Oddly enough every time you make a certain amount of money for an extended stretch of time, you'll find that you are not making enough. You could live well if you're rich and you could live well if you're poor, but if you're poor it's much cheaper.
I agree with your sentiment, there are more important things in life than money. But the only people I know who ever make comments like you, are people who have never really been poor. If you ever have really been poor and then worked your way into this hypothetical $80K passive income situation, you quickly realize how much easier life is. Your family is still the same, and your friends are still doing the same stupid guy things to make you laugh. But you don't go to bed worried about money. When the phone rings you don't automatically think to yourself that you must've missed a payment and someone is calling looking for money that you might not have. You don't take your wife to a $30 dinner and a movie for your anniversary, only to have checks bounce the next week because you forgot that the power bill hadn't gone through yet. You finally realize how good it feels to be able to sit down with a neighbor who's daughter just recovered from cancer treatments, and be able to cut them a check to ease the financial burden so that the wife can stay home and help her instead of picking up a second job to make the bills. Once you've been there, you know the difference.
THis is soooo false it isnt even funny. Many billionaires don't have security at all. You clearly have not a clue of what you speak Even George Soros with all his outspokeness DOES NOT usually travel with heavy security. You have watched too many movies and are truly ignorant.
Dude, my boss is a billionaire (I think he worth a couple yards, within some standard deviation). I don't think he has a bodyguard, he drives a fairly simple car and he is certainly not the tycoon you are describing.
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of American's Wealthy By THOMAS J. STANLEY, Ph.D and WILLIAM D. DANKO, Ph.D Longstreet Press CHAPTER ONE Meet the Millionaire Next Door These people cannot be millionaires! They don't look like millionaires, they don't dress like millionaires, they don't eat like millionaires, they don't act like millionaires--they don't even have millionaire names. Where are the millionaires who look like millionaires? The person who said this was a vice president of a trust department. He made these comments following a focus group interview and dinner that we hosted for ten first-generation millionaires. His view of millionaires is shared by most people who are not wealthy. They think millionaires own expensive clothes, watches, and other status artifacts. We have found this is not the case. As a matter of fact, our trust officer friend spends significantly more for his suits than the typical American millionaire. He also wears a $5,000 watch. We know from our surveys that the majority of millionaires never spent even one-tenth of $5,000 for a watch. Our friend also drives a current-model imported luxury car. Most millionaires are not driving this year's model. Only a minority drive a foreign motor vehicle. An even smaller minority drive foreign luxury cars. Our trust officer leases, while only a minority of millionaires ever lease their motor vehicles. But ask the typical American adult this question: Who looks more like a millionaire? Would it be our friend, the trust officer, or one of the people who participated in our interview? We would wager that most people by a wide margin would pick the trust officer. But looks can be deceiving. This concept is perhaps best expressed by those wise and wealthy Texans who refer to our trust officer's type as Big Hat No Cattle We first heard this expression from a thirty-five-year-old Texan. He owned a very successful business that rebuilt large diesel engines. But he drove a ten-year-old car and wore jeans and a buckskin shirt. He lived in a modest house in a lower-middle-class area. His neighbors were postal clerks, firemen, and mechanics. After he substantiated his financial success with actual numbers, this Texan told us: [My] business does not look pretty. I don't play the part . . . don't act it.... When my British partners first met me, they thought I was one of our truck drivers.... They looked all over my office, looked at everyone but me. Then the senior guy of the group said, "Oh, we forgot we were in Texas!" I don't own big hats, but I have a lot of cattle. PORTRAIT Of A MILLIONAIRE Who is the prototypical American millionaire? What would he tell you about himself?(*) * I am a fifty-seven-year-old male, married with three children. About 70 percent of us earn 80 percent or more of our household's income. * About one in five of us is retired. About two-thirds of us who are working are self-employed. Interestingly, self-employed people make up less than 20 percent of the workers in America but account for two-thirds of the millionaires. Also, three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants. * Many of the types of businesses we are in could be classified as dullnormal. We are welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile-home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers, and paving contractors. * About half of our wives do not work outside the home. The number-one occupation for those wives who do work is teacher. * Our household's total annual realized (taxable) income is $131,000 (median, or 50th percentile), while our average income is $247,000. Note that those of us who have incomes in the $500,000 to $999,999 category (8 percent) and the $1 million or more category (5 percent) skew the average upward. * We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6 percent have a net worth of over $10 million. Again, these people skew our average upward. The typical (median, or 50th percentile) millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million. * On average, our total annual realized income is less than 7 percent of our wealth. In other words, we live on less than 7 percent of our wealth. * Most of us (97 percent) are homeowners. We live in homes currently valued at an average of $320,000. About half of us have occupied the same home for more than twenty years. Thus, we have enjoyed significant increases in the value of our homes. * Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not receive any inheritance. About 80 percent of us are first-generation affluent. * We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles. * Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. In fact, only 18 percent of us disagreed with the statement "Charity begins at home." Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more conservative with money than we are. * We have a "go-to-hell fund." In other words, we have accumulated enough wealth to live without working for ten or more years. Thus, those of us with a net worth of $1.6 million could live comfortably for more than twelve years. Actually, we could live longer than that, since we save at least 15 percent of our earned income. * We have more than six and one-half times the level of wealth of our nonmillionaire neighbors, but, in our neighborhood, these nonmillionaires outnumber us better than three to one. Could it be that they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high-status material possessions? * As a group, we are fairly well educated. Only about one in five are not college graduates. Many of us hold advanced degrees. Eighteen percent have master's degrees, 8 percent law degrees, 6 percent medical degrees, and 6 percent Ph.D.s. * Only 17 percent of us or our spouses ever attended a private elementary or private high school. But 55 percent of our children are currently attending or have attended private schools. * As a group, we believe that education is extremely important for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We spend heavily for the educations of our offspring. * About two-thirds of us work between forty-five and fifty-five hours per week. * We are fastidious investors. On average, we invest nearly 20 percent of our household realized income each year. Most of us invest at least 15 percent. Seventy-nine percent of us have at least one account with a brokerage company. But we make our own investment decisions. * We hold nearly 20 percent of our household's wealth in transaction securities such as publicly traded stocks and mutual funds. But we rarely sell our equity investments. We hold even more in our pension plans. On average, 21 percent of our household's wealth is in our private businesses. * As a group, we feel that our daughters are financially handicapped in comparison to our sons. Men seem to make much more money even within the same occupational categories. That is why most of us would not hesitate to share some of our wealth with our daughters. Our sons, and men in general, have the deck of economic cards stacked in their favor. They should not need subsidies from their parents. * What would be the ideal occupations for our sons and daughters? There are about 3.5 millionaire households like ours. Our numbers are growing much faster than the general population. Our kids should consider providing affluent people with some valuable service. Overall, our most trusted financial advisors are our accountants. Our attorneys are also very important. So we recommend accounting and law to our children. Tax advisors and estate-planning experts will be in big demand over the next fifteen years. * I am a tightwad. That's one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. Oh, they made me another offer--to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity. But I told them, "I am my favorite charity." etc.
The poster pennyStock gotta be trolling, he can't take his arguments seriously himself . Otherwise he must so immune to reality than he might indeed be happier than any billionaire.
"Big hat no cattle," someone using this term is very poor spiritually. Btw, I detest people with (of) false humility just as much as people with false pride. The people who do it right don't brag about driving a 10-year-old car, eating yesterday's leftover for lunch, etc.
Why is that ?? I don't know Texas but in the Far East you meet many wealthy people, even ultra rich, especially considering the average income in those countries, who look like bums, and you also meet plenty of folks with highly taxed mercedes that have trouble affording a full tank to parade around ( not that I dress like your average chinese or thai millionnaire , for some reason in those countries they don't seem to care much about the latest or even before latest trends in clothing )
Ok, so you pretty much think that wealthy people are losers, because someone with far less money actually lives better. But then if they don't flaunt their excess you think they are even bigger losers for not acting the part?