| >> I feel like this is almost always due to education around modern money systems. I don't think it is a matter of education, at least for me it is instinctual. If I get a large amount of money, I am going to invest most of it and it would never occur to me to do otherwise. When I get a paycheck, I am going to invest part of that paycheck first before I spend any of it, and it would never occur to me to do otherwise. I did that when I was making minimum wage. This wasn't taught, my parents did not do that and my siblings do not do that. I don't think it is inherited. The collector gene is, my father and grandfather had that gene and I think it is related, but the investor trait is something additional. I don't know where I came up with that. It has made things in my life hard in the short run sometimes and very easy in the long run. You can educate people all you want, but when they get money, most of them are going to decide well I need this and I need that so I can't save any money this time. Maybe next paycheck. That's what my family did, my friends, my girlfriends. There's a Bukowski poem he wrote about his father's investment advice: "I can pay for this house in my lifetime, then it's mine. when I die I pass it on to you. now in your lifetime you can acquire a house and then you'll have two houses and you'll pass those two houses on to your son, and in his lifetime he acquires a house, then when he dies, his son - I get it, I said." What did he do? "I gambled and drank away the money." |
With respect to education around money systems, I am referring more to (a) knowing that investing is necessary but insufficient and (b) understanding the main drivers (besides spending) of wealth loss: inflation and taxation.
It's hard (even for successful, intelligent people) to wrap their head around the fact that their $1m house that ballooned up to $2m over the last 25 years has in fact, lost value.