What's wrong with people.
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Driving a very expensive car doesn't always say what you think it does.
I tend to wonder why you wouldn't buy an adequate car and donate the difference to someone in desperate need of it“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair0 -
OP? are you able to respond?
Under 40. Future plans are to finish work as soon as I feel I have enough money to be comfortable. I "probably" do now, with my frugal lifestyle. But again it's that belts and braces instinct that means I will probably do another 4/5 years. I've reduced my hours to very part time over the last couple of years.
Time will be spent doing the things I enjoy, countryside walking with my partner & my dog, gardening, National Trust properties & spending time with family & friends. It does help that my interests are mostly free/cheap. Which brings me back to my original point about time being more precious than things.0 -
binaryuniverse wrote: »So it's easy if you a) don't pay rent/mortgage and b) you were given a starter of 50k. Also guessing at no children?
You'll find that probably some 99% of people, on minimum wage, do not get that luxury.
Whilst I get what you were trying to say about frivilous spending, to claim it is easy, and also believe there is something 'wrong' with people, for not being able to duplicate your achievments is frankly ludicrious, and does reek of sneering, if I'm being bluntly honest.
And, if somebody is on minimum wage, struggling to get by, can you really blame them for buying themselves something nice now and then, in an attempt to make life seem a bit better?
You miss the point, it's not specifically about my situation, more about the general concept of Time/Money/Things. If you want the nitty gritty of my situation I did have to pay a relative 50% of the property value (which as its a nice house wasn't cheap) but because of previous frugality and saving I was able to do.
Another relative I have earns far more than me (take home £5K per month) they live in a rented house (beautiful) filled with expensive things and a Merc on the drive. Takeaway is ordered most nights. Outwardly you would look at their lifestyle and mine and think how well they had done and how badly I had done. The truth is they own no property, have no pension, are around 50K in debt and have no prospect of ever retiring, and will most likely have to work indefinitely to service their ever growing lifestyle and debt.0 -
Though they haven't been lucky enough to inherit a house0
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longleggedhair wrote: »You miss the point, it's not specifically about my situation, more about the general concept of Time/Money/Things.
But that's exactly what you have done. You've taken your experience and applied to it to everyone, claiming it should be 'easy'. Which it most certainly isn't.0 -
I can understand that as I've previously cashed in equities gains when I thought they were at an all time high, and then they kept rising. It might have been better to rebalance your portfolio by reducing your percentage of equities rather than cash it all in.longleggedhair wrote: »I spent week after week post Brexit watching my portfolio increasing by several thousands of pounds (as the supposed meltdown turned into a surge) earlier this year I just thought this can't possibly continue and felt that I should capitalise the gains. I'm still doing the regular monthly investing as I always have but for me there is a little too much heat in the market. It's a personal thing, by and large I always have been a buy and hold person. That strategy has done very well for me over the years-but for the minute I'm waiting it out.0 -
That's excluding insurance and fuel to run the car and maintenance costs!!
Ah that's why I can't convince myself to get a car. Imagine the opportunity costs of not using that money to be invested!!AnotherJoe wrote: »Two different things there. Mating and the other benefits of owning an car. On the second point, that can be covered without owning one*, it's just a matter of balancing the various costs and a lot of people are saying new technology will seriously change the balance towards non-ownership.
* many people don't actually "own" their cars now.
This is very true I lease a BMW for nearly 600 a month and regretted getting it the moment I had it delivered. I will probably still lease but get something alot closer to my car allowance at work probably half that amount next time and save the cash. That said I could have afforded to buy the car I lease outright but the investment returns narrow the gap considerably by leaving g the money I would have spent invested so I console myself with that 😊The answer would appear to be yes. It's been known for a long time that increasing wealth doesn't produce a corresponding increase in happiness, probably because happiness is inextricably linked to status, which is a zero sum game.
When Mr Jones buys a bigger car than Mr Smith, the happiness only lasts until Mr Smith buys a bigger car, so if you look at the collective happiness of them both, particularly over the long term, there's no change, in spite of the escalating size of their cars.
There's also the effect of habituation. When you drive to the car dealer on the way to pick up your brand new car you may be daydreaming about how much more fun it will be to drive, and how much more pleasant you commute will be, but you've completely forgotten that you felt exactly the same way about the car you're sitting in when you bought that. The excitement of a new purchase quickly wears off because of habituation, but when people don't understand this you get the Imelda Marcos effect: buying hundreds of shoes/handbags/dresses/whatever in an attempt to maintain the feeling. As Geoffrey Miller says: consumerism is founded on the denial of habituation.0 -
Most people ( not all ), would rather work and have expensive things like the new iPhone X, Merc in the drive etc, than retire early and hang about all day visiting garden centres, countryside walking, gardening etc,etc.longleggedhair wrote: »You miss the point, it's not specifically about my situation, more about the general concept of Time/Money/Things. If you want the nitty gritty of my situation I did have to pay a relative 50% of the property value (which as its a nice house wasn't cheap) but because of previous frugality and saving I was able to do.
Another relative I have earns far more than me (take home £5K per month) they live in a rented house (beautiful) filled with expensive things and a Merc on the drive. Takeaway is ordered most nights. Outwardly you would look at their lifestyle and mine and think how well they had done and how badly I had done. The truth is they own no property, have no pension, are around 50K in debt and have no prospect of ever retiring, and will most likely have to work indefinitely to service their ever growing lifestyle and debt.0 -
Most people ( not all ), would rather work and have expensive things like the new iPhone X, Merc in the drive etc, than retire early and hang about all day visiting garden centres, countryside walking, gardening etc,etc.
Is your assertion based on research and can you provide a link please?0
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