Good Advice And Bad Advice

“Jack-San, if you want Yoji’s advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect!” – Mr. Baseball

The last thing Pa Wilder told me was, “Son, it makes sense to spend money on good stereo equipment.”  That was sound advice.

One thing we often do as a family is go out for dinner at an Italian place on Friday nights.  When we went out, it was a no-cellphone zone.  Everyone had to leave ‘em at home in a pile by the door.  We also didn’t apologize – we figure that everything was left in the pasta.

The other dinner rule was that only one subject was off-limits:  computers.  It is a subject that The Boy, Pugsley, and I could talk about for hours, but one The Mrs. has no real interest in – as long as her electronics work, there really isn’t a need for them to be discussed.  We couldn’t even talk about spiders, since they’re web designers.

But one night, The Boy was going on and on about Bitcoin.  He was in fifth grade.  Bitcoin this.  Bitcoin that.  An endless stream of information about Bitcoin.

I finally looked him in the eye and said, “How many Bitcoin do you have.”

“Seven.”

“How did you get seven Bitcoin?  Did you mine them?”

“No, mining them is too hard for my computer.  I mine Litecoin and then when the price of Litecoin is high and the price of Bitcoin is low, I trade for Bitcoin.”

You can’t eat Monopoly®, either.  Tastes too gamey.

At that point, Bitcoin was worth about $500.  So, I was presented with my fifth grader having set up a cryptocurrency trading scheme that had netted him about $3,500.  He even started up his own server to discuss cryptocurrency trading.

Some kids mow lawns.

The price of Bitcoin dropped pretty low.  He traded Bitcoins for, of all things, web hosting.  All I know is that his stash of coins disappeared, otherwise he would be sitting on enough money to buy a house today.

The Boy even gave me half a Bitcoin for father’s day one year.

I gave it back to him when he wanted to buy something.  Silly me, giving back a $25,000 (today’s prices) father’s day gift.

The advice I gave him when he had seven Bitcoins?  Save them.

Oh well.  If I didn’t follow my own advice, why should he?

We have a restaurant that serves breakfast at any time.  I chose medieval France.

But each of us has been given good and bad advice throughout our lives, and we took it or we didn’t.  When it comes to money and work, there is a world of free advice out there.  Here is some bad advice I’ve gotten over the years:

  • (From Pa Wilder, before my first marriage): “Well, they say that two can live as cheaply as one.”  Well, the divorce cost me the price of a Lamborghini®, so, that’s not really true.  Still, I’m happier to have the divorce than to have owned a Lamboâ„¢.
  • “Gold, why would you buy gold? It’s fallen in price to $300 an ounce!”  I would have ignored this, but I didn’t have $300.  Because of the divorce.
  • “Buy new cars. That way you’re not buying someone else’s problem.”  Again, this was Pa Wilder’s advice, which might have made sense in 1960, but not in 1999.
  • “A car is one of the biggest investments you’ll make.” A car salesman.
  • “Don’t move from company to company.” Again, this was Pa Wilder.  Every single time I got a great raise, it was from moving from to a company that valued me more.

If you ever think you’re a failure, remember this:  you’re closer to being worth $900,000,000 than Jeff Bezos is.

I’ve had some good advice, too:

  • “Buy more ammo.” The Mrs., 2018.
  • “Really, you need to buy more ammo.” The Mrs., 2019.
  • “Buy land. If it blows up, you still own a hole in the ground.”
  • “Do not forget, stay out of debt.” – Hamlet as seen on Gilligan’s Island
  • “Modern used cars are generally a good deal.”
  • “Don’t make fun of bald men. If you do that you’ll go bald.”  Too late.

Part of the problem in life is that good advice sometimes sounds exactly like bad advice, and vice versa.  Also, Pa Wilder’s advice was good based upon what he knew, and the life he had led up to that point.  Job hopping, in his world, was the sign of an unreliable employee.  In my career, moving from job to job was what people did.

Alas, my kids were gnome schooled.

When given at the wrong time, good advice can be bad advice, which sounds suspiciously like luck.  Is it all luck?

Certainly not.

Does luck matter?

Certainly it does.

I’ll turn it over to you:

  • What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
  • What’s the worst advice you’ve taken?
  • What bullets did you dodge?
  • What advice would you give a 20-year-old?

And I’ll take my own advice next time, and keep any $25,000 gifts that any of my kids give me.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

36 thoughts on “Good Advice And Bad Advice”

  1. Best Advice – Never order anyone to complete a task that if situation was reversed, you would refuse to do.

    Worst Advice – Ignore healthy living practices. It eventually catches up to you.

    Bullets dodged – Marrying someone who was NOT compatible with who I am. It would have been miserable, I realize that now.

    Advice for 20 year old – work in job market at least three years prior to entering college. You will be much more focused on what your career choice is. You will earn money towards paying off much of the cost. And you may decide that manual labor may be your Life’s goal. Most teens entering college immediately do not know what they want to be.

    So many choose a path in Life they regret. Getting in debt for college immediately IS a trap. Decide what your priorities and goals for a happy Life are and choose a job you enjoy that people pay you for.

    1. Great list. I didn’t dodge that particular bullet, but I’m passing the lesson along . . . .

  2. John – – The best advice I ever got was from my World War Two paratrooper (he had been in the 82nd ABN Div & got his baptism of fire in the airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944). He was my Platoon Sergeant when I was assigned to the 173d Airborne Brigade in Vietnam.

    He had seen me over a few months diligently writing a girl and receiving lots of letters from her.

    He said, “Lieutenant, do you think you might marry that girl?’

    I responded, “Yeah, probably, when I get Stateside.”

    He then said, “I’m gonna give you some advice that nobody ever talks about, how to find the right person to marry.”

    I asked him, “Well, what makes you so knowledgeable?”

    He said, “Well, Lieutenant, I am kind of an expert on marriage and divorce. I have been married and divorced six times.”

    I was shocked but agreed that he sounded like he must know the subject well.

    He then said, “Lieutenant, you don’t marry a girl because you can live with her. You only marry a girl because you can’t live without her.”

    I did marry her upon my return Stateside, and we will shortly be enjoying our 49th anniversary !!

    That hard drinking, hard fighting Old Sarge was spot on with his advice. Don’t you agree?

  3. The most valuable advice I dispense to young men preparing for marriage is to set the bar low, that way she will never be disappointed with you but might occasionally be pleasantly surprised.

    1. Yes! If you get married on a hot air ballon on Valentines Day in Paris with Elon Musk doing the ceremony, you might have set the bar too high.

      The Mrs. and I got married in the morning a Vegas wedding chapel. Got the discount rate.

      See? Low bar.

  4. Beast advice that I listened to from Dad. “Don’t marry a girl for money but its okay to marry a girl who has a little money” ,and marry one with a sense of humor and education. I believe the last two are THE most important.

    Other best advice I did not follow.

    Don’t recall any worst advice apparently I did not follow anyway, but I have made many mistakes along the way.

    20 year old. If your company has a 401k put the max in starting at the beginning and you will never miss nor need that money and you will be perhaps even a multimillionaire.

    1. 100% agree on the 401k. Fortunately some old guys at work got me started early on it. Made a huge difference. Just wished I put more into it (and never sold). Consider a Roth instead of the Traditional 401k (and IRA) if it available. It grows tax-free and is completely tax-free at withdrawal. Remember that at retirement, the money could be worth 10 to 40x what was put in. So instead of saving 1x on taxes with the Traditional, save 10 to 40x on taxes with the Roth.

    2. Savings held in any format whose buying power can be diluted by currency printing will be worthless by retirement age. Any earnings placed there are wasted, and anyone giving you advice to do so does not know what they are talking about. The cost of living has increased about 10% for each of the last five years, as measured by the prices on receipts by http://www.chapwoodindex.org . Biden administration stimulus payments are increasing that rate.

      1. Why do you give this Chap Wood a second consideration? Nothing works on the website, much less explaining methods. 50% increase in cost would very noticable, which no one is seeing. For example gas is same price as 5yr ago. Electricity is 10% higher. Food is modestly higher. Even cigarettes are not up 10%. Nor is booze.

        Appears to be excuses for blowing all your money on junk.

        1. The price of groceries and cars doubled during the Obama administration. The price of electricity tripled during the Bush-II admin. Inflation has been around 10% for about 20 years now by any rational (non-governmental) measure.

          35 years ago, you could buy 10 White Castle hamburgers for $1. Now they go on sale for $6.
          15 years ago, you could buy 5 Arby’s roast beef sandwiches for $5. Now they occasionally go on sale for $10.
          10 years ago, a McDonald’s McDouble cost $1. Now it goes for $2.51.

          Do you really believe inflation is under 3%? Do you really believe unemployment is around 6%, when 20 million fewer people are employed now than there were two years ago? Who do you believe, the government or your lying eyes?

          1. I don’t much faith in any the government does unless it is to destroy something. Hence the military is quite good.

            A few points on costs that is recall well are:
            1978 gas was 80 cents/gal. Now $2.40 in a similar market, so 3x
            1977 coke out of the machine just went to 25 cents and I refused to pay. Now from the place in a slightly larger plastic bottle, that coke is 75 cents, so 3x
            1977 Lincoln Mercury Cougar was $6500. The now somewhat similar but better Lincoln MKZ is $37745, so 5.8x for a better car.
            1979 cross-country airfare was $1200. Now it is around $360 to and from the same airport. Of course the plane is less enjoyable and I had an agent book in 1979. so 0.30x. Thank you President Reagan
            1979 Phone service: $25/month. Now $70/month for 2 lines. So 2.8x but much better system. Thank you President Reagan.
            1979 Long distance charge was 25 cent/min. Now free, so 0.00x.

            So looks around 3x on the high side. That works out to 2.8% annual inflation over the period of 45yrs. Ignoring the quirky issues of housing prices.

            Unfortunately I do not have a peg-point for any food products.

            The BLS data is convenient but has some suspension relative to their motives. They give an increase of 3.55x over that same 45 yrs. For comparison the American Institute for Enconomic Research reports a cost increase of 3.61x.

            An independent group that monitors food basket prices say a grocery cart cost went from $54.11 in 2008 to $76.62 now, so 1.42x. That works out to a 3% inflation on average.

            House repairs increased a lot since 2008 per https://www.in2013dollars.com/Repair-of-household-items/price-inflation/2008-to-2021?amount=100
            It estimates 1.61x. That works out to 4% average.

            A classic is the cost of cigarettes. Per https://www.in2013dollars.com/Cigarettes/price-inflation/1978-to-2021?amount=5 they have increased 5x since 1979. That’s annual inflation rate of 14.5%

            Your impression of costs increasing is understandable, but does not match any numbers i have. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts is a site with some respect. Eyeballing from the chart, it looks like an average inflation of 5% over the past 15yr.

            Jobs: around here, everyplace is posting for help, so if you want a job, there’s one available. A lot of people are taking the government money and screwing off.

          2. > http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts is a site with some respect. Eyeballing from the chart, it looks like an average inflation of 5% over the past 15yr.

            No, you’re reading the 19-nine-0 computation method. Look at the graph just below that for the 19-eight-0 computation method, it breaks ten and it’s closer to an average of nine.

            New chapwood web site is much less functional than previous web site, which had a list of exactly what items they compared for their index. I’ll go see if I can find an older version.

  5. Best advice on a vending machine coffee cup: If your outgo exceeds your income your upkeep will be your downfall.

    1. Dad is that you? Laughing, thanks Chris, he has been gone sometime but I heard exactly that many times. Except he abbreviated your to yo.

      Bullets dodged, sometimes I resisted temptation, I probably would not be where I am today but would not have known that, glad I resisted.

  6. Best: “You can say you’re sorry. You can say you didn’t mean it. But you can’t say you didn’t say it. Measure your words” – My dad

    Worst: “What’s another $40 a month? for the price of a few trips to Mcdonald’s you’d pass up this truck?” – a used car dealer when I bought my first vehicle on loan. 23.98% interest. I didn’t look at that part.

    Dodged bullet: “I think we may have made a mistake” – my older girlfriend telling me she thought she was knocked up. Turned out she wasn’t. Woke my ass up though and I ended things soon after. Looking back, I think that was a shit test.

    Advice for 20 year olds -I said to my kids:
    To the Daughters – “The time between you getting out of school and getting married is magic. Enjoy it, do stuff. But if you even think you’ll want to have kids, you need to get married while you can and start well before 30. Marry within your faith.”

    Also: Until about 25, guys are useless. Don’t take them seriously. They’ll say anything to get in your pants”

    Also: “The guy’s a retarded loser. You can do better”

    To my son – The time between you getting out of school and getting married is magic. Enjoy it, do stuff. Girls your age aren’t interested in you because you’re a nobody. Go work, ride the motorcycle, shoot, scuba. Become someone interesting and the girls will be there. Trust me”.

    Also: “Dude, She’s heading towards a wall smash at ramming speed with a fat grenade in her hands and looks like she’s pulled the pin. I know four men that married women like your woman. Three are divorced, one lives in misery. Your a grown man, you do what you want. All I can say is there’s no ‘happily ever after’ there. you can do better. Look, You’re young, fit, monied, interesting. You’re the catch, not her. Always remember that.”

    1. Excellent through and through – your Dad was a wise man – I’m gonna pack that one into my tool kit.

      The advice to your kids was also great.

  7. Best advice: From Dave Ramsey: Get out of debt. Period. It made a huge difference in my attitude and approach to life. Life is just easier without worrying about paying off a debt. Just skip the stuff you can’t pay cash for. You don’t have it now, so you can continue to live without it.

    2nd best advice: Invest in your career. Train and buy the good tools to do well. — I gained pay raises and avoided layoffs with this one. Contrasted with the guys that just pissed their money and time away.

    Good Advice: Enjoy a good vacation away from the everyday once in a while to relax. Staycations without electronics, TV, or the news are great. Best vacations do not cost a lot.

    Avoid fast women, cars, and booze.

    Worst advice: You can finance that house at 14% and the monthly payments are easy.

    2nd worst advice: Sell out of the market. It is going to crap.

    1. I need to take a vacation. Still need to figure out where . . . .

      I took that worst advice on at least one occasion . . . .

  8. What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?

    Look carefully at a woman’s mother before you marry her, because in 20-30 years, that’s who you’ll be living with.

    What’s the worst advice you’ve taken?

    “That car’s too old to fix up.” I would have been far better off fixing up the old car than buying the new one. which turned out to be a massive POS. Lost a lost of irreplaceable cash on that.

    What bullets did you dodge?

    The Tech Crash. I knew it was a bubble, and I rode it hard. When it popped, I lost about 15% before I decided that it was a crash and not a correction. I had people where I worked in tears looking at their 401s three months later.

    What advice would you give a 20-year-old? Probably go to school and get a job. I would do better with an 18 YO-take a year or two off. Play xBox or work a crappy job or three. Figure out who you are and who you want to be. Then get an appropriate education and get on with your life.

    1. Tech Crash: Fortunately an older guy told me, if your barber/plumbing/taxi driver is talking about an investment, the market is overheated (exuberant) and will shortly crash. That advice has saved me 3 major times so far.

      I still don’t know why I didn’t get out of the market at the start of the pandemic. I guess partly because the establishment lied about the situation.

      1. Was it pelosi? Finestine? Schumer?
        One/some of them sold their airline/resort stocks prior to January 2020… right about the start of ‘this phase of this Economic Lock-Down’.

        If only they were Investment Counselors.
        That would a been swell.

  9. What’s the best advice you’ve gotten? From my parents, mostly my Dad, to avoid debt as much as I could and live beneath my means. So as the work of my peers is revolving around mortgage, car payment, other car payment, student loans, and credit card debt; we are building up a savings and doing more for ourselves, and even the loss of a job could be ignored for a few months with no ill effects. It also means I’m not married to my current job and have more freedom.

    What’s the worst advice you’ve taken? That if I had feelings for someone, I should pursue them regardless. My first real relationship was a disaster combined with a nightmare, with someone I would never have gone after absent that peer pressure.

    What bullets did you dodge? Biggest is probably indoctrination. I wound up working more than studying my freshman year at a university, which led to me flunking out and starting my career. I look at the other folks my age who went through – even when coming from similar backgrounds – and just see the victims of Marxism.

    What advice would you give a 20-year-old? To pick a hobby that leads to something of value – whether that’s some kind of creation, or maintenance/repair. (They’d probably ignore anything more structured, like I would have at that age.) If they learn and believe that they can make something for themselves, or do things for themselves, that kind of practical skill will do more for them in the long run.

    1. I told The Boy: “If you ask a girl out and she says “no” and doesn’t even try to pick another day? She’s not interested. Move on.”

  10. a)
    I grew-up on a farm, surrounded by four grandparents and a busful of aunts and uncles and older cousins, so much of my indoctrination was through osmosis.

    I didn’t realize it was advice until much later, sometimes decades later.

    I remember sitting at the picnic-table on the porch with my granma Mae.
    She told me:
    * “Ignore their words, watch their actions”.
    Across the table from me, aunt MaryJane nodded.

    b)
    While we were welding a misbehaving tractor part back into submission, my granpa Jack (last name ‘Russell’) quietly mentioned:
    * “Learn to cook. No matter what, sooner or later, everybody eats.”

    c)
    My main air-daddy was a tiny ancient Black© retired (mythical CWO-5!) Warrant on contract as a chief pilot.
    I liked helicopters, and I asked him to schedule me along those lines.
    As he glared at me (as he was wont to do), Mister Johnson slammed the office door (as he was wont to do), kicked the wheeled chair into an always-expanding series of dents in the wall, and hollared (pleasantly…):
    * “YOU WILL **** LEARN TO **** OPERATE EVERY **** PIECE OF **** EQUIPMENT ON THIS ***** AIRFIELD! INCLUDING THE ***** ***** ****** COFFEE MACHINE!

    d)
    During a segment of Escape/Evade in Panama, some darn fool quietly suggested:
    * “You might want to molest your issue gear prior to heading out.”
    After my tent leaked, and my stove couldn’t light, and my boonie and fly and left boot blew seams, I realized some conversations are intended to be listened to instead of merely politely ignored as just background noise.

    e)
    2003, my Very Significant Other got sick.
    Naturally, we acquired a 1997 Ford CF8000 commercial truck to convert to our concept of an ExpeditionVehicle.
    After nearly two decades full-time live-aboard, I would ask any 20-year old:
    * “Can you imagine, is it possible everything you are told is nonsense intended to keep you in debt and plodding away at a Just Over Broke?”

    f)
    My best swim-bud from TheOldenDays is a semi-retired past president of a Mongols Nation motorcycle club chapter.
    We tell youngsters:
    * “Laugh more. Break an arm, laugh. Bad haircut? Laugh. Relationship goes toes-up? Laugh. None of this is particularly important… treat it like a game you intend to lose BECAUSE YOU DON’T CARE. Laugh at the absurdity of it all!”

    But we are geezers, and hardly anybody pays us any mind.

  11. I have a god-awful memory, but here’s some I remember.

    Best: “If it’s bad, you can outlast it.”
    My dad’s version of ‘anything that can’t go on forever, won’t.’ But his spin on it clicked with me. You can defeat a lot of evil in the world just by standing your ground. He said it at the right time – which is what made it the best advice.

    Worst: ‘Hold out in school and go to University.’ For reasons abundantly apparent to everyone by now.

    Dodged: I bailed at the first sign of trouble on a lot of early relationships; so I switched gears and decided to go full steam ahead with one girl no matter how difficult it became. (That turned out to be good, we matured a lot that way.) But I had three red lines – the ones that destroy marriages: money/kids/sex. By the time we were engaged it was clear there wasn’t any hope on those grounds. A year after giving her the boot I was amazed at what I was willing to settle for.

    Give: There is a reason the ninth commandment is ‘shall not bear false witness’ and isn’t ‘don’t lie’ or ‘always tell people the truth.’ God knows what bastards people can be; ‘Don’t say something happened that did not happen,’ is very specific. It means you can deflect, omit, stay silent, make pretense, and generally act like a politician without breaking the commandment. But you can’t: Exaggerate blame on others. Make excuses for not working. Promise beyond your means. Or generally distort reality in any way whatsoever. So, the opposite of a politician as well.

    I won’t go into the specific fruits of this commandment, I just acknowledge it’s superior to the platitudes people otherwise say.

Comments are closed.