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Liked how you broke this whole thing down with the numbers and examples, because a lot of people just say invest in Bitcoin without really understanding the context of the whole money division and where the money is supposed to come from. At the end of the day, it is that leftover cash after bills and survival that really matters. Like you said If someone is earning $2k and has about $700 left, the way he spreads that $700 tells a lot about his priorities. Some might say throwing 70% of your leftover cash into Bitcoin is kind of too much, but for me putting just 5 to 10% looks too safe….
Personally, to be honest, I do feel okay with 40-60% then sometimes maybe 70%, I will dare not put above 80% or 100% of my discretionary income, reason because I feel more secure having left over cash at hand just because of minor unexpected expenses and responsibilities that I know will always come around.. But the truth is both sides can win depending on how consistent and disciplined they are. I do not even think it is fair to look down on the smaller investors, because
honestly, even putting 5-10% every month over years adds up big time with Bitcoin. For me, the real thing is not trying to compete with who goes all in, but making sure I am consistent and not breaking myself in the process.I agree that investing 5% to 10% of your income into bitcoin can end up adding to a lot of money, especially relative to a lot of folks who never hardly put anything into investing and/or savings, and even if they might save for a few months or a few years, they are not building it up in reasonable ways since they might just save up for a year or two so that they can buy a car or a cell phone or a computer or to go on a trip to some far away location.
These are not necessarily good habits, and I even made some of the same mistakes with some of my own practices since ever since I was very young, and I started to live on my own and to support myself (meaning no longer living with my parents and/or getting support from them), I had learned some personal financial management practices, where I pretty much forced myself to engage in various kinds of savings/investments of at least 10% of my income - however, I recall tapping into it a few times when I was younger, which actually caused a large loss of progress on several occasions, and I did not realize it. I also did not have as good of places to put money as bitcoin, yet part of the problem is that there are temptations to spend or maybe to not have to work as much, so the savings/investments end up either getting overly depleted but also it does not build up enough or get put into assets that are productive (and/or growth oriented). Sure we did not have bitcoin during my first 20-ish years of investing, so I am not sure if bitcoin could have had fixed some of my faulty thinking in regards to wanting to benefit from my investment way sooner than waht is overall prudent and even profitable in a future-oriented way so that I probably could have had gotten to fuck you status way earlier than I did... but mistakes are frequently made with a lot of folks in terms of needing to learn how to invest, how to manage finances and how to defer gratification.
Part of the problem with 5% to 10 % is that it will take 10 to 20 years to merely invest 1 year's income into bitcoin (or whatever it is that is being bought), and the other problem is that guys are going to be tempted to tap into it too soon or to slow down in their accumulation of it too soon since they will perceive themselves as having had made a lot of money whether or not the asset (bitcoin in this case) appreciates, and if the asset ends up appreciating, then it can be even more challenging to keep the person investing rather than either selling too much too early or slowing down in his ongoing accumulation.
One of the great things about bitcoin is that it gives a place to focus, even though people can still get distracted and mislead by its past performance to slow down in their accumulation and/or to sell too much too soon.
Surely, investing something like 5% to 10% of a guys income into bitcoin is better than nothing, and guys have to figure out how much is comfortable for them in terms of is it not too whimpy.. and sometimes concerns that maybe they might want to lean towards more aggressive investing, yet if they are a bit uncomfortable, sometimes they can slow down in their ongoing bitcoin accumulation instead of stopping and/or selling..
And the truth is, situations differ. A young single guy for instant can afford to be more aggressive than someone with kids or a family counting on him.
It is very important to look at the whole picture when it comes to investing, especially with something like Bitcoin throwing a percentage of your leftover cash after all the essentials are covered really shows how you prioritize your financial goals. i love how you pointed out that even small consistent investments like 5-10% can grow massively over time discipline and consistency often beat try to go all in and risking burnout or unexpected expenses. it is all about finding that balance where you feel secure but also stay committed to growing your wealth. honestly there is no one size fits all here, what matters is knowing your own risk tolerance and sticking to what works for you without comparing to others
Of course quantity of discretionary income helps for a guy to invest with more money, yet I would suggest that level of aggressiveness has to do with what level a guy chooses within his discretionary income.
The reason that a married guy with kids might not have as much abilities to invest as aggressively has to do with the various extra expenses that he has related to his family, but he an still choose his level of his aggressiveness in regards to his bitcoin investment within whatever income that he has, and yeah, maybe he has to set aside more for expenses and/or set more aside for possible expenses that he does not know about.. and so the various extra unknowns contributes towards his abilities to be as aggressive as the single guy, in the event that we are presuming that they have similar incomes yet differing levels of expenses.
There might be some employers who might purposefully choose to give extra money to guys with similar skills based on their having families, so sometimes the person with the family might be able to make more money than the single guy, and surely the opposite can happen too. Some employers might specifically prefer hiring young single folks because they are more flexible in their abilities to take assignments, yet maybe by the time they get into their 30s and 40s, employers might expect them to have families and so sometimes it might not be straight-forward regarding which similarly situated employee might be able to get ahead with the amount of income that he might early based on his marital and/or familial status.
Because this is not some one size fits all plan. The goal for me is not to panicked and sell off, which will basically kills the whole point of holding, so I’m trying to be careful and a bit still aggressive with what I put in Bitcoin..
For sure, you are making a good point regarding your own creation of a bitcoin investment plan that is purposefully holding back some of your income so that you can put that income into other things, whether investments or merely holding some back for reserve funds (that might have various reasons for holding) and/or that you purposefully consume other things that may or may not pay off except to make you happy to consume them.
After 4-10 years or longer, the guy who is able to figure out a balance in which he has either accumulated enough bitcoin or he might still be in the process of accumulating bitcoin, and he may well be better off as compared to the guy who took too many risks and/or was more aggressive than he could sustain, so guys who are getting into bitcoin now are likely going to be way better off to have bitcoin 4-10 years or longer (maybe even 20-30 years down the road, as compared with the guy who might have not realized that he was being overaggressive, even though he thought that he was being fine, but there are surely some guys who put a lot into bitcoin financially and emotionally, and they might not be ready, willing and/or able to go through the downside periods because they had overly invested in a way that was not financially and/or psychologically sustainable.
Even though some of us might regret our own chosen level of bitcoin accumulation, the fact of the matter is that each of us has to figure the level of aggressiveness out for ourself, since it is quite likely to be better to be a guy who has 1-2 bitcoin 15 years down the road, rather than being a guy who ends up having either no coins or perhaps only having 0.1-0.2 BTC because he screwed up too many times and either ended up not buying on a regular basis and/or that he ended up selling too many coins too soon.
I think that you have the right ideas Mr_Brilliant$, including our own needs to assess and to reassess from time to time, and even our needs to attempt to learn from the various mistakes that we are likely to make along the way.. so if we are making various adjustments and trying to stay in the game, then we are likely going to figure out ways to end up profiting way more from our having had gotten into bitcoin (and our giving some priorities to bitcoin investing and/or maintenance) as compared with if we had not gotten into bitcoin and learned about investing and the various kinds of special aspects of cashflow management practices that help us to be better bitcoin investors.