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The way it worked for my grandpa, who also lived through the depression was basically this: 1. Living through the depression made him singularly focused on money, to the point where that's basically all he talked about 2. Throughout life, he tried everything to hustle money - normal job, individual stock tracking, index funds sure, but then also hustling collectibles at garage sales (especially rare coins, because, you know, they are also money), a wide ranging used car sales operation (he'd drive 10 hours cross multiple states to get a good deal on a car to flip), etc etc. 3. He also was pretty good with math (money is numbers), and wasn't dumb, so in the very long run he kept rough track, and realized that of all the things, index funds probably did the best, and also took like zero time. But at least he had his kinda fun doing it. So when before I went to college (even at age 12), he'd call us up and tell us to go to a good but cheap state school, and study something like engineering that makes a good income. So then after I graduated (from a good and cheap state school, with two engineering degrees, and also a CS degree), and got a real job, his phone calls changed to telling me to invest in the S&P 500 with as much as I could, and ignore crashes. (He would also call and try to predict crashes, some he missed (dot com), some of which he got right (2007-8), and some of which were basically fiction (2013, 2015). So I lived like a monk for 5+ years and still live pretty frugally. I think the highest I've ever spent on my income is 50% of after tax, and it used to be more like 20-25% before house+kid. On the plus side, working for a long time at a >50% savings rate means you're much more immune to short term work shenanigans like layoffs. On the down side, you gotta resist buying new stuff all the time, which can be hard when there's lots of cool stuff. |