Of Personal Responsibility

I've been thinking about these two old posts, one from Free Money Finance about a reader scared to invest, and one from I Pick Up Pennies about personal responsibility and the housing market.

Free Money Finance posted a reader question that really bothered me. The reader had a high income and had accumulated a pile of cash and didn't know how to invest it. He had no retirement accounts even. Sounded like straightforward fear, happens to all of us. The problem was the language. This reader said:

I have zero debts and my wife and I earn a good wage but are forced to live in an expensive part of the country because of our jobs.

Sorry, but unless you are in a hospital bed or a sweatshop, you were not "forced" to live anywhere. You CHOSE to live in an expensive area so that you could get a high-paying job. Good for you! There's nothing wrong with that choice--people make it all the time. The problem is that this reader acts like it wasn't his choice.

A few dozen comments later, the reader comes back to "digest" all the comments. He references "published research" that dollar-cost averaging is stupid and brags about his math skillz. So, basically he just defended his previous decision to not invest.

I don't really care if this guy invests or not. If investing is too risky for him, fine. I don't really care if this guy has a 401(k). If he can't be bothered, fine. I don't really care if this guy lives in Manhattan. Good for him. But he fails to comprehend that these are choices that he made. I don't even care if he defends those choices, but it seems like he is not even aware that they are his choices.

Life is choices. Abby at i pick up pennies wrote about people who irresponsibly chose to buy houses knowing the risks. I chose a fiercely aggressive career that will interefere with my extra-curricular life. I chose to live in Texas. I chose to keep renting when everyone was buying. I chose to buy expensive cars. I chose to buy a pet. All we can do is make the choices that are right for us, be aware of all the choices, be aware of the risks of those choices, and maybe change them when they're not right for us anymore.