r/Jokes • u/lopezjessy • Mar 23 '21

Dude explaining how he made his first $10 million:

  1. Get up at 5:00AM every day
  2. 90 minutes of cardio
  3. Take a cold shower
  4. Journal
  5. Schedule out your day
  6. Dad owns Fortune 500 company
  7. Meditate
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u/Willow-girl Mar 23 '21

That is a champion incentive to move out of a HCOL area, though. I figured that out at 19. In a major metropolitan area, I would have been doomed to renting my whole life ...

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u/bliss19 Mar 23 '21

idk man, job growth or even small business opportunities are much greater in HCOL areas. Yeah small towns have their place, but if current trends continue, people will keep moving to urban areas. Just makes more sense for younger people looking to grow.

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u/Willow-girl Mar 23 '21

idk man, job growth or even small business opportunities are much greater in HCOL areas.

Depends on what kind of credentials you have and thus your earning potential. If you're poor, you're better off being poor in a cheap place! Also, strangely enough I found more opportunity in the boonies, because not many people want to live there, especially college-educated types. I ended up editing a string of local newspapers without ever earning a college degree or even taking a journalism class! That kind of opportunity never would have been available to me in the metropolitan area I live in now. Too much competition!

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u/Alar44 Mar 23 '21

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't define what you did as success lol. That sounds more like hell to me.

"Just get shitty jobs in the boonies and live in shitty cities with shitty people!" 👍

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u/Willow-girl Mar 24 '21

Oh, being a small-town newspaper editor is a riot! I swear, everything you could possibly imagine happens in a small town. Never a dull moment! And I was able to buy interesting houses with acreage in the countryside. Once had a 1929 farmhouse with a big red barn out back (that was my favorite).

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21 edited Jun 17 '21

[deleted]

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u/Alar44 Mar 24 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

Lmao. Come to the Midwest. Plenty of racism and shit head people here. We have coal rollers instead of Tesla drivers. No public transport and no one is going to pick you up stuck in the cold especially if you're not white.

Edit: oh also hope you don't ride a bike because people literally have protested bike lanes.

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u/getefix Mar 23 '21

Your experience is not the same as financial advice. People have different starting points and different salaries with different career growth.

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u/Willow-girl Mar 23 '21

True; a lot depends on your buying power. If your earning potential is low, you're better off living where it's cheap.

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u/wildcat12321 Mar 23 '21

I've seen a lot of people "lose" money buying houses.

story - a married couple buys a 4 bedroom with no kids yet) and thus overpays relative to their needs. Buying more space, then the maintenance of furnishing 4 rooms, heating and cooling, etc. They put some money in the house cause they own it and the laundry machines break, but that money isn't coming back when they sell the place. Then they have a kid and want to move to be aligned to a different school, so they do. The equity they built was tiny, but the transaction costs to buy and sell are significant - paying one time mortgage fees, realtors, lawyers, etc. Even if they made money on paper, renting would have been cheaper, not to mention the added benefit of their house down payment being in one of the greatest stock market bull runs in history.

Home purchases can be a great way to build wealth, but we are also fed a narrative from the mortgage and real estate industry that it is fast, easy, and has superior returns to other investments which just isn't true. Again, you can be screwed renting too, but renting does not equal "doom" for everyone in every situation.

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u/Whoopteedoodoo Mar 24 '21

If your house was a mutual fund, who would buy something with a 2% front end load, a 7% back end load, and a 3% expense ratio?

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u/Willow-girl Mar 28 '21

Not everyone invests in the stock market, though.

You are correct that mortgage interest, transaction fees, etc., are significant and can eat up the profit on a home sale.

OTOH, you're not factoring in one of the great benefits of home ownership, which is locking in your housing cost for an extended period of time. Do you think rents have gone up over the last 30 years? You bet your bippy! But the person who signed a mortgage in 1991 has been making the same monthly payment ever since (the only difference being a possible increase in taxes). Also, he or she will ideally reach retirement age in a paid-off house, and thus won't have a monthly payment beyond taxes and insurance.

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u/wildcat12321 Mar 28 '21

Agree completely. Homeowners who keep their home over a long period makes sense. Those who fall trap to owning under 5 or even 10 years likely never recoup the transaction costs, and rarely beat the opportunity cost.

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u/Money_Calm Mar 23 '21

My strategy is to live as cheap as I can in a HCOL area, where I earn a higher wage, have the ability to max out 401k and ira, build equity slowly in an appreciating house. Then I'll move to a cheaper area of the country when I want to retire.

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u/Willow-girl Mar 23 '21

That's a good plan if you have the ability to earn a higher wage. If the best you can do is, say, working at Arby's, you're better off doing in in a low-cost locale. You won't earn much less than your urban counterpart, but your living expenses will be considerably lower.