dont get TRAPPED in the mid game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0J4tHegdx8

demi zhuang's video on her switching from VOO to CSPX

when i saw her first video in 2022 about investing into VOO through syfe, i thot to myself

"thats stupid. shes going to change to CSPX eventually"

and ofc, i am right

i notice this in a lot of things

maybe you notice this too?

people focusing and investing a lot on the best optimization for the mid game, but not realizing that in the end game, there is little overlap in their earlier investments that can be useful to their end game 

i noticed this with demi and her suboptimal way of long term investing into the S&P500

i notice this with money honey sg and many others maximizing credit card rewards

i notice this with 1m65 planning retirement in malaysia

i notice this with nomad capitalist and his 5 houses in 3rd world countries

the solulu to all their delulu is simply more money

but truthfully, it is about having a realistic and accurate vision of where one's "end game" is at

if demi's portfolio was $300,000 instead of $3,000, the natural answer to this larger size straight from the start is already CSPX, never VOO

if money honey sg is spending $50,000 a month instead of $5k a month, his optimizations goes out the window. sorry, but nobody rich enough is checking MCCs before making their daily purchases

if mr loo had 50m instead of 5m (idk, im guessing), he 100% will not be thinking about trying to make living in malaysia work

if nomad capitalist mr handerson had 200m instead of 20m (idk, im guessing), he would not even be thinking about having cheap studios in third world countries

im just making the factual observation that if they had more money, their fondness of their old solutions will seem silly, even to themselves

think about it this way

if you waste a ton of resources pimping out your beginner gear and they cap out at mid game

and along the way you acquire better gear that are more efficient and scales much better into the end game (higher ceiling)

you'll end up in the end game with not enough resources for your end game, because you overinvested in the mid game into gear that are meaningless in the end game

you think ultra rich people care about maximizing $1K credit card for 4mpd on 4 different credit cards? you think they care about saving a few dollars on a discount brokerage? you think they want to have a vacation home in malaysia or bogota columbia? lol

these are all mid game traps that are completely meaningless in the end game

i think one of the most obvious financial mid game traps is ILP coping followed by property portfolios

the most obvious social mid game trap is luxury bags / watches

actually the biggest mid game trap that is completely cleared with more money, is the lack of desire to have children

there is a weak case to be made that such mid game traps are actually necessary stepping stones, and i wont argue strongly against that. i would just advise to invest the bare minimum amount to make those stepping stones work for you, so you can step on them and keep moving upwards and onwards to where you actually really want to be

even better if you can make highly flexible / low commitment investments into these mid game things that you know can be recycled or reused in the end game without bricking resources into dead ends

demi switching to cspx now before her portfolio gets too big is a good example of this. at the end of the day, how much worse was it that she was in VOO instead of CSPX? probably not much at all. good example of a low-cost to upgrade from a capped mid game strategy to a limitless end game strategy

btw some of my mental labels

early game - schooling years

mid game - early career

end game - retirement / working for fun

i think what could be helpful is to be honest with yourself about what you want your end game to look like, and then efficiently plan how to use your resources (time and money) to tide over mid game content, until you unlock end game pieces, and then you can start giga investing into those since they never have any downside of being over invested in

i cannot tell you what your end game will look like, as it is a personal thing

but i can point out the mistakes that many people make and why many people cannot thrive in the end game

no one is perfect, and i also wasted a lot of resources into stupid things that dont matter anymore

but whats done is done

we move on