What has been your best financial move in life?
What has been your best financial move in life?
What has been your best financial move in life?
Piracy
For me that was one of the worst financial moves ever made.
Plex server go brrrrr
How so?
Not having kids.
Get that sweet DINK litestyle
I love the acronym dink. It sounds so insulting but people use it very casually and it's funny hearing people calling each other dinks.
Being born into a rich western country.
Yeah, me too. I pat myself on the back for this one nearly every day. Probably the best financial decision I ever made.
Underrated answer. Meritocracy is a lie, folks, even within the West. If you do everything perfectly you will climb a little bit, and only on average. All the counterexamples you're thinking of are people who won a lottery of some kind. And of course, birth is also a lottery.
A literal move actually. 20 years ago I moved from America to a country with universal health care. That has saved my family probably close to a quarter million bucks in health care fees alone.
Not to mention the headache. It feels like every time I get treatment I have to argue with my insurance until they eventually cave (assuming it's something they actually cover). I asked my mom if this is how healthcare is really like and she said "yeah it's just the culture, it's normal" acting as it having to beat the fuck out of a metaphorical piñata to pay for life saving treatment is ok or acceptable. Like why the fuck can't you just pay for the treatment that I fucking pay you to cover?
Oh god, I hear ya. A long while back I needed some serious treatment and ended up in a hospital for two weeks. It was the first time I had ever gotten truly sick, so I was dreading the final bill. But when the docs said nah you're good, it's covered, just take your meds and come back in a week for your follow-up, I damn near died a second time :P
Did you move to Vietnam?
Close, it was Japan
Bullshitting my way onto a high salary career track and just learning shit as i go.
I think I surprising amount of people are likely just "faking it". I hope one day we can collectively cut the BS and all admit we don't know what we're doing.
I think the main problem is that requiring and checking if someone can learn a skill you need is a lot harder than just making the skill a requirement for the job right out of the bat.
I honestly can’t deal with all the theatrics of securing a job (interview and first months/year included). This was a setback at first since when people asked me stuff I didn’t know I’d just say “I don’t know” or at most “I heard this and that but never worked with it”.
Thankfully I ended up at a place that appreciated that frankness and that gives me room (and incentive) to learn new stuff. Every year so far I end up in a new project with different technologies to use and learn. My ADHD brain is extremely satisfied.
I think it's fair considering companies want 4 plus years for an entry position.
I would love to hear your story if you're willing to share.
Briefly: phd at Super Prestigious Institution. Fuck it, left science because didn’t want to languish making like $50K/year as a postdoc for like 6-8 years, with no guaranteed path forward. Pivoted toward money & people management. At every step up the ladder, I didn’t know shit. So what? I figured it out. Not that hard. Real talk: I benefitted substantially from elitism. I’m mid forties, salary about $220K, should hit $250K/year in the next 2-5 years.
Most of the things mentioned in this thread are mostly dumb luck and not necessarily active financial decisions.
Kind of the point. A lot of financial "success" is nothing but dumb luck.
Yeah, half of these comments are just: I bought a house.
If there was an active financial decision you could make and reliably get rich, everyone would do it.
Not necessarily rich, but there are active financial decisions you can make that will set you on the path to longterm prosperity. Buying a house at what happened to be exactly the right time and making a $100,000 in 3 years in the process is not one of them. That's just dumb luck.
I even specifically said as much in my comment.
damned Reddit immigrants
Now, if I had to choose the best financial move out of that list? Probably the index funds. Though not having to pay for a car (or car insurance, or car registration, or car repair and maintenance, or parking, or fuel) is a close second.
I'm contemplating moving even further towards the lifestyle you have but I struggle with balancing "live for today" vs "live for tomorrow". In some ways I think we live too much for today, we rarely wait more than a month or two with buying whatever we feel we "need". We go on vacation abroad every other year at least and do activities monthly that most other families in our neighborhood do maybe yearly or quarterly. Partly because we have much higher income than our neighbors but we could of course save more and if we really buckled down we could likely by financially independent in less than 20 years.
How do you balance and how do you think regarding these matters, what's your philosophy?
I've never felt I'm not living for today. Admittedly, most of what I want to do is consume a variety of media within the comfort of my home. But we also travel abroad every other year or so, and that's probably the biggest 'entertainment' expense in our lives. If we need a car to visit someone or somewhere outside the range of public transit or biking, we just rent one for the weekend (probably happens about once a year). We don't have to hesitate before choosing to do that because we know we're living well within our means the rest of the time.
The thing is, once you're in the habit of doing this stuff, it doesn't feel like an imposition. It's just the way your life works. It was actually a bit of a struggle to remember all of those points when I was writing up that list yesterday, because it's all just natural to me now. There are probably a few more things we do along these lines that haven't occurred to me.
And at that point, the savings are just a natural choice for what to do with all the surplus money. It's not even 'living for tomorrow.' It ceases to be an either/or situation. It's living for today in such a way that you can continue to live for today throughout your entire life.
Also, there are a huge number of non-financial benefits on offer here, too: walking and biking at times you'd otherwise be driving is excellent for your health; planning meals allows you to choose healthier options, cut down on red meat consumption, etc; meal planning, buying second-hand goods, and not driving reduces dependency on online mega-retailers, international sweatshop labor, and environmentally harmful practices; making use of the library system indirectly supports its continued existence for folks who have no other options; and on and on.
Anyway, I wouldn't recommend trying to do all of this at once if it's all a change for you. I'd recommend slowly introducing each of these practices over time so you have time to get used to each in isolation.
In 2017 my landlord raised my rent from $1k to $1100 a month for the place I rented with my daughter because I finally broke down and got her a dog. I was annoyed because this wasn't in the lease but I was month to month by this time and figured I could probably get a house around me for the same cost and at least I'd be building equity. I closed in 2018 on a $120k fixer upper on 12 acres. I got a $30k rehab loan and my mortgage/insurance/property tax payment ended up being just over $1100. I spent 7 months in major renovations.
Fast forward to today, I have a 2.875% mortgage rate with just over $1000 a month all in payment (early COVID refi saved me about $100/month), my house was just appraised for $415k, and I was able to sell 5 acres of the land for a total of about $160k.
A free shelter dog ended up turning $150k into $575k. 10/10 would recommend.
I was gonna say buying a house too. Mortgage payments are 1/3 what my rent was, and rents have doubled since then.
Life changing circumstances, but big props on you for having the confidence to go through with it! Life presented you with the opportunity and you seized it!
This is wholesome sorry. I am happy for you both anons and that you have doggo a great loving home <3
Leaving Sydney for a cheaper quieter life in Central West NSW!
Nice 4 bedroom home with views, 1200m² block with trees, quiet area, school almost across the road, close to everything else and best of all, a tiny manageable mortgage!
Yes! Particularly if your job is industrial, get a house somewhere else, but not on the city. Try to find a place with good public transport to the city, tho. Cities will be slowly quitting car infrastructure.
Industrial? There a hundreds of everyday jobs that pay the same no matter where you live in Australia.
And I didn't leave Sydney to spend 4hrs on a train.
Learning about long term index fund investing in my early 20s.
Are there any resources you'd like to recommend?
Bogleheads Guide to Investing - First Edition PDF
Book Summary on Bogleheads Wiki
This is somewhat of a speed run of the book.
The Bogleheads philosophy is basically to buy everything with a 2 or 3 fund portfolio.
The linked documents will explain those in more detail, but the concept is to buy everything so you always have bought the biggest winners, not to bet on a handful that will all lose or win, but at bigger expense to you.
They'll tell you how much to buy of each and what type of account to keep it in to max tax effectiveness.
It's not complicated once you read the source, and anyone should be able to understand it, it's not written to be cryptic or to sell you something. You can put your money anywhere you choose and it works the same.
I've followed it for about 15 years or so and have been very happy. There's no checking on stock news or any of that BS, you just develop a plan you're comfortable with, and then stick to it. The more hands off you are, the better honestly.
The nice thing is that, physically it’s the easiest thing in the world. The only complicated part is not trying to game it or convince yourself that you need more than the 2 or 3 fund portfolio.
Just buy a Total market index fund, some sort of bond fund and maybe some total market international stock fund
Bogleheads is great. There's also a book called "common sense on mutual funds"
This is primarily a sailing channel but Clark has a series of finance videos that are excellent.
As 2023 was beginning I set a goal that I would have $5k in the bank no matter what.
Up to this year I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck. But resolving to save up $5k pushed me out of that for the first time ever.
I never did hit $5k. But I stopped living paycheck to paycheck. I haven’t checked my balance before paying rent since february of last year. I always have enough, and I just pay the bill.
The amount of stress that immediately goes away when you are able to stop the paycheck to paycheck cycle is priceless. Nice work!
It also helps that I’ve got a little financial system going.
I get paid every two weeks. My rent is about 1200. Each paycheck is about 1200 - 1400. Paid every two weeks. Each paycheck, 1000 goes into my “bills” account, and the remainder into my “spending” account. So each paycheck I get about $300 for groceries, coffee, entertainment, whatever.
All the bills are on auto-pay to draw from that bills account, and the 1000 per paycheck is enough to cover all my bills plus save some. So my savings is accumulating in the bills account.
I also got myself a credit card for the first time in twenty years, and now my phone bill’s being auto-paid from that, with the CC being auto-paid from the bills account.
That structure helps too. But I wouldn’t have been able to start it without a lump of cash on hand
Mined a Bitcoin in college.
Pretty much the same. Bought some Bitcoin in high school in the early 10's. It was just a novelty and I was a kid, so I didn't buy much, but if someone was kidnapped or something it would be worth it to go through my old drives.
BTC recently got approved to be traded as an ETF by the SEC, so now's a good time to find that drive cause the price is only going to go up over the next 5+ years.
My buddy traded his for rent
Deciding not to get a car; it saves 400.000 euros in my lifetime which at 40k net a year income means 8-10 year earlier pension
Ahh, European public transportation. Not an option in the US unless you live in NYC and rarely leave the city.
I'm so jealous. My work is only a mile away, which in a perfect world I could walk in 10 mins, but because of many slow crosswalks and busy intersections it's like 30 mins freezing my balls off. Plus there's a section of road that's 40mph (64kmh) with no sidewalk, and a bridge that forces pedestrians onto the high speed road. It's both slow and basically suicide if I tried to make a habit of walking.
There's another route but the intersection I would need to cross is excruciatingly slow. I had to sit for 15 minutes before I could cross. Plus it's another 40mph road and if someone runs a red I basically die.
Damn if I hear this I am so glad to live in the Netherlands. Infrastructure here is designed such that everybody takes a bike or walk if within a few miles, on safe roads
40mph is 64kmph not 93kmph but yeah that’s still uncomfortable to bike besides if it’s busy. I’d say instead of posting it here, send a letter to your local government.
I keep meaning to look at exactly what my small car costs per year.
Last estimate was £1000 a year on fuel, parts, and maintenance.
Which is equivalent to 50+ hours of car club use.
For now, I have too many "shit, I need to get this large/heavy object 5 miles away" moments to make it worth it.
But long term, I kinda like the idea of not having to worry about the car.
Insurance and depreciation are the bigger costs I think, but even ignoring those; if you have “heavy objects” less than once a week it would probably still be cheaper to just rent a van when you need it. Convenience might be an argument but yeah that’s what you pay the big bucks for.
Not buying a boat
Working with my SO to start budgeting each month. We now have a system in place that works for us and a habit of getting out in front of expenses.
Budgeting helped us see that increasing your income is far more powerful than reducing spending, so we’re focused on spending to gain skills and increase our top line right now.
Choosing to be child-free.
Same here! Spent about $100 for my vasectomy after insurance. Best $100 I ever spent really, saved me hundreds of thousands.
Paying off my fucking car. New cars are a scam guys, don't be stupid like me 6 years ago.
Doesn't have to be if u keep it long enough. The problem is folks usually get upselled long before it sarts being a good deal.
Never buying into the crypto hype when several of my friends and coworkers told me to. (Maybe I would’ve made money, but probably not.)
Buying crypto is pretty much akin to buying a scratch off ticket. You might get lucky, you might not. Depends wholly on timing and aforementioned luck.
When you scratch the ticket, you get the result. But with bitcoin if you didnt sell it, chance is a few years later it got higher again.
It is still total gambling, but not like scratch tickets.
Accidentally buying a modest house in what at the time was a "distressed" neighborhood because it was all we could afford. 15 years later the neighborhood has been gentrified and is highly desirable. The property has tripled in value and the land is now worth more than the house itself.
Anyhow, it was dumb luck on my part and again, mostly had to do with the place being affordable and relatively close to my wife's parents.
the land is now worth more than the house itself.
This is usually the case. When the value goes up, pretty much all of the increase is due to the land value increasing. Land is a limited resource that's always in demand, especially in desirable areas. The house itself is actually going down in value over time due to depreciation.
In my area it's not uncommon for at least 70% of the value of a property to be in the land, and the house itself accounts for less than 30% of the value. There's a lot of houses built in the 1940s to 70s in highly desirable areas.
I've never thought about it like that, but it makes good sense.
It was accidental.
So I started working at a startup right after I graduated college. They couldn't pay a competitive wage, so they gave me a ton of stock. A year into working there, about half the company was laid off. I survived. They begged us not to leave the company by giving us more stock. I started interviewing elsewhere, because I have bills to pay, but I never got any other jobs. Then one day they handed me an envelope. It contained paperwork for even more stock. I thought it wasn't going to be worth the paper it was printed on, so I kept looking for other jobs. Never found one.
Well, a few years go by and the company starts doing very well. Then we got bought out. Suddenly all the worthless stock they gave me was worth a fuck ton of money. The buying company bought ALL of it. Even unvested shares. One day they wrote me a really, really big check, then I went and bought a house.
It was absolutely life changing, and I tried to throw it away at every chance I got. I got so lucky.
I decided to basically stop buying anything unless I absolutely needed it for about two years. I put everything I had towards paying off my car and student loans. I had holey socks and shirts, torn up shoes, etc. Refused to spend money.
As a result, I was able to invest the money I was paying on my car and loans and eventually worked enough for a down payment on my current house.
God bless those clothes.
Haha, thanks for catching that.
I'm in the States so dunno how this translates... But my parents made get a 500usd limit credit card when I was like 14. It had been the best decision that I've made. My credit is so dn good now that I can get what ever I want easily approved. That and they insisted I make a home purchase at like 23- right be fore the mortgages went nuts. My mortgage is like a quarter of what others pay for a rental...
Thanks ma and pa 🤜🤛
By dumb luck I bought a house right before the housing market lost its goddamned mind.
$145K for a 3 bedroom on an acre of land. It’s more than doubled in value since I bought it, and I pay less than $1000/mo at 2.9% interest.
I keep getting letters from my mortgage company offering me $80K in a cash-out refinance at like double to triple my current interest rate and I’m like “how about blow me?” I’m riding that interest rate until the wheels fall off.
Buying a house during covid when I saw rent was increasing drastically for no apparent reason. I could barely afford it at the time but thanks to inflation and a couple raises, I'm comfortably sitting on a house that's now worth 50% more than I bought it for, and paying way less than current rental prices. Rent is insane right now.
Move abroad, halve my taxes, triple my income, reduce my cost of living by nearly 80%, effectively increased my savings rate by ~1100%, from 500 EUR/month to now >5k EUR/month. That's 5k in fixed savings (investment plan), plus whatever else I don't spend accumulates in my savings account.
I'm curious where'd you moved
All over the world. Germany -> Luxembourg -> Norway -> Liberia -> Tanzania -> Kenya -> Nigeria -> Madagascar -> China; and next month to Malaysia.
Luxembourg was great for starting to build some wealth thanks to the super low taxes, Norway was to improve my career opportunities, and in Africa I really started to make bank since those contracts included living & "hardship" allowances that are untaxed, I invested most of that and also used it to fund an executive MBA.
To China I already came with 15+ years work experience and entered on c-level with a great salary package; and there are no taxes on foreign income here, including foreign capital gains.
Malaysia is a stopover for a few years also for tax purposes, they have no capital gains either and the company I work for is registered in Hong Kong, which in China would be considered onshore and thereby taxable. So in Malaysia I can sell my share package for free after 2 years of residency.
Also much nicer climate and friendlier people than in China.
I wish I was smart enough to be accepted by another country. I was looking up that French legion army the other day haha.
I guess European citizenship really helped initially. But for most lesser developed countries it's often sufficient to have special skills that are in demand there. And I'm not talking about academia; there's also demand for construction skills, meat processing and other stuff out there.
Two of the most successful people I've met during my years on the roll were a German butcher who is now running a sausage empire in Asia, and a Swedish carpenter who is now working as general manager for an NGO in Kenya, building schools all over Africa. Neither of them are university graduates.
In fact most graduates I meet are middle to upper level manager who've been sent by their respective companies to work abroad, which absolutely means they have a decent income, but they all run into a glass ceiling at some point. And many struggled hard to readjust when they were eventually called home; whereas the more entrepreneurial types just carved a niche for themselves.
Securing a long-term fixed rate mortgage just before the war in Russia. Other than that it’s basically been any time I saved money rather than spending it.
Nitpicky but where in russia is a war going on? You mean the russian attack on ukraine right?
Don't fall for trends. Save instead, and spend on true passions.
What if your passions/passionate-spendings START all the trends?
Starting investing into index fund ETFs
I only started about 3 years ago but even if I stopped putting in more money right now it would still keep paying me interests around 2000 to 3000€ each year for the rest of my life and it's 100% passive income. In my case it's all invested back into the funds though.
The second best move was starting to track my finances. It's almost impossible to not change your spending habits once you actually see where all the money is going. Almost anyone can cut atleast 100€ a month from their grocery bills by just being a little more mindfull about what you buy. That's 1200€/year or 12k€/10 years.
Almost anyone can cut atleast 100€ a month from their grocery bills by just being a little more mindfull about what you buy.
Yeah no. I spent about 150€/month on groceries before, now after the inflations about 180€/month. The only way to safe 100€/month there would be to skip meals.
From what you write you seem to be in the top 1-10% of people by income, and the numbers you put out only work for people in the same priviledged situation.
I said almost anyone for a reason. Just because general advice doesn't apply to you specifically, doesn't mean it doesn't apply to the average person then either.
Average monthly cost of groceries in my country in 2020:
Vasectomy like 10 years ago. Kids are expensive.
I bought gas before it went up $0.30/gal
Fuck it, I'll add to all the silly replies too.
I bought a brand new car in 2015 before new/used cars became more expensive (and all the shitty smart features were added).
I have a similar story as your first point. It boils down to tucking away money with each financial gain. I put in enough to my 401k to get the full match, then with each raise, increase the amount invested by the raise. I'd already learned to spend within my limits and had no credit card debt, so each raise was "new money". Years later, after adjusting our financials to pay for daycare, when the daycare expenses dropped (infants are most expensive, costs drop down as they age), we started putting into a college savings and some for school expenses. We had saved up enough to pay for private school, which was less than daycare. Now that private school is done, college is paid for, we're paying down the mortgages. We locked in at 3% years ago. The house will be paid off when the kid graduates HS and we turn 55 and are eligible for the employer's retirement program, including health care. We plan to travel in those years where we're young enough to be healthy and old enough to have some money tucked away.
Oh, we also did the same for cars. When the car was paid off, we'd put the same money into a separate bank account and when it was tome to look for a new car, we had almost enough to pay for it outright.
Of course all of this can only happen when you have the skill to spend with your means.
Staying unemployed to get free healthcare.
Not your fault. Should be free for everyone, then your work income would just be icing on top
It makes sense the way the system works. For housing and insurance. You go from poor with government housing and insurance and then when you get out of mud you go back to being homeless and not having insurance.
Like it doesn't make sense for me to look for a job with better pay because if I get better pay I will lose out on the help. I wouldnt be able to afford anything. The pay increase I could get wouldn't be enough to live off at the prices of non subsidized housing and insurance.
There's not really incentive for success.
I got kicked off Medicaid for making like 50¢ over their limit iirc. The pay raise set me back.
Big brain move.
Leech
Buying $109 worth of Bitcoin back in 2014. I was going to buy a year cloud mining contract, but the company (hashop) went out of business before I could. (I dodged a bullet there) I then proceeded to spend bits of it here and there (coincidentally, my second worst financial move) until I had about $70 worth left, which I put in a paper wallet and forgot about. In 2020, I was able to sell most of the Bitcoin, and bought a vehicle, which helped me get through college and made me more eligible when I met the girl who would become my wife. All this to say, I made some dumb decisions that just happened to turn out well for me. YMMV
Remember luck is just the intersection of preparation and opportunity.
Saving 60% of my take-home pay was the smartest financial decision I ever made. Difficult to execute, but very rewarding long-term in the behaviors I developed.
Was saving 60% of my income the most impactful financial decision I ever made? No, I had some luck in other areas. But this level of self-discipline helped me develop the skills to handle good luck later
How in the actual hell do you save 60% of your take home? Do you have an exceptionally well paying job? Single and living a ramen noodles and tent lifestyle? Would love to hear more because I can't even fathom how an average person could achieve this level of saving. I struggle with saving just 20% after all the bills are paid, and I consider myself frugal. Sure I have a Netflix subscription, but I don't go on vacations or carry a car note, my wardrobe is fruit of the loom package teeshirts and simple jeans, my PC is from 2016... What's your secret?
Living at home (free rent)
Eating only at work (free food), no fridge at home.
No car (public transit pass)
The percentage isn't the important thing, its developing the attitude that you can happily live below your means. FWIW it was 60% post-tax, not pre-tax
At some point it becomes a game, how little can you get by with.
It wasn't huge in terms of actual numbers, but it still feels like my biggest win. I bought my first car for like $750. It needed some work, but I fixed it up. Before long, I crashed it. It was totalled. But, it was a 1973 Dodge Charger. I started pulling parts off of it and selling them on this new thing called eBay, and by the time I ran out of parts, I had made more than twice what I bought the car for.
Buying a 3K€ coin which turned out to be worth 5K€ + Putting a few hundred in bitcoin in 2019.
Neither of which will make me rich or even well off, and in fact both are actually completely wild guesses (=gambling). So I can't in good conscience recommend this as a strategy.
Buying a house. Got lucky and bought before the pandemic, and even then just barely scraped together a downpayment by borrowing from inlaws.
It's crazy how having a mortgage have us access to so much cheap credit. We were able to pay off all consumer debt and even most of our student loan debt. Even with all our debt bundled in the mortgage we're still paying far less than we would to rent an apartment.
It's nuts
Vasectomy BEFORE kids
That's not how it works. At least not if the vasectomy is done correctly.
Having mine in a few weeks. Wish me luck!
Good luck with your kids!
Plan on sitting and doing nothing for 3-4 days! Especially that first day.
Selling my home, car, boat and living a simple RV life without kids. Forget the financials, the lack of stress has made it so very worth it!
What happened to your kids?
He sold them.
On the downside, sad to see the kids go, but on the upside, you get a free pair of Nikes every month.
Bought a house in 2012. It's now worth almost 3x what I paid for it then. So wildly unfair.
Bought mine in 2017. Mine is double. It makes zero sense
Getting a master's in electroacoustic music. Everyone told me I was going to stay poor forever, I decided to still do what I really wanted and it's going pretty well.
print("Hello World")
>> print "hello World"
File "", line 1
undefined
print "hello World" ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
(The one without the parentheses is older Python 2, the example with is newer Python 3)
What's the work-life balance like where you work?
Not buying that over priced concert ticket for $200.. oh wait. I did that.
How was the show?
Getting out of renting and locking in a 30 year fixed interest rate of 3.25%.
My monthly housing payment is no longer going up every year.
My old apartment is already $300 a month more than I'm paying on my mortgage. It was only $200 a month less when I bought the house.
Buying property was definitely the one for me. It's a huge hurdle to get into, years of planning and prepping, but I've never felt more financially stable or secure as after buying property.
Now I gotta go fix that stupid thing in the kitchen...
Using a budget manager (YNAB)
I’m really bad with saving money and even having enough ready for regular bills on my own. I was always on zero before the end of the month and struggled hard when there was something unexpected. Now everything is planned ahead, I have some savings and yearly expenses are just ready to pay when needed.
It needs some time to adjust to it and I had to restructure my categories a few times until it worked for me (still not perfect).
Though I don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth anymore from YNAB. It keeps getting more expensive, the updates are slow and it seems very US focused. If I ever find the motivation, I want to build something on my own (I’m a web developer from Europe who’s getting a bit tired of web developing)
I tried YNAB once. Wasn't thrilled about the price as well. Now I'm looking at selfhosting an instance of Actual Budget.
Think I will try it out, thanks!
Getting an industry job rather than a postdoc after I finished my PhD.
Ha, couldn't handle living in poverty for 4-5 more years?
Edit: I'm glad you got out. Chasing the academic dragon is rarely worth it in my opinion.
Living like a pauper for a few years and paying the mortgage off early.
Also not joining the rat race, and buying new shiny shit for the sake of it.
Also not joining the rat race, and buying new shiny shit for the sake of it.
I still don't 100% get the mentality here. Otherwise intelligent people will sink huge money into luxury shit; it doesn't seem to bother them at all if you point out that someone else made up the whole concept of diamonds or whatever to get their money.
Making a budget and sticking to it every month. I am able to save 17% of what i make and put it into Monero to avoid it getting eaten by inflation.
Buying bitcoin during COVID. Nearly tripled my investment.
It's either my best or my worst: I bought a house with my SO that we got for about half of the value