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The Rational Walk's avatar

I think that it is almost necessary to make direct mistakes with money to learn these type of lessons because to almost anyone, it appears that spending money on things will increase happiness. That's what advertising is based on.

One of my major mistakes as a young person was that I chased an idealized lifestyle of living on acreage. I bought a house with several acres and, even worse, I bought a brand new F350 Diesel Lariat for around $40,000. It fit my image as a landowner, although nothing I had to do on the land couldn't have been done with a $5,000 ten year old used pickup. My work situation left no time to do anything on the land. And then two years later, I moved across the country for my job. Luckily, I sold the property at a profit. But I took a huge hit on the F350 - around $12,000. I was investing in Berkshire at the time and I am pretty sure that $12K would be well over $100K today. None of that spending purchased any happiness but I wouldn't have believed it until I made the mistake myself.

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Arthur Clarke's avatar

I cherish Charlie’s comment (regarding the S&L crisis): Sometimes cognition occurs slowly. The best we can do is: keep thinking, rather than waste time commiserating, which solves no problem.

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