Learning from your mistakes: What's something you've done that others should NOT do?

[Joekerr]

Originally Posted by King Rudi

Exploit BP for YouTube likes while shirtless. I suggest a ban.

If you are of the sort that you have enough hair on your chest that it looks almost like a sweater vest, does it still count as shirtless?

And I'm asking for Turkish Pickle, not me!

Though my wife does seem to genuinely enjoy attacking me with the shaver for my back...fortunately she hasn't touched the small forest canopy on my chest...not sure how I would feel about that. Might be fine, might be weird.

[Littlebear]

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

....
Anyway, does anyone really have true success stories like that chart? All I ever hear was "if I had", or "I wish I listened"

I'm not quite like the chart, but I did OK with 401k.
Right after HS I got a plan from Reader's Digest. Right after college I worked for a small Media Buying co. (Media Basics/Media Management) that had a good President who was good to his young employees.
I probably took about 1/2 out over the years during the various recessions, but my 401ks are nice now.
Starting early is one key. Not draining funds is the other.

[TheWatchGuy]

Originally Posted by CTinline-six

-Welded in short sleeves

i weld in short sleeves all the time.

but what ive learned is dont weld in short sleeves with your rolex on...

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

Anyway, does anyone really have true success stories like that chart? All I ever hear was "if I had", or "I wish I listened"

No, no one does. Because 8% growth every year for 40 years straight is simply not feasible. Not unless you're Bernie Madoff and we all know how that went. At some point you have a bum year. Maybe you could AVERAGE 8% for 40 straight years but even that I think is a stretch.

I entered the workforce in 1996 with my first job as an engineer. I had no clue about 401Ks or the importance of starting early. Out of pure luck I got sat next to an older engineer who pounded the notion in to my head from day 1. Every year since then for the past 25 years, Ive put no less than 10% of my paycheck into my 401K. These days I max out on my contribution and get a nice little "bonus" in the 2nd part of the year when my monthly take-home goes up because I cant contribute any more to my 401k.

Compounding interest in your later years is a wonderful thing. At 46 I'm just now starting to see the impacts with my portfolio earning more in a year in interest than I earn from my paycheck.

As for the wild success stories, i went to highschool with a girl who took a job right out of college (1996) at a crappy little online bookseller named "Amazon." The shafted her on salary and instead gave her a ton of stock options. She retired years ago in her late 30s to write children's books and never work again.

[King Rudi]

Originally Posted by Joekerr

If you are of the sort that you have enough hair on your chest that it looks almost like a sweater vest, does it still count as shirtless?

And I'm asking for Turkish Pickle, not me!

Though my wife does seem to genuinely enjoy attacking me with the shaver for my back...fortunately she hasn't touched the small forest canopy on my chest...not sure how I would feel about that. Might be fine, might be weird.

I have a friend or a gorilla, not sure of which that suffers from the aforementioned. It does not count as shirtless....as far as he is concerned. We constantly make jokes about how uncomfortable it must be to wear a sweater under your shirt year round.

Funny enough, his wife is a beautician. A few years ago she started having him come to her shop after hours, strip naked and she goes at him with clippers. Now we give him a hard time about "going to the groomers", whether or not she keeps him on a leash or makes him stand on a pee pad during his trimming, disposal options and cost association with removal of waste and whether or not they are charged by the tonnage. Then there are of course the jokes about if he donates his hair, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'll be honest and may be giving too much info here, but I shave my chest. Not completely, that just seems weird to me. I leave about 1/2" so it isn't overrun and I don't feel like human sandpaper.

[Tommy-G]

Originally Posted by King Rudi;

We constantly make jokes about how uncomfortable it must be to wear a sweater under your shirt year round.

Funny enough, his wife is a beautician. A few years ago she started having him come to her shop after hours, strip naked and she goes at him with clippers.

I'll be honest and may be giving too much info here, but I shave my chest. Not completely, that just seems weird to me. I leave about 1/2" so it isn't overrun and I don't feel like human sandpaper.

::OOOOh Kelly Clarkson::

I buzz also, I actually hate hair. when I was in better shape I would go for a chest wax before heading out to Vegas or any type of getaway.

[ramman434]

Originally Posted by King Rudi

I'll be honest and may be giving too much info here, but I shave my chest. Not completely, that just seems weird to me. I leave about 1/2" so it isn't overrun and I don't feel like human sandpaper.

I do the same thing. My chest isn't atrociously hairy by any means, but I used to shave it bare all through college up until a few years ago. Now I just take clippers to it for a 1/2".

I honestly don't like having much hair there, and I like the fact that I look skinnier without it. My wife hates it and prefers the hair.

I lucked out that I only have a little chest hair, no back hair, a full head of hair, and can shave my face & have a 6 o'clock shadow within a couple of hours

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

As for the wild success stories, i went to highschool with a girl who took a job right out of college (1996) at a crappy little online bookseller named "Amazon." The shafted her on salary and instead gave her a ton of stock options. She retired years ago in her late 30s to write children's books and never work again.

I have a similar story. A good friend of mine started working for Amazon about 15 years ago. She was there for a little less than 10 years before she was laid off. She got a severance package and the stock options that she had accumulated ended up being worth three quarters of a million dollars. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person too.

[Littlebear]

I see no reason to feminize/infantilize my body look.
I'm proud of my manliness (pic of brother).

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by Littlebear

I see no reason to feminize/infantilize my body look.
I'm proud of my manliness (pic of brother).

I used to have a hairy chest. Lost most of the hair on my chest and legs in my older years. Don't care. I yam what I yam.

[dscabra]

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

That sucks. Back during the 08-11 recession I had to pull my money to survive. I'm trying to rebuild but thats money Ill never see again.

Anyway, does anyone really have true success stories like that chart? All I ever hear was "if I had", or "I wish I listened"

I haven't seen that steady 8% growth, but have been very good at contributing to my 401k since joining the workforce at age 32 after an early retirement from the Army. At the time I started my new career, I wasn't able to put too much away. I did just enough to get the full company matching amount. I was mentored by a senior engineer that helped me understand the effects of continuous savings over time. Each year, I bumped up my contributions by half of any pay raise I got. That way I still saw a little increase in my pocket and increased my saving as well. I eventually got to a point where I was able to put in the maximum allowed by the IRS and then hit the magic age of 50 and was able to do the full "catch up" contributions as well. Even with that late start, the strategy has my portfolio just shy of the magic $1M balance (today). My wife did the same thing and retired two years ago. She started drawing from her pension immediately, and has been pulling a small amount from her IRA (we converted her 401k to an IRA when she retired). Her IRA is worth more after a year of withdrawals than it was when she started to pull from it. Our combined portfolio is nearly $2M now, all achieved since 1998. I still have three and a half years before I can retire at age 60, but will be able to do so pretty comfortably. Neither of us will touch Social Security until much later in our retirements. Based on our long-term retirement plan, our financial advisor is telling us we need to spend more or die with several million dollars that we didn't enjoy.

[Littlebear]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I used to have a hairy chest. Lost most of the hair on my chest and legs in my older years. Don't care. I yam what I yam.

Your charm is in your fore-arms, Popeye!

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by Littlebear

Your charm is in your fore-arms, Popeye!

[UncleWede]

When you clip that chest/arm/back hair, as opposed to clean shave or waxing, the first few days of wearing clothes is a pain. Sharp hairs sticking thru cloth, pulling the hairs with every movement.

And now, the grey detracts from my tan

[CamasM3e93]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

I have a similar story. A good friend of mine started working for Amazon about 15 years ago. She was there for a little less than 10 years before she was laid off. She got a severance package and the stock options that she had accumulated ended up being worth three quarters of a million dollars. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person too.

Here's my Amazon woulda coulda story. In 1998 I was a college student at UW in Seattle, with some funds to invest. I wanted to invest local in one of the dot-coms. I narrowed it down to Amazon and Drugstore.com.

Figuring that people like to wander the bookstore and flip through the pages, while of course people prefer the anonymity of an online pharmacy - so of course I put 2k into drugstore.com.

A few years ago I figured out that 2k investment would have been worth about $375k if I had chosen Amazon. My Drugstore.com stock became a tax write off.

So here's my advice - hindsight is 20/20. do your best, do the right thing by others, and don't look back.

[tranquility]

Originally Posted by Littlebear

I see no reason to feminize/infantilize my body look.
I'm proud of my manliness (pic of brother).

Why you have (and publicly posted) a shirtless pic of your bro, weird lmao. Feminize/infantilize pfft, you realize not everyone's a hairy beast, right?

Body hair=greater chance for nasty body odor, that's why manscaping is a thing now aka "Being Asian" , who wants to be and look like a smelly sasquatch? Haha. Smooth like a dolphin like my female friends say, or like I say,

[Chauncey.Bishop]

Nobody cares. Work harder.

[F32Fleet]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

Let your ageing mom live in a big house on her own.

Agree. We convinced her to sell.

[NickyC]

Gambling.

Dabbled in it for a few years while in law school, poker boom etc. Biggest waste of time humanly possible. Even if you're a winner, the massive amount of time wasted on the activity could be much better suited doing something constructive. I swore the shit off years ago, I don't even play lottery tickets now. All these years later, I'm still burned up about the time I wasted those few years in casinos, playing online Pokerstars/Tilt, etc. It's just such a damned waste of time, and the sheer thought of it makes me sick.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by NickyC

Gambling.

Dabbled in it for a few years while in law school, poker boom etc. Biggest waste of time humanly possible. Even if you're a winner, the massive amount of time wasted on the activity could be much better suited doing something constructive. I swore the shit off years ago, I don't even play lottery tickets now. All these years later, I'm still burned up about the time I wasted those few years in casinos, playing online Pokerstars/Tilt, etc. It's just such a damned waste of time, and the sheer thought of it makes me sick.

Why simply drink, when you can drink AND lose money :

[Littlebear]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Why you have (and publicly posted) a shirtless pic of your bro, weird lmao. Feminize/infantilize pfft, you realize not everyone's a hairy beast, right?

Body hair=greater chance for nasty body odor, that's why manscaping is a thing now aka "Being Asian" , who wants to be and look like a smelly sasquatch? Haha. Smooth like a dolphin like my female friends say, or like I say,

Traditional view: Gramps: "Eat your spinach, it'll put hair on your chest". He even said this to my sister.
There are reasons I don't post my pic. In this pic being shirtless (and we are speaking of body hair) isn't weird. My bro has no prob with the pic (he's single. Hey ladies!)!

I hope we have room in this world for something between "smelly Sasquatch" (does someone not shower often?) & smooth dolphin (not a fish, but...)?
Personally, I give very little thought to other male bodies....

To paraphrase, "you yam what you yam"!


(All in fun, folks!)

[Tommy-G]

Originally Posted by CamasM3e93

Here's my Amazon woulda coulda story. In 1998 I was a college student at UW in Seattle, with some funds to invest. I wanted to invest local in one of the dot-coms. I narrowed it down to Amazon and Drugstore.com.

Figuring that people like to wander the bookstore and flip through the pages, while of course people prefer the anonymity of an online pharmacy - so of course I put 2k into drugstore.com.

A few years ago I figured out that 2k investment would have been worth about $375k if I had chosen Amazon. My Drugstore.com stock became a tax write off.

So here's my advice - hindsight is 20/20. do your best, do the right thing by others, and don't look back.

Duuuuude