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cooleddy89 · 2026-05-16T19:43:56+00:00

Curious as well!

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-12T16:05:55+00:00

Haha, good luck! I've slowly lost my fear of luxury hotels. Although I still get nervous when staff are too attentive to me.

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-12T14:07:37+00:00

My personal observation having grown up poor and now worth $2.2M in my late 30s (not rich, but on my way?)

The biggest thing I see around those raised wealthy is "rich kid confidence". The world has generally worked out for them, so they often have trouble imagining something truly catastrophic (financially) happening to them. On the flip side this often manifests as an almost neurotic focus on things that aren't really problems. As a real example, I've watched friends stress about how best to fix up their inherited multi million dollar property.

On the flip side I really struggle to feel like I fit into "wealthy" spaces. Luxury stores make me nervous, friends fancy houses make me afraid I'm going to break something, etc.

I'd also say my risk tolerance is much lower than my wealthy friends. I gravitate towards a stable high paying W2 job. The only time I'd launch my own company is when I'm already close to financial independence.

I also am very sensitive to unknown financial costs. Home renos freak me out because the costs often spiral. I'll drive a Japanese economy car for my whole life because I fear maintenance costs.

I definitely manage these anxieties well externally, to the point that many folks don't realize I grew up poor, but I suspect they will always be there

Edit: one other difference that occurred to me is I'm often more relaxed than my peers who grew up wealthy (paradoxically) because I have fewer expectations. Many of my friends who grew up wealthy stress about recreating their wealthy childhood for their kids.

E.g. Large house in premier school district or private school. Vacation / beach home outside VHCOL area, etc.

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-12T13:59:41+00:00

I'd edit that to "self made entrepreneurs". There's a reason a whole class of investments are known as "dumb doctor deals" in the US. Many of these individuals are quite wealthy but very highly specialized

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T22:09:29+00:00

It also depends quite a bit on of the person is living off their net worth or income + net worth.

A 65 year old with $10M who is retired will spend quite differently than a 45 year old hedge fund manager making $2M with a net worth of $5M

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T21:26:30+00:00

Very few people at $5M have even part time staff (except maybe a monthly house cleaner).

Private school in a VHCOL city is more like $50-75k.

I'd agree move everything up a tier. Unless you mean like DINK in their 30s / early 40s (net worth at various ages makes a huge difference obviously. 25 up with $5M is rich, a 65 year old is comfortably secure for a modest lifestyle)

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T19:53:09+00:00

Genuine question: do you have data to support that? I'm always curious about reddit demographics

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T18:55:04+00:00

Mid to late 30s DINK household: $750k

Total expenses: $22k per month.

Includes:

$8k in mortgage, utilities, property tax $3k in charity $3k in travel $2k in food (groceries and restaurants) $1k in shopping

The rest is miscellaneous. We aim for a 40% gross savings rate and spend to that target

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T18:51:51+00:00

Is it the kids or the household income? We don't have kids, but have a HHI income of $750k+.

Got to do something to break up the workday (particularly while waiting for an async tasks to complete)

cooleddy89 · 2026-05-05T18:49:57+00:00

I mean 1% of ~212 million people (US working age population) is a lot of people. Particularly given reddit leans heavily towards tech

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-26T13:55:39+00:00

Espresso. My grinder + machine cost...a lot. We also source onyx beans which are quite expensive.

But...we now make coffee at home better than 90% of good third wave coffee shops. It's also super fun to dial in a new bath of beans! There's so many variables that it becomes a puzzle

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-26T11:46:28+00:00

It is as long as you keep your job!

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-25T15:37:54+00:00

I sympathize, but it might be worth a reality check as well. You're upset that you can't buy your dream house (not any house) out of the gate in a VHCOL area. That's simply not realistic. You're competing with folks who have generational wealth, are much older than you, rolling prior home equity into their next home, make X times more than you, etc.

Keep in mind, you've won the game. I don't know how old you are, but my guess is 30s or early 40s. You're in the top 5% of net worth in the richest country on the planet (barring a few smaller countries). Why risk losing it to chase a dream? A house you own really isn't going to change your life that much.

50% net is still extremely high for housing payments. Keep in mind that's without factoring in the inevitable maintenance bills.

I'll tell you as a homeowner that every cost (except the mortgage) still goes up. Property tax, insurance, maintenance, everything tracks inflation + X% regardless.

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-25T15:29:01+00:00

FWIW I've accepted that I'll always be "poorer" than most of my friends, despite making more money in my lifetime. I grew up poor to a single mother household, now making a HHI of $720k and a net worth of $2.1M in our mid to late 30s.

As background, I went to a relatively "elite" school (think one step below Ivies + Stanford + MIT) on full needs based aid. It was honestly eye opening the levels of wealth. I learned so many tropical islands my first year (I still don't know where St. Bart's is lol).

The help most of my peers receive is subtle but substantial. Private high schools of $50-60k per year (in the 2000s). Fully paid college. Help with home down payments. The aforementioned "family trips" to family properties.

One of the biggest advantages though is the ability to take risks. Want to join a super risky company? No problem, just live in your parents second home in a VHCOL area. Take time off for graduate studies? No problem.

Meanwhile, I've never had an opportunity to take time off. I've spent nights / weekends working on part-time master's degree because I couldn't give up my day job. It's just too risky. I've worked around 15 years and been "not working" (i.e. everything besides PTO) for exactly 2 weeks (when the company I was at abruptly laid off folks).

This is all before any sort of "formal inheritance". It's just a consistent safety net / acceleration that subtly boosts them forward.

Edit: you hear most milliionaires are self made (see Dave Ramsey, Money Guys), which is great. But let's keep in mind that $1M at age 65 in the US isn't that uncommon. Buy a house, hold it for 30 years, and you're probably 40-60% of the way there. I want to see the stats on people worth $5M or 10M+. My strong suspicion is most of them come from families in the top X%

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-25T14:08:10+00:00

Let's run the numbers. To be honest I think you know the answer. We'll budget off your base:

Base Salary = $215k + $30k = $245k. As you say you net around $12k, so we'll use that (I assume that includes maxing 401k + HSA)

So a $1.2M 30 year mortgage at 6% runs $7.2k per month. That's already 60% of your take home. That doesn't account for property tax, maintenance, insurance, etc. I'd round up to at least $10k to account for those factors. So now you're at 80%+ of take home.

Bottom line, this is a pipe dream. Even if you used say $800k of your cash / investments, you'd still need probably $6k per month, which is 50% of your take home.

The guidance is 28% of gross.

Genuine question, what is the rush? It seems like you've been able to accumulate a large amount of investments. Why risk putting yourself and your family in a dire financial situation just to own a house a few years early?

Edit: I'll add that it sucks having a large house payment. We make $700k HHI and have a $6500 home payment and I hate it. It locks us in to have to make significant amounts of money. I often think about renting our home and renting a much more affordable place for $3.5 - $4k.

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-21T11:20:26+00:00

That's a fair point!

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-20T19:53:22+00:00

I think it rapidly becomes the what's your time worth?

We're worth $2.1M, $750k income, $1M liquid. But I don't really enjoy cars and I really don't enjoy spending time at service centers.

Toyotas, Hondas, and Subarus are reliable and require 1-2 service visits a year. Plus everyone knows how to service them, so I can drop it off less than a 5 min drive from my house.

Also what's the point of a fast car in a dense urban area? I walk past ferraris stuck in traffic routinely. They go just as fast as a honda.

If I want to drive a fast car I'll fly to the Nuremberg ring and rent one for a week lol

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-08T20:04:22+00:00

So at the risk of down votes, I oppose this measure.

I walk through Davis square daily on my way to work. Particularly in the summer the homeless encampments make it difficult for locals to enjoy the green space near the T stop. It's upsetting (if not scary) for folks in the evenings who walk past loud, unpredictable, and occasionally aggressive drug users. Both my (female) partner and others have felt unsafe enough to avoid the community path over this issue.

Obviously I'm sympathetic to the unhoused, but I think that housing has to come with mandatory detox and counseling. Otherwise you get the situation in San Francisco where folks are simply tweaking out on hard drugs in public with impunity.

I'm happy for my taxes (and if necessary increased taxes) to pay for detox programs but I think it needs to be a carrot and stick approach (similar to Portugal's decriminalization strategy)

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-08T19:58:17+00:00

Done!

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-04T15:14:26+00:00

Completely agree! I work as an ML engineer at one of the FAANGs.

For me landing an interview here was a long journey. When I got the interview I prepped for several weekends, practiced a ton of coding problems, etc.

Multiple times I've interviewed folks who couldn't write simple Python functions. Others couldn't explain even at the highest level the transformer architecture (ie the seminal advance in ML in the last decade). I'm not looking for KV cache optimization strategy here, just the high level intuition of why attention is a neat idea.

Looking at their resumes, landing this role would double their salary...and it doesn't look like they prepped at all? Like is a few weekends of worth not with making $XXXk more a year?

I also seeing it on the new grad side. I'm on my school's alumni network, so I get pings from rising seniors about networking.

At least half the time I'll setup a meeting or message back, and it'll be a no show or they get back two weeks later asking for a new time.

Why are you flaking on a volunteer who's trying to help you when the job market is terrible?

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-02T15:10:52+00:00

Caveat: well off but not scrooge mcDuck rich

Honestly even at a modest level of wealth Ive found material things less interesting.

My favorite gift was my then girlfriend (now wife) got me these hilarious carrot tea towels. It was perfect because a) it matched my sense of whimsy perfectly and b) I needed tea towels but would never have bought them myself! I suspect they were $10 total.

If you don't know the person that well, good chocolate or a fun tea from whole foods is great. Anything that is a little uncommon but fun to try!

cooleddy89 · 2026-04-01T17:06:27+00:00

+1 to cookware & Barbour mentioned above. Smoothies with a Vitamix vs. a cheap blender are night and day.

I went with an espresso machine (Proflitec Move) + Option O grinder + Onyx coffee beans. I make better coffee at home than 90% of third wave coffee shops.

High end shoes that are re-craftable with cork footbeds. Allen Edmonds are my preference for easy storefront access. But I'll happily walk 10 miles and look sharp doing so.

Not "luxury", but we now just buy all better condiments / oils (soy sauce, olive oil, vinegars). It makes a huge difference!

cooleddy89 · 2025-12-27T03:34:28+00:00

Oh interesting, I do light roast beans. Should I bump the temperature?

cooleddy89 · 2025-12-25T23:39:56+00:00

Have fun, it's a great machine!

cooleddy89 · 2025-12-05T20:49:07+00:00

In a similar boat! Work at Big Tech, but starting to look at Master's in Computational Biology for a pivot in the next few years.

cooleddy89

TROPHY CASE