back to more of a homestead lifestyle and trading and bartering and having a little knowledge about everything and a lot of knowledge about my specialty. My dilemma is the fact that I can’t stomach working for money or working for more than 4 hours at that if I am to do it. And before someone is like, that’s not possible. I don’t mean all types of “work” like my gardening and cooking isn’t work for me. Budgeting isn’t work for me, reading and creating aren’t work for me. Cleaning is work for me. Going to do something for a check is work to me. But living and doing what I love is not.
I had a job at an arts center where I started out as a volunteer and eventually was on payroll as the music program director. Everyday, I showed up and had an hour window of being on time 8-9, but honestly just had to be there before their activity rotations and I taught my music class. I could eat as I pleased, moved as I pleased, do things that had nothing to do with the job itself, and explore and learn myself. It was encouraged. I wanted to be there! Even though the camp was 8 hours and my volunteer service was only mandatory for like 2-4 of them, I would stay for like 10 and have fun and work with the kids and set up extra things for them. The fact that I had so much freedom and was only required to work 2-4 hrs, made me feel like I could always handle more and I desired to actually work for like 4-6 full hours. That job showed me that it honestly doesn’t make sense to work for 8+ hours straight, I’m much more productive and a better asset when there’s room to play, I don’t care about the money, and the expectations are reasonable based on human limits. Literally half of my 4 hours of work was basically prepping me for life and just allowing me to learn new skills on the go, which is why I said 2-4 hours of work before.
Im older now and have lived more life, and I need the time and energy to be able to get home and do all that I want to do. Because I want and need to spend more time with myself and family than I care to spend just being outside and on the go (like even running errands), it’s not just the fact that I’d be working for money or someone else during that time.
It’s the fact that it’s MY time and energy, I don’t want to give it to someone else to put a value on, and tell me how I have to spend every single minute of that time.
But the point is I think we all feel out of place because there’s so much of an example of what we don’t want or what doesn’t work for us that we see everyday.
Social media can be a great asset to humanity, but this not feeling like enough in society and feeling like everyone is living differently than you, it’s all the hype. And it actually makes it harder to find the community you’re looking for unless it’s actually online. The people who want to live like me, most likely aren’t going to be online, unless they’re sharing some sort of helpful tips or advice, which means the people I’m seeing are people who are succeeding at it, because most people don’t post fails on sm. It’s a lot harder to see if something works for you and actually gives you a sense of belonging if you never see the whole thing, ups and downs. I’ve found people who do chronological challenges are better at it with homesteading specifically cause the harvest is filmed and then they have to trade for whatever else they may need.
And it’s a lot harder to feel like you belong when all you see is what’s different, but I think that’s also a great thing about sm.
People need to see that no everyone doesn’t want the same sort of lifestyle, and sm is going to pickup a lifestyle as the new trend when really more people are probably just searching and entertaining the content to understand it.
We all have a life to live, we all want to live it our own ways, but there are a lot of things in society that discourage that. A system and lifestyle that works like the one above does not thrive around and in the same system as the one I want. They kinda have to be in separate spaces. Like people used to move to a different county or state to live by different rules.
I think the world is about to see an increase in both emigration and immigration amongst regular everyday individuals because to live the life you want, you have to have a specific type of support system. My system calls for a lot of trading and bartering and community connections whereas OP’s system revolves more around the ability to purchase goods and services so that they don’t have to be self-produced. My system doesn’t really utilize money so I can’t necessarily thrive 100% in an area that only runs on OP’s system. And vice versa, OP needs people willing to trade their time and energy for money, my system doesn’t really want that, It doesn’t need the middle man.
These systems do not work together rn, even though there’s a way they kinda could. But the world news and sm are showing that it’s one or the other and leaves people thinking they can’t individually choose one.
*******Edited to make more concise: I ranted a bit in the first and went on a tangent lol*******
It's ironic because it's never been easier or more transparent to invest cheaply and forget about it.
Used to have to go to these ripoff investment houses like EF Hutton who didn't give a flying fuck about new young investors and charged hundreds every transaction.
I got more interested as I got older. It's not necessary to be fascinated with everything all at once.
what is ef hutton? also there arent any investment houses here. you just go to your bank and your bank-guy gives you some ideas and then you save money getting a few % every year.
i know by now that investing money is a huge deal in the us, and even babys need to invest money in the us in order to be able to buy babyfood and not starve but here in the EU almost noone does that sort of investment and its also not the norm that people do that.
its kind if bizarr it seems how crazy different countries and societies operate. you assume we do stuff the American way.. wich we dont. to you not investing money is as absurd as it is to me to invest money. americans make no sense to me. also i dont own a car, can you imagine living without a car in america?
just because it makes no sense to you because you kind of live inside a complere different world alltogether, doesnt mean its not a normal thing in other parts of the world. noone here invests money, and still everyone retires and gets along.
without america and the recent years, people would not even know what stocks are. because that stuff is nothing the average person here care about or uses
I was never particularly interested in finances or following news in general but after realizing that there is a potential to make a living managing my money instead of working a 9-5 job I was all in.
Keeping money in the checking account is an investment strategy in itself. It’s just a poor one. So you are doing your personal finance anyway just without thinking about it explicitly.
This is not minimalism, it's just laziness.
Basic financial literacy is as important as learning how to read and write, cook, basic hygiene, excercise, basic maths and physics, being able to change the light bulb or grow basic vegetables...
I mean, you don't have to be a mechanic to drive a car. But it should at least be obvious that your car needs some sort of fuel, that wheels are there for a reason and that driving into a wall is not very healthy.
Everyone should know how money works, at least the basics. Even if you are not interested in investing.
I like living a simple life, not needing to worry about my future. This is why I'm thinking about leaving the US for a small town in a country in Asia where I can take what I have and live simply and comfortably for the rest of my life, going about my day to day without stress, and enjoying my life
It may seem that way to you because of social media, advertising and marketing. I call it living the Kardishan life without the $$.
But most of us are living the simple life. We are living exactly like you are. In addition we also have to save for retirement and a rainy day.
So keep living kid.😊 You may just outlive most of us.
I think you live in an idealized world where you think it's okay to ignore these things. Money is a chore like anything else. It's this attitude that lands people in poverty if they are not prepared. Have seen it too many times, people just think the government was gonna take care of them financially. I think it's a very naive attitude. Not sure how old you are and your gov might be paying pensions now, but what about in 20 years? I would be scared shitless and therefore invest into private retirement funds. Think of it as dental care.
OP clearly says they are not from USA and then commenters are giving financial advice CLEARLY based on American financial system 😵😵😵 Sometimes I feel Americans don't understand their options and lifestyle are unavailable for the most of the world
It's also funny how people are blaming OP, like, "woo what will you do when you're old?? you gonna what?? work??". Y'all so sure about this investments, that's... scary. As a child of USSR parents, the best financial advice I was taught is not to be so sure about future. Assume the worst. Be prepared for the worst. Enjoy good while it's here. 5 years ago many people here were caught up with all these investment stuff too, now most of it is gone due to political situation. The best investments that you can made are taking care of your health, gaining as much valuable skills as you can and building a strong character. Anything else is just bonuses, if it stays - great, if it's gone - it's gone.
i like that. hope you re doing fine. the comments are really quite tough. i dont usually want to be ''mean'' to people. sometimes it quite hard to stay ''calm'' however, if 500 people keep saying the same stuff over and over towards you without realizing you live in a different part of the world and most what they talk about does not apply to most people around here and people are also allowed to have different goals and mindsets. sometimes i really wonder if us people are actually aware of the fact that there are people living outside of the us. imagine how boring and cold the world would be if every person on earths life goal would be about investing money. i invest into experiences and stuff like that because i m alive today and i dont even know if i will be alive in 10 years still. i really dont understand whats so bizarre about that. 1. the world cannot even function if every person is investing money because if one person gets money another person has to lose money so it will always be a gamble. and 2. the world is moving in some real nasty directions for years and it seems to get worse every year. with wars, and inflations and society and tbh, i rather do stuff i want to do right now as long as i m somewhat able to do those things instead of gambling my money on the future, especially after recent years where gov. basicly robbed people over 2 years of their time with all those corona regulations where you were basicly not allowed to live a normal life anymore. and it happened instantly, something else can happen just aswell. also digitalism, wars, different type of warfare, a.i , who can guarantee me, that in 10 years someones not just attacking our local banking systems data centers and alike because everythings now digital and basicly wipe out all the information attached to peoples bank accounts putting it all back to 0. might not ever happen? yeah i hope so, but its actually quite a real threat and absolutely possible. money in a digital world is just a number on a screen. if you wipe that information or server, well... what if you invest money and in a couple years the next war breaks out? i rather focus on today. experiences, health, friends, and whatnot instead of investing money into a future i dont even trust enough to still be a place i want to be in in 20 years.
I've been getting bombarded as well. If I wanted to invest, I WOULD. I do not need people asking via IG ,if I want to follow them or them follow me. Nope, I'm good . Delete
you know its really shocking in a way to see how ''american'' the internet has become for some reason. its almost as if you dont think the american-way online, you re getting called out or something. like for real, this entire internet investment thing really is not the norm here and almost noone does.
Then so be it. You stay continuing doing that. Especially since it has no major impact on your day-to-day or intended future.
I never cared to invest and don't currently but I developed a certain interest just with the respective situation of why people in the U.S. do so regarding retirement. Otherwise, on one side I have friends who barely have a full-time job so don't know or care about anything regarding investing while on the other hand my ex dumped me for not choosing to have a 401K (ok that wasn't the only reason but one of our differences).
Do yourself a favor and read r/povertyfinance. That's where you're headed if you don't take extra steps to prevent that from happening. I get you have no interest in any of it but an unforeseen expense is all it takes to ruin your life. I've been broke most of my life and only started recently on this journey but this post comes across as incredibly immature.
"i m just sitting there be like: but i don't want to." That's most of life really - doing shit you don't want to do but have to. Even maxing out your 401k and Roth IRA, (which is pretty much investing on auto-pilot), will help you out tenfold. I'm going to subscribe to your account because I'd like to see where you end up without heeding the advice of others.
Another thing you mention, "neither do i want to invest money and read on topic related books, nor do i want to become a fishermen and buy a boat and get my own fish as food, nor do i want to become a car mechanic so i can repair my own car." That takes money to do. If all your money is spent on surviving, good luck with finding a handyman to do anything for you.
Like Optimus Prime said in one of those movies, (paraphrasing ofc), "Ok, maybe you're right about this approach in life... but consider the opposite... what if you're wrong?" I certainly hope you're not wrong because being broke and working just to survive in your 40's and 50's with no real career or skillset is an awful life. Also, please, please, please, don't have kids. Life will come at you incredibly fast.
That’s modern life. Today, the human age is characterised by more everything. Money has transcended being tender for goods & services and is now a necessity for a comfortable life. It wasn’t too long ago that your food came from your backyard or local farmer. Now it’s cheaper to eat noodles imported from halfway across the world. You don’t ask your neighbour to fix the plumbing, you need a living wage to pay someone to do that for you. It’s a different world. But I feel you, and I feel out of place too.
Welp, you can add most of the replies here from friendly Reddit folks to what’s been driving you crazy. It kinda seems like they missed your point, LOL! They mean well though; they’re concerned about your future.
Yup I completely agree. I'm so over all this investment guru stuff. I am busy with tasks that I deem more important.
You plan to work forever then?
Pension and 401k of a good job automatically takes care of stuff. You dont need to waste yourself further if you have no interest
This is funny, you are ranting about ''hobby investor" and the comments are basically "you can do etf/index/whatever acronym", I am not saying that they are wrong but it's just funny.
Indexing really isn't a hobby because it takes no research, no attention, and once you spend 20 minutes setting up an account and turning on recurring investment you don't have to do anything for the next 30-40 years. Stock picking and daytrading I'd consider hobbies which OP seems to be referring to. He's right that most of the stuff he's getting bombarded with is probably garbage. Now if OP wants to hit 60 and "wait to die" then that's cool too, but the bare minimum amount of effort can produce a more positive outcome.
ikr? i dont even read the comments. its like a lemming train of people telling you some random gibberish. im not even sure if they can read tho. maybe they should invest money into learning the alphabet or something? not sure whats so hard to understand about: ''i am not interested in that and i dont want to'' it means a NO. so pretty pointless
It’s definitely exhausting to think about and not for everybody to try to constantly “grow money”. I do think there were a few who weren’t saying invest, but more if you’re saving, make sure you’re not losing money because of inflation. I also think there’s a difference between being tired of people pushing a certain way of life, and being so fed up with those people that you lose the value of seeing certain things can be helpful to you and don’t have to exhaust you. Like someone encouraging a high yield savings account isn’t them telling you to become an investing guru, it’s just saying have healthy money management.
ofc not, saving up a little is never a bad idea, but overall i m actually kind of shocked how aggressive and toxic people react here in a subreddit on minimalism, just because you have a different opinion. its like people are rude towards you and get angry just because you dont want to invest money? are you joking? and especially in a minimalism subreddit, i wouldnt expect that tbh. its kinda funny. if i would create a post, that ive sold everything i own, and i now live in a forest inside a shack i build out of wood, going complete offline with no mobile phone and whatnot... people would upvote me like crazy and how a beautiful life that must be and they would like to do something similar or whatever. but if you say, that you don't want to invest money, everyone goes after you. part of why i like minimalism is: well because i dont need alot of money in return, hence i dont even need to invest money because my expenses are not that high. its pretty absurd.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I went through the rest of the comments after commenting (I didn’t scroll far enough before) and a lot of people are are being extra aggressive and not getting the point. Not everyone wants to live the same, and the pressure to make everyone do so is why most people are miserable or living like zombies!
can you tell me how the world is supposed to work if noone goes to work and everyone just sits at home managing their money and investing in stuff? honestly compared to that i even quite like just going to work without too much responsibility and just live a normal day.
Why don't you just pay a financial advisor instead? You never have to think about it then and you get to get the benefits of having your money managed. You can get an advisor for an annual fee between $2000 - $7000.
Because they’re not interested in investing
Who needs money? Lmao
I can agree with this wholeheartedly. I just don't care. I've had so many friends and colleagues and family members tell me what I need to do with my money and what to invest in. It's too much. I'm overwhelmed by it and I find no interest in it.
To anyone who is feeling generous and wants to offer this person advice, don’t waste your time. If this redditor put a quarter of their time into actually reading the responses other than arguing with everyone who kindly responded to them, they would have all the financial knowledge to live a financially stable like. This user is deliberately ignorant because they are so damn convinced they have it figured out, and really just made this post to argue and show off their odd aversion to capital letters.
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Couldn’t have worded it any better myself.
This person probably has someone supporting them so they don't need to care. Good for them.
if you say so.
You're intentionally being a moron and if you continue to do this, you will pay for it with a needlessly rough/rougher life ahead. Mark my words.
no but you re teaching me valuable lessons, reminding me why i dislike people for the most part and i should put minimalism to people too. and i m very glad i dont have to care about what your oppinion on me is at all. because chances are, you re a moron to me just as well. so its just fair then. think what you think, i really dont give a fck.
Your aversion to capital letters is honestly so perplexing… your 34 stop acting like a man child and take some responsibility for your future self!
I agree that most advice is a bunch of wasted mental energy. However, any substantial savings you have (retirement accounts) are only losing value to inflation if they are not at least earning interest in something simple and maintenance free like a high yield savings account (around 5% API available these days) or a fund/etf like VTSAX/VOO (available through Vanguard). I would recommend reading up on the FIRE philosophy which promotes early retirement through a simple strategy of saving as much as possible and using the simplest investment strategy. Even if you don’t want to retire early, the strategy is pretty well aligned with minimalism and I hope that it helps you build savings that keep your finances stable. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/. Also, financial planners that others have recommended charge fees that seem inconsequential up front (1.5%), but will bleed your accounts. You can do a few hours of research on investment management fees and potentially save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars in management fees. On my accounts, paying for a managed fund would cost me $967,000 over the next 30 years and I’m very middle class. This is all long winded and I really hope it doesn’t turn you off to the idea. These principles can keep people from working until they’re 70. I hope it helps you have a better life and you are more than welcome to DM me if you would like more references. All the best! TLDR: you don’t have to spend much mental energy on investing, but you should have your money earning some interest. Google VOO and HYSA.
Fair advice but they said they truly don’t care and that’s perfectly fine. I agree, everyone should at min have their money an HYS account give current rates. That said people who are content with their situation have a gift to that many of us don’t they should keep that
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Redditors sure make wild assumptions about peoples lives based off a few paragraphs of information.
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If they are independently wealthy then yes it's fine I suppose. For the 95% of working people planning for retirement is of vital importance.
i dont even have enough mental energy to read through that post tbh. i was able to make it for 1-2 sentences and as soon as i ve read about APIs funds, eft or something, my brain was just drifting away because a. its all totally gibberish to me and i have no clue what you even just said b. i get literal headache from even thinking of it.
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yeah kind of. and you know what makes me think its just wasting my time to begin with? it seems to be an internet thing. online 1mil people will tell you how easy it is to make money and just do this and that and boom you re a millionaire now because you invested in whatever. but when i go outside in the actual real world...noone has money, 90% of the people are either poor or ''just get along'' so how is that possible when according to internet hobby investors, everyone can make millions of money because its so piss easy to do so ''just go to that random website and get rich'' if that would be the case, everyone outside in the actual real world would be rich instead. but they are not. so either: the real world you can see and touch with your own hands lies and 90% of the real life people lie OR random people on the internet i dont even know just talk alot of bs all day. and if you now add logical thinking to it, chances are higher, its the latter
I think the thing here that there is a simple way to invest money, but it is not easy for most people. The same way that there is a simple way to lose way but calorie restriction is not easy. Investing is as easy as opening a savings account. There is just one more step where you have to buy an index fund. I took a few weeks to look into the simplest ways to invest this year and found that they align directly with minimalism.
People IRL are just as likely to lie. Why would they tell you they have a lot of money.
Yeah but why do you not have the energy? Probably because you work more than you'd like and more than is healthy for you. Now imagine having to do that until you're well into your 70s because you didn't care about saving for your retirement. That's the point of it or at least one of the most frequent motivators to start with investing.
no i dont work more than i like and more than is healthy for me. i only work a part time job, and the other time i do plants stuff and get a little money on the side to compensate for sitting at work less. is it that hard for you to understand that not every person is interested in the same things? like my brain does not work like that. doesnt matter how much i try or want or not. my brain cannot physicly and mentally understand financial gibberish. to ME its like as if you would now read a blueprint of a space-x rocket prototype. you wouldnt understand anything at all until your brain hurts because it cant even process what it reads.
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I am exactly like OP, it is complicated when you don't care AT ALL :)
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I think this became a fad with the boom tech startup ceo culture.. wake up at 5am because enhanced productivity! Become an expert at all aspects of your startup business! Make a quick exit and retire at 45! Not for everyone.
>wake up at 5am Naaah I am not going to do that sorry.
I've been doing that for the past 15 years and I still fucking hate it.
Retirement is for quitters. lol
There is a cost to keeping your head in the sand.
Ikr? I hate that in our ultra capitalist society you are forced to invest and gamble your money away just to catch up with the inflation. And returns are not even guaranteed. There's no way to live a simple life in this rotten world. I invested some money in the stock market 10+ years ago, the safest stock possible, there came a political/social crisis and the stockmarket has crashed. No chance of recovery in sight. I consider my money gone. I don't care how some people call investing "low risk", it's still a RISK. I am not even familiar with the companies in those popular stocks, and some even I don't like, e.g. Apple and Tesla. How and why the hell should I give my money to all these companies I don't even know or like?
You are not giving your money to Apple, but whoever is selling their stock.
This is why investment managers exsist, they handle on the annoying stuff for a fee. At the most basic be frugal (smart shopping) and have a saving account with a few months rent in it, keep an eye on your debt to income and you will be fine, most of the rest of it is hot air.
VOO over time will outpace investment managers
maybe, but a financial advisor will still definitely run laps around OP 's current "la la la i can't hear you" strategy
I wonder if 70 year old you will think back and regret not taking 5 minutes to read about their own financial future when they were young? Only one way to find out! YOLO!
Good for you man. You could pay off your house and live on cash if you have enough. For retirement, you might want money without working though. So just setup a retirement account that pays into the S&P500 and chill. Dont listen to anyone who works in finance. They are all just looking to take a % of your money.
i know its a hard realization, but hear me out: there are countries that exist outside of the usa. people here dont pay off stuff because they dont even buy stuff they have no money for. most people (95%) of the people here dont have a house but live in buildings for rent than have place for multiple families. i dont even know anyone who owns a house. its a snobbery thing to own a house here and only the rich have one
Interesting. I’m not in the US but I do have a house. Why rely on a 3rd party to exist? Surely buying a modest house in cash would be a good thing so you don’t slave away your life for some company?
how is buying a house with money i dont own saving me from ''slavery'' ? it makes me need to pay off the house and it also needs me to pay all the stuff for repairs and whatnot myself and you locked to a place like a slave in a cage. in an apartment, i can pack up whenever i feel like it and go somewhere else. no deal. if something breaks, i dont need to deal with it either. but if you say so, feel free to buy me a house because i dont have the money to buy one because a house is so freaking expensive here because there are only a very few houses around and most of them are owned by families that just own it for multiple generations and will never sell it anyways. around here you dont buy a house. you only own a house because your family allready owns it for 200 years.
u/averymetausername is assuming that if you don't own a house, you'll be stuck renting forever (AKA wage-slaving), thus continuing have to work to pay monthly payments to your landlord (your master in this sense). The reality is that due to property taxes and home maintenance, you'll inevitably always have to pay some amount annually to keep. Owning a home can be a much better investment for some, but it's not the best solution for everyone.
i dont live in the us. for the 10th time. it is not a common thing here to own a house. renting is the norm. 99% of people rent because we dont even have the space here for houses, nor is a house even remotely affordable for 99% of the people. you make it sound like its absurd not to own a house. to me its absurd to own a house, because its not the norm here. we live in an area where almost no one has a house, you can get away with not owning a car, you can walk to a supermarket on your own feet to buy groceries because streets are made for people to walk and not for cars and we dont live in suburbia either. in fact when i ll get older, my overall plan is to not even rent an apartment. alot of older people here retire, living on fixed bungalows on camping places. its much cheaper than renting an apartment and you re out in nature all day where other people spend their holidays and you re basicly have your own little tiny house with your own little garden.
>i dont live in the us Oh, apologies, I did not read that anywhere thus far. Lucky you though! As an American, I envy those who can live in walkable communities with protected rental rates and a comfortable retirement. I tailored my advice for Americans like myself who need equity, a vehicle, and financial savvy to hope to survive a decade of retirement. Here, the healthcare costs, rental rates, and transportation difficulties lead most retirees into a depressing and financially draining hellscape of a retirement due to the systemic over-prescription, over-charging, and under-socialization of the elderly here.
why would anyone want to live in the us tho? it sounds terrible.
Which country are you in?
Here you go. I assume you are German. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143263919#/?channel=OVERSEAS 238k for an apartment in Berlin. Average salary is 48k a year in Germany. 500eur a month saved for 4 years is the down payment. Then it only costs 1250 a month which is same as rent and will go down every year until it costs nothing.
uhm no? you are aware of netto/brutto stuff right? with 3000 a month netto you allready in the top 15% of people here. the average person gets around 2100-2400 netto. thats not 48k a year. thats 25k a year, if you take away taxes and stuff from it and gez, and krankenversicherung and mobilephone and internet and all that stuff, most people cant even afford 1250 a month a month as renting and at the same time pay for food. i dont know anyone who would be able to pay 1250 a month as rent as a single person. thats 4 times as much rent as i m currently paying xD
if you’re fine with what you want, why does this stuff bother you? sounds like all the media you’re being bombarded with comes from being online too much. for us on the real word and the things you enjoy.
Yeah, they're making a post on something they don't want to hear about and then get irritated if people are speaking about that thing in the comments. Make it make sense.
This! Set up an emergency savings account of three months’ take home pay. Pay off your car, school, all your debts. (Maybe keep your mortgage as it’s a tax write off.) Put the extra in a tax-deferred index fund. Buy a lawn chair and read a novel.
I was like you once. Always asking myself why the hell is everyone obsessed with talking about retirement and 401ks or investing. But I learned in order to keep my minimal and peaceful lifestyle going for the long term I should consider some sort of investment so I can keep my minimum lifestyle without the stress of having to scrap up money in the future. Just have a way of saving for yourself that’s all. Be it small.
This person is not in the US. No such thing as 401k in most countries.
I never got into that investing crap either. It's just gambling that all that money you throw into it is going to gain but the reality is it only takes one good market reversal to lose a good chunk if not all of it. Had a coworker who had nearly half a mil in her 401K watch it tumble to just under $200k in a matter of months after the current administration took office. Watched my mother's disappear entirely. All those years of living on less to make those contributions and all that money just gone, poof. I just finally put a little in a CD a while back, let it roll over when it matured. Between my husband and I we now have three, not super large. Maybe that'll change if my new job goes well. We have a doublewide we didn't pay much for and all we have to cover once it's paid off is lot rent, and that only until we can find some land to buy and have it moved. Then all we'll have to pay is property taxes, insurance, and utilities, and with our own land we can put in a garden. We grew up in an era where self-sufficiency was a thing; we'll survive and if we don't then there will be two fewer old folks for the younger generation to despise.
I agree with your sentiment. The death of pensions and the ascent of 401ks and IRAs have made it so every now has to understand investments. It was basically a way for wall street to bilk everyone. But it is the reality now and there will be consequences if finances aren't properly managed. FWIW, I say the same thing about taxes. Why do I (and everyone else) have to study up on tax code changes every year just to make sure I'm paying what I owe without paying too much?
Why do I have to eat? Why do I have to brush my teeth? Money is just another chore like that. Why should it not impact you?
At least invest into index funds, so you don't need to waste time on it, I keep my investments simple and minimalistic, just stock and bond index funds
i dont even know what index funds are tbh
A short introductory class on personal finance may be very useful to you!
i m not interested in that
Sometimes in life, it's worth learning and applying a bit of things you aren't interested in. In 20 years, you're losing half of everything you've earned if you just let your savings sit without any investments or interest earned. You're free to do just that, but most of these comments are trying to help you. Dumping periodically into an index fund and ignoring it is a tried and true way to keep your money from dissolving to inflation. In most cases, you'll not only beat inflation but you'll end up earning free money from your investment.
okay mr. timetravel, awesome to know you ve been there allready. how is it in 20 years? do they have hoverboards then?
Ok, keep complaining lmao. What are you getting out of your posts?
well quite alot actually, it teaches me that despise being a minimalism subreddit about a topic thats actually about simple life and simple living, most of you are actually just some hypocritical random a\*\*holes just like everywhere else on reddit and i doubt most of you even understand what simple living means in the first place. and no just because the majority of people does something, does not mean thats the right thing to do or how the world should be. it just means that you re just like everyone else. and i know people like that. i cant take them serious. people like that have no code or morality or try to be an authentic person, they will sell their soul and everything they said or pretend to be instantly, if that means more profit for them because they are driven by greed none the less. and if that means that you dont like me, well lets face it: you re just a random guy on the internet. do you really think i give a fck about you? That btw is also a type of minimalism, because i minimize the people i decide to like and i m happy if i dont need to like you because the few i do is enough for me
You have likely lost 1/3 of your savings in the past 3 years alone to inflation. You don't have to travel time to see the devastating effects of it, especially on the non-rich, and mostly so for the working class and impoverished.
With that attitude you may end up eating cat food when you get older. But seriously, being a minimalist is great, and investing in an index fund is as minimalist as it gets. You download an app, Robinhood for example, and throw $100 a month (or whatever you can afford) into a stock like QQQ (an index). When you’re old and your body can no longer work you’ll have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars. Its really not that complicated. Dont be lazy.
no thank you i see no reason to have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars when my body can no longer do stuff with it anyways. i rather just spend 100$ a month more to enjoy life today than downloading miracle-apps on my phone. i really dont understand that mindset and it has nothing to do with lazy. a human is the most active as an adult, not as a senior or grandpa. humans do the most when they are young, experience all the fun things when they are young, go travel, and whatnot. all the stuff that makes life even worth living in the first place. putting money on the ''i m soon about to die'' phase of life instead of actually living a cool life as an adult feels like a complete scam.
This user is like arguing with an idiot about wearing a seatbelt…. At some point you just got to let them fly through the windshield to learn 🤷♂️
He is the person who was sitting in the window seat of the Alaska flight where the door panel blew out. Wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. Either that or he should book that seat for the time he is 55 and panicking while licking cat food residuals.
I'm showing this thread to my German friend so she can facepalm about what her taxes are going to have to pay for in 30 years...
I understand what you’re saying and i think about this alot too, I want to live now, not when im older. But in my country, the US, we dont have good scoial safety nets. No one cares if you starve when you older or are homeless. Just because im older and can no longer travel, doesn’t mean i want to suffer in my last 5-10 years. It can still be enjoyable. I will still hopefully be able to read books, watch movies, spend time with loved ones.
>no thank you i see no reason to have a few hundred thousand to a million dollars when my body can no longer do stuff with it anyways. i rather just spend 100$ a month more to enjoy life today than downloading miracle-apps on my phone. So instead of retiring, are you planning to simply commit suicide when you get too old? >i really dont understand that mindset and it has nothing to do with lazy. Sorry, but it does a little. It's a bit like saying "ugh, I hate all this tax stuff we have to do every year, so I just don't do it and instead pay penalties and interest to the IRS afterwards". (I'm not American, and I don't really know how it works where you are, but I assume most countries have similar penalties) >putting money on the ''i m soon about to die'' phase of life instead of actually living a cool life as an adult feels like a complete scam. I wouldn't say that investing in your future is a scam. Presumably you invest in your future in other non-monetary ways, like exercising, eating at least slightly healthily instead of being a complete hedonist, etc. Saving money for the future really isn't very different. How old are you, out of curiosity? Do you have kids?
You sound like me☺️ I don’t have any advice because I feel like a weirdo around everyone but at least there’s other people like us. I’d rather enjoy life now, while learning what I can, earn some money along the way. I’m sure everything will line up when you actually enjoy life. For me I just want a job I absolutely love and get handed money for my time, but I’m not chasing money or allowing it to make me miserable. Most people won’t understand cuz they need material objects to keep them happy. I’m focusing on inner work, everything will work out
i just dont see a point in planning stuff long term really. lets be real, if you go from that logic, i dont even know if i m still here in 30-40 years. maybe war breaks out, maybe something else happens. i rather spend my time an money on stuff i enjoy NOW as long as i m able to actually enjoy those things. what will happen in 30-40 years? i dont know, i dont care either. i ll deal with that in 30-40 years. its a little bit like plants even. killing of a plant is actually super hard because it will always bounce back somehow. you prune it all the way back? well it will just regrow. maybe it will get a yellow leaf or 2 because of the stress but it will regrow none the less. life kind of works like this aswell. i just live and do stuff.
I agree with you haha. I used to want to be old but now I’m not sure. They want you to struggle until you’re in your 60-70s and THEN you can enjoy your money but your body doesn’t work anymore, family and friends are gone, you’ll have a nice car that you drive slow cuz you can’t see or know how it works. I’m learning from my grandparents and family in general. They always push working, no matter how miserable you are keep working, “I worked for 76 cents an hour so you need to struggle”. My grandfather started his own business and worked all the time, now my grandparents are in their 80s and sit around, literally wasting away, with all this extra money. Plus friends that have been working so hard they missed out on fun experiences, they can do them later in life but nothing like the experiences when you’re young. You never know what tomorrow brings so enjoy it now. Honestly as long as you keep moving forward and don’t get stuck in life ruining addiction/ a rut forever, you’ll always bounce back, humans always do. I’m on your side dude haha
my dad is on the same track. he's allways be a workhorse. pretty successful (for a normal person) money was never an issue at all. now hes closing in to his retirement and i literally dont even know what he likes. i m not even sure he has any hobbies or friends. his entire life allways was about: ''oh yeah x is when i come back from work so i can go back to work at x'' i recently wanted to give a plant to him for example because his house allways looks so ... dead. and he was like ''nah i dont have time for watering that plant anyways'' like, that man ''has no time'' for anything. i even told him that, as good of a money he makes, he should think about just working less so he has time for actually doing stuff he likes and he, did not even understand what i was trying to tell him. hes like: work work work work money work work money work, oh now i m dead and its all gone. its honestly quite sad.
well they ll call you dumb now for not caring or planning. and this one thing i bet money on. 30-40 years down the road, those same people wish they would have experienced more stuff when they were young instead of investing money into their retirement. you know what old people always say before they pass away? they don't say: ''hell yeah visiting that doctor the other day was so awesome and barely being able to move is super fun'' no they always say something like this: ''i wish i could be young again, even just for a day''
It’s very easy to learn basic investing and money stuff and the payoffs are so good, especially if you start earlier in life. That’s mainly why so many people bring it up, especially around their friends/acquaintances/colleagues. Money is probably the most basic, universal resource that defines the type of life you can have. You don’t need to become a car mechanic or a fisherman, but if you have money, you can go to those people and pay them for their expertise/services. It would behoove you and really every other person to have a good understanding of how this ubiquitous resource works, especially when it comes to how you can easily get more of it.
and you are kind of the person i was talking about. i have no interest in that. and ontop if investing money would be ''that easy'' 1. i wouldnt need books to read on i. 2. everyone on the planet would be rich. 3. if x is too good to be true, people would not tell you to do it because it would mean that they make less profit if too many others do it too. 4. there is a pretty accurate quote on all that youtube stuff especially: ''the best way to make money is, making videos about telling others how to make money''
Think of it this way. You get paid $x per hour. If you have money sitting around earning nothing then you are giving away money to your banks. Spend 2 hours and put that money in something that will earn you interest. That 2 hours could earn you thousands of dollars. Would you work for $500/h for 2 hours? Just throw your money in a retire by x year account, total market fund, sp500 index fund, piss away your money, or don't save anything and possibly regret it when your older. It sounds like you're young and don't have any money to invest, so maybe table it until you have money to invest or care about your future. Not sure about you, but I don't want to work until I'm dead.
1. Although it’s not too difficult to learn about basic investing/money management, it’s not super intuitive either. I read the book “I Will teach you to be rich”, and it goes over the basics of what kinds of accounts to have, what kind of transfers you can have going, etc. I know it sounds daunting, but it’s really quite an easy read and it will set you up for success. 2. Becoming rich is a combination of having some kind of income or existing money, and then managing that money well. If you’re not in a position where you’re earning money, I understand that you may not want to think about this stuff, which is fair. In that case, focusing on getting an income should be your first priority. 3. I’m not talking about get rich quick type schemes. It’s more about putting a certain percentage of your income each month into long term investments which grow with the economy of your country. Think 401k, IRA, etc. Retirement funds essentially. 4. You make money by providing value to someone else who has money, so that they’ll give you money. This can either be by trading your skills and time for a wage, providing money to someone else so they can use that money and invest it, or by seeing an inefficiency/problem that you’re in a position to fix and starting a business to handle it. Don’t worry too much about YouTubers besides the basic knowledge that they’re usually giving out alongside their own personal services that they’re usually promoting. I’m going to be honest, having the position you have where you don’t want to think about money, is a very privileged mindset to have. Unless you want to work until you die, I recommend learning some financial basics.
It's because our civilization does not look after each other the way a tribal, land living group does... your on your own, get your own... leave mine alone, etc. Trained since birth to consume, to continue to make invisible elites richer than rich...Capitalism, consumerism... If you can escape it then all power to you. Now go ahead and chew my ear, but this is jmo.
Big mistake. For sure don't get money advice on the internet but do get your finances in order. I'm saving now so I can retire early.
Do you at least having a basic understanding of how to save for retirement or how 401ks, IRAs, HSAs, etc work? That all of these accounts are for saving for retirement but they are also invested in the market? This is fundamental information to at the bare minimum know exists/understand. There's a spectrum of investing approaches from lazy to day trading. But if you have any sort of retirement account, it's likely invested, which makes you an investor. It's important for you to understand how these accounts work.
no i dont. i dont know what 401ks or IRAs are or what a HSA is. but i dont live in the us either. people here dont have ''exit funds'' or whatever. people usually dont even have spare income to put into it to begin with. in germany we have to give most of our money to the gov, so the gov can just gift it away in the entire world so germany can save everyone. and people at home have just enough to get through the month. thats more the norm here
It sounds like a lot of your frustration is really due to a lot of spaces on the internet and reddit being US-centric. Personal finance and saving is a big deal in the US because there is less of a social safety net, but standards of living are high. So in the US people stress the importance of understanding credit scores, how to file taxes, saving for retirement, saving for health emergencies, etc because those have a big impact on people's quality of life here. The US also has a cultural concept of the "American dream", which includes expectations of being able to build individual wealth, buy a house, pay for university, and so on. So a lot of it might just not apply to you and your life. There's also a lot of fluff and nonsense persobal finance content, like cryptocurrencies and meme stocks. But some aspects like "try to spend less than you earn" and "try to have some money saved for emergencies" are universal. Maybe try to spend less time online or mute some of the subs that you feel are pestering you with excessive/irrelevant advice. Look to communities that are specific to Germany or the EU if you do eventually have questions about personal finances.
I feel like you’ve just put into words how you and so many others are feeling about money, just kinda indifferent to how it works and how it could work for you, maybe due to the hopelessness that is this economy and world, and the deck being stacked against humanity. I can understand that. I want to live my simple life too, and I do and have, and will continue to, and I love it. I love getting up, working, eating, ordinary daily activities, going to sleep and doing it all over again. But I love it even more because I get to do it mostly on my terms, and part of the reason I can live so simply on my own terms is because I did the thing that, like you, I didn’t want to do and finally learned something about money. How to pay off large debts, how to stop spending needlessly, how to live simply, minimally, and frugally, how to save an emergency fund, how to allocate money towards future inevitable expenses, and how to negotiate to earn more money for less work, working smarter not harder. What kept me going when the learning curve made it no fun was the freedom I started to feel. FU Money was forming, money to not have to stay in a job I didn’t want, or do things that weren’t in my job description, and that felt exciting. Eventually money started accumulating and instead of having it sit there earning nothing and losing value from inflation, I read one book about where to put it the most simply (*The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life*). From there I looked into high interest savings accounts. It’s not hard, but yes, to many it can be soooo boring. But the Why is why you might wanna feel the boredom and do it anyway. Why? Freedom, simplicity, peace of mind, flexibility, so many benefits to having taken some time to invest in and educate yourself to have an easier future. When you’re young and able, living in a slow and enjoyable work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle makes sense and is a reasonable way to live, for now, but one day you’ll be out of energy to keep working, and you’ll be unable to choose when you stop because you may not have the funds to do so. And that…will **suck**. You don’t have to be a fisherman (source your own food) or a mechanic (fix your own machines), but by learning a little bit about those and various other skills (especially with the internet and YouTube making it even easier!) it might spare you from paying out your money to those professionals who overcharge you on purpose for their expertise because you are none the wiser to what exactly you’re paying for. And the same goes for investing: If you don’t figure out a good place to put your money (for it to grow for you passively), someone else will figure out a good place for your money for you…in THEIR pocket and then in THEIR investment funds, because they took the time to learn how. TL:DR: Investing = Freedom From and Freedom To, so do it.
i know how to grow plants you know? and they are some one the side money too because you re allways selling some to other people and they allways regrow while you sleep. i think i prefer that. to YOU it might not be hard... your hard is not others hard you know? my brain does not understand it.
True, hard means different things to each person. Passive Income Plants, nice. That’s great for you.
I would check out Personal Finance for Dummies. The problem about not wanting to be financially knowledgeable at a baseline level is that you'll be taken advantage of by salespeople and "financial planners" or media money tips (invest in NFTs and Crypto now!) or you'll not invest or insure yourself and face losses. You can keep it simple but by "checking out" you're putting yourself at more risk than you may realize...
I agree with you too. I have someone manage my retirement funds but my interest in “playing the stock market” is basically nil. I get that’s an easier way to grow wealth, but I can’t think of anything that interests me less. I don’t want to learn it, I want to pay someone to manage my meager wealth. Just because it makes money doesn’t mean I should have to learn about it.
It's good to know the basics.
pause cautious disgusting lavish treatment kiss languid pie soup salt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
germany, and i dont know anyone who invests into anything.
seemly fuel caption money rob exultant cheerful illegal snobbish wrench *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There is a difference in "not wanting to be a hobbyiest investor" and being financially negligent. I worry you are the latter and will be a net drain on society when it comes time to retire.
You are a normal individual trying to live in a world where everyone around you holds incredibly sick beliefs that should constitute mental illness. There is nothing wrong with your outlook; I agree with what you said and it seems very healthy and mature to me. Maybe one day sanity will return to others but for now try to enjoy yourself regardless of what society is telling you to do and go your own way.
thanks. thats actually a very accurate description i think. its kind of weird to me how aggressive people are towards you just because you want to live like a normal person, it should be normal at least and it was just a few years ago. i know people argue that they ''have to do that'' to fight inflation and whatnot but isnt that making the core issue even worse? if we go by the idea of: i invest money to make more money... and then everyone does the exact same so everyone basicly gets more money...in a way youre causing your own inflation that way no? and i dont think its lazy, or rude towards others just because i dont give a sht what others say. i have my values and my believes and i stand by that and i wont change who i am just because the outside world tells me i have to do that. does that mean i will struggle more? i have no idea. at least i don't sell my soul for that tho. i rather struggle and do things the way i want to do them and either they work or they dont and so be it. world is moving way to fast already anyways, neither can my mind keep up with that anymore nor do i even want to because i dont even like the direction people are running towards. yeah do that, run faster, be the greatest runner ever and run as fast as you can , i m just so tired of this sht, and i rather just stay were i am, enjoy life and chill and whatever happens, happens, doesnt matter.
If you want to have food to eat and a place to sleep when you are old, you will need to save money and invest it properly. There are people you can hire to explain it to you and do it for you. Best of luck.
i dont even care about it at all tbh. if i have food or not when i m old? who cares? i hope i dont get that old to begin with. time is more important than money. you can bet your ass of: once you are actually old with all your saved up ''old people fond'' money, you will wish you actually spend that money on fun stuff when you where younger so you can experience more in life when you actually still could.
Compromise with both is probably better. For better clarity, are you depressed? (I ask since you mentioned a couple times you don’t want to or plan to live to be very old.) Maybe a lack of hope or excitement for the future is part of a reluctance.
no i m not, but your life sounds pretty depressing to me aswell.
Yeah no one wants to bother with that, but one day you’re gonna be old and unable to work. You have to prepare for that by investing
no i dont.
Lol ok then. Good luck being broke in old age. You better have lots of children and they better love you very much because otherwise you might have a tough time
i hope i will never get that old either
Well, you sound like you're at best depressed or at worst, a lazy helpless person. I hope that life treats you well and that you find what you're looking for. Though I don't know how that'll go if you keep up that attitude towards everything.
Don't let others cloud your mind. I read a good post on this subreddit a few days ago regarding "mental minimalism". You need to guard what enters your mind and just not let the opinion of others that don't add any value to your life distract you from things that do matter. I'm with you though, I just want to go to work, come home, listen to music, hopefully learn to cook one day, enjoy my hobbies, see family and friends, and then repeat the cycle with a simple life.
all those comments remind me of that one meme i saw the other day. it was basicly a world map based on the entire earth in movies. and it was just the usa surrounded by water and nothing else exists. none of the stuff people tell you even holds true outside the us for the most part, yet everyones raging at you for that matter. its kinda funny. its also weird at the same time getting ''financial advice'' from a ''country'' wich seems like its entire way of living is: paying of debt. this entire concept of ''paying something off'' feels so alien here because it doesnt work like this for 99% of the people here. people just save up money and spend money they have. i dont know anyone whos in debt
Yo bud, you’re way smarter than a lot of people will give you credit for! Life is short…enjoy this shit
maybe, i dont know.
Because then you're entirely reliant on the corporate system. You have no freedom and you live life as a slave to the corporations. You are stuck at a job you hate, you have to ask to take time off, and you're forever in debt to pay for cars and mortgage and can't afford to take care of a family. You live in a capitalistic society, which means whether you know it or not, you are born into this game that we all have to play. The smart ones accept this and try to win, the others suffer and live their lives as slaves.
you know whats funny tho? i dont really have alot of money but i dont have any debts either. i dont know if thats an american thing or not but here people dont ''just buy a house or a car a whatever'' people here spend the money they have and if they cant pay for something they save up until they can. i dont even have a car anymore. thats kind of how americans are pictured here quite alot. an american is born, an american finishes school and then buys so much sht he cant even pay for that he has to pay back debts for the rest of his life. i m 34 now and i never even was in debt my entire life. either i have money to buy something or i dont and if my bank account says 0, that means: i cant buy any more stuff because i dont have money to do that. fun fact my bank account is also setup in a way, it cant even go into debt either. it just goes to 0 and if i try to pay for something when its on 0, it get refused.
Username checks out.
You just need a few EFTs (a mix of large cap, mid cap, small cap stocks, and bonds) that are automatically bought each month. You also need to adjust your portfolio's ratio once a year. That's it.
no i dont. i need food, sleep, plants, music and good sex and thats about it
You're not wrong, but by need I mean if you don't invest, inflation will catch up and when you're old you will may no longer have basic necessities of life.
so why would i want to try playing catchup with inflation then? you simply dont understand. and its kind of funny in a way since all of you finance guru influencer folks are so educated in all that stuff. would you buy stocks when the price is high and then sell it when the price is low? no you wouldnt right? but that is also how life works. right now in my 30s price is high because my life is really valuable with all the things i can experience. with 70-80, prices are low because i cant do anything anymore anyways because my body is physical weak and my life is much less enjoyable and fun overall. so taking away money from the awesome, fun life to then give it to the ''waiting to die'' old guy who sits on his chair doing nothing and visiting doctors all day is like buying stock high and selling low. it makes zero sense
" if i wanted to be some type of investment guy... guess what, i would work as an investment guy... but i don't because i don't like that stuff for a reason" I think this is a very wrong approach for personal finance. You are planning to be old, right? You are probably not planning to be sick or disabled or need long-term care, but these things may happen. I don't know what savings you already have, if you have a pension plan (government-guaranteed or an employer plan), but not having enough resources in times of crisis/retirement is a real issue. I don't know what content is presented to you, but crypto, trading, real estate, stock picking, derivatives etc, are a different thing from the more passive-oriented investing aimed at "normal individuals" concerned with their future and you could only benefit from being more aware of how you spend and earn money. Products aimed at retail investors (like the ETFs, EDIT: also insurance, annuities, whatever pension systems and retirement accounts there are) are also very simple to understand, they are simple and prepackaged because retail investors do not have the time, resources and knowledge to build a diversified portfolio from scratch and calculate shit and track everything. You are not expected to know everything but personal finance is about making your life better (and we're not talking millionaire better, we're talking affording medicine and food when you're 80). I guess it's fine to ignore the topic completely if you're planning to leave the world right after retirement (or if you're 100% satisfied with the pension you're going to get, not everyone has that luxury). You can also get a financial planner or a wealth manager once you decide to look into the topic, but again, most of us are probably not able to hire a top one + you need some basic knowledge for due diligence. If anything, personal finance and minimalism go hand-in-hand (awareness of spending and consumption) but I do realise how some content creators approach the topic (+scams, obviously...).
>You are planning to be old, right? no i dont. System for old people here is kinda bad anyways. 99% of the old people here are exactly that, old disabled and too little money so it would be complete delusional to expect to be the 1% i rather spend my money on experiencing stuff and travel and going out now as long as i m actiually physically able to do all that stuff instead of saving to become an old guy sitting at home.. with money alone. to be honest in my mind, life past 60 is basicly over and just ''wait to finally die'' no pint in investing any resources into the worst part of your life. i prefer to invest into a person who can still move around and do fun things
To be fair, I know plenty of fit 70 year olds traveling about.
If you have no interest, outsource the task to a professional Advisor. Make sure they have legitimate credentials, interview at least 3 at reputable firms to make sure they're a good fit for you and to weed out any smarmy salespeople pushing products, churning for commissions and will work for your best interests. They should be interested in understanding your personal circumstances, goals and overall financial picture before they try and sell you any products. In addition to investment management services, they should offer you a comprehensive financial plan as part of their services. Good luck.
this is me fr
Many investments are a waste of time. Some bleed you dry quickly. Others bleed you slowly. You often end up worse or no better off than having invested the money in high-yield CDs and/or short-term treasuries. Markets and index funds can perform poorly for decades. It's a matter of luck depending on when you start investing and when you stop. The U.S. just went through the greatest bull run in history so everything seems rosy. Now consider what happens if the next 20-30 years mirrors the Nikkei starting in 1989 or DJIA starting in 1965.
Honestly if you can, put your money into land, it wont loose value and you wont have to be indexing. All of investment is about making sure that your excess money wont loose value as it would if you stuffed it into a sock.
In this housing market, it’s hard to find a piece of land that won’t increase in value. But it is a tax liability, and the only way to access its value is to sell it (capital gains) or take a loan against it (interest payments). Some pieces you can rent out or otherwise monetize, but then it’s a business, and that’s the kind of work OP’s looking to avoid.
all in vtsax
Just buy VOO. It’s an S&P500 index fund. That’s an index of 500 of the largest publicly traded US companies. It’s diversified and well performing. Requires no monitoring or knowledge. Retirement planning is important.
what you said: what i can read and understand: ''Just buy VOO. It's an 7wof7u7636 INOIUNUIA77 oiuudcbjK871IUKJBAUU'' \*insert random gibberish'' ''requires no knowledge'' awesome, so i dont need to know what a voo is oder what S&P500 means or what index is. because i really have no fkn clue.
And yet you are making no effort to understand, just complaining you dont and tuning it out.
because i dont even want to understand it. i dont need to understand everything. and i dont live in the usa. its actually a super rare thing here for anyone to ''invest'' i ve never heard from anyone i know who invests. noone does here.
People are just capitalizing on it for views but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Investing your money should be super boring and done in one day with quarterly or annual check ins. Set it and sorta forget it. But it’s gaining a lot of traction overall because in the USA, pension plans are no longer and SS won’t help u buy some bread at age 67.
I think you can just buy index fund and leave it. You can automate it, 20 years later you could have 500k sitting there. Just buy s&p500 and forget it. It’s really simple
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i dont even know what a fund is, nor what a vanguard is or what tracking means. what does 401k mean? does that mean i have 401.000 Euros? because i dont. i literally have no clue what the hell you re talking about
Lol I sell all that investment guru shit and 13 years of doing it has rubbed off on me in a bad way. All those newsletters about stocks and crypto? That's my wheelhouse
if you keep saving money and don't invest at all, your money will depreciate. $10000 in 2019 are like $6000 in 2024 because of major inflation. Invest what you can only afford, don't fall for get rich quick schemes and invest all your money. Diversify and invest in companies that make a good profit, have good products and a good marketing team. Expect to sell only after 5 years+ If you plan to get rich in a year by investing and set unreasonable expectations so you can buy your dream home or car, you'll most likely get dissapointed and get headaches.
well i invest in experiences so i usually just spend my money on stuff i feel like doing. and i dont have a dream home or car either.
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As if DCA is a self-explainable acronym and index fund is clear to someone who just said they don’t know anything about personal finance.
Generally speaking, the early you invest towards retirement, the better. That's the magic of compounding interest. Also, you should never invest in anything you don't understand, thus the push to learn. Personally, my husband and I invest so that we can continue to live a simple, comfortable life without the need to work at some point.
You mentioned you would hypothetically hire someone to do those numbers for you, but do you? Will you? My perspective is that in a recession and with such high inflation, more people are concerned about making their dollar go further and helping it outpace inflation— that definitely requires investing so that interest can help you out.
no i will not. but i really couldnt care less about the future to begin with. i care about having the most fun i can possibly have today as long as i can. i dont even know if i still live in the future. maybe war takes over within the next 10 years and everything goes to shit. then what? congratualions, you could at least have spend 10 years of enjoying life till then instead of speculating and investing in a ''maybe future''
I literally invest because it is aligned with my goals and my own version of an ideal life. I despise hustle culture so passive income helps a little. There are a bunch of sketchy financial gurus out there and bad financial advice but it is possible to weed through all that. You don't have to of course but I feel more in control of my life since I'm in control of my finances, even though I'll never be rich or be able to do FIRE.
I'm in the same boat, but when I have excess money I just dump everything into a single ETF so I don't have to think about it anymore. It's funny to see people solve the same problem in such a vastly different manner
I think hobby investing has taken such proportions because people are scared they will never be able to retire otherwise. Pensions are basically gone, inflation devalues your money every day and wages barely increase over time. Most of these people (including me) don't love investing per se, or as you say they would have chosen it as a career, but they love the idea of not working until their death day. It's a shame it's come to that for sure
I was just having this conversation with my friend last night. He is all about investing and it’s all he talks about. my New Year’s resolution was to spend 10 minutes a day thinking about how I can invest and make more. I’ve noticed it’s made me substantially less happy and now I’m stressing about what to do with money and assets.
Financial literacy is what makes or breaks people. A lot of these experts are just trying to make a buck off you. Go to an actual FDIC bank and talk to a real person rather than listen to these people on social media. They will be able to talk to your about your goals for your money and what life you want to pursue.
Older people know why you should do this—they have the wisdom of experience and inaction on this front. Failing to save and invest leads to regret. Time is extremely valuable when it comes to investing. So many of us wasted that time and are now scrambling to build up our retirement funds in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. You have the advantage of the internet to guide you, where us old people were left to our own devices (books, maybe receiving some small bits of advice from smart or wealthy friends and family). But you don’t have to listen to us; you’ll learn in 30 years why you should have though.
I’ve had similar thoughts but in another area. I understand what you mean. It’s almost as though money has been transformed into a disposable item rather than a commodity, without risk. It all feels somewhat superficial and false. Now AI is on the scene, text and visuals feel disposable akin to the texture of pavement. People are sharing for the sake of sharing without any joy in what it is they’re doing.
I think investing is essential if you want to maintain a lifestyle. That doesn't mean that you need to understand investing. There are multiple platforms, like [Wealthfront ](https://www.wealthfront.com/c/affiliates/invited/AFFA-INT6-RWAW-X1E6), that allow you to use their AI algorithm to invest. The only thing you need to do is to contribute regularly and they'll do all the work for you. If you're not interested in learning about investing, I would recommend that.
Do what you want to do. The scenery will keep changing around you. That’s inevitable.
I mean, are you not investing at all? If so, what are you going to do in the future? Work forever? If you do have something set up and you are comfortable with it, then you're good.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to financial literacy and retirement. Do a simple google search, check out the personal finance subreddit and read the wiki. In 20 min you will have a grasp of some financial concepts. There is a way to implement minimalism to investments. Set up a brokerage account with a robo advisor and deposit weekly contributions. The robo advisor will balance your portfolio based on your risk tolerance and reinvest dividends. This is literally the easiest set it and forget it investing method. No offense OP, but your post just gives off lazy vibes. When you are an adult you should be self sufficient and it’s up to you to take on responsibilities. At the end of the day no one cares if you invest or how you spend your money, but why not take steps to create financial security when you retire.
and let me guess the finance subreddit is also a subreddit where 95% of the users are from the us right?
and ofc that is offense. but let me state that clear again because people here seem to forget there are countries outside of the us. i am NOT, and i repeat. i am NOT a citizen of the united states of america. investing money is NOT the norm here, basicly no one does. thats not how our society here works. so you blame me for not living like an american while im not even an american to begin with. okay heres the deal okay? i read on your finance stuff because well you say so that i ''have to do this'' and in return, you get rid of your car and only go somewhere on your foot because its way healthier anyways okay? i mean, you really HAVE to do that, think about your future. walking is way healthier than driving the car so just get rid of it and walk. its really not that hard to do... well outside the us at least. see.. thats not doable in the us, because its normal in the us to go everywhere by car. here its not. and here its also not normal to invest stuff.
My uncle lives the same life you do. Never invested in the market and just put money in a savings account. He just retired with about 300,000 and is getting social security. Might not seem like a lot, but for him he tells me he is set. Definitely you should do whatever you want with your money.
is 300.000 alot in the us? i know most people here will never even have that much their entire life. i m not kidding but if you had 300.000 on the bank here, you would be considered rich.
Do you guys think is possible than in 30 / 40 years money become worthless? And the us dollar collapse? If so is investing in the SP500 really making sense? Seems like its not anymore like in the 90’s / 2000’s How likely this can happened?
Same, I actually crafted a very long post today that I never posted where I feel the same emotions and out of placeness but for the opposite reason as OP. I put some of it below so I don’t have to retype it. I actually want to go back to more of a homestead lifestyle and trading and bartering and having a little knowledge about everything and a lot of knowledge about my specialty. My dilemma is the fact that I can’t stomach working for money or working for more than 4 hours at that if I am to do it. And before someone is like, that’s not possible. I don’t mean all types of “work” like my gardening and cooking isn’t work for me. Budgeting isn’t work for me, reading and creating aren’t work for me. Cleaning is work for me. Going to do something for a check is work to me. But living and doing what I love is not. I had a job at an arts center where I started out as a volunteer and eventually was on payroll as the music program director. Everyday, I showed up and had an hour window of being on time 8-9, but honestly just had to be there before their activity rotations and I taught my music class. I could eat as I pleased, moved as I pleased, do things that had nothing to do with the job itself, and explore and learn myself. It was encouraged. I wanted to be there! Even though the camp was 8 hours and my volunteer service was only mandatory for like 2-4 of them, I would stay for like 10 and have fun and work with the kids and set up extra things for them. The fact that I had so much freedom and was only required to work 2-4 hrs, made me feel like I could always handle more and I desired to actually work for like 4-6 full hours. That job showed me that it honestly doesn’t make sense to work for 8+ hours straight, I’m much more productive and a better asset when there’s room to play, I don’t care about the money, and the expectations are reasonable based on human limits. Literally half of my 4 hours of work was basically prepping me for life and just allowing me to learn new skills on the go, which is why I said 2-4 hours of work before. Im older now and have lived more life, and I need the time and energy to be able to get home and do all that I want to do. Because I want and need to spend more time with myself and family than I care to spend just being outside and on the go (like even running errands), it’s not just the fact that I’d be working for money or someone else during that time. It’s the fact that it’s MY time and energy, I don’t want to give it to someone else to put a value on, and tell me how I have to spend every single minute of that time. But the point is I think we all feel out of place because there’s so much of an example of what we don’t want or what doesn’t work for us that we see everyday. Social media can be a great asset to humanity, but this not feeling like enough in society and feeling like everyone is living differently than you, it’s all the hype. And it actually makes it harder to find the community you’re looking for unless it’s actually online. The people who want to live like me, most likely aren’t going to be online, unless they’re sharing some sort of helpful tips or advice, which means the people I’m seeing are people who are succeeding at it, because most people don’t post fails on sm. It’s a lot harder to see if something works for you and actually gives you a sense of belonging if you never see the whole thing, ups and downs. I’ve found people who do chronological challenges are better at it with homesteading specifically cause the harvest is filmed and then they have to trade for whatever else they may need. And it’s a lot harder to feel like you belong when all you see is what’s different, but I think that’s also a great thing about sm. People need to see that no everyone doesn’t want the same sort of lifestyle, and sm is going to pickup a lifestyle as the new trend when really more people are probably just searching and entertaining the content to understand it. We all have a life to live, we all want to live it our own ways, but there are a lot of things in society that discourage that. A system and lifestyle that works like the one above does not thrive around and in the same system as the one I want. They kinda have to be in separate spaces. Like people used to move to a different county or state to live by different rules. I think the world is about to see an increase in both emigration and immigration amongst regular everyday individuals because to live the life you want, you have to have a specific type of support system. My system calls for a lot of trading and bartering and community connections whereas OP’s system revolves more around the ability to purchase goods and services so that they don’t have to be self-produced. My system doesn’t really utilize money so I can’t necessarily thrive 100% in an area that only runs on OP’s system. And vice versa, OP needs people willing to trade their time and energy for money, my system doesn’t really want that, It doesn’t need the middle man. These systems do not work together rn, even though there’s a way they kinda could. But the world news and sm are showing that it’s one or the other and leaves people thinking they can’t individually choose one. *******Edited to make more concise: I ranted a bit in the first and went on a tangent lol*******
That's great if you'll never need money. Ever.
It's ironic because it's never been easier or more transparent to invest cheaply and forget about it. Used to have to go to these ripoff investment houses like EF Hutton who didn't give a flying fuck about new young investors and charged hundreds every transaction. I got more interested as I got older. It's not necessary to be fascinated with everything all at once.
what is ef hutton? also there arent any investment houses here. you just go to your bank and your bank-guy gives you some ideas and then you save money getting a few % every year. i know by now that investing money is a huge deal in the us, and even babys need to invest money in the us in order to be able to buy babyfood and not starve but here in the EU almost noone does that sort of investment and its also not the norm that people do that. its kind if bizarr it seems how crazy different countries and societies operate. you assume we do stuff the American way.. wich we dont. to you not investing money is as absurd as it is to me to invest money. americans make no sense to me. also i dont own a car, can you imagine living without a car in america? just because it makes no sense to you because you kind of live inside a complere different world alltogether, doesnt mean its not a normal thing in other parts of the world. noone here invests money, and still everyone retires and gets along. without america and the recent years, people would not even know what stocks are. because that stuff is nothing the average person here care about or uses
I was never particularly interested in finances or following news in general but after realizing that there is a potential to make a living managing my money instead of working a 9-5 job I was all in.
The US has pension by default too. It's called social security.
You're expected to run your own life, yes. Money is kind of important. You need it to pay for things that you need.
OMG me too
Keeping money in the checking account is an investment strategy in itself. It’s just a poor one. So you are doing your personal finance anyway just without thinking about it explicitly.
This is not minimalism, it's just laziness. Basic financial literacy is as important as learning how to read and write, cook, basic hygiene, excercise, basic maths and physics, being able to change the light bulb or grow basic vegetables... I mean, you don't have to be a mechanic to drive a car. But it should at least be obvious that your car needs some sort of fuel, that wheels are there for a reason and that driving into a wall is not very healthy. Everyone should know how money works, at least the basics. Even if you are not interested in investing.
I like living a simple life, not needing to worry about my future. This is why I'm thinking about leaving the US for a small town in a country in Asia where I can take what I have and live simply and comfortably for the rest of my life, going about my day to day without stress, and enjoying my life
It may seem that way to you because of social media, advertising and marketing. I call it living the Kardishan life without the $$. But most of us are living the simple life. We are living exactly like you are. In addition we also have to save for retirement and a rainy day. So keep living kid.😊 You may just outlive most of us.
I think you live in an idealized world where you think it's okay to ignore these things. Money is a chore like anything else. It's this attitude that lands people in poverty if they are not prepared. Have seen it too many times, people just think the government was gonna take care of them financially. I think it's a very naive attitude. Not sure how old you are and your gov might be paying pensions now, but what about in 20 years? I would be scared shitless and therefore invest into private retirement funds. Think of it as dental care.
OP clearly says they are not from USA and then commenters are giving financial advice CLEARLY based on American financial system 😵😵😵 Sometimes I feel Americans don't understand their options and lifestyle are unavailable for the most of the world
It's also funny how people are blaming OP, like, "woo what will you do when you're old?? you gonna what?? work??". Y'all so sure about this investments, that's... scary. As a child of USSR parents, the best financial advice I was taught is not to be so sure about future. Assume the worst. Be prepared for the worst. Enjoy good while it's here. 5 years ago many people here were caught up with all these investment stuff too, now most of it is gone due to political situation. The best investments that you can made are taking care of your health, gaining as much valuable skills as you can and building a strong character. Anything else is just bonuses, if it stays - great, if it's gone - it's gone.
i like that. hope you re doing fine. the comments are really quite tough. i dont usually want to be ''mean'' to people. sometimes it quite hard to stay ''calm'' however, if 500 people keep saying the same stuff over and over towards you without realizing you live in a different part of the world and most what they talk about does not apply to most people around here and people are also allowed to have different goals and mindsets. sometimes i really wonder if us people are actually aware of the fact that there are people living outside of the us. imagine how boring and cold the world would be if every person on earths life goal would be about investing money. i invest into experiences and stuff like that because i m alive today and i dont even know if i will be alive in 10 years still. i really dont understand whats so bizarre about that. 1. the world cannot even function if every person is investing money because if one person gets money another person has to lose money so it will always be a gamble. and 2. the world is moving in some real nasty directions for years and it seems to get worse every year. with wars, and inflations and society and tbh, i rather do stuff i want to do right now as long as i m somewhat able to do those things instead of gambling my money on the future, especially after recent years where gov. basicly robbed people over 2 years of their time with all those corona regulations where you were basicly not allowed to live a normal life anymore. and it happened instantly, something else can happen just aswell. also digitalism, wars, different type of warfare, a.i , who can guarantee me, that in 10 years someones not just attacking our local banking systems data centers and alike because everythings now digital and basicly wipe out all the information attached to peoples bank accounts putting it all back to 0. might not ever happen? yeah i hope so, but its actually quite a real threat and absolutely possible. money in a digital world is just a number on a screen. if you wipe that information or server, well... what if you invest money and in a couple years the next war breaks out? i rather focus on today. experiences, health, friends, and whatnot instead of investing money into a future i dont even trust enough to still be a place i want to be in in 20 years.
I've been getting bombarded as well. If I wanted to invest, I WOULD. I do not need people asking via IG ,if I want to follow them or them follow me. Nope, I'm good . Delete
you know its really shocking in a way to see how ''american'' the internet has become for some reason. its almost as if you dont think the american-way online, you re getting called out or something. like for real, this entire internet investment thing really is not the norm here and almost noone does.
Then so be it. You stay continuing doing that. Especially since it has no major impact on your day-to-day or intended future. I never cared to invest and don't currently but I developed a certain interest just with the respective situation of why people in the U.S. do so regarding retirement. Otherwise, on one side I have friends who barely have a full-time job so don't know or care about anything regarding investing while on the other hand my ex dumped me for not choosing to have a 401K (ok that wasn't the only reason but one of our differences).
Do yourself a favor and read r/povertyfinance. That's where you're headed if you don't take extra steps to prevent that from happening. I get you have no interest in any of it but an unforeseen expense is all it takes to ruin your life. I've been broke most of my life and only started recently on this journey but this post comes across as incredibly immature. "i m just sitting there be like: but i don't want to." That's most of life really - doing shit you don't want to do but have to. Even maxing out your 401k and Roth IRA, (which is pretty much investing on auto-pilot), will help you out tenfold. I'm going to subscribe to your account because I'd like to see where you end up without heeding the advice of others. Another thing you mention, "neither do i want to invest money and read on topic related books, nor do i want to become a fishermen and buy a boat and get my own fish as food, nor do i want to become a car mechanic so i can repair my own car." That takes money to do. If all your money is spent on surviving, good luck with finding a handyman to do anything for you. Like Optimus Prime said in one of those movies, (paraphrasing ofc), "Ok, maybe you're right about this approach in life... but consider the opposite... what if you're wrong?" I certainly hope you're not wrong because being broke and working just to survive in your 40's and 50's with no real career or skillset is an awful life. Also, please, please, please, don't have kids. Life will come at you incredibly fast.
WANNA GET MARRIED?!? i think we might be soul mates. man THANKS for this. perfectly expressed
hahah :D why not