Millionaire Librarian

One of my hobbies is reading and writing on Reddit. Over the years, I have developed my own pet peeves. One is people writing on FIRE who are retiring at a traditional age or just showing off their high net worth accounts. Maybe it is just hearing the same things over and over that gets tiring. Maybe I just spend too much time online.

Another pet peeve of mine is people being way too conservative with the investment percentage returns they use, as if it is a virtue to be conservative rather than realistic. Using “high” historical returns has its own perils. How will you be a good steward of your money so it best benefits your family? Bill Perkins has a great book, Die With Zero, about giving early and often that should be widely read. We have our own plans about giving to our daughter when the time comes. Life should be easier for her, and that includes giving money or assisting with major purchases when she is an adult.

Many people have grandiose plans for their money to last and provide for generations. With money invested at median returns, this is very possible, but generally speaking, money does not last more than two or three generations. First there are the money earners and investors. The next generation generally manages it imperfectly, and the last generation fritters it away seeking luxuries the first generation prided itself on abstaining from.

What I’ve also noticed online, in my own thinking, and in some of Morgan Housel’s writing is that people often have arguments where the only thing separating them is semantics or a slightly different life experience. Give two diametrically opposed individuals more time to flesh out their histories, and they will come to an understanding and probably an agreement. Surely the current divisiveness of the political climate has made people quicker to anger as well. Politics has become personal for many people when it should involve boring discussions about tax policy.