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Who here is a millionaire?

kyboots

Practically Family
not one, hope to be but i woulds still have a rusty pick up, a floppy eared dog and a small cottage not matter the dollar amount.
the two millionaires i know are not gaudy but more like mellow people that lack any sense of panic or emergency. i think they like the security. the other one i know you would hand him 5 bucks if you saw him. may be that how he got there.

You don't necessarily make money by spending it! John
 

So33

One of the Regulars
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179
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Seattle
The big chase was to get there. Now that I am. The chase is keeping safely in front of inflation.
 
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10,839
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vancouver, canada
The big chase was to get there. Now that I am. The chase is keeping safely in front of inflation.
I am old enough to have had a 16.5% mortgage..1982. To many folks these days that is akin to walking on the moon. Glad my mortgage days are behind me as I wonder what surprises the future holds for us.
 
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What happened to that rule about political discussions?


Bartender Edit:

Still very much in force - as you'll notice from several disappeared posts!
 
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Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
As to millionaires in this joint …

Seeing how the membership here skews older than the population overall (or so I’d guess), and seeing how older people are likelier to have more equity in real estate, as well as other investments, I wouldn’t be surprised if a goodly percentage of us are indeed millionaires.

Which is not to say these millionaires necessarily have ready access to that kinda scratch. Equity in a house that has appreciated in value by several hundred percent since it was purchased three or four or more decades ago isn’t the same as money in the bank.

I’ve never inherited a dime. I’ve been making my own way financially since a few weeks after graduating from high school. I don’t know that I would be better off in this regard had I fallen into an inheritance at a relatively early age. Knowing how I was as a young adult, it’s likely as not that I would have spent much of it on wine, women, and song. And the rest I would have wasted.

I can boast of a pretty good instinct for thrift, though. I’m well-practiced at living on the cheap. It’s not that I don’t have my material comforts, but I have long had more than I need. I’d like to have more, of course, but I’m satisfied with what I have.

“Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.”
— Jean Antoine Petit-Senn
 
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10,933
Location
My mother's basement
I was acquainted with a since-deceased fellow who was certainly a millionaire several times over. He owned the property on which I was once employed, and was a major property owner in a historic district in my coverage area back in my newspaper days.

You might well have taken him for a bum. He was perpetually scruffy and spoke fluent street. His attorney’s office was in one of those historic district buildings of his. That attorney once told me of a time when he was seeing another client when the gnarly old guy walked in, helped himself to some coffee and made himself comfortable out front while the lawyer wrapped up with that client, who said to the lawyer, “That old guy waltzed in here likes he owns the place.”
 
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Edward

Bartender
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25,078
Location
London, UK
I was acquainted with a since-deceased fellow who was certainly a millionaire several times over. He owned the property on which I was once employed, and was a major property owner in a historic district in my coverage area back in my newspaper days.

You might well have taken him for a bum. He was perpetually scruffy and spoke fluent street. His attorney’s office was in one of those historic district buildings of his. That attorney once told me of a time when he was seeing another client when the gnarly old guy walked in, helped himself to some coffee and made himself comfortable out front while the lawyer wrapped up with that client, who said to the lawyer, “That old guy waltzed in here likes he owns the place.”

Seems common, especially since the sixties, for those who really make it to take delight in dressing down because they can afford not to need to impress anyone else. At least half of the worst-dressed people I've ever seen at airports seem never to have had to turn right in their lives. Of course, there's a strain of the British / English aristocracy that has along long dressed like tramps, attitude to wardrobe being similar to the sneer reserved for "people who buy their own furniture".

As to ready access to cash, over this side of the pond there are millionaires - who are presumed to have actual access to that sort of money at will - and 'paper millionaires' whose assets total a million or over, but they don't have ready access to that kind of money. A million is certainly still life-changing; even here in London, it could buy you a very nice terraced house in a fairly nice area not too far out of the centre of town, mortgage free. That said, certainly not money you could afford to retire and live on for the rest of your days. Still need to be a multi-millionaire to do that.
 
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My mother's basement
^^^^^^
Yeah, a million (dollars, pounds, euros) ain’t what it used to be.

The scruffy old multimillionaire I alluded to above made his fortune in auto repair and astute real estate investments, starting right after returning from service in WWII. He still owned and operated a used car business and auto-body shop when I knew him.

I’m acquainted with a couple of Microsoft millionaires. (Nothing extraordinary about that in the Seattle of 20 years ago, when you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting half a dozen of ’em.) Got hired by one to start up a publication. Quite the contrast to the old body-and-fender man.

Seeing how I brought up Microsoft millionaires (and billionaires) …

An old workmate called night before last. He’s 73 now, still working part-time, collecting Social Security retirement benefits and enjoying the regular largesse of a much more affluent family member.

We discussed our various ailments and agreed that despite all of that we’re just plain lucky to be as healthy as we are, considering how unhealthily we had lived in our younger years. We’re fortunate just to be alive at this point, no matter our finances.

“Yeah, just ask Paul Allen,” he said.
 
Messages
10,839
Location
vancouver, canada
^^^^^^
Yeah, a million (dollars, pounds, euros) ain’t what it used to be.

The scruffy old multimillionaire I alluded to above made his fortune in auto repair and astute real estate investments, starting right after returning from service in WWII. He still owned and operated a used car business and auto-body shop when I knew him.

I’m acquainted with a couple of Microsoft millionaires. (Nothing extraordinary about that in the Seattle of 20 years ago, when you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting half a dozen of ’em.) Got hired by one to start up a publication. Quite the contrast to the old body-and-fender man.

Seeing how I brought up Microsoft millionaires (and billionaires) …

An old workmate called night before last. He’s 73 now, still working part-time, collecting Social Security retirement benefits and enjoying the regular largesse of a much more affluent family member.

We discussed our various ailments and agreed that despite all of that we’re just plain lucky to be as healthy as we are, considering how unhealthily we had lived in our younger years. We’re fortunate just to be alive at this point, no matter our finances.

“Yeah, just ask Paul Allen,” he said.
The old Mickey Mantle adage....."If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself"
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
I am old enough to have had a 16.5% mortgage..1982. To many folks these days that is akin to walking on the moon. Glad my mortgage days are behind me as I wonder what surprises the future holds for us.

Yowza! These days you can get 15-year mortgages for under 2 percent.

There’s a downside to it, though. It’s at least part of what’s fueling rapidly appreciating real estate values. Modest houses in this modest suburban working-class subdivision are fetching $500K. I doubt many of the recent buyers are putting 20 percent down. So they’re paying PMI as well.
 

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