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?

Inherited wealth is luck, yes.

But people who are successful in their jobs do work hard. It's not just luck.

Yes, a surgeon is lucky to have been born with brains and the health to be able to work long hours in a stressful environment. BUT critically, s/he then must put in the hard work and long hours in a stressful environment!

My DH comes from a very poor, single parent background. His DM left school at 14. His luck is having the brains and health to study and work hard. But his professional success (C-suite level of a multi billion company) is due to his hard work. Putting in the hours. Moving jobs multiple times. Moving the family overseas. Always looking for the next opportunity.

Many of his peers had more family wealth behind them but didn't put in the work on their careers so stagnated.

What are the three people's starting points? What family responsibilities do thay have?

If you have children and live in unsuitable accommodation that is damp and riddled with mould, would you take the time to invest the money and grow it (and probably lose access to some benefits, in which case what do you eat?), or do you sort out your accommodation issues?

If you gave it to me I'd stick it in savings as I'm being made redundant this year. Once I found a new job I'd look at investing it, though I must admit having some work done on the house would be tempting...

It's absolutely a combination of factors. Luck and making the best of opportunities.

The right support at home, support and encouragement to pursue higher education.

Getting a good job after graduation. A boss who's willing to help someone learn. And that's very individual two people within the same company can have different experiences.

Hard work long hours plays a part too.
But if you end up with caring responsibilities either for children or disabled parents the long hours isn't easy to do.

Even getting an apprenticeship can often be 'who you know' rather than 'what you know'

I work with people who live champagne lifestyles on beer money

I live frugally - old car, charity shop clothes, three jobs - but at least I can sleep at night without worrying about how to pay for the next luxury item

Friends of ours came to London to start work with nothing. Now worth millions, either from playing the stock market and/or buying properties to let. One made £1 million in his first year, and probably has £3 - 4 million now on the stock market. None were from wealthy backgrounds.

They missed out the trust fund....

I mean if they really had nothing at all, how do you play the stock market? live? rent a room? buy property?

With no address, it'll be hard to get a job...

@Needspaceforlego Great user name BTW!

I agree with practically all of your post

Education is not always the route to success ..family members left School with nothing (and no support from parents) but now have lucrative businesses.

My son got a Degree Apprenticeship but, at the time, most of his fellow students wanted a Uni experience so there wasn’t a lot of competition

It is also down to saving money skills. Ds is 20 and has saved up 10k towards a property as he is still living at home. He also runs a car goes on holiday goes out pays housekeeping. Most of his peers are barely working and those that do work see m to waste their money. He thinks in another 2 years max he will invest in a property rental.

It is a mixture of luck and hard work usually. I regard my principal wealth as just about never being ill and being happy. I couldn't put a price on that and that wealth has nothing to do with money.

However I also earn a fair bit and that will be in part from getting th ebest A level results in my school, putting myself in for 3 x 3 hour of unigversity scholarship exam papers no one had heard of that I found out about and winning one, coming top of year 1 at university with a prize, then top in subjects in year 3.

In particular I chose to do law when I was 14 (took the decision then) because I knew it paid more than the librarian other career the school was suggesting - I have nothing against librarians but even at 14 I knew one choice as better paid than the other.

I then concentrated on jobs in London not elsewhere even though I am from the NE because I knew law jobs are higher paid in London. So we can see the pattern here - active choice to work very hard and go for a career and place where pay is higher; yet also luck that I was not struck down with an illness nor born with an IQ of 80. I also chose not to have children at the stage that would have interfered with my studies (I even graduated from university a teetotal virgin - not something most students manage or even want these days).

Mixture of luck and the other factors in my case I would say. Eg my career had no interruptions as I chose to work until I went into labour and used annual leave for the 5 babies and then came back full time at about 2 weeks (not months, weeks) and expressed milk at work. So luck that I had no health problems but having first baby at 22 (we married when I was 21) probably made that easier than first baby at 39 and active choice to have no career break - long career breaks can interfere with careers even if that is not supposed to happen.

Set up on my own in the 90s which meant we could buy this nice house where I live but it could equally have gone the other way - new firm could have failed and we would have not had my income (husband a teacher).

No trust fund. They rented, same as everyone else! They had a job, that’s where they got the money from to play the stock market!

It depends what you do. If you’re a cleaner, for example, you could work really hard and be the best cleaner ever, but you probably won’t get rich.

But if you work in financial services, or selling anything, you are more likely to get rich, as these jobs award sales by giving bonuses.

You have luck as well. Lucky to be healthy enough to work so hard and not be overwhelmed by caring responsibilities etc.

Some cleaners work up to owning a large cleaning company but I agree it is less likely than if a different job is done. There is a very rich man who started with one caravan and now owns caravan parks. However one reason parents like teenagers to pick well respected careers is purely because you increase your odds of higher pay and security - you kind of load the luck dice. Even in the 1890s my grandfather's brother picked qualifiying as a solicitor because he thought it would make him more money (it did) and his sister trained as a nurse in the 1890s and moved to London for a 30 year career where in letters between the siblings I still have from the 1920s the others (she was one of 10) were very impressed by the pension she had in retirement compared to them.

Agreed.
Yes a cleaner could well become a supervisor depending on the company size But their opportunities are likely to be limited because Managers are likely to be recuited at that level.
Yes they could go to night school or whatever to up their qualifications. But it's not always easy to fit night school round a job or find the funding for it.

Our office cleaner works two jobs neither of which has great opportunities for promotion or becoming 'successful'

yes luck is a big factor

lucky if your intelligent, good looking, born into a good family, born in a good country, educated well, had a lack of trauma or abuse, have good health and your loved ones around you have good health

There's also a degree of luck in mindset.

I have ADHD which wasn't diagnosed until into my sixties. I can now look back and realise that the impulsivity that it causes me has led me to make stupid and reckless financial decisions over the years. If I'd had more of a sober and NT mindset I would be considerably financially better off.

I doubt I would be any happier, but I'd have money in the bank.

@Xenia in 1890 your Great Uncle must have had family backing to stay on at school, and go to uni.

Compulsory schooling only started in 1870 or 1873 in Scotland. From the age of 5 to the age of 10.

For the vast majority leaving school at 10, or later 13, when the leaving age rose, their opportunities would have been limited to the local industries around them.

When I started work in the 90s, as a low paid trainee, I remember speaking to someone who recalled someone decades earlier telling them about their parents PAYING a business to take them on and train them.

Even worse than the unpaid internships of today which are only really open to people with parental backing.

How did they invest in the stock market if they had nothing?

Also luck he's allowed to stay living there.

Everything plays a part, including luck, but it’s a spectrum.

As others noted, we have privilege of not growing up in a third world country. So we are already ahead of others from birth.

Then your living conditions growing up come into play and what opportunities these gave you. Schooling, extracurriculars, networking etc.

Another factor is down to individual motivation. You can have all the opportunities available to you but if you don’t take advantage of them, you won’t get anywhere.

You also have to consider the person themselves- if they were born with a disability, or any other concerns which may cause an obstacle in their lives. That adds an extra layer of ‘difficulty’ that others don’t have to experience.

You have an unconscious bias if you are not a stereotypical white male, or even if you are you might feel set aside for D&I targets (I’m not commenting on this to say it’s wrong, just acknowledging it could happen and cause a disadvantage even if it might be positive).

Then you might also have just been in right place, right time. Who knows.

Some people might have ‘luckier’ circumstances than others, but I wouldn’t devalue someone’s personal efforts down to ‘just luck’ as that is just as bad as saying someone is in a poor situation because they aren’t lucky, when actually, they might have just not explored opportunities available to them and be content to claim they were ‘hard done by’ when they simply didn’t want to try (for whatever reason that may be).

I don't think anyone one is saying it's just luck.
But luck opens doors for people. Once people are through that door what they do with that opportunity is down to them.

Some of it is background, some of it is being in the right place at the right time.

But if you've come from a poor background, poor either financially poor or just not interested, abusive poor, the odds of success are stacked against you.

You need a bit of luck to get to the right doors and luck to open them.

But you were in a position to teach him to drive, that alone opens doors to work/college/friendships.

Does he pay a market rent for a HMO? say £600 min per month inc all bills?

You've instilled in him responsibility, maturity... & provided him with an excellent role model.

Many kids don't have this, they are bought up feral & have none of the above.

Not making excuses for his friends but we are all different and the wider economy needs people to spend money and not keep it in an ISA.

Ds still lives at home

He paid for all his driving lessons plus his car all on his own.

I did not have the means to assist.

There’s always an element of luck. For example good health is required for most things.

However, when it comes to laying the groundwork for financial security, it’s the same as laying the groundwork for long term good health - you can increase the odds of both.

Most of the financially secure people I know have prioritised hard work and application from school days onward. They weren’t the ones going to parties every weekend at school or uni or going out every night. They were putting the hours in doing the work - and still doing that. They were the ones who thought yeah I’d rather do X - it sounds far more interesting than Y - but I’ve looked at salaries and Y will afford me the lifestyle I want; X won’t.

This is strange to me. So at 55 you never go on holiday with your DH? Just so you can look at a £400k balance on a screen? Why? DH's Mum died at 61. Life is too short!

I'm 55 as well. I don't have £400k in investments, but I guess if you added up my "worth" including the house it would be in that region. But DH and I take 2 foreign holidays every year, one is always long haul. I wouldn't swap those times we've had together for a piece of paper with a number on it.

I hope you book a holiday soon, you deserve some fun.