<story><title>Climbing the Wealth Ladder</title><url>https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>disintegore</author><text>I understand this isn&amp;#x27;t the point of the article, but it seems like a roundabout way of saying &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t overspend&amp;quot;. This part in particular bothers me :&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More importantly though, the best way to climb the wealth ladder is to spend money according to your level.&lt;p&gt;As far as I (a non-economist) can personally tell, any notion of climbing up some abstract wealth ladder is synonym with a salary increase for the vast majority of people. Other methods, whether they involve quantity of free time or already-available money, are intrinsically tied to the quality of your job or, failing that, the quality of your parents&amp;#x27; or partner&amp;#x27;s jobs.&lt;p&gt;Personal net worth, while definitely an important factor in this equation, is far less so than income in my opinion. A fiscally irresponsibly professional worker living from paycheck to paycheck has &amp;quot;grocery freedom&amp;quot; while a person with 10,000$ of accumulated wealth and no income whatsoever (let&amp;#x27;s say they are between jobs) is far more likely to buy the store brand margarine. Similarly, the former will most likely not achieve &amp;quot;travel freedom&amp;quot; without decades of hard work, of careful spending, of saving, investing, etc.&lt;p&gt;Simply put, no amount of &amp;quot;not carelessly booking flights&amp;quot; will turn you into Jay-Z, let alone into that small business owner across the street with the McMansion and the gaudy Christmas decorations. The undisputed &amp;quot;best way&amp;quot; to climb the wealth ladder is to receive large amounts of cash from some external source.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CPLX</author><text>Yup. I see this kind of logic in personal finance discussions all the time but it&amp;#x27;s bullshit. There simply aren&amp;#x27;t any spending decisions you can make that will change you from not wealthy to really wealthy. Those things can just move you from poor to middle class at best, or to a better level of middle class.&lt;p&gt;Outside of real outlier status where you&amp;#x27;re paid really, really large amounts of money for your services (like notable entertainer or cardiac surgeon) the way to wealth is to own the means of production. Period.&lt;p&gt;Same as it ever was.</text></comment>
<story><title>Climbing the Wealth Ladder</title><url>https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>disintegore</author><text>I understand this isn&amp;#x27;t the point of the article, but it seems like a roundabout way of saying &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t overspend&amp;quot;. This part in particular bothers me :&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More importantly though, the best way to climb the wealth ladder is to spend money according to your level.&lt;p&gt;As far as I (a non-economist) can personally tell, any notion of climbing up some abstract wealth ladder is synonym with a salary increase for the vast majority of people. Other methods, whether they involve quantity of free time or already-available money, are intrinsically tied to the quality of your job or, failing that, the quality of your parents&amp;#x27; or partner&amp;#x27;s jobs.&lt;p&gt;Personal net worth, while definitely an important factor in this equation, is far less so than income in my opinion. A fiscally irresponsibly professional worker living from paycheck to paycheck has &amp;quot;grocery freedom&amp;quot; while a person with 10,000$ of accumulated wealth and no income whatsoever (let&amp;#x27;s say they are between jobs) is far more likely to buy the store brand margarine. Similarly, the former will most likely not achieve &amp;quot;travel freedom&amp;quot; without decades of hard work, of careful spending, of saving, investing, etc.&lt;p&gt;Simply put, no amount of &amp;quot;not carelessly booking flights&amp;quot; will turn you into Jay-Z, let alone into that small business owner across the street with the McMansion and the gaudy Christmas decorations. The undisputed &amp;quot;best way&amp;quot; to climb the wealth ladder is to receive large amounts of cash from some external source.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>duxup</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m reminded of when Radiohead sold their album for whatever folks wanted to pay on the internet and someone wrote an article about how all bands could do that too:&lt;p&gt;Step 1: Be Radiohead...&lt;p&gt;The idea being that the hard part is getting to where you can even use the advice, and after that you&amp;#x27;re all but done.</text></comment>