Nick Maggiulli > Quotes

“William Vanderbilt, who was once the richest man in the world, echoed this sentiment when comparing his life to that of his less wealthy neighbor: He isn’t worth a hundredth part as much as I am, but he has more of the real pleasures of life than I have. His house is as comfortable as mine, even if it didn’t cost so much; his team is about as good as mine; his opera box is next to mine; his health is better than mine, and he will probably outlive me. And he can trust his friends.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“If you have money but you don’t have friends, family, relationships, health, time, or purpose, what’s the point? It’s like having a plate full of salt, but nothing to eat it with.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Regardless of your wealth level, you should be mindful of all these things. They are all important for living a good life. However, their relative importance shifts as you move up the Wealth Ladder. The reason why is simple: as you gain more wealth, money solves fewer and fewer of your problems. Many of the issues faced by those in Level 1 can be solved with money. However, many of the issues faced by those in Level 6 can’t.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“To build wealth it didn’t matter when you bought U.S. stocks, just that you bought them and kept buying them. It didn’t matter if valuations were high or low. It didn’t matter if you were in a bull market or a bear market. All that mattered was that you kept buying.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“So, in order to know when you can retire, you need to figure out what you will retire to.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“Though there is a strong correlation between money and happiness, I don’t believe the relationship is directly causal. Having an extra zero on your bank balance isn’t going to make you jump for joy every day. But having more wealth can transform your lifestyle and how you are able to impact others. That’s where the additional happiness likely comes from.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Their paper found that while a higher income did indeed improve how people rated their life, it didn’t have any significant impact on their emotional well-being after a certain income threshold. In other words, while more money could make you feel better about your life as a whole, it didn’t make you any happier on a day-to-day basis once you earned over $75,000 a year.[”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“wealth isn’t about the money you’ve accumulated, but the life you’ve built with it.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“If you have difficulty spending according to your Wealth Level, then the most expensive thing that you own is your ego.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“We begin our lives as growth stocks, but end our lives as value stocks.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“One of Jay’s key insights was that not everyone learned like he did: “The biggest mistake is for an instructor to teach exactly the way he was taught. Once a teacher said to me”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“While the data comes from the richest country in the world during a prosperous period, there have been similar improvements in wealth across the globe. For example, a World Bank report found that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent by 2015. This translates to over 1 billion fewer people living in such conditions, despite a global population increase of over 2 billion over this period.[4] Though I don’t have detailed data on global wealth mobility, the large declines in worldwide poverty suggest that more wealth is being built by more people than ever before.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Wealth has an interesting way of distorting our perceptions and changing our motivations. Even people who are objectively successful can be made to feel otherwise. If you want to counteract these pernicious effects, then you will need to remember who you are and what you value. Finding ways to enjoy your money without identifying with it should be your end goal. That’s how you protect your wealth from yourself.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“If we assume that your income pays for your necessities, then your wealth pays for your upgrades.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“If you are poor, more money will probably make you happier. If you are happy, more money will probably make you happier. But if you aren’t poor and you aren’t happy, more money won’t do a thing.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“There are limits to what money can (and can’t) do for your mental and emotional well-being. Thankfully, your happiness is more in your control than you might imagine. Bud taught me that, at the end of the day, our contentment boils down to our mindset more than what’s in our bank account.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“Having more money doesn’t just allow you to spend more on yourself, you can spend more on others as well. Researchers have found that those who spent more of their income on others had greater happiness.[6] This result doesn’t surprise me. However, it’s also much easier to spend money on others when you have more money to spend in the first place. Money is like the oxygen mask on an airplane. You must first secure your own mask before you can assist others.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Jeremy Siegel, the famed financial author, summarized it best when he wrote: “Fear has a greater grasp on human action than does the impressive weight of historical evidence.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“Regrettably, the yardstick we use to measure our life expands with our success. It’s a moving target we can never catch up to. I’ve previously called this idea the “never-ending then.”[10] Once I make this much money, then I will be satisfied. Once I have this much wealth, then I’ll feel secure. Once I reach this wealth level, then I’ll be happy. Unfortunately, this line of thinking is a mirage. Because once you reach a new milestone, you quickly get used to it. This idea is called habituation, and it explains why the happiness brought on by material rewards can be fleeting.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“To save for your future self. To preserve your money against inflation. To replace your human capital with financial capital.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“Unfortunately, this idea doesn’t hold when it comes to having more wealth. In general, more money is better than less money. Someone who is in Level 1 would almost always be better off if they were in Level 5 or 6. Getting people out of poverty is a good thing. However, I am not convinced that going past Level 4, for example, is always an upgrade. In fact, it could make a few areas of your life objectively worse. So let’s take a look at some of the downsides of wealth that you may find in Level 5 and beyond.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“As Yeo wrote, “Money is a required pursuit for life, but a pointless pursuit upon death.”[”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“One of the biggest worries for new retirees is that they will run out of money. In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that the opposite seems to be happening—retirees aren’t spending enough. As researchers at Texas Tech University stated, “Rather than spending down savings during retirement, many studies have found that the value of retirees’ financial assets held steady or even increased over time.”11 The authors demonstrated that this occurs because many retirees don’t spend more than their annual income from Social Security, pensions, and their investments. As a result, they never sell down the principal on their investments portfolios and, therefore, typically see their wealth increase over time. This is also true despite required minimum distribution rules (RMDs) that force retirees to sell down a portion of their assets. As the researchers concluded, “[this] is evidence that retirees take required distributions and reinvest them in other financial assets.” What percentage of retirees do sell down their assets in a given year? It’s only about one in seven. As the Investments & Wealth Institute reported, “Across all wealth levels, 58 percent of retirees withdraw less than their investments earn, 26 percent withdraw up to the amount the portfolio earns, and 14 percent are drawing down principal.”12 The end result of this behavior is lots of money left to heirs. According to a study by United Income, “The average retired adult who dies in their 60s leaves behind $296k in net wealth, $313k in their 70s, $315k in their 80s, and $238k in their 90s.”13 This data suggests that the fear of running out of money in retirement is a bigger threat to retirees than actually running out of money. Of course, it is possible that future retirees will have far less wealth and income than current retirees, but the data doesn’t seem to support this either. For example, based on wealth statistics from the Federal Reserve, millennials had roughly the same per capita wealth as Generation X, who had roughly the same per capita wealth as baby boomers at the same age and after adjusting for inflation.14”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“As Aristotle once said, “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth

“Richter’s experiment demonstrates how much our expectations can shape our behavior. If we think that something is impossible, like the drowning rats, we are likely to give up quickly. However, if we believe that progress is within reach, we can push ourselves further than we ever imagined.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“Of course, the problem with telling someone who made it to Level 5 to diversify is that they probably won’t listen. The characteristics that got someone to $10 million in wealth are likely the same ones that won’t allow them to stop once they get there. If I had to guess, most successful business owners in Level 5 see themselves as temporary visitors on their way to Level 6. As the saying goes, “Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president.” I don’t blame them for thinking this way. After all, building a business that generates $10 million in personal wealth is no easy task. However, I don’t think the issue with those in Level 5 is their skills, but things outside their control. This is where diversification comes in handy.”
― Nick Maggiulli, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life

“If you want to save more, the main point is to tighten up where you can, then focus on increasing your income.”
― Nick Maggiulli, Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth