Survey: 56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires 467
msmoriarty writes: "According to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S.-based software developers, 56 percent expect to become millionaires in their lifetime. 66 percent also said they expect to get raises in the next year, despite the current state of the economy. Note that some of the other findings of the study (scroll to bulleted list) seem overly positive: 84 percent said they believe they are paid what they're worth, 95 percent report they feel they are 'one of the most valued employees at their organization,' and 80 percent said that 'outsourcing has been a positive factor in the quality of work at their organization.'"
wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
80 percent think outsourcing has been positive? They must not be working with the resources we do... They lie, lie and lie some more. Shirk responsibility and ignore questions.
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80 percent think outsourcing has been positive? They must not be working with the resources we do... They lie, lie and lie some more. Shirk responsibility and ignore questions.
You are confused, 80% of them were H1B workers... ;D
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Yeah, i think they are lying about who they surveyed. Prob went to a libertarian mixxer or something.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
They only surveyed those still employed.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
These sound like developers, not management.
And you know what? I agree with them. Mainly because I don't think outsourcing means what you think it means. Outsourcing doesn't mean "send your job to India." In many cases that particular job never existed within your company to begin with for one, and it may not necessarily go to India number two, but rather it goes to the company down the street.
Outsourcing takes advantage of trade, only on a much larger scale. For example, if your mom makes a batch of cookies and UPS'es them to you, she "outsourced" the task of bringing them to you to UPS. She did this for a multitude of reasons: UPS can deliver them cheaper than she can, UPS can deliver them in a much shorter amount of time than she can, UPS can more efficiently deliver them than she can.
When outsourcing goes overseas, it tends to be due to what economists refer to as comparative advantage. Steve Jobs (who I am not a fan of, but respect in various ways) once notoriously mentioned this: Some manufacturing tasks that you'll find they can do in China (such as rapidly changing design specifications in a mass production line) simply aren't available here. So it isn't necessarily that the labor is cheaper in China (it is cheaper) but that the jobs that you need to do just aren't available in a domestic US facility.
Generally it is easier to not to send work tasks offshore. This mainly has to do with issues like language barriers, customs, etc making offshoring more difficult. You need to really be able to justify doing it, not only due to those reasons, but for reasons like KKK type groups complaining that you're giving brownie a job, or liberal groups claiming that you're not paying dues to the labor unions, and both giving you bad press about it in their respective circles. Both of them are douchebags for doing that, by the way, but that's life. At any rate, if they can do it so much cheaper overseas than it can be done domestically, then you should do it. Why? Competitive advantage (not the same as comparative advantage.)
You see, you selling your product to Americans who will only buy American is fine, but Australians, Canadians, indeed even BRIC nations buy our products en masse. But you know what? They never follow the "buy American mantra." They go for whoever offers the best value, and that can't be you if you don't minimize your operating expenses, which may include getting cheaper labor if that's what it takes. No amount of mercantilism (tariffs, etc) will fix that, so don't even think about calling your congressman. If foreign companies can do the job much cheaper, eventually your entire company moves over there, or it just goes belly up because it can't compete with global competitors.
But anyways outsourcing is good, and in light of paragraph 3, 4, and 5, offshoring is also good. If I were them, I would also ignore questions asked by labor unions. Why? Because no good can come of it. No matter what your answer is, they'll always demonize you.
And I speak as somebody who is in one of those careers that is most vulnerable to offshoring and H1-B competition (by the way, I support H1-B as well.)
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
They lie, lie and lie some more.
Are you implying they made the wrong career choice and should have gone for statistician jobs instead?
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Presumably the same 80% who believe they are above average...
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No. Luckily people to review/validate the work can be outsourced too, so that's also cheap and easy.
Of 1000? (Score:2)
And how could one become one of those 1000? Even if just 56% of them become rich that's good enough a chance for me.
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Being a Millionaire before you die does not mean you ever became rich by North American Standards. Especially if you have another 30 years to work, and inflation goes to work.
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Even if just 56% of them become rich that's good enough a chance for me.
The thing is that being a millionaire really isn't the same as being rich.
Think about it -- if you were of retirement age today, how much would you want in assets to feel comfortable retiring? A quarter million? A half million?
Now consider the amount of time that you actually have left until then. Depending on how long it will be, a half million dollars today will very likely be equivalent to over a million when you will need it.
I would venture to say that most people who are relatively early in their ca
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I'd re-define "millionaire" (as in the rich with no money cares rich) to be people with unearned income greater than a million a year. That's the level of comfort people think of for millionaire. The millionaire next door type (I know quite a few) don't live that well. A tiny 2-bedroom house, raising one child, one new car every 10-20 years. Saving most of their disposable income. Having just enough so that when their he
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Even if just 56% of them become rich that's good enough a chance for me.
I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.
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I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.
The usual estimate of how much you can withdraw from your savings per year without having too much chance
of drawing down your capital is 4%.
So, $1M gives you an annual income of $40,000, not exactly a high salary, even adding in ~$30k in social
security income won't make you especially well off.
Want (Score:5, Funny)
I want the drugs those developers are on.
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They were really good in the 90's. At some start ups people were getting paid in stock options and landlords were taking stock options for rent. I joined a start up but I held out for cash, I was never that stupid.
A million dollars isn't *that* much (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I have a good shot at becoming a millionaire in my lifetime - not from hitting it big, just from saving more than I spend (especially into my 401k, with company matching).
And what *about* the current state of the economy? It seems to me that it's mostly recovered at this point. And it's not unreasonable for white-collar workers to expect *some* kind of raise at least every couple years, even if it's just a raise on par with inflation.
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Years back, in the days of much higher inflation, my brother said he fully expected to be a millionaire one of these days, and he also expected to spend something like $100 of that money to get a hamburger at McDonalds.
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I make a modest salary, but live below my means and save about 1/3 of my gross. I don't get to drive brand new cars (and stay away from depreciating assets in general) and my house is not the greatest, but it's fine for me and I think, barring another 2008/2009 debacle, I'll be over $1M on paper in about 10 years from now. It's very doable, as long as you don't fall into the 'keep up with the Joneses' trap and understand that compound interest will be your friend long after all your current frie
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It's recovered for us, for the moment, but it's still pretty brittle. I wouldn't get too attached to the "recovery" if I were you.
401k (Score:2)
Then again, I too have been guilty of riding the startup dream.
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If you don't understand why people want the ability to save large amounts of money without paying taxes on the principle, interest, or dividends until they withdraw it, I'm not sure you're as well off as you think you are.
a million 401K isnt that large (Score:5, Informative)
Shock (Score:4, Insightful)
Inflation means lots of millionaires (Score:4, Insightful)
That alone will get me a good chunk of the way towards being a millionaire in terms of net worth.
Now add in the gobs of money that they recommend you save for retirement and by the time you do retire... well, you've got a lot of money. This assumes of course that you can navigate yourself past the agism that's also part of being a developer and remain a well paid part of the workforce until you retire.
I will be a millionaire. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I will be a millionaire. (Score:5, Funny)
I am a software developer with 15+ years experience but I have $1500 in my bank account and still live with my mother.
Fuck me.
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A million is easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a simple way to do it. Put $16,000 in your 401k and $5,000 in your IRA every year. Investing in a good S&P500 index fund which will return about 10%. In 18 years, you will be a millionaire.
Now getting to $10 million is tough.
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If you can't find a way to get to a million by retirement, something is wrong.
Here is a simple way to do it. Put $16,000 in your 401k and $5,000 in your IRA every year. Investing in a good S&P500 index fund which will return about 10%. In 18 years, you will be a millionaire.
Now getting to $10 million is tough.
Actually, the hard part is getting the first million. Then it feeds itself. Especially since the second million, etc. aren't being held back for basic living expenses.
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This is the worst advice ever.
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The alternative to saving for retirement is just to work until you die.
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10% return?! What the hell are you smoking! THat is a return only wall street sharks and investors get. Seriously.
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A million is easy (Score:3)
Yeah, if you continue to make 50k for 18 years straight, especially as a developer, you've done something very wrong. Living off of 29k pre-tax isn't difficult. Just difficult if you try and live like you have 50k to spend and only really have 29k. Getting ahead isn't easy if you have no self control, but it's really easy if you plan ahead and stick to it.
Sure, but it won't mean the same thing (Score:2)
You sure you interviewed developers? (Score:2)
Sounds more like the interview happened in some management circles.
Why only a sample size of 1000? (Score:2)
Where did they get the 1000 responses? Did some management magazine offer free subscriptions to managers who stood over their employees as they filled in their responses to the survey? The data suggests this happened at least 98% of the time.
Infrastructure (Score:2, Insightful)
Old story (Score:2)
How many (%) excpect to go to heaven (or equivalent, based on believe-system)?
Much higher than those puny 56 %, and millenia older as well...
"Millionaire" - The Middle class retirement goal. (Score:2)
Now I am not saying "everyone will be a millionaire" but I am saying that if you asked the same thing of a Nurse, pharmacist, professor, regional manager at Jack-in-the-Box, or a School Administrator... they should have the same answer, as they have similar salary levels to a "De
yeah and... (Score:5, Informative)
>> 56 percent expect to become millionaires in their lifetime.
yeah and 99% of software engineers also seriously believe their initial time estimate to have that feature implemented by was actually realistic.
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http://articles.latimes.com/20... [latimes.com]
There are roughly 9.6 million millionares in the US presently (NOT INCLUDING HOUSES). That works out to roughly 3% of the population, so not a ton.
Given that I think most dev's probably fall into the top 1/3rd earners in society and that the 'millionaire' mark errodes yearly with inflation, its very likely that a large number of software developers will in fact be millionaires by the time they retire. The real question is in 30 years, what will a million bucks be in buying p
It's easy (Score:2)
[1] Note that for many programmers who try this technique, the universe may opt to substitute an equivalent product, such as gained knowledge about how the world works and reduction of personal naivete.
Sure (Score:3)
Very simple (Score:2)
Becoming a millionaire in a person's lifetime is very simple and most people can do it. Contribute 10% of your income to your retirement accounts over the course of your lifetime into a diversified portfolio, and you will become a millionaire. Time and discipline are the keys, not generating a large income. Unfortunately, most people are missing one of those two attributes.
Paid Advertising? (Score:2)
Million Dollars (Score:2)
2. Spend the next 30 years paying off the mortgage
3. Poof. Instant millionaire.
Newbies... (Score:2)
I'm thinking the respondents were all fresh out of school, and haven't had their absurd expectations ground down by the real world yet...
Dear Boneheads: Don't ever be happy on paper (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when I was younger and management would send out employee opinion surveys. I'd answer them, be truthful and feel like my opinion actually mattered. I felt it was proper to express exactly how happy or unhappy I was and that the survey was some mechanism for improving things.
Then I became part of management and I realized how completely wrong I was.
The employee opinion survey mostly serves as a crutch for manager's to pat themselves on the back and the do a very good job curve fitting the results to their preconceived notions of how things are. It also serves to weed out people with bad attitudes - I've overheard more than one discussion of trying to locate an employee based on the comment they made on the survey.
So, if you say you're happy with the wage you're getting, you won't be getting a raise. In fact, it's even seen as a sign that pay cuts should be happening. Likewise, if you feel like you're a valued employee, good luck getting any more benefits. It's more likely management will use that as an excuse to strip away that one little perk, like free soda or something, just because they'll decrease the amount of HR budget dedicated to keeping employees happy. Don't ever be happy on paper.
Unfortunately, it's not enough for just you to express your desire for a raise. If 40% of your colleagues think they get paid enough, that's probably enough for management to little to no wage increase. You really want less than 5 - 10% say they're happy - in other words, 90% of the employees in your department need to express displeasure with their wages in order for the survey to have any meaningful effect on wages. (There's plenty of other ways to get a raise though - an employee survey is probably one of the least likely ways for it to happen.)
PS. If you think your company is one of those awesome companies that cares, you're probably wrong. If you sat in the room with the CEO, COO, and HR Director and heard that private conversation about the survey, you'd be horrified.
Wishing doesn't make it so (Score:5, Interesting)
One could say the same thing about high school athletes expecting to go pro.
This just goes to show ... (Score:4, Funny)
... that developers are no less short-sighted, ignorant, or stupid than the rest of the US population.
Dunning-Krugger Effect? Self-Selecting Bias? (Score:3)
56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires
I downloaded the study by Chef (which amounted to a 3-page PDF), and there was no breakdown of the sample population by age, race/ethnic make-up, gender, marital status, location, degree and primary/secondary software skills. So, one has to wonder how much of a self-selection bias took place in this so-called study.
For instance, I cannot see a way by which a sample population of single men in their late 20s working as developers (or founders) at start-ups in Silicon Valley will respond the questionnaire in a manner comparable to, say, a mixed gender sample population of developers in their mid-30s or 40s working at established companies out of, say, Austin.
Also, regarding age, someone starting up today should not find it impossible to become, literally, a millionaire as in "having earned a million" by the time of retirement. To effectively be a millionaire - meaning having net assets worth a million or more (at current purchasing power) counting inflation, that is another thing.
The thing that made me scratch my head the most is that 2/3 of the sampled population believed their profession to be recession-proof. That strikes me as naivete (or stupidity) of youth/inexperience/arrogance.
The software industry is not recession-proof. It is recession-resilient for those who actively cultivate their professional network.
But recession-proof? Not. A. Chance.
Either this study is seriously affected by the Dunning-Krugger Effect, or it is an exercise in intellectual self-pleasure, or somehow Chef managed to sample a population composed by truly elite multi-discipline engineers, owners of very hard-to-get skills (like building software for radar systems or something.)
Headline is silly... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you earn $80k+ a year, you need to be a double millionaire just in retirement savings to maintain your income when you retire. I guess this means 44% of developers don't expect to retire at age 65?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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They must just be asking a lot of people who are understand math and have a little discipline. A carpenter can become a millionaire by retirement, all you have to do is start saving and keep saving.
Re:I must be in the minority. (Score:5, Insightful)
They must just be asking a lot of people who are understand math and have a little discipline. A carpenter can become a millionaire by retirement, all you have to do is start saving and keep saving.
I fully intend to be a millionaire by the time I retire, and with inflation that should be enough for a tent and some camping supplies.
Re:I must be in the minority. (Score:4)
yeah, in 20 years, i suspect being a millionaire would be like what it is today to earn a "six-figure income" - which is B.F.D.
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's, a "six figure income" was meaningful. Now in some places where software development is a common trade (cough: silicon valley), six figures is just-getting-by
Re:I must be in the minority. (Score:4, Informative)
Even outside of the valley in more normal priced places, if the first digit of that six figures is a '1', it's still solidly middle class, nothing more.
Re:I must be in the minority. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm tired of all this "six figures is just-getting-by" bullshit. I'm a software engineer in the valley who only a few years ago was making almost exactly six figures, and I was doing far, far better than just getting by.
I bought a house even before making $100k. It's a small house in a good part of San Jose. I probably would have had to get a roommate for the first few years had my then-girlfriend not been chipping in rent, but that's somewhat expected with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. My monthly payment will stay the same forever, and inflation and salaries, even for non-engineers, are generally only going up in the long run.
Even with the house payment, I've always been able to stuff a significant amount of money into my 401(k) and IRA. By starting early and investing in index funds, I'm going to easily have enough money in retirement.
Even after putting a lot of money into a house and retirement, there was still plenty of money leftover for fun stuff. I was able to go out to nice restaurants, I bought myself nice toys like laptops and bicycles, and I generally didn't have to worry about money.
Admittedly I don't have kids and wasn't trying to support a family by myself, but a second income would also balance that out.
Are you able to buy a 5 bedroom, 3,000 sq ft house in Palo Alto on $100k? Hell no, but you can still live an extremely nice life. It's an insult to the people living paycheck to paycheck to say that six figures is just getting by.
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Add to this the fact that the profile of a millionaire is very similar to that of a Developer
Average millionaire is educated with atleast college degree, earns about $100 K (which according to Dept of Labor) is what developers
Re:I must be in the minority. (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like you skipped over the part, "that doesn't rely primarily on luck".
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It looks like you skipped over the part, "that doesn't rely primarily on luck".
It doesn't depend primarily on luck. It depends on your ability to select a sequence of investments that will have an average payout of more than twice what they cost. You don't know the outcome of any one investment (success or failure), but your ability to pick a sequence of investments that are expected to offset each other's random risks and have sufficient average payout when taken together (expected total gain minu
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Even assuming that you get your million dollars forty years before you plan to retire, you would need to pull in returns of more than 18% per year to hit a billion.
No one can do that reliably. It's luck.
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Not getting a serious illness that your insurance won't fully cover is luck. Not being sued into oblivion by some asshat is luck. Not retiring during a major world recession is luck.
Also, if you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of rip-offs, scams and ponzi schemes going on in the investment market. Supposedly skilled and knowledgeable investors fell for them because the crooks are good at what they do. Would be nice if you could get by with just safer, guaranteed return investments rather than having to beco
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This is pretty much what I was going to say. The other 44% apparently either can't live within their means or can't do the math of simple compound interest.
I'm not even a particularly well-paid developer, and my wife and I are about 80% of the way there (in our retirement accounts) after not quite twenty years of saving.
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No, we can do compound interest maths...
The sum, from i = 25 to 0, of 5000 * (1.138 ^ i) is just barely over a million. So for the maths to stack up, you need to be being paid 14% interest. That's not even close to reality.
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It's funny how often you run into a "software developer" that is also bad at math - it seems to be pretty common these days.
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Well, with your maths, it's not surprising that you think it's easy to become a millionaire. Unless you think your working life is 200 years long. That, or you think a typical savings account pays nearly 14% interest. Both of which are... Rather off the scale.
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No, if you save $5k per year with a 50% employer match and a 5% average rate of return, you'll have over $1 million in 43 years.
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How do you get 200 years? Money in the stock market makes returns.
Use this calculator
http://www.calculator.net/futu... [calculator.net]
Put in $5,000 payment
Nothing at start.
43 years (65 - 22), 6.3%
Do this in an IRA so there are no taxes involved.
You will have $1,018,527 at the end.
6.3% is reasonable. I have been averaging over 8% for last 20 years including the big meltdowns.
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Why is your retirement savings in a savings account?
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Because the grand parent specified a typical savings account explicitly.
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I make 90k a year. Not an especially large amount for a computer programmer.
I spend about 50k per year which is more than most non programmers make.
That gives me 40k a year worth of savings. 1M/40K = 25 years to be a millionaire.
Some of the 40K is money spent on my house and other assets but I would say
that's pretty common. It's hard to spend 90k a year and not accumulate some
assets.
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I remember doing a project where if someone put in 3,000/year from age 21 till retirement could have a million in savings (on compounded growth of 10%). It is doable, though 10% growth is not going to be the norm in the near future.
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10% growth won't be the norm in the near future because it's never been the norm, just a weird exception in some periods of intense growth. The average ROI over centuries is very very stable at 4%. This corresponds roughly to the price of houses.
I read an article today that explained that since 4% is higher than the average growthrate of economies, people having assets will tend to collect a larger and larger share from the GDP as opposed to just working for it. Hence the growing divide in society between p
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Assuming no major medical issues, no layoffs, no major accidents, etc. Your estimates may not work out.
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yeah, wait til you're married, have kids, etc. Money flies out the door
Re:Holy shit (Score:4, Informative)
Being a millionaire not only means you acquire a million but also that you get to keep it. Essentially, it means you earn one million more than you need to live your life.
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And that's hard?
As mentioned further below, saving ~$5000/year is possible - maybe throw away that $100/mo TV subscription or something.
Re:Holy shit (Score:4, Informative)
And that's hard?
As mentioned further below, saving ~$5000/year is possible - maybe throw away that $100/mo TV subscription or something.
Hell, my wife is in her mid 20's and I'm in my early 30's and we manage to squirrel away $28,000 every year on our two salaries (I'm a server admin, she's an engineer). If you're in the right industry and have a modicum of self-restraint it isn't too difficult to save.
The key is being in the right industry. The median income in the US is around $27,000/year. It is VERY difficult to save $28k if you are only making $27k. It seems to you like you have "self-restraint" because you still have money left over after paying for your necessities. Half the people in the country that make income make less per year than just a portion of your disposable income.
(and to the GP, you threw away that 100/mo TV subscription, that is only $1200 - where does the 5k come from?)
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From wikipedia:
A millionaire (originally and sometimes still millionnaire) is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency.
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I've solved that a while ago. My referring currency is now cents and I was a millionnaire even before being out of school! :)
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Gold prices are driven by 1. Speculation and fearmongering about the state of the economy (I.e. preppers, pump and dump scammers, etc). 2. By how low interest rates are(if they can't gamble on the stock market or in loans, they gamble in gold). So, gold is a gamble against the economy (and therefore, the dollar), but that has nothing to do with inflation.
And that can be extended to the world economies as well.
If you want to see real inflation, you have to look at low prof
Re:Holy shit (Score:4, Informative)
Gold is a good measure of inflation if you take the 10-year-average, or maybe the 20-year, of gold prices. While gold is hopelessly volatile in the short term, it seems to keep reasonably equivalent purchasing power century-by-century.
Home prices work out about the same, BTW. While real estate markets can be just as volatile, long term house prices are flat with inflation, which makes a lot of sense (the % of income people are willing/able to spend on housing won't change unless human nature changes, so you expect the average house to represent a given amount of purchasing power).
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...
With a 10% annual growth, you hit a million in 20 years. That grows to $5 million in about 35 years. That becomes $2.5 million after 35 years when you count inflation, but that still shows it is pretty easy to hit a million in any professional level job.
Heck! With 20% annual growth you can hit a million in 14 years, and with 30% annual growth you can hit a million in 11 years!
Just ask Bernie Madoff!
The real long term return on stocks is 6% or so. You only get 10% if you carefully draw the period to cover two bubbles and avoid the post-bubble malaise, collapse and ensuing low-grade depression. That's called "cheating with statistics".
And even stock market optimists (like Jeremy Siegel) feel that returns over the next few decades will be around 5%, as the l
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that they don't waste it on things like mortgages, car debt, credit cards, and other bad habits that keep people at "average" and "normal" net worth.
How is a mortgage a waste? You even listed it first as if to denote it's importance of being avoided. Owning your own home is advantageous for a lot of reasons, but the most important of which is people base their rent prices on what their mortgage costs. If you're renting - you're paying off someone else's mortgage for them. Unless you want to be single your whole life and rent a flat with a bunch of other guys I fail to see how renting would ever be worthwhile over purchasing.
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And as the knowledge economy shifts to the point where non-local geeks are just as good as local, the value of that house will go back down to something sensible. You are in a bubble. It's not out of the question that it will continue for the rest of your life, but I'd suggest a wee bit of diversification, just to be sure.
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I think you misunderstood what I said. I'm saying don't get a mortgage, purchase the home outright. :)
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This. I expect to require 3 million to retire comfortably, and be able to live off the interest without drawing down the capital leaving the 3 million to the kids when I go. At this stage I'm skeptical I will make that 'stretch goal'.
I think I require 1 million at minimum to retire comfortably, and be able to live off the interest, drawing down the capital as I go, and have enough to make it to my death.
Both scenarios bar major health expenses like paying for live-in-care out-of-pocket.
I have not factored a
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After retirement age, you also receive social security payments (in addition to your retirement income).
You hope. [thedailyaztec.com]
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1 million dollars invested in a conservative bond fund will yield $40,000 a year, with no hit to principle. Most of America lives (comfortably) on that (or less) today. In addition to that, you will have social security.
And if you are of retirement age today, 1Million is enough. Now project that forward 30 or 40 years.
To put it into perspective, if you had 500k in 1980, that gave you the same purchasing power as 1 million does today.
So if you think 1 million today is enough to retire, and you plan to retire
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