The last one is key to my entire value system as a person. I have had some financial wins in life and try not to let it impact my day to day. I avoid, sometimes with great effort, flashy things (I’ve been tempted to by exotic cars as an example but have found if I just rent one for a day or two that urge goes away, it’s just a toy to me). I usually say I’m not materialistic, but I am at times, and what I strive to be is humble, modest, and invisible. I don’t want other people seeing me as flaunting wealth. It’s not who I want to be or how I want my kids to see me act.

That said, I do, like Buffet, live in a nice house. I’m not depriving myself. But it’s also very approachable by any successful employee of a company (maybe salary of a director or VP of any large company could afford it). It doesn’t represent what I could afford if I wanted to really get into the elite neighborhoods of my city. I don’t really enjoy people in those areas. They tend to always talk about money in one way or another (vacations, private schools, cars, houses, maids, nanny’s, etc). Nothing wrong with it I suppose, just not my jam and not how I want my children raised and not the people I want as my neighbors and peers. I’ve always been much more envious of those unsuspecting rich people that drive clunker cars or live in modest homes and mow their own lawns but then you find out they paid for 16 grand children to go to college or something random like that. That’s the kind of thing I’d rather be known for than the guy with the Ferrari or yacht (even if they weren’t mutually exclusive).

Avoiding scaling your lifestyle with tour current wealth seems like an extremely important lesson people could learn here. Very few people know what "enough" means to them.

Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it.

His inspiration is a big reason why I still drive my 1993 Honda Civic after owning it for 15 years. I bought it for $1000 after graduating college. I say a little prayer every time I turn the key that it actually starts. I gave it its own github repo where I track the maintenance I do on it. It reminds me where I come from, and that I don't need shiny shit to be happy. I believe this to be a virtue.

My girlfriend years ago thought it was incredible and amusing that I was working a fancy tech job and drove this old car around. We are now happily married.

These days, I could buy a Bentley with cash. But I don't need one.

Warren Buffet's example is an inspiration that should be followed by more people who go into debt buying crap they can't afford with money they don't have in order to look rich.

Disagree. The last one is important.

You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy.

The key to a happy life is to learn how to reduce the amount of things you own and how to build strong relationships. Once you have enough to put a roof over your head and food on your table, more than that can only be used to purchase increasing amounts of comfort, which is not the same as increasing amounts of happiness.

YouTube has plenty of videos of people calling in with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year in income and somehow they are still broke and in debt. Live below your means, save the excess income into an investment portfolio, keep doing that until you have enough money to live off the interest. Don't even think about buying a Rolex until you have so much money coming in from interest that you don't even know what else to do with it. Even then, remember that the Rolex, like anything else, requires maintenance, but that if you make someone else happy, they can take care of themselves.