I’ve been quoted .51 on 25mm AUM but it turns out that fees (proprietary funds) will add another .18. So - close to .7. This seems absurdly high. I’m going to talk to some other wealth managers and want to know what the ballpark should be. They were not forthcoming on the layered fees and I’m probably moving on. (I didn’t think I had to specifically ask - even then I had to really push to get clarity). Thanks for any advice.

Because hard work without talent is nothing and I wish I want to be famous

I’m 19 and I’ve been reading this sub for a while. The part I find most interesting isn’t really what people spend their money on, it’s how they actually got there.

For the people here who built what they have themselves, what did your journey look like?
What were you doing before things started working, and what do you think made the biggest difference?

If you could go back to 19 knowing what you know now, what would you focus on?

I want to open up a genuine, deep discussion about something I’ve been observing and thinking about a lot lately.

We all know the dream: building massive wealth, achieving financial freedom, and enjoying the finest things in life. But lately, I’ve been noticing a recurring pattern—both in my own observations and in conversations with energetic therapists and coaches.

It seems like many multi-millionaires who have the biggest houses and the most expensive cars are also facing severe challenges behind the scenes. I’m talking about sudden incurable illnesses, broken relationships, or tragic losses within their families. It’s as if there is always a "hidden tax" to pay, making you wonder if the money was truly worth it in the end.

Because of this, many people advise taking the "slow, steady, and clean" path to wealth, warning against letting greed take over.

So, I want to ask the people in this group who have achieved extreme wealth or high net worth:

• What is your take on this? Is the "curse of wealth" real, or is it just a myth?
• If you chased money hard, do you feel it cost you your health, peace, or family happiness?
• Do you have any regrets, or did you manage to maintain a long, healthy, and happy life alongside your fortune?

I am genuinely curious about your real-world experiences. Looking forward to your insights!

​

Ok, so I was arguing with my friends about something. It was a debate. My dad felt in the trap of having enough money to live comfortably for his life, for his rest of his life, but he fell in the trap of wanting more.

Ok? And this sparked a conversation with my friends. Because of this event, I've strengthened my worldview of enough. Let me define enough. If you reach a certain point in your life when you have enough money to live comfortably and cover your expenses and your family's expenses, let's say you have kids or something like that. If you can cover their expenses and your expenses and live comfortably with money to spare, you should take that or strive for more?

Now let me give an example for you. You have a business, a big business, ok? Or you have an occupation that gives you a lot of money monthly. But that occupation or business is very time consuming, very stressful and it takes a lot of your time basically. Seen a lot of people who earn a lot but still work as hard as they nothing. You can always liquidate your business or go out of that firm or that occupation, invest money from the business or your savings from that occupation in something low risk, low reward and live comfortably with that money. If that money cover your expenses, your family expenses and also remain remains something to spend, you should take that all day everyday. Let's say you have a business that produces two million dollars a year, but it's very high stress and time consuming. You can always sell that business, put money in something that gives you passive income and that's it. You buy your time, have a lot of time, have peace of mind and live comfortably. If you do your math correctly, you live comfortably. And you have the most valuable thing ever. Time. You can never take time back.

Maybe you will not drive a Mercedes, you will drive a Toyota or maybe you will go in vacations and don't stay on a in a five star hotel, you will stay in a four star hotel. You will not have a big fancy house, you will have a normal, cost optimized house. But you will have no stress of deadlines, meetings with buyers or other ceo s, quarterly reports and other stuff. You catch my drift?

Ok. Now my friends told me that no, that is laziness, that is settling for less. If this year you made 1 million, the next you should want to make 2 millions.If you have a Volvo which is perfectly usable and has low maintenance cost, even though you can still use it, why not strive for a mercedes? I think you should remain with that Volvo until it's not working anymore. You know, I see objects as a tool to ease your life, not as a status symbol, you know? But my friends told me, no, you should not sell that business and settle for less. You should strive for greatness because that business can give you a lifestyle which is more glamorous, a status symbol and all that.

Basically, they say that the fact that you can afford a big house, a unique car of something like that, gives you a wonderfull felling and all that stress and work is worth it, while my view is lazy. I asked them if you make 150 k a year, but you have time to do what you want, go where you want and live in peace at the expense of having an ok car, an ok house and have holidays in an 4 star hotel instead of an ultra 5 star hotel or make 2 million a year, have all the stuff you want in the world, but be in constant stress and with no time for what makes you alive, what would they take? They said that the felling of buying that expensive thing is greater than anything.

Now, what do you think? Which is more correct? My view of life or my friend's view of life? You know, would you rather buy your time or work hard to get more material stuff?

I’m 34 years old, living in Canada, married, and have an 8-month-old baby.

Becoming a father has made me think much more seriously about our financial future. I don’t just want to be comfortable—I want to build meaningful, long-term wealth and eventually create opportunities and financial security for my family that I didn’t necessarily have myself.

I’d really like to hear from people here who have actually built significant wealth. I need advice.

This is a simple question, Is your money tied up in Real Estate? I ask because it seems a lot of the replies here seem to have people talking about money in investment properties of one type or another, at a far higher rate that other sub reddits dealing with money, finances, and investing. Also I too have a substantial portion of my estate tied up in investment properties, and I feel less alone here talking about it than in some others groups..

I belong to a men's group. The goal in the group is to grow men of character and responsibility. We just started, and one of the challenges we discovered is that many of the men that we interact with are struggling financially. We want to create a kind of mini course, or series of webinars that help these men develop a sense of how to start thinking about money and how to grow their finances.

So none of us has a career or extensive knowledge in finance, and none of us has made so much money that we can call ourselves experts in making money. However, we are willing to learn, by studying, and experimenting as we move forward.

I want to come up with an outline that will guide us. I tried to use AI to generate one after lots of reading and stuff. But I still need someone with experience to help with an idea of how we should structure the learning process.

Here is part of what we came up with using AI:

Here is the practical, step-by-step table of contents designed as a journey from absolute beginner to advanced wealth builder, using simple language and strictly focusing on the mechanics of money:

* Chapter 1: What Is Money: Definition, history, purpose, and understanding that its language is value

* Chapter 2: The Rules of the Game: How fiat currency, central banking, and inflation actually work

* Chapter 3: The Different Ways People Make Money

* Trading time for wages through traditional employment

* Trading specialized skills through freelancing and consulting

* Selling physical products via retail, e-commerce, or manufacturing

* Selling digital products like software, courses, or templates

* Providing scalable services through an agency or practice

* Renting out owned assets like real estate, vehicles, or equipment

* Investing capital for passive returns in stocks, bonds, or funds

* Building, scaling, and selling businesses for equity value

* Monetizing attention through content, advertising, or sponsorships

* Executing arbitrage by buying assets low and selling high

* Chapter 4: Maximizing Your Primary Income: Developing high-value skills and negotiating your salary

* Chapter 5: Cash Flow Management: Tracking daily inflows and outflows to optimize your profit margins

* Chapter 6: The Reality of Debt: Eliminating bad consumer debt and using good debt to leverage purchases

* Chapter 7: Starting a Business: Finding a market need, validating the idea, and launching your first offer

* Chapter 8: Scaling and Operating: Building systems, hiring, and growing your business revenue

* Chapter 9: The Mathematics of Compounding: How time, interest rates, and reinvestment multiply your capital

* Chapter 10: Stock Market Investing: The mechanics of buying equities, index funds, and dividend assets

* Chapter 11: Real Estate Investing: House hacking, rental properties, and the basics of leverage

* Chapter 12: Tax Efficiency: Using LLCs, S-Corps, and legal write-offs to minimize your tax burden

* Chapter 13: Asset Protection: Using trusts, holding companies, and insurance to shield your wealth

* Chapter 14: Advanced Wealth and Exit Strategies: Selling your business equity and structuring wealth transfers

So what are your thoughts? what is missing? how can we improve this?

For those with a net worth over 1 million, do you still take out a loan if you’re buying a car for yourself? If so, why?

I’m 22M and my father called me recently and explained his plan to leave me $600k over the next few years to allow compound growth to do its thing for my non-existent kids.

My father is a high earner with his own businesses in food service. He has already given me and my sibling 200k and 100k each, respectively, not including payment for college tuition, random gifts, vacations, etc.

I recently graduated with an accounting degree and have passed the CPA exams with minimal difficulty, which makes me the highest educated in my family, I guess. Since I’ve started educating myself on investing 3 years ago, my father gifted me the aforementioned 200k over 1.5 years. My net worth is now about 380k thanks to his generosity, and I am making a decent amount for my age. I suppose because of my education, he believes it would be best that I take control of a lot of the finances in my family. I’m already in control of my sibling’s brokerage account.

My father is not good with stock investing, but he is savvy with money otherwise, with most of his portfolio in real estate. He has had great gains since he acquired many of his houses during the 2008 crash, and he has a lucrative food service business. Because he claims that he is not good with stocks, he wants me to invest for him. He gave me a high level description of his plan to have me make 3 brokerage accounts in my name and deposit 200k into each of them over the next 5 years. What I do with the money is entirely up to me, but he wishes for me to grow it for his grandchildren. I should note that neither me or my sibling have expressed a desire to have children, in fact, we have expressed the opposite.

Based on our family dynamic, he will give me this money to control unless I expressly tell him that I will not do it. Additionally, gift/estate tax does not seem to be an issue as far as I understand. My father does not believe he will have $30 million (he is married) when he passes. I should also mention he is in good health.

I don’t necessarily feel like this is too much responsibility for me, but I would like to hear some other perspectives. Please let me know any concerns, questions, or advice you may have!

I’m 18 years old from the UK and just started University as a finance student. I’ve taken education pretty seriously and I am looking to get internships and stuff during university but my main goal in life is to make a ton of money

I understand that this goal can only actually be achieved by becoming an entrepreneur and having ownership.

I’m just not sure where to start and what to do. Many people say that it’s kind of early to actually do something and work on this stuff once I’ve got some experience in a job and have a better idea. Whereas some say start now

What would you recommend me to start learning and developing now at 18 in order to build a successful future later on?

Thanks you

With AI changing the job market, living costs rising, and traditional career paths becoming less predictable, I’m curious what people think actually works today.
If someone were starting from zero in 2026, what would be the smartest path to building real wealth?
Would you focus on:
Starting a business?
Learning a high-income skill and building a career?
Investing in stocks and other assets over time?
Building something around AI or technology?
Real estate?
Or something most people overlook?
I’m not asking for a get-rich-quick scheme. I’m interested in realistic strategies that can work over the next 10–20 years.
If you had to start over today with little money, what would you do, and why?

Was recently put in charge of my grandfather's endowment who thankfully left a sizeable amount of shares in two local companies.

The total amount the shares are worth is around 300m USD , the amount fluctuates depending on the stock price.

The issue is the expenditure of the endowment is currently dependent on the dividend distribution of the companies which amounts to around 1 - 1.5% yearly, barely covering the costs of the donations the endowment currently covers.

I dont have much experience in managing portfolios of this size and was wondering if there was a standard breakdown of how these endowment style portfolios were handled.

I need help navigating this. Im a broke stagehand who went to school for video engineering and after 4 years im not where I want to be. Im thinking of starting my own small bussiness doing small corporate events and eventually mange different small bussiness or properties to accumulate wealth. I love my job putting up concerts and watching performances of all kinds but its not enough and ive had enough as last year i made 34k. I also have been raising money to start up a livestream bussiness and that has been slow. Extra thing is i inherited 15k from family but am nervous to do anything with it as its a giant safety net right now.

For those who have completely made it and are comfortable in life… How did you know when to stop reinvesting into your company completely cash out? Right now I’ve got about 4 million liquid in my personal accounts. However, I have a business worth well over $15 million. I could continue to grow this business, but it would consume a great amount of my liquidity upfront. I’m only 45 years old right now. I just get lost in my own head trying to figure out whether I really want to double down and go all in or cash out now and walk away with a very comfortable early retirement.

We recently sold our Toronto home after eight years. After paying off the mortgage and all selling costs—including realtor commissions and legal fees—we walked away with approximately $150K in cash, which is less than we expected when we bought.

We purchased during a hot market, believing we were getting a good price, but the house and neighbourhood required significant compromises in terms of location, space, and lifestyle. We decided to sell because we plan to relocate to the U.S. within the next year or two and didn’t want to risk further declines in our equity while waiting.

We’re now renting a home in a nicer area with more space, and our family is much happier. However, I can’t shake the feeling that renting is a financial step backwards.

Our rent is roughly equal to our former mortgage payment, although homeownership also involved property taxes, maintenance, insurance, and other costs. A significant portion of our mortgage payments went toward interest rather than equity. We now have $150K available to save or invest, but I’m still wondering whether we would have built more wealth by owning.

My main question is: Was homeownership financially advantageous in our situation, or could we have built similar wealth through other investments while enjoying a better quality of life?

Also any advance how we should manage our proceeds. Would like to put at least half into some investments. What would your advice be?

TIA

In the last few weeks, I spent a lot of my free time searching for a business idea, i can really stand behind. I had a few, which after a bit of research turned irelevant or just not suitable for me, I tried a lot of SAAS but also SEO + GEO. I haven't even started with anything, I just found somethig and an hour later I found an argument which led to me dropping the idea.
I can't find anything with a good amount of balance between: doability, demand, competition and scalability. I was mainly talking with Claude and telling him what I don't like and why and then proceeded to research with him but that didn't really lead to anything.
I am pretty sure that claude isn't the best way of finding an idea right now, but I am student in highschool without a lot of experience, connections or knowledge in a specific field, which could help me in finding a viable idea. I also just want to start and have something to work on, but like I said i can't find anything where I can say I see myself doing this the next few months where people pay me.

I am also not sure what i expect from this post, i just need some input which isn't AI generated and maybe has a bit more wisdom and experience then me. An Idea which i can try or a different approach which I can try to find an idea is much appreciated. I am open to learn and do anything at this point.

based off of financial mistakes or waiting too long to do something in life regarding your finances, what would you do if you could go back in time to accumulate or set yourself up for success?

Came out and still was never taught how to genuinely build wealth