<story><title>The death of the ‘Millionaire Next Door’ dream</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-death-of-the-millionaire-next-door-dream-20150310-column.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway-8c93</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m one of those that save&amp;#x2F;invest 70% of their take-home income. It&amp;#x27;s not about frugality at all - I would gladly pay for an increased quality of life - but it&amp;#x27;s simply not on offer. 
Past a certain threshold, a threshold well within the reach of western upper-middle-class households, the exchange rate between money and the quality of life becomes essentially zero.
What&amp;#x27;s left are pointless status seeking games, scams and useless trinkets. The Bible&amp;#x27;s Book of Ecclesiastes describes it poignantly:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure[...] Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>At some point the question is - &amp;quot;is it really worth it?&amp;quot; Sure, if you save 10-20% on a regular basis, you&amp;#x27;re just being prudent. But if you go out of your way to save 50-80% of your income and lower your quality of life significantly, just so you can have more money in your investment account, or so you can not go to work (but still live that same extremely restrictive lifestyle)... it really doesn&amp;#x27;t seem worth it to me. But some people obviously disagree.</text></item><item><author>mmcconnell1618</author><text>The model described in the book does work. Spend less than you make, invest the excess in long term assets that have compounding interest rates above the inflation rate. It does produce millionaires. It also requires tremendous discipline over a long period of time. The math is relatively simple, the behavior is not.&lt;p&gt;While the millionaire described in the story had $8 million in assets, you will find almost no one &amp;quot;next door&amp;quot; with 10 to 100 million or a 1 billion. That level of wealth requires  a return on investment that can&amp;#x27;t be achieved using the earn and save model. It usually requires creating&amp;#x2F;controlling an assets that can grow in value many orders of magnitude faster than the stock market (real estate, businesses, intellectual property).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fleddr</author><text>Fully agree with you. I believe a few years ago there was research stating that roughly speaking, 70K per year (in spending) is the happiness threshold.&lt;p&gt;Any spending above it leads to no, marginal, or only temporary extra happiness.&lt;p&gt;I put that bar far lower, personally. We already have the stuff we need and don&amp;#x27;t enjoy shopping. We&amp;#x27;re basically stuck at a particular spending level whilst income grows over time. Saving a large portion of our income is effortless, and not at all a sacrifice of quality of life.&lt;p&gt;The secret to life is to not want so much. It makes life so much easier and better.</text></comment>
<story><title>The death of the ‘Millionaire Next Door’ dream</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-death-of-the-millionaire-next-door-dream-20150310-column.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway-8c93</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m one of those that save&amp;#x2F;invest 70% of their take-home income. It&amp;#x27;s not about frugality at all - I would gladly pay for an increased quality of life - but it&amp;#x27;s simply not on offer. 
Past a certain threshold, a threshold well within the reach of western upper-middle-class households, the exchange rate between money and the quality of life becomes essentially zero.
What&amp;#x27;s left are pointless status seeking games, scams and useless trinkets. The Bible&amp;#x27;s Book of Ecclesiastes describes it poignantly:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure[...] Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>At some point the question is - &amp;quot;is it really worth it?&amp;quot; Sure, if you save 10-20% on a regular basis, you&amp;#x27;re just being prudent. But if you go out of your way to save 50-80% of your income and lower your quality of life significantly, just so you can have more money in your investment account, or so you can not go to work (but still live that same extremely restrictive lifestyle)... it really doesn&amp;#x27;t seem worth it to me. But some people obviously disagree.</text></item><item><author>mmcconnell1618</author><text>The model described in the book does work. Spend less than you make, invest the excess in long term assets that have compounding interest rates above the inflation rate. It does produce millionaires. It also requires tremendous discipline over a long period of time. The math is relatively simple, the behavior is not.&lt;p&gt;While the millionaire described in the story had $8 million in assets, you will find almost no one &amp;quot;next door&amp;quot; with 10 to 100 million or a 1 billion. That level of wealth requires  a return on investment that can&amp;#x27;t be achieved using the earn and save model. It usually requires creating&amp;#x2F;controlling an assets that can grow in value many orders of magnitude faster than the stock market (real estate, businesses, intellectual property).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bradlys</author><text>You must live in a LCOL and&amp;#x2F;or make an extremely high amount of money and&amp;#x2F;or like to live an unusually low quality of life for your income.&lt;p&gt;Saving 70% of your take-home in some place like the SFBA is saying you&amp;#x27;re an extremely high earner and&amp;#x2F;or you really like studio apartments.</text></comment>