You don’t need to work like crazy if you do skilled work and spend your money wisely. When I was a software engineer I took months off between jobs. I worked less than 40 hours when freelancing. However, most of my colleagues used their income to buy trappings like a mortgage, clothes, eating out, video games, drugs, new gadgets and toys, cars, their own apartment, etc.
Most people choose to spend their money increasing their standard of living instead of buying time at a low standard of living.
As Picasso said, “I’d like to live as a poor man with a rich man’s money.”
You're responding to an aggregate statistic with an anecdote. I too did not graduate high school, but now have an advanced degree and a high paying job. Claiming that that invalidates the notion of privilege is silly.
Still, he literally said "do skilled work and spend your money wisely", the former implying that he focused on developing his skills, and the latter implying that he didn't live beyond his means. Hard to characterize either as some sort of undue "privilege".
While I kind of get what you're saying, mortgage/rent, clothes, cars, and food are necessities. :)
This sounds a bit like the Mr. Money Mustache philosophy -- live very cheaply, save like crazy, retire early -- which is all great advice, but elides the level of fortune involved, e.g., getting and keeping a high-paying job straight out of college, having no college debt, quickly marrying someone else who also has a high-paying job and is down with both combining incomes and practicing Extreme Thriftiness with you. IIRC, he made the rather bold claim that he could both live and retire on $25K a year -- which is something a lot of people would, well, prefer not to do. With all respect to Picasso, I'd at least prefer to live as a middle class man with a rich man's money.
There are expensive and inexpensive ways of approaching accommodation, clothing, food and transportation. The fact that so many things which used to be considered luxuries are now thought of as essentials (and that were once considered sensible but are now considered extreme thriftiness) goes to show that people actually want the frills of a lifestyle where they work hard and can as a result afford luxuries in every area of their lives.
> People actually want the frills of a lifestyle where they work hard and can as a result afford luxuries in every area of their lives.
Well, yes, sure, and sure, there are different levels of "luxury," e.g., there's getting a BMW 5 series, and there's getting a Honda Insight but springing for the Touring model -- and that's not counting the choice between used and new (what if the person with the BMW 5 series bought it used for about the same as someone else paid for a new Honda Civic). But, particularly at the income levels the average HN reader seems to have based on comments, "build up savings" vs. "afford small luxuries" is often a false dichotomy, which is what I was getting at.
Most people choose to spend their money increasing their standard of living instead of buying time at a low standard of living.
As Picasso said, “I’d like to live as a poor man with a rich man’s money.”