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Context: I'm a middle-class dude, 21, about a year away from finishing an undergraduate in a field I'm not entirely interested in. At this point I'm basically planning to work for a few years, save up money, then go back to school for another degree. (This is just me— other people with other situations can feel free to ask the same.) How does someone "climb the social ladder"? How does one get "farther" in the world than their parents? Is there a school degree that lands you in a field that doesn't entirely consume your life? Is investing in the stock market worth it? Is there a general strategy to attaining better and better jobs? Any advice would be appreciated. The Unholy Ghost fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 22:07
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If you want to become wealthy, find and learn a marketable skill(not necessarily a degree, a skill), work for a while and put away a few million dollars. Then, use those millions to start a company that fits with your expertise, and work your rear end off for 3-5 years to make the company successful. Its very difficult to become wealthy by working for others, eventually you'll need to figure out a way to be the owner of some sort of company or business. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 22:22
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1. Ask goons
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Dec 1, 2016 23:13
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have you considered coding?
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Dec 2, 2016 01:14
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Read some books about successful people. Biographies if you want. Richard Branson wrote one called 'Losing my Virginity' and there are plenty more. Focus in on some people you think are cool and then use the information superhighway to find out what made them cool.
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Dec 2, 2016 05:18
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Go back and be born to rich parents.
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Dec 2, 2016 05:41
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It's easy: 1) Have a true passion for money. 2) Have a useful skill 3) Market the interface between your passion and your utility effectively. It seems glib but that's a big part of it. A lot of people follow unprofitable "passion" careers. Don't do that. Don't ask, "Do I like this?" ask "Am I good at this?" and "Does this pay well?" If there is a disconnect between what you are "good at" and "what pays well" find a way to better monetize what you do well. That may involve crazy risks like starting a company. Do that, whatever.
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Dec 2, 2016 05:41
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The Unholy Ghost posted:Is there a school degree that lands you in a field that doesn't entirely consume your life? About 18 of the top 30 paying jobs are in medical specialties. You could argue that many of those are pretty life consuming but not every specialty is surgery and I've known several GPs and Pediatricians who enjoy a good work/life balance in addition to a general salary. Plus, having completed an undergraduate degree already, you're halfway to medical school already since most graduate entry programs require that + a decent score on the qualifying exam (the MCAT). Using your undergrad as your qualifying degree is a great way to leverage a degree in a field you either can't or don't want to work in. Anyone who laughed at your decision to get a degree in philosophy will eat their words when your philosophy degree is used as your entry point into an MD program somewhere.
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Dec 2, 2016 06:30
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Shbobdb posted:It's easy: Yep, perfect. You don't have to hate your job everyday and you also don't have to work for a pittance. The good life is somewhere in the middle.
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Dec 2, 2016 07:00
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Basebf555 posted:If you want to become wealthy, find and learn a marketable skill(not necessarily a degree, a skill), work for a while and put away a few million dollars. Then, use those millions to start a company that fits with your expertise, and work your rear end off for 3-5 years to make the company successful. A...few million dollars? Most jobs I can think of for an undergrad would provide under $100,000 a year, so a max of $1 million assuming I do something like brain surgeon. Are you referring to an investment of some kind? Serrath posted:About 18 of the top 30 paying jobs are in medical specialties. You could argue that many of those are pretty life consuming but not every specialty is surgery and I've known several GPs and Pediatricians who enjoy a good work/life balance in addition to a general salary. So as long as I read some books on the MCAT and passed I could enter medical school even with the most random-rear end undergrad degree? Interesting.
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Dec 2, 2016 07:16
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The Unholy Ghost posted:
I wouldn't call it an easy test but my background is in psychology; I learned enough background science to do well on admissions exams and now I'm in medical school. I have classmates with undergraduate degrees in fine arts, musical theory, and engineering in addition to the usual biomedical science grads.
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Dec 2, 2016 08:04
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Don't strive to be wealthy, strive to be financially independent. Identify how much money you need a month/year to live the life you want. Work towards saving enough money that you can live off the interest it produces for you. Pay off your debts, start saving money, don't take on new debts.
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Dec 2, 2016 14:27
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N. Senada posted:Don't strive to be wealthy, strive to be financially independent. This. Don't look at wealth as being an exact dollar amount, look at wealth as freedom from having to give a gently caress about money. You are young- at some point in the next 10 years you'll figure out what direction you want to go with your life- by that I mean you will define what success looks like for you. For example, success for myself means no debt, owning my own land and home, and living at least partially off that land while making money in an enjoyable way (maybe telecommuting, maybe running my own CSA, I don't know yet). For you success might be becoming CEO, or being a famous doctor, or whatever. Until you figure out what success means to you personally the absolute BEST thing you can do right now is live as frugally as possible, work as hard as you can, learn as much as you can (more school possibly, but I'd recommend real world experience over school), and paying off any debt you have as fast as you can while socking away money. This doesn't have to mean eating ramen every night; the careers and finance subforum has great advice about paying off debt, saving money, and advancing in your career. I'm 10 years older than you and I wish I had taken this advice when I was your age. Also find things/people that inspire you and read about them. Maybe it's Elon Musk, maybe it's Mother Teresa, point is learn as much as you can from others so you can emulate their successes and avoid their mistakes. Learn from the people around you too- your professors, your managers, your co-workers- everyone has something to teach you (tho more than half the time it's what NOT to do!).
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Dec 2, 2016 16:14
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30 Goddamned Dicks' advice is very good. If you want to be really rich, as in worth many millions of dollars or more, there's no real straight path to that. It's some combination of luck, hard work, and creativity. If you want to be upper middle class, there are definitely pathways to that, but not everyone is going to be happy doing them. Tech is a great field to be in that pays well and typically doesn't require "consuming your life." However, a lot of people don't enjoy or aren't particularly good at that type of work. Nursing has good job availability, pays pretty well, and is probably more accessible to most people, but is really hard work and requires a special type of person not to burn out doing it. List out every job you can think of that you might be interested in. Then, do some research on the pay, lifestyle, job availability, and barrier to entry for each of them. Figure out which ones rise to the top, and consider going in that direction. Make sure you talk to people that are actually working in those fields as you do the research; there's a lot of misleading information out there about all sorts of careers. If you don't come up with any good answers, then don't rush into anything. Getting some random graduate degree just because you think you should is a really bad idea. Grad school is often very expensive, and even if it's paid for, often comes with a huge opportunity cost (i.e. years of your early life), and lots of people make the wrong choice and end up worse off as a result. The Unholy Ghost posted:Is investing in the stock market worth it? quote:Is there a general strategy to attaining better and better jobs? 2. Work hard. 3. Network well. 4. Always look for and push for better opportunities. The Unholy Ghost posted:So as long as I read some books on the MCAT and passed I could enter medical school even with the most random-rear end undergrad degree? Interesting.
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Dec 2, 2016 21:50
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Another answer that seems glib is, "spend less than you make." Much like the "secret" to weight loss (expend more calories than you consume), it is neither fun nor glamorous. Yes, there are exceptions to these rules: the financial playing field is not level, and some people have health issues, I get it. Yes, an injury or market crash can gently caress your financial poo poo up. But in general, if you make decent financial decisions (don't buy a brand new, expensive car on credit) and spend less than you make, eventually you should be able to stack up a couple bucks. There's a book called "The Millionaire Next Door" which runs statistics on financial data of folks worth more than $1,000,000 and shows you the patterns in their behavior. It's a great read.
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Dec 2, 2016 22:17
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If you haven't been born into wealth, the first step is to be lucky. Frequently, very lucky. Everyone telling you to study successful people is ignoring a substantial problem: successful people frequently don't know what the gently caress they're talking about. Did you know that all wealthy, successful people breathe, eat, and drink? So, clearly what you need to do to be successful is breathe, eat, and drink! The problem with studying successful people is they don't loving know why they succeeded. They did a bunch of poo poo; of that huge selection of poo poo they did, the things they write and talk about are the things they've chosen to believe made them successful. Did those things actually make them successful, did they have nothing to do with their success, or did they succeed in spite of those things? They sure as gently caress don't know. Most people who become wealthy at some point take a risk that pays off. But tons of people take those kinds of risks and fail, but nobody ever really writes or talks about them. There are poo poo-tons of articles that talk about the problem of focusing only on successes, and lots of people have been writing about it for well over a decade, now, so I'm really surprised to see a bunch of people spouting a bunch of the sort of inspirational pornography that the self-help industry uses to sucker people into buying books and programs in this thread. EDIT: Since everyone else is giving you recommended reading materials: Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, about his experiences working for Salomon Brothers doing bond trading in the 80s. Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success, which is probably the easiest of the three to read, but also the least rigorous. Robert H. Frank's Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Dec 3, 2016 |
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Dec 3, 2016 19:24
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Thanatosian posted:Most people who become wealthy at some point take a risk that pays off. But tons of people take those kinds of risks and fail, but nobody ever really writes or talks about them. Imagine reading a book called, "I Failed in the Restaurant Business, and You Can Too". It's about a guy who borrowed $1 million from family members and banks and opened his own restaurant. It failed completely, because the sales weren't high enough. Was the location wrong? Was the menu the problem? Was the concept unworkable? Maybe all of the above, hard to be sure. Well, nobody would ever read that book, so it won't get published. But a million people experience variations of the above every year, and you never hear about them.
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Dec 3, 2016 22:08
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Orange Sunshine posted:Imagine reading a book called, "I Failed in the Restaurant Business, and You Can Too". To add to this, the most financially successful people I know are basically huge gambling addicts. Casino gambling never results in anything, but if you want to be truly rich as gently caress, you need to have some money to start, and you need to risk an unreasonable portion of it on a regular basis. That's the only common thread I've seen between all the rich people I know. It's a good way to lose a lot of money too, obviously, when none of the bets make good.
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Dec 4, 2016 06:11
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Keep in mind that there's a certain threshold of money above which earning more doesn't make people happier statistically. Somewhere around 70k average in the US, but it does vary heavily with location (250k in New York iirc).
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Dec 4, 2016 14:27
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The Unholy Ghost posted:A...few million dollars? Most jobs I can think of for an undergrad would provide under $100,000 a year, so a max of $1 million assuming I do something like brain surgeon. Are you referring to an investment of some kind? There's a certain subset of goons and the general "financial advice" folks who get into very lucrative jobs in their early 20's, and are able to poopsock their way to financial independence when they hit their early 30's. That's what you're seeing when you read articles like "How this couple was able to retire at 35!". It's like, oh, yeah they were able to invest $150k a year from both their lucrative tech jobs, while living in a low cost-of-living area. It's impossible for most people to save anywhere near that amount. How do you save $50k a year, when you're making $40k? This doesn't mean the advice these folks put out isn't a good idea. It's just that, instead of being a multi-millionaire at 30, you end up with a moderate emergency savings account, no car payments, and if you're lucky, a decent down payment on a house that isn't a total shithole. If you don't have any major disasters in your life, and use your money responsibly, you might end up with a million or two saved up to retire upon when you hit your mid 60's. If you aren't one of the unicorns with a super high paying job, and you want to get rich, you have to look into either bootstrapping up a small business, or getting a healthy skillset and
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Dec 4, 2016 15:29
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LogisticEarth posted:There's a certain subset of goons and the general "financial advice" folks who get into very lucrative jobs in their early 20's, and are able to poopsock their way to financial independence when they hit their early 30's. That's what you're seeing when you read articles like "How this couple was able to retire at 35!". It's like, oh, yeah they were able to invest $150k a year from both their lucrative tech jobs, while living in a low cost-of-living area. It's impossible for most people to save anywhere near that amount. How do you save $50k a year, when you're making $40k? Median personal income in the U.S. is a bit over $30,000 per year. Good luck saving more than a few grand a year. It's my impression that people who make large amounts of money tend to become completely out of touch and consider themselves to be typical. Like, "Oh yeah, I make an average middle class income, about $250,000 a year".
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Dec 4, 2016 16:34
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Orange Sunshine posted:Median personal income in the U.S. is a bit over $30,000 per year. Good luck saving more than a few grand a year. Well, actually, when you consider cost of living and taxes *has more money after rent and taxes than an average family's entire income*
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Dec 4, 2016 18:26
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:Well, actually, when you consider cost of living and taxes *has more money after rent and taxes than an average family's entire income* Yeah, to be rich you have to either forget or never understand how a progressive tax system works.
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Dec 4, 2016 19:00
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The Unholy Ghost posted:How does one get "farther" in the world than their parents?
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Dec 4, 2016 19:35
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Get a job as a paperwork shuffler on Wall Street. When you get the chance, blantaly embezzle a multi-million dollar trade, and bury the cash in a abandoned rural area. When they arrest you, say nothing, and get sent to minimum security prison for six months. When you get out, go dig up the cash, and prepare to live a life of luxury. Sic Semper Goon fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Dec 4, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 21:38
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Start here: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ You need a lot less to live on than you think you do. Sock it all away in investments, retire extremely early while your peers are crushed under the burden of commuting to jobs they hate in 100% financed cars.
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Dec 4, 2016 23:48
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Imaduck posted:Don't fall for the hype; the stock market is not a way to get rich quick. Study after study have found that no trader does better than average in the long term. If you have money to invest and want to make a long term investment in something diversified to save for retirement, it's great. If you want to turn a little money into a lot of money quickly, it's basically no better than playing roulette. This is all correct but it's worth pointing out that not beating "the average" is still very good - the average will always, in the long term, outpace inflation. It will certainly beat your bank's interest rate as well. For example in Australia I bank with Westpac and my dedicated savings account gets an interest rate of 1.84%. Over the past five years, the value of shares in Westpac increased by 49%. This holds true for almost any major bank worldwide. Citibank? Up 94%. Barclays? Up 12.1%. Bank of America? Up 271%. Scotiabank? Up 51%. I don't mean you should shove every cent you have into financial stocks, it's just a useful illustration of the divide between growth in cash savings and growth in the stock market. I know people who are hugely diligent savers and have enormous amounts of money just sitting in a savings account, who would never dream of buying shares because they just don't understand how they work or they think it's too volatile. If you're managing to put away any savings at all, you should absolutely be putting 10-30% of them into index funds and bluechips. Of course as Imaduck points out, that's a slow and steady plan, not a get rich quick scheme. If I put $1000 into Westpac shares five years ago they'd only be worth $1490 today, or an extra $490, which is the amount of money I can make by picking up about ten hours of overtime at my office job. What you earn will always be more important than how you invest your savings, but how you invest your savings is still enormously important in the long run and - in my experience - is bafflingly overlooked by a lot of people.
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Dec 4, 2016 23:59
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freebooter posted:This is all correct but it's worth pointing out that not beating "the average" is still very good - the average will always, in the long term, outpace inflation. It will certainly beat your bank's interest rate as well. For example in Australia I bank with Westpac and my dedicated savings account gets an interest rate of 1.84%. Over the past five years, the value of shares in Westpac increased by 49%. This holds true for almost any major bank worldwide. Citibank? Up 94%. Barclays? Up 12.1%. Bank of America? Up 271%. Scotiabank? Up 51%. Stocks absolutely outpace inflation over time. The problem is that you need to buy and hold for 30+ years to be sure you're going to get the advantage of these gains. In any particular short period of time, such as 5 or 10 years, stocks can be flat, or even go down. The majority of the gains in the stock market over the past 100 years came during a 15 year period between the early 80s and the late 90s. That was a really, really good time to have owned stocks. Other times, not so much. This is an inflation adjusted graph. 
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Dec 5, 2016 00:31
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Okay guys, I've got a question about this, as it seems to be a nice clearing house for fiscal advice. I am on just over the minimum wage for my country, on a 6 month temporary manager contract at a national Museum, the city I live in is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, and I like the ability to go out and have a drink or a meal about once or twice a week. I was wondering how much people know about moving from a solely service industry managerial job into one in a different industry, would it be more difficult? Thanks for your time!
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Dec 5, 2016 00:32
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Sic Semper Goon posted:Get a job as a paperwork shuffler on Wall Street. Yeah I guess, but you have to already be rich with connections to get away with white-collar crimes scott-free (6 months after embezzling millions is scott-free); as a nobody you would be ground to dust under a system that wants to make an 'example' out of you to allow the real players to further stretch their own abuses.
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Dec 5, 2016 21:41
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Josef bugman posted:Okay guys, I've got a question about this, as it seems to be a nice clearing house for fiscal advice. Yes, depending on the industry. What industry would you like to move into? Edit: Also, if you do decide to stay in the service industry of a big expensive city, you can beat minimum wage as a waiter in a proper restaurant on tips. In my own experience, a basic waiting position pays better and is a much less stressful job than (restaurant) management. Just remember that there is no real moving 'up' from that kind of job(other than maybe to bartender), but it certainly pays better in the short term than some minimum wage managing poo poo in a museum and there's often openings. Feral Integral fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 5, 2016 21:43
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If this is in any way possible for you, start up a Roth IRA today and contribute the max ($5500/year, may increase with time) every year. Even if you only do this, and even assuming very modest returns (say 5.5% annually) you will retire a millionaire. (some people might not consider that "wealthy" but you will certainly not starve to death in retirement)
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Dec 5, 2016 22:51
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Nvm
Feral Integral fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 5, 2016 23:49
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The profession of the wealthy is business. It is not medicine, law, finance, or anything prestigious. In a capitalistic society you must have capital to truly participate. Step one is acquire capital.
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Dec 6, 2016 00:06
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Planeshifter2 posted:If this is in any way possible for you, start up a Roth IRA today and contribute the max ($5500/year, may increase with time) every year. Even if you only do this, and even assuming very modest returns (say 5.5% annually) you will retire a millionaire. Over a 40 year period, contributing $5500 per year, with 5.5% annual returns, you will end up with $751,000. Of course, after 40 years of inflation, it will be worth maybe half this, maybe much less.
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Dec 6, 2016 02:33
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The Unholy Ghost posted:So as long as I read some books on the MCAT and passed I could enter medical school even with the most random-rear end undergrad degree? Interesting. As with most things it isn't quite that simple: 1) To do reasonably well on the MCAT you will need to be proficient at physics, organic chemistry, general chemistry and various fields of biology. In addition to doing well on the verbal reasoning section, which is more "how smart are you?" than anything to do with studying. And by do well, I don't mean like well enough to get an A in your physics class. I mean do well enough to beat out all the other people in the country who made A's in their physics class. 2) Note that while studying for a test seems easy, 30-40,000 apply for medical school admissions every year and only about half get in. These people often times are super smart and ultra competitive. 3) In addition to simply doing well on the MCAT you need killer grades (gpa 3.8ish or so), extra-curricular activities (volunteer much?), research experience, letters of recommendation and the list goes on 4) You can not simply enter medical school "with any degree". You have to take the minimal requirements for whatever medical school you are applying. These are often a typical 2 year set of pre-med courses like physics, biology, chemistry etc, some schools require calculus and biochem and other random classes. So while you can major in philosophy you certainly need almost 2 years of the classes you'd think a medical student would need. 5) After getting in, now you have to come to grips with the reality of studying your rear end off for years. Only to be getting your rear end kicked by people so smart you didn't think real people were that smart. Like you know those movies or shows like the big bang theory, where they have an exaggerated genius character like Sheldon Cooper. Those guys exist and in real life they go to medical school. 6) You have to make good grades in med school and then do well on an even harder exam than the MCAT (called step 1, ie the first step in your medical license) to get the specialty of your choice. 7) Obviously becoming a doctor is not a get rich quick scheme by any means. 4 years of medical school, 3-5 years of residency plus/minus fellowships of 1-3 years. You end up being in your mid thirties or later before any real money is made after grueling hours/years of studying, and work. All that being said, I am finally nearing the end of this long process (senior resident in a surgical field) and I am very satisfied with having become a doctor. Finally, if you want to make 6 figures in a medical field, let me suggest pharmacy as an option. With your college degree you would need to obtain those same pre-med reqs, (and calculus) then take the PCAT and complete four years of pharmacy school. The schooling is not nearly as cut throat and most pharmacy students do not do a residency. You start off making low 6 figures right away. If anyone wants to discuss medical school or being a doctor feel free to ask me any time. Sorry for momentary thread derailment.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:30
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Orange Sunshine posted:Over a 40 year period, contributing $5500 per year, with 5.5% annual returns, you will end up with $751,000. Of course, after 40 years of inflation, it will be worth maybe half this, maybe much less. He's 21 so I assume he's not retiring at 61 before he can even take a distribution without penalty, also once you turn 50 you can contribute an extra $1000/year, just FYI.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:36
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Doctor Party posted:2) Note that while studying for a test seems easy, 30-40,000 apply for medical school admissions every year and only about half get in. These people often times are super smart and ultra competitive.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:03
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:This does not really support your claim about how incredibly smart med students are tbh This is a somewhat self selected group. Half of people not getting in is saying something when most of the people applying have good scores, good gpas etc. Also not everyone in medical school is a freak genius. However, I'd say in most classes you find at least a few Sheldon types.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:55
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:This does not really support your claim about how incredibly smart med students are tbh What does a painter or poet make patterns with if not ideas? Do mathematicians own a monopoly on ideas? Sorry, but your avatar doesn't really support the claim you have a valid opinion
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Dec 6, 2016 05:59
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