Have you done anything in your life to accumulate serious wealth?

[yick]

I read something really interesting the other day about a person who has a friend who has retired at the same age as he, early 50's - he has a Ferarri and a massive house and loads of money and has packed work in and now lives a life of leisure - and this person says to himself 'where did I go wrong?' and then he realised he had done nothing to deserve that kind of wealth and when I read it, it resonated with me... there has seriously never been one minute of my life, not even a second where I wanted or took a risk to accumulate wealth - nor did I want to do - now I would like wealth if it came with a lottery win - that's why lots of people do the lottery all over the world because they want wealth but not take the risks involved or simply do not have the self-initiative to know where to start.

People have become multi-millionaires by setting up cleaning firms, makings jars of curry sauce or do something where there was a gap in the market - even with someone like Jake Paul - he saw a gap in the sporting market of boxing where there were no influencers really willing to fight established boxers - that takes some imagination, foresight, confidence, risk to do that because it can go wrong but when it goes right - you reap the rewards.

I have never had that - none of it - therefore I don't deserve wealth - there are of course people who have wealth and do not deserve it such as the Anglo-Norman cabal who are the various heads of state of Europe but do you want their lives? They can't just f**k off with the wealth and live lives of peace - they have to 'serve' for the money and marry and procreate with someone within the cabal (or they did until very recently) which is something I would rather not do.

I don't think talent has anything to do with it - I think we all know people who can really sing or people who can really play football or act or tell jokes who did nothing with it because like me - they're not interested in going out of their comfort zone - nothing wrong with that because that is most people. Most people want to be rich but most people aren't deserving of wealth even if they are envious of rich people because they're not equipped to take the risks - when I read that, I realised I am not deserving of wealth - now, I have nothing to complain about - I have a comfortable life, I am not poor or even struggling on any level and can afford what I want to do. I don't need wealth to do the things I like.

So, have you done anything or did you have the idea to become rich? Put in a plan - and I don't mean some bullshit youtube channel like, a serious plan, a serious effort to make money - I don't think it is hard for the right people to become wealthy, unfortunately - very few of us are the 'right people'.

[yick]

Another thing as well, accumulating wealth has nothing to do with education and academia - today's richest people gave up their spaces in academia because it was getting in the way of acquiring wealth - Bill Gates and Zuckerberg quit academia so they could concentrate on their path to becoming seriously wealthy, there are very few PhD's who are seriously wealthy because whilst you are on the path to a doctorate - you could be making your money which obviously the time it takes you to become a doctor in xyz (outside the actual medical field of course...) you could be seriously rich. Neither Zuckerberg nor Gates would be the billionaires they are now if they had carried on at Harvard or MIT or wherever they were at.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

You can try the British stock market or American Stock Market.
I seen couple of high yield British stocks and ETFs but I know that the British economy is in the shitter right now... you can always buy them low and wait for the British economy to recover.. I don't know if that can happen since the UK is going down the crapper.

Despite what many people on the forum say about America sucks, the US stock market is one of the most robust, biggest and influential one out there. I am currently investing right now, and getting nice dividends every month on top of my salary. I can't tell you my numbers, portfolio and results might vary person to person. I am not qualified financial advisor, but just an investor.

However, you really have to have the financial discipline and really pinch your pennies and send all of your available income to your brokerage account for couple of years. If you are up for the task, With compounded interest and reinvesting your dividends and various other factors, you can become a millionaire in 5 to 30 years depending on how much grit you have and how much you can sacrifice.

This is my method. If you want, you can try on your own and do your own research.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

I don't know much about British market,

Some videos for British stocks for starters.

[yick]

You can try the British stock market or American Stock Market.
I seen couple of high yield British stocks and ETFs but I know that the British economy is in the shitter right now... you can always buy them low and wait for the British economy to recover.. I don't know if that can happen since the UK is going down the crapper.

Despite what many people on the forum say about America sucks, the US stock market is one of the most robust, biggest and influential one out there. I am currently investing right now, and getting nice dividends every month on top of my salary. I can't tell you my numbers, portfolio and results might vary person to person. I am not qualified financial advisor, but just an investor.

However, you really have to have the financial discipline and really pinch your pennies and send all of your available income to your brokerage account for couple of years. If you are up for the task, With compounded interest and reinvesting your dividends and various other factors, you can become a millionaire in 5 to 30 years depending on how much grit you have and how much you can sacrifice.

This is my method. If you want, you can try on your own and do your own research.

Well, quite! That is a good example of such a method where you can make some money, maybe gain wealth, people have - I read about some 16 year old girl who became wealthy from doing this but like you say there - there is a learning curve, risks and no guarantee that you'll get that wealth - and it has the same sacrifices - if you said to Joe Average - 100 dollars to your brokerage account or 100 dollars for a Friday night out down the pub and a chance to get laid - Joe Average is going to pick the latter! I actually have a mate who trades in gold and he has offered me lessons on how to do but I have no real interest in it - I don't know why - but he is doing all right out of it so I know it works but I can't say I would be interested in learning all about it - it looks like you're doing well out of it - keep going and good luck!

[Shemp]

It depends what you mean by serious wealth. I have about $6 million, which doesn't even put me in top 1% of Americans age 55 or above (I'm 63). On the other hand, my spending has been under $24000/year for past 10 years, not including spending on whores and sugar baby, or under $30K including money given to girls. Plus I'll get another $30K/year social security when I turn 30. So I have more money than I can possibly spend and zero money worries, which is my definition of serious wealth.

My experience is that spending too much money creates problems. Even that $6K/year I have the sugar baby (for 3 months each summer) was enough to cause her to begin to act entitled. And I would never give a whore more than$200 or she would be impossibly uppity. If I stay in an expensive hotel here in Spain, the people get all obsequious and secretly hate me for being a rich American. Much better to act poor. Everyone leaves you alone when you look and act poor.

I didn't do anything special to get rich, other than starting my own software business. But that was no big risk. It started aa hobby to distract from my boring corporate day job as a computer programmer, then began to make serious money, so i quit the corporate job and quickly piled up a couple million from the software business before competition from a big corporation put me out of business, then gradual stock and bond investment growth did the rest.

I would ascribe 100% of my success to luck: lucky to have a personality suited to computer programming, which is the easiest way to get rich for past 40 years, wrote that hobby program at the right time, born in USA at right time to catch stock market boom (which is coming to an end soon), never married or had children so didn't need to share my wealth, good bodily and mental health, etc. In fact, the older I get, the less i believe in free will and more I believe everything is luck/fate. We feel like we have free will, but it's an illusion. Our subconscious makes all the important decisions and the subconscious is determined by random previous influences that shape our personality. But even though my wealth is due to luck, i still deserve it in a sense, in the same way I deserve all the bad things in my life . If there is no free will, everything happens because of luck, so everything is deserved, in a sense, though maybe not the sense most people use the word deserve.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

You can try the British stock market or American Stock Market.
I seen couple of high yield British stocks and ETFs but I know that the British economy is in the shitter right now... you can always buy them low and wait for the British economy to recover.. I don't know if that can happen since the UK is going down the crapper.

Despite what many people on the forum say about America sucks, the US stock market is one of the most robust, biggest and influential one out there. I am currently investing right now, and getting nice dividends every month on top of my salary. I can't tell you my numbers, portfolio and results might vary person to person. I am not qualified financial advisor, but just an investor.

However, you really have to have the financial discipline and really pinch your pennies and send all of your available income to your brokerage account for couple of years. If you are up for the task, With compounded interest and reinvesting your dividends and various other factors, you can become a millionaire in 5 to 30 years depending on how much grit you have and how much you can sacrifice.

This is my method. If you want, you can try on your own and do your own research.

Well, quite! That is a good example of such a method where you can make some money, maybe gain wealth, people have - I read about some 16 year old girl who became wealthy from doing this but like you say there - there is a learning curve, risks and no guarantee that you'll get that wealth - and it has the same sacrifices - if you said to Joe Average - 100 dollars to your brokerage account or 100 dollars for a Friday night out down the pub and a chance to get laid - Joe Average is going to pick the latter! I actually have a mate who trades in gold and he has offered me lessons on how to do but I have no real interest in it - I don't know why - but he is doing all right out of it so I know it works but I can't say I would be interested in learning all about it - it looks like you're doing well out of it - keep going and good luck!

Thank you. Believe me, it's bloody hard when I have to send most of my discretionary monthly income to my brokerage account. I could've spent that money on living in more fancier flat, shiny new electronic devices, a new BMW, eating out, designer clothes, women and others just like your average American blokes out there. Everybody at my Korean church are flexed out with designer clothes, Mercedes, BMWS, expensive flat down the Hudson River. However, they are the ones who will end broke in the future while I have my millions in my account spitting out dividends.

So what's stopping you my friend? You said a 16 year old girl from England did it. Her parents must've given her an allowance and she deposited in her piggy bank or her parents might set up a brokerage account for her. You can always invest in an index fund with follows the entire market or Broad range ETFs if you don't like the risk(dividend might be lower but the stock price will grow over time). Or you can invest in U.S or UK government bonds if you don't like the ebb and flow of the stock market. Or I don't know if they have in the UK... just park your money in a "high savings yield account" ranging 5% interest rate. They have plenty of those in the U.S. I don't know about the UK.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

It depends what you mean by serious wealth. I have about $6 million, which doesn't even put me in top 1% of Americans age 55 or above (I'm 63). On the other hand, my spending has been under $24000/year for past 10 years, not including spending on whores and sugar baby, or under $30K including money given to girls. Plus I'll get another $30K/year social security when I turn 30. So I have more money than I can possibly spend and zero money worries, which is my definition of serious wealth.

My experience is that spending too much money creates problems. Even that $6K/year I have the sugar baby (for 3 months each summer) was enough to cause her to begin to act entitled. And I would never give a whore more than$200 or she would be impossibly uppity. If I stay in an expensive hotel here in Spain, the people get all obsequious and secretly hate me for being a rich American. Much better to act poor. Everyone leaves you alone when you look and act poor.

I didn't do anything special to get rich, other than starting my own software business. But that was no big risk. It started aa hobby to distract from my boring corporate day job as a computer programmer, then began to make serious money, so i quit the corporate job and quickly piled up a couple million from the software business before competition from a big corporation put me out of business, then gradual stock and bond investment growth did the rest.

I would ascribe 100% of my success to luck: lucky to have a personality suited to computer programming, which is the easiest way to get rich for past 40 years, wrote that hobby program at the right time, born in USA at right time to catch stock market boom (which is coming to an end soon), never married or had children so didn't need to share my wealth, good bodily and mental health, etc. In fact, the older I get, the less i believe in free will and more I believe everything is luck/fate. We feel like we have free will, but it's an illusion. Our subconscious makes all the important decisions and the subconscious is determined by random previous influences that shape our personality. But even though my wealth is due to luck, i still deserve it in a sense, in the same way I deserve all the bad things in my life . If there is no free will, everything happens because of luck, so everything is deserved, in a sense, though maybe not the sense most people use the word deserve.

Damn.. you have 6 million. Your loaded. That's awesome.
Yeah your lucky that your hobby is computer programming. My hobbies are making comics, history, geopolitics, and video games which are extremely useless in making serious money. I should've ordered computer programming as my hobby before being born then I could've be like Zuckerberg or Bill Gates making billions of dollars.

At least I am Naturalized US Citizen for more then a decade. I was born in South Korea. Good thing I came to the U.S and get to reap the benefits of it's powerful stock market. Well everything else such as making friends and dating women, sucks. At least the U.S is good at making money, unless you get sick then you have to fly your ass back to South Korea to get treated.

[publicduende]

It depends what you mean by serious wealth. I have about $6 million, which doesn't even put me in top 1% of Americans age 55 or above (I'm 63). On the other hand, my spending has been under $24000/year for past 10 years, not including spending on whores and sugar baby, or under $30K including money given to girls. Plus I'll get another $30K/year social security when I turn 30. So I have more money than I can possibly spend and zero money worries, which is my definition of serious wealth.

My experience is that spending too much money creates problems. Even that $6K/year I have the sugar baby (for 3 months each summer) was enough to cause her to begin to act entitled. And I would never give a whore more than$200 or she would be impossibly uppity. If I stay in an expensive hotel here in Spain, the people get all obsequious and secretly hate me for being a rich American. Much better to act poor. Everyone leaves you alone when you look and act poor.

I didn't do anything special to get rich, other than starting my own software business. But that was no big risk. It started aa hobby to distract from my boring corporate day job as a computer programmer, then began to make serious money, so i quit the corporate job and quickly piled up a couple million from the software business before competition from a big corporation put me out of business, then gradual stock and bond investment growth did the rest.

I would ascribe 100% of my success to luck: lucky to have a personality suited to computer programming, which is the easiest way to get rich for past 40 years, wrote that hobby program at the right time, born in USA at right time to catch stock market boom (which is coming to an end soon), never married or had children so didn't need to share my wealth, good bodily and mental health, etc. In fact, the older I get, the less i believe in free will and more I believe everything is luck/fate. We feel like we have free will, but it's an illusion. Our subconscious makes all the important decisions and the subconscious is determined by random previous influences that shape our personality. But even though my wealth is due to luck, i still deserve it in a sense, in the same way I deserve all the bad things in my life . If there is no free will, everything happens because of luck, so everything is deserved, in a sense, though maybe not the sense most people use the word deserve.

Quite a bit of wisdom here @Shemp. Some of those lessons, I learned relatively late in my life.

1) Working as a software developer for an employer, no matter how prestigious the employer (e.g. a tier-1 investment bank) and how lucrative the job (front-office, $200K/year), is never even comparable to running one's own software business. Running my own software company and working for a Philippine client (albeit a large one), I make 5-8 times what I ever made in the City of London building tools for legendary FX options trading desks. Sure, my Clients don't carry the same wow factor as Nomura, Barclays or BNP Paribas, but they bring a multiple of the profit, and in a locale that costs less than half of London, all things considered.

2) Set your spending level at about the beginning of the plateau of the experience utility function. Most human experiences, from hotels to advanced hi-fi equipment, to sex with girls, follow a similar utility function, where the value you get is roughly proportional to the money you spend. After a certain threshold is reached, splurging more money will result in smaller and smaller increments of value. That's the plateau. Pouring cash on a $500 meal won't give you 5 times the pleasure of a $100 meal: there's only so many ways a f***ing wagyu fillet can be grilled to perfection. Sweating in bed with a 19-yo Filipina for the price of a Jollibee burger is such great value, that one won't even wonder what the same experience would be with a girl who looks just slightly hotter, but has more of an attitude and perhaps will cost you $300 for the night.

3) Be cynical about receiving and giving. This is the hardest lesson to be learned, for a softie like me. It took me several years, as an entrepreneur, to understand how to pay people fairly, how to make them work for you and not vice-versa, and how to choose people who won't simply trash your trust at the first occasion. The Philippines are a fertile ground for Captain-save-a-hoes and Westerners ready to open their wallet at every routine sob story. As a famous local song said, I had to grow a "pusong bato", a heart of stone, to survive and then thrive over here.

All this said, good for you @Shemp. The only thing I would not entirely agree on is the role of "luck", or "fate", and the role of free will in making decisions that ultimately lead to an existence of freedom, wealth and individualistic pleasures. I think every person's life throws a flurry of opportunities of all shapes and forms. Some of such opportunities may seem "no brainers" but end up yielding nothing, or not as much as one expected. Some others may look like crazy mistakes from the onset but, when embraced with a dose of adventurous spirit, may turn out as triggers for something big, perhaps bigger than one would have expected.

I do not believe in pure fate. I believe in exercising that mix of rational and crazy decisions which outcomes may only be entirely known, let alone judged, much farther in the future.

I think you should give yourself some more credit.

[Tsar]

I have about $6 million, which doesn't even put me in top 1% of Americans age 55 or above (I'm 63). ... Plus I'll get another $30K/year social security when I turn 30.

You're not going to be turning 30.

You probably mean when you turn 70 because you'll never be getting younger.

I wonder who will get the remnants of Frank's fortune when he dies...

Cornfed would say something like he should put it into a trust fund for everyone on the forum, especially if he took the clot shots.

Meanwhile in Thailand...



Will @Shemp ever post examples of his supposedly better life than PAG?

[Shemp]

...Most human experiences, from hotels to advanced hi-fi equipment, to sex with girls, follow a similar utility function, where the value you get is roughly proportional to the money you spend. After a certain threshold is reached, splurging more money will result in smaller and smaller increments of value. That's the plateau.

Law of dimniishing returns is actually law of negative returns after a certain point. For example, I'm hiking right now and it's a Saturday . There's one hotel!restaurant in this small town iin the mountains of southern Spain and I've stayed in it several times in the past. Sunday to Thursday, it's mostly business travelers or temporary construction workers in town. Friday depends, but on Saturday the restaurant turns into a disco that booms until 3am and the hotel rents several of its rooms by the hour on Saturdays. I made the mistake of staying at this hotel once on a Saturday and don't want a repeat of that experience. Instead, I walked 1km down a dirt road and camped in a dry wash. Beautiful weather, typically no mosquitoes in this part of Spain because it's so dry, clean sun baked dirt with shrubs around, birds chirping. So instead of paying €30 for a miserable sleepless night, I pay nothing and get a camping experience that almost no one else in this world gets. So this is example of law of negative returns on money spent. (Of course, if it were raining and Sunday through Thursday, the €30 would be well spent at the hotel.)

The less someone cares about impressing people and the more they value privacy, the more they tend to see the advantage of looking and acting poor (at least under most circumstances, if you're selling financial advice, you need to look and act rich to clients).

I do not believe in pure fate. I believe in exercising that mix of rational and crazy decisions which outcomes may only be entirely known, let alone judged, much farther in the future.

I think you should give yourself some more credit.

Suppose a person has no self discipline, then how do they discipline themselves to become self disciplined? It's impossible. I'm well aware that my personality is the sort that tends to succeed, and I take credit in the sense of admitting that fact, but that personality was an act of luck, either genetic luck or luck of the right environment growing up. I continue to work hard in some ways, such as morning exercise, but that's because my subconscious mind pushes me in the direction of preserving health. People with inner demons get pushed in the opposite direction of self destruction. If the inner demon rejects all attempts at reform, whether self initiated or initiated by outsiders, then the person is simply doomed.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

...Most human experiences, from hotels to advanced hi-fi equipment, to sex with girls, follow a similar utility function, where the value you get is roughly proportional to the money you spend. After a certain threshold is reached, splurging more money will result in smaller and smaller increments of value. That's the plateau.

Law of dimniishing returns is actually law of negative returns after a certain point. For example, I'm hiking right now and it's a Saturday . There's one hotel!restaurant in this small town iin the mountains of southern Spain and I've stayed in it several times in the past. Sunday to Thursday, it's mostly business travelers or temporary construction workers in town. Friday depends, but on Saturday the restaurant turns into a disco that booms until 3am and the hotel rents several of its rooms by the hour on Saturdays. I made the mistake of staying at this hotel once on a Saturday and don't want a repeat of that experience. Instead, I walked 1km down a dirt road and camped in a dry wash. Beautiful weather, typically no mosquitoes in this part of Spain because it's so dry, clean sun baked dirt with shrubs around, birds chirping. So instead of paying €30 for a miserable sleepless night, I pay nothing and get a camping experience that almost no one else in this world gets. So this is example of law of negative returns on money spent. (Of course, if it were raining and Sunday through Thursday, the €30 would be well spent at the hotel.)

The less someone cares about impressing people and the more they value privacy, the more they tend to see the advantage of looking and acting poor (at least under most circumstances, if you're selling financial advice, you need to look and act rich to clients).

I do not believe in pure fate. I believe in exercising that mix of rational and crazy decisions which outcomes may only be entirely known, let alone judged, much farther in the future.

I think you should give yourself some more credit.

Suppose a person has no self discipline, then how do they discipline themselves to become self disciplined? It's impossible. I'm well aware that my personality is the sort that tends to succeed, and I take credit in the sense of admitting that fact, but that personality was an act of luck, either genetic luck or luck of the right environment growing up. I continue to work hard in some ways, such as morning exercise, but that's because my subconscious mind pushes me in the direction of preserving health. People with inner demons get pushed in the opposite direction of self destruction. If the inner demon rejects all attempts at reform, whether self initiated or initiated by outsiders, then the person is simply doomed.

You got that right. I agree. Too many politically correct maggots and normies buy luxury brands with debt just to impress someone that they don't even know. I went to this new Korean church two weeks go just to get some new acquaintances, probably get some girls and get laid, and every motherf*ckers there are decked with expensive German cars, Balenciaga, designer clothes and live in the flat down the Hudson River rent is like $2800 a month for single room. And my "group leader" was also decked with Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, head to toe. They may look wealthy, but their net worth is probably in the negatives because of all the debts such as student loans, credit card debt, car payments, etc.

My main point is when every one wears the designer clothes and drive expensive cars then they are not special anymore and they are continuing to go down the path of law of diminishing returns because of more debt accumulated just to keep up with the Johns and they have to work really hard to pay off those debts while missing out what they truly enjoy in life.

On the other hand, I have no debt and have a sizable net worth, and I get second hand luxury clothes cheaply in discount store and drive a old Mercedes from 2001(bought the car from one of my customers). My frugality keeps all the gold digging b*tches away, but it's worth it.

[publicduende]

The less someone cares about impressing people and the more they value privacy, the more they tend to see the advantage of looking and acting poor (at least under most circumstances, if you're selling financial advice, you need to look and act rich to clients).

I wouldn't necessarily call it "acting poor". More like "money efficient".

Suppose a person has no self discipline, then how do they discipline themselves to become self disciplined? It's impossible. I'm well aware that my personality is the sort that tends to succeed, and I take credit in the sense of admitting that fact, but that personality was an act of luck, either genetic luck or luck of the right environment growing up. I continue to work hard in some ways, such as morning exercise, but that's because my subconscious mind pushes me in the direction of preserving health. People with inner demons get pushed in the opposite direction of self destruction. If the inner demon rejects all attempts at reform, whether self initiated or initiated by outsiders, then the person is simply doomed.

Well, IMHO it's nature and nurture. Belonging to the borderline generation between boomers and GenX, you will have probably been given some solid values from your family: not taking anything for granted, nobody gives you everything for free, work hard, keep positive, learn to balance health and wealth, etc. That in itself is a blessing, a "luck" as you call it.

I wouldn't diminish the role of self-discovery and self-optimisation, if you may call it that way, though. Even just to decide not to raise a family means you never had to compromise for the sake of a family, kids, or your social circle.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

The less someone cares about impressing people and the more they value privacy, the more they tend to see the advantage of looking and acting poor (at least under most circumstances, if you're selling financial advice, you need to look and act rich to clients).

I wouldn't necessarily call it "acting poor". More like "money efficient".

Suppose a person has no self discipline, then how do they discipline themselves to become self disciplined? It's impossible. I'm well aware that my personality is the sort that tends to succeed, and I take credit in the sense of admitting that fact, but that personality was an act of luck, either genetic luck or luck of the right environment growing up. I continue to work hard in some ways, such as morning exercise, but that's because my subconscious mind pushes me in the direction of preserving health. People with inner demons get pushed in the opposite direction of self destruction. If the inner demon rejects all attempts at reform, whether self initiated or initiated by outsiders, then the person is simply doomed.

Well, IMHO it's nature and nurture. Belonging to the borderline generation between boomers and GenX, you will have probably been given some solid values from your family: not taking anything for granted, nobody gives you everything for free, work hard, keep positive, learn to balance health and wealth, etc. That in itself is a blessing, a "luck" as you call it.

I wouldn't diminish the role of self-discovery and self-optimisation, if you may call it that way, though. Even just to decide not to raise a family means you never had to compromise for the sake of a family, kids, or your social circle.

You also forget that "Home economics" were taught in U.S High Schools back in the 50's to 70's. It goes over budgeting, food preparation, doing laundry, doing grocery shopping, saving money, and the whole she-bang. It gives boomers and other Americans financial discipline and hone their frugality skills back in the days. Nowadays... it's a whole different story where U.S schools teach you about categorizing 63 different genders and how to be an under educated, brainwashed, obedient transexual deviant. Or turn women into entitled little whores whos aspirations is be a Youtube star or Onlyfans star. This generation of Americans are totally f*cked.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQm1C_i ... QB&index=2[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3qPnpw ... QB&index=1[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyDjXLL ... QB&index=8[/youtube]

[yick]

You can try the British stock market or American Stock Market.
I seen couple of high yield British stocks and ETFs but I know that the British economy is in the shitter right now... you can always buy them low and wait for the British economy to recover.. I don't know if that can happen since the UK is going down the crapper.

Despite what many people on the forum say about America sucks, the US stock market is one of the most robust, biggest and influential one out there. I am currently investing right now, and getting nice dividends every month on top of my salary. I can't tell you my numbers, portfolio and results might vary person to person. I am not qualified financial advisor, but just an investor.

However, you really have to have the financial discipline and really pinch your pennies and send all of your available income to your brokerage account for couple of years. If you are up for the task, With compounded interest and reinvesting your dividends and various other factors, you can become a millionaire in 5 to 30 years depending on how much grit you have and how much you can sacrifice.

This is my method. If you want, you can try on your own and do your own research.

Well, quite! That is a good example of such a method where you can make some money, maybe gain wealth, people have - I read about some 16 year old girl who became wealthy from doing this but like you say there - there is a learning curve, risks and no guarantee that you'll get that wealth - and it has the same sacrifices - if you said to Joe Average - 100 dollars to your brokerage account or 100 dollars for a Friday night out down the pub and a chance to get laid - Joe Average is going to pick the latter! I actually have a mate who trades in gold and he has offered me lessons on how to do but I have no real interest in it - I don't know why - but he is doing all right out of it so I know it works but I can't say I would be interested in learning all about it - it looks like you're doing well out of it - keep going and good luck!

Thank you. Believe me, it's bloody hard when I have to send most of my discretionary monthly income to my brokerage account. I could've spent that money on living in more fancier flat, shiny new electronic devices, a new BMW, eating out, designer clothes, women and others just like your average American blokes out there. Everybody at my Korean church are flexed out with designer clothes, Mercedes, BMWS, expensive flat down the Hudson River. However, they are the ones who will end broke in the future while I have my millions in my account spitting out dividends.

So what's stopping you my friend? You said a 16 year old girl from England did it. Her parents must've given her an allowance and she deposited in her piggy bank or her parents might set up a brokerage account for her. You can always invest in an index fund with follows the entire market or Broad range ETFs if you don't like the risk(dividend might be lower but the stock price will grow over time). Or you can invest in U.S or UK government bonds if you don't like the ebb and flow of the stock market. Or I don't know if they have in the UK... just park your money in a "high savings yield account" ranging 5% interest rate. They have plenty of those in the U.S. I don't know about the UK.

The reality is making loads of money isn't a passion of mine, it's yours which is why when you say it's bloody hard to invest your present earnings into possible future outcomes - it's not an easy path and there's no guarantee and that's fine because there's no guarantee in very few things but the stock markets and your wealth fund is what gets you up in the morning and that's great but it would never get me up in the morning in excitement of a new day.

Frank made some great posts here about his wealth - it's nice to have that wealth but does Frank need it? His passions aren't speedboats or private aircraft collections - what I know about @Shemp is that he likes hiking, going abroad, his biggest expense are young ladies but he doesn't need six million dollars to do that - my passions are being healthy, doing weights and travelling - I don't need millions of dollars to do what I want and anything I want to buy I can without thinking about it too much - like yesterday I paid twenty dollars for a box of protein bars but if I was paying out for mooring fees for a yacht I would probably would look into making money from stocks and shares. As it happens, I am saving for a flat in South America so I will be mortgage free in ten years and the most expensive thing in that flat will be a versaclimber!

Frank also said something that is important - all of us here were born into and are within the top ten percent bracket of global wealth and if we're not we're definitely in the top twenty percent and not only that, we have all the trappings of the first world that someone born in Gabon will never have - if they want to visit Paris they will need to go to the French Embassy in Gabon and if they don't have piles of money their tourist visa will be rejected but I can go to France wherever and whenever I want - that's true wealth - only the very richest of Gabonese society could do something as simple as that - it doesn't matter how intelligent or resourceful they are, they're not going far unless they're very lucky.

Most of us were born lucky anyway, do I need more? Not really because my interests and needs don't align that way - everything I want is within reach, I have many things money can't buy - nationalities, health, peace of mind and I get to do what I like - that's wealth right there - today I did a ten mile hike and did it in just over two hours which is pretty good going - a beautiful day for a hike too and that's another thing - I am 52 now, I might have another 30 years or so left - do I need loads of money now? Maybe medical bills if I get some kind of cancer or 24 hour care if I have a stroke but otherwise, I don't really need more than what I have now.