His answer was probably unsatisfactory because the rich don't have to worry about overspending. Managing your budget won't make you rich. Most of us will work jobs, making profit for the rich, and it won't matter how much you save, they'll never share their wealth. What it takes to be rich is exploiting the rest of us. Sure, we've heard of Warren Buffett's modest home and liberal politics. But having a 5 bedroom house in the middle of America and saving pennies didn't make him rich. To get and stay that rich, he had to invest. It was pretty much his singular focus for his entire life. Other business tycoons, like Bezos, Gates, or the robber barons from a century ago do it the old fashion way, 10% hard work and 90% luck of time and place, and then using those profits to underpay employees to fill their pockets. Very few get rich by growing and owning their own business. Most rich folk get investment money from their rich family. The rest start and sell businesses. Elon Musk and scores or others take their first lightning strike success into managed risk to ensure there is a second success. That only gets you so much. Most businesses fail, but smart people who take smart risks like Buffett, Musk, Zuckeberge, etc get a bulk of their capitol to invest. Smart investors find undervalued targets and buy into them. This means, good intentioned or not, they underpay for a big value. Of course it would be dumb to pay fairly because that's "just how the market works", but this philosophy (unlike money) does trickle down and mean workers are underpaid and their communities are underinvested. It also means it's stupid to treat people fairly. And many take it further, using business to treat people as unfairly as possible as long as it makes them more profit.

The existence of rich people at the levels we see today are socially destructive. Large scale investment to make it past a small millionaire with a lucky business means a wide range of investments. That means oil companies, mining operations, banking interests. It means not caring about deforestation or destablization. All sorts of industries that have taken resources and destroyed environments from future generations to maximize their profits yesterday. Many rich folk are actual criminals, they just got away with it. They abuse the legal systems and tax loopholes as much as possible, regardless if it's legal or not. Then they use their wealth to shut down and silence anyone who might be able to bring evidence and charges. Who can afford to take them to court? Trump is a grade F example of the middle tier rich trash that will happily screw anyone over as long as they believe they can get away with it. He also got his money from daddy, and uses tax loopholes to get money back from his multitude failures, taking it from his investors and screwing over people who were trying to work with him. He relies on exploiting gambling addictions for a solid, reliable level of wealth. Most of the time, went they do get caught, they can get past it with settlements, paying only a small percentage of their wealth. Your dad has definitely screwed people over to get rich. Probably just a former friend or two. If he's been lucky enough to be a saint in business, he's still holding onto 5 houses he doesn't need (sounds like not even sharing with his own family), making housing scarcer and more expensive for the rest of us who do. It's hard to say if your dad is really rich, he might be just another fool who's been tricked by the dream that ownership automatically brings power and security, who's over extended himself and is one bad step from bankruptcy. The thing about the truly rich is that bankruptcy doesn't stop them, it's a tactic to unload debt and start new investments from trusts and other tricks that keeps their money safe from their own failures. Wealth imbalance is a social cancer, and is the direct cause of the collapse of empires from the Romans and the Mayans to the Soviets and Chinese Empire.

Our friend who posted above me has it right. You don't need to be rich. We just need quality of life. The exploitation by the rich, and the regressive economic systems they put into law to collectively collect their wealth makes it harder than it needs to be. But if you are lucky enough to find a niche to start your own business that won't get steamrolled by a megacorporation, or have the skills to get paid well enough for the area you live in, you don't need to be rich. We just need stability, some level of safety, shelter, food, and enough freedom to have peace of mind.

I should be rich if you looked at me on paper. I would be rich if I lived in most countries. But instead I live in the SF Bay Area. I can't even afford a house. Not even close enough to dream of it. If I was forced to move, I'd barely scrape by with rent unless I moved 50 miles or more from my place of work. But I'm also lucky. I found a place with low rent. Unless there is another and more devastating housing crash, one that magically doesn't impact the company I work for, I won't be able to afford a single house. But I'm able to save enough, and I'm on track to be able to retire at a decent age. I don't have to worry about bills or where food will come from or what will happen if there's an emergency. Bad luck could change any of those, but I've crawled out of credit card debt (debt is another issue the rich tell us is a cancer, yet it fuels their wealth and is a great modern tool when used fairly, but they want us to be trapped by it) and am able to make a home in one of the most expensive areas on the planet.

Want to feel rich? Find the small things that make you happy, and nurture them. And fight the big fights against the rich and powerful who try and make us believe that cruelty is the best way to build a society. They'd rather have us fight each other than see who the real problem makers are.

Noddharath wrote:

Regarding your stupid question so to not overspend, once you start earning money yourself with your own work, you will probably understand in a sec. Damn, i wished to not have spent so much with genshin this month....

Your offensive comments are unwelcome. I meant no harm to anyone by asking my question. If one of us is stupid, YOU are, since you made multiple errors in both grammar and spelling.

Unfortunately, I do not know any acquaintance, friends or relatives who are as rich as your father. Nor am I as rich as him. But here are some of my ideas:

1) compare your expenditure to your gross income with proportion/percentage.

For example, if you earn $1,000,000 per year, a luxurious sports car that costs $150,000 is only 15% of your gross income. In this case that $150,000 would be as valuable as $3,600 for those who earn $24,000 per year.

2) Expenditure or investment?

Capitalism is all about capital income, not labour income. Investing 80% of your monthly income is not the same as spending 80% of your monthly income on buying luxurious products.

I hope it was helpful to you.