Peaty Jobs And Economics - (Breaking Out Of The Rat Race)

[ShotTrue]

Hey guys, wanted to make a thread to help us financially/economically.
Recently some people have talked about socioeconomic status, breaking out of the rat race, investing, good jobs, having money to afford upmost health options, etc.

So I think a thread to share ideas could be very beneficial. Talking about high paying jobs, how to invest money, how to save money, etc.

I'll start with some ideas:
High paying jobs -engineer, medical doctor, lawyer
Jobs that don't require years of college education - physical therapist assistant, welder, sales
Misc - owning a business, getting into retail (arbitrage, online, distributor), online marketing

Investing - Buy the dip, buy undervalued stock, sell during hype

Books to read- Rich Dad Poor Dad, Set for Life, The Intelligent Investor

@Cirion

Hopefully people are interested and can add even more advice, books to read, potential job opportunities that don't cripple us in terms of time put in or debt invested!
I've already done a lot of work so some of you can use this as a resource, personally I'd like to learn more

example: My friend says there was a community college program for physical therapist assistants that make 45k and it would only take a year
2. There is a local coding program that basically guarantees a job and used to offer free training

 

[lampofred]

You Can Be A Stock Market Genius is also a good investment book imo.

 

[kyle]

Those seem like ways to join the rat race.

 

[ShotTrue]

You Can Be A Stock Market Genius is also a good investment book imo.

thanks, exactly kind of info im looking for

 

[ShotTrue]

Those seem like ways to join the rat race.

The rat race would be spending 10 years working at a bank or office job making $1000 raises once a year, and only buying liabilities.
Don't think you know what you're talking about

 

[Tenacity]

Mr Money Mustache is a good blog for this kind of thing.

 

[Cirion]

Most people are going to have to join the "Rat race" at least for a few years, the main goal should be to minimize how many years are spent in the rat race. In most cases, it's not possibly to completely avoid it. With enough hustling, one could get out of the rat race after just a decade, whereas the average American is in the rat race for 30-40 yrs or even longer. I did a few things wrong, but I still will be set after a total of 15 yrs or so in the corporate work life which I'm reasonably happy with.

One thing I want to look into is how to find truly knowledgeable people that the author of rich dad poor dad talks about which can help you find brand new companies to invest in before they go public, buy a bunch of stock, and then sell soon after they launch and get massive 1000%+ gains. I don't think your average financial advisor that gives you cookie cutter advice will be helpful for this kind of stuff. He also has other people in his financial "board" who help him find other deals for a price. Basically, he recommends shelling out extra money to hire the truly good people, because you do get what you pay for, and he gives other examples like a guy finding him a deal for $8000 property, and then reselling it right away for like $30k, instant $22k gains. I'd pay money to find people who can locate deals like that for me... Dunno where to look tho

I think the MAIN advice to give people wanting to obtain financial freedom is very, very simple and it's simply this:

Live as frugally as you possibly can. Not only does this let you invest more, it also reduces the amount of $ you must save up in order to retire. The danger of chasing increasing income is that most people scale up their lifestyle with their income, which also increases their liabilities but also the $ they must save to retire. If you have scaled up your lifestyle a lot you might need $5M to retire, but someone else who lives super frugally might only need $500K to retire. 500k is roughly about all I'd need.

 

[Cirion]

If I were to re-do life, I honestly might not even go to university/college at all and just pick up a trade or something that let me get 50k+ income with minimal education. I think I would say the "high paying jobs" like engineers, doctors, lawyers is actually not too Peaty in the long run because of how stressful the programs can be, especially doctors, not to mention the big amount of debt you can accrue in medical degree programs which could take 10+ years to pay off, in which time you literally could have saved enough to retire on a frugal lifestyle with a trade like plumbing, HVAC installation, etc... on top of the 10+ yr to payoff, you must consider that 4-8 yrs could be "wasted" in school, 4+ yrs that could have been spent accruing wealth.

I would also have probably bought a duplex instead of a condo so I could rent out the other half and live for free or almost free. Renting is probably better in the long run at least if you can locate a really cheap rental, if you're not willing or able to buy a multi family home and rent out a piece of it.

 

[ShotTrue]

If I were to re-do life, I honestly might not even go to university/college at all and just pick up a trade or something that let me get 50k+ income with minimal education. I think I would say the "high paying jobs" like engineers, doctors, lawyers is actually not too Peaty in the long run because of how stressful the programs can be, especially doctors, not to mention the big amount of debt you can accrue in medical degree programs which could take 10+ years to pay off, in which time you literally could have saved enough to retire on a frugal lifestyle with a trade like plumbing, HVAC installation, etc... on top of the 10+ yr to payoff, you must consider that 4-8 yrs could be "wasted" in school, 4+ yrs that could have been spent accruing wealth.

I would also have probably bought a duplex instead of a condo so I could rent out the other half and live for free or almost free. Renting is probably better in the long run at least if you can locate a really cheap rental, if you're not willing or able to buy a multi family home and rent out a piece of it.

This is exactly what I'm saying. The amount of time lost and debt accrued barely makes it worthwhile, maybe engineers have a good ratio of cost to time getting paid well?
I'm probably just going to finish my econ degree (1 year) and really focus on retail or investing (in a much faster way like crypto market)
At this point it's where to invset my money or how to make more money faster
like getting to be an x ray tech in 2 years and making more than an econ degree, etc.
TO invest you need to find a job that pays well in a fast amount of time, the higher the better
That's why I might learn to code so I can do work after a 9-5, scaleable income

 

[ShotTrue]

like for instance @Cirion doing option calls over regular stock positions. Someone on R/WSB turned 4,000 to 40,000 in a year

 

[Kartoffel]

Just buy Bitcoin. That way you gain independence and show your government the finger. **** Fiat.

 

[Cirion]

Just buy Bitcoin. That way you gain independence and show your government the finger. **** Fiat.

That's what I'm doing. I also got some Ethereum, but I think Bitcoin will probably be the most valuable crypto in a few years once the 21 million Bitcoin has been reached and the demand is not only higher but supply less (due to cap).

 

[ShotTrue]

Bitcoin is halving soon. It’s just went from $8k to $11k in two weeks
You have to have the expendable income to sit a lot in there for a couple years , though I think it’s about to go up maybe 50-100% the next year

 

[oldmanthunder]

If I were to re-do life, I honestly might not even go to university/college at all and just pick up a trade or something that let me get 50k+ income with minimal education. I think I would say the "high paying jobs" like engineers, doctors, lawyers is actually not too Peaty in the long run because of how stressful the programs can be, especially doctors, not to mention the big amount of debt you can accrue in medical degree programs which could take 10+ years to pay off, in which time you literally could have saved enough to retire on a frugal lifestyle with a trade like plumbing, HVAC installation, etc... on top of the 10+ yr to payoff, you must consider that 4-8 yrs could be "wasted" in school, 4+ yrs that could have been spent accruing wealth.

I would also have probably bought a duplex instead of a condo so I could rent out the other half and live for free or almost free. Renting is probably better in the long run at least if you can locate a really cheap rental, if you're not willing or able to buy a multi family home and rent out a piece of it.

Sure, but you're not taking into account the non-monetary value of higher education such as more growth potential, more mentally stimulating and higher social status, all of which have an effect on mood and health. Social status alone is a huge predictor for all-cause mortality, possibly because of the chronic stress effect of being socially lowly.

 

[Aymen]

any ideas about modelling for men?

 

[Cirion]

Sure, but you're not taking into account the non-monetary value of higher education such as more growth potential, more mentally stimulating and higher social status, all of which have an effect on mood and health. Social status alone is a huge predictor for all-cause mortality, possibly because of the chronic stress effect of being socially lowly.

I personally disagree from personal experience on the mood and health. 9-5 lifestyle is not conducive to health, and neither is a stressful college experience. Also you can achieve a high social status without the typical chasing high income.

Income =/= Wealth. Many people with high incomes have low or even negative wealth/net worth, and many people with middle class income have high wealth as much as 10+M if they have lived frugally and invested a lot.

The thing is, if it takes 10+ yr to even break even, you actually could be ahead in the long run with a much lower income due to a wonderful thing called compounding interest. Even when you compare say a 50k income vs 150k income. The reason for this is that at some point, adding additional money to a large pool of money (let's say, 25k from a 50k income or even 75k from a 150k income) doesn't do much compared to the compounding of interest. As a simple example if you have 10$M in your account, a 10% return nets you $1M, so even with the 150k income, and putting in 75k, is a small amount compared to the $1000K that the interest gave you that year.

Many rich people live very stressful lives, more so than middle class or even poor in some cases. And that's if you even survive school. My mom knew this guy that committed suicide in med school due to the insane stress. Others live very high stress due to insane work hours, insane responsibilities at work (get this decision right or whole company fails...), and others because they don't live frugally and live paycheck to paycheck even on 500k+ incomes. High income jobs (usually) come with lots of stress that most people can't handle in a healthy fashion.

Now, once you do have a lot of wealth, and are retired or otherwise can delegate most of the work away, that is probably different. I absolutely agree being wealthy BUT with low or no work responsibilities, that that is indeed conducive to good health. I think people mistakenly believe that having a high income being a CEO etc is some glamorous thing that makes your androgens increase by a factor of 10. Sure you have a lot more money but with that comes insane responsibility and stress. The reality is that kind of lifestyle comes with little to no free time and no time to unwind, as you'll be carrying around work even when you go on vacation.

Oh, and with higher income, yeah you can invest more but most people scale up their expenses with income (How many people with $1M incomes do you know living in only a $200k house?) so that in the long run, it takes just as long if not longer for the rich person to retire that a middle class person does, because their required income is much, much higher in retirement than the guy with $100k income.

 

[ShotTrue]

Sure, but you're not taking into account the non-monetary value of higher education such as more growth potential, more mentally stimulating and higher social status, all of which have an effect on mood and health. Social status alone is a huge predictor for all-cause mortality, possibly because of the chronic stress effect of being socially lowly.

You do have a point. Social status and education/ intelligence level will be lacking in blue collar fields

 

[Collden]

Skilled trades are going to come back in fashion and rise in status as people grow to realize they will be among the last real jobs left when AI takes over in the coming decades. I believe there is a growing disillusionment with the meaninglessness of most "higher education" professions and people will yearn to go back to vocations where the fruits of their labor are tangible and comprehensible.

 

[anyfit]

do not fall into this mindset, it will give you as much stress as being in the rat race. as long as you are chasing money and putting the significance on the money.
you can find peaceful calm people working in the rat race and you can find stressful and angry people out there living so called stress free lives, as opposed to what most people think.
the best investment you can make is in yourself and those around you, build yourself and make sure that you make connections with people who are good for you.
read books, try to increase your knowledge and your skills , improve your creativity and eventually you will find ways to make that money on your own.
be careful of borrowed knolwedge and templates for success that others give you, those that specify exactly what you should do or not, because in reality every person is different and everyone needs to go through their own journey to figure their own path instead of following someone elses footsteps, some of my worst life mistakes came from trying to do that, and some of my best life decision came from following my own experimentation and intuition.

and for those of you who are looking to become traders in stocks or any commodity rememebr that unless you really are willing to study indepth probability and statistics , risk management and put a lot of effort to it, you will most likely blow yourself up and lose your money in the long term. so you are better off just investing in something that is not risky.

 

[oldmanthunder]

Many rich people live very stressful lives, more so than middle class or even poor in some cases. And that's if you even survive school. My mom knew this guy that committed suicide in med school due to the insane stress. Others live very high stress due to insane work hours, insane responsibilities at work (get this decision right or whole company fails...), and others because they don't live frugally and live paycheck to paycheck even on 500k+ incomes. High income jobs (usually) come with lots of stress that most people can't handle in a healthy fashion.

Now, once you do have a lot of wealth, and are retired or otherwise can delegate most of the work away, that is probably different. I absolutely agree being wealthy BUT with low or no work responsibilities, that that is indeed conducive to good health. I think people mistakenly believe that having a high income being a CEO etc is some glamorous thing that makes your androgens increase by a factor of 10. Sure you have a lot more money but with that comes insane responsibility and stress. The reality is that kind of lifestyle comes with little to no free time and no time to unwind, as you'll be carrying around work even when you go on vacation.

Oh, and with higher income, yeah you can invest more but most people scale up their expenses with income (How many people with $1M incomes do you know living in only a $200k house?) so that in the long run, it takes just as long if not longer for the rich person to retire that a middle class person does, because their required income is much, much higher in retirement than the guy with $100k income.

As someone in first year of STEM where the selection is the harshest, I can confirm that these exam sessions have been the most psychologically stressful period of my life, but unlike you I don't see stress as inherently bad, I see it as an opportunity to adapt, increase resilience and learn about yourself. Obviously, if the pressure is simply too much it will have a net negative effect, but generally those who can't handle the pressure and burn out are those with poorly adapted lifestyles and weak psychological mechanisms. I think high stress says more about you than it does about the inherent situation. If a situation is stressful, it is that you are not properly adapted to it.

Conceptually, some situations can be impossible to adapt to (like living on the sun) but I believe humans are incredibly resilient animals and in general those in poor health are those who are maladapted to their environment. For instance, Peat talks a lot about how winter is incredibly stressful because of the darkness and cold, yet many populations seem to be doing fine while going through very harsh, long winters. If you observe their lifestyle habits, you'll notice many adaptations that reduce stress such as increased sleeping, increased socializing, less work, higher fat/sugar intake and subsequent weight gain and heat exposure via saunas. Obviously, people who do none of these things will have a harder time making it through winter unscathed.

On these forums, I see a lot of people who go on about how terrible their environment is and how much better things would be if it things if they were in a different environment, but this kind of narrative is often just an escapist cope which in the long run leans to learned helplessness. I believe most people would drastically improve their wellbeing overnight if they assumed control of their lives and worked on adapting themselves to whatever environment they find themselves in rather than fixate on how terrible said environment is. It's still a nice long term project to move to the tropics and live off of fresh fruit year round but in the meantime everyone stand to benefit from looking at their environment objectively and adapting their lifestyle to the specific constraints. One size fits all generally don't work.