Poor and Happy or Rich and Miserable?

OK, I'm curious how many people are obsessed with chasing the almighty dollar as I have become. Today when I woke up I realized that I absolutely despise about 90% of the time I am awake during the day because I'm constantly doing something I absolutely hate (probably had something to do with me billing roughly 40 hours over the weekend).

I used to be a much happier person and I used to laugh and goof around much much more than I do now. My job is slowly taking away my soul and I'm hoping it's not too late - the "problem" (if you could call it that) is that I get paid a lot of money and it is extremely difficult to walk away from. However, I am starting realize that money isn't everything and there are other ways to live life. I just don't know if I have the balls to give it all up.

Didnt you already do this poll?


EDIT: I think maybe I had it confused with this one...
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76885

[quote name='Maklershed']Didnt you already do this poll?[/QUOTE]


Thats what I was thinking. He just likes to remind us he makes lots of money.

There's no such thing as "Poor and Happy". As soon as people realize that, they can start making rational decisions.

jav, you gotta figure out perspective man! While I don't necessarily feel I'm completely in love with my profession (real estate), it offers me something a lot better than money - freedom & time with family. While my company makes a pretty penny, it's also not a time consuming one (unless you wanna go the Trump route). I'm the laziest person in the world. I admit that straight out but I also realized that $$$ makes the modern world go round. So I sought out what could make me some $$$ while giving me freedom. After researching different professions such as doctor, lawyer, accountant, I settled on real estate since it offered one benefit the others didn't - time. Being a doctor, lawyer, most high-end professions required a huge time investment so although you make a lot of money, you don't have time to enjoy it. I remember when I'd come home to an empty house because my mom (doctor) was on call for the day (meaning she can be called up for any lil emergency even though she's technically off that day) and my dad (chem engineer) had alternating schedules so he's either asleep during the day or working. Real estate allows me to get paid and have free time. Otherwise I wouldn't be on CAG as often as I am. You should be bankin' mad money by now that you can dip your feet in the world of real estate. It's all pretty much passive income & equity. If you have a 4 unit apartment that you're renting out for $600-$800 per unit, that's $3200 a month. Of course you have expenses that'll reduce that (such as mortgage, maintanence fees, property taxes, city recycling taxes, etc.) but you're still have money that you're essentially earning for sittin' on your butt. Plus, if you have more than one building, you can multiply that money many times over. So in the example above, if you have 4 such properties generating that same kind of passive income, you'd have $12800. Over a one year period, that's $153600. That's already a 6 figure salary and that's not including the equity you earn from the mortgage that your tenants are essentially paying for. While it does have its own ups & downs like in other professions, I don't know of any other kind that gives you this much flexibility as well as good income.

You don't have to be rich & miserable or poor & happy. I choose the 3rd option - rich & happy.

doesn't have to do with how much money you do or don't have. don't have to trade one for the other. My brother has been much happier since he opened his own firm though

Poor and happy, but happy is alot easier when you have the money to take the stress off.

I think that most people would go for something in between these extremes. Money certainly is nice and makes life easier in many ways, but you have to have time to spend with your family as well instead of working or thinking about work all the time.

It seems to be common for people our age (i.e. early 30's) to ask themselves why they chose to go into a certain field. It is especially depressing for those of us who are really close to hitting the "glass ceiling" in our field at around 30. The reality, though, is that college is very expensive and employers are cutting costs so something like tuition reimbusement would be the first to go. Getting into (more?) debt in order to start out in another field as a relatively old man (or woman, in my case) doesn't seem to make much sense.

I don't know the answer, and my peers at work who are a few years older don't seem to know the answer either when we have had similar conversations. We seem to have all taken the attitude of doing whatever is necessary for survival. Maybe the whole mid-life crisis deal is hitting early for our generation...?

I had my mid-life crisis before I even left high school. But now it's okay because I figured out that I really don't care. :lol:

Huh, I never associated being poor with being happy. Wealth doesn't necessarily translate into happiness, but I don't know any happy poor people. I know there are people who live contented lives unburdened by monetary needs or goals, but I'd dare say such people are rare and I wouldn't call those kinds of folks "poor".

Why wasn't there a middle ground? Middleclass maybe.

Something like :

Medium income, medium happiness

[quote name='javeryh']...I absolutely despise about 90% of the time I am awake during the day because I'm constantly doing something I absolutely hate...
...My job is slowly taking away my soul and I'm hoping it's not too late...
...money isn't everything and there are other ways to live life...[/QUOTE]
long story short, i chased aviation because i thought it was my passion, but after the collapse of the industry post 9-11 i realized it was more for the money.


flash forward a couple of aimless years later, working crap jobs i hated. i watched a lot of movies. i found myself saying i can do this. looked into it. here i am in vancouver, 3000 miles from everyone i knew. i finish film school in june. i've already worked 14 hour days on set, unpaid, and love it. i've put in 40+ hours of editing in 2 weeks while going to classes and preproduction on the next project. i still want to do it. the bonus is that by the end of this year i can do this stuff AND get paid.

and the only way to become rich working in film is to be an actor, director, or producer in hollywood. that's not me. i'll have enough to pay the bills, and that's fine with me, cause i love what i do.

money's impotant, but having a purpose to your life and enjoying it are more important. why would anyone want to do something that makes them despise life 90% of their time awake and sucks their soul, especially when they realize that money isn't everything?

that said, money can't buy happiness. but it can buy a waverunner, and i've never seen anyone frowning on a waverunner.

[quote name='daria19']I think that most people would go for something in between these extremes. Money certainly is nice and makes life easier in many ways, but you have to have time to spend with your family as well instead of working or thinking about work all the time.

It seems to be common for people our age (i.e. early 30's) to ask themselves why they chose to go into a certain field. It is especially depressing for those of us who are really close to hitting the "glass ceiling" in our field at around 30. The reality, though, is that college is very expensive and employers are cutting costs so something like tuition reimbusement would be the first to go. Getting into (more?) debt in order to start out in another field as a relatively old man (or woman, in my case) doesn't seem to make much sense.

I don't know the answer, and my peers at work who are a few years older don't seem to know the answer either when we have had similar conversations. We seem to have all taken the attitude of doing whatever is necessary for survival. Maybe the whole mid-life crisis deal is hitting early for our generation...?[/quote]

Well, I know amongst my circle of friends that most have experienced something called the quarter-life crisis. They were at a point, post-college, usually around 23-24, where they were asking, "Ok, got the job, got the money, got the family... now what?" And it seems they're all worried. I can't say I'm in the same boat as I took a different route than them. It's only now that some of my friends are getting into the investing game and I've had to hold their hands for some of them (for a nice consultant's fee of course :lol: ). And at age 28 (29 later this year), I'm actually quite happy to be where I am - free & and not chained to my desk for 40 hrs a week.

oh...i almost forgot to thank those of you out there that work jobs you hate. if not for you, i'd probably have to pursue a more useful to society type of career, like dr., lawyer, office worker, etc., so thank you.

This is just a rephrased version of the age-old question of love or money.

And obviously, happiness for me.

[quote name='Mookyjooky']I was much happier before I started making 50,000 a year. I'm not rich, but when I was ing coeds and drinking beer, it was a lot more fun than sitting in an office 12 hours a day.[/quote]

Amen brother.

I wouldn't mind be rich and sulking alone over a cap and coke all night thinking about the girl who got away.

I'm poor and miserable, where's that option?

yeah I go through this every 4 months or so. I just need to vent my frustrations and typing it out is theraputic (sort of). I think I have finally realized though that it's just not a good way to live. I don't even spend what I make so it's not like I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor (I'm a cheapass at heart). Everyone I know is living basically the same lifestyle I do (though I have no debt) so what's the point of working all of these hours?

jaykrue - I know I've asked before but how did you get started? I've got some money set aside and a real estate investment makes sense because prices almost never go down. I'm worried that I wouldn't be able to donate enough time to manage the property though and also about deadbeat tenants. Also, I'd have to spend a year doing it before I quit my (semi) secure job here (I actually think I'm getting fired soon because everyone does and I have kind of just been riding it out until then which is why I haven't quit yet).

This really depends. My dad grew up really poor; each person in his family ate one meal every other day so there would be enough food to go around. He says that this was probably the time he was happiest because his family got along and things were just really simple. However, he always tells me that since I've never been so poor that I was starving and naked (I guess living in a small studio and sharing one twin size bed as the only piece of furniture for half of my life is like living as Bill Gates compared to what he went through), I don't realize that it's almost impossible to be truly happy when you are dirt poor and have no one to turn to. He also says that in America, it's more probable that you can be happy when you're homeless and poor because it's still possible to work your way up. Also, regardless of your pride and overcrowding issues, you can always go get food at a foodbank if your kids are on the brink of starving to death.

Then again, according to my parents, as long as I am rich, I will bring honor to the family which should make me happy regardless, lol. I'm going to opt for something in between.

Any homeless CAGS out there surfing free via library internet access?

Isn't the reason people want to be rich is because it will provide benefits and they think it will make them be able to enjoy more things, open doors, and be happier? So, if the only way to be rich is to be miserable, what's the point?

I thought this was a stupid question, until I realized people were actually picking, or contemplating, rich and miserable.

This isn't love or money, since the side effect is also being chosen (poor vs. happy).

new idea jav...take your love of sushi and your desire to become some kind of entrepeneur and open a high quality sushi restaurant.
www.tojos.com
this place, tojo's, for example. it's hands down the best sushi place in vancouver from what locals have told me, and rumor has it the best outside japan. one of my teachers once said that a night there with drinks can easily run $100+ per person. as a poor student i can't verify any of it, but look forward to the day i can. just a thought...

[quote name='javeryh']jaykrue - I know I've asked before but how did you get started? I've got some money set aside and a real estate investment makes sense because prices almost never go down. I'm worried that I wouldn't be able to donate enough time to manage the property though and also about deadbeat tenants. Also, I'd have to spend a year doing it before I quit my (semi) secure job here (I actually think I'm getting fired soon because everyone does and I have kind of just been riding it out until then which is why I haven't quit yet).[/quote]

I started out by renting out a condo to my college roommates. Legally speaking that was a stupid thing to do. I should have formed a corporation of sorts to protect myself from any legal backlash for some rookie move I might've done. Go with an LLC to start with. Or better yet, create a trust and place the LLC as one of its assets. If most of your assets are in trusts, it will appear that you will mostly nothing and thus, if anyone decides to sue you personally, the most they can take is what you personally own or make (for me, it's essentially my video games & tv). That's part of the reason why I don't have a big salary for myself. When you have more experience under your belt, consider switching that LLC to a C-Corp (with the trust still as the owner) and create another LLC as a subsidiary of the C-Corp which is directly responsible for the property in question. This should be true for all your other big assets. If you have 4 rental properties, you should have 4 separate LLCs under the C-Corp. Even better is if you base that C-Corp in Nevada as they don't have a state income tax as well as an added extra layer of legal protection as corporate ownership is not made publically available unless by subpoena and the last time that happened was 1985. As for managing the place, you can get a management firm to deal with managing the place & tenants for a percentage of the monthly income (10 percent give or take). Not to advertise but there's quite a good thread going on in fatwallet. It's a bit of a read as it's currently 72 pages long but a lot of the stuff they talk about is straight up your alley (budding/starting real estate entrepreneurs):


http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?start=0&catid=52&threadid=59627

When was the last time you saw a homeless man getting squirted in the face at the War of the Worlds premier and having his bitchfit being broadcast all over television?

Poor and happy wins the day.

i've been poor and (relatively) happy. i'd like to try the rich and miserable for a while.

My family went through a REALLY rough patch when I was in high school (after my dad left the military) in which we had no home to call our own. I ended up going to three different high schools. Twice we had to move in with relatives in which all four of us slept in the same small room on a floor. After we managed to get our own place, we still had little money and I remember when we literally had nothing but baking soda and water in the fridge. I don't know what it is like to be rich, but being being poor was never a happy time for me redgardless of how close I was with my family.

What morons are voluntarily choosing to be miserable?

EDIT: When you look at the choices, in one your happy, in the other your miserable. When you realize this, the amount of money is irrelevant. I would think you would choose whichever choice you'd prefer more. Unless your a masochist you can't possibly prefer being miserable to being happy, regardless of how much money you have.

Okay, okay...now would you rather be retarded or black?