Curse me Kilts!! What is the hell is point of any of it anyway?

[Vish_ram]

Once you get confident in your ability to compound, based on age, you may end up growing it 2X to 50X. 
 

most of folks here will end up spending hardly 5% of their peak net worth. 
 

as you age your interest to spend drops and material things bring less joy. 

[thepupil]

I don't appear to have this issue for my taxable accounts 

 

 

(for many years, I run all my revenue and expenses through my IBKR account)...paycheck goes straight in...taxes and life go straight out)

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2025 by thepupil

[73 Reds]

13 hours ago, nsx5200 said:

I ran across Die With Zero that talks about the trade off between life experience with accumulation of wealth, and agree with @SharperDingaan that money/wealth is there to serve you and not the other way around.  A lot of us are conditioned to think the other way, and that's wrong.

 

Something that really helps is to really deliberately consider all the impulse/unnecessary spending that, most of the time, doesn't really improve our long-term happiness but instead increase the chance of an unhappy experience in old age.  You'll make mistakes with those decisions and trade-offs, as we can not fully predict the future, but with any skill, I believe as you make more deliberate choices and reflect on past choices, you'll make better choices.

 

Now that it's spent, it's already done.  You've already paid it, so why 'cry over spilt milk' by aggravating yourself.  That's unnecessarily mentally paying for it again.  The best thing you can do now is to try to maximize it by enjoying it.  Try to find ways to increase the usage in order to minimize your per usage cost.  That's how a logical business would think about some capital asset.  Be a decisive business leader: make a decision, wrong or right, and make the best of it.

 

p.s.  not saying your decision is wrong.  That's for you to decide in a few years as you reflect, but IMHO, it's a bit irrational to mentally pay for for it again, so you should really enjoy it, worry free.  HTH.

Nothing you buy for personal enjoyment should cause you stress.  Otherwise, the purchase defeats the purpose.   For me, the goal was to reach the point where money was no longer a concern.  That point is different for everyone.  Once you reach that point you no longer worry, or even think about "outperforming" anything or anyone and you buy what you want when you want.  As individual investors we only compete with ourselves; the goal is to win the competition as early as possible so as to enjoy life as much as possible.

[dealraker]

3 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Nothing you buy for personal enjoyment should cause you stress.  Otherwise, the purchase defeats the purpose.   For me, the goal was to reach the point where money was no longer a concern.  That point is different for everyone.  Once you reach that point you no longer worry, or even think about "outperforming" anything or anyone and you buy what you want when you want.  As individual investors we only compete with ourselves; the goal is to win the competition as early as possible so as to enjoy life as much as possible.

So true.  Being online for now going on 30 years I am in every single year one of the lowest performers of any forum in which I participate.  Yet I've done fine and financial worries are long gone.  There's no need to shoot for the stars when a lesser but still adequate performance will often lead you to financial freedoms quite early in life.  

[Charlie]

23 hours ago, Jaygo said:

we sold about $120,000.00 Canadian worth of investments from our accounts and used the proceeds to put in a pool at our house.  

If the pool helps your health and that of your family through more swimming, it was a smart investment. 

Trade wealth for health anytime. 

 

23 hours ago, Jaygo said:

Has anyone ever harvested a gain and had this same shitty feeling or am I just a greedy monster like Scrooge McDuck wishing the pool was full of money instead of happy kids?

When I was a young man I bought a new car and sold after two weeks, because I thought it was an idiotic purchase and could use the money for better things.

[John Hjorth]

4 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Nothing you buy for personal enjoyment should cause you stress.  Otherwise, the purchase defeats the purpose.   For me, the goal was to reach the point where money was no longer a concern.  That point is different for everyone.  Once you reach that point you no longer worry, or even think about "outperforming" anything or anyone and you buy what you want when you want.  As individual investors we only compete with ourselves; the goal is to win the competition as early as possible so as to enjoy life as much as possible.

 

1 hour ago, dealraker said:

So true.  Being online for now going on 30 years I am in every single year one of the lowest performers of any forum in which I participate.  Yet I've done fine and financial worries are long gone.  There's no need to shoot for the stars when a lesser but still adequate performance will often lead you to financial freedoms quite early in life.  

 

@73 Reds & Charlie [ @dealraker ],

 

lol!  - Your concept of 'scr**w everything!' somehow has - intuitively - a lot of appeal to me! -But it's true, - persistence is important for the long haul - even turtles get forward in the long haul, if persistent.

[dealraker]

31 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

 

@73 Reds & Charlie [ @dealraker ],

 

lol!  - Your concept of 'scr**w everything!' somehow has - intuitively - a lot of appeal to me! -But it's true, - persistence is important for the long haul - even turtles get forward in the long haul, if persistent.

Of all people John -- I think you are well along on this line of thinking.  You seem solid as a rock to me.

[John Hjorth]

54 minutes ago, dealraker said:

Of all people John -- I think you are well along on this line of thinking.  You seem solid as a rock to me.

 

Charlie [ @dealraker ],

 

I just had a discussion [here, it's now about 9:00 P.M. in the evening, dark as black hole outside], with the Lady of House, that she really should try to take it easy with those three times per day bp measurements, that she has promised her doc, 'three times per 'time'', stressing her, causing her bp to go up!, after which she started self-occilating, causing her bp go even further up! lol!  *sigh*

Edited September 11, 2025 by John Hjorth

[73 Reds]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

 

 

@73 Reds & Charlie [ @dealraker ],

 

lol!  - Your concept of 'scr**w everything!' somehow has - intuitively - a lot of appeal to me! -But it's true, - persistence is important for the long haul - even turtles get forward in the long haul, if persistent.

John, didn't mean for it to come across that way but setting goals early on and learning from mistakes has made the latter part of life much easier.  And of course, kudos to Buffett and Munger who had a very large influence over many of my decisions.    

[John Hjorth]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

John, didn't mean for it to come across that way but setting goals early on and learning from mistakes has made the latter part of life much easier.  And of course, kudos to Buffett and Munger who had a very large influence over many of my decisions.    

 

Yes, thank you, @73 Reds,

 

On a more serious note to you and Charlie [ @dealraker ], more serious than my last post above, is that we all have to find our personal path through this non-zero-sum game, we are participating in. 

 

No doubt, the presence of ambitions is key. But that does not cut it alone. One also has to find ones own modus operandi, personal style [that by the way will be ever evolving!], so that ones sleep isen't ruined by investment  'doings' / 'work in progress'.

 

Personally, I'm a firm believer in, that it can be taught, if one put in the kJoules, including the efforts of gaining self-awareness on the matter. I personally was a 'lost orphan' entering CofB&F back in 2013, basically spending the first three years reading up the whole CofB&F since it's 'big bang', when Sanjeev [ @parsad ] folded out the new CofB&F January 31^st 2009, on another forum softwareplatform than today.

 

A lot of people give up before, because of losses already incurred. And then there is the local tax regime for all of us, individually, that for some CofB&F members provide material limits as to what to do.

Edited September 11, 2025 by John Hjorth

[dealraker]

3 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

Yes, thank you, @73 Reds,

 

On a more serious note to you and Charlie [ @dealraker ], more serious than my last post above, is that we all have to find our personal path through this non-zero-sum game, we are participating in. 

 

No doubt, the presence of ambitions is key. But that does not cut it alone. One also has to find ones own modus operandi, personal style [that by the way will be ever evolving!], so that ones sleep isen't ruined by investment  'doings' / 'work in progress'.

 

Personally, I'm a firm believer in, that it can be taught, if one put in the kJoules, including the efforts of gaining self-awareness on the matter. I personally was a 'lost orphan' entering CofB&F back in 2013, basically spending the first three years reading up the whole CofB&F since it's 'big bang', when Sanjeev [ @parsad ] folded out the new CofB&F January 31^st 2009, on another forum softwareplatform than today.

 

A lot of people give up before, because of losses already incurred. And then there is the local tax regime for all of us, individually, that for some CofB&F members provide material limits as to what to do.

Yes we all go different paths.  While I had not set goals in life I wanted to participate with those I admired and this need or desire was mostly financial based.  It took me a long time to get here and many of those I wanted to participate with died before I arrived.  Luckily for me some family discord via nieces of deceased cousins allowed me to finally buy into on going businesses.  What a rewarding joy this life is for me now.

[CassiusKing1]

Congrats on the pool.  I had a pool put in last summer and have only thought "why didn't I do this years ago!"

 

Money is a tool.  I'm my own worse enemy in that I sometimes forget what I have and realize that years ago this would have been more than enough to be happy.  I got caught up in the game trying to optimize everything to maximize that number.  There's a balance necessary to do it healthily.  Most folks with mid 7 figure accounts and more die with so much money on the table they could have loosened the purse strings and enjoyed life a lot more early on.

 

You may have sold at market high's and that amount will soon be a blip on the graph tracking your balance.

[Jaygo]

11 hours ago, CassiusKing1 said:

Congrats on the pool.  I had a pool put in last summer and have only thought "why didn't I do this years ago!"

 

Money is a tool.  I'm my own worse enemy in that I sometimes forget what I have and realize that years ago this would have been more than enough to be happy.  I got caught up in the game trying to optimize everything to maximize that number.  There's a balance necessary to do it healthily.  Most folks with mid 7 figure accounts and more die with so much money on the table they could have loosened the purse strings and enjoyed life a lot more early on.

 

You may have sold at market high's and that amount will soon be a blip on the graph tracking your balance.

 

Thanks. Yeah we probably should have done it earlier for the kids but at 8 and 10 they are still crazy about it. 

[bizaro86]

On 9/11/2025 at 6:38 AM, thepupil said:

I don't appear to have this issue for my taxable accounts 

 

 

(for many years, I run all my revenue and expenses through my IBKR account)...paycheck goes straight in...taxes and life go straight out)

 

 

 

 

My IBKR account looks something like that - almost all my earnings are in USD but since I live in Canada most of my expenses are in CAD. Converting them to CAD using IBKR forex is like 2% cheaper than using my bank, so I deposit all my earnings into IBKR and take out cash as needed. I did get a few calls from compliance a few years ago warning that the primary purpose of an account had to be trading/investing not currency conversion. Once the balance in the account grew enough those calls stopped, even though I still transfer in/out quite a lot of money each year (but 100% of account balance over the year seems to be fine, 700% of account balance annually was a problem...)

[John Hjorth]

23 minutes ago, bizaro86 said:

My IBKR account looks something like that - almost all my earnings are in USD but since I live in Canada most of my expenses are in CAD. Converting them to CAD using IBKR forex is like 2% cheaper than using my bank, so I deposit all my earnings into IBKR and take out cash as needed. I did get a few calls from compliance a few years ago warning that the primary purpose of an account had to be trading/investing not currency conversion. Once the balance in the account grew enough those calls stopped, even though I still transfer in/out quite a lot of money each year (but 100% of account balance over the year seems to be fine, 700% of account balance annually was a problem...)

 

@bizaro86,

 

lol!  - ... Banks, mind you!

[bizaro86]

28 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@bizaro86,

 

lol!  - ... Banks, mind you!

 

Yeah. I'm not sure if that story means you should buy the Canadian banks, or sell them because their monopoly profits are slowly getting eroded by online/international competition.

[John Hjorth]

On 9/11/2025 at 8:30 PM, dealraker said:

Of all people John -- I think you are well along on this line of thinking.  You seem solid as a rock to me.

 

Thank you for the very kind words, Charlie [ @dealraker ].

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2025 by John Hjorth