320 Years of History
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Funding charities isn't millions of dollars. But I put at least 10% of my income towards my church which in turn funds various charitable activities
Okay....Well, that's a very different scale than what your remark led me to think. I was of the mind you were the primary "high dollar" funder of several foundations or other charitable organizations. TY for the clarification.
Your accomplishments and story of personal recovery is none the less laudable. Kudos.
Writing a book about it may yet be a wise thing to do. I'm sure others can nonetheless take inspiration, perhaps even specific actionable insights from learning of your experiences, trials and tribulations. I think too few folks who have "normal" stories of achievement bother to share them widely. Most often, what we hear about, in the news or in books, are stories of folks who've gone from one great extreme to another, stories about the exceptional achievers among us. What is likely more useful, more inspiring and informative, to many more people are sagas of regular people going from something imaginable that's clearly undesirable to something else that is equally imaginable but notably better.
The remarkable life and lessons of the $8 million janitor
Janitor who retired with $8 Million.
Yeah, it's true that the "big" stories are the extremes. But it's not uncommon.
Actually my parents are millionaires. Want to know how they made millions? Public school teachers.
Where do you think I got my method of living from? Modeled from the best. Living frugal man. It's where most millionaires come from.
Well, there again, I think we have differing views of scale on matters such as this. I see achieving a million dollar to $10 million dollar net worth as being relatively "normal," even though not everyone does so. By calling that "normal," I mean that doing so is well within the realm of what hardworking frugal folks with reasonably good, but not exceptional, jobs and investment behaviors can and often will achieve financially.
Perhaps my view of that is skewed somewhat by my, in the U.S., living and finding myself mostly in high cost locales like D.C., NYC, and L.A. where the value of one's home alone is very often enough to put one at least halfway to reaching one million dollars in net worth. Add to that a lifetime of sage saving/investing and achieving million dollar net worth is all but assured.
I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishment, or the folks who achieve it. I'm merely saying that it's a "normal" one, and that's the sort of story that's more useful than is that of, say, folks with barely a dollar to their name and go on to become hundred millionaires or billionaires.
Yeah, maybe that is a bit skewed. You live in LA, DC, and NYC, and you think that's how everyone is. That's how almost no one is.
The Average Retirement Savings by Age for 2016 | Investopedia
According to the GAO, the average American, at age 55 to 65, has saved up $104,000.
That's the average.
1 in 3 Americans Has Saved $0 for Retirement
ONE in THREE Americans has saved a total of ZERO at retirement.
This is the real "normal".
What you describe should be normal, but it's not. Not even close to normal. Most people my age, have a negative net worth. They owe more in debts, than they own in assets.
You live in LA, DC, and NYC, and you think that's how everyone is.
I don't at all think that "everyone's" financial circumstances and environments are very similar to those of L.A., D.C. and NYC residents. I'm not nearly that narrow minded, but TY for giving me no more credit than being so. <winks>
Red
FWIW, the "skew" I think applicable to my remarks above has to do with how close to achieving a million dollar net worth folks outside D.C., L.A., NYC and similar high COLA places come.
I don't really think one needs to achieve million dollar net worth to be reasonably comfortable in one's middle age and retirement years. Achieving whatever is comparable to doing that in, saty, D.C. should be adequate. That is, I recognize that one need not, for example, earn $150K or so to be comfortable (not wealthy comfortable) in Natchez, MS, but in D.C., one does. Similarly, in Natchez, MS, a net worth of "something less than $1M" is quite likely comparable to a $1M net worth in D.C.