[token8791]

1. Spend less than you earn. 2. Learn about investing and develop an investing mindset. Investing can mean stock, but also a personal skill like cooking or a small business, a thing you can rent out, whatever. 3. Repeat.

My friends live paycheck-to-paycheck and I got $300k stashed in cash and a mix of investments. I'm not living for the money, but this world is full of costly stuff you definitely do not need - and it really surprises me what people are spending money on.

[onion2k]

I got $300k stashed in cash and a mix of investments

Why?

I can understand if you're saving to buy a house outright for cash, or to invest in a startup that needs a chunk of capex at the beginning, or something, but just sitting on a pile of depreciating cash assets is silly in an economic market where retail inflation is running at ~10%. If you're literally just holding cash because you can't think of anything fun to spend it on then that's quite sad.

[mindcrime]

There's something to be said for having some cash, despite inflation. Obviously you want enough to cover short-term emergency situations. But beyond that, the advantage of cash is that it's liquid AF and having a stockpile can enable you to take advantage of opportunities that you might not be able to seize if you don't have cash on hand.

No, you don't want your entire "life savings" in cash stored in pillow-cases under the bed, but you do want enough cash where the value of "enough" varies depending your circumstances.

[mejutoco]

> and a mix of investments

I don't think OP means 300k cash, but (cash + mix of investments) = 300k.

For all we know it could be 10k cash and the rest investments.

[onion2k]

For all we know it could be 10k cash and the rest investments.

Could be, but regardless, it's very unlikely that his investments are beating inflation at the moment so the point still stands. By holding on to the money its value is shrinking.

[butler14]

Kind of presumptuous, could be in buy to let property?

You’re basically saying everyone should spend everything in a downtown, and if they don’t they are boring?

[vlod]

I've always thought that a good metric is that if you had to leave the US in a real hurry (not sure if it would make a difference, but for e.g. Yellowstone is going to explode), do I have enough liquid to charter a private jet to somewhere else.

Probably $80K to $100K for that, plus extra for snacks. :)

[nerdponx]

Emergency fund and savings for big purchases? Maybe a CD would be better for the latter, but that's still not beating inflation.

[cicko]

You seem to completely ignore the "and a mix of investments" part?

[patrickwalton]

One irony between investing and spending is that people often use "investment" to refer to a big expense whether it provides a return or not. It's a dangerous mindset.

[nerdponx]

It's an "investment" in the sense that you are getting some conceptual return on it, even if the return isn't financial. For example, a $300 pair of boots is an investment, because you expect to get more than $300 worth of utility over the life of the pair of boots.