How much income is enough?

wormie said:

Your neighbor sounds batshit insane. But what I am talking about is ingrained in all of us, not just one guy's mental issues. There have been studies done on this. The utility of our incomes is relative to the incomes of others around us. Or at least thats the hypothesis.

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The hypothesis works for those that are shallow and weak-minded. Hell, I'm so busy, and my neighbors are all Executives or Doctors, so they are busy too. I couldn't tell you the name of any of my neighbors. I see cars ranging from $50-200k here, but I never felt compelled to buy one. My wife drives a used Mercedes and I have a used Camaro convertible (outside of company vehicles). I'm not getting caught up in the rat race of making more money, and then going out and buying a bigger house or more expensive car. I've seen businesspeople that had so much property, vehicles and fine clothes that they had to pay themselves 20k a month just to keep up with their monthly nut. I was looking at buying a mansion (upgrading from my Executive home). I was absolutely shocked that the home prices have gone up a lot, and you can't buy one for less than $1.5m here. I live in the midwest. At some point, you have to be happy where you are at. John Paul Getty on his deathbed said he'd be happy if he could just make another billion dollars.

To us, true wealth is when you have the freedom to do what you want, when you want. We are there. I can appreciate that my neighbor is driving a limited edition $200k Porsche, but I'm not going there. I'll stick with "nice enough." Every time he drives by, I say "Oooh nice." And that's the extent of it.

I've lived in a different world, after college. Even when I wasn't making much money on the corporate teat, I was a District Manager for an automaker. Every dealer I had was worth millions. One of them was a Billionaire. I got their monthly financials, and it was a part of their contract to disclose their net worth before buying a dealership. Anyway, we would socialize after hours. Invariably, after a couple of years, you'd really get to know them in their personal lives, even hanging out with family.

I can't describe to you the level of dysfunction and substance abuse I saw in their lives, and in their wives and kids lives. I remember we appointed a minority dealer in a small town. He paid like 180k for it. He made 340k in the first three months in business. So he paid his investment off in 45 days! Not too many people can buy a business and say they paid it off in 45 days, with retained earnings. The money changed his outlook on life. He would complain about anything. Everything was a problem, and he couldn't enjoy the money any more. He'd fly his Cessna to Vegas for the weekend, get caught up in every debauchery known to man, and then come back complaining about what a shitty time he had. Before that, he was a nice guy. Afterwards, no one could get along with him except his wife. I'd get the financials and see he was making 100k a month net profit. And I'd ask to myself why he was so unhappy. We were in Vegas once, and we were eating at a fine restaurant with other dealers, and he was throwing a hissy fit about why his steak was so bad. They brought him three steaks, and he was complaining the whole damn time. We sat at a blackjack table, and I saw the guy lose 20k in less than 60 minutes. After I was moved to another market, he ended up selling out, and bought out a boat dealer.

Money doesn't make you happy, it just brings out who you are for the world to see. If you are a nice guy, it makes you generous to charities. If you are selfish asshole, it just makes you narcissistic and egotistical, and you never have enough. I can remember when I wasn't making 30k a year, but saw my dealers hating life. Now I make that in most of the months (per year) in my business, and it's been like that for the last five years. I make more in a day that I made in my first two week check straight out of college, working for a Fortune 10 company. But way back when, I was determined to be the same guy when I first started out. You can't let money change you. I'm still a pretty simple guy, that loves my nerd culture, and spending time with family.

We are involved in charities, and will be even more involved on them when my business loans are paid off this year. I remember sitting down with William Shatner at Comic Con, and him stating that life was about charity work and giving back. I can build a palace dedicated to myself, but I can't take it with me.

ZyyzYzzy said:

I prove my superiority through frugality.

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I remember when people made fun of my 1,600 square foot house, after I made the title of Field Executive. I lived in a suburb of Austin, and only paid 120k for my house. People would ask me why I was living below my means. Because 55% of every dollar that came in went out to be invested in the stock market. Ask me now if my investments were worth it.

There's nothing the matter with frugality, and I respect people that have impulse control.

OU Ariakas said:

God damn I have such a man crush on ShoLyrical.

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Thanks. Now that I'm on the brink of paying my business off, and my weekly pay will increase by $4,250, I spend a lot of time pondering my place in the universe, and how I can give back. WTH am I supposed to do now? The answer is to build a legacy that will last another generation or two.

I've thought seriously about getting a large mansion, but I don't want to make the 7k+ a month payments for the next 30 years. I have a 1,500 square foot living room that I used to only use once every two weeks. We don't use all of our space now.

The only thing left is to try to improve the world through various causes.

My house is 1500 sq ft

You're really roughing it

Noodleface said:

My house is 1500 sq ft

You're really roughing it

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Compared to my total income, I still don't think I spend 20% of my pay on living expenses/entertainment.

ZyyzYzzy said:

Ya I don't get the McMansion craze.

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I do. It's easy to try to build a castle devoted to yourself. It's been tempting, but the house I'm in is too large for me, and I'm not wanting to drop 2m when this house is only 350k in debt.

Yeah I don't care too much aboit my neighbors. Certainly not impressing them.

A dude on our street has a dodge viper and every half a year he brings it out. It's really nice and am I jealous? Maybe a little, but that commands a second mortgage. Guy behind me has magazine worthy grass and I don't get uptight.

But I live in a middle class neighborhood, drive a Honda, and wear jeans and a T shirt every day. Might be different in the richest neighborhood in Texas.

I've never really found it that hard to get by financially. I was making $7.25/hr out of high school, and spent most of my 20's being a fuckup, and I think around the time just before I decided to get my shit together and go to school and get a real job I think I was only making ~12.00/hr. This was living in one of the pricier north Dallas suburbs, nothing like the crazy expensive parts of CA or NY, but high for TX anyway. 3br apartment with two room mates, used truck, food, health insurance, ect was pretty easy to swing. Since then I moved to a place with a lower cost of living, earn more than 4x as much, so money isn't even something I think about now. Been investing much of my income and been looking at different properties in the area. I honestly think a married couple that each earned only minimum wage could probably own a house in this town. I would suggest people who struggle to get to a cheaper place to live, or just learn to spend less on unnecessary shit. Nothing rustles me harder than listening to someone bitch about money when they smoke.

I honestly don't understand how people get into money problems without it either being the result of freak disaster/misfourtune, or just retarded decision making(criminal record, getting some skank pregnant, or being a pregnant skank). Maybe I just grew up poor so my standards are skewed as to what is "enough." I would now at this point say 15k per person under the roof(45k total income for couple and 1 child) is probably "enough" to get by fairly easily and still be able to save up for college, and be putting back savings. College isn't exactly expensive either, 2 years at community college followed by 2 years at a state uni around here would be less than 20k, and if the kid has a part time job at just about any major company they can get at least 2k/year in educational allowance. It might not be the college experience they dream about, but this scenario is about "enough."

I think keeping up with your neighbors is getting pretty antiquated these days. Hell, most of the middle class neighborhoods I've lived in are filled with renters who don't give a shit. I think maybe the only thing I've ever semi tried to "compete" on was a super nice lawn and that held my interest for about 1 summer until I got the water bill.

I make just over 100k per year gross and have been able to support my wife and two kids very comfortably (even more so now that I'm in NC). The only debt I have now is 1 car payment. I bought my last house super cheap, fixed it up and made a good profit on it which paid off the rest of what I owed on my other car and the rest of my student debt. I was going to jump right into buying here in NC, but decided to rent for the first year at least since I really don't know where I want to live permanently (within NC) yet.

OU Ariakas said:

Do you have kids? If so, how old? Do you want them to take over the business one day? My wife and I are better off in our early/mid 30s than any of our parents ever were. We have 1 1\2 year old twins and a third on the way and I am already trying to figure out how to teach them how to value money and not be spoiled little assholes.

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I have an 11 and a 6 year old. The 11 year old listens and asks questions. She hears us contracting, and the amounts, and she asks if we have money. We let her know, we have money, and she doesn't.

I've seen so many asshole rich kids when I worked with an Automaker. Most of them inherited money. Their Fathers had to come up the hard way. Their Fathers tell me their kids are soft, and don't want to work the 80 hours a week they did. So they have Managers in place in case they pass away.

I'm sending these kids to public school for a reason. If you can only relate to people at your socioeconomic level, you are going to have a problem IMO.

In my experience, the next generation that inherits 95% of the time, is either too weak, or spoiled assholes. Only 5% of the time have I seen people inheriting money and still lived productive lives. I know of one dealer, whose Dad is a Billionare, where he owns four or five businesses Daddy bought him. None of them turn an actual profit, but he has the businesses to keep up appearances that he is productive. One of his dealerships lost 100k for the year, and Daddy just gave him the money.