[WestIndianArchie]

(05-22-2013 09:01 PM)MattC Wrote:  

In the footballing world, you have every day people commenting on their wages per week and it's just a completely different world they live in. Nobody can relate to them unless they're in the same bracket.

For example:

A football club has someone earning £60,000 a week.

Another player is set to sign with an offer of £40,000 a week.

"£40,000 a week! Most of the country don't even earn that in a year!"

The player who is offered the £40,000 a week declines, having seen someone else in the same position as him earning £60,000 a week, so he signs for another club for £75,000 a week.

The every day people says "what the fuck?! What's he gonna do with an extra £35,000 a week?!"

That £35,000 a week would make an insanely big difference on someone's life outside of the footballing/entertainment world, let alone the grand total of £75,000 a week.

What difference does it make to the footballer who is used to big cars, big houses, big nights out and big bank balances?

Is it any different from me being offered £30,000 a year at one company and £40,000 at another? Not really, but what it comes down to is the standards you've set yourself.

How much value does he add to the league, and how much are the owners and endorsement people making off of him?

I'm willing to be that the owners of these teams are more than making their money.

To put it in perspective, even if you could teach a sports superstar money management, how many of them would be in a financial position to buy their own team at the end of their career?

That's how much money these owners have. Cats quibbling about a couple hundred grand here or there, whilst the owners are typically worth north of a few billion.

WIA

[Matt3B]

Well, I support Liverpool and John Henry and Tom Werner of the Red Sox own the club. Hell, even Lebron James is a shareholder. They're making more money than the players of course.

That's the thing, they've all got money being thrown at them that £1,000 is as valuable to them as £10 is to me.

[speeddemon]

The doctor doesn't feel rich because he:

- Lost several hundred thousand dollars on bad investments/failed businesses earlier on

- Will have to pay college tuition for 3 kids (600,000) + possible grad school

- Still has debt he has to pay back (student loans, mortgages etc)

[Balboa]

Anyone who measures their wealth in terms of a salary is not rich.
People who own things - companies, large portfolios, real estate - are rich. People who don't have to work ever again other than managing their assets.

[WestCoast]

^^ agree if you're rich... Why do you need to work. Working for fun is a different story versus working because you have a high cost life style you can't maintain.

[clever alias]

relativity is more important than absolite wealth. tjere was a study that asked people to.choose between a 2000 square foot apartment in a neigjborhood wjere tje average was 1500 square feet, or jave a 2500 square foot apt in a neighborhood where the average was 3000 feet. people chose the absolute smaller but but relatively larger.
rich people with richer friends would have the same problem

[speeddemon]

(05-22-2013 10:12 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  

^^ agree if you're rich... Why do you need to work. Working for fun is a different story versus working because you have a high cost life style you can't maintain.

The guy has 200k coming in passively from investments and 50k from properties...even in the US, how much more do you need not to work?

[WestCoast]

He is trapped in his own lifestyle. Yes if he cut his expenses down, he would be free. He is currently locked in by his own belief system.

No I don't feel sorry for him.

[Kabal]

The Hedonic Treadmill:

Quote:

The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.

[Kingsley Davis]

(05-22-2013 07:29 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

Stealth bragging. Insecure wealthy people have to tell everyone how much money they have, then try to hide their bragging behind a veneer of first world problem complaining. Wealthy people who actually have class avoid explicitly describing their wealth because to do so is crass and boorish.

Check Paul Fussell's book Class where he go into details on the subject. Some say a bit dated but they have no class.
   

[Norset]

(05-22-2013 11:09 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  

He is trapped in his own lifestyle. Yes if he cut his expenses down, he would be free. He is currently locked in by his own belief system.

No I don't feel sorry for him.

Also his wife would divorce him.

[Saladin]

(05-22-2013 11:09 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  

He is trapped in his own lifestyle. Yes if he cut his expenses down, he would be free. He is currently locked in by his own belief system.

No I don't feel sorry for him.

Yes.

He chases validation from other people... That's why he spends so much money on status symbols. He needs to take a trip to the 3rd world, and he'll start caring a helluva lot less about catching up with the Joneses.

If you live a comfortable lifestyle you shouldn't feel bad about yourself. Most of the world's population lives in far shittier conditions.

[WestCoast]

Yep this is a hard thing for people to understand. If you're broke you don't understand how someone gets sucked in and if you're like this guy you don't understand how people live on less than a ridiculous figure like $500K+.

Escaping the financial prison in your mind is key to long-term sanity.

[cardguy]

It is simple really since most people who enter well paid professions (or start businesses) do so because they want to impress people with their 'status'.

Then later on people wonder why they waste their money on trying to collect status goods.

It is a self-selecting group.

[speeddemon]

Regardless of his lifestyle choices, he is making a ton of money from diversified sources - job (320k), investments (200k) and rental properties (50k).

Can't hate on his hustle.

Funding 3 kids through college + grad school these days is just too expensive. Don't think anyone could have predicted Ivy League tuition to be around 40-50k, law school tuition to be around 50k, med school tuition to be around 50k, MBA tuition to be around 50k etc.

[samsamsam]

(05-23-2013 10:02 AM)WestCoast Wrote:  

Escaping the financial prison in your mind is key to long-term sanity.

Absolutely true.
---------------------------------------------------------------
In reply to some of the other posters, to be fair, in certain cities - 6 figures is hard to survive on. If you are in NYC and you have kids, etc. When you add the taxes, etc it does go quickly. I do not live in NYC - but I think some people cannot understand a world they have not been in. It does not mean these people are "better" because that is just an opinion/interpretation based on how someone frames the world. Any figure without context makes it a bit hard to judge.

But giving a fuck what others think (like this doctor it seems) is ridiculous. To be imprisoned by other people's opinions is just dumb as fuck.

People tell me all the time if they had money they would do XYZ. Problem is they don't have the money and they don't know how to even earn it. If people knew how hard it was to earn that kind of coin, they probably wouldn't talk so boldly about how they would blow money. If you are born with it, that is a different conversation.

I am not saying it is good or bad to comment on others (lol I do it), just that it would be helpful to keep in mind we are not in this guy's shoes. I don't feel sorry for him and his "terrible" situation. But I am also not him and don't have an unemployed wife bossing my ass telling me what the neighbors bought.

In LA, lot of people drive nice cars and are racked with debt. Yes, they come off like they are balling, fine. I don't drive the greatest (because a bigger car won't fit in my garage) and I don't value using $$ resources on a depreciating asset. I turned down my buddy's offer of a BMW 6 series convertible. Because it won't fit and it isn't who I am (it was free). At the end of the day, I think, you need to have a powerful internal mechanism and a strong identity (not ego) to live your life to the fullest and not get caught up with nonsense. I am working on building that frame, I have my days where I lose perspective (i.e. I went a bit nuts about that stupid chick who hit a bicyclist and left the scene). There are days when I go, maybe I should take that car. But with that car would come a whole set of new expectations and behaviors that would not support me in meeting my real goals. I would get sidetracked - I might start worrying about scratches, etc. Sure it might support an elevated lifestyle, but it might attract people that I would not like befriending (i.e shallow people and LA is filled with them). People might assume that I was loaded and expect me to pay for everything, a whole series of dominoes (and I actually do pay for everything when I go out with friends - except for my car offering buddy he is a bigtimer). And once again that would take me off course. Or maybe in some moment of weakness I would start thinking I am such a stud and start making a series of irrational decisions. I would hope that wouldn't happen, but one never knows how one behaves until one is in that moment. Anything else is just speculation and hot air (if you couch it as "I would like to think I would do XYZ at least that is a acknowledgement that you don't know for sure).

A lot of the showboating we see in life is just a need to feel validated, to address our insecurities. I have seen people do crazy shit to prove how badass they are and regret it horribly later when they have to pick up the tab. The doctor is doing it feed some emotional need, most likely. Every one of us has some personal issue. The fact that he actually participated in this article shows how fucked up he is.

At the end of the day, I still think one of the most important things is to accumulate your F U money. Once you have that you are free.

[WestCoast]

Yep and the lower the F U money amount is the better off you will be health wise in the future.

Yes $100K in manhattan isn't much.

[bacon]

All wealth/income is relative

Having an income of 100k in Manhattan puts you in middle class territory where that same income in Zanesville, Ohio would put you in the upper class.

The US has approx 9 million households that have millionare status. You can rest assured many of those people live in the same neighborhoods or cities so that when one (who has millions in assests) compares himself to his peers it is easy to feel not rich.

There are many parts of the US where this guy would be considered almost poor by comparision to other members of the community yet other parts of the country where his wealth would be looked at as super rich.

[solo]

(05-22-2013 09:01 PM)MattC Wrote:  

In the footballing world

Interesting study shows a majority of professional football players go broke within 5 years of ending their career: http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/136231...ke?cc=5739

[Numa]

(05-23-2013 02:39 PM)solo Wrote:  

(05-22-2013 09:01 PM)MattC Wrote:  

In the footballing world

Interesting study shows a majority of professional football players go broke within 5 years of ending their career: http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/136231...ke?cc=5739

The thing is that careers in sports generally speaking end rather quickly, in the case of football (soccer), it's rare to be playing after the age of 35. In pretty much any non-sporting field, you're considered young at 35! Sadly most never get any finance education at all, so they never learn to save or invest some money for when their career ends.

[DVY]

550k in CA will give you about 50k in CA taxes+ 160k in Federal taxes= 210k in taxes. Leaving you 340k income

Doctor- 8 years of school, 300k student loans, Wife, Mortgage, Kids, Taxes. And he is an employee-no tax-writeoffs. Most finish residency around 32-34. Thereby you have about a 30 year working life.

-Monthly Student Loan Payments- 3k/month
-Pregnant Wife/Marriage/Kids- Tack on another 4k/month in assorted fees
-Mortgage - 6k/month
- Car Lease/Payments for 2 cars (1 luxury, 1 SUV)- 1,500/month

These will be the big payments and its not counting cable, food, maintenance, upkeep. After taxes and expenses 80% of that income is swallowed up. This isn't much left for retirement for THEIR lifestyle.

Its a stressful position to be in. What if you break an arm or leg? What if you get sick?

Mark my words, Medical school is going to be the next bubble. Salaries are being squeezed, medical school is getting extremely expensive, residency programs barely pay enough to keep you afloat in the interim, and doctors are graduating older and older (shorter working life).

Edit- Hell, one of my family friends graduated from a good speciality (neurology) and got offered 150k/year. Thats peanuts if you count his 300k debt, family, taxes, and living in a large metropolitan city.

[Hotwheels]

(06-04-2013 11:31 AM)DVY Wrote:  

Edit- Hell, one of my family friends graduated from a good speciality (neurology) and got offered 150k/year. Thats peanuts if you count his 300k debt, family, taxes, and living in a large metropolitan city.

Hell, when I was a union railroad engineer I made more than the majority of lawyers.

It's insane what people are paying for schooling when one considers the "rewards".

[Mentavious]

That 550k a year is when you're the senior doctor with decades of experience. When you're fresh out of residency you're making 150k. That's at least 60 hours of work, 200k in loans, and stress beyond the norm.

Like Hotweels, I'll take half the pay as an engineer, 9-5 job, 20% of the loans, and at least 7 years of my life.

I remember at one point I wanted to be a doctor. The title alone does that to people. Then one summer I interned under a ophthalmologist. She did a 8-5 everyday at her practice plus 20 additional hours at the hospital. She made 200k a year at the age of 35.

DVY- don't forget malpractice insurance. Anyone know how much the average bill is nowadays?

[speeddemon]

(06-04-2013 12:43 PM)CThunder86 Wrote:  

That 550k a year is when you're the senior doctor with decades of experience.

The guy in the article is making 320k as a doctor.

It is pretty tough to make 550k as a doctor in metropolitan areas even after decades of experience.

[Excelsior]

(06-04-2013 11:31 AM)DVY Wrote:  

550k in CA will give you about 50k in CA taxes+ 160k in Federal taxes= 210k in taxes. Leaving you 340k income

Doctor- 8 years of school, 300k student loans, Wife, Mortgage, Kids, Taxes. And he is an employee-no tax-writeoffs. Most finish residency around 32-34. Thereby you have about a 30 year working life.

-Monthly Student Loan Payments- 3k/month
-Pregnant Wife/Marriage/Kids- Tack on another 4k/month in assorted fees
-Mortgage - 6k/month
- Car Lease/Payments for 2 cars (1 luxury, 1 SUV)- 1,500/month

I think I can help out a little with this.

Mortgage: We're talking about a California guy here, so let's just assume we're in LA.

Buy a house like this.
What I've linked there is a small single-family home with 3 beds and 3 baths. It has a 2 car attached garage and washer/dryer hookups. It is in a pretty popular suburb of LA called Carson. It is a short sale for just $150,000. Mortgage payments would only be around $670 monthly, cutting the estimated mortgage above down by 90%. There's an extra $5k to play around with.
The place is in a decent suburb and the house is big enough for a young family to grow into (assuming you're planning on 2 or 3 kids like most).

Car/Lease Payments for 2 Cars: This is easy to cut. Assuming you still need two cars:

Car 1- Mazda 3: Grab a 2010 with less thank 50k on the odometer for $14-15k. Payments can be kept to $250 monthly on a car like this. You can get a hatchback, which will have extra versatility.

Car 2- Mazda CX-7: Grab a 2008-2010 model for about $14-15k. Payments will also be around $250 monthly. This is a crossover, again useful for versatility.

Both are nice cars that won't break the bank. I've now cut your car bill by about 67% and given you an extra $1000 to play with. That's $6k in total additional money.
If those cars don't do it for you, here are some similarly affordable alternatives:

Car 1 Alternatives:
-Lexus ES350: 16k will get you an 07/08 example with 70-90k on the odometer.
-Lexus ES330: $15k can get you an 04-06 example with 50-80k on the odometer.
-Lexus IS250: Similar to the above.
-Infiniti G35: Also similar to the above (04-05 for $15k with 70-80k on the clock).
-Hyundai Sonata: A very affordable option. You can get a 2010 Limited model with about 50,000 on the clock for only $11,000. Kia Optimas of the same age are in about the same price range.

Car 2 Alternatives:
-Hyundai Santa Fe: Another very affordable option. Be willing to spend about $13k and you can find an 07/08 with less than 70k on the odometer.
-Ford Escape: 06/07 models are similar to the above.

Of course, this is assuming you want to buy a car. If you've got good credit, you could lease a couple of new cars for similar monthly prices, lower in some instances (example: a Ford Focus for just $199 a month). Either way, you can cut that car payment down quite a bit.

The extra $6k after these combined savings can go a long way toward dealing with food, maintenance, etc, and also help with building a small savings each month. If we're talking about a much younger family here with only about $10k monthly in after tax income (just recently out of residency/med-school), this is still manageable (about $2500 left over monthly after all is said and done).

Still stressful, but more manageable.