Understood, you share a sample size of 1. Well, thanks for sharing your experience. I feel sorry if this is the whole lesson you learned from being poor. For me it's the opposite. I grew up in a pretty wealthy family. My parents house had over 6 floors and more than 25 rooms. They had RVs, boats, we were taken 3 times per year to lavish vacations. Yet my dad did not spend a single day in his life to take me fishing. All I remember was that during frequent weekend outings he had to abandon the rest of the family because work called him back to his clinic. I left home when I was 18, studied at the farthest imaginable place from home and felt free for the first time in my life. I never took a penny from my parents for college or grad school. I worked my butt up from the bottom as I rejected any assistance of my family nor use my dad's influence. Not a single letter of recommendation or other help. I made it completely by myself. When I landed very well paying jobs in trading positions at banks and hedge funds I spent at most 10% of my income on rent and other expenses. Even today I spend a max 5% of my net income on anything other than savings. 10% of my gross goes to tithes and offerings and another 10% to other volunteer and contribution efforts. I despise anything that remotely smells of luxury, no fancy cars, no fancy house (I still rent because I love the freedom and flexibility of being able to move at any time and knowing I can rent for the rest of my life without financial worries, but also because for a majority of my life as employed I was paid housing by my employers and frequently moved between financial centers). I despise any sort of luxury life style, clothing, or anything that reaks of money. It gives me zero satisfaction or happiness. I completely derive my happiness from my faith and friendships and relationships with loved ones, from helping those in need and see them pass on efforts to help others in turn.
Am I wealthy? I don't know and I don't care. Neither do I care what others think of me. What I know is that no amount of money in life can buy me happiness. And I work less and less in life (am transitioning from years as employed professional trader, to self employed trader, to now longer and longer holding periods that qualify more as investments than trading positions).
I feel sorry for anyone, wealthy or poor, who overvalue the importance of money. My monthly spending is probably on the level of those who earn 50k a year or so. In many ways even less. I don't need more. And I don't want to spend more. Not because I cling onto my savings but because I don't value what more spending could buy. For example, I attach zero value to restaurants and eateries. I have eaten some of the most lavish multi course meals in private clubs and hotel restaurants in the world but prefer the home cooking of my Japanese wife. She is a master at what she cooks, regardless of which ethnic cuisine she puts her hands on.
I cannot say whether I would live the same life style now had I not experienced wealth and lavish life styles early on in my life. But I know that money does not buy happiness that is for sure.
No, that is not what I am on about. I do not think poor people have vanity. They simply have needs that cannot be met easily, and wish they could be. Winning 20 million in a lottery would make them happy. All that pseudoscience about how they will be "spiritually devastated" are made by people who have never lived a day in their life as a homeless person, on the streets of a major city, or in a subway, or have dumpster-dived for food.
I have. It sucks. Money brings happiness. Anyone else who says otherwise is rich.
