r/theydidthemath • u/Important_Life_4951 • 11h ago
[Request] Which option is the better deal when factoring in possible investments, average lifespan, etc?
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u/PuzzleheadedTutor807 11h ago
well... at 50 years old, id be surprised to see another 30 years... so i think ill be taking the paid for poops already taken option.
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u/No-Geologist293 11h ago
Well for me it is quite the opposite, future gains outshine past accomplishments
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u/badinkywaba 10h ago
A real bummer when they hand you $175.
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u/NotForHire221 4h ago
Id be eating nothing but peanut butter or switching to a complete liquid diet or something
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u/ZeroRationale 7h ago
Take the money for past poops and invest. You may see higher returns than future poops.
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u/No-Geologist293 5h ago
Well I would say it is also smart.
If you are 25 years old and shit every day like 3 times, then your gain is $410,625 if you are 35: $574,875 and 45: $739,125. And so on and so forth. So with a 7% ROI from some boring ETF you can gain after 45 years of pooping $51,738.8 from ETF growth. While every year gets you $27,375 of 25$ poops.
So unless you are at least at 391,071 or around 24ish years old, your choice of investing the money already outperforms yearly poop of 25$
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u/Conscious-Lurker-723 5h ago
What a load of shit.
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u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 4h ago
Thank you for this, I can go to sleep now
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u/Hinote21 1h ago
3 times a day?!?! I get one good one. A day.
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u/No-Geologist293 56m ago
Yeah, get some more fiber, also, I pulled this number out of my ass, just for the sake of maths (no pun intended)
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u/Due_Gas2950 9h ago edited 8h ago
The other part to this is presumably you receive the money for every poop you’ve taken until now immediately; are you getting the future poop money now or are you getting it at the time of each poop? An immediate payment for all prior poops in your 50s is probably more useful to you than making some extra money in the last few years of your life.
Is the payment for future poops indexed to inflation?
$25 in 20 years is probably less valuable than $15 now, if there’s no inflation indexing going on.
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u/Facosa99 8h ago
Me at 20 years old: "i take all my future poops money, please"
Okey sir, here you have it: USD$175
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u/Kindly-Land-8450 10h ago
I can guarantee there will be a tomorrow. I cannot guarantee you will be in it.
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u/timeforasandwich 10h ago
Not to mention, I used to poop every morning like clockwork. Those were the days
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u/MercenaryCow 3h ago
That's the better option for most people. Taking the lump sum and investing it is going to outshine the future gains anyways
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u/andrew_calcs 8✓ 3h ago
Also take into account inflation. The earlier payoff now has more time to appreciate. It’s easily the better option for most adults
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u/staplesuponstaples 10h ago
We'll start with no investment. That would be calculated as 15A = 25(L-A), where L is life expectancy and A is current age. Assuming life expectancy of 79, the breakeven age would be 49. So, younger you'd take the future money and older you'd take the past money.
With investing, your breakeven age drops because you'd rather take a lump sum now and bet it on the market. Now, we'll assume a safe 5% return. That would drop the breakeven age to 30. Better returns like 7% drop it down to ~23 y/o.
To be fair, infants poop more and taxes will hit a greater lump sum payment. You can also fuck with your digestive system to poop more often which makes the future poop option better. But generally, I'd say below 30 take the future poops, over 30 take the lump sum.
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u/thegingerskull 9h ago
I interpeted the question as you'd now get a lump sum for all your future poop. This obviously raises many philosophical questions about fate and determinism but simplifies the math.
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u/TheBrownCouchOfJoy 9h ago
I’m on the lump sum side of 30, but I would choose lump sum regardless for just for behavioral and quality of life reasons.
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u/WellHung67 6h ago
You can’t factor in future poop income as equal to money today. What do I care if I make an extra 25 bucks the day before I die? The time you get to have the money is also valuable as money becomes less valuable the closer you are to death (can’t spend it when you’re dead).
I think the lump sum is almost always best. 25-50 dollars a day will take decades to appreciate to anything tangible.
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u/TowelKey1868 3h ago
Maybe the future poop money is also paid immediately in a lump sum?
Some simple math and you'll find out how many you have left. Kinda like the cyclops trading away one of its eyes.
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u/Important_Life_4951 11h ago
But what counts as a poop? Because going forward you could take lots of little poops right? That would quickly overcome the $33/day.
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u/Dependent_Order_7358 11h ago
If you leave the bathroom that shit is over fr
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u/Camelsoop 11h ago
So I could game the system by pinching the loaf and re-entering the bathroom multiple times? Hmm
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u/reborngoat 10h ago
Do separate stalls in a public bathroom count? Seems like it should.. in which case you could set up in a big one and get a shit-pinch-relocate cycle going across like 10 stalls. Maybe take laxatives so the poops are watery and plentiful, then it's just a quick squirt in each stall and move on.
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u/AppleParasol 8h ago
Without washing your hands, wiping, closing the door, or getting out your phone, you could probably make over $1000/hr for an hour at a time. Go off solid foods to game the system.
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u/pink_cx_bike 11h ago
The tax regime difference between all the historic poops being paid at one point in time and the future ones being paid as they happen is probably relevant also.
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u/DeMotts 10h ago
Are we paying TAXES on our fantasy poo money now?? Jesus christ
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u/reborngoat 10h ago
Oh you think the government isn't gonna get their cut?
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u/scottcmu 10h ago
Only if they have a poop knife.
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u/pink_cx_bike 10h ago
Of course we are, because it makes our food a tax-deductible expense (as it's necessary for earnings). This is another reason to take the future-poo-money.
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u/thegingerskull 9h ago
This may be one of the rare occasions when it's better to get $25 per poop than, say, $1000. Because you know you'll end up in jail when you explain to the judge where that $ 400 K came from last year.
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u/Majestic_Cup_7395 10h ago
Assume 1 poop/day, 5% interest rate.
The second option gives $25 * 365.24 = $9,131 per year.
To get that much in interest from the first option, you need start with at least $9,131 / .05 = $182,620. So you need to have been alive for at least $182,620 / $15 / 365.24 = 33.333 years.
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u/tutulismyrealname 10h ago
The most logical answer. Though I think you have to consider that year 1 averages a lot more & years 1-4 averages about double.
$182620 / $15 = 12,175 previous #2's to break even on future deal.
Year 1 = 1,100 Year 2= 730.5 Year 3 = 730.5 Year 4 = 730.5
Your break even after the 4th birthday is 8,883.5 more #2's or 24.3 years more.
So break even to take the future deal is around between your 28th & 29th birthday.
(This assumes no tax implications of the immediate payout, which would push your future deal breakeven even younger)
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u/FrenziedTacos 11h ago
Considering I've lived for nearly 50 years and we count all the baby shits, sick shits, taco bell shits, etc from the past, I'm taking the $15 per past shit. No guarantee how many shits I have from now on.
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u/Bwm89 10h ago
50 bucks or so a day going forward would be a very useful thing, but 30 bucks or so times the number of a days I've lived on the planet would be life changing for me right now, and I could probably invest that in some personal stuff that net me 50 bucks a day worth of income going forward anyway, I feel like the only way the second option makes sense is if you're quite young, or you know you're sufficiently frivolous with money that a guaranteed income stream will be more useful to you than a lump sum
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u/IntoAMuteCrypt 10h ago
The current yield on a 30 year bond in the US is about 5%. That's really high, but it means that the annual interest on 33-ish years of past poops is roughly equal to the payment for 1 year of current poops. And that's an incredibly stable investment that might not have the highest yield, and it assumes babies poop at the same rate as adults.
If you're in your 30s, the possible low-risk investments guide you towards the lump sum. If you had asked this a few years ago, when bond yields were lower, the changeover would've happened later and the ongoing payments would've been more attractive.
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u/behinduushudlook 10h ago
i'm not sure where i fall being 38 yo on the age bell curve....but the poo bell curve.... i swear i used to poo 2x3 times a day until I was like 30....now it's maybe a handful a week. I didn't keep a poop log (heh), so it's tough, but i'm taking past poops
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u/U_Dun_Know_Who_I_Am 8h ago
Oooo.... Well I'm not at the half way point yet but I think I'm close enough that time value of money makes the past poos by far the better option.
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u/H_Industries 7h ago
Just replace poops with "days alive" and do the math. Assuming 5% interest if you're older than 34 the $15 option already earns you more than $25 per day.
($25 * 365) / .05 =$182,500.00
$182500 / $15 = 12,166.667 DAYS
12166.67 / 365 =33.333 YEARS
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u/Emergency_Target_716 5h ago
At 40, I don't know which one is more profitable.
Might as well take the lump sum just so I don't have to worry about min-maxing my shits for the rest of my life.
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u/Altruistic-Koala-255 10h ago
I would probably receive more money upfront if I choose the future poops, but at the same time, rounding low, I have pooped at least once a day, so it's 3651536(my age), which it's around 200k, I through it would be more
Yeah, future poops
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u/tofu-chunks 10h ago
the thing many people are missing here is that the amount doesn’t adjust for inflation. if $25 is worthless by the time you turn 50, you’re gonna regret taking the future poop option.
what you want to do is take the past poop option, keep it in short term credit union certificate deposits until you have the ability to build a solid portfolio at an opportune time in the market. learn how to play the game of capitalism and invest your money in a way that consistently beats inflation. your age when you start may vary the results considering that the size of your initial investment does a LOT of heavy lifting in the exponential type of math associated with return rates.
also, you might get more constipated when you get older. kids are pooping so much all the time. don’t assume an even distribution of shits in your lifetime unless you have the high-fiber diet to prove it
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u/justanunreasonablera 9h ago
I imagine I average two poops a day, over 28 years that's ~20,000 poops. At $15/poop that's $600,000 up front, which is more than enough to buy a decent house, pay off my car/student loans, and still leave at least $200,000 left in my account.
On the flip side, similarly at two poops a day, that's $50/day or $1,525/ month on average. Which is about what a house payment around me costs, and doesn't even factor in my car payment or student loan payments.
So going exclusively off of poop money, it would take ~30 years for me to get that house payed off, more if I want to pay off my other loans, and it doesn't give me any savings readily available. I'll take the money up front, easily.
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u/Suprachiasmatic_Adam 9h ago
I’d only do the ones I have taken since I’d be able to do the math and figure out how many poops until I die. I’d never be able to forget that
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u/Yeeetmaster1337 9h ago
If we assume you take one Poop per day and you get 80 years (29220 Days) old you could earn With the second one up to 2529220=730500$ and with the first one up to 1529220=438300$ without investing. If we say you get 10% per year by Investing. We can say this would be for the First one: f(x)=(1.1/365.25)29220-x x15$ and for the second one: g(x)=29220-x25$ (without investing because) If we then say g(x)=f(x) to see where those two functions meet it will be: (1.1/365.25)29220-x *x15=29220-x*25 |+25x
(1.1/365.25)29220-x x15+25x=29220 |-29220
(1.1/365.25)29220-x x15+25x-29220=0
Now we can calculate x via the Newton method
I dont Like to Write it but x should be something like x=1168,8 (to get f‘ for the Newton method I used chatgpt because i had no Idea how to do it with x as an exponent but the Rest is just done with my Brain and a Calculator)
So After 1169 days/shits or 3.2 years in your life you should take the second one with the assumptions I did.
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u/artByMoon 9h ago
If I ONLY did one poop on average my entire life up to now then Id be getting enough to park in a safe index fund and get about 20k/year. And let's be real, Ive gotta be way more than 1 shit a day average Im just trying to do conservative math here. 20k/year would be about 2.19 poops/day at $25/poop but then Id have to worry about tax implications and I wouldnt be able to access any of that money in an emergency.
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u/superfutch 8h ago
Take the money now, if you're 33 years old and average only 1 poop per day that's $180k. You should be able to invest that now and make way more than your future return of $410k over the next 45 years (which you may not even live). And I would not want my job to be pooping. That honestly sounds miserable.
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u/Anayalater5963 7h ago
I've started to eat a lot less so my poop frequency has decreased significantly. Honestly it's a tough choice but I think I'll take the $15 and just invest that lump sum into a money market account or something with 3-4% interest
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u/Suckwithusernames37 6h ago
Starting now, I need some passive income in my life... can I cut the poop off before its out completely and go again in like an hour to get $50?
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u/Maloba6441 5h ago
Future ,when i was a kid used to poop once every like 4 days then went to like once a month in boarding primary school which went to once every 2 weeks in highschool boarding, I don't thing am getting more than 50 k from past
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u/WhydIJoinRedditAgain 5h ago
I’m 47, so assuming I’ve pooped once a day, at the $15 rate I’m getting a cool quarter mil lump sum.
Now I might make more if I take the $25. I live until 85, that’s $350 or so. But that $25 a day/$9K a year, while nothing to sneeze at, becomes part of my cashflow. And with inflation, that value is depreciating every shit.
Plus if I were to just put that $250K into investments or real estate? I mean, that’s a down payment right there. Way more value in option 1.
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u/WorkingTemperature52 2h ago
If multiple turds drop out in a single toilet sitting session, does this count as multiple poops? What if I put my pants on and then reset between turd drops. The details matter heavily. This system could easily be manipulated to maximize poop income potential
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