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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2620 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 18, 2025

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Fuck You

You get up 2.5m dollars any asshole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system 3-5% to pay your taxes, and that's your base, get me? That puts you for the rest of your life at the level of "Fuck you". Someone wants you to do something? "Fuck You." Boss pisses you off? "Fuuuuck You." I have a car, and a house, and a family, and it's all paid for "Fuuuuuuuck You."

I remember seeing this clip go viral years and years ago. It's inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, and supposedly the movie it's from isn't even that good.

I am tantalizing close to reaching this goal. Got the house, got the paid off cars, got the family, and the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income. One year it lapped it. I still contribute to my investments, though my contributions are dwarfed by appreciation to such a degree it makes me question the utility of it. I originally wrote a post about what lessons I'd thought I'd learned to get here, but it felt like I was jacking myself off to much. Lets leave it at a combination of luck, thrift, relatively high income, and commitment to a plan.

Best of luck to you all, and here's hoping I didn't speak too soon.

Congrats! I got interested in the financial independence/retire early (FIRE) movement after I left college (because I really didn't enjoy my job). I'm much less strict about it these days since I'm married and have a new career I love - for instance, we just purchased an unnecessarily large dream house - but I'm still looking to retire in the next ten years or so.

the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income

tantalizing close

My man you have already arrived. A while ago in fact! Relevant post from my favorite FIRE blogger.

If it weren't for health insurance and my daughter with a chronic condition, I'd consider myself done. It's not a super bad chronic condition, mind you. Honestly it's barely an inconvenience we've gotten so used to it. But... it still exist and could theoretically rear it's ugly head in a major way.

Massive congrats. Probably ~5 years behind you which basically means it's so close I can almost taste it at this point.

Not to be the Debbie downer, but how much have you hedged against exogenous black-swan type risks?

Being able to say fuck you to any given job or walk away from any situation where they treat you unfairly is truly powerful.

But its always the thing you didn't expect coming in from the angle you weren't guarding that gets you.

Divorce, or credible accusation of criminal conduct, or randomly getting on the bad side of some psychotic, violent asshole are hard to ward off just with "fuck you" money.

I'm in an intermediate stage, I'm aggressively paying down (unsecured) debts, and I've got some money saved up to throw towards a big play the second I see one.

Good luck.

Don't forget that the government is currently setting the precedent for forcing you to make social media accounts public, meaning we're all fucked here.

Better to get divorced, charged, or threatened when you've got a million in the bank, a paid off house, and an umbrella liability policy than when you don't have any of the above. For some things, there's preparation. For others there's not much more you can do than have a good attitude and a steady hand.

Trying to mitigate every possible risk just ends with becoming Brian Johnson and probably dying at 82 anyway.

No argument from me, really.

I am just paranoid enough to think that making yourself 'untouchable' on an economic and social level could have the unintended effect of making you a target for malicious actors who want your wealth.

I did used to believe in 'security through obscurity' (i.e. just blend in and make yourself 'beneath notice') but that can be compromised at any time given how freely information flows, you can't rely on or maintain that indefinitely.

So situating yourself in a location where it is hard for attackers to even reach you is... probably wise.

And yeah, if you take risk mitigation to an extreme, then you might decide to not even have a wife and kids since they can be a tool to blackmail you or a weakness in your security scheme.

Obviously that is not an ideal way to live.

I don't really think that's true though. It's not a substantial risk factor. Acting rich is far more likely to make you a target than merely prudently investing a modest amount of wealth. The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target. Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.

Define "Substantial."

The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target.

Ahem.

Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.

No, I'm agreeing. I'm pointing out how going FULL Hermit mode is really the only way to mitigate certain risks created by having people you care about enough that you'd pay lots of money to avoid them getting hurt.

Realize that in several countries, kidnapping for ransom is a big business.

You should not live in such countries if your goal is to keep your 'fuck you' money. This is not an excuse not to have a family, just a vector by which you might get fucked in spite of having the fuck you money.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash. Yet very few people are content to become hermits who work from home and get everything delivered. At some point, you simply have to accept the tradeoffs of a life worth living.

From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 20:

Professor Quirrell was silent for a moment, then smiled. "Tell me, Mr. Potter, can you guess what thought went through my mind when I finished assembling the thirty-seven items on the list of things I would never do as a Dark Lord? Put yourself in my shoes - imagine yourself in my place - and guess."

Harry imagined himself looking over a list of thirty-seven things not to do once he became a Dark Lord.

"You decided that if you had to follow the whole list all the time, there wouldn't be much point in becoming a Dark Lord in the first place," Harry said.

"Precisely," said Professor Quirrell.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash.

Well, if you drive around in a a modern large Pickup truck, you're probably going to survive almost any accident short of getting pancaked by a freight train. I argue that you also shouldn't dismiss the risk of a debilitating injury that you have to live with, as well.

Me, I mitigated that risk by making sure that every part of my daily commute falls within a 5 mile radius of my house, and almost entirely in the same direction, and almost entirely off of main artery roads.

Minimizing road time is pretty much the best practice, as I see it. You can't control what other people on the road do. Also my dad had me take a defensive driving course almost as soon as I got my license, which has saved my bacon a few times.

I think many people underestimate the magnitude of certain risks they absorb, and overestimate how much it costs to mitigate most of said risk. Not counting people for whom the risk is the point. I've seen like six different videos in the past month of people blowing their hands to smithereens by holding lighted fireworks, for instance.

Speaking of that, Famed risk-seeker Felix Baumgartner just died at age 56 while doing something characteristically risky. Ken Block, despite his skills handling vehicles, died in a snowmobile accident at 55.

Felix apparently had a wife but no children. Ken had a wife and three daughters. Now sure which one seems 'worse' to me. Block at least has a genetic legacy.

Although sometimes its the mundane that gets you. Robbie Knievel died of Cancer, his dad died of Diabetes and some lung disease.

I can certainly say that I'm glad I don't have whatever genetic quirk gives makes for that level of adrenaline junkie.

Not to be the Debbie downer, but how much have you hedged against expgenous black-swan type risks?

Yeah, this is going to be relatively humble "Fuck You" money. The longer before I have to tell someone "Fuck You", the larger the pile grows. Maybe it could handle being cut in half ala divorce at a certain point. For the psychotic violent asshole problem I moved to a conservative area with strong self defense policies and 2a right.

But end of the day, you can't stop all bad things from happening. Whatever happens the "Fuck You" money will hopefully cushion the blow if it can't stop it.

Yeah I was specifically thinking of WHERE you would reside to mitigate a lot of the random elements of life.

And having enough money to pick up and move if you need to is, IMHO, the final "fuck you" step.

How long did it take?

Any major financial setbacks along the way? (Medical bills, non-insured damage to the house etc.)

Well, the 401k has been trucking along about 20 years, with 9% of my income (5% contribution, 4% match). The brokerage account I've had about 10 years, and bitcoin has been an 8 year accumulation. Most of my "active" investing has taken place in the last 8 years.

There were a smattering of minor setbacks that came out of the emergency fund. New well pump, birth of my child, etc. Nothing in the six figure range, or even much above $10,000 at a shot. Buying a house with 20% down in 2021 was probably the largest "set back" if all you care about is maximizing contributions to an investment account. But despite the opportunity cost of being out around $100,000 for the down payment, it's been worth it. I don't really include the appreciation on the house in my "Fuck You" goal, but I do include the fixed cost of keeping a roof over my head compared to the rental market, as well as avoiding all the instability of having to deal with a market for shelter at all. You see debates on the rent vs buy math all the time, but I can promise you the buy in 2021 versus rent today math absolutely works out in favor of "buy in 2021"

Congrats! What did you invest in? I'm similarly trying to save, and watching it grow. Sometimes I wonder if it's just inflation in action; as the number goes up in today money.

Short version, the ratio went something like 8:4:1 for 401k split 50/50 between growth and value funds, my regular brokerage account with my own stock picks, and then just bitcoin. Despite how heavily the ratio skews towards the 401k, all three accounts as of this post are within spitting distance of each other. My private brokerage account has almost doubled the growth of my 401k, and my bitcoin had almost quadrupled the growth of my brokerage account.

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