[AuthAuth]

It started as a joke, we used to laugh at the groups of guys who would gamble their food money doing "feast or famine"they knew it was dumb and so did we. Then the joke slowly moved over to my group of friends doing so and we knew it was dumb and treated it so. Fast forward 6 years and its so entrenched in daily life every single guy I know at least casually gambles weekly on their favorite sports and some do multiple bets per day on games they dont even watch. I bet $20-$50 on MMA which is like 5% of my income each week thats considered low.

[codechicago277]

Young man I’m going to give you a piece of life advice. You don’t throw your money away on something frivolous like that. You buy a long term, safe investment, like FartCoin.

[maplethorpe]

I don't know if you're joking but FartCoin hasn't shown returns all year.

[codechicago277]

You don’t buy FartCoin for the short term gains, you buy it for the long term. For example it’s down over the past hour, but if you look long term (past day) it’s up.

And yes of course I’m joking. If you’re spending money on these get rich quick schemes instead of dollar cost averaging into an index fund, you’re being irresponsible. That’s real advice.

[maplethorpe]

Mine was a joke too, sorry. I was just trying to go along with your bit.

[codechicago277]

Ah sorry. Irony is dead these days.

[noitpmeder]

Please do the math on what $50/week could mean to you in 10 or 20 years and compare that to the likelihood you have any kind of edge betting.

[brailsafe]

$50/week at 10% compounding monthly for 10 years works out to ~$41k

Maybe that means a lot in 10 years, but... is it that impactful now? More impactful than gambling surely, and perhaps this is a bit myopic, but I feel like you wouldn't even be able to buy any new car with that amount 10 years from now. Hopefully it'll still count as an emergency fund.

We saw the value of money halve over like 4 years while everyone who had money made bank. It's tough to be hopeful that any amount saved is going to go far in the future tbh. $41k is about 1/10th of a down payment on a half-duplex, assuming you're keen to borrow the remaining $1.1m.

Definitely don't gamble though, that message I can get behind.

[ndriscoll]

The median home price in the US right now is ~$400k[0], so that's a 10% down payment. While 20% is the traditional target, you can get loans with 3% down, so it seems pretty substantial to me. If you saved that $50/week starting at 18, you could be a decently confident home-buyer in your 20s. If you and a spouse each did that, there's your 20% target.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

[brailsafe]

Certainly a fair argument, and in re-reading my comment I realize I forgot to qualify it with "in my city" the prices are unbelievably out of reach, but it was mainly meant to illustrate the point rather than be factually complete.

I don't think ~$400k accurately depicts useful information, but I'd rather be hopeful than cynical, so I think if your only goal is homeownership, then hopefully if one does trade something stupid like gambling for investments, there will still be options somewhere

[watwut]

I think that $50 a week is expensive hobby, but affordable.

The real threat is that it wont stop there. Some will go to $100 a week, $500 a week and so on, because that is how addiction works.

For all the rationalizations, they do it for the feeling it gets them. And those feelings will drive higher stakes even after you have gambling debt.