To think money is mostly about luck, not effort?

[TheGreyShark]

I’ve been thinking about how much luck plays a role in financial success. Some people work incredibly hard and never get ahead, while others are born into wealth, stumble into the right opportunities, or just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

I personally feel like the money I have is due to luck, not effort. If I’d been born in different circumstances or made different connections, my financial situation would be totally different.

AIBu to think money is mostly down to luck rather than hard work? Or is effort actually the key factor?

There's always an element of luck where money is concerned. My brother earns ridiculously well and he works long hard hours for which he is rewarded well. His luck is having the 'brain' that allows him to do this. I have also worked very hard in terms of hours and physical labour but in low paid jobs, I'm just not very clever.
I earn better money now but I'll never progress as I lack confidence and leadership skills.

@Ilovegoldiesunless you have learning difficulties or ND, then perhaps you just feel you are not clever due to lacking confidence. Choice of career is important too. Work on your confidence and leadership skills and reevaluate your career choice.

Of course there’s often an element of luck - some people are fortunate to have a rich relative who dies and leaves them a couple of hundred thousand or more. But there are plenty of people - myself included - who will never see any form of inheritance.

I’m not fabulously wealthy at 55, but I own two properties with no mortgage with my DH, one is our home and the other is a flat that my 92 year old dad lives in rent free. We’ve
got the best part of 400k in investments, still currently both work full time (both 25 plus years in local government so decent pensions) although plan to retire in the next few years.

None of the above had been easy or down to luck. We’ve spent years saving every penny and paying extra off the mortgage to get to this point. It’s been very hard work - seeing others going on three foreign holidays a year and spending money like water but we had our goals and stuck to them. Life is now very comfortable and we can both retire knowing that we are not going to struggle financially. I’m glad we’ve done it but there’s been many years gone by when I’ve found it very hard to be disciplined enough to reach our goals so yes…. It’s taken a shitload of effort and absolutely no luck.

to build on this really…
pit is really easy to make money when you have money. In fact you have to be particualrly stupid NOT to make more money when you have momey. Just sticking it in a bank and doing nothing earns you 4-5% interest…and thst hapoens if you were asleep or unconscious. 4-5% interest for a poorer perosnal with £1000 is £40 pounds per year let’s say, hardly make a dint in monthly shopping bill for family. But if you have £100000 that’s £4000 minus tax , say £3200 and that is a biggish dent in shopping bill…
And that’s without even doing cleverer things like investments, tax wrappers etc

i get sickened with the superior attitude of the very wealthy claiming they’ve worked so hard for their wealth…it’s bollocks…once you get wealthy even stupid and lazy people can start to multiply their wealth exponentially …or they can afford to pay an expert financial and tax consultant to do something cleverer.

So I don’t think a lot is luck..litcis down to silver spoons giving some wealthy class individuals a head start into thst money creates money cycle, or it’s about the inequality gap, where those in senior positions far outstrip proportionally what average workers are paid, and that gap has grown obscenely over last 40 years with capitalism dominating the worlds economic models. The old trickle down theory was a con.

I’ve been poor and in debt, wealthy , then poorer agian (after divorce) and now am privileged to be retired with good pension and reasonable savings. I know it’s a bloody site easier to become more wealthy when you already have surplus income. It was way more hard to manage debt or recover form debt and build up security.

yes I worked very hard when I was working, it paid bills and paid my mortgage off and allowed me to save…but it was what I did with savings that has really added to my wealth significantly..and none of that was hard work or particularly clever or down to luck. Just needed a bit of reading, some Martin Lewis, and paying it frequent attention.

I have worked hard in a low paid job - 56 years old - no chance of inheritance- small mortgage - no chance of retirement will have to work until I drop - my friend same age - owns house outright in good area - plenty of savings - difference is she was left huge inheritance from her nan - she is now retired and going on lots of holidays!

Bad luck means even the hardworking struggle to get ahead. Good luck means the feckless can get ahead, but rarely manage to stay there.

DS has mates that weren’t focused or diligent at school or in further education, and still aren’t getting anywhere now. Spend what they have as soon as they have it. They were given better presents, had better holidays… they arrived at secondary school ahead of him and with more friends. He had challenges to overcome, changed schools and was behind starting secondary. Dyslexia of some kind.

So he wouldn’t agree with you that it’s luck.

It’s much more complicated than that. Privilege can work for or against you. Disadvantage can hamper you or hone your determination.

Its often skill,hard work and luck
BiIL is good at what he does and very hard working.
he set up as a 1 man band, worked 18 hour days and maybe earnt 50k in 1st couple of years.
the 2007 crash happened, his main client headed a small regional unit of a big national company. The company then massively outsourced work and bils client then headed a massive combined office.
bils workload increased 6 fold in 2 years so he employed more people, got more work and 18 years later works 2 days a week and takes £500,000 a year out of the business.
without the work ethic and skill he would not have been in a position to take advantage of the luck that came his way.

Your last paragraph is not about you being lucky though. That's about you using the money you DID have wisely. Teaching yourself about personal finance and investment. There are plenty of people who come into money and fritter it or just leave it languishing in a savings account with a pathetic below-inflation interest rate. To actually maximise that money so that it works FOR you does take nouse, and effort, and care. If you're rich enough to have an accountant and a financial advisor to take care of things for you then that's another thing. But when you're an ordinary person, you're doing yourself a disservice if you think you've done nothing personally to add to your wealth.

Yes DH and I have been very lucky. DH works hard, but he happened to enter a lucrative industry at just the right time and is fortunate to naturally have the right skillset, so he has a great salary and company shares which have ballooned. Myself I've been unlucky in lots of ways and have been very poor, but I got lucky later in life through investments rather than a career. No hard work but a lot of research and mental resilience, which not everyone has. And I have achieved it across a range of assets, not just got lucky with one pick.
However neither of us were given money through inheritence or gifts from family.

Leaving aside inheritance, earned wealth from a high paying job is usually a mix of luck and hard work. I’ve been lucky in the opportunities I’ve had, lucky to be born here and now and not in Afghanistan, lucky that my health problems don’t stop me working, but I have made the most of every opportunity, and worked incredibly hard. Someone else could have had the same early opportunities but without the graft, nothing would have come of them.

It’s only luck if they are handed it IME. We have an intern at the moment at work, who comes from a very rich (parents are in government - foreign country -very wealthy) family.
They are 20, and have clearly spent their entire childhood throughout school not listening or learning anything they don’t think is relevant to them, such as the religion of the school into which they were placed, or the history of the country in which they now live, since they don’t think they will need to.

Such arbitrary dismissal of topics that a 6 - 19-year-old thinks they won’t need to know, and from an early age, without apparently being told they need to learn everything they can, is a dangerous premise.

Trying to train them to do tasks is a nightmare - they not only have the attention span of a goldfish, so everything has to be explained numerous times, but are also apparently incapable of retaining any information.

What a contrast with a previous intern, child of a global company owner/director, who had achieved extremely high results in all their exams, but was also an accomplished musician and artist. They “got” everything on the first instruction and proved to be a valuable employee - something their father was keen to promote, since they would inherit the family business one day.

The difference between these two is like night and day, and yes, luck did play some role in the second intern described - the luck to have parents that set the bar high…

But it’s not only wealthy parents that set the bar high: a lot of poorer parents also encourage and support their DC, and quite a few DC work hard without that encouragement, too, because they have ambition.

Those who have been encouraged or have ambition normally make their own luck!

It's both. Some people are born into wealthy families or have better natural abilities that make it easier to earn well, obviously, but our choices can make an enormous difference, as well.

I think that saying it's mostly down to luck and that there's nothing we can do to help ourselves improve our situation and earn better can sometimes be an excuse or a demotivating attitude. For most people, vast wealth is probably not a realistic goal, but the majority of us could do better if we were sufficiently motivated.

I also have a uni friend.
got into investment banking on graduation in 1991.
so that was skill
kept his job - skill and hard work.
his initial and only placement was telecoms
He didnt have a 20’s or even 30’s but retired at 39 and set up a small business which is more for fun than money.

I sort of agree and disagree at the same time. I appreciate that I’m lucky to be in a good financial situation where some don’t have that. However I have worked really hard to be where I am with no higher ed, sometimes little confidence but a lot of perseverance and strong work ethic. I do find it mildly insulting if someone tells me I’ve been lucky to get a promotion, or lucky to get on the property ladder as it almost erases all the blood sweat and tears that went in to that.

Total hogwash.

I have been a financial advisor. Known people on £25k to own flats mortgage-free and have robust savings. Known people on £225k without a pot to piss in.

Assuming basic intellectual capacity, past that it’s prudence, self-discipline and the ability to delay gratification.

I did say it is not about luck…specifically…If you read… luck only really comes into wealth generation with inheritance or winning premium bonds, lottery etc . Or luck comes into it if you get caught up in mass redundancy or sickness where not your fault. That happened to my ex for poorer bits.

its mostly about opportunity I think. But I still hold it is not a reflection on how hard you work, or even how clever you are, or how carefully you mind your money. If you’re poor there is no opportunity to build wealth..literally a poverty trap

i have had periods with no opportunity to build wealth- it’s depressing and scary at times. But I was same person as I am now

i have had periods when I have had opportunities mainly as I started to build savings, I could then build wealth easier and easier

sure, I’m not saying I did nothing…but seriously most of my wealth build was not rocket science and certainly took a few hours per month. Whereas I was working a 50-60 hour week to get us out of the poverty trap

I think also mindset comes into it. Are you a spender or saver? I saw a thread here recently asking those who had received a £50 bonus from the Nationwide what they were spending the money on. I moved mine straight into my savings - it didn't occur to me to withdraw it and spend it. Equally, as a child, when I was given cash gifts for my birthday or Christmas, I saved it, other people go out and spend it.

@TheGreyShark , obviously from the responses to your AIBU poll the majority of Mumsnet responders agree with you. I do not. There are people who are born into wealth or who come by it as a result of luck of course but I find it frustrating that so many tell themselves that these are the sole reasons for people’s success. This is clearly and demonstrably untrue.
Firstly a lot of people work hard but most will not work like a person who is or goes on to be successful, they are tireless generally and sacrifice a huge amount of time and consequently things important and dear to them to achieve their goals. Most people would never consider the sacrifices a successful person makes and that is a solid life choice but should be acknowledged.
Successful people take risks often very large risks, you have to be a bit of a gambler to really succeed in life and sadly many will fail which is why the majority of people are risk averse with good reason.
Successful people batter their bodies and their minds, their work ethic always takes its toll, many aren’t prepared to make that sacrifice and who can blame them?
I’ve seen this ‘question’ so many times here and I have pondered why it is so frequently asked and I can only conclude that people seem to need to justify to themselves why they have not been successful. Absolutely the answer to that sometimes is that Lady Luck may not have shined on them although I would say that successful people don’t go down without one hell of a fight.
It may please you to tell yourself that you are powerless in how successful you become but you are deceiving yourself. Unless you are intellectually subnormal you can make the choice to roll the dice and make the sacrifices which can lead to success but the question is have you got it in you. Have you?

Same here. No university degree, no rich parents or good connections, bog standard comprehensive schooling in a deprived area but I’ve built a professional reputation for myself, developed my skill doing free online courses and research, and taken risks with promotions and asking for projects above my skill set to develop.

I will say though that once you get to a point where you have spare cash, it’s easier to get more. When I was on the bones of my arse, finding an extra £10 felt like a major struggle. Now I have savings and can buy bigger value items I have money just being given to me in interest or as cashback on purchases or I can buy in bulk making bigger savings on overall living costs.

Good point on last statement…I think that would apply to me..

however I’ve said in my posts it’s not luck, or being clever, or working harder..but you need the opportunity some spare cash gives you…and not everyone on £25k can even begin to start to accumulate “robust savings”…even with disciple, prudence etc. whereas someone on £225k doesn’t need a lot of discipline or delayed gratification to build savings that will generate more wealth without much effort…

but if you are type with £225k income and not a,pot to piss…you’ve either only just got there with a lot of debt to pay off, or plainly rather stupid in taking risks or frittering it away…it takes a fair degree of stupidity to not get wealthier without trying very hard on £225k a year!

No luck in that you've remained healthy and able to work. No luck that you haven't been made redundant etc? Other people could work just as hard as though and still have I'll health or redundancy

if you wanna make proper money you need to follow in the footsteps of robert Axelrod, you need connections, you need information, you need capital etc sure you can play the stock market on average based on other financial advisors etc but to make true wealth then you need to pull all the strings possible

It's nearly all luck, IMHO. Born to parents who care, with interest in education, in reasonable part of the world and with good health is all luck. Knowing how to handle money, having the charm/ability to navigate office politics - luck. Being born at the right time to be able to afford property, then leveraging it to buy more - luck.

Drives me bonkers when people smugly say 'I've worked hard for my Range Rover', or whatever, when they've worked no harder than a bin man from a broken home in a horrible town with bad health.

I think there is a lot to be said for being financially literate. And having the time to manage money smartly. And either doing the research yourself or knowing someone who’ll give you good advice. But if you’re in a low-earning job, it can be really difficult to make financial decisions that make anything more than a marginal difference. So many factors - timing, children, a partner who shares your goals, etc.

Luck is a massive part in it. Even down to what country you were born in. Firstly it’s luck if you were born in a first world country with the privilege of education.

if you’re born in a 3rd world country / war zone without housing, educational opportunities, access food, the likelihood is that you’ll never be financially “rich”

A lot of people don’t even seem to realise the fact that the majority of us on this app and even able to have this discussion are in the uk/eurpoe/us through luck and opportunity