If you pay off your debts on time, credit card companies see you as a "deadbeat."
This is because they don't make any money from you in the form of interest.
Being a deadbeat means you're watching out for yourself, but they hate that they can't use you to make profits.
Leaving your comfort zone is key when it comes to any kind of success:
Fitness
Relationships
Finances
If you're always comfortable, everything stays the same.
The decisions you make in your 20s and 30s will either PAY YOU or MAKE YOU PAY in your 50s and 60s.
5-10 years of saving and investing while everyone else is consuming...
...could give you 40+ years of freedom while everyone else is working.
Make the right decisions.
The old American dream:
Graduate from college, buy a house, have 2-3 kids, retire at 65 with a pension
The new American dream:
Time freedom, location freedom, lifestyle freedom, and financial freedom
Mike Tyson earned $500M in his career.
He spent a majority of his money on mansions, cars, and parties.
He declared bankruptcy in 2003 because his income couldn't support his lifestyle.
If you have a spending problem, no amount of earnings will satisfy your desire for more.
The median retirement age in the US is ~67. The life expectancy is ~82.
That means you're working ~45 years to be able to enjoy ~15 years.
I don't like those numbers at all.
Here's a summary of most people's financial journey:
- In their 20s they think they'll be dead by 50
- In their 30s they start hating their job and want to retire ASAP but expenses start piling up
- In their 40s they wish they had started investing earlier
Lifting weights through my 20s taught me that my body can handle a lot more than I think it can.
When you save cash, your wealth DECAYS exponentially at 5-10%+ per year.
When you buy assets, your wealth GROWS exponentially at 5-10%+ per year.
Most of the things you're stressed about won't matter in a few decades.
Stress comes from reliving the past and fearing the future.
Instead:
1) Make peace with your past
2) Enjoy the present
3) Build to make the future easier
There will always be some new product on the market. The goalposts will never stop moving.
In a single day, it's estimated that the average American sees 4,000 to 10,000 ads.
If you rely on material things to make you happy, you'll almost always end up broke and unsatisfied - whatever you bought will probably end up obsolete within a few years.
Instead, spend your discretionary money on experiences. Memories last forever, and get better with time.
Bitcoin eliminates the need for the financial industry by making money peer-to-peer.
With Bitcoin, you don't need a checking account. You keep your money in an address that you control.
This means banks can't lend your money to make a profit - this is what the financial industry is built on.
Not enough people understand anything about Bitcoin, and the financial industry will work as hard as it can to keep it that way.
The financial industry wants you to think of Bitcoin as a risk asset that should be traded and kept at a financial institution.
They want to delay your realization of Bitcoin as money that you can self custody and spend without a bank being involved.
If you keep thinking Bitcoin is a risk asset:
- You'll keep trading in and out of it, generating fees for financial institutions.
- You won't think of holding it in cold storage. Instead, you'll have no option but to rely on the financial industry to take responsibility for your wealth.
- You'll allow financial institutions to continue taking advantage of you through fractional reserve banking.
The only way to understand what Bitcoin truly is: spend some time learning about it. Don't rely on mainstream media and banks to teach you.
There are tons of resources online that you can listen to, watch, or read.
If you want to learn more about Bitcoin, follow me @rajatsonifnance - I post daily threads about personal finance and Bitcoin.
Don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter for longer posts where I go more in depth with my ideas rajatsonifinance.com
If you're against capitalism, you don't understand how it works.
Capitalism doesn't mean you have to take advantage of others.
It means you can use your strengths to make the world a better place.
Most people just try to control what others do with their money instead of focusing on helping others by creating value on their own.
Capitalism is powerful. You can use it to improve society for the less fortunate if you are skilled and have something of value to sell.
Step 1: Create a product or offer a service others are willing to pay for (this is the hard part - you need to put in the time to develop the knowledge to do this)
Step 2: Use profits from that product to buy real estate, something that is always going to be a necessity for humans.
Step 3: Don't increase the rent over time, or charge a very low rent so your tenants don't have to struggle to come up with the money every month.
As a realtor, I know quite a few people who own rental properties and willingly haven't increased rent in YEARS, because they don't want/need to.
After 20-30 years you would own a bunch of paid-off properties, you would be receiving monthly cash flow, and you would have helped your tenants potentially build hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wealth.
It always blows my mind when employers ask for a GPA. The school system is VERY different from reality.
With the internet, memorization skills are important... but I don't see a reason for someone to not be hired if they couldn't do well on an exam.
Thoughts?