To think money is mostly about luck, not effort?

This is paper wealth in most cases.

yes, on paper I gained from property values increasing, but I live in my house, I need that roof over my head and gain nothing in terms of available money whether it’s worth 100,000 or 400000

if I sell my nest property I buy is going to cost more too relatively, even if I downsize further..

the ONLY times value of property market increases actually means something other than a paper value is when you’re trying to buy you’re first house…and get on ladder ( clue in name) …or when you sell your last house when you have to go into nursing home ( and that cash is spent at £1600-2000 a WEEK on care home costs) or your relatives sell it when you pass away and inherit. That part is luck…whether you end up with dementia

I do wish people would engage their brains on this…property values are relative for most people who have one property that is thiehome. They can’t “ realise” that asset, it’s unavailable, paper wealth.

and we weren’t so lucky during 1980s when many people lost their homes, ended up with negative equity due to falling house prices when interest rates were at 17% …

this is trite thinking, inter generational blame game. The real issue is the massive increase in wage inequality that has happened since 1990s, plus sale of council house stock….in 1970 nearly 29% of population lived in council homes , many with secure homes for life that were “ their “ homes at low rents. In 2022 just 17% live in social housing, much privately owned by housing associations etc that take a profit from higher rents these tenants now have to pay. This is not luck. This was a deliberate plan by thatcherites to make property the bedrock of investment portfolios ..turn property into a money making venture for wealthy investors.

and if you have a pension you’re paying into, you are also “ benefitting” from that right now…look at where you’re pension is invested..some of secure investment will be in property.

blame the right people here. I’m older generation with a house I own outright. Its absolute value means nothing until I get put in nursing home or I die. I can’t access that money in meantime - it’s the roof over my head.

I think age is important here & you will get very different answers from people over 40 vs those under. My work pension scheme is still quite good but it used to be excellent however it closed to newer entrants whilst I was still at uni....
House prices were just about still affordable in my part of London on a normal wage when I was at secondary school, I did/do work hard at school & work but the biggest determining factor of my future wealth is the fact I had big help to buy in London. I lived at home below market rent to save & then was gifted a large 6 fig sum. I would have been priced out if I had to rent & save no matter how hard I worked.

Are surgeons lucky?

Could you have picked a job that had less correlation with socioeconomics 😆

Strict budgetting. Starting point to everything. All my life since I started work 40 plus years ago. And trying to save as much as possible whenever possible

use pension pot savings when working. Sure when kids were younger that wasn’t possible. once they’d left home, I shoved as much of spare wages into it. Gave me ( by then as had reached higher rate tax band) governement paid 40% extra into my pot. That pot was taken as cash at retirement as within my 25% tax free lump sum. You will never ever get a better rate of return on saving then this tax free uplift. If and when you can afford to, do it . All the time the government gives this tax relief.

then, once that was yielded, and other savings I made especially after kids left home, ….

overpaid on mortgage as much as we could for its last few years when we were paying at incredibly low interest rates ( at one time we were paying less than 0.75% interest rate for years). Bear in mind we also paid 17% interest rate early in our marriage, and also at one point sold with negative equity. It’s about making hay while sun shines and using flexible mortgages.

then

Isa allowances maxed out - that’s more recent to max out since I yielded my lump sum , but I’ve always put money into isas even when I could have got more in non isas…I wanted to future proof if interest rates rose.

chasing high interest rate - I move savings frequently, look at them monthly currently as moving fast

plus
stocks and share investment within platform - balanced portfolio of funds with spread risk, low management costs ( eg tend to be trackers), reinvesting dividends within platform isas

Yep, it was a bit scary self investing at first, but keeping with trackers, long term view and established performance funds means I don’t actually move funds much at all. I’m sure I could make more if I spent more time “ trading” but I don’t have that confidence with short term high risk investing. This is all slow and steady stuff

So, none of this is rocket science. All of which MSE and other sites like Which guides will point to. Yes I’m a saver more than spender. I’m absolutely a long term thinker and planner and yes I’m detailed and numerate - I have my annual budget on an excel spread sheet and do a monthly “ finance” update. . Most of all I’m curious and figure stuff out by learning.

lve been like that since I married 36 years ago. My exh , despite his faults, was also like this, so we learnt together. Gaining wealth is long term if you don’t have silver spoon or inheritance to boost you there. Right now my investments, like everyone’s have taken a knock due to Trumps shinanighans…but I can sit it out and not get freaked out…I have cash in savings secured and interest rates are high still compared with years and years of earning 1% or less as standard. It swings and roundabouts.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t just end up in that position by luck, they’ve been successful because of their actions, attitude to risk, intelligence and much much more.

That's the point. It'a lot easier to think about risks & take them if you have a safety net....

Semantics?

It's a mix of luck, smarts and determination. Some people get handed a lot of their opportunities (eg family wealth and connections) or just dumb luck in picking the right business as it takes off. Brains gets you a lot of the way but you also have to be focused on wanting to make money. Some quite smart people can manage to make the right connections to help make themselves wealthy.

YANBU
right place right time 🤷🏽‍♀️

well it is really biology King Charles, for example, was born because his parents had sex and his mum got pregnant, I wasnt there at the time but I presume it was sex not luck that this all happened?

even winning the lottery only happens as your numbers on your ticket match what is drawn so I would say that is chance not luck?

Luck is definitely involved, but I wouldn't say mostly luck. Usually smarts, hard work and risk. But being born into a position where you have opportunities, is also of course luck. You also hear of so many people who win the lottery then lose it all, so that goes to show there's a little bit more to it.

If you are born in to a wealthier family, get a good standard of education and are surrounded by successful people your odds of being successful are massively inflated compared to someone who grows up in poverty or even working class.

I went to a crap school where I was bullied throughout. We were poor as was everyone else. No one went to uni, (like maybe 3/4 out of roughly 100 kid) the expectation was you leave school and get a job. I didn’t go abroad until my teens. Didn’t visit a muesum or see a theatre show until adulthood. My world was pretty small and there was no internet to see a bigger picture. I did various minimum wage jobs after school. I got a degree in my thirties I now work in a customer service role earning 28k. I did buy property when it was cheap (due to being pregnant at 21 another norm where I grew up) I live in the same town but a nicer area, I married a man who had a lower middle class upbringing. He went to uni and works in a professional role. We now live in a big house and have what would be considered a middle class life where we live but probably more working class to wealthier people. A lot of the people I went to school with went to prison or live in poverty. .
I have two good friends from school, 1 grew up in similar circumstances to me but was exceptionally clever so went to uni and became a teacher. The other was poorer than me but also quite clever, got a job out of school in a hospital and worked her way up to manage a department.

It’s also priorities - my best friend and I work equally hard but I work in a job I don’t mind specifically because I knew the earning potential was very high, whereas she works in a job that she’s passionate about but the earning potential is low. We’re both lucky in our own ways and both work hard but she’ll never earn what I do and that’s a choice.

Luck plays a part, no question. It’s what you choose to do with that luck that determines the long term results.

I frittered away the opportunity of a great education at a great school, but had brains enough to get in there. I had a very lucky break in being offered a job through a connection that set me on the road to a well paid career. However, many of my peers along the way did not have the ambition that I had. I fought and worked my way up, and worked hard. Not nearly as hard as those doing manual jobs though. Mine was long hours, constant travel, living in hotels across the country from my family for long periods. I gave it my all, at the expense of family time. At the same time, I made sure to invest as much as I could into our pension pots and pay off our mortgage.

Now semi retired, no debt and luckily still have my lovely DH. I’ve been very lucky in that regard - he kept the home fires burning.

Actually no, I earn good money but it’s not luck. I went to school, then uni, searched for a graduate position and worked hard

To me luck is walking down the street and finding a pot of gold, I presume if people come into lots of money is winning the lottery (selecting the winning numbers), inheritance, working up the 'corporate ladder'/having your own business or company, inventing something or someone making a decision which leads to it like buying shares in a particular way maybe

none of this is luck

It’s not just down to luck.

@Marshbird would love to know what you did with your savings to make them grow more

i was lucky to be born (besides with good health and some academic skills) to parents who had low paying jobs and told me regularly that i needed to finish school and choose a trade/skill/job where i could support myself without relying on a man. in a time when college was paid for by the government with only transport and book costs (minimal tuition). I was lucky to pass and find work in my profession AND when i couldn't figure out how to make ends meet I was lucky they remained supportive as i launched living on my own, i was lucky that friends and family talked about money. then i was lucky in choosing a stable spouse who assisted with child care and supported my fluctuating employment history as I juggled parenting/home management and going back to school. I was lucky that my work colleagues regularly talked pension savings and investments. i was lucky in many ways but all of it was hard work.

It’s different for everyone. Some people work really hard and got to where they have by working hard at school, uni and job, others have had inheritances or got lucky with investments.
You can’t dismiss hard work. Some people have come from poor families, worked hard, faced racism and done well.

I think it’s too easy to generalise , we are comfortable , mortgage free etc , I’m retired from a pt role , husband works ft . Neither of us have received any type of inheritance , nor are we likely to but we are both savers and my husband has worked hard over the years to put us in a good position .

In my case it's been a mixture of a lot of hard work, going without and then help and inheritance.

When I meet DH we had both left relationships which has left us with nothing but debt, we both had kids. Although we spent money on them, we went without ourselves, paid off debt and saved every penny we could to buy a house together. When we had saved a deposit my parents actually offered to buy the house for us and we pay them back. We gave them our deposit money and then worked to pay them back as quickly as possible, with some interest. I was then made redundant and had an excellent redundancy so was able to pay a lot more back.

We are now "mortgage" free and have kept working to save. Sadly one of my parents died as well and did leave us around £100k. So now we have more than expected but with all our children we will still work hard to grow this so we can try and help them one day.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I think too it devalues those that have taken risk, worked hard, yes had some elements of luck, but have ruthlessly applied themselves to something.

It’s too easy just to say people are lucky when they’ve strived for success and foregone lots of things along the way. Successful entrepreneurs don’t just end up in that position by luck, they’ve been successful because of their actions, attitude to risk, intelligence and much much more.

Tbh it’s luck nothing happened that set you off your path. When I just bought my flat, I saved every penny. Had everything on track: then my mum was diagnosed terminally ill and I had extra travel
expense to be there as much as I could plus all the expense that comes with funerals etc. then got made redundant. Hard woRomans dedication is one thing. Being set on your path and not having to stray from it IS lucky. Don’t take it for granted.

I think it's a bit of both hard work and luck.

Luck to be given the right opportunities, at the right time.

Hard work and confidence to make the most of those opportunities.

But maybe the air of confidence is what opens the opportunities, in the first place.

Also think financial education is so important. Debt is so toxic- not productive debt like a mortgage - whether you are low or high income debt can blow a hole in most people’s lives in the wrong circumstances. Having a small income but no debts you can’t pay is arguably more secure than big income and big debt that all goes to shit if you lose your job or something changes suddenly. And I say that as someone with a good income who nearly blew it all up in my 20s by living above my income, and seeing my mums house repossessed.