Given the bull market has exacerbated the wealth gap, practicing stealth wealth is a strategically wise move. You don't want to attract haters just because you decided to diligently save and invest all these years. Instead, you want to blend into the crowd so you can live a carefree life.
The global pandemic has also exacerbated the wealth gap. One the one end is the investor class who has experienced robust asset price appreciation. On the other end is the working class without much investments at all. They've been hit hard by pandemic with big unemployment.
What I've come to also realize is that it's important to practice Stealth Action as well. Stealth Action is where you keep what you're doing private so as to not attract any attention, criticism, and unnecessary stress.
I'm in a funny situation where I publicly write about some things I want to do. As a result, I get a lot of criticism from people who either don't believe what I'm doing is right or know they probably should be doing what I'm doing, but are unwilling.
But in real life, I always keep mum about my plans. The only person I share everything with is my best friend, my wife.
Let me share with you four examples that demonstrate why Stealth Action is important.
Figuring Out How To Retire By 45 With Two Kids
I write in my Early Retirement Master Plan that I will get up by 5 am every morning to do a couple hours of work online before my family wakes up. I also say that I plan to dedicate 10 more hours a week on Financial Samurai (30-35 total) in order to try and generate more revenue.
Since 1999, I've always been an early riser because I had to get into the office by 5:30 am before the stock market opened. As a result, I've been conditioned to wake up early. I automatically wake up after six hours of sleep without an alarm. I also like to take 30 – 60 minute naps after lunch every day.
Because I don't have anybody to report to, it's sometimes easy to slack off and go to bed later than I should and not get things done in the early morning. Hence, my new goal of waking up by 5 am requires me to regularly go to bed by 11 pm.
Here's an interesting comment from a reader,
I love how you optimize everything by taking calculated risks and reap the rewards. I was wondering if you could write an article on how you determined 5 hours is the optimal amount of sleep? You certainly get ahead now, but may have to pay in the form of Alzheimer's years earlier than an 8 hour a night sleeper. How do you calculate tradeoffs between wealth and health?
And another reader,
There is a 2016 study of older women in which people that get self-reported less than 6 or more than 8 hours a night for many years had a significantly higher risk of Alzheimer's. But forcing yourself to stay in bed awake does not make sense either. Perhaps avoid the nap and you may end up sleeping longer at night.
Holy crap! I'm going to die a miserable death! I asked the readers how many hours of sleep do they average a night. Of course, both said 8 or more hours.
I then asked both readers to get back to me with the exact percentage of increased risk for Alzheimer's risk for those sleeping less than eight hours, but so far, I've gotten no responses.
Are we talking about an increase from 1% to 1.5%? Or are we talking about an increase from 1% for those who sleep 8+ hours a night to 80% for those who sleep less than 8 hours a night? There is a big difference. Be careful talking in absolute terms.
Despite naturally waking up after six hours of sleep for years, I now have a new Alzheimer's worry because I didn't practice Stealth Action. I've tried to sleep longer, but I just can't. Maybe being in good shape and having no gray hairs at 42 doesn't really mean anything due to my sleeping habits.
Stealth Action And Sleep
Then I recalled this chart below that shows the average sleep duration by percent for the population in America. Apparently, roughly 3.5 percent of the American population only naturally sleeps around six hours a night. Perhaps I'm part of this minority group? Maybe I have a rare gene mutation, ADBR1, which is linked to with heightened wakefulness and less sleep necessary. Who knows.
It doesn't make sense to say that just because you sleep 8 hours a night must mean that someone else should also sleep 8 hours a night. Could it be that stating my goal of waking up by 5 am has made some readers feel bad for sleeping in? Possibly, which is why I would never say this goal to anybody in real life. Instead, I'd tell them that I have a hard time getting up and am always sleeping in until 9 am.
Point: If you do something different than the norm, some people will point out where you're wrong or try and make you feel bad about your efforts. Take Stealth Action to avoid unnecessary stress.
College Savings
In the post, Determining How Much To Save In Your 529 Plan, I write that my goal is to save $500,000 per child. It is very obvious to me that in 16-18 years, four years of undergraduate education will be much higher than it is today.
If I end up accumulating more due to investment gains, no big deal. I'll just pass down the surplus to hopefully my grandchildren. I also don't plan to tell my kids that I'm saving $500,000 each for their education. As far as they'll be concerned, they're going to have to work summers and part-time jobs to earn some money to help pay for their tuition. Further, I'm going to try and convince them to go to a reputable public school or only go to a private university if they can get scholarships.
Here are a couple responses to my plan.
Reader #1, a measured response:
I think you save too much for the 529. I saved about $100k (including gains) for each of my children and one is 1st-year college and the other is 4th-year college. They both go to UCs and the graduating one still has $50k left.
The first year has a little bit of merit scholarship (5k year or something like that) so he will have lots leftover as well. Not really worried because we can use the surplus in case they want to go to grad school.
It doesn't seem like reader #1 realizes my kids are 0 and 2.8 years old and that college will be more expensive 16-18 years from now.
Reader #2 with a much more aggressive response:
You are over-saving, I 100% agree with reader #1. Your other posts also show your over-investment attitude to your kids. You don’t leave them a chance to do it themselves at all.
Let them attend public school, let them shoot for scholarships and teach them that you will fund no more than 30% of their college costs – for other 70% if they don’t even have scholarship – they can 1. start saving themselves when they are 10+ (and you can help with that!) and 2. work in summers and earn their way up (you can help with that too). Teach them how to live!
By helping them in a way you are trying to help – you are putting them in a golden cage, and that is a “no brainer” how to spoil your kids.
Are you really trying to hyper-compensate for what you had in your own childhood?
I'm not sure what reader #2 means by hyper-compensate for what I had in my own childhood. I went to a private international school for middle school, then to a public high school and finally, to a public university. I had a pretty interesting experience growing up in multiple countries. Further, I'm not telling my kids how much I'm saving for their education.
It feels like me saving $500,000 per child has offended reader #2 in some way because he isn't saving as much for his child's education. I'm not even sure if he has children. But reader #2 probably doesn't like me because of my savings plan.
If reader #2 was a colleague, boss, fellow parent at school, or someone in my social circles, this could cause unnecessary friction. Therefore, if you plan to save for your child's education, absolutely don't tell anyone. Instead, just commiserate how expensive tuition is nowadays and how you're praying your child goes to community college or can get a scholarship.
To me, it makes more sense to save too much than to save too little.
Point: You never know what type of innocuous activity you do that might offend or make someone uncomfortable if they find out. Even though your activity has no bearing on the other person's life, it may still evoke a negative response. That negative response can fester and ruin your relationships in real life. Take Stealth Action and practice Stealth Wealth!
Caring For A Sick Family
Being sick is terrible, especially if you have to not only provide for your family but also take care of a sick baby. Despite all our hand washing and face mask-wearing, our baby still caught the virus that our son gave to us.
As a result of her illness, she's constantly waking herself up because of a chronic cough. Her crying more and sleeping less hurts our sleep and we feel terrible for her. Poor little one. But instead of letting this virus defeat me, I wrote a post called, The Worst Thing About Daycare And Preschool Is Not The Cost. Always make lemonade out of lemons!
Here was a reader's response:
Just wait until you get Hand Foot Mouth Disease… Or pinkeye. This is turning into a parenting blog. I only want to read things that make me money.
This is a depressing comment because it reminds me that the average person doesn't really care. They have their own problems to deal with. If you don't provide value, they'll just move on to something else.
The reader's comment is also a reminder that I really do need to focus more on money-making topics and less on personal topics. The best finance sites in the world don't have any personality. Take a look at some of the latest titles from several award-winning personal finance blogs:
Best VA Loan Lenders 2020
Survey Junkie Review: A Legit Online Survey Website?
7 Best 0% APR Credit Cards For 2020
PNC Bank Checking Account Review
Citizens Bank Promotions
Vaulted Review: Simple Way To Buy Physical Gold
Although these posts might not be interesting, it makes the blogger money and doesn't attract any criticism because none of the articles have any comments. This is a win-win!
Point: Most people don't care about your problems, even if you're trying to help because they have enough of their own problems to deal with. For some reason, some people always believe you owe them something as well. As a result, make sure you take care of yourself and your family first. The world is a competitive and cruel place with little loyalty. As Marshawn Lynch said after losing in the NFL playoffs, “Take care of your chicken!”
Business Strategy Requires Stealth Action
Let me share a final example of why practicing Stealth Action is important.
In mid-2019, after I announced that I would focus more on entrepreneurship and less on retirement, I wanted to gain some motivation and insights from people who were very focused on making money online.
One episode highlighted how two guys had built a one million visitors a month site with over $200,000 a month in revenue (not profits) in just three years. I was very impressed and also surprised that they were revealing all their business strategies.
The two partners ended the episode saying their plan was to aggressively grow the number of visitors and revenue in 12 months. But check out what happened to their traffic six months later.
They went from a peak of 1 million visitors a month in May 2019 to 341K visitors in December 2019. I have never seen such a large and steady descent in traffic before, especially from two partners who seemed to have it all figured out.
I'm confident their traffic and revenue will eventually rebound given the cyclicality of the business and their smarts. But experiencing a 66% decline in traffic so quickly must have been a little jolting, especially since they've also got staffers to pay.
The traffic decline doesn't look like a Google penalty since the slope is pretty steady. Instead, I hypothesize many competitors listened to the episode, copied their strategy, and competed aggressively in their space.
Point: If you are running a business, don't boast about its success. The world is full of copycats who will arbitrage away your profit margin as soon as you reveal your strategy. Even though being an original will let you stand out from the crowd, it's much easier to copy than be an original.
Take Stealth Action
The reason why we sometimes don't practice Stealth Action is due to ego. We have a need to sometimes brag about our accomplishments for affirmation. We also need to tell the world what we've done so we can establish some credibility.
The final reason why some of us don't practice Stealth Action is because we want to share our experiences to try and help others navigate unknown dangers. But unfortunately, this lack of Stealth Action often backfires because people often don't appreciate advice even if they are the ones venturing over to seek your advice!
The more you publicly announce all your plans to improve your life, the harder it will be to get ahead. It's much better to keep things on the down-low and surprise people on the upside. Make the change or else suffer the consequences!
For the optimists out there, not all is lost. If you are a self-secure person with a lot of empathy, you still have a great chance to come out ahead. Just be careful not to let others take advantage of your generosity.
Track Your Stealth Wealth
Sign up for Personal Capital, the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your stealth wealth. In addition to better money oversight, run your investments through their award-winning Investment Checkup tool to see exactly how much you are paying in fees. I was paying $1,700 a year in fees I had no idea I was paying.
After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator that pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible using Monte Carlo simulation algorithms. I’ve been using Personal Capital since 2012 and have seen my stealth wealth skyrocket during this time thanks to better money management.
Note: Please keep the criticisms and observations coming when I do write personal posts. It helps me see blindspots and gives me a lot of motivation. If you are OK with more personal stories, then subscribe to my newsletter. Thanks!
You’ve helped so many people with your excellent advice. I suspect that many of us are just lurking here, perhaps not commenting.
So I hope you’re not at all deterred by random anonymous haters.
I’m the one who (per a few previous comments over the years) still hopes you’ll run for President someday, or become the next Oprah. You’ve got the right combination of financial intelligence and genuine emotional intelligence.
Keep up the great work. You’re helping a lot of people with what you do. I’m sure I’m one of many people out here who benefit from your articles, but do not necessarily comment.
Sounds like some fools who only want to hear about saving or making cash do not get it,
when you travel, or do other things that is what gets your mind ready. So to hear about non cash gaining information is great in all in glory too.
Totally agree, especially these days. Most of the time, nothing good comes from telling people what you have or are worth. It usually works against you in some way. Maybe your boss at work would give you a little less of a raise since they figure you dont need it as much as someone else. Friends and relatives expect you to pay for things all the time. Other people looking for loans and hand-outs. I’ve worked and hustled my whole life for what I have and have overall made good choices to get where I am now. I dont owe these types of people anything and dont want the hassle of it either.
I need to practice this stealthiness more myself. I share what I’m doing personally on my blog but it isn’t to brag, more like I’m documenting my steps so if I succeed at my goals, others might be able to replicate what I do if they happen to stumble across my site and want to do what I write about.
I’m definitely noticing that it’s best to just keep my mouth shut in person unless someone says something to open a door for me to share a useful idea I’ve learned. Just announcing things unprovoked decreases my productivity/time I could be spending to better myself.
I’m the opposite of you on the sleep lol. If I don’t get enough, I feel like crap and am unable to work half as efficiently as I can with enough sleep.
I was once told “no good deed goes unpunished.”
It’s unfortunate that you share things with the intention to help but it is met with jealousy, envy, and negativity.
Totally agree with your article on being stealth/humble and I really enjoy your posts on Bay Area real estate and college savings. For someone also here in the bay with very young children, it’s also the same reality I’m facing.
Thanks and good luck raising kids in the BA! If you can live in a neighborhood with good public schools, that will help tremendously.
As a person who attended Bay Area schools all my life (SF schools then East bay for high school), I find the school ratings system confusing. There is a section for test scores and academic achievement, which should hold a lot of weight. Then the other sections of equity and low-income seem to factor in.
What I find unfair is that areas that are not diverse, seem to get a pass on the low-income and equity area, then their overall score appears to be a 9 or 10/10.
It appears to me when people ask about the “school” ratings here in the Bay Area and if they are high, it really means “does it have a less than 10% low income” attendance. I won’t even get into what it means from a diversity standpoint. Look at all the 9 and 10 ratings on great schools website and tell me the majority and minority ethnicities, and let me know if you see a pattern.
For my own personal experience, the public schools I attended were in the middle to low (<5 per greatschools.com). I was not aware of this at the time, did scholastically well, had honors classes, graduated with a 4.8 GPA and was accepted into all colleges I applied for. My high school girlfriend at the time went to a prestigious and private “college preparatory” school in SF, she did academically well, and we scored exactly the same on our SATs (I scored higher in Math, while she did well on English). In the end, I graduated with a doctorate degree from college and I’m sure she was successful too, but from a ROI standpoint, I’m not sure her parents got what they paid for. There was definitely less violence, crime, fights, and robberies at her school than mine for sure though.
Bringing it all together, now as a parent, I’m taking a critical look at “school ratings” and plan to observe closely the test scores. The schools/areas getting high scores overall but a pass on diversity/equity don’t seem right to me. It’s no surprise to me the median home price in those cities is $1.4M and above, but again, is that really fair they get a 9 or 10/10 for equity and low income when those areas are less than 10% of the constituents?
Just a few of my thoughts on “highly rated schools” and where my brain goes when I hear people ask.
No one cares. Spare us the politically correct lecture. And “diversity” is a lie, the politically correct way to demand racial quotas.
You apparently don’t care to read or comprehend either.
I didn’t state a position on diversity, just that it shouldn’t be included in school ratings.
My issue is with the school ratings system and how it factors into overall scores, restated simply here just for you Jack.
Education is clearly something you don’t care about, for yourself and others. Moving on.
Didn’t mean to stress you out, man. You asked about the study of another reader, so I looked it up and told you the results. You can’t generalize studies to individuals. Just take the info and do what you will with it. I didn’t realize you had responded to my comment. I see that I can make that an option when I comment. Either way, I’ll try to find the comment from the prior article and respond.
Best,
Viet
There are certain level of wealth and education that ironically brought on cynicism and paranoid.
I used to be part of a niche of engineers, few doctors and business owners who are mostly self-serving individuals the more you know them.
Many of them seemed to harbor the mentality cynicism and paranoid of the world around. Always think someone out there is plotting and/or working against them – sadly, few think of their own spouses and children.
It is my own child who reminds me (not so much in words, but just being young and naive) to have a balance view of the world.
Progress is the end product of optimism!
I was on that middle carrier when that pic was taken. 2006-2007.
Dude, I think you are great. Keep up all of your smart and interesting work and don’t get down over the aggressive negative comments! I loved your post about 529s and am grateful to hear your strategy on it. Your personality and the fact that you share stuff about your family (even sick kids—duh, many of us have them, too!) is what makes your blog unique.
You’ve amazed me over and over again at how even keeled you’ve been over negative comments that would have sent me reeling. I’m glad to know that you are human and that sometimes the aggressive comments bother you. But you handle them beautifully and I hope that you will keep sharing your own personal story with all of us, no matter what. You’ve got a lot of support out here. Thanks for all that you do.
Great perspective. I love this blog becuase it touches all the aspects of money and not just making money. I have been practicing stealth wealth and it has helped me tremendously specially at work as people start making presumptions about your raise, bonus. I don’t share whole lot with my family or friends as it might bring a bias that I don’t want. Being stealth really frees me and my family and enjoy our freedom. I keep driving the same old car to stay away from the radar. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Keep the good stuff coming.
It’s that freedom to act as you wish that truly is priceless. Don’t ever lose it!
I only tell my close friends, who are supportive of my work. I try to ask about their stuff as much as I talk about mine. A friend who brings you down when they listen about your life, isn’t a very good friend. If they can’t cheer alongside you, then it isn’t worth telling them anything except to inflate your ego, which is rarely worth it.
I very rarely tell strangers unless they are going to be a very temporary feature in my life and it’s relevant to the conversation somehow.
I’ve slowly gotten to the point where I only read a couple of blogs, because all the other ones recycle content. When you write, it’s something usually unique, or with a different twist.
In summary: Thanks. Ignore the haters.
Hi Devin, thanks for reading. It’s worth being careful about some close friends too. They say that friends change very 7 years. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve unfortunately seen this happen. Let’s always be generous with our close friends. But even though they are close and want the best for us, we need to be modest with any of our successes.
I welcome the criticism on FS b/c I enjoy highlighting them and hanging a lantern on my problems. I know that other people have the same type of issues, so keeping things real is what I always want on FS.
100% agree with the overall sentiment here.
I’ve found that I can really only share my projects/career aspirations with immediate family these days. Anything more than that just gets all these “Well, with my X years experience, I can tell you the best way is…”
Sorry, but no. In an age where sharing your opinions and knowledge is easier than ever before, you quickly learn that most people just have a lot of opinions and not much to back it up. Those of us with actual wisdom are starting to eschew social media and connect in other ways. It’s almost like we are becoming a new brand of luddite and I’m not sure whether thats a good thing or bad thing.
Hi Sam, I 100% agree that there is almost no upside to telling people what you’re up to until it is a few years in the past. Even then thinking or talking about the past only holds you back unless it’s to learn a specific lesson. The best thing we can do for our loved ones is to ask them powerful questions and let them figure out the answers themselves.
I hope that you will do a post in the future on the flexibility and safety involved with cash value life insurance. Disney used his cash value life insurance to promote Disneyland. If you search for companies that have used cash value life insurance you will be amazed at what you find.
Best wishes,
Ryan A
Oh man, but sometimes waiting a few years to then tell someone can be really hard!
For example, I was very excited to share with the community we welcome a new daughter to our family. But I kept the information private and told nobody online that we were expecting. Only a month after she was born did I write this post: https://www.financialsamurai.com/why-i-failed-at-early-retirement-a-love-story/
Given my life will be consumed by my children over the next six months caring for them FT, I thought it best to share just in case I disappear from FS for a while. My podcast has already reduced production.
Yeah I loved that post particularly because you were like nonchalant boom we had a baby! I still remember telling my wife and she was surprised too. Congrats and I appreciate all the effort you put into FS!
Sam, congratulations on your baby girl! I read a post recently that alluded to your second child and I knew I had missed something & went searching for the news. We’ve never spoken, but I read a lot of your articles and I appreciate the connection with readers you’re building. Congratulations & keep up all the great work.
Thanks Jeff! Nice to hear from you.
Thanks Sam for your perspectives on growing your personal wealth and how you approach life. Stealth wealth makes a lot of sense in today’s society where people are so easily offended and vocal about any activity outside of the social norm. I try to tune out things that are merely distractions and focus on things that matter the most (like my family, career, and personal goals).
You aren’t the only one who practices stealth wealth, but you are the first person that I’ve seen write about the topic. Thanks!
Years ago I worked for a privately held company that was owned by a single family. The CEO was a billionaire that managed to stay off the Forbes top 100 for years by being private about business successes. Stealth wealth gave the family members freedom to live how they wanted. If they wanted to save some $$ by flying commercial instead of taking their private jet they could.
Keep up the posts. Growing wealthy isn’t just about the numbers.
Thanks,
Dan
“The CEO was a billionaire that managed to stay off the Forbes top 100 for years by being private about business successes.”
This is HUGE!
I remember when Forbes ranked the top 10 wealthiest families in China in the late 1990s. HALF were persecuted and thrown in jail!
Do you think practicing stealth action/wealth opposes running a financial blog? Do you sometimes feel too public with your financial goals by writing about them? No hate; I’m genuinely curious and struggle with this myself!
Probably, if the blogger was public.
I limit my sharing to about 20% of what I actually do and have. But I’m thinking 10% might be more appropriate. What do you think is the right amount to share?
A small circle of us have made all sorts of investments over the past 10 years. It’s kinda nuts how lucky we’ve gotten. But it takes action to get lucky.
Sam, I continue to love the blog and have for many years (how many referrals I’ve made – countless!). I admire what you’ve done and the wonderful platform/business you built. It’s what I would have wished I could have done as a younger version of myself.
But, having taken a different and slightly longer path to wealth and retirement, I arrived at the same place you did. Wealthy, great family, totally independent, and in a position to help people. Which I’m doing a lot of these days.
I’ve given this advice to many who have asked so I’ll give it to you: You “talk” too much. Just shut up.
Simple. You ask for too many opinions, you rebut too much criticism, you care too much about the views of others, you appear to have a deep seated emotional need for validation despite the fact that you have made overwhelmingly great choices in your life.
This is very common. I’ve seen it dozens of times in very successful people. They would be even more successful and happier if they just would SHUT UP a little more often, for their own mental health!!!
This is great advice! Any suggestions on how to write articles if I shut up though? Perhaps just get a lot of guest writers and staff writers. My plan for more business in 2020 and beyond is to remove myself from this site and have other people write so I can do other things.
But I will admit though that I love the banter and enjoy writing comment commentary type posts like this one. Do you mind if I use your comment for a new post? The comments are really a gift that keeps on giving for writers.
It is interesting you think I seek self-validation though when I think I’m mainly trying to help people think about things in different ways. I’ll explore this more. Thanks
Sam, you made a couple of great and insightful points about yourself in this reply.
You are constantly underplaying your ability, intellect, background, parenting skills, etc. Even if 50% of it were tongue-in-cheek and for effect, it would be 50% too much.
It is the exact opposite of bragging but can be just as harmful to you and those around you.
I would welcome you using any concepts from this interchange.
Got it. I think the term nowadays is to flex. I’ve gone ahead and flexed with a stock position in the next article. Let’s see what the reception is like.
This is the dumbest comment I have ever read. You want to read content but also want the writer to shut up?
If I was Sam, I would just eliminate the comments. Cuts out all the crap and idiot commenters. Won’t be as fun for observers, but will make everything more efficient.
Stealth Action really is the way to go.
I wonder if you are failing to understand that if you have a website that attracts millions of visitors and comparing your situation is much different?
Even 0.1% of 1 million readers who are highly critical means 1,000 critical people. So that absolute volume is huge.
If 0.1% of the people you encounter are highly critical you wouldn’t notice. You probably wouldn’t even notice 100X the amount because you’re irrelevant.
For people who are relevant, famous, or have big platforms, stealth everything is very important.
Sam is simply using these few critical examples to demonstrate a point. It may seem like most are critical, but most are not. Read the comments of the articles yourself.
Sam, never mind the folks who feel the need to argue everything that differs from their experience or practice. It is astonishing to me how many people seem to read blogs just to (often) disagreeably disagree with the blog author’s POV.. keep up the good work— I’ve been enlightened by your thoughts and POV, even when it doesn’t match my own.
Considering that most of the readers here likely earn to much to get any FASFA aid for college, but not wealthy enough to pay cash without saving for years (money that could be invested elsewhere), here are my thoughts: If grad school is part of the plan, the first school/degree is inconsequential unless it is needed to get into a desired grad program. The last degree is the one that matters and after your first post-grad job, even it quickly becomes inconsequential. I don’t understand the people that push for the expensive undergrad degrees knowing they will ultimately be getting an advanced degree. No wonder so many of my colleagues have more school debt than annual income! Cali now offers junior college for free. How could anyone justify not getting 50% of their undergrad paid for while still maintaining the ability to graduate with the same undergrad degree that other paid at least twice as much for. Talk about stealth action! There is simply no way to justify paying more than state school tuition for undergrad unless grad school is not in the plans or entry into a prestigious grad program requires it.
Stealth wealth is for sure the way to go especially in this age of instagramming and snapping and whatnot. Everyone is eager to show the trappings of wealth and supposed hard work and they probably end up wasting too much time to actually do work!
Thank you for focusing on tearing apart my argument and not me. I did not intent to simply add worry to your life, but to bring to light what I have read. As I just finished Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD here is some additional information from the book.
Shorter sleep was associated with 45% increased risk in developing coronary heart disease within 7 to 25 years of the start of the study.
A study of 4000 Japanese male workers over a 14 year period found that those that slept less than 6 hours had a 400 to 500% increased likelihood of have one or more heart attacks than those sleeping more than 6 hours.
Unfortunately on Alzheimer’s all the book says is that there is a statistically significant increase, which you properly note could mean 1% to 1.5% or 1% to 80%. Googling I found that around 10% of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer’s, but that doesn’t answer your question.
One powerful example was looking at Daylight Savings Time. When the clocks move forward an hour and people have one fewer hour to sleep, there was an increase in heart attacks and traffic accidents. When moving back, the opposite occurred.
I’m not a sleep scientist, but the book was very convincing that sleep is important. Perhaps that is simply confirmation bias. I’m certainly not a reputable source on the topic, so I would recommend anyone to read it and decide for yourself.
If my comment made you go from a sleep goal of 5 hours to 6, then I’m very happy I wrote it. All the best to you and your newborn. Dealing with one in my home as well.
Citing Japanese who work themselves to death isn’t really a valid analog for FS. Most people who don’t sleep enough hours don’t do it by choice, but by life’s requirements. Parents especially have a lot to do – something I didn’t appreciate until well after I left home.
As a semi retired person, FS is sleeping as many hours as he chooses to. If 5 wasn’t working for him, he’d change. He has the choice. So it’s far more likely that this happens to be a suitable amount for him. For me….I’m probably on the other side of the curve.
Thx for the support Jason!
I’m proud to say I got 7.15 hrs of sleep last night!
Tired due to two games of softball yesterday. I really just try and sleep as much as my body is wiling. Hope that’s ok, but I won’t know for sure if it is.
Curious how you reconcile taking care of your newborn while also wanting to sleep 8 hours too. Thx!
I love your blogging style. Please keep it up!
Hey, I did not write that last line. I actually enjoy the parenting aspect of your finance posts. It truly is easier to retire early without kids… So I enjoy the unique perspective that you offer. Didn’t mean to offend or hurt you, and I’m sorry that I did. What you are doing is very difficult and that’s why you have loyal followers like myself. Keep up the good work!
Nicer of you to say. But leaving a turd of a comment like that when someone is down is not nice. People like you are the reason why young people are too afraid to try and put themselves out there. I hope you at least have more compassion for your children.
Sorry, not sure why this came out twice. I’m sure it is something I did on my end by accident.
For personal finance bloggers it is best to be anonymous since we share so much of our lives especially finances publicly.
Although I’ve seen a number of larger sites having a public face. Wonder if they do that more to connect with people?
P.S. liking the recent inclusion of emojis in your subject line
Man! You know this blog is great because it has a personality.
Please keep sharing, we all want to make money but we need human interactions too.