How do lainons handle money and independance in the real world?

Wondering how people here manage the practical side of staying connected, as most of us aren't wired into some trust fund nor are we all in the basement. How are we managing our money without going broke? As someone who isn't the smartest with money I pay my rent first and I find myself splurging and going from paycheck to paycheck, so what's working for you? Basic Budgeting or tracking Investing or saving Side hustles Dealing with inflation 'n decay Mentality

I'm extremely frugal. I pay all of my bills as soon as I get my paycheck, I invest most part of it, and force myself to live with a small amount for the rest of the month. There isn't much more to it... I find these "track expenditures" soykaf people talk about nonsense. I mean, at least in the way I live... I know very well what I make and the average cost for me to get by. Speaking a bit more specifically to investments, Most of my money is either in gold, silver, crypto, or government bonds. I have some math I personally do to decide where to invest next, but it's basically that. My profile is extremely conservative in this aspect, and I find that it works well, because caring too much about investment is a job of its own, and I have cooler things to care about. I don't watch ads, so I don't "consume" soykaf, I don't go out buying stuff, etc. I get my paycheck, pay my bills, save the rest. That's pretty much it. My plans are to live like this for a few more years and "retire" in some country in southeast asia.

>>100515 I have a tip that probably is very culture dependent, but living with your parents. I know it doesn't work everywhere, and I do get sometimes weird looks about it, but so long I don't have a partner and I have a job, I just live with them. My "rent" is minimal. I help out with groceries and stuff like that, but beyond that I put like 20% of what I get over for fun, and rest goes into savings. savings are very important. Always have some "doomsday" money left which you can use if worst comes to pass. It's not like I am wealthy because of this or anything. But I'm pretty comfortable. If some financial emergency happened tomorrow I most likely could take it without much pain. As for investing. I'm no expert but I've tipped my toes into it, and in current times investing is kinda a casino which goes down or up depending on what the orange man will tweet about. But someone who has done it for longer than me might have better advice on that.

benefactor of mystery family money incoming none of this is a good answer to your question OP cause I cant answer it but I do have a perspective on how to keep money and where you should spend it once you have it. i got really lucky, literally right at the scariest moment of my life a relative on a side of the family, just before their death, who I interacted with maybe 3 times in my entire life all before the age of 5, decided to last minute include me in their will at a lesser portion than everyone else. I got a kind of fraction of a fraction but still more than enough to where I think I could stretch it 10-20 years and maybe indefinitely if im working a well paying part time job or a bad paying full time job. So long as stock market doesnt crash, its almost all invested, thatd be my one piece of advice. Once you have a decent amount of savings (20k to 50k) id get a financial advisor and have them walk you through investing it and trust them. The money my family got was already invested and one of the other relatives who got significantly more than me demanded it be immediately sold and transferred to her bank thinking the advisors were trying to pull a fast one on her. She paid massive amounts in taxes and now has already spent most of it, all because she either thought she knew better or couldnt trust anyone. I know me and my account to these advisors and this society im just another asset, and one day the ultra elite will pull some stock market fuarrrkery to liquidate me. But you have to trust these people do know better because they absolutely do and do want your number to go up. Ive also had friends tell me they definitely would have spent it all by now. Its been 5 years and I have put a dent in it. I only worked one of those five years, there was two years of going on a bender and currently two years of going back to school. That would be my other tip youd be surprised what you can live without. Im not some expert with saving money ive just always been geared towards spending less not more. One of my final tidbits is that my primary expenses, and why I try to save so much, is other people. And I think right now this is the best thing you can do. I dont mean like throwing money around to garner a bunch of fake friends who leave when your exhausted but instead keeping it a secret or like with friends you already have, using that money on them in crisis or birthdays and etc. Moments where it really matters. If a friend comes to me and its the first of the month and they are like ahhh i dont know if il make rent next month im so worried I dont offer anything. But when its like end of month and a place they have previously always paid on their own fine is in immediate danger cause they had to take weeks off work due to some family death and funeral and had no pto il not even lend but just give some money, often not the full amount but something that almost completely covers whatever it is and gives them enough hope to ask someone else or work overtime or do whatever needs to be done to get the last of it. This isnt so much to make sure I dont give it all away but just that over the years I learned people dont actually like it when you take their battles from them and are a lot more grateful and appreciative when you just give them a boost at the monent it seemed hopeless. I do this because I truly see a big storm coming, where net worth wise even the petite bourgeoisie like myself (and even the more middling actual bourgeoisie) we get fuarrrked out of our money to put it in bigger hands. Whether that looks like another financial crisis or just a transparent new elite takeover, I know im on borrowed time and that if I am everyone is. Theres little point to me in getting a taste of the capitalist good life with said money or in rushing to get a masters in something I hate to get a good job that I think il be able to become a millionaire with (since i have this boost) and retire young. Not only cause I dont think the world in 20 years is gonna look anything like this one but im just sort of survival brained and im only happy when im working. Its not always profitable work but its work I enjoy. This money provided a unique opportunity to truly do nothing but what "I want" like everyone always wishes for, my life didnt get any better and I had my fill. Thus friends and community remain as the only asset I care about. When things fall apart whats a house I cant defend by myself, whats a modern new car I cant repair, so many ways im impotent and so many things I cant do without the protection money affords. But with friends who ive seen through their worst moments, who (not to be like evil machiavellian) have told me they feel indebted to me, I could take a house from someone without true friends and defend it with my own. Not just monetarily I pour a lot of emotional and physical labor out for my friends and loved ones, and in kind of drunk or just deep discussions when they ask why I chose to befriend or help them over others or ask how they can ever repay me I first say "you already are" and then I say "if you want a real answer just make sure you help me out/stay by my side when my life or everyones life goes sideways. You can make friends like this when your poor too, but being able to save someones pets life when they were about to just accept its death cause the vet bill was too expensive or save someone from going homeless tommorow if your smart about when and couch it with a lot of "i cant afford to do this again by the way" type soykaf certainly helps speed things up. Knowing what I know now even if I was (and will be) poor again my get rich scheme would involve trying to find someone like me or maybe many people like me. Nepo babies and benefactors who just want to be loved and surrounded by people. Another thing I know everyone says "only wealthy people say wealth doesnt make you happy" but I dont see this as a gotcha because yeah obviously only the people who alrrady have it would know if it would makes you happy. But there is exactly two supreme advantage to getting money in my opinion literally only two. One is you can (if you choose) to live longer and ensure your loved ones live longer because you can always pay for treatments and ambulence rides and regular doctor visits and etc. What I said above boils down to taking advantage of this upside. The second upside and more important one cause it encapsulates the first is it gives you the ability to say "No". In the above case no to death, but also no to jobs in interviews, no to being pressured to suck dick for money or whatever else for money, no to instant ramen, no to a boss telling you to do something against your morals or values, no to a relationship you only stay in cause you rely on them financially, so many no's. Thats it imo thats the only thing or reason why one should want wealth or to be rich and its the singular upside that does truly make me happier. Also hrmm I wanna give some actual advice to you as someone trying to get money and be independent but obviously though I do work all the time I did not work for this money so I can't in most ways. I can elaborate on saving though. For example I live with roomates/friends always despite having the money I have, when I havent done that its cause I was living with a girlfriend. Thats not my tip but it is a tip coincidentally actually cause other eyes on you creates judgement and pressure to behave and spend more normally especially if your roomates are money savvy. My actual bit of advice is that some of these roomates ive had sucked with money and the only thing capable of changing or helping them was therapy or a financial advisor (not like the one I have but one that literally you just meet with once a week or month to discuss your saving and spending). Spending habits arent genetic but it can feel genetic cause very fundamental things about our upbringing affect the way we spend money and live, if someone didnt show you to save or give you a reason to you likely wont ever post 23 or some soykaf without some outside intervention so you need to seek that. Saving has to seem more worth it then getting what you want which is really rough cause after a long shift, or end of workweek, a costly night out or some doohickey you wanted or your cigarettes and beers and cocaine feel like the only thing keeping you sane enough to go back into work next week. And it just might not be only a feeling it might be whats literally keeping you sane too. so this is an impossible task by yourself. Something ironic considering the rhetoric that gets thrown around about poor people being lazy or stupid, its much easier to be a better spender once you actually have money and things you feel the need to protect. Its why rich people often dont seem any happier, the more you have the more you need to save to "truly" insulate yourself from bad times. A million dollars? That could get wiped out by a lawsuit or a series of freak medical emergencies. Hundos of millions: how much money to make sure my kids or grandkids are safe in the event this country goes ass up and need to flee with a nest egg immediately. Billions: how much money to be part of facilitating exactly which countries go ass up so that I dont even need to guess when they will and can even profit off it. Its not just never enough cause "greed and hooman nature..." its never enough cause money and value are intangible and even if you put it into something tangible like 12 private jets, if the money falls apart i only have as many private jets as i can protect or fly (one). So you can never diversify and profit and buddy up with other ultra rich enough to say "now im safe", its a never ending but somewhat reasonable pursuit.

>>100534 >stretch it out 10-20 years Surely if it's only a fraction of a fraction , the person who passed within your family had to have had a decent amount of money behind them , I can only be curious as to roughly is what you think you could stretch out 10-20 years? Investing into stock is that how you've been living off that money? because the real question here now is what are you going to do when you've stretched it out and none of it is left

>>100536 They had a decent amount but yeah a big factor is I dont often spend as much as it makes just sitting there. Hopefully after or while getting my masters I can find some work that mostly pays for rent and food and etc. My prior job almost did but was very high stress and physically demanding leaving me too exhausted for school. 10 years is how long it would last spending as I am still in a kind of costly area to rent and paying for school with just grants and no loans. 20 years would require me to live even more minimally with more roomates than I already have or I could move somewhere much cheaper. Thats something id do if the money ever got below half of where I started, I havent really worked out how long it might last if I started that contingency plan right now. The semi-worst case when it runs out is I have a lot of friends and connections now who could get me a slightly better paying than average full time job. Not in my field and id likely end up stuck in it for life, after having this experience that would obviously be a huge adjustment for me but I try to not spiral about that too hard and remember that was all I had to look forward to before I got this and I lived then so il live still. And back when that was the plan, just to work to survive with maybe some vague dream of entering a job in my field, I was very isolated and alone because I just was depressed and self destructive. So if that ends up happening I can be grateful at least this money provided space for me to grow in all the ways I missed as a child and helped me live outside of fight or flight for enough years to become more mentally resilient and learn how to be a good friend and build lasting relationships and all of that. Its not a luxury most get, you enter adulthood with the mentality and brain "gifted" to you by your upbringing and then are shoved into the grinder with increasingly less time for yourself while your brain only becomes more inflexible and paradoxically needs more and more time and space to change. With most moments of change after largely being brought on by traumatic incidents that are out of your control and can often do as much harm as good. So lets say worst worst case and I cant even get a job or only can at something minimum wage and have to uproot my life and move (not all of the money is in stocks so unless dollar crashes if this happened due to some financial disaster id have a little space to figure that out) I really cant complain. Many work all their life to afford maybe five years if that of secure financial stability or good times and yet still live a life and have ups and downs and meaningful connections and experiences. Ive already had that much time and so much more hopefully and I did nothing to deserve it. That used to make me feel a type of way and I didnt spend the money at all at first believing it wasnt mine to spend. However now I feel everyone deserves this, the rich often say ubi or giving money away to the poor is pointless because they just will spend it. But I actually only became good at saving money once I had this, prior all dreams and aspirations I had were abstract pipe dreams so why save for something that isnt real. I know thats not everyone but I think its many who live paycheck to paycheck. If this worst case were to happen I know at first id be miserable maybe even suicidal, id feel like im weak and worthless to be so distraught over just having to work a normal job, but I trust id persevere and just live the same endless 9 to 5 grind everyone else was already stuck in and I was fated to as well. Worst thing you can do with good luck or fortune is spend the rest of your life miserable when it runs out. I really wouldnt deserve such luck if in the event it ran out I just give up because I think im owed it now.

>>100515 Reduce your expenses and don't invest in something you don't understand.

I never understood what "managing you money" means. When I first moved out I was stressed out because I thought it would be difficult... but it's not? What are you managing? Pay your bills, buy food? I guess I would be considered frugal and most of the problems people face don't apply to me.