
A frugal social worker left $11M to children's charities in his will - monsieurpng
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/28/us/frugal-social-worker-leaves-millions-to-charity-trnd
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krosaen
Very admirable, though the headline hints he amassed this fortune solely
through saving a modest paycheck when he was a banker earlier in his career
and received a "sizeable inheritance".

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leeoniya
title seems somewhat editorialized to make one wonder how a social worker had
$11M to give.

> He said Naiman received a sizable inheritance when his father died, which
> added to his fortune

how much of it can be attributed to frugalness remains questionable.

a great deed, nevertheless.

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jacquesm
> how much of it can be attributed to frugalness remains questionable.

All of it. Most people that luck into wealth spend it all if they are not
schooled in the arts of finance. A couple of shopping sprees, a bad investment
here and there, a bad fund manager and it's all gone.

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leeoniya
I mean, the guy had a career in banking, he's not someone off the street who
won the lottery. He could also have inherited $30M, then lost most of it. The
title makes it seem like he was clipping coupons and eating ramen.

"Banker-turned-social-worker leaves $11M to children's charities" would be a
more honest headline.

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jacquesm
Yes, but given that the publishers live by the number of people that visit the
websites clickbait should be assumed. It's rare that a title downplays the
content of the article, and if this is a lie it is a pretty subtle one and one
by omission. I'd give them a pass.

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forkLding
I think the most important thing here was that Alan had a good heart and
donated all his money to charity very willingly, he could have spent it all at
the end of his days. I applaud his efforts.

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RickJWagner
I'm glad he bought the FR-S, so he at least enjoyed something for his years of
labor.

As for accumulating $11M, it's not surprising. Decades of spending less than
you earn, combined with wise investing, are known to produce riches even for
modest earners. (Of course the inheritance must have helped. But I bet he'd be
well off even without it.)

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uw33
As an accountant my observation is, the skills required to make money and
spend money are very different.

The time and effort most people put into the former is much greater over a
lifetime than the latter.

In this case you can see what happens when the rule flips.

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learnstats2
Social workers don't earn $11M in a lifetime, and are unlikely to earn $2M
total - this type of wealth cannot be amassed by frugality.

This is irresponsible journalism.

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samfisher83
In this case the article says he got a couple million from his parents. He was
also a banker as well.

Suppose he was just a social worker. Suppose you saved 30k from your job and
invested in amazon when it started. It would be worth 30 mil today. But that
would require being frugal and not pulling that money out and leaving the
compounding effects to work.

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nrmitchi
I mean it would also require the foresight of going all in on one of the
biggest companies of the decade, and keeping it through the rest of the
industry was falling apart. This argument is fairly akin to "Suppose he won
the lottery."

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samfisher83
I just used Amazon as an example. There are plenty of companies that have had
huge gains. My point is if you are a good investor you can turn small amounts
to a large amount.

