[HN Gopher] My second year without a job
___________________________________________________________________
My second year without a job
Author : true_pk
Score : 435 points
Date : 2024-12-06 20:26 UTC (1 days ago)
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| dyauspitr wrote:
| I was unemployed for a year at a point and honestly it was the
| best year of my life in a long time. Yes I went through about
| $50K but I was able to pursue hobbies, play sports, weightlift,
| hike, travel, write, play music, spend a lot of time with my wife
| and daughter and I built an entire second home on my property
| (all by myself)! That's honestly how life is meant to be lived
| but it's too bad we're not at UBI levels in society yet.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Yes, that sounds very nice and you are very privileged and
| lucky. Leisure is definitely a lot nicer than work, but there's
| a lot of work someone has to do. You can choose to pay people
| to work, or not, but if you pay people to not work you have to
| figure out some other incentive for workers or the necessary
| work won't get done at all.
|
| I do prefer living in industrialized society to subsistence
| farming and slavery, personally, so maybe let's try to keep the
| incentives in place and NOT copy the Soviets, yeah?
|
| And implying that there's a way we're "meant" to live implies
| we were created by a conscious being with intent, and I think
| you'll find that's a controversial view
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I get it, to have a functioning society we need people to
| work. There is some paradigm in the future where a lot of the
| labor can be automated, we're just not there yet.
| kbutler wrote:
| I appreciate that you used that time to build that second home.
|
| Any estimate on the value creation from building that home vs
| the $50k consumed?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's a full fledged home with 2 bedrooms. I spent ~$75k on
| materials (outside of the $50k I spent on living expenses).
| It probably added atleast $100k of value if not more.
| kbutler wrote:
| Sounds like time well-spent (with all the other activities
| as well).
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Thank you, I appreciate it. I thought so too.
| billy99k wrote:
| "That's honestly how life is meant to be lived but it's too bad
| we're not at UBI levels in society yet"
|
| This sounds great. My question is why should I have to work and
| pay for you to do what you want all day?
| overcast wrote:
| Welcome to the club!
| processing wrote:
| Exact same situation - 2 years deep here but at a breaking point
| cannot continue this trajectory.
| to-too-two wrote:
| I'm depressed studying computer science. Been thinking about
| quitting seeing how people with years of experience can't even
| find work.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| What's a better alternative?
| shreddit wrote:
| "Can't find work" can have different meanings for different
| people. Maybe they just haven't found a job with the pay
| grade they want.
| processing wrote:
| if you love computer science don't quit - I'd definitely
| triple down on real world projects/output rather than just
| studying though.
|
| I intentionally left to work on projects I wanted to pursue,
| built a startup that isn't currently covering costs (1
| customer on an annual plan), lived in Thailand for 6 months
| (with kids going to to school there), the burn rate on return
| has taken it's toll (California)...but yeah recently put
| feelers out for potential work and see it's going to be quite
| the mission to find work (personally).
| coldpie wrote:
| There's jobs out there. My company has turnover, which means
| people are going somewhere, and we're hiring, too. Make
| Connections!! Any kind of foot in the door is leagues better
| than cold-applying.
| bdangubic wrote:
| Absolutely do not quit. The loudest people are ones that
| cannot find a job, people that do are not going to be writing
| blogs like "My 27th year as a hacker" - no one will read that
| shit.
|
| There are roughly 1.5 million software developers alone in
| the United States. If you love computer science you will
| excel in this industry for many years after you graduate.
| Quit only if your heart is not in it, the worst people I've
| worked with in my 27 year career are ones who obviously went
| with this career only because it can be a decent way to make
| a living.
|
| But worry not, if you are end up loving what you do you'll be
| great at what you do and people that are great at what they
| do will always be wanted.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| 100%, and to add to this... people who are just doing it
| for the money should absolutely quit, because they tend to
| end up wanting to switch roles or often quit a couple years
| in anyway.
|
| People that actually enjoy writing software / solving
| problems are the ones that get ahead.
| metamet wrote:
| I've also noticed that over the years those are the
| candidates who are most unable to find a job. And having
| interviewed a fair number of candidates, the number of
| passionate devs out there is smaller than you'd expect.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > people who are just doing it for the money should
| absolutely quit
|
| I hate to tell you this. But any job that pays as much as
| a software dev in the USA is going to have 50% or more
| people who do the job for the money. You can learn to
| love what you do. But when you're 18 trying to find out
| what to do, for a lot of people money matters most.
|
| I love being a software dev. I got obsessed when in
| college, made a lot of pet projects just for fun, kept
| that energy up throughout my career till I got married
| and had kids, and I am so glad I made that choice. But if
| it didn't pay what I knew back in college it pays, I
| wouldn't have done the job.
| mettamage wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| I have been in it for the money and also in it because I
| like it. I don't like it for 8 hours per day but I do
| like CS.
|
| I don't love it though, and have transitioned since. But
| having the skill, the background and the grit (due to not
| loving it), it's awesome.
|
| Just to give a more nuanced perspective. I think the
| whole love it or leave attitude is too binary.
| raddan wrote:
| CS professor here. Don't quit. CS has been one of the most
| enlightening experiences of my life. I have made many friends
| along the way, been able to participate in inspiring
| projects, and felt like I worked in a vibrant field that gave
| me a powerful lens on the world. Yes, it is hard work. But
| the work is worth it.
|
| Since coming to CS my highs have been higher and my lows
| lower than in other disciplines. And I came late. I started
| grad school in my thirties. But something that I learned when
| I was young, from well before my time in CS is true in this
| discipline too: if you do good work, people eventually
| notice. There will be a snowball effect.
|
| It's true, it doesn't work out for everyone. But nothing
| does. And if you don't take the opportunity to do something
| difficult, you'll never know if you could have done it. I
| personally could not live with that thought. Those who do not
| try cannot succeed. But those who try--and retry when things
| don't work out--probably will not fail either.
| ta12653421 wrote:
| ++1
|
| Thanks for this energetic and super-true comment!
|
| Even if OP finishes and decides not work in tech/IT for the
| rest of the life, having a CS background is VERY solid
| background for a looooot of jobs. Also, usually you get a
| good payment.
|
| And never forget what MAdreessen said: "Software is eating
| the world"
|
| :)
| melvinroest wrote:
| Recently became a data analyst. It couldn't be more true,
| my CS background definitely helped me
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| > Jack daniels here. Keep drinking.
|
| \s
| raister wrote:
| The way I see it, it's not CS per se, it's about solving
| problems.
|
| You hone that skill, and it will shape your future, whatever
| field.
|
| You'll never be jobless having that particular skill.
|
| Don't give up.
| enasterosophes wrote:
| Computer science opens the door to a wide range of work. The
| lower end of that range is indeed insecure and doesn't pay
| very well. However, get into the right industry, and you can
| match a lawyer for income -- without all the hastle and
| hurdles that junior lawyers have to go through. We're talking
| easily the upper 4% of income as a junior, eventually going
| up to 2% or 1% as you gain seniority.
|
| The reason is, there are some skills which are highly in
| demand, and few people are strong in those skills. In
| particular, I am thinking of HPC engineering and cloud
| computing infrastructure engineering. Companies and
| institutions own large server fleets, we're talking hundreds
| or thousands of servers. They want whatever is running on
| those fleets to have high performance, security, and zero
| downtime.
|
| This kind of work requires strong Linux systems
| administration and programming skills, an understanding of
| enterprise networking and storage technologies, confidence
| with at least one orchestration stack such as OpenStack or
| Kubernetes, and strong CI/CD and IaC skills (look up GitOps.)
| As a junior, you don't need to tick all these boxes, but
| people should be able to see that you're able to learn
| whatever you're missing.
|
| These skills don't usually come directly from a computer
| science degree. However, a computer science degree is the
| primary way to get your foot in the door with building those
| skills. If you want a junior job in cloud computing and are
| cold-calling because you don't know anyone yet, then it will
| help if you have good marks in a computer science degree
| (although it's possible to prove your chops in other ways,
| like having a history of strong contributions to open
| source.)
|
| Later, after you build some experience, and you prove that
| you can keep learning, you get the job done, and you can get
| along with people, you'll eventually have recruiters chasing
| after you, and companies willing to listen to whatever income
| you pitch to them.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Second on Cloud Infra and SRE stuff. All the big players
| need it and you have a lever which can move the moon. If
| you are good at what you do you will have a massive impact
| on the company. You hear lots of stories like "I saved my
| company XXX million dollars per year by turning off
| versioned objects in S3". I think the hardest part I have
| had is there is a lot of tacit knowledge in infrastructure,
| usually you are not the first person to solve a particular
| problem and anyone who has good industry experience can
| tell you immediately what you should do. For example I was
| looking at distributed storage and for kubernetes and was
| testing out OpenEBS, I spent about 2 months setting it up
| and getting it working only to find it had some critical
| shortfalls. Later I was talking with another person from
| industry and they are like "yea you should just use
| rook/ceph, everyone uses it". And lo and behold rook solves
| my problems and works great.
| dmoy wrote:
| > match a lawyer for income
|
| The low end of lawyers is also way, way lower. Law in the
| US has a massively bimodal income distribution, way more
| pronounced than Tech with Finance / Big tech paying more.
| In law your new grads at big firms may pull $200k or
| whatever, but the median for the rest is like $50k.
|
| It's pretty brutal if you're not top xy% of your class.
| StressedDev wrote:
| You will find work. One thing to keep in mind is the job
| market goes in cycles. Right now, finding work is hard but
| things will eventually pick up. Here is some advice for job
| hunting:
|
| 1) DO NOT GIVE UP 2) You don't need every skill the employer
| is asking for. What you need are the major skills the job
| requires and the ability to pickup the rest on the job. 3)
| Only apply for jobs where you are a good fit. 4) While job
| hunting, spend time each day learning a new skill. It can be
| a programming language, a technology, or something
| interesting. 5) Once you get a job, save lots of money. It
| helps you make it through lean times and sets you up for a
| nice retirement.
|
| One last thing. If your depression does not let up after 6
| months, I strongly recommend seeing a therapist and a
| psychiatrist. I wish you luck. Things will get better.
| hilux wrote:
| In the US, any good therapist is very expensive and not
| covered by insurance.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| This isn't true. Honestly every time I've looked, a
| therapist taking my typical insurance just took making
| about 50 phone calls. Most people make five phone calls
| and then give up.
| em-bee wrote:
| "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
|
| sure, 5 calls may be giving up to early. but 50? if i
| give up after 40 calls does that mean i haven't been
| trying hard enough?
| hilux wrote:
| There's a reason I said "good therapist." That's
| completely different from "any licensed therapist."
|
| You're just proving my point - you had to make 50 calls
| to reach "any licensed therapist" covered by your
| insurance.
|
| Why do you think the other 49 weren't in-network? It's
| because, if they're good, they can make much more out-of-
| network, direct billing patients.
| bawolff wrote:
| Tech job market flucuates like any other field. Its in a
| downturn right now. Won't be forever.
|
| Still, you have to do what is right for you. The downturn
| might end tomorrow. It might take a decade. Nobody knows.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| If it helps, I have years of experience and got 2 offers
| (good ones too) after applying to a handful of companies in
| March this year.
|
| If you are skilled, can talk to people and aren't afraid to
| put in the yards to prepare for interviews you'll do just
| fine.
| rsynnott wrote:
| At least in the original post, my reading was not that they
| couldn't find work, but that they had quit to go do startup
| stuff.
|
| The (tech) job market is definitely not great at the moment,
| but I do think people are overstressing how bad it is a bit,
| and in any case these things are cyclical. I started a CS
| degree in 2003, just after the dot-com crash, and finished in
| 2007, just heading into the financial crisis. Both of those
| kind of cratered the job market for a bit, but it recovered.
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| try 10 years because i havent made a dime since 2016
| StressedDev wrote:
| If this is not by choice, I hope you solve your problems and
| I hope things get better. Please do not give up.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| go work at Costco
|
| its money
| skwee357 wrote:
| I had a period of 6 months when I was unemployed burning through
| my savings.
|
| It was one of the best times of my life. Like the author, I
| focused a lot of entrepreneurship, my mental and physical health,
| and traveled a lot.
|
| But unlike the author, I came back to the workforce. I don't know
| what's the end game for the author, but I kind of feel torn here.
|
| On one side, I'd say that it's way easier to focus on building a
| business when you don't have a job. On the other side, not having
| money to live on would stress me so much that I'm not sure I'd be
| able to do sport or engage in hobbies, let alone build a
| business.
| true_pk wrote:
| Hi! Author here. You are very much on point. I only recently
| started looking for part-time jobs, and perhaps I should have
| mentioned it in the post. It's precisely what you said --
| financial stress started impacting my hobbies and sports, and
| that's where I don't feel as comfortable anymore.
| skwee357 wrote:
| Wishing you the best! I think if you will be able to find a
| part time job that will cover your lifestyle financially,
| while dedicating the other half to entrepreneurship and
| hobbies/sport, it's the best
| chr15m wrote:
| Good luck man, glad you had a great two years, thanks for
| sharing!
|
| Also, keep operating costs super cheap so you can keep the
| side hustle going and watch it grow over years. Don't shut it
| down unless you have to.
|
| To make $600/m you would have to invest $180k at 5%, so from
| that perspective you have created something valuable already.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > unemployed burning through my savings.
|
| did that include retirement savings? Are you behind or on track
| for when you're inevitably too old to work?
| skwee357 wrote:
| In fact, I touched only cash in the bank, I never sold any
| stocks, nor I ever touched the pension (not that I believe in
| pension too much, but I also can't withdraw it without paying
| a hefty penalty).
|
| Being "on track" is kind of an illusion to me. I believe it's
| impossible to plan for more than 2-3 years ahead, let alone
| 20. I live below my means, invest as much as I can while
| finding a healthy balance between enjoying the moment and
| planning for the future.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > But unlike the author, I came back to the workforce. I don't
| know what's the end game for the author, but I kind of feel
| torn here.
|
| His timing wasn't great. The tech job market is pretty dismal
| right now and will likely be dismal for a while. Unless we get
| back to a hot tech job market like circa 2020-2022 it's not
| going to be easy to find a gig after being out for 2 years.
| JesseTG wrote:
| You're telling me...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| In July 2001 I quit my tech job of 8 years so I could take
| some time to de-stress and work on projects thinking I
| could just jump back into a job 6 months later. Of course,
| that timing was _really_ bad. Since there weren 't any tech
| jobs available, in the Fall of 2002 I decided to go back to
| school and get a masters. We had a few months in 2003 where
| I made just enough money to get by by going to the Goodwill
| outlet store and buying books that could be sold online for
| a profit - Goodwill got wise to that arbitrage and started
| their own online store which kind of put an end to that.
| Had a few contract jobs in there that lasted anywhere from
| 4 to 6 months, even had a summer internship (at age 40!
| That interview was interesting), but it wasn't until 2006
| that I found something permanent again. Fortunately we had
| paid off our house back in 1999 otherwise it would've been
| even scarier.
| itake wrote:
| I've taken a similar path:
|
| I probably will continue bouncing back and forth for the rest of
| my career.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| If anyone else finds themself in this position, I highly
| recommend you sell what you can, pack the rest up into a storage
| unit, and travel, 4 or 6 months in each location.
|
| $80k can easily last you 4+ years of very comfortable living in
| much of the world. Enjoy the food, really try and learn some of
| the local language, and enjoy yourself.
|
| You can do it, and there won't be another window.
| skwee357 wrote:
| Not only you suddenly will get the entire week for yourself, to
| do whatever you want, and you will be able to travel, but the
| other benefit is reviewing your relationship with material
| possessions.
|
| I did that (sold everything, and went traveling), and now I own
| very little stuff. Apart from the mandatory laptop I need for
| work, and clothes, I couldn't care less about everything else.
|
| Before selling everything, I had a sick setup of dual monitors,
| and external DAC, speakers, headphones, keyboards, etc. Today,
| I need only laptop. I was considering getting one monitor, but
| can't seem to justify the need.
|
| It really teaches you how little material crap you need.
| deadbabe wrote:
| You listed a bunch of crap most people wouldn't buy anyways.
|
| The bulk of what people own are things like furniture,
| artworks, plants, appliances, cookware... etc. Not
| particularly sexy, but essential for making a cozy place to
| live in the world.
| skwee357 wrote:
| What I failed to mention is not only about the stuff you
| own, but in general your relationship with material
| possessions.
|
| Before selling everything, I'd constantly worry about
| whether I should get a third monitor, maybe try a curved
| one, get a new keyboard, upgrade the TV, get a new kitchen
| appliance, replace the sofa, etc. There's always "newer and
| better" for everything.
|
| Nowadays, I don't care anymore. I bought a TV because we
| like watching movies, but I don't care about the technology
| or the next shiny thing. Same with my computer, I work on a
| 14" laptop for the past two years, and I no longer feel
| like I should chase a better or newer setup.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The point is that even though you're not chasing material
| possessions, you're still probably chasing something.
| skwee357 wrote:
| True, I do chase freedom (always did), mainly time
| freedom and financial freedom.
|
| I bet being able to spend time with the people I love the
| most is way more important that having the latest and
| greatest TV or fridge.
| handzhiev wrote:
| You may be surprised but the majority of people who own
| stuff do not worry whether they should get a third
| monitor or a new kitchen appliance. We just use some
| items and don't care much about them. If the TV breaks
| I'd look for a new one, but otherwise I don't care.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I wouldn't call dual monitors sick, barely entry level,
| but... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NSW5F8V they make
| good cheap external portable monitors that are laptop thin or
| thinner.
| culopatin wrote:
| lol the person is happy with the minimal life and here we
| are trying to fix it for them pushing Amazon links.
| 05 wrote:
| And 8K VR goggles are clearly superior to external
| displays as a travel setup :))
| Aeolun wrote:
| I always think laptop only is fine, and then I suddenly have
| a screen and realize how much happier my neck is every day.
| imbusy111 wrote:
| Would not recommend, if being alone is a risk factor to mental
| health.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| My brother and his wife did this; quit their jobs and spent a
| year in Europe "slow living" (still did a bit of consulting
| work, maybe 10 hours/week), but with careful planning were able
| to keep their expenses waaay down (not sure of exact figure but
| much less than if living in the US). Month-long AirBNBs in non-
| tourist areas are inexpensive, so they'd spend 1 month in each
| place. A lot of walking, hiking, trains, just living. Not
| Paris, London or Zurich of course, but places like Albania,
| Montenegro, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, France of course. (Part
| of the reason for going to those countries is you can only
| spend so long in the Schengen Zone.) So you don't have to go as
| far as Vietnam or Ecuador to do this.
|
| Obviously the OP has no children (and my brothers' kids are
| grown up) - if you have kids this changes the equation
| completely (though if they're very young then it can still
| work).
| Loughla wrote:
| I have a cousin and his wife who did this with kids. They
| sold everything, bought an RV, and traveled north and Central
| America. They were homeschooling during that time. Their kids
| were 5 and 7.
|
| It was not good.
|
| I cannot stress enough how bad of an idea this is unless your
| children are under 3. Children need structure and permanency.
| They need friends, not just acquaintances. My cousin did
| everything else right, but his kids still have issues with
| relationships because 5 of their very formative years were
| spent without actual friends. It's really sad to think about.
|
| For him, it was a wildly selfish move that negatively
| impacted his children. Don't be that guy.
| samvher wrote:
| What does issues with relationships mean in this context?
|
| Also, it sounds like they were traveling for 5 years? Yeah,
| that does sound like a very long time - I imagine if it had
| been 1 year or so it might have been a very different story
| (?)
| rikafurude21 wrote:
| I dont really see the issue here? Obviously the parents are
| the stable anchor in that situation, and the kids probably
| had a great time traveling and exploring the world with
| their parents. I would honestly prefer that compared to the
| usual childhood experience you get nowadays, which is
| sitting around watching youtube brainrot right after being
| subjected to public school brainrot for 8 hours.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Kids need structure and permanency. This is child abuse,
| and I know people who have done it. Their kids are a
| mess, and it breaks my heart.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Humans have been nomads for most of our existence. I
| think if the traveling group had been larger so that
| there were consistent friendships of various ages that it
| might have gone differently. Carnival workers are a
| modern example in NA, they have traveling homeschools as
| they go to each ren-fair or whatever. So there are
| permanent friends, but the structure is pretty lacking.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes I know a woman who grew up this way, moving every
| couple of years, nothing ever permanent. As an adult, she
| has lived a life of self-sabotage, quitting jobs, moving
| and starting over, in and out of relationships with self-
| destructive men, never saving any money, never really
| planning for the future.
| raddan wrote:
| My family moved nearly every year (and sometimes twice a
| year) until I was in high school. I loved the changes. I
| liked that when I went someplace new, the only thing my
| peers knew about me was what I told them. I made many
| friends over the years and I'd like to think that I am
| happy. So YMMV.
| rvba wrote:
| With how many of those friends do you still talk?
|
| *Liking facebook photos does not count.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| How many childhood friend does anyone still talk to
| beyond liking photos on facebook?
| zrobotics wrote:
| I mean, the adult life you describe doesn't sound
| different from my brother, and growing up we moved once.
|
| Edit: my brother grew up into a child abusing POS by
| neglecting his kids, but let's looks at statistics VS
| anecdotes since individuals from all backgrounds can be
| garbage people.
| hi_hi wrote:
| You just described a good friend of mine. He's one of the
| smartest and most capable people I know, but could never
| get out of his own way.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| And I went to 7 different schools growing up, have since
| lived in several countries, have a master's degree and
| money in the bank.
|
| Correlation != Causation. People are different and
| respond differently to various situations.
|
| For me personally, having been in lots of places means I
| always have people to visit and in many cases a place to
| stay.
| borski wrote:
| This is correlation. Plenty of people are brought up this
| way and are completely fine, and plenty of people are
| just like this and stayed in one place their entire
| lives.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I know a woman who grew up in the typical way, in a
| stable loving household. As an adult, she has lived a
| life of self-sabotage, quitting jobs, moving and starting
| over, in and out of relationships with self-destructive
| men, never saving any money, never really planning for
| the future.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Kids need structure and permanency. This is child abuse
|
| Sorry, but this is BS.
|
| Structure, yes. Permanency, no.
|
| And certainly not child abuse.
|
| I know just as many examples of people with this
| experience, for whom it was amazingly positive and
| contributed to the successful people they are today.
| lenkite wrote:
| There is an _extraordinary_ amount of scientific evidence
| that frequent moving during childhood _severely_ impacts
| child psychology. I am not even sure how you can say it
| is BS while throwing up anecdotal experience.
| stogot wrote:
| The original OP is an anecdote. Could you link the
| extraordinary data? I want to see how they can
| empirically test this
| lenkite wrote:
| Honestly, you can very easily find this yourself.
| Multiple independent studies carried out across both
| organizations and nations have shown this.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4866579/
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135382
| 921...
|
| For the layman:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/health/moving-
| childhood-d...
|
| https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/moving-even-once-in-
| childh...
|
| https://www.verywellmind.com/moving-depression-and-your-
| chil...
| LouisSayers wrote:
| And how much of this is just correlation and not due to
| mobility per se?
|
| From the first link you provided:
|
| > Firstly, increased risk for onset of mental disorders
| between mid-adolescence and early middle age could be a
| consequence of serious and enduring difficulties within
| families, rather than being a direct result of
| residential mobility. Relocation occurs more commonly
| amongst single parent and step families and those from
| lower socioeconomic background
| lenkite wrote:
| It cannot be dismissed as mere "correlation". These
| studies have been carried out on people of middle-class
| background too. Esp children of defense service personnel
| who have experienced frequent mobility. And studies
| carried out by different nations AND different cultures
| as well! Mental well-being is not mathematics - you
| cannot proof a definite cause with utterly no ambiguity.
|
| Unfortunately, you took one single "could be" sentence
| out of an entire gamut of data confirming mobility-
| related mental health issues in children and completely
| ignored the _conclusions_ section in that same paper, so
| I think you have already severely hardened your position
| and are unlikely to be convinced by anything I offer.
|
| I would suggest simply talking to a practicing
| psychologist about this - you would probably be _far_
| more convinced than a HN commenter. Actually, this is
| where I first found out the same - I didn 't know about
| this until a consultation with a psychologist.
|
| (You can also ask your AI buddies - ChatGPT also
| confirmed it with several case studies offered.)
| borski wrote:
| Literally the first three proposed explanations in the
| discussion of the findings in the meta-study you linked
| are correlational. It is only the fourth proposed
| explanation that suggests a possible causal relationship.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| At the same time I doubt anyone would use that kind of
| thing as evidence for forcibly settling nomadic cultures.
| I'm somewhat curious because I'm sure they try to do
| things like divorce socioeconomic factors, abuse,
| poverty, and other negatives from such a conclusion. But
| as someone who moved 7 times through 7th grade and
| attended at least 6 different schools through that
| interval, I'm generally quite grateful to _not_ have been
| dulled and stultified by living in one place my whole
| life. To the point that I 've contemplated planning at
| least one or two significant moves so my own children
| don't end up excessively influenced by whatever locality
| specific tints and delusions color a place. (Maybe
| another way to put it is its easier to boil frogs that
| have always lived in the same pot.) But I also do think
| it's nice for kids to have a solid friend group for a
| good part of childhood, and so forth. I suspect there's
| got to be a lot more complexity to this. (And I will say
| I do think there's a connection between moving a lot and
| loneliness, but I view loneliness as distinct from
| generalized depression. But totally not scientific.)
| hilux wrote:
| Most of your "evidence" has to do with kids moving
| between foster homes, or families running out in the
| middle of the night because they don't have money to make
| rent.
|
| That is nothing like what we are discussing here.
| lenkite wrote:
| No, this is _extensively_ tested and include educated,
| higher social-class and stable families. Make a
| consultation with a practicing psychologist if you doubt
| the dozens of studies carried out across nations in both
| the West and the East.
|
| "Even AFTER accounting for family background and
| achievement at the end of kindergarten, mobile students
| had significantly lower reading and math achievement
| tests scores in seventh grade."
|
| "Frequent relocation was associated with higher rates of
| all measures of child dysfunction; 23% of children who
| moved frequently had repeated a grade vs 12% of children
| who never or infrequently moved. Eighteen percent of
| children who moved frequently had four or more behavioral
| problems vs 7% of children who never or infrequently
| moved. Use of logistic regression to control for
| potential confounding covariates demonstrated that
| children who moved frequently were 77% more likely to be
| reported to have four or more behavioral problems"
| hilux wrote:
| If you're going to quote studies, you should cite then.
| Then we can pick apart what "mobile" means to your ivory
| tower researchers, which is almost definitely not
| "traveling the world as a healthy, happy, family unit."
|
| Diplomats travel with their families. Employees of multi-
| nationals travel. US military travel. At least that last
| group (i.e. their kids) I know does better than average.
| 317070 wrote:
| Not OP, but he's quoting this article:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7689659/
| hilux wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| It seems to me that their survey intermingles two very
| different groups - the larger group, those who moved due
| to extreme financial insecurity (who would do MUCH
| worse), and those who moved under "positive"
| circumstances.
| interloxia wrote:
| The study of Third Culture Kids and the trouble they have
| is probably a good example of research on the topic that
| doesn't focus on foster kids.
|
| A specific research paper isn't necessary in my opinion
| for this site and topic, but Wikipedia is a simple
| starting point to find some.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
| stogot wrote:
| This is not child abuse. It's an anecdote of two kids.
| I'm sure the parents were very loving. Another pair of
| kids could turn out perfectly fine doing this.
| jmcgough wrote:
| In the above scenario, they were depriving their kids of
| any kind of meaningful friendship with peers during a
| critical development period. This is neglect, and neglect
| is abuse in children. If you care about your children,
| why would you risk permanently impairing their ability to
| form healthy relationships?
| piuantiderp wrote:
| I'm not sure the average school peers are any better.
| Unless we're talking private education. Do consider that
| for the better part of history, even in school, kids were
| not separated into years.
|
| That they need permanency, sure but that's the parents
| and the living situation
| stogot wrote:
| Agreed, separation into school grades by age is not
| normal or healthy. And abuse often happens in school.
|
| You could argue more soundly that modern schools are
| child abuse if we follow the commenter's line of
| reasoning.
| zrobotics wrote:
| It's presumptuous to claim child abuse, since we
| fundamentally know very little about the situation.
|
| I wouldn't say it's abuse, but it's certainly depriving
| the kids from learning how to develop socially. They
| aren't learning how to maintain friendships, and are
| being implicitly taught that such connections are
| disposable.
|
| I've had the misfortune to see actual child abuse, from
| the story presented in the OP it doesn't rise even close
| to that level. Let's please reserve words/phrases like
| that for situations that warrant it.
|
| It may not be an ideal parenting strategy, but claiming
| it's abuse cheapens the word. Are the children being fed
| properly? Are they being physically/sexually harmed? I've
| unfortunately had to intervene in a situation with my
| niece that involved the above 3.
|
| The parenting method in the OP may not be ideal, but
| plenty of people have had childhoods like that My mom
| grew up moving every 5-8 months, her dad was a contractor
| for the TVA. There are still people who follow around
| contracting work. Please don't minimize that actual harm
| caused by child abuse by cheapening the term.
| Aeolun wrote:
| While one is undoubtedly worse than the other, I don't
| think it's a good idea to say it's not abuse because it's
| not as bad as the worst possible variety.
|
| I happen to agree this probably doesn't rise to the level
| of child abuse, but there's a large range between there
| and unfed/physically/sexually harmed.
|
| We shouldn't cheapen it, but we shouldn't make it too
| expensive either.
| borski wrote:
| You're right. But this is decidedly not abuse; it's a
| parenting style that many are unaccustomed to, and
| perhaps doesn't work as well in the US, I have no idea.
|
| But it's not abuse.
|
| You're correct that physical/sexual harm and malnutrition
| are not the only things that constitute abuse either,
| though.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I am into sailing and know a bunch of people that grew up
| "cruising the world" on sailboats with their parents.
| They're almost all well adjusted, successful, and have
| unusually good social skills from learning how to make
| friends with people from other cultures. I think the
| structure and permanence that kids need is emotionally
| mature and available parents- the physical part is not
| the important part. Also, kids can have mental health
| problems and developmental disorders that have nothing to
| do with parenting- and it's pretty awful to blame parents
| for their kids problems unless they intentionally abused
| them.
| borski wrote:
| This is precisely the first thing I thought of. You can
| absolutely provide structure and strong friendships
| without physical proximity.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Hol up. Sailing culture is VERY different from RV
| culture. I lived on a sailboat for years, going up and
| down the US coast, startup hopping. The sailing culture
| is very friendly, especially to kids (who are treated
| more like small adults than children). The people I met
| along the way are life-long friends. If I needed a ride
| to an auto store to pick up new house batteries, engine
| parts, or even to a Walmart, there were always people to
| give me a ride.
|
| RV culture is much more lonely and expects people to be
| more self-sufficient. If you need help, there may or may
| not be people to help you; for sure, the whole campsite
| won't jump to help, unlike a marina.
|
| At least, that was my experience.
| jhives wrote:
| I don't think that's true of RV culture at all. I
| currently live on the road with my partner, and while we
| don't yet have kids, we've met dozens of families and
| many more dozens of kids. All were more than capable of
| socializing and making friends, both with adults and
| other kids, and could often be found running around
| whatever campground or forest we were parked at.
| Certainly you can live a very isolated life on the road,
| but just like when living in a house if you put yourself
| out there there is a welcoming community that will
| respond.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Yes, I absolutely love how other adults in the sailing
| community treat my kid with kindness and respect, and
| listen to them the same as any adult. Sailing is somewhat
| of a dying thing- few young people do it and the older
| people are mostly really excited to see kids in the
| community.
|
| We don't actually live on a sailboat in the sense of this
| discussion, but a lot of our friends do.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| It's funny you mention sailing. The couple people I know
| who grew up on a boat sailing like you describe no longer
| talk to their parents and long for a normal childhood
| they didn't have.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I sounds to me like you are really upset about something
| awful that happened to you or people you care about, and
| not sharing the full story.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Please don't trivialize child abuse like this.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| What exactly was not good?
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I would say don't be the guy judging another parent, or
| another anyone, for simply living their own life
| differently than you happened to choose to live yours. A
| different lifestyle isn't child abuse. Get over yourself.
|
| We moved a lot as kids due to my dads jobs. It was nothing
| you can point at and call call crazy like living in a rv,
| just normal jobs like a million people have to deal with,
| yet has essentially the same effect as your nomad rv story.
| Some time in the air force followed by different
| electronics and computer engineering jobs that just
| resulted in a significant move every couple of years.
|
| Depending on my mood I can say I didn't make a lot of
| friends or that I made exactly normal friends, and that any
| weirdness about me was caused by that, or was my own nature
| and that didn't change anything. I can think of argumants
| that sound reasonable both ways, and I can cite various
| facts (things about me, events and outcomes in my life,
| etc, and the same about others with different events and
| outcomes) that support both ways.
|
| Which means what I choose to say or blame says more about
| me than anything else.
|
| Every thing you can say about stability I can say something
| equal about conformity.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I think it depends on the children and duration. 5 years
| might have been too long -- you start getting to age 10-12
| stable friends become more important. But I know plenty of
| people who did it for a couple of years with kids -
| homeschooling - and it was a great opportunity for them.
|
| Our neighbors a few years back had spent years living on a
| boat with their child up until age 6, I think it was, and
| it was great. And their daughter had a very positive
| experience. But yeah, once she was older they moved
| onshore.
|
| I don't think moving itself has a negative effect. If you
| stay long enough for your kids to establish friendships,
| sometimes those friendships can remain when you move. My 8
| year old boy still plays almost daily online + FaceTime
| with his friend from 1st grade in another city even though
| they were only a year together they established a bond that
| is very strong years later and they haven't seen each
| other. They're still best friends.
|
| The usual YMMV.
| em-bee wrote:
| i used to think that moving frequently when i was young was
| the cause of why i didn't make any friends, but i realized
| that there was much more to it. if the kids have
| relationship issues, then i suspect it wasn't the frequent
| travel that caused that but it may also have been
| relationship issues with the parents as well. staying in
| one place and going to school may have mitigated the issue
| or it may have not. we can't say. my parents went through a
| divorce when we moved, and we didn't get any help from
| family or community while my parents tried to sort out
| their lives. there wasn't much, if anything they could have
| done better. the things that happened were more or less
| unavoidable.
|
| obviously i don't know your cousin, but before you blame
| him, consider that there may have been other factors that
| you can't see, that were beyond their control.
|
| the worst thing in my experience is relatives who think
| they know what i am doing wrong as a parent, without
| understanding the whole picture. (friends too, but once
| friends do that, they are no longer friends). try not to be
| that person.
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| Homeschooled kids are overfitted to their training data
| (parents).
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Shouldn't something that unavoidably severe show up pretty
| clearly at a population level for military kids? I'd think
| there'd be some high-profile lawsuits by now.
| lumost wrote:
| Military kids hang out with other military kids for
| protracted periods (6+ months). Living in an ev in a
| foreign country where you don't speak the language is
| different.
| weard_beard wrote:
| We used to call them, "military brats". Just like they
| used to call PTSD, "He lost his marbles. Couldn't take
| the stress like a real man."
| nemo wrote:
| If you want to debate something, don't pick another
| person's experience. There's no winning that.
| zrobotics wrote:
| I mean, 'military brat' is definitely a stereotype. I'm
| not a sociologist so not familiar with relevant research,
| but I would be shocked if it hadn't been studied.
|
| One thing I would point out is that military kids are in
| a far different scenario than the OP's cousins kids.
| Military kids will grow up moving from base to base, but
| the schools around bases are fundamentally different.
| Those are schools where teachers are used to student
| turnover, and the students are as well. OP talked about
| kids that were in a more nomadic situation, where they
| could only form brief <1mo friendships. The local culture
| of these communities is also used to and adapted somewhat
| to this.
|
| That sounds like childhood trauma to me, the closest
| analog might not be military children but the foster care
| system. Not a 100% analog, since presumably the OP's
| cousins kids didn't have the pre-existing trauma that
| entry into that system necessitates, but that is the
| closest conventional analog I can think of. Moving around
| constantly into communities that aren't necessarily set
| up to deal with that is rough.
| CalRobert wrote:
| My mom was a navy brat in the 60's and 70's and she
| didn't like moving all the time, but has said that having
| a bunch of other families right next door all with little
| kids and stay at home moms actually made for a pretty
| great childhood.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I totally agree this is bad for the kids. Fwiw please try
| to encourage the kids to break out of their shell and
| socialize in college/high school/when they can. I moved a
| ton growing up, went to four different high schools, etc,
| and had a really hard time being "normal" with other
| people. In grad school I got a TA position that forced me
| to do 1:1 meetings with ~300 new students every semester,
| and that experience taught me how to be more normal. I'm
| still weird, but at least can fit in with Bay Area
| engineers. All this to say -- I didn't have their
| experience, but I think they can ameliorate it
| hi_hi wrote:
| Weird doesn't exist. You are not weird. You are not
| normal.
|
| This may be different to your situation, but when i was
| younger I wanted people to like me, and if they didn't
| I'd blame myself for being weird. Now I'm older, I don't
| give a shit if people like me or not, and I've stopped
| thinking of myself as weird.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I agree to some extent, and I am getting better at just
| being comfortable in my own skin, but I think social
| conventions matter too. Eg I shouldn't act overly
| surprised when someone says they're a morning person, but
| I should/can do that when they say they're pregnant. If
| you get too many conventions wrong, people are
| uncomfortable lol
|
| Edit: I realized I didn't respond as directly as I'd like
| to. I think I do want people to like me, and that's ok. I
| think it's also ok to not care
| hi_hi wrote:
| Thank you for the considered and insightful response.
| This is obviously a deeply person topic and each
| individual will have their own take on how they feel.
|
| I think the key point in all of this, which you and
| others highlighted, is weird vs not weird is very much a
| consequence of social conventions. It's also important,
| generally speaking, to fit into these conventions to
| facilitate social cohesion. There are obviously extremes,
| which are outside of my considerations here.
|
| I should have put more effort into my original comment
| but I was in a rush at the time. This bit might not apply
| to you, I don't know you, these are just my own poor
| articulations. Feeling like you are weird, or don't fit
| in, or make people uncomfortable, basically comes down to
| peoples reflections of their judgement on you. This is
| inescapable and to judge is human nature. But being on
| the wrong side of it, for long enough, can lead to a very
| negative mental state. Having the ability to realise you
| are not responsible for other peoples feelings is
| important. And also realising these feelings are largely
| dictated by the society you find yourself in is also
| important. These things can be changed, social circles
| need not be permanent, and should probably be changed if
| leading to a negative mental state, brought about because
| you feel you don't fit in.
|
| I stand by my original point that there is no such thing
| as weird or normal, anymore so than some cultures or
| societies can appear weird or normal, which is highly
| relative. Otherwise intelligent and conscientious people
| should not believe themselves to be less than they are
| because they are at odds with their current time and
| place. As Yuval Noah Harari would say, society is a
| fiction.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Don't worry at all, I think your original post was fine
| too, and I agree with what you say! I think some of this
| comes down to personal preference, how you want to relate
| to the world, and who you want to surround yourself with.
| "Different strokes for different folks" :)
| kortilla wrote:
| Weird definitely exists. If you can't form social
| connections well with pretty much everyone you run into,
| you're weird. You can pontificate about the proper
| terminology but that's the one society understands.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| I don't entirely buy that, I'd suggest there's a fair
| sized chunk of sampling bias in that statement.
|
| Simply because the sample of people we encounter socially
| is skewed towards the pro-social, and the ones we notice
| and remember, doubly so.
|
| There's a lot more quiet, reserved, low-key people out
| there than we realise, and most of them aren't weird.
|
| (Also plenty of pro-social, extrovert types who are weird
| AF, but that's a different topic.)
| pineaux wrote:
| I am very weird and quite capable of making friends with
| people. I am not super extrovert, I need concentrated
| down time. And will ignore people when I am doing the
| introvert phase. But overal people find me sociable.
| Weird just means not normal. It's basically a codified
| statistical concept.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| There's whether or not you can make friends at all, and
| how choosy you are about who to make friends with, which
| aren't really the same thing.
|
| As a moderate introvert (handle social situations OK but
| need the down time to balance), I just find some people
| aren't worth the effort, and like to save my energy for
| those that are.
|
| But the weird/normal axis, I'm a little less comfortable
| with (similarly "neurotypical"/"neurodivergent").
| Fundamentally I dislike the idea of letting the most
| boring people claim normal, in a similar way to how LGBTQ
| and nonwhite folks don't like it when cishet or white
| people claim normal. Most of the people I most enjoy
| spending time with are ADD, ADHD or ASD, and all the
| better for it. It's not like these are even disabilities,
| they're just different ways of being.
|
| I'm OK with the labels themselves as a broad, shorthand
| way of understanding personality types / ways of seeing
| the world, but I don't buy that no-label people are more
| normal.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Sounds like you developed a bad coping mechanism imo, you
| absolutely should and still do care if people like you
| WizardClickBoy wrote:
| I actually laughed out loud at how different this is to
| the usual "be yourself and to hell with what people
| think" advice. Can you elaborate on why it's so important
| to care if people like you?
| OldOneEye wrote:
| Not OP, but we humans are social animals. As much as we
| may want to pretend we live alone just fine, it's not the
| common case. Sure, some people enjoy solitude and don't
| have to care about what others think, but most of us
| enjoy company, and this comes with caring about others
| and what they think of you.
|
| You surely care about what your partner thinks about you.
| Your parents perhaps? Your friends? It's part of the
| emotional connection.
|
| You can be laid back and easy going, but you're still
| going to care if your loved ones strongly go against your
| core beliefs and ways of living, right?
| bowsamic wrote:
| It's basic human psychology
| otikik wrote:
| At the very least your parents need to _tolerate_ you,
| because you depend on them for living during your early
| years. So early on it is a simple survival necessity.
|
| It turns out that this necessity never truly goes away.
| Aside from merely surviving (e.g. you need your doctor to
| at least _tolerate_ you) interacting with other human is
| what makes life more than just surviving. At least it's
| like that for most people.
|
| Even hermits and sociopaths need to be liked by at least
| one person, which is their own selves. Since the number
| must be at least one, it might as well be 2 or 3.
| bowsamic wrote:
| > At the very least your parents need to tolerate you,
| because you depend on them for living during your early
| years. So early on it is a simple survival necessity.
|
| Yep, and even a slight degradation of that trust that
| your parents that are necessary for your survival will
| protect you can have devastating, life-long psychological
| effects. And indeed everything can be traced back to
| that.
|
| Perhaps controversial but I think this is the origin of
| most religion: baby is protected by infinitely powerful
| parents, child has shocking and painful revelation that
| their parents are not infinitely powerful and have all
| kinds of insecurities and weakness, therefore a forever
| infallible representative (e.g. God) is constructed to
| fill in that gap.
|
| But I think that's just one way to fill the gap, and
| people engage in all kinds of strange, obsessive
| behaviours to try and reclaim that illusion of eternal
| protection and safety.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Well, people are generally social animals.
|
| Also, whether we like it or not we depend on other
| people. If you want to get hired, reproduce, sell stuff,
| or just not be a hermit, it matters what people think of
| you.
|
| Sometimes that means changing who you are. Sometimes it
| means finding people who are more like you (I know that I
| hate living in most rural areas based on the people I've
| met in them, for instance). Maybe a combination.
| rvba wrote:
| The "be yourself" crap generally doesnt work.
|
| Good advice would be "be somebody else".
|
| The self help books that teach various tricks...
| basically make one be someone else.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yeah, most of the advice is really bad, because they want
| to avoid the harsh truth: that things aren't necessarily
| going to work out. You can't sell a self-help book that
| teaches "you need people to love you but you might be
| left alone forever". People want a guaranteed solution
| but that simply doesn't exist.
|
| However, a lot of people, like the person I originally
| replied to, choose to remain alone, and that's often
| because they are scared of rejection or of being left
| alone. It's kind of ironic, like a contradiction. Longing
| for connection, but being so scared of rejection that you
| force the rejection to happen yourself, so that it
| doesn't happen to you involuntarily, but by forcing that
| rejection through self-isolation you basically guarantee
| your doom rather than opening the possibility for
| flourishing.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You're the common protagonist in every scene of your
| personal story.
|
| If everyone prefers not do deal with you, perhaps they
| are all toxic, terrible people. Or... there is a common
| element.
|
| There's a difference between defining yourself based on
| the expectations of others and being such an individual
| that nobody can relate.
| baq wrote:
| If most people aren't like you, you are not normal by
| definition.
|
| Good for you that you learned to cope with that. After
| the 'don't give a shit' stage there usually is 'sit back
| and observe' stage to understand what exactly you don't
| give a shit about.
| hi_hi wrote:
| Define "most people"? Clearly an absurd question in the
| context of this discussion. It's like saying "Most people
| on earth are not like you". How do you define that?
| baq wrote:
| You always compare some projections, turns out people are
| similar (or not) when dimensionally reduced.
| vasco wrote:
| This comment only has a slight amount of ground to stand
| on if you actually have a bunch of friends, otherwise
| it's just "hell is other people".
| addicted wrote:
| RV living is very different from living in an actual home
| (or even Air Bnb) and moving around.
|
| AirBnB's and homes are located in areas and designed for
| living like normal social human beings.
|
| RVs are parked in areas that are not designed to sustain
| long term living.
| rvba wrote:
| Socializing kids is about actual interactions with other
| kids. Something that nomadic life takes away from them.
|
| In many cases they simply dont have any friends at all.
| Or are always the incomers.
|
| Of course you can live in a place with lots of kids of
| your own age and still be lonly, or the kids can be
| dicks, but in my opinion there is benefit in
| socialization at age 4-10. Kids could go out ans play
| together. The nomads cant.
|
| IMO permanent group of friends and place, repetition,
| predictability are a foundation for growth. Then you can
| sprinkle one off things on top. Not a life of
| unpredictable mess when you are on your own.
|
| Also if you dont speak the local language how can one
| even socialize
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Look, I get you may have a bad experience with loneliness
| growing up, but this doesn't generalise. Lots of us grew up
| traveling for one reason or another (RVs, sailboats,
| military/diplomatic kids, etc), and I'd say on average
| we're about as well-adjusted as the kids whole spent their
| whole childhood in one of the various school systems around
| the US
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Whereas in late-2024, go to Turkey if you'd like to blow
| through your savings faster than in Western Europe.
| switch007 wrote:
| Right. Beautiful country and amazing people but even when I
| was there in 2022 people were really angry about inflation
| and now it seems even more dire looking at the exchange
| rate
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| they did it in 2023 but obviously yeah, it'll depend on the
| situation at the time and also where you go in a country
|
| Same with the Adriatic. If you decide to stay in Dubrovnik
| or Split, for example, it'll be quite expensive, but there
| are other places to stay in Croatia that are non-touristy
| and inexpensive.
| szundi wrote:
| Also some eastern countries have deadly diseases even these
| days, malaria, etc.
| ajuc wrote:
| Malaria is about the north-south axis, not the east-west
| one.
| trinix912 wrote:
| There's no Malaria or other tropical deadly diseases in
| Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
| chgs wrote:
| There is some evidence Malaria is increasingly coming
| back to some places in southern Europe and the US despite
| being eradicated decades ago
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/a-rare-domestic-resurgence-
| of-ma...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Malaria is mostly West Africa.
|
| be careful about what you eat and drink but it's not like
| you catch these diseases just from walking around.
| chgs wrote:
| What visa did they use?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Given that op talks about not staying in the Schengen zone
| too long, I assume they just used tourist visas.
|
| When I lived in Ireland I occasionally met people who would
| bounce between Ireland/UK and Schengen to reset their visa
| clocks (people from US, Canada, etc. can spend 3 months at
| a time, or 6 months a year, in Schengen, though eventually
| you might start getting tougher questions).
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| You can spend 6 months out of the year (and 90 consecutive
| days) in the Schengen on an US passport without any special
| visa, and these other countries usually let you stay as a
| tourist for 30 days without a visa, some 3 months.
|
| Also Portugal has the Digital Nomad visa for 1 year
| renewable. That requires employment in the US (or elsewhere
| outside the EU) so not the same as what my brother was
| doing but a good option as the min wage requirements are
| not high; could get by with what would be part time work on
| a US salary esp in tech.
| chgs wrote:
| You can visit for tourist or business reasons, not
| working.
|
| I suspect that many of the housing problems in places
| like Lisbon's old be solved if visas were enforced.
| whtsthmttrmn wrote:
| As someone that hasn't been able to travel, this sounds
| wonderful
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| $80k will give you one year of very comfortable life in Central
| Europe. If you want to live in an international city in a
| decent flat 4 years is not realistic, more like 2.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| The world is a big place, and central Europe is a small part
| of it.
| Aditya_Garg wrote:
| In Thailand, you can live very very comfortably for 25k.
| csomar wrote:
| If you are willing to forgo a car, expensive food and be fine
| with a small studio, you can easily do 4 years on $80k in
| central Europe. You can do 10 years in many parts of the
| worlds and it'll require some adjustments but some places
| (ie: Vietnam) can be really _okay_ and offer a night life
| unmatched by the US.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| I'm afraid you underestimate rent costs. In smaller cities
| you may still find something nice for ~900 usd per month,
| in more popular places like Krakow, Prague ~1500 usd is
| more realistic but still optimistic.
| alternatex wrote:
| 1500 usd for Prague with bills included. Rent in Prague
| in a very good location is about 1000 eur. The bills can
| be about 400. For 1500 usd as rent you're looking at some
| very fancy places.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| Ok, so in 4 years you will spend 67200 usd for flat and
| bills alone. That leaves 267 usd monthly for other
| things.
| tgaj wrote:
| I don't know about Prague but in Krakow you could find
| something decent for 1000 USD (including utilities). Even
| less if city centre is not a must.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| 4k pln for a flat in the center of Krakow? When may I
| move in? Or by "something decent" you understand 12m2
| "apartment" in Skawina:)
| Etheryte wrote:
| This feels incredibly out of touch with reality. Since
| you mentioned Prague, the average salary in the Czech
| Republic is roughly $20k per year, and that's the
| average, plenty of people take home considerably less.
| You're saying $80k is not enough for more than a year,
| how do you think all those people manage to get by?
| rvba wrote:
| They dont manage to get by.
|
| It's the same thing as in New York, just different
| currency.
|
| Locals inheritted their apartments from parents or
| granparents, those with good jobs get a mortgage or burn
| their salaries on rent.
|
| And the rest lives with roommates. Or spends hours ona
| bus or train to work.
|
| Hence the fertility crisis in Central Europe: people dont
| want to have kids when they struggle with rent.
|
| In Central Europe there is the saying that prices are
| western, but salaries are eastern.
|
| Propert also gets bought by foreign investors like in
| Canada.
| rsynnott wrote:
| "The median salary in the US is $59k, therefore obviously
| no-one could possibly live in Manhattan".
|
| I'd assume that salaries in Prague are higher than in the
| Czech Republic as a whole.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I've said A implies B, but you're talking about B implies
| A, they're not the same.
| xenospn wrote:
| I used Airbnb in those cities and it was considerably
| cheaper. And Airbnb usually has a 4x markup on monthly
| rents.
| badpun wrote:
| I live in Poland in a city center in a metro area of 2
| million people on $9k per year. That's rent free, because I
| own the place, adding rent would push the total cost to $13k
| per year. That's six years of living on $80k.
|
| Also, I'm 42 and retired :) It's really easy to retire here
| when making software money.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Stories like this make me the most mad at the Landlords/NIMBY's
| (sometimes the same people). An $80,000 "investment" into a one
| person startup should take you _much much much_ farther than
| this, but it is completely gobbled up by literal rent-seekers.
|
| BAcK iN mY dAy a room in a house would cost $400-$500/mo in
| most places in the Montreal-Waterloo corridor. Now runways have
| basically been halved (0.3x'd?) as an extra allowance to the
| landed gentry.
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| Impossible to estimate the amount of damage the runaway real
| estate market has done to competitiveness, innovation, and
| entrepreneurship in the interest of funnelling more free
| money to entitled landlords sitting on their asses cashing
| rent checks
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Oh they're not sitting on their asses doing _nothing_. They
| 're reinvesting the rent into buying, renting and/or
| flipping more property faster, screwing up things further
| for everyone.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| If you do one thing to help, never call it the market. It's
| the restrictions on the market.
| svnt wrote:
| Is this a shot at zoning? This particular problem would
| be and has been solved by known better regulation. The
| macro housing market demonstrates that most people don't
| want to live in an imaginary Randian empire.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I'm sure prices would go down if it weren't for all this
| regulation.
| virtualwhys wrote:
| I used to rent a studio on Parc Lafontaine in Montreal for
| around $400 USD/month.
|
| Beautiful space, clear view of Mont Royal, right off the
| park, ideal location (IMO) in the plateau.
|
| Granted, this was around 15 years ago -- I shudder to think
| what the now-likely Airbnb units in that building go for
| these days, probably $400/night.
| rendang wrote:
| If you're spreading blame around, save some for the
| politicians who let in millions of immigrants despite the
| housing shortage
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Totally agree with this.
|
| One of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent tech boom
| happen to be the owners of land and buildings in and around
| the cities that tech companies prefer to be around.
|
| Also a strong argument for remote-first companies.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > into a storage unit
|
| I've heard some terrible things about how vulnerable those are
| to theft / squatters.
| bane wrote:
| My wife and I always say that the most dangerous show on
| television is "House Hunters International".
|
| "I need a 3 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen in the
| village center, with at least parking for one car, I have a
| budget of $300/mo".
|
| "Here's at least three options"
|
| It also bring up a kind of discomfort between us, as tech
| workers, and regular people. The quantity of money we can earn,
| even at the lower end in the U.S., is unfathomable. It makes us
| want to go places and spend somewhat frivolously to support
| local businesses.
|
| We were recently in Portugal. There's a ton of trendy food
| spots with prices near what we'd pay in HCOL U.S., but there's
| a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with absolutely
| incredibly prices, and they're incredibly appreciative of your
| business.
|
| One place we frequented was maybe a 30 second walk from a very
| trendy tourist district, but served local food at very local
| prices. Ubers were lined up to drop people to go overpay for
| mediocre food in the district, literally on the street next to
| where we were eating. If they would have just taken a moment,
| they could have come and had a great relaxed meal and support
| some locals for almost next to nothing.
| szundi wrote:
| I second this, I had a seabass with potatoes for 5.5 eurs
| some years ago... not the nicest environment but it was clean
| and the food was delicious.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| > We were recently in Portugal. There's a ton of trendy food
| spots with prices near what we'd pay in HCOL U.S., but
| there's a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with
| absolutely incredibly prices, and they're incredibly
| appreciative of your business.
|
| I hear that - last time I was in Lisbon I got breakfast in
| one of those kind of places and had to ask the cashier if
| they made a mistake with the change and had given me back too
| much. Like literally, they could have charged double I would
| have accepted it as a fair price for a nice meal.
| eps wrote:
| > One place we frequented
|
| Got a name?
| bane wrote:
| O Golfinho, literally right outside of LxFactory. You'd
| have to work hard to spend more than 12 euros a person.
| Simple, local food. Lots of specials (soup, sandwich,
| fries, beer for like 9-10 euro). Run by an older couple who
| spoke no English and treated us like we were their niece
| and nephew. I think both of us got in and out of there for
| under 20 euro combined.
|
| For a bit higher-end, we liked Cantinho do Sol near the
| Marques De Pombal circle. I think we spent maybe 20-25
| euros a person there, were stuffed to the gills, and nearly
| drown in our drinks. Employees were lovely Brazilians in
| the front of house and the owner, a local I think, was the
| chef.
| eps wrote:
| Woah, looks very nice, thanks. Noted for the future
| visit.
|
| > For a bit higher-end
|
| You've been to the TimeOut Market? Very busy, touristy,
| but good selection of local specialties. Same price
| range, more or less.
| bane wrote:
| No, but nice looking recommendation for our next time
| there!
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| I have only met poor retirees when living abroad. The sort of
| people that have never been abroad before but love the low
| prices (and spend most of their time talking about it). I
| don't think the House Hunters demographic has much money.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| There are plenty of wealthy (by local standards) US
| retirees floating around the cheaper parts of Europe. The
| sort of folks who bought a house in New England in the
| 80's, and now it sold for a couple of million in cash -
| that sort of money goes a _long_ way in a place like Spain
| or Portugal
| secondcoming wrote:
| That's great, unless you're a young person in Portugal being
| priced out of accomodation due to wealthy foreigners.
| bane wrote:
| Yeah, we were sensitive to that fact. It's unfortunate.
|
| We came across more than a couple business owners who had
| side hustles as property speculators. One owner basically
| said that he's buying whatever he can get his hands on
| since there's a guaranteed return.
|
| As tourists we're of course part of the problem, but we're
| also a lot of the economy. I think Lisbon is also somewhat
| in a problem like San Francisco, constrained geography, and
| paradise for the climate, all creating very high demand
| from people who have the money. People with money will
| simply outpay people with less to live in more desirable
| areas.
|
| It doesn't help that Portugal also has _very_ cheap /easy
| long-term/permanent visa programs which doesn't help.
| They're almost one of the easiest ones globally that also
| gets you into the EU.
| https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/portugal-residency-
| vi...
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| As a Lisbon native, please don't feel like you're part of
| the problem. We've painted ourselves into a corner by
| failing to build more than a couple of thousand homes per
| year for a decade. I'm not even exaggerating, a few
| thousand new units per year is our current rate of
| building as a mega-popular European capital, home to 3
| million people.
|
| At the same time as we've completely failed to expand
| housing stock, we invented a new visa to allow wealthy
| foreigners to immigrate without a hitch. Then later a new
| visa to allow anyone who wanted to immigrate without a
| hitch (which about 600k people from developing economies
| took advantage of in the last five years).
|
| There is nothing about our situation that has been
| worsened by tourism. It's the one economic sector driving
| the country forwards and I'm personally very grateful it
| has developed so much. A large part of my extended
| network can only make ends meet because of jobs created
| by tourism.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The trivial ability to use even a small fraction of this
| wealth to improve a huge amount of lives is exactly what the
| "effective altruist" crowd should be creaming themselves
| over.
|
| The fact that I can buy a house in Thailand for something
| insanely cheap also means that I can make sure that the local
| school has whatever they need, for basically just a haircut.
|
| You can take the local orphanage and make sure hundreds of
| kids are comfortable for hundreds of USD a month.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| USD and EUR are in for a massive correction in foreign
| exchange value. It's not like a dollar earned in reality is
| worth ten times more than what a person in Thailand earns.
| So enjoy it while it lasts. The law of supply and demand
| means that as the supply of USD and EUR to other countries
| increases, their value will decrease. Especially the EUR,
| which has nothing to back it up. At least the USD has the
| world police to back up the currency value.
| ponector wrote:
| Economy? No, no economy can back up EU or USA.
|
| Btw, last decade has shown USA is not a global police
| anymore.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Foreign nations need USD because global trade is
| conducted in USD. Global leaders are arguing about this
| right in this very moment, BRICS feel they might leave
| the dollar without fear of being bombed. The EU has no
| military means to backup their currency exchange rate,
| only import and export. And if more Europeans are moving
| their spending abroad, that will diminish the value of
| EUR.
| consf wrote:
| Your experience in Portugal is a perfect example of how a
| little curiosity and effort can go a long way in making
| travel meaningful
| nickjj wrote:
| > but there's a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with
| absolutely incredibly prices, and they're incredibly
| appreciative of your business
|
| Yep, I was in Portugal back in June and was blown away by how
| nice it was. City life, the beach towns and overall prices of
| things. That was my first time going to the EU from the US.
|
| I was on vacation so I ate out every day for all meals but I
| don't think I paid more than $5 for breakfasts and most sit
| down dinners were $12-15 all-in. I splurged one night in
| Lisbon and had the craziest plate of sushi I've ever seen and
| it was $18. That was from a 4.9 rated sushi bar with ~800
| reviews.
|
| My total food bill for 14 days of solo traveling was ~$475
| and I wasn't purposely trying to budget. That includes
| randomly trying a lot of things that I normally wouldn't do
| like getting a fresh smoothie while walking around because
| why not. That food bill also includes 3 days in south western
| Spain because I moved around to a few cities (Seville, Spain
| -> Lagos, Portugal -> Lisbon, Portugal was the loop I took
| with day trips to a couple of places).
| mock-possum wrote:
| Sorry, but then what - money will just be magically waiting for
| you when you're ready to come home? Having spent every penny to
| your name?
|
| God it must be nice to be in a position where you can afford to
| just be like "ok my partner and I are just going to travel for
| four years, and after that, idk, things will work out somehow."
| StressedDev wrote:
| Some people don't mind living paycheck to paycheck. It has a
| downside but if it works for someone, I don't think judging
| it really helps.
| thfuran wrote:
| I suspect there's very little overlap between that group
| and people who have $80k sitting around.
| ornornor wrote:
| Same as it would be nice to win the lottery. Not everyone is
| so lucky and others will be jealous they can't do it too.
| wingworks wrote:
| I did this. Was in a dead end job, left the job, traveled for
| a year, rented somewhere for 6 months, then out of money,
| moved in with parents... still here. Job opportunities where
| my parents live aren't great.
|
| At the time the job was so boring, going nowhere, pretty
| easy.. I would do anything to go back in time to that role
| tbh..
|
| I loved every second of traveling, and met some cool people,
| but none of that helps me find work now.
|
| If you're a shy introvert, and struggle with social
| situations.. and you currently have a job, I'd advise to keep
| the job, even if it's not great, and try get something else
| lined up before leaving.
|
| I have so many mental issues now (low self esteem etc)...
| therapy would probably help, but now I have no money sooo...
| I'm stuck in a loop of unemployable, no help due to no money,
| no money due to no work etc.
|
| .. don't be me
| em-bee wrote:
| traveling alone doesn't help you find jobs, because you
| meet other travelers and random locals, but it doesn't help
| you build a network even if you are not shy introvert.
|
| my strategy was to look for jobs in the places i wanted to
| go to or take remote job offers and then visit or move to
| the places of my employer.
|
| that is what allowed me to spend a year in new zealand for
| example.
|
| that's where i learned that new zealand is not a good job
| market. that's why i left again. i only got there because
| pike programmers like me were not easy to find.
|
| what are your options now? are you looking for remote jobs?
| why do you think you are unemployable? can you use your
| time to improve your skills? feel free to reach out in
| private if you like to chat. email is in my profile
| vunderba wrote:
| Think long and hard before cramming your crap into a storage
| unit. Outside of possessions with some sentimental value, it's
| likely the money spent on a year or two of paying for a storage
| unit (particularly one that is climate controlled) exceeds the
| value of the things you're storing there.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| But almost everyone has some possessions with sentimental
| value. Where should those be kept?
| withinboredom wrote:
| Friends or family, otherwise, you don't really need it.
| klysm wrote:
| Not everybody has that
| withinboredom wrote:
| My point is, when you live on a boat or RV, or traveling
| around, you don't have a lot of space anyway. So, you
| will end up at a point where "thing goes in, thing goes
| out" or you won't have space. Might as well get to that
| point from the beginning. If you want to keep it, you'll
| need a friend to send stuff to anyway.
|
| So, if you (somehow) don't have any friends, you won't be
| able to keep much anyway, except memories.
| ornornor wrote:
| It's not only about current value. As anyone who has had
| their house wiped out and an insurance payout, acquiring
| everything again when you settle back is a massive time sink
| (let alone cost, if you were insured at fair market value
| rather than replacement value)
|
| So yeah, the rent on the unit might be more than your crap is
| worth, but having it all back in a blink (essentially) when
| moving back someplace has some intangible value too.
| xenospn wrote:
| They also tend to increase prices on a regular basis, and
| that more or less doubles your cost very quickly
| hilux wrote:
| I'm sure if he had _known_ he was not going to get a job, he
| would have taken your excellent advice.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| It doesn't sound like he was looking for a job. He was trying
| to start a business of some kind.
| hilux wrote:
| A lot of people start a business in parallel with a job
| search, or once their job search has completely failed. It
| both feels and sounds better (to a recruiter, or a
| journalist) than doing nothing.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Sure. But _this guy_ says "At the end of 2022, when I
| quit my job to work on my projects, I made resolutions:
| to make $1M in revenue in 2025."
| hilux wrote:
| Fair enough. From what I know about being unemployed, I
| am not sure I trust his retrospective narrative, but
| based on the information we're presented - have my
| upvote!
| pluc wrote:
| I am currently doing this, AMA!
| em-bee wrote:
| i did this more than 20 years ago. i was between jobs. my
| choice was to go back home or go travel. so i sent my stuff
| home to my grandparents and went to travel...
| jasonkester wrote:
| I'll second this advice, counterintuitive though it may seem.
|
| Back in the day, I had saved enough to take a nice 3 month
| leave of absence from work to do some travelling. Nudging my
| spreadsheet around, I tried replacing my rent, utilities etc.
| with the cost of a storage locker, and suddenly my "how long
| can I go for " number shot up to over a year.
|
| It changed my whole approach to life in my 30s, and it was a
| good 15 years before I committed to living in a single place
| long term again.
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| How did you go about finding cheap short term rentals?
| jasonkester wrote:
| Travelling accommodation was usually some form of $5/night
| beach bungalow in some remote corner of the world. Thus the
| big savings compared to living in the states.
|
| While working, I'd pick up a cheap room in a shared house
| for a few months.
|
| These days I'd just stay remote. Maybe upgrade by a few
| dollars a night for A/C, reliable power and good internet.
| purplethinking wrote:
| At first I thought you meant you were living out of a storage
| locker
| keraf wrote:
| After a last horrible work experience, I decided to quit
| working for a while and travel. Haven't sold a lot of things,
| some are still stored at my parent's place but I managed to
| live off my saving for almost two years. I could have gone a
| lot longer but unfortunately some bad investment decisions and
| a long dream of obtaining a pilot license shortened my runway
| by a lot.
|
| In the past months, my situation has gotten worse as I needed
| to tighten my belt due to my saving having almost completely
| melted. Hard but enriching times, I have now found a job after
| months of searching. The market in Europe isn't great these
| days. Back to hustling but without any regrets.
|
| 100% agree with OP, it was the experience of a lifetime for me.
| If I can give some additional advice, plan your finances. Even
| if you think a large sum will last you years and you're a bit
| lazy to plan it (as I was), don't be conservative with your
| forecast, plan large. Personally if I had to do it again, I'd
| try to keep half or one third aside for unexpected cases.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I recommend this to anyone who has not yet had kids (unless you
| don't plan to). It's the only opportunity you'll get (well until
| your kids are finished college)
| zb3 wrote:
| Amateur... It's the 7th year of NEET for me :)
| system2 wrote:
| Is it better to be unemployed rather than to find a crappy job
| that pays the bills? (AKA sucking it up while paying bills and
| looking for a real career job.)
|
| I was in a similar situation and I worked at a warehouse as a
| loader, then at a kiosk to sell toys, and then sold necklaces at
| a mall (none of them were my businesses, just worked.) And I
| worked as a mover. Many odd jobs but I never accepted being
| unemployed for 2 years while depleting my savings.
|
| Whether it is a matter of being homeless or not, I can find 1000+
| odd jobs that pay for something + food from Craigslist right now.
| This is the reason why you will rarely see an immigrant being
| homeless or being picky about the jobs they find. Staying
| unemployed for years until finding the "best job" is a very
| privileged mindset. 3 months in no job? Find something to float,
| don't wait until your dream job appears out of nowhere.
|
| I survived with $1000 a month for a very long time (in America,
| the money I earned from my jobs) while paying for a room, eating
| + transportation. If I had 80k, I'd buy a cheap van, live in it
| for free, and eat the bare minimum nutrition I need ($150 a
| month). I can survive with 80 for over a decade easily. God knows
| what this person is doing with his money. I am certain he has
| parents that he can count on.
|
| These posts are extremely bizarre.
|
| Now, downvote me to hell.
| em-bee wrote:
| it depends, you still need time and energy to apply for jobs,
| keep your skills sharp, etc. not every job allows you to do
| that. and in some countries doing jobs like that looks worse on
| your resume than a gap.
| system2 wrote:
| None of the resumes are real anyway. You can type garbage
| online projects to close the gaps. After work, you can still
| go home and study for 3-5 hours per day. That's what I did
| and I know it is possible. Whatever you do though, it is
| better than wasting time with friends and going out for
| adventures for 2 years while wasting your money and time.
| hotpocket777 wrote:
| I don't know if I follow. So starving yourself alone in a
| van is a better use of time and money than going on
| adventures with friends? To what end?
| system2 wrote:
| You can survive with 80k over 10-15 years instead of 2
| and it increases your chances to find the job you want in
| a van. The van part was a random example and an
| exaggeration, but if it were down to being homeless I'd
| buy a van with my last money. What I mean is don't waste
| your money while there real and easy options out there. I
| just can't wrap my head around the part of the OP's
| luxurious trips and having fun while draining a massive
| amount of money and not finding any job. Just go work for
| McD or Ralph's as a cashier while looking for a job. I
| just can't stand lazy people who act like victims.
| justinrubek wrote:
| I don't think this is a universal solution. I was unemployed
| for around 6 months, and my parents thought it was laziness
| that I didn't try to get a job at a gas station or something. I
| used the time to develop skills that helped me later. I got a
| job after that which didn't pay the best for being a software
| position, but the skills I fostered in that time were directly
| helpful in landing the next one that had a 60%+ pay bump with
| better benefits and learning opportunities. I absolutely would
| not have gotten this position without that time devoted to
| sharpening a specific skill set.
| system2 wrote:
| You were a young boy living with your parents under their
| protection. Likely they didn't care if you find a job within
| 6 months while they were helping you since you are their
| precious child (most parents do the same). That is not the
| same as blowing 80k while having fun acting like you couldn't
| find any survivable job for 2 years.
| ghaff wrote:
| Someone I vaguely know made the recommendation in print
| that, if you lost your job, get something at Starbucks the
| next day. Don't really agree but the one time I lost my
| job, I did start doing regular professional job hunting the
| next day which materialized in fairly short order through
| my network. Had that not worked out, I'd probably have done
| something survivable absent any particular severance
| package.
|
| It was sort of a dismal time in tech in general (dot-bomb)
| so I wouldn't have just taken a couple months to travel
| even if I could have afforded to do so.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| December 2022 was not a great time to quit a tech job. I too have
| been unemployed during the same period (except for a 3 month
| part-time gig last summer) after the startup I was working for
| lost it's funding in December '22. Fortunately, I've got a paid-
| off house and a good amount of savings (plus I'm old enough to
| start withdrawing from my retirement accounts and since our
| income is pretty low the ACA subsidies are working out great for
| being able to afford health insurance. At this point I consider
| myself semi-retired as I'm not interested in playing the tech
| interviewing game anymore, but if someone comes to me and wants
| me to work on an interesting project then I'll give it serious
| consideration (as was the case last summer).
| ryandrake wrote:
| Whenever I read articles like this and the ensuing "just relax
| and go have fun/travel" comment chains, I think to myself I'm
| living in an alien universe. Not having a job is a pants-on-fire
| emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it,
| even if the hiring market meant that was hopeless. I'd be a
| nervous wreck until I found _a job, any job_.
|
| It's absolutely wild to see people 1. with the privilege of
| having $80K in liquid savings to just... chill while unemployed,
| and 2. with the willingness and mindset that allows them to do
| that chilling without freaking out. Total Zen Masters you all
| are. I couldn't do it.
|
| Every $10K I blew through while unemployed, I'd be thinking to
| myself: Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed
| out my retirement date by 3 more months.
|
| EDIT: I guess I should add that I'm married with a kid, since
| that obviously does affect the math on this one. Still, I don't
| think I'd change my opinion if I was single.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| 100% agree with this. Whoever said take a break and go
| traveling either have money saved up or have no idea what they
| are doing. Take a break from what ? Most of these people have
| not even worked for 5 years.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Burnout happens before you even realize it. By prioritizing
| regular breaks, you can avoid burnout altogether
| cryptozeus wrote:
| No time for burnout, he has no money in the account. I
| would start driving uber then join climbing clubs
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| sounds like your time is worthless
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Time does not put food on table and keep marriage intact
| nicbou wrote:
| To enjoy some of your prime years?
| hackable_sand wrote:
| I would rather make every year a prime year.
| nicbou wrote:
| Your body unfortunately gets a vote
| sabbaticaldev wrote:
| by working 40, 60 hours a week? what a prime
| samvher wrote:
| The first few years out of university I consistently had < $10k
| on my bank account and was traveling as much as I could, with
| just occasional part time work to "fill up" a few k$. I loved
| it and couldn't imagine living any other way, neither
| retirement nor risks were just really on my mind at all (it
| wasn't really a zen thing).
|
| Now I have a child and feel completely different. The moment
| she arrived I immediately felt way behind on retirement savings
| and stability and since then my #1 priority has been to catch
| up. I'm hoping that not long from now I'll be able to translate
| being more secure on paper to also mentally getting back the
| care free feeling I had before.
| justinrubek wrote:
| It is incredible how long these feelings can stick with us.
| My first few years out of university, I didn't even make $10k
| total combined. It is taking a long time to come to terms
| with the fact that I'm doing better now. Behind in life and
| goals, but doing a bit better.
| ar_lan wrote:
| I completely agree with you. I actually have this privilege and
| I still would be absolutely grinding until I got any job.
|
| I also think in terms of retirement - it's not just savings
| being depleted, but it's active months I'm not _adding_ to my
| savings. And I 'm certainly not living off of 50% of what I
| make post-tax, so the burn rate becomes exceptionally high.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| >Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be
| interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it, even if the hiring
| market meant that was hopeless. I'd be a nervous wreck until I
| found a job, any job.
|
| Same, although I'm not sure it's always a privilege thing, but
| also one's background. I've done pretty well for myself these
| last few years, and financially speaking it would not be the
| end of the world if I lost my job tomorrow. But I come from a
| working class family, and grew up with nothing.
|
| I was raised and surrounded by family members who work a lot
| harder than I do for a lot less pay. They sacrificed a lot for
| me to go to school and get a good job, so if I were to lose it,
| the last thing I'd want to do is just chill for 2yrs even if I
| could afford to.
| pesus wrote:
| I think this might be the single biggest factor, and it seems
| hard, if not impossible, for most people who grew up in
| financially comfortable situations to truly understand how
| much it affects every aspect of your life.
|
| I was fortunate to grow up relatively (lower?) middle-class,
| but even then, we weren't exactly financially secure, and I
| still remember how bad things were during the Great
| Recession, even though I wasn't working at the time. My wife
| grew up in poverty, and even though we're both doing decently
| in our careers, I don't know if she'd ever truly be able to
| get rid of the worry and anxiety that something might happen
| and we'd end up homeless. Even if we suddenly won the lottery
| and ended up with $500 million, that fear would probably
| still be there at least a little bit. And like you said, that
| fear makes enjoying/being comfortable with unemployment
| impossible.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| Absolutely agree. Middle and upper class people view money
| and wealth fundamentally differently through a security
| lens. Growing up poor radically alters the way you feel
| about money, i'm more stressed about money than i've ever
| been, but on paper i'm doing great. I always feel like i'm
| one wrong move from disaster that will throw myself and my
| family into a pit we won't be able to escape from.
| astura wrote:
| >My wife grew up in poverty, and even though we're both
| doing decently in our careers, I don't know if she'd ever
| truly be able to get rid of the worry and anxiety that
| something might happen and we'd end up homeless.
|
| DUDE!!
|
| Im older than you and I grew up poor.
|
| Between my husband and I we have a little under half a
| million dollars in easily accessible liquid assets. I also
| have enough in my retirement accounts that I could
| definitely retire at 65 comfortably if I stopped
| contributing today (CoastFIRE).
|
| I am just barely starting to feel like I'm financially
| secure.. like I don't feel it, but I logically tell myself
| that I am. I feel like I'm finally starting to believe
| myself.
| em-bee wrote:
| i think this is the sign of an inadequate safety net. i
| also grew up poor with a single parent who could not work
| until us children were old enough to be able to be at
| home without supervision. so we had to rely on government
| support.
|
| now i am not exactly well off either. but i never felt i
| was financially insecure even when i was low on money.
| that safety net is always there, and having experienced
| it, i am comfortable trusting it.
| lukan wrote:
| "Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed out my
| retirement date by 3 more months."
|
| It sounds a bit, like retirement is your only goal in life.
|
| Personally I am not sure, if I make it to retirement (WW3 or
| whatever), so I try to enjoy the ride a bit more.
|
| Also yes, I do pratice Zen meditation. But I doubt I am a
| master ..
| bagels wrote:
| The odds are extremely high that you live to be at least 80
| years old. If you plan on not having any money beyond when
| you're capable of doing what you're doing now, you're going
| to have a bad time.
| lukan wrote:
| "If you plan on not having any money beyond when you're
| capable of doing what you're doing now, you're going to
| have a bad time."
|
| Oh for sure. And no, I am not doing that. But I am not
| optimizing for my retirement. I optimize for the now. If
| the now runs smooth, the momentum will also provide enough
| money and other support later on. But doing a shitty job
| will bring me a shitty life for sure. Taking a break from
| that, gave me new and better perspectives, than beeing
| trapped in a tight routine. We can compare in the future.
| famahar wrote:
| I also have a really hard time relating to the the whole
| financial independence / retire early crowd. I think I'd
| rather take the chance on growing as much as I can now so
| that I can be the wise person I want to be when I'm much
| older. Prioritizing experiences rather than aggressive
| saving. I figure the worst case is that I'm old living an
| extremely frugal life in a tiny place in the middle of
| nowhere Japan (where I currently live) reading books and
| playing all the games I bought when I was young, happily
| content with a life fully lived.
|
| I recently went on a very personal international trip
| that wiped all my savings. I was able to reconnect with
| my culture and I made two friends who I cherish so much.
| The kind of friends that I would drop everything to help.
| I didn't have to go on these trips, I could have kept
| saving. But I don't regret that experience at all and it
| changed me immensely.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| How old are you?
|
| I used to be in the same boat. Somewhere in my 30s I realized I
| could fall back on my skills if it ever warranted. Now I am
| between jobs and considering not going back to work.
|
| What I'm saying is that your life outlook shifts as you age and
| experience common life events
| pdimitar wrote:
| And you will live off... what exactly? Fall back on what
| skills? What does that even mean?
|
| Your reply is cryptic and leaves crucially important details
| out.
|
| OK, I figure I don't want to work anymore. Who pays my rent /
| mortgage? Who pays food, bills?
| returningfory2 wrote:
| You save money.
|
| Take some time off and live off your savings.
|
| If you want to start making money you go back to the
| workforce (e.g. fall back to your skills).
| pdimitar wrote:
| I do that, many others do that.
|
| We still can't sit two years without a job though.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Rampant singleness I guess.
|
| IDK I have the same thought.
| bagels wrote:
| There are a lot of people on hacker news that have significant
| savings from working in bay area tech.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| >Not having a job is a pants-on-fire emergency, and I would be
| interviewing 24/7 until I corrected it,
|
| This would have the absolutely opposite effect of that, I was
| in this mood and it made getting a job impossible because I'd
| appear too stressed and too depressed on every single
| interview. Sometimes relaxing and letting it be is just better
| and a lot more productive.
| creer wrote:
| There's a difference between panicking and making it your job
| to find your next job. We often hear the two extremes,
| "stressed and depressed" and "relaxed and on vacation".
|
| "Delaying retirement" is absolutely an option - and not a bad
| one while with extremely flexible financial needs - but it's
| one to take eyes open.
| sbrother wrote:
| It mostly just comes down to having kids, right? I am certain
| that if I were single and happy staying that way, I would be
| living in a van in Moab and doing the bare minimum amount of
| freelancing to keep myself fed.
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't think so. I have a wife, but we have no kids and will
| not have any, and a lot of savings, but I could not do
| something like this. If my income was less than my spending,
| I would feel incredible stress knowing there's this Time
| Limit To Doom hanging over my head. I'd also worry what a gap
| like that would do to my future job prospects. (I'm not
| saying I'm _correct_ to feel that way, but that I would feel
| that way, and it would ruin things for me.) I also don 't
| particularly enjoy traveling or lounging about, so those
| kinds of stories never appeal to me. I enjoy working. It is
| what it is, /shrug :)
| sbrother wrote:
| That makes total sense, thanks for articulating it so
| clearly. Sometimes I wish I felt more that way, or at least
| that I could get myself to hate corporate work less. I do
| enjoy working for myself and freelancing, and that was all
| I did before I had a family to support. Now it's too much
| risk to give up a steady paycheck and subsidized health
| insurance before my kids are off to college.
| tenpies wrote:
| I think it also comes down to relationships.
|
| I would personally be extremely content living a very spartan
| life. If there were a barracks type arrangement where I just
| get a small room with desk and bathroom, and all food
| preparation were handled for me for a reasonable fee, access
| to a gym, and solid internet I'd be all over it.
|
| But the minute you enter a romantic relationship, that
| generally stops being an acceptable living situation.
| purplethinking wrote:
| Why is there such a difference between men and women on
| this? I literally lived in a closet as a student. I'm quite
| content as long as I have a nice desk and chair, good
| internet, access to a gym and perhaps afford to eat out.
| askafriend wrote:
| The people I know who do this are either exceptionally talented
| that employment will never be an issue for them in their
| lifetime and/or (it's usually and), they can burn through $100k
| no problem, any day of the week.
|
| Nobody I know is leaving a $70k a year job to take a
| sabbatical. They're usually leaving a $400k+ per year job and
| there'll be another similar job waiting for them when they're
| ready to jump back in.
|
| Kids are another huge factor that changes this. I don't think
| I've known anyone who's done something like this with kids in
| the picture.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| > They're usually leaving a $400k+ per year job and there'll
| be another similar job waiting for them when they're ready to
| jump back
|
| Will there be though? I honestly don't know. I'm closer to
| that boat, I get (good) job offers every 3-6 months _, but
| nonetheless, if I was laid off... I think that 'll leave a
| pretty nasty mark on my resume, no matter the reason. I don't
| think I'd wait a year to start looking for jobs again. A big
| gap won't help either.
|
| * Recruitment emails from top competitors I should say._
| askafriend wrote:
| It will not leave a nasty mark on your resume. That's your
| anxiety telling you that. Nobody cares unless there are
| other red flags to pair with it (e.g. lots of short tenure
| jobs, etc).
|
| I took 6 months off last time I did a job switch. I had 10+
| offers from top companies and not a single one of them
| asked me about the break or cared.
| bdangubic wrote:
| Exactly this. And a potential employer has an issue with
| the "gap" in the resume - RUN FOR THE HILLS (or if you
| need job immediately take it and continue interviewing
| and leave as soon as another opportunity present itself).
|
| About a year ago we had an open position and hired
| SPECIFICALLY a person who took some time off after COVID.
| She was like "it was insanely stressful time and I need
| some time to regroup" and everyone who interviewed her
| was like "perfect, just perfect"!
| kcplate wrote:
| Gaps should not be an issue. But it's still good to have
| a ready talking point around a gap if asked about it in
| an interview. If you are perceived as being evasive about
| an employment gap, it's not unreasonable for an
| interviewer to draw a negative inference about that. At
| that point it's not your potential employer with the
| problem regarding the gap...it's you.
|
| Just about anything can be spun to a positive or at least
| neutral light.
| justinrubek wrote:
| I can vouch for this advice. I had an encounter with a
| bad employer and a 6 month period without a job. I ended
| up taking a position somewhere that treated me like a
| freak for it and tried to use it to weaken negotiation.
| Additionally, they took issue to me not having many
| multi-year roles. Normally, I'd not tolerate that, but
| sometimes you just need health insurance (thanks, USA).
|
| That place ended up being a terrible place to work for a
| number of reasons. I eventually found a much better team
| who didn't question any of that. It was an entirely
| freeing experience. It truthfully would have been a
| liability to stay there any longer as the leadership and
| technical skills were not there. I left alongside many
| other people and haven't looked back.
| kcplate wrote:
| Depends. If you were let go from a well known and
| perceived successful organization that didn't have a
| public mass layoff in the press, I am damn sure going to
| red flag that if you are interviewing with me.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| You know that you don't _have_ to show employment dates on
| your resume, right? If you feel like it, you can just show
| the number of months /years you worked at each position. No
| one is really going to bother to add them all up to see if
| they match the calendar years.
|
| We're usually too focused on finding the few people that
| meet our requirements and don't have the time to waste
| looking for red flags.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I have two, one year long+ gaps on my resume at almost 40.
| Only a single employer has even asked about it. Though my
| situation is perhaps a bit different I suppose in that when
| I was was asked, I had about as "good" of a reason as you
| can possibly have, and they proceeded to make an offer.
|
| All in all though, it's not impacted my ability to re-enter
| the job market, though I must admit I did assume prior that
| it would.
|
| This will obviously vary by job market, country and your
| own capability to sell yourself I imagine.
| ttt3ts wrote:
| > Kids are another huge factor that changes this.
|
| Yep, I have have quit a perfectly good job to bum around
| Southeast Asia. Now that kids are in the picture being
| unemployed would be very stressful.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| You hit a big nail square on the head.
|
| Kids + spouse changes everything.
|
| My condolences to the writer because it sounds like he had a
| divorce, which changed one part of that equation.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I took a break after getting laid off from YCR (2017) and
| joining Google (2020). My wife just had our baby and she was
| a bit stir crazy, so I thought it better to focus on getting
| her a job first (so I would take care of the kid instead). We
| have a bit of redundancy now, which is useful at least (we
| are ok if either us loses their job, but we would definitely
| try to both stay working).
|
| What they don't tell you is that employers are suspicious if
| you are out of the job market for more than a year. And
| anyways, no, it doesn't make sense to stay at home and raise
| your kid, just pay for the childcare and get back to work as
| soon as possible. And they wonder why birthrate is tanking...
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| > What they don't tell you is that employers are suspicious
| if you are out of the job market for more than a year
|
| literally one of the first things "they tell you" (it's
| common knowledge).
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I wasn't told, or maybe didn't take it seriously enough.
| bowsamic wrote:
| They may be suspicious as in they ask, but as soon as you
| say it was to raise a child it will be fully answered
| without issue
| bdangubic wrote:
| can't believe the number of comments talking like this...
| the only way I would work for an employer like this is if
| my kid and wife were hungry and I had no other choice.
| without my family I wod rather be homeless than work for an
| employer like this (and yes, they are in a majority).
| nicbou wrote:
| 3 months now might be more valuable than 3 months when you're
| old.
| adastra22 wrote:
| > Nobody I know is leaving a $70k a year job to take a
| sabbatical
|
| I did. Best decision of my career.
| ipsento606 wrote:
| > Accounting for time value of money, that's just pushed out my
| retirement date by 3 more months
|
| You account for the time value of money, but not for the time
| value of time.
|
| A week right now is worth more than a week 30 years from now.
| 30 years from now, your life might have changed beyond all
| recognition, or you might be dead.
|
| Reasonable people can disagree over how to discount future
| freedom-from-work vs present freedom-from-work.
| atmavatar wrote:
| Playing devil's advocate: a dollar right now is _also_ worth
| more than a dollar 30 years from now, both from an
| inflationary and from an investment perspective.
|
| That said, I'm still largely in agreement with you. While
| there are a myriad ways to make more money, there's no way to
| make more time.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Are you young, or living outside the United States?
|
| American developers are staggeringly well compensated.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Most are not.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| https://codesubmit.io/blog/software-engineer-salary-by-
| count...
|
| $110,140 is pretty damn good for a job you can do from home
| in an office, with minimal physical risk.
|
| If you can't put together $80k in savings after a decade or
| so on a salary like that, you have a spending problem.
| lumost wrote:
| In my experience, the relax and travel crowd has much more than
| 80k liquid - or the ability to acquire much more than 80k via
| relatives etc.
|
| Alternately, they have very cheap tastes. It's entirely
| possible to live off of 15k per year while hiking the AT, there
| are at least 5 equivalent trails to hike globally.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > I should add that I'm married with a kid, since that
| obviously does affect the math on this one.
|
| That changes the equation altogether.
| handwarmers wrote:
| I am not sure if you are really young, but you definitely sound
| like either nothing quite earth-shattering has happened in your
| life, or maybe some stuff has happened, but you have chosen to
| be very selective about how you digest it.
|
| Sometimes life hits you like a truck, and you get trapped under
| that truck for a really long time. Then, once you get flung in
| the ditch and think you just had the most horrible N
| months/years of your life, a whole colony of fire ants starts
| crawling on you and pulling you apart.
|
| So, yeah, sometimes certain actions could be a sign of
| privilege, sometimes, they could be the tiny thread giving a
| person a lifeline.
|
| Being able to only optimize for proximity to retirement could
| be a more "privileged" state to be in, than having 80k in
| Canada in certain contexts.
| hoherd wrote:
| I moved to Silicon Valley in the fallout of the dot com bust,
| and I had this amazing HR director named Rex who gave me a
| fantastic intro to tech career life. One thing he told me that
| has stuck with me is "You need to live your life like you may
| not have a job tomorrow." The full weight of this didn't
| register for probably a decade or more, but I take it now to be
| this:
|
| 1. You may have zero income tomorrow. Plan for that, especially
| if you have a family. Tech companies pay good money, and you
| need to stash that money away while you have an income because
| there are pretty good chances that some day you'll wake up and
| not have a job.
|
| 2. You need to foster the professional relationships you make
| while doing your day job, because almost nobody is going to be
| working at that company until they die or retire, which means
| everybody is going to be looking for work. When it comes time
| to look for work, you will want a network to reach out to. When
| you find yourself in a position where you have something great
| and you need to hire great people to help you achieve your
| vision, you will want a great network to reach out to. Take
| time to look after the folks you care about. Pay special
| attention to the humans you have done great work with. Those
| people are probably going to be more valuable to you personally
| and professionally than the company you are working for, and
| the same goes the other way for them looking out for you.
|
| This wisdom was later supplemented by a contractor we had hired
| at a different company, who came back to meet with us after we
| hadn't used all our paid hours and said "Look, I know you're
| upset that (some guy you loved working with) is no longer with
| us. We're also bummed about that. But we have done great work
| together as a combined team. Not as companies, but your
| engineering team and our engineering team. We hope that you
| will think about that when you need help with anything, at this
| company or in the future, just like we will think about you
| individuals when it comes time for us to solve problems that
| you would be good at solving."
|
| Every time there is a layoff, I think about this nugget that
| Rex told me, and that supplemental anecdote, and every time
| they are just as relevant. This wisdom has saved me so much
| stress, and opened so many doors for me. I admit that it hasn't
| always let me take my unemployment completely worry free, and
| that I have made some desperate decisions while unemployed
| which I later regretted. That being said, I still think this is
| solid advice, not just for the tech industry, but for everybody
| everywhere. This is especially so if you are a humanist or are
| anti-bigcorp. It has helped me find peace with having to walk
| away from jobs when I needed time for me or my family, or when
| things just weren't working out. After the blood bath of 2023,
| I am living this advice more than ever, and the last few times
| I have wondered if I was on the chopping block, aside from the
| emotional response of visceral existential fears that come up
| in such cases, I've found peace in the rational knowledge that
| having planned for not having a job tomorrow, I can set those
| fears aside and look for the opportunity in my new
| circumstance.
| XorNot wrote:
| My problem is that the main thing I want to do when I have free
| time is work on DIY'ing around my home, and however much money
| you save in labor, materials and tool costs are still pretty
| significant.
| bdangubic wrote:
| the first thing I am going to tell my kid when she enters the
| "workforce" is that her #1 PRIORITY (she won't have any student
| loan debt) is to save F YOU money. 6 months at least, 12
| preferably. Life without it is terrible. Not just for the fear
| of losing your job and not knowing what tomorrow brings but (in
| my opinion) even worse - staying on a job that makes you
| miserable because you need that paycheck coming regularly to
| survive...
| scorpioxy wrote:
| Does that amount qualify as "F YOU" money? I always thought
| it was if you have multiple years worth of savings.
|
| But I agree. Some funds to fall back on is critical. The
| amount is highly dependent on your situation and risk comfort
| level and can be argued back and forth but not having any
| puts you at the mercy of whatever your employer/manager
| decides. Or even you getting sick and unable to work for a
| while. And even if the former doesn't happen, the latter
| definitely will at some point.
|
| Though I am reading some of these comments and wondering why
| they'd call losing a job an end-of-the-world scenario. I've
| always thought people on this forum are the type of working
| professionals that could afford to put away a few hundred
| dollars a month even if they're not on SV wages. Mind you, I
| am not talking about an amount of money to allow you to
| retire but just enough to get you going for a few months
| until you can figure something out. Even if married and with
| children. That just changes the math a little bit but not the
| approach. Is there something I am missing?
| bdangubic wrote:
| > Does that amount qualify as "F YOU" money? I always
| thought it was if you have multiple years worth of savings.
|
| F YOU money is so that if your boss/employer/... pisses you
| off you can tell him "F YOU" and pack your shit and leave
| without a single worry on your mind
|
| > The amount is highly dependent on your situation and risk
| comfort level and can be argued back and forth
|
| Absolutely not - it is a simple math. If I spend $10k per
| month, I need $60k or $120k saved to have a cushion of 6
| months (or 12 months). there is no argument, I said F YOU
| and I am now without a care in the world and can take my
| time to figure out what I am going to do next without
| needing to stay somewhere that makes me miserable (or same
| if I get fired)
|
| > Is there something I am missing?
|
| "According to a YouGov survey from May 2023, only 18% of
| Americans have savings between $1,000 and $10,000"
|
| Now of course probably 2% of them or less are here on HN...
| ryandrake wrote:
| To me, F-YOU money means "enough to retire today." It
| means you can live your current lifestyle using just 3%
| of it per year, which is a pretty normal retirement draw-
| down rate. Anything less, and it's not really F-YOU
| money, it's "I can take a brief sabbatical at the cost of
| adding N more years of work before retirement" money.
| scorpioxy wrote:
| Yeah, that's closer to my understanding as well. Not
| necessarily retirement but a few years of runway perhaps.
| The 6-12 months thing I've always seen being called an
| "emergency fund" which in turn is different to your
| savings which may not be liquid.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yes, AND if you're using your _emergency fund_ then you
| should be in an emergency mindset, not chilling out
| surfing in Bali.
| scorpioxy wrote:
| Sure, I wouldn't advise taking any expensive vacations or
| anything of that nature. But what caught my attention
| were the terms "pants-on-fire emergency" and "I would be
| interviewing 24/7". I mean I get it would be a stressful
| situation and may cause anxiety or panic but having those
| strong emotions could also lead you to end up working in
| a bad workplace which would make your mental health even
| worse. I am not judging, but those words just left me
| wondering what am I missing. And this is speaking as
| someone with a family to support.
|
| I agree with the zen masters description though. I
| wouldn't be so zen about it either.
| bdangubic wrote:
| There is a HUGE difference between emergency fund and FU$
|
| If my lifestyle currently is:
|
| - summer vacay in Bali
|
| - two ski trips, one US, one in the Alps
|
| - eating out once per week
|
| - daily Starbucks
|
| - ...
|
| FU$ means I continue doing EXACTLY this, for 6/12/18
| months.
|
| Emergency fund would be I cut down all my expenses to a
| bare minimum until I find new source of income. Can't say
| FU if I can't go to Bali (I love Bali :) )
| scorpioxy wrote:
| To be clear, I am agreeing with you.
|
| Except that me saying the amount is dependent on your
| situation is leaving some margin for if your child is
| special needs or you're going through a divorce or taking
| care of elderly parents or things of that nature where
| you'd probably want to decrease your risks by increasing
| the 12 months to 18 months to account for more unknowns
| that wouldn't apply to other people, for example. I do
| not consider it to be simple math nor a matter of an
| absolute right/wrong stance.
| bdangubic wrote:
| I apologize for saying simple math in a kind of an
| "absolute" way but I meant it in a "math" sense that I
| know my expenses and as well how long of a "cushion" I
| need to feel like I can FU out of a bad situation (or if
| get into a bad situation beyond my control). I also know
| my known expenses are just that - known expenses but of
| course there is always the unknown. But I am guessing
| adults could ballpark a figure that will get them through
| X number of months
| scorpioxy wrote:
| No problem. Now that you mention it, I find it incredible
| that many people I know wouldn't be able to tell how much
| they're spending on what. Not even ballpark it. This is
| the first thing to start with and is incredibly easy to
| do, if you choose to. Whether you call it FU money or
| emergency or something on the side or whatever, you at
| least need some numbers.
|
| And we're not talking about wealthy people here but the
| ones who complain that there's nothing left when there's
| an interest rate increase. I don't know maybe it's the
| crowd I hang out with. Or maybe they are actually wealthy
| and just don't want to say it.
| tzs wrote:
| Here's the YouGov survey if anyone is interested [1]. A
| lot of people do indeed not have a lot of savings:
|
| > One in 10 consumers do not have any savings (12%) while
| a slightly higher percentage of consumers say they have
| less than $100 in their savings account (14%). A further
| 13% of Americans say they have between $1,000 and $4,999
| in savings. Altogether, that means that half of all
| Americans have less than $5,000 to fall back on.
|
| [1] https://business.yougov.com/content/46083-how-much-
| does-the-...
| brookside wrote:
| Savings and savings accounts are being conflated here.
|
| One can have a small amount a savings account with plenty
| withdraw-able assets in Mutual Funds etc to fall back on
| wrycoder wrote:
| In this context, "savings" includes all liquid assets.
| nunez wrote:
| Hard HARD agree
|
| I have that fund now and it completely changes how you
| approach work.
|
| It's going to go away once we buy a house, but my top
| priority will be to restore it after the deal's done.
|
| Good on you for paying their way through college; that will
| help a ton.
| nunez wrote:
| My first thought is "which rich family member can they coast
| off of when shit gets really bad" or "where's the rest of the
| money you haven't touched yet?"
|
| So many of these "I've been funemployed for 5 years" articles
| NEVER talk about the hidden asterisk that, well, actually, they
| have plenty of money and are just fine; they're just
| conventionally broke.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I think a lot of it is this. In a lot of these
| discussions, nobody wants to admit that their family is
| loaded. Although they might have to swallow their pride a
| little, if things get bad they could just move back in with
| lawyer dad or doctor mom, and they'd be fine indefinitely. I
| think that's very different, stress-wise, than "I have $100K
| of savings and am willing to sacrifice years of future
| retirement to blow through it."
| jcarrano wrote:
| I get your point because I'm also quite like that, but the
| reality is that I've spent all of 2024 in dead-end interviews
| and got no results other than wasting time. In hindsight, "had
| I had the crystal ball", it would have been more rewarding to
| relax good and proper. I still don't have a crystal ball,
| though.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Any basic financial advice would tell you to have 3-12 months
| worth of emergency fund ready for unexpected events. Losing
| your job is just another unexpected event. If you've got a 6-12
| month runway of money, why wouldn't you take a little bit to
| destress? And if you're laid off in most tech roles, getting
| some (often substantial) severance is pretty common. You may
| not even need to tap into an emergency fund.
|
| Even with a wife and kids, all that means is that you have more
| household expenses. Just means you'd need more money in said
| emergency fund.
| deprecative wrote:
| I've been out for about two years. My retirement is a bullet or
| poison. It's just that simple. I will never earn FAANG money
| such that I can make up for the lost time.
| jckahn wrote:
| I'm exactly the same. I have excellent savings. But even still,
| unemployment is a must-fix critical emergency for me.
|
| If nothing else, pulling money out of investments to fund
| expenses due to lack of income feels like robbing myself of
| future gains.
| adastra22 wrote:
| > Whenever I read articles like this and the ensuing "just
| relax and go have fun/travel" comment chains, I think to myself
| I'm living in an alien universe. Not having a job is a pants-
| on-fire emergency, and I would be interviewing 24/7 until I
| corrected it, even if the hiring market meant that was
| hopeless. I'd be a nervous wreck until I found a job, any job.
|
| That's on you. Stress is something you generated, not something
| that exists in the world.
| em-bee wrote:
| stress comes from being backed into a corner. this may be
| from bad decisions or from unforseen circumstances. in
| countries where healthcare mostly depends on having a job and
| support is not guaranteed or not easy to come by this can
| happen much faster than you expect, and it's not always
| possible to prepare for that.
|
| stress is also created by other people who insist that i am
| doing something wrong, and don't respect that i have a
| different opinion on that matter. people who have
| expectations that i can't or don't want to meet.
|
| i did learn to avoid stress, even as i live in countries
| where there is no safety net. i am out of work now, and while
| putting in applications day after day is tiring, i am not
| stressed. but i come from a country that has a strong safety
| net, and i know that if i have to i can always go back there.
| i grew up with that safety net, and i know that i'll never be
| homeless unless it's by choice. that alone removes a major
| stress factor. i don't know how i would feel without that
| safety net.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This thread is specifically talking about travel where you
| can go to places that have affordable healthcare, no?
|
| How much you care about other people's opinions is, again,
| entirely up to you.
| vunderba wrote:
| I would read the story posted with a bit of skepticism. They
| obviously have more of a safety net then they're letting on -
| because there's simply ZERO way that they wouldn't be stressing
| if all they genuinely had in savings was ~60 CAD and the stated
| rent is 1200.
|
| _I also travelled the world, but I did it as an ESL teacher.
| Nothing encourages you to integrate faster into a country 's
| culture and learn the native language than actually working
| there, and you feel like less of a tourist._
| javman wrote:
| I quit my job two years and four months ago. I'd worked non-
| stop for twenty years (10+ at the last company) and was getting
| three weeks of vacation time per year. I'm in my 40's and
| finally decided that I wanted to enjoy some of life while my
| body was still in shape. Watching the savings drain out is
| hard, but what's harder is thinking about going back to the
| grind and never having any time for myself again.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Yep. I was laid off a bit over a year ago, and I literally did
| nothing but try to get my next job, and fortunately got one in
| 2 months before my severance ran out.
|
| I have easily enough to live a whole year or more without
| needing to work, but I would never consider that for even 1
| second, tbh. Never even thought hard about why, it's just not
| an option to me.
| famahar wrote:
| Maybe it's the wrong way of looking at things but I have such
| minimal plans for retirement and that choice has led me to
| being extremely happy now rather than waiting for it later. The
| memories and adventures I've had by spending my money on
| experiences have led to moments and connections I don't think I
| can see myself having in retirement. It's a gamble but I'd
| rather live now and hope that when I retire, I 'Ll be happy to
| live an extremely frugal modest life.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Wow 80k in 2 years is not that much. I am in my 3rd year in bay
| area. Luckily I had invested and have zero debt so able to
| survive. Honestly op may not want to hear this but "music,
| sports" and this line "Once a week, we play board games, cook
| food, or do coworking sessions. Living with others is not always
| easy, but it is fun." does not tell me you have any focus on
| getting job. You need to be too busy to even worry about food.
| What is all this ? You joined a climbing club ? How do you have
| time ?
| huqedato wrote:
| A very valuable lesson for me. So, I'll venture into
| entrepreneurship once I've saved a million dollars in cash--
| though, realistically, that might never happen.
| cahoot_bird wrote:
| Problem is lack of money catches up eventually. If you can't
| figure out some way to get it, and the longer without a job, the
| harder it is to get one. I think a lot of people struggled
| because the economy and job numbers. Supply and demand..
|
| I had contract work, then couldn't get a tech job a couple years
| ago after a lot of applications. Completely broke. Drove down the
| road and felt kinda foolish seeing people paying less but decent
| money for non-tech. got fast food / hospitality worker. Low
| stress, physical work. Can't imagine where I'd be if I didn't.
|
| I kind of get it though, you start doing something else then you
| don't have much time and energy to improve on what you want to do
| (such as tech) for a while, a recipe for people to get trapped,
| unless you can save money and reclaim time somehow to improve, or
| the supply/demand shifts..
|
| anyone could fail at anything, all I know for certain is the
| worst thing a person can do is nothing.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| One solution, if you can, is to take part-time work. Then you
| can reduce your expenses to that level, take time off for
| living, without having to spend down your savings (or only very
| very slowly). Then it's sustainable.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| I wonder how much it would last in a 3rd word country, I live in
| Colombia with 800$ quite comfortably.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| OP, idk if you'll see this, but the part about GI issues after
| being on Accutane concerned me a bit. There's some evidence that
| Accutane can cause short-term symptoms that mimic autoimmune
| disorders and long-term symptoms that _are_ bona fide autoimmune
| disorders. If you only feel "normal" while sticking to a
| restrictive diet, especially in the absence of confirmed celiac
| disease (which would otherwise explain issues with gluten), you
| might be suffering from a more serious problem without realizing
| it.
|
| Signed, someone who only feels "normal" while sticking to a
| restrictive diet... and therefore is seeing their gastro next
| week to discuss switching to a different Crohn's treatment :P
| svnt wrote:
| A similar but underreported possibility here is gastric ulcers
| which correlate extremely well with cortisol/stress.
|
| You can attempt to fix it by taking NAC which is an amino acid
| with no side effects for $20 a month or so. Usually you don't
| need to take it continuously, just in regressions.
|
| It is frequently misdiagnosed as the other more
| serious/intractable things you've mentioned.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Oh yeah, I forgot about ulcers. Non-ulcerative gastritis is
| on the table too, which can mimic some of the same symptoms
| and is absolutely triggered by stress. And both ulcers and
| gastritis can be a smaller part of a bigger serious issue!
|
| Which is all to say... there are so many ways your gut can
| make you miserable, and they rarely get better on their own.
| Absolutely worth checking out if you can.
| mancerayder wrote:
| The problem in the US is healthcare.
|
| In my state the health insurance marketplace only has 'bronze'
| plans that are in-network only (with mediocre options) and high
| deductibles, it costs 6-800 for individual and close to 1500-2k
| for a family.
|
| The United States has rigged the employment market to forever
| keep you dependent on a corporate employer until retirement. Now
| these same companies are taking away remote work, forcing people
| close to expensive and increasingly annoying cities like New York
| City, where the median one bedroom is one million to buy.
|
| So, for giving your time to a company, your reward is never being
| able to be fully independent without huge risk. Healthcare is the
| Company Store Voucher of the modern era.
|
| Has anyone else considered leaving the United States long before
| retirement age?
| adastra22 wrote:
| ACA plans would be free / fully subsidized in that
| circumstance.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > Has anyone else considered leaving the United States long
| before retirement age?
|
| Yes. I'm American but was born in a small country in Eastern
| Europe. I was planning on moving back during the pandemic,
| however I was presented with some job prospects I couldn't
| reject and my move was delayed. But I do plan on retiring in my
| hometown within two years. There is universal healthcare which
| sucks for the most part, but private insurance is extremely
| cheap (compared to the US) and I could retire more than
| comfortably with my current nw. And by 'retire' I don't mean
| stop working, I mean I'm going to work on whatever I want.
|
| And to your original point about healthcare, it is the absolute
| single reason for why I did not take any sabbaticals or long
| term leave even while burned out, for my insomnia during layoff
| seasons and generally for my job related stress.
| keyserj wrote:
| I'm in Illinois, my bronze marketplace plan was $247/mo this
| year, and the coverage was good (for what I used at least).
| 2025 plans look to be going up $50/mo or so which is annoying.
| Still a good chunk to have to pay, but nowhere near as bad as
| your situation.
|
| Makes me curious how much marketplace costs vary per state?
|
| In any case, as another person pointed out, the ACA plans also
| provide very high premium credits for low income households,
| covering up to ~80% of the costs (from what I've seen). But
| this also varies by state, I think.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Being your own employer is the only way to take charge of this.
|
| Platforms like Gusto, etc. make it so even small businesses can
| offer benefits and insurance like bigger companies do.
|
| I went though various big and small employers plans, several
| states' exchanges, and none were nearly as good as doing the
| legwork to get benefits setup for my own company. Now I choose.
| pcl wrote:
| How do the costs pencil out on that, if you are signing up
| with Gusto etc. only for access to the health care plans?
| Presumably you need some minimum payroll or something?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, even of you are a one person company you need to pay
| yourself through some sort of payroll service so that you
| stay compliant with all the regulations and pay things like
| disability, various taxes, etc. So you already need them,
| or similar, to handle that stuff.
|
| The minimum payroll is defined by the minimum wage in your
| local area, keep in mind you can also choose how many hours
| you work.
| le-mark wrote:
| This sounds like one hell of a hack! Can you go into a
| bit more detail about how you have it set up?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Someday I'll write a blog post about it. Feel free to
| reach out to me, contact info is in my bio. I'll be happy
| to share anything you'd be interested in.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| This seems like an incredibly useful piece of information
| to anyone who doesn't have trad employment in the US. I
| found on Gusto's site info about how you can write off
| your insurance costs if you meet certain criteria. Is the
| benefit this, or something else?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, theyre deductable for any employer, this is no
| different. Lots of benefits including this. It gives you
| the same power and security a employer plan does, because
| it is. In my experience the marketplaces and insurance
| from them can be a minefield needing navigation.
| mancerayder wrote:
| In some states the insurance group policy won't be available
| for a one person LLC, and there's no option direct from the
| health insurance companies, so all that remains is the state
| marketplace. I tried. I ended up signing up with an agency
| that basically put me as a W2 employee and took a fee, so I
| could use their so-so but better networked group insurance.
|
| Is Gusto for stuff like that? Single member LLCs?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, that's exactly what's it's for, also bigger companies.
| For smaller ones they sort of bundle you in with other
| small companies for the insurance, is my understanding. You
| may not have as many options, but they're better in the
| same ways an employer plan is, because they are one.
| wrs wrote:
| This may vary by state, but in Washington my broker tells
| me that a one-person LLC can work, if it elects to be taxed
| as a corporation so it can issue that person a W-2. Which
| accountants hate because of the potential extra taxes, but
| as she says, "my job is to get you health insurance, not
| reduce your taxes".
| m00x wrote:
| In Canada you just die before you get a family doctor :)
|
| Last time I went to the ER, the wait was 10h for kidney stones.
| Thankfully I passed out for 4h in the waiting room from the
| pain and the stones passed by the time I saw a doctor, so all
| they did was send me home.
|
| My family doctor died 10 years ago and I'm still on a list.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| If you're from Ontario, you might want to call the health
| care connect people... I was on a list for roughly a year and
| a half, then out of the blue I got 2 referrals in 2 months
| (the first one never called me)... while the one I got isn't
| a typical family doctor, just having someone to help me with
| my needs is a start...
| newsclues wrote:
| Then you merely have unreasonably long waits for
| specialists and testing, and then more waiting for
| treatment!
| psb217 wrote:
| It's super cool when you have to go through a chain of
| several specialists while dialing in on the problem.
| Especially when the default diagnosis is typically: "it's
| probably nothing, wait six weeks and make another
| appointment if it's still an issue...", lol.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| In the US, 70-80% of the time they just send people with
| unpassed kidney stones home from the ER. With painkillers and
| a giant bill.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| At least you get the painkillers. Not sure what else they'd
| really do for non-emergent kidney stones anyway.
| Painkillers is probably the best you can hope for, and
| getting them quickly and sent home sounds like a great
| outcome to me.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Can't find a primary care doctor in the US either, so we're
| even.
| FredPret wrote:
| Have you tried calling doctors directly?
|
| Sometimes there are information gaps between their capacity
| and the provincial bureaucracy.
| gadders wrote:
| Surprised you weren't offered MAID.
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| in CA if you make less income than the minimum (like $18.5k as
| a single person) you are put onto the free Medi-Cal plan. so
| thats nice. :)
| remyp wrote:
| I did. Healthcare was a big part of that decision. My older
| siblings have been through hell both medically and financially
| because of the US healthcare system.
|
| I decided to learn from their experiences and GTFO while I
| could. I miss my family and friends dearly, but it's a massive
| relief (and privilege) to be able to get the care I need and
| not worry about whether the cost is going to bankrupt me.
| qwerpy wrote:
| Where did you end up going? I have some savings and would
| like to retire early, and getting health insurance is an
| impediment to that. Need somewhere that doesn't require a
| work visa and is a good place to raise a family. I have
| enough to do it in the US but would be happy to consider
| alternatives.
| remyp wrote:
| To Portugal. If you have enough assets to retire in the US
| then you probably qualify for the passive income visa.
|
| It's not all smooth sailing, though. The immigration agency
| here (AIMA) currently has 300,000 cases in the queue. It's
| so difficult to get an appointment that people are making
| hundreds of calls per day, standing in queues for hours
| only to not be seen, and filing lawsuits.
|
| Most people here make about EUR1200/mo and there's a severe
| housing crisis that I have contributed to with my presence.
| The influx of people like me with vastly higher purchasing
| power is creating resentment: the far-right party
| quadrupled (5% -> 20%) their seats in parliament by running
| against immigration.
|
| Having said that, I do love it here. I've been considering
| blogging about my experience since there's a dearth of
| clear-eyed information from real people who moved to
| Portugal and aren't selling something.
|
| Anyhow, I'm happy to share more info and resources with
| anyone who wants to learn more. Please feel free to reach
| out - my contact info is in my profile.
| tills13 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your experience. And thanks for
| acknowledging your part in "the problem" -- truly, a lot
| of people in your position e.g. immigrate, and then try
| to pull the ladder up after them.
| EasyMark wrote:
| The bronze plans are basically catastrophic insurance, not
| preventative care. If you want that you have to take it into
| your own hands in the USA; eat right, exercise, do the annual
| checkup Mine paid out when I had an appendix close to exploding
| and several days in the hospital. Of course I paid the
| deductible which was $6500, however the remaining portion would
| have put a large dent in my retirement fund, but thanks to the
| "bronze" plan, I was fine. So what is the risk for me?
| winwang wrote:
| My friends have successfully relied on Medicaid during
| financial hardships + unemployment. At least in NYC, the
| Medicaid plans are quite decent.
|
| Also, for those who require plans similar to the one previously
| provided, COBRA (18 months) is decent -- expensive but
| presumably less expensive than "equivalent" in the marketplace
| if we're talking about a good corporate plan.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Over the last 4 years, I've gone through a similar "speed run" of
| startups after quitting my job of 10 years during COVID.
|
| First startup went nowhere and took on a contract role after 9
| months. Then tried another startup with a co-founder I met at one
| of the startups where I worked in the interim. About 6 months
| building something awesome, but no commercial path. Spent 1 month
| with him and _another_ co-founder on a fintech product but
| realized much faster that once again that there was no viable go-
| to-market strategy. Started another company and built a product
| that seemed like it had legs. We had one early user that
| absolutely loved the product and we thought all we needed was to
| find more users like her. Turns out that she was a false signal
| because we never found another user like her and I 'm about to
| shut that one down after almost a year to avoid DE franchise fee
| next year.
|
| If anyone is in a situation like this/thinking about doing
| something like this, I've gathered some of my lessons learned:
| https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2024/12/lessons-learned-from-worki...
|
| If I had to sum it up: always build the minimal thing that can be
| "sold". Use AI to build the dirtiest MVP as fast as possible.
| Even better if your "MVP" is a deck and you can get people to put
| money down to wait. Figure out your GTM and messaging with that
| deck. If you are an engineer, you must resist that urge to build
| until you're sure you can find enough people that have this
| problem and want to pay you to solve it. Don't work with a non-
| technical co-founder if they claim if you build it, customers
| will come. Don't work with a non-technical co-founder that can't
| demonstrate an ability to sell. If the vibes feel off, get out
| fast. Don't form a company with a co-founder until you absolutely
| have to (like your personal life, don't get married until you're
| absolutely sure).
|
| Lots of mistakes and lessons learned during that time having
| founded startups that went nowhere, been an employee in startups
| that went nowhere, and left startups that are actually crushing
| it. I have seen a big swath of the gamut at this point with some
| regrets in retrospect.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| This.
|
| Build only after customers have thrown money at you.
|
| As it's at that point you have enough clarity and specificity
| to build.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| >Build only after customers have thrown money at you.
|
| This advice is better if you have 10k twitter followers. For
| example I'm building something cool, a no-code visual
| regression tool. I don't have any real network. Besides cold
| outreach (and hn, ph), what else is there? Would love to know
| what you recommend.
| raincole wrote:
| Unfortunately, if you genuinely want to build something
| cool, the correct path is build it as open source project
| while having a job.
|
| If you want to make money (at least break even the
| opportunity cost of a programmer), you need to work
| backwards: build things that you will be comfortable to
| pitch to your connections. Selling home-made chilli sauce
| to friends&relatives is unironically a better business
| model than building an app for most people.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Thanks, that makes sense. I did reach out to my limited
| network and the reception has been good.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Stuff I build for fun, I generally just open source. If
| there is an audience, you can always build a commercial
| model later.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > For example I'm building something cool, a no-code visual
| regression tool.
|
| Make sure you do your research on what's already out there,
| how much they charge, who their target market is (startups?
| Mid market? Enterprise?), what's their marketing strategy,
| etc.
|
| Basically understand how your solution fits into that
| market and how you'll differentiate and make money.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| These come up every few weeks on HN. Something something
| Playwright, something GPT something.
|
| I fully agree that you should try to sell the thing
| first, because a good chunk of the people who might want
| such a tool could already have the savvy required to bolt
| together the relevant open source and off the shelf
| building blocks.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Even before getting any sort of demo/landing page up?
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Yes. The more excited someone else is about an idea, the
| stronger the signal. The more you have to show them the
| idea, the weaker the signal (with exceptions at the
| edges)
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| That's fair but I need a job so this demo is a perfect
| way to showcase all of my skills and to add something
| recent to my portfolio. Maybe if I have like a year of
| runway and no money stress I can try the pre-sell thing.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Do it for your portfolio; keep it open source. Use a
| license that's conducive to OSS and possibly a paid
| version in the future or dual license later.
|
| Just be realistic with your expectations and don't quit
| your job until you know that there are customers willing
| to pay.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I haven't worked in over a year and I'm in dire
| straights. I'll do the OSS version later.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| hey
|
| some time ago i skimmed around notion of Wardley maps and
| bookmarked it but did not pay (enough) attention. The other
| day there was another post on the topic, now with some
| basic resources, and i got hooked.. and read half of that
| book [0]. But right now have nothing on my mind to play
| with. May be that is a way? Map-and-try-predict the
| battlefield (needs lots of reconnaissance and "feeling" of
| the "landscape" and what-else-is-there). Mail me if you
| want a sparing partner - i want to learn this technique.
| But Anyway, have fun.
|
| [0] https://feststelltaste.github.io/wardley-maps-
| book/#_the_fir...
|
| (IMO, read chapter 2+ then 3~4 first, then restart from
| beginning)
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| Who do you expect to buy it? How many face-to-face
| conversation with them about why they'd use this tool?
|
| Customer don't exist in hn, ph, twitter, they exist in
| their own offices, on Zoom, and your local coffee shops.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I expect managers of small/mid size product teams to buy
| it instead of pinging me and my friends at the end of the
| day/start of the day/throughout the day. This makes it so
| my managers don't have to ping me all day, helps devs
| monitor UI breakages, and helps stakeholders get easy
| made reports on changes they requested. It's quite
| useful.
|
| I've had 10ish face to face conversations with people,
| people who've sold significant companies / engineering
| managers at FAANG's.
|
| My competitors all require code, mine doesn't.
|
| I threw up a sign up page on https://shutr.app if you're
| interested. Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it goes
| nowhere. But I believe in it, and it's useful for me.
| StressedDev wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Good luck if you're thinking about going for it! Learn from
| my mistakes.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Given the dense amount of wisdom packed into this comment I
| checked out your profile. Both your current projects look
| extremely impressive and polished. And viable! Keep up the good
| work! It's inspiring to see that in light of the obvious
| difficult lessons you've had to learn along the way.
|
| Having learned many of the same lessons as you I can 100%
| backup everything you said in your "sum it up" paragraph!
|
| The only caveat I would add is to the "make an MVP with AI". I
| think MVPs generated directly out of ChatGPT/Claude are _so_
| easy now (or at least it can appear so on the face of it) that
| many people are just barely going beyond that - but to any
| experienced eye, that approach is quite transparent and can
| look very low-value (even if the idea is actually a good one).
|
| Now if that person is a skilled salesperson then that might
| work.
|
| But, for most people, I think it's still very important to
| _demonstrate_ good instincts, taste and strategic /commercial
| understanding when building such an MVP. And that means editing
| and shaping the output just enough to meet your vision for the
| product. So to agree with you - definitely, 100%, use AI as
| much as possible - but don't assume that you can put zero work
| in on top and have that MVP be effective. Because the 10 year
| old down the street has the exact same tool as you - so if you
| are just relying verbatim on that tool's output- it's going to
| be hard to stand out.
|
| I'd still definitely agree to spend as little time as
| physically possible on the MVP - with the above caveat.
|
| Having said all that... a lot of historical wisdom on the topic
| of MVPs has been turned upside down since gen AI became
| mainstream, so on the flip side you _could_ argue: create 1000
| MVPs in an hour, publish them all, see what generates
| interest...*
|
| Hmm.. I think I just argued against my own point.
|
| * (I'm not really seriously suggesting anyone do this, but I'm
| also not entirely discounting this as an approach either...)
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > Both your current projects look extremely impressive and
| polished. And viable!
|
| Appreciate it and thanks for the positive feedback! But those
| are two of the multitudes of side projects I have collected
| that I haven't figured out how to monetize. My "day job" is
| at a VC-backed startup that is going through a protracted
| wind-down because it also failed to find a viable GTM. So
| yeah, I've learned some hard lessons in multiple facets of my
| career! > Now if that person is a skilled
| salesperson then that might work
|
| My rule now is that if I'm building something for fun, I just
| open source it. If I want to make money, I'm going to first
| figure out who's paying and how do I get them to pay. AI MVPs
| are easy now to let you flesh out an idea one level up from a
| slide deck (in fact, maybe this is its own startup idea? Use
| AI to build an MVP from a deck??).
|
| I had a non-technical friend recently spin up a full blown
| startup with customers using nothing but Claude + Replit (not
| plugging, but just sharing to show that it's real:
| https://bullship.co). He came up with the idea after talking
| to a friend and finding that indeed, the market had only two
| major competitors who both charged too much for many smaller
| customers.
|
| The code is throwaway in my book, but it's enough to validate
| the idea by actually getting people to pay for something they
| can use. It won't scale, but that's fine; by the point that
| he needs it to scale, he'll be able to hire people with more
| skill to fix or rebuild it.
| ornornor wrote:
| > like your personal life, don't get married until you're
| absolutely sure
|
| I misread "personal wife" (in Kripky's voice from big bang
| theory) and after I was done chuckling, I started thinking of
| something funny to comment about the other types of wives there
| are... then reread your comment and... yeah.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Haha, well, I'm going through a "divorce" now with a co-
| founder and unfortunately, it costs money, time, and effort
| to try to get my assets (code) back. He was never able to
| generate a dime of revenue after I brought the code, but now
| he wants the code (which I want to open source).
|
| So yeah, in many ways, it is just like a marriage when you
| formally create a company with a co-founder. Don't do it
| unless you need to and if you do, make sure that you can get
| your assets back if you are bringing existing assets to the
| table.
| ipnon wrote:
| The stark transition from employment to unemployment can be very
| painful in our industry, because it is a boom-bust industry, and
| it's not uncommon to go from making half a million dollars a year
| to having the most expensive cities in the world vacuuming money
| out of your bank account as fast as economically possible. When
| the money is coming in you feel like a rockstar-ninja-hacker
| genius. When the money dries up you start to wonder why you
| didn't just go into accounting.
| anotheracc88 wrote:
| I have not been out of work since 2002 but same time... I
| earned nothing close to 500k or even 250k.
| tasuki wrote:
| If you make half a million dollars a year, it's really easy to
| save lots of it.
|
| I didn't make that much (but also don't live in the US). For
| some time I was living on about 5% of my income and saving the
| remaining 95%.
| liontwist wrote:
| > but also don't live in the US
|
| There is your answer. The cities where you can make 400-500k
| are at least 2x the cost of other US cities.
| tasuki wrote:
| I was not asking a question.
|
| Half a million dollars a year is a lot of money even in the
| expensive cities.
|
| If you make that much and don't save a significant part of
| it, you're rather lacking in foresight. Go talk to the
| people earning five times less who live in the same city!
| liontwist wrote:
| > it is a boom-bust industry,
|
| It's surprising this is not more widely recognized. The
| majority of corporations need help configuring existing
| software, not developing and marketing novel software. Those
| new opportunities come and go. If you want stability, get a job
| in IT.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Am I missing something about where this guy is getting money? He
| posted his bank account, which is essentially empty, and it seems
| his only current income is $600/mo, which is less than half of
| his rent. So how is this guy surviving currently?
|
| I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege" at
| every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings and
| barely any income would be freaking out unless they had some
| family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any
| discussion of is suspiciously absent.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. -$800 in my checking and about ~$1000
| left on my CC. Also from Canada. Morgage payment coming up in 5
| days will put me in the negative, and another one in January as
| well. Should not have bought a house. I'm basically screwed,
| but I figure the wheels of the system or whatever will move
| slower than me finding work.
| stocknoob wrote:
| Rent out/airbnb a room in your house?
| Zambyte wrote:
| What do you mean by "~$1000 left on my CC"? Do you mean like
| $1k until you max out your CC? $1k left to pay off?
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Yeah $1k until max out, it's blocked from online payments
| but I can still use it irl.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| So it's really -$200. And CAD to boot.
| reshlo wrote:
| They have _negative_ $800 in their checking account.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Yikes, totally missed that.
|
| That makes it -$1800CAD.
|
| Thanks for noticing.
| svnt wrote:
| How are you doing your math?
|
| If they have $1k left in available credit, and they were
| making tech wages, that means on just that one credit
| card they are probably $9k to $24k at least in the
| negative already. The $1k of remaining available credit
| is not yet debt, but the negative bank balance is.
|
| It is also likely they have more than one credit card,
| and maybe also some student loans.
| lionkor wrote:
| They are simply not counting the CC since it's not
| available money
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| > How are you doing your math?
|
| As a european, I also didn't realize what CC stood for
| and was tripped up by the math same as the person you're
| replying to. Not everyone lives in a world/country where
| living on credit is the norm (at least not yet).
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't think living on credit is the norm even in
| countries that use a credit card regularly. The limit on
| my card is fairly high, but if I don't pay it off every
| month my provider gets pissy.
| SvenL wrote:
| Would it be possible to sell the house? Kind of get rid of
| the mortgage?
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Have had it listed for months now, I expect it will sell
| when rates cool, in which case I'm gravy.
| tomcam wrote:
| Damn, brother. But if anyone can pull a rabbit out this hat,
| it's you. Your main problem will be getting your giant brain
| through the door for a job interview.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Thanks man!
| m00x wrote:
| Overspent on the house? Not uncommon in Canada tbh. The
| country is in a really bad state real-estate wise.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| A little bit. It was a great idea at the time when I had
| work. It's been listed for sale for 2 months now which is
| to be expected with the rate frenzy.
| rendang wrote:
| Why did you buy a house while having such small savings?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| They probably spent all their savings on the down payment,
| as approximately everyone on the planet who wants a place
| to live but can't pay for it all out-of-pocket does?
|
| Investment shenanigans excluded, if you have enough savings
| to pay off your mortgage in case you lose your job, there's
| no point in getting a mortgage in the first place.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| No emergency fund, I suppose.
|
| Sometimes I wonder how people manage to browse the Web
| without encountering "common" pieces of wisdom. Maybe we
| should bundle up a bunch of useful YouTube/TikToks as a
| supplemental education package for students.
| Turskarama wrote:
| You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If
| you save up an emergency fund instead of paying a
| downpayment then you're spending money on rent that you
| could have in retirement, and it's not like rent is
| consistently cheaper than mortgage payments anyway so if
| you can save up when renting you can save up when owning.
|
| So the gamble is, do you spend 2 years saving up for 6
| months of income as a buffer and send tens of thousands
| of dollars down the drain in the meantime, or do you roll
| the dice and hope nothing bad happens in the next 5 or so
| years? The people who end up in the best position will be
| those who take the second option, and most of the time it
| will work out.
| ghaff wrote:
| The short answer is probably everything in moderation if
| you're reasonably young. Maybe don't put every penny you
| can get your hands on into a down payment on a house,
| especially if you're also a bit uncertain about future
| income streams and life situation. But maybe you also
| don't really need a year or two comfortable emergency
| fund.
|
| At some point, it probably makes sense to buy a place if
| you can if only for the stability as you get older.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| The problem is that many people view home ownership as a
| cultural / political statement beyond all else. They
| desperately need to stop being a rentoid and become a
| landchad. The reality is that renting is often a better
| financial decision than buying, especially short term.
| Plus, in this economy there is no guarantee that you're
| going to be employed in one city your whole life.
| away271828 wrote:
| Maybe. It's very situational. Beyond the spreadsheets for
| a given location, there are times in your life when you
| want to be able to pickup and move fairly easily and
| there are times when you want to be able to put down
| roots and be in a pretty stable situation that lets you
| tailor things.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| "Putting down roots" is the wrong way to look at it. You
| have to ask yourself if you're certain that you will be
| in one area for a long time. Everyone wants roots in LA
| or NYC, many of them wash out.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sure. but what isn't cultural? Being cultural does not
| mean it is irrational. It would probably be a better
| financial decision if people lived cells and ate nutrient
| paste.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| The goal is to maximize your happiness. Putting yourself
| into a precarious and stressful financial situation
| because of memes is irrational. Buying a sleeping pod
| might be rational for some, not for others. Those aren't
| cultural though, they're personal.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont really understand the distinction you are drawing
| between cultural and personal. Personal opinions are
| shaped by culture and memes.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Nah, people know those "common" pieces of wisdom. What
| people bringing them up often miss is, they're also
| unachievable for most people. Life isn't a MMORPG where
| you can check out of progression at any moment and spend
| some time grinding to build up savings. Life has a clock
| to it that doesn't stop, and most can't afford falling
| behind it much.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Emergency fund is useless when expenses are 5k/mo, and
| that's just sitting in my room working in 15C with my
| food costs and expenses as low as can be. Burned through
| 40k already.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Investment shenanigans excluded
|
| You're poisoning the well there, as that is _the_ major
| reason to get a mortgage even when you have enough cash
| to buy a house outright. It 's not "shenanigans", it
| almost always makes financial sense to keep your cash
| invested elsewhere when mortgage rates are low.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Also mortgage interest is tax deductible.
| goodJobWalrus wrote:
| Not in Canada
| ghaff wrote:
| And, for many people in the US without a lot of
| deductibles, not in the US either after tax law changes a
| few years ago.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Yeah they're going to keep SALT capped farther than they
| said they would, huh?
| ghaff wrote:
| No idea. I wouldn't count on anything with a new
| administration/congress.
| NewJazz wrote:
| New? It is the same crowd as 2017. I mean they dropped
| the McCains, Cheneys, and Paul Ryan.
|
| But the rest are still there.
| ghaff wrote:
| And who knows what the crowd will do in 2025 given new
| cabinet etc.? Deductions don't really affect me much
| going forward. I _care_ but not planning around specific
| policies going forward.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Yeah I'm not saying it is a determinant. But the new/old
| head of state is the only one in the admin who matters
| legislatively. I'm merely musing on the pressure to
| balance a budget and give away all of our money. I hear
| he isn't so good with that. Go big or go home tho.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| Standard exemption in the US for a married couple is
| around $30k. If your mortgage is so massive that the
| mortgage tax deduction is better than the standard
| deduction then in most cases you bought a far too
| luxurious house or in a far too "prestigious"
| location(SF, NYC, etc.). If you're not already a
| millionaire you shouldn't buy such property.
| ghaff wrote:
| As someone else commented, things can of course always
| change, but as things stand today, it takes a very large
| mortgage and/or very significant other deductibles to get
| over the standard deductible at this point in the US.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Standard deduction for single people is 15k. SALT can get
| you to 10k, and anything past 5k in mortgage interest (at
| 5% rates and 100k balance, you're already at the point)
| is gain over the std deduction. 22.5% on those dollars
| for many people. More depednnding on state tax.
| lottin wrote:
| If that's the case, the savings are not 'spent' but are
| simply invested in the house. They should be able to sell
| the house for the net value (market value minus mortgage
| outstanding) which should be roughly equal to the down
| payment.
| NewJazz wrote:
| High transaction fees on sales. Typically at least 5% in
| US, not sure about Canada.
|
| Also don't forget taxes, insurance, mortgage interest
| needs to get paid while house is in your hands. Most
| mortgages have lots of interest during the first few
| years.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| 5% for me + various breakage fees and other minor costs.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Can you imagine if buyers and sellers only had to pay,
| say 1% each? The whole market would become a lot more
| liquid. But nah, brokers are essential and have your
| interests at heart.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They absolutely aren't required and fees are negotiable.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Yeah sure but then nobody will ever see your property for
| sale unless they drive by it. Purplebricks also shut down
| in Canada.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| Im not sure about Canada, but Private individuals can
| list on redfin and Zillow in the US. MLS posting must be
| from a broker, but you can hire one flat rate upload your
| listing
| NewJazz wrote:
| Lol yeah. Biggest joke ever.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Bingo. I should have waited another 10y on the house.
| axus wrote:
| I'm gonna predict that in a 10-year trend, the house
| price inflation will have continued. Unless you could
| save faster than the bubble, you still wouldn't be
| getting/keeping a house in 10 years.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I'd have been WAY better off if I stayed at my parents
| and invested it all into the S&P or something similar, or
| even bitcoin (inb4 it's going to crash). Then kept
| building/working/saving, and in 10y I'll have been in a
| much better position.
| venk12 wrote:
| similar boat 7 years ago. Luckily, I found a data science job
| that barely covered by rent and family expenses for 12hrs a
| day. In addition I had to freelance for a 2 to 3 hours
| everyday to make ends meet - basically sleep, work, repeat -
| rough patch - you will get through it. Hold tight, wishing
| you good luck!
| Tade0 wrote:
| What is going on with the IT sector in Canada?
|
| I'm a contractor and last year my agency said there would be
| layoffs, which caused quite a scare, but in the end only
| contractors residing in Canada were affected.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Should not have bought a house. I'm basically screwed
|
| Sell your house. You can't afford it.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Yeah it's been listed for ages and I've dropped the price
| significantly. We're all collectively waiting on the coming
| rate announcements.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's the privilege of renter's protections. Even with
| nonpayment the landlord has to go through a _Tribunal
| administratif du logement_ hearing to evict them and that
| usually takes at least a few months unless the tenant is
| trashing the property on their way out. The process can get
| extended every time the tenant pays rent so if someone is
| genuinely trying to pay as soon as they can, eviction takes a
| while.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| Renter's protections is one of those ideas that sound good on
| paper. Having to keep a non-paying rentee is disastrous for a
| landlord who is also trying to pay _their_ mortgage.
|
| Sure, some landlords are large real estate companies, but all
| you're doing is forcing out small landlords and ensuring that
| large companies own _all_ of the rental properties.
|
| (Like all regulation, it is at a fundamental level pro-
| monopolistic, favoring large companies that can handle the
| overhead of complying with the regulation and punishing small
| players who cannot.)
| svnt wrote:
| If you lose the mortgage on your investment property, you
| lose your investment property. Risk/reward and all that.
|
| If a renter is evicted, the consequences for their life are
| much more severe.
|
| Not all regulation is pro-monopolistic. The accumulation of
| general regulation and restriction is often supported by
| incumbents but that doesn't support the sweeping conclusion
| you've reached.
| lukas099 wrote:
| The consequences for renters is also severe if not enough
| housing is supplied because it doesn't make financial
| sense to do so.
| patrick451 wrote:
| If I own rental property, I should not be personally
| responsible for subsidizing your bad financial decisions.
| weitendorf wrote:
| It's not as simple as saying that the downside for
| landlords is merely loss of their investment and that the
| downside for renters is homelessness. The risk of non-
| paying tenants influences market dynamics on both sides
| and impacts even landlords who never encounter non-paying
| tenants, and even renters who make all their payments
| perfectly.
|
| For landlords, they have to be much more selective of
| which tenants they take, and deny rental applications for
| those with eg bad credit or incomes that are technically
| enough to cover rent but leave too little of a buffer.
| They have to either pay for some kind of insurance (I
| don't know if this exists but I would assume it does) or
| diversify across enough properties so that they're
| financially protected from the risk of getting a non-
| paying tenant. And of course, yes they may have to deal
| with the hassle of a drawn out eviction of a non-paying
| (and often intentionally or unintentionally destructive)
| tenant who will likely never be able to repay the
| landlord even if held liable in civil court, which raises
| their costs in aggregate.
|
| For tenants, besides having those increased costs and
| income/credit requirements passed through to them, they
| also have to pay higher security deposits. But probably
| the biggest problem is the effect on supply. Small scale
| property owners (especially the kind that ends up
| becoming an "accidental landlord" because they eg bought
| a condo and then moved) are highly disincentivized from
| renting their property out, and when they do, they're
| highly incentivized to not put it on the open-market and
| instead opt for their personal network/word of mouth/in-
| group. For example, lots of large tech companies have
| internal housing rental groups and many properties may
| only be advertised in places like that, or within a
| tight-knit social group where there are real reputational
| risks to being a non-paying tenant.
|
| Really the problem IMO is that excessively permissive
| rental protections are a kind of social welfare benefits
| that are purely born by one part of the private sector.
| If governments compensated landlords for unpaid rent and
| intentional destruction from uncooperative tenants (which
| they have done in some cases for eg covid, but these are
| often done ad-hoc so landlords can't count on them and
| adjust practices accordingly) who take 6-12+ months to
| evict, then most of these problems would disappear.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The landlord deserves zero empathy in these cases. It is
| his job to select a reliable tenant, that's usually his
| entire job. Anybody else who fails completely with their
| responsibilities at their job can expect to be fired and
| lose their income, or worse. There's an extremely large
| surplus of honest, tidy and reliable tenants, so it's not a
| problem for a responsible landlord to avoid going to court,
| if they just put in the minimum effort at doing their job.
| And if they can't handle that, they should sell the real
| estate and not be a landlord.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Sounds like he rents a room in a house/apartment, so it's
| probably one of his roomies that has the lease, not him. If
| that's the case, protections wont apply here.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Why wouldn't the protections apply? They can evict him
| without going through the proper process? Couldn't he make
| some sort of claim against them if they do that?
| throwup238 wrote:
| If there's any record of him subleasing (like a pattern of
| monthly rent payments), most of the protections will apply.
| The roommate on the lease can't legally force the subleaser
| out without the TAL hearing either. If they didn't ask for
| permission to sublease, the roommate might have a problem
| with the landlord depending on the terms of the lease, but
| the tenant protections apply to anyone who's renting living
| space.
| vunderba wrote:
| I called it out in an different thread. There's a safety net
| here that's simply not being mentioned. Nothing wrong with that
| _of course_ , but let's not pretend that somebody with a
| monthly rent of ~1200 and a whopping ~60 CAD in savings would
| somehow magically be stress free. You'd be homeless inside a
| few months in the US.
| ornornor wrote:
| > stress free
|
| But he's not. He's specifically spelling it out by saying his
| gut and stomach issues are very likely tied to the stress of
| his no stable income.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Hard disagree. In his post he's talking about continuing on
| in his own projects, and about 2025 being essentially more
| of the same, except this time with no money and no
| significant stable income. There is other support
| _somewhere_ he is simply not talking about, because he
| certainly doesn 't mention being worried about paying his
| rent going forward.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| My theory is that he's getting alimony from his big tech
| ex-wife that supported him through his previous
| startups(pulling this out of my ass).
| bawolff wrote:
| Didn't he say he started with $80,000, spent it, and is now out
| of money?
|
| Presumably he now needs to either get a job asap or make some
| hard choices. But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a
| retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking
| about the future.
|
| > I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege
|
| He literally had enough money to blow $80,000 on 2 years of
| unemployment. Of course he is privleged. Most people in the
| computer industry are. Most posters to hn are. The average
| person lives paycheque to paycheque and certainly doesn't have
| 80k just lying around in their bank account.
| osrec wrote:
| I read somewhere that most people in the US are definitely
| not paycheck to paycheck. The article I read claimed it's
| around 15-20% of the working population.
| bawolff wrote:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/most-of-americans-are-
| living... had 65% but the methodoly seems kind of terrible,
| your number might be better. Either way, its a significant
| portion, and even those with more generally don't have the
| ability to quit their job for 2 years.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Maybe you got it from Noahpinion:
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-
| five-...
| wigster wrote:
| over a third in the uk
| camdenreslink wrote:
| I saw the same stat, and felt like their definition was too
| restrictive (basically you had to spend 100% of your income
| on your bills). Usually a small amount of extra income gets
| spent and those people are also living paycheck to paycheck
| for all intents and purposes.
| varjag wrote:
| Well that's what paycheck to paycheck means: you barely
| have the ends meet for essentials. Not that you're zero
| after topping 401(k) and your yoga classes.
| truckerbill wrote:
| <2 months rent p.m. and no savings basically, is a
| generous definition
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, you threw 401k in there for some reason.
|
| But living paycheck to paycheck to most people definitely
| does include spending one's money on non-bill things like
| lotto tickets, consumer goods, restaurants, and things
| beyond their means.
| varjag wrote:
| Thing is it's absolutely possible to scale up your
| spending to any income level. And this is indeed what
| happens with many people, this is how you get these NYT
| pieces on households struggling on $500k. If you go by
| this the whole expression is kinda meaningless.
| ghaff wrote:
| Maybe not _any_ income level. Well, you can buy Twitter I
| suppose. But, yes, you can fly Netjets or whatever, buy
| supercars, have a bunch of personal staff, and eat out at
| Michelin-starred restaurants on a regular basis. And burn
| through certainly multiple $100Ks or even 6 figures
| annually pretty quickly.
| FredPret wrote:
| There was once a billionaire in Brazil who blew it all.
|
| Instead of Netjets you can own your own jet(s). Instead
| of restaurants you can buy them or have the chef come to
| your house. At the extreme end, you can start a space
| program.
|
| The sky's the limit!
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I sometimes feel like I'm being a bit extravagant
| but it's pretty small-scale in the scheme of things. No
| interest in multiple homes, yachts, jets, etc. Don't even
| eat out all that much except when I'm relatively modestly
| traveling.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Eating from the hand of the same chef all my life? No,
| thanks.
| regularfry wrote:
| Having known (tangentially) someone with a live-in chef,
| I can confirm that they do not supply literally all the
| meals.
| detourdog wrote:
| We definitely live in a time when one can create their
| own inflation. Khaki's in the USA can range from sub $50
| to $900+. One can decide what is the correct price for
| our pants.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Paycheck to paycheck means just that - your income is
| balancing exactly your expenses. This doesn't mean that
| you are not living in modest luxury. Having enough money
| to cover essentials is just definition of - at the edge
| of poverty. Paycheck to paycheck is about (anti)
| fragility. They overlap strongly in the bottom part of
| the income ladder and diverge as you go up. You may be
| financially vulnerable even if pulling a lot of income.
| This doesn't mean that you can't get easier out of a hole
| if you fall with higher income, but paycheck to paycheck
| evaluate the chance of falling into it.
| dingnuts wrote:
| if this is what you think, I highly recommend you watch
| some episodes of Financial Audit on YouTube. Lots of
| people out there living paycheck to paycheck because they
| spend all their money on DoorDash and interest on bad
| debt, even with good income.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I bet paycheck to paycheck like most things has a range
| of meanings circling around the same essential thing,
| which is that if you do not get paid next month you
| cannot afford to live the same next month as you did this
| one.
|
| You might be able to make ends meet by cutting the 401K
| and yoga classes, but if that's what you need to cut to
| eat the next month, what do you cut to eat the month
| after that?
|
| This guy was obviously not living anywhere near paycheck
| to paycheck.
| shubb wrote:
| Mandatory spending isn't stable either. In my 20s I had
| low income, but at the end of the month I'd have a bit of
| money left over. Then the next month my car I needed to
| get to work would break down or I'd need to get a new
| shirt to look nice enough for the dress code rules or
| something. So over time I went slowly into debt.
|
| By this definition I was not living paycheque to
| paycheque, but my situation was definitely not good,
| compared up someone who made better money but spent it
| each month on nonessential.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| I think this nails the problem with using that phrase as
| a rallying cry. There is a difference between people
| whose problem is that their income is too low to be
| secure and people who could easily live a secure and
| comfortable lifestyle if they just managed their budget
| better.
| ericd wrote:
| The problem with that is there are also a large number of
| people who make a large amount of money and still save
| very little. So we should maybe put more work into
| figuring out what is the fault of economic structure, and
| what is the fault of poor decision making. Perhaps define
| some metric that's a measure of what percentage of people
| would be unlikely to be able to do anything other than
| live paycheck to paycheck to paycheck in their current
| setup and where they live.
| bawolff wrote:
| If losing your job means you won't be able to make rent
| this month, i'd consider that paycheque to paycheque.
| Like that is literally what the phrase is saying.
|
| Whether that is because you simply dont have much money,
| or you spent it all on something frivilous is immaterial.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Yes, absolutely. I took a job where the company (a major
| one) effed up HR in some way where I and another person,
| who got hired at the same time, didn't get paid for
| around six weeks. He got evicted from his apartment. I
| had the means to keep mine. His life was ruined. Mine
| kept on. I believe his situation is / was far more common
| than mine.
| detourdog wrote:
| My first job in NYC paid very little. I did something to
| my foot that required surgery and about 6 weeks on
| crutches. I ended up spending most of my paycheck at that
| time to getting car service from Brooklyn to Manhattan
| for work. During that time I was just spending whatever
| was needed to maintain the status quo. Only years later
| did I realize the privilege I was experiencing. During
| that time I remember colleagues remarking in disbelief
| that I was taking car service to work. My thinking was
| the only alternative was the subway and no way thought I
| was experiencing privilege. I was just trying to keep my
| job.
| oblio wrote:
| You were being taxied to and from work for what seems
| like a big distance ? Yeah, for sure most people can't
| afford that :-)
| detourdog wrote:
| That was my point. One is struggling with life and it may
| not have to do with money/resources. The struggle removes
| the sense of privilege from the fore front of one's
| thoughts. I was spending $40 a day while earning $70 a
| day. Later on I realized that for some people that would
| have ended their NYC experience.
| jghn wrote:
| > you barely have the ends meet for essentials
|
| This exact debate showed up on another thread here the
| other day. While I agree with you, I was surprised to
| learn that many people view it to mean that tdon't have
| anything extra *after* they've done all of their socking
| away of money each money. Which is weird to me, but hey.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I'm not an English native speaker but that doesn't sound
| correct to me. If you need next month's paycheck in order
| to _survive_ that month, for whatever reason (even if you
| gambled last month 's money away, much less saved up for
| retirement or spent it on your health), that's my
| understanding of living paycheck to paycheck: you miss
| one paycheck and you're bust. (I assume you can't take it
| back out of that 401k thing or it wouldn't be a pension
| fund but a bank account. Correct me if I'm wrong about
| the mechanics of a 401k)
|
| Dictionary seems to agree, Merriam Webster says: "to
| spend all of the money from one paycheck before receiving
| the next paycheck", not specifying that you can't have
| spent the money on semi-essentials that could perhaps be
| moved by a few months but you'd need to catch up with
| sooner or later
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| The problem with "paycheck to paycheck" is that it evokes
| images of people struggling to make ends meet--to pay the
| rent, keep the lights on, and put food on the table. But
| a lot of people today are using it to mean someone who's
| living beyond their means--spending $1100/month on a
| brand new pickup truck while sending their kids to
| private school and maxing out their 401k. That's not a
| problem of an unfair economy; it's simply poor
| discipline. And so when a half-assed marketing survey
| asks people if they're living paycheck to paycheck, you
| end up with 60% of respondents saying, "Yes," when in
| reality only maybe 20% are struggling because they're in
| a truly difficult situation. The rest of them may just
| need to settle for a less expensive car and maybe turn
| down their 401k contribution for six months so they can
| pay off their credit cards.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| The US Fed came out with a stat a few years ago that 40% of
| Americans wouldn't have cash to cover a $400 emergency:
| they'd have to sell something, borrow, or other.
|
| That's pretty much paycheck to paycheck if your savings are
| that low.
| ghaff wrote:
| As I recall, there was also some disagreement in
| discussions over what "having cash" meant. A lot of
| people have ready access to assets that aren't
| necessarily literally cash.
| eek2121 wrote:
| We have no savings right now (I am not working) and could
| afford a $400 emergency, but we live paycheck to
| paycheck. Income is good, the extra just gets spent on
| various things due to having multiple disabled people in
| the house. Eventually we hope to rebuild the savings.
| taxman22 wrote:
| The question asked how somebody would pay for an
| unexpected $400 expense. If you answered "credit card"
| then you were considered to not have the cash to cover an
| emergency. I'd use a credit card...and pay it off when
| it's due.
| dingnuts wrote:
| YOU would, but a lot of people with credit cards don't
| even understand that it's a loan, or what compound
| interest is. They put the expense on the card and then
| pay the minimum payment, either until it's paid off with
| insane interest, or they keep racking up debt until they
| reach their limit and get a worse card, until they're
| trapped in a cycle of poverty
|
| seriously, everyone in this thread should watch Financial
| Audit and see how people outside the silicon valley
| bubble really live. That show has extreme examples to be
| sure but there are so many people like this
| Aeolun wrote:
| I find it hard to sympathize with people that have enough
| money to pay off their card bills but don't actually do
| so because they can't be bothered to read.
| pastage wrote:
| It is easy to make mistakes when you margins are razor
| thin. They might be stupid mistakes it still happens and
| you notice them more because your margins become even
| smaller. I have been there, being really poor was hard on
| me.
|
| Not an excuse for using credit cards, just an explanation
| why you should sympathize.
| oblio wrote:
| In many places the fault is not shifted to the
| potentially vulnerable or undereducated consumer and
| instead overdraft charges are capped.
|
| In the US everyone is basically forced to have a credit
| card and use it but many have little financial literacy,
| especially immigrants.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yep. In the US, I would _of course_ pay for an unexpected
| car repair (or indeed most any expense) with a credit
| card. It doesn 't mean it won't be paid off at the end of
| the month in essentially all cases. So one of those
| meaningless statistics.
| Jabbles wrote:
| How are you all discussing this question from memory
| without linking to the source?
|
| Poorly, that's how.
|
| _When faced with a hypothetical expense of $400, 63
| percent of all adults in 2022 said they would have
| covered it exclusively using cash, savings, or a credit
| card paid off at the next statement (referred to,
| altogether, as "cash or its equivalent")_
|
| https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2023-economic
| -we...).
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| So this statistic means most people are not living
| paycheck to paycheck right? (Although I didn't think that
| "paycheck to paycheck" meant you would be ruined by an
| unexpected $400 expense)
|
| Anyway, it still doesn't seem like most people live
| paycheck to paycheck, according to your link:
|
| > Some financial challenges, such as a job loss, require
| more financial resources than would an unexpected $400
| expense. One common measure of financial resiliency is
| whether people have savings sufficient to cover three
| months of expenses if they lost their primary source of
| income. In 2023, 54 percent of adults said they had set
| aside money for three months of expenses in an emergency
| savings or "rainy day" fund--unchanged from 2022 but down
| from a high of 59 percent of adults in 2021.
| Aeolun wrote:
| That's a weird stat. If I spend all my $10k/month so that
| I end up with $0, I'd be included in that stat, which is
| clearly insane.
| readams wrote:
| It"s definitely not true
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-
| five-...
| bronco21016 wrote:
| I've always understood paycheck to paycheck to describe
| households that don't have a buffer. Meaning, if the
| paychecks suddenly stop, or a sudden large expense, there's
| nothing to bridge the gap other than social programs.
|
| By this definition, I would imagine a very large number of
| US households fit the mould.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Recent Noahpinion on this...
|
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-
| five-...
| mplewis wrote:
| 50% of Americans don't have an emergency fund. That's
| paycheck to paycheck.
| jknoepfler wrote:
| No idea how credible the underlying BoA study is, but from
| [1]:
|
| >>> According to our analysis, in 2024, around a quarter of
| all households fall into this camp, an increase from 2019.
|
| They define living paycheck to paycheck as spending 95+% of
| income on necessities (housing, food, etc.)
|
| [1] https://institute.bankofamerica.com/economic-
| insights/payche...
| turnsout wrote:
| To me, $80k sounds like a very small amount of "F-You" money.
| I'm not criticizing the OP at all, but if I quit my job with
| 80k in the bank, I would _immediately_ start researching the
| most painful B2B problem I could solve _quickly_ using AI.
| Not to generate an income stream, but to build an asset (the
| business) to sell.
|
| That's the quickest path to $1M. Software developers are too
| caught up on salary (or 73 different "income streams" that
| all make $0), and rarely think about building a valuable
| business.
| ghaff wrote:
| I dunno. That seems a pretty quick path to a 74th income
| stream that makes $0. Especially at the moment, I'm not
| seeing a lot of money trees around. Not that I needed them,
| but when I semi-retired a number of possible revenue
| streams sort of evaporated--not that I looked _too_ hard.
|
| But if you deliberately quit, that may be the thing to do.
| A more conservative person would probably counsel getting
| at least a part-time job that pays a salary though.
| turnsout wrote:
| To be specific, I would quit the other 73 income streams
| and stop any extracurricular activities until I shipped
| something. Even though AI feels overhyped (it sort of
| is), we're still early in the game, and there's _plenty_
| of money to be made. Businesses still have a ton of time-
| consuming, expensive pain points. You just have to pick
| an industry and go talk to insiders to figure out what to
| build.
| ghaff wrote:
| I won't argue if I had a bunch of other activities
| consuming most of my bandwidth that weren't bringing in
| any money. If you really need cash though, I might
| consider lower risk, lower reward options on at least a
| part-time basis as well though. Doing a startup isn't
| exactly a high ROI activity in general--especially in a
| max-hype area.
| turnsout wrote:
| Very true--for a software developer, part-time consulting
| is probably the quickest path to making some money. It's
| a lower-risk, but much lower-leverage option than a 0-1
| startup. Building a startup has a high risk of going to
| zero, but if you've chosen the right customer, the
| potential upside is dramatically higher than any other
| option.
| FredPret wrote:
| I'm in business technology consulting. You're right about
| tons of pain points and opportunity.
|
| But the limiting factor is not AI or any kind of tech,
| it's getting these businesses to trust you with fitting
| into their existing systems and giving you their time.
| turnsout wrote:
| 100%. Another reason to start by talking to customers.
| The product has to be more than useful--it has to fit
| into their current workflow. Most B2B startups
| underinvest in sales (which is not the same as sending
| 100,000 cold emails).
| johann8384 wrote:
| If you can just do that, then why are you not quitting your
| job and why don't you have $800k in the bank?
|
| It's easy, just build a million dollar asset and sell it.
| Pssh, I am on my third one this week.
| turnsout wrote:
| Something can be both conceptually simple yet difficult
| to execute. (The key to losing weight is "just" to eat
| less and exercise, piano is "just a bunch of keys," etc)
|
| Personally I have a mortgage and a family, so I'm not
| eager to burn through savings to build a company 0-1, but
| if I had to, I described exactly what I would do.
| ptsneves wrote:
| Hehehe, you just described most normal people: a mortgage
| a family, cannot just wake up and say I am going all-in
| "this great idea". Your idea is therefore only reachable
| for early age people or singles. I am trying to revive a
| project I believe strongly which is kind of ready to
| sale, but I cannot get a damn 4 hours to seat down and
| look at it without being interrupted by life's chores or
| just being too tired Anyway I have similar fantasies to
| yours. It feels good to not be alone, both in
| circumstances as in fantasy.
| turnsout wrote:
| I've been there! I recently released an app that has been
| 99% ready for sale for a full year, and the only way I
| got it over the finish line was to wake up every morning
| at 5am to get an hour or two of work in before my kid
| wakes up. :) I'd love to do something bigger, but this
| will have to scratch that entrepreneurial itch for now!
| rwmj wrote:
| I posted an idea for a proven business a few days ago
| based on an area why my employer has given up on (too
| "small" for a multi-billion dollar company) and yet
| customers still seem to like and want[1]. I'm pretty sure
| this would be worth a few million at least, and I'd even
| be qualified to do it. Why don't I do it? Because it
| would be dull as ditchwater and I'd hate every minute of
| it. There's more to life than that.
|
| The point is that solving dull business problems like
| that might be lucrative, but not many of us are motivated
| enough to do them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42305336
| oblio wrote:
| I can't find your email address, I'm interested in that
| idea :-)
|
| Is there a way to contact you? I couldn't find it in your
| profile, unfortunately.
| rwmj wrote:
| Believe me, I'm really not interested in taking part. For
| the product that was deprecated you can see here:
| https://www.ovirt.org/
| https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-virtualization
| I wish you luck.
| gdilla wrote:
| He's privileged sure, not because he had 80K in the bank to
| burn through, but because he knows it's not the end of him
| when it's burnt through. He COULD get a job and steady income
| if he wanted, in at least that 80K range (probably double
| really). So meh. Good for him though for scratching his
| itches though. Any dude who can code can be a wage slave if
| they really want to.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| I admire the self-confidence and the freedom it brings. I
| sometimes wish I had the courage to go down my own path.
| OtomotO wrote:
| The average person in the US maybe.
|
| And the third world.
|
| In Western Europe? Not so much. I mean, yes, there are poor
| people, but the middle class mostly doesn't live paycheck to
| paycheck.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Most Western European countries do have higher savings
| rates than the US, but, disregarding Switzerland, Ireland
| and the Nordics (ie small wealthy countries with very high
| cost of living), it's not a _dramatic_ difference. People
| may be less likely to be living paycheck to paycheck, but
| being able to just take two years off not working, unless
| you had very low living costs, would still be very unusual.
| jajko wrote:
| A _lot_ of people adjust their lifestyle to paycheck, so
| little is left afterwards. Concept of savings is quite
| foreign to them, they want to enjoy life now. So paycheck
| to paycheck, while sporting newest highend phone or other
| gizmos, nice package of vacations through the year or
| just look at fashion clothes they wear and how often they
| buy new ones.
|
| I mean I would fit in this category too for maybe past
| decade, little cash left over after paycheck but I did
| like exotic 5 vacations per year and invested rest into
| mortgage for mountain apartment for rentals.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I think the difference in available social services here
| is also necessary to take into account. Someone laid off
| in, say, Spain, already has full healthcare provided by
| the state, and qualifies for an unemployment benefit
| based on their most recent salary for up to 3 years -
| this makes for a significantly less precarious position
| than that same person recently laid off in the US.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Not really.
|
| 1. Most Americans are not paycheck-to-paycheck. It is what
| politicians constantly say depending on whether they are in
| power or not.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1dbpaag/do_t
| h...
|
| 2. Americans have higher disposable income at all income
| levels than Europeans (Western Europe included).
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/xgoouz/americans_h
| a...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a
| retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking
| about the future.
|
| No, my specific point is that he does _not_ sound like he
| needs to make hard choices, and he is alluding to continuing
| working on his own projects in the future. He writes:
|
| > I made resolutions: to make $1M in revenue in 2025. Well,
| that's not really happening... But rest assured, I do
| everything possible to reach that goal rather sooner than
| later.
|
| and
|
| > blymp is the only one generating money -- about $600/month
| -- and the one I plan to continue next year. Yay!
|
| and finishes with
|
| > Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a
| job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of
| patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with
| myself. Cheers!
|
| And sure, people that make a high income job are privileged,
| but I was using it in the sense that you frequently see it
| used online, specifically that he has a backup pool of
| money/support somewhere, most likely family, that he
| conspicuously leaves out of his post.
| maronato wrote:
| > Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a
| job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of
| patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with
| myself.
|
| He does talk about the future and seems to imply he'll
| continue to not have a job.
|
| If that's the case, I'm with GP in wondering how he's going
| to make it past January.
| ornornor wrote:
| > I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege"
| at every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings
| and barely any income would be freaking out unless they had
| some family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any
| discussion of is suspiciously absent.
|
| I understand the sentiment but I don't understand why point it
| out. It's not like the blog post in question is putting anyone
| down, complaining about anything, or being obnoxious.
|
| There will always be someone more privileged than you are. Why
| constantly remind yourself (and others) about it if the more
| privileged person isn't harming anyone?
| vasco wrote:
| Yeah this just sounds like my mom saying "finish your food
| because there's starving kids in africa".
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I point it out because he's leaving out a _very_ important
| part of his story. He 's come to the end of 2024 with no
| money left and no stable income, yet he talks about
| continuing on more of the same in 2025, so he's got to have
| some other significant support from _somewhere_ , and that's
| critical to his story. In my mind the better analogy is
| fitness influencers that go into detail about their diet and
| exercise regimen, and then conveniently leave out their
| weekly testosterone shots.
|
| I don't judge him at all for being privileged or what he's
| done. I judge him for leaving out what I think is the most
| important part of the story: how he could go on this journey
| and come to a point where he's got no money left but he isn't
| freaking out about being homeless or getting food.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| I agree with your sentiment. I am at loss how he plans to
| pay his rent and food given 60$ to his account. The income
| he mentioned does not cover one month's rent. This is a
| stark difference between privilege and lack-thereof. The
| blog post is nonsense given he does not address any of his
| fixes, while leads me to believe he has family or spousal
| support (for otherwise, they would not be picking up new
| hobbies. I was once broke, and I recall being panicked and
| working gigs to pay my rent. The fact he is doing none of
| these leads me to agree with your observations).
| Havoc wrote:
| Definitely feels like there is some sort of unmentioned safety
| net at play. Or guy is just fearless.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| There is no problem surviving for a young healthy man in
| Montreal. One can always uber, deliveroo, tend bars etc, and it
| pays pretty well. Nothing to freak out about.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Fair enough, but then talking about this going forward would
| be a critical part of his story, because he talks about
| continuing on in 2025 developing his projects and essentially
| more of the same, which becomes considerably more difficult
| if he's going to spend 30-40 hours a week driving for Uber.
| StressedDev wrote:
| This is a good example of why entrepreneurs, founders, and
| investors should make a lot of money. Frequently, they fail, or
| go for years making very little. Starting a successful business
| is incredibly hard and I wish shilin (the person who wrote the
| article) the best.
| blharr wrote:
| I mean, or it heavily restricts the pool of founders to mostly
| those who already have enough wealth such that they won't be
| homeless.
|
| I don't see why a safety net wouldn't mitigate this risk in the
| first place, which would then allow for more people to take
| these risks and come up with great ideas as well
| robofanatic wrote:
| How can someone with $68 in bank so articulate.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You must be fun at parties.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Similar story for me in 2017-19 era. Ran out of money never
| thought I would work again, picked up a consulting contract,
| parlayed it into more, have since succeeded to the point of being
| discreet about it. I've come to believe opportunity finds us.
|
| If you can be fit and pursue arts or hobbies, you're already
| doing what people think they need to be wealthy to do, and most
| wealthy people are boring anyway.
|
| Run a CRM pipeline to get a job and you will have one in a couple
| of months, then use the stability as a way to find customers for
| your next thing. If you can't run a pipeline for yourself, you
| won't be able to do it for a startup anyway. You're fine. Good
| luck.
| jumparoundwords wrote:
| Highly agree with your comment, just wondering what you mean
| with "CRM pipeline to get a job"?
| anotheracc88 wrote:
| Ooh. Lesson: if you are out of work go bare bones. You don't need
| a entrepenerial flat in the city. You need a shitty room in the
| suburbs where you can commute to the city by train or bus ideally
| (dont have a car). Call it runway and it sounds better. If you
| spent 20k/y then the 60k becones 75k in the market and you are
| doing better.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| Yes, I'm not sure how helpful it is in TFA to compare living
| costs against average living costs in the area and then call it
| a win if you're anywhere below.
|
| If I was unemployed my living costs would be far, far below
| average, even allowing for the "it's expensive being poor"
| factors. Even when I've been in low pay jobs I've lived on very
| little and definitely didn't feel like I had budget for
| "travel" or other non-essentials.
|
| As an employable person without work, before I reached negative
| bank balance I'm pretty certain I would have found a crappy job
| to at least slow the decline and buy more time. I can't see
| from this story why that hasn't been deemed necessary here.
| jlarocco wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing.
|
| The average person has a job and income. What's the average
| for a person taking extended time off?
| gexla wrote:
| Nobody is jobless. You either have a job or you don't need a job.
| If you need a job, then finding a job is your full time job. Do
| your marketing. Build your offerings (skills.) Slam your
| offerings against the market as much as possible to get feedback.
|
| I couldn't imagine anyone wanting a job not finding one. At least
| in the US, there's industries hurting for skills shortages. We're
| also on the edge of a cliff of baby boomers retiring.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Getting a good job is hard - especially today.
|
| Getting a low-salary one, unrelated to your skills, is fairly
| easy (e.g: waiter).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| May I introduce you to the New Orleans metropolitan area.
| paxys wrote:
| 2 years living in a big city enjoying entrepreneurship, hacking,
| socializing, music, sports, climbing, triathlons - all without
| the shackles of a 9-5 office job - sounds like a dream.
| Resourceful people find ways to pay their bills, and I'm sure you
| will as well. Best of luck!
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| For the author, you probably have IBS.
|
| I have similar symptoms, and basically I can't eat anything with
| Peppers or Chilies. The whole fruiting family. So no paprika. You
| would be absolutely floored to find out how many things paprika
| is in. Basically every flavour of chip you like. Curries often
| have them too.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| Expanding on this, OP, please see a GI doctor. These could also
| be signs of much worse things you want to catch early.
| graycat wrote:
| Check it out, but ~2020 saw where in the US could BUY a nice
| _manufactured house_ , with a mortgage, for ~$300/month. Land?
| Some small rural communities have been falling in population and
| are eager for new people -- sooooo, land for the house might not
| be too much.
|
| Be sure to have cell phone and Internet access and be not too far
| from a Walmart, a hospital, and, maybe, auto repair. In the US
| can get nice weather, usually not too hot or cold or too wet or
| dry, in the East at the latitude of, say, Kentucky.
|
| In Maryland, Virginia, and DC, there is lots of Federal Civil
| Service employment, and the hiring is not based much on "who you
| know" but what you can do, education, experience.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Let's see if that last bit lasts after Jan 20
| nikolay wrote:
| The new generation thinks your job should be fun and interesting,
| but that's rare and a luxury. I see young coworkers leave an
| excellent job after months, often less than 6 months even. It
| used to be that I would not even interview candidates who had
| less than 2 years in any job on their resume - it was the
| industry's standard. Now it's rare to find somebody who has had 2
| years in any job - this is beyond pathetic! Entrepreneurship is
| different than self-experimentation. If you have a killer idea,
| if you've done the market analysis, and the business plan - ok,
| great - quit your job! But to leave a decent job to play
| entrepreneur - that's pretty irresponsible! Stoicism is extinct!
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I'm in network security and I want to quit so badly. I feel
| trapped in a job and team dynamic I don't like. I own my truck
| and have $275k in liquid assets.
|
| I've been thinking of quitting with the assumption that my job
| skills will still be relevant in two or three years and that I
| have strong social skills that help stand out and a crowded
| worker field.
|
| I just want to take care of some long-standing tasks, clean out
| my house, and enjoy waking up each day.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I would recommend going and interviewing and changing
| companies. Get anyone else to hire you, it's better than zero
| income, and then you can figure out if it's the culture of your
| company bothering you.
| fafhnir wrote:
| Here is a good example of someone who shies away from
| responsibility for himself and others.
|
| 2 years time for what? To build something with other people? A
| partner, family, children?
|
| Nope, just doing what brings him fun or fulfillment or whatnot...
|
| I'm not saying it's bad to take care of yourself from time to
| time. But as a father of 5, I can definitely say that the best
| and most instructive moments in my life were definitely the ones
| where it wasn't about me but about people who were important to
| me.
|
| And the money issue that most people seem to be talking about
| here: Go to work and earn money. That's life. It always has been.
| If people would only do what fulfills them, there would be no
| sewer workers or garbage collectors. Whenever you take advantage
| of a developed society, you always have a duty to give something
| back to it.
|
| If there is not Time enough after a 8 hour shift to to what you
| want, you have a serious Problem.
| justmedep wrote:
| I totally disagree and don't even know where to begin...
|
| People are different. Some are just not "as resilient" as
| others. Some have mental issues. Some have other priorities in
| life. Some people are just overwhelmed when they have to focus
| on more than one thing (their own wellbeing) - which should and
| cannot be confused with selflessness.
|
| Not everyone wants to accept the common conceptions of life.
| And that's ok.
| delitrem wrote:
| I'm a kind of political fugitive (probably will go into the
| prison for the beliefs if return to the country of origin),
| living in one of EU countries, married, having a little child and
| two dogs, owning apartament, have no significant health issues,
| also having second year without income at all, having some money
| on banking account, full-time working for the own startup on open
| source project. And I do not feel very disappointed.
| jstanley wrote:
| > I used to think that I overspent. That my groceries could have
| been cheaper. That I could have eaten out or traveled less. Then
| a few months ago, I went on NomadList and found out that the
| average living cost in Montreal is $3,750/mo. Considering that I
| spent the first year in Ottawa/Toronto, where the cost of living
| is even higher, my spending habits turned out not that bad after
| all. I'm not just average -- I'm slightly better!
|
| This philosophy may not be ideal for your circumstances. You
| already knew you had limited funds and no income. "Slightly
| better than average" is overspending.
| _rrnv wrote:
| There's a moral in this story but the HN crowd ain't gonna like
| it: money is capital. Two years ago the author had no job and 80k
| in the bank. At least half was disposable. Had he invested that
| 40k or more in a risk-averse fashion (20% s&p/btc; 80% t-bills)
| his position today would be much better. Instead he ate through
| his capital. Always invest your disposable savings or income.
| Hate me now. Thank me later.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Depends on when that money is going to result in the most
| valuable experiences, of course.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| He was investing it, in starting new businesses. He has revenue
| from one. The return just wasn't what he wanted.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I'll sell you a $600/mo revenue stream for $80k any day of
| the week. Bro should have just bought a business.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Yep, 2024 market is considerably too good though. When he about
| to quit, I'd expect 8% yield (pessimistic) per year, so
| $6.4k/yr or $533/mo, that's "good" living quality in non major
| cities in Thailand. But to be fair, it's only good for locals,
| not for foreigners. And that $80k also needs to be invested 1
| year before quitting.
|
| It's doable for extending up to 3x of his runway.
| lottin wrote:
| If you get 8% returns per year on average, the expected
| annualized return over a multi-year period is going to be
| LESS than 8%.
|
| This is because you won't get exactly 8% each year. For
| example, suppose the returns over a 3-year period are: 20%,
| -10%, 14%. In this case, the return over the whole period is
| 23.21% (= (1 + 0.20) * (1 - 0.10) * (1 + 0.14) - 1). On the
| other hand, a 8% return each year would have resulted in a
| 25.97% return over the whole period (= (1 + 0.08)^3 - 1).
| ericpauley wrote:
| When people say x% average annual return this is almost
| always referring to geometric mean already, so the above
| math doesn't apply.
| jarsin wrote:
| The type of people that want to start companies rarely invest.
| Once you adopt an investor mindset you start to see startups as
| one of the riskiest investments you could ever make.
|
| I've seen quite a few one hit entrepreneurs lose it all chasing
| the next idea and never investing anything.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| you can always earn more money after you spend it
| byyoung3 wrote:
| Try carnivore bro. Read the mind body prescription by John Sarno.
| Meditate 20 mins per day
| acd10j wrote:
| Not sure, If he has option OP can ask his parents to help or live
| with them. Having zero balance in account is not a very good
| situation to be in.
| p00dles wrote:
| Well I'll be damned if it didn't make my day to read somebody
| talking so honestly about their life. Thanks for the being
| relatable, and for putting yourself out there.
| ChiMan wrote:
| The moral of the story: Don't quit your job unless you have an
| employment contract for another one or if you have a reliable,
| growing side hustle that generates enough income to live on. Real
| life bites hard, and $80k is peanuts.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Did we read the same article? This guy is spending his time
| learning music, mastering a sport, spending time with close
| friends, and your takeaway is "he should be grinding away at a
| corporate like everyone else"?
|
| There's a lot of different ways to live. Personally I like
| taking periods of voluntary unemployment to explore other
| interests. Finding a job after has never been a problem.
|
| A large percentage of the population has at least some safety
| net. Probably the average 25 year old could move back in with
| their parents for a year if things got really bad.
| ChiMan wrote:
| In other words, the parents protect the kid from real life.
| No thanks.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Or allow the kid to take risks and do more with their lives
| than they would otherwise, and become self-sufficient in an
| interesting and unexpected way.
|
| What would you want for your own kids? 45 years of grudging
| corporate toil, then death?
|
| What's the point of become a wealthy and prosperous society
| if we're so goddamn uncreative about how we live in it?
| testval123 wrote:
| That is privileged take. The things we take for granted
| in a 'prosperous' society- food on grocery store shelves,
| doctors available in the ER, plumbers to fix your
| plumbing, etc. etc. all require people to work 'standard'
| hours and follow 'standard' paths. The path of the
| 'creative' tech worker taking two years off is incredibly
| privileged, and I would argue infantilizing.
| titanomachy wrote:
| If our society falls apart, it won't be because I took a
| break from deploying kubernetes clusters for three months
| so I could get better at skiing and volunteer on the
| suicide hotline.
|
| And yeah, this is a very privileged take. Is there some
| other way you'd prefer that I use my privilege?
| nmilo wrote:
| No shit. The whole point of being a parent is to give
| your kids as much privilege as you can. Why are you
| talking like it's a bad thing? My parents moved here to
| bring me a better life than them and I'm working to give
| my kids a better life than me. Are you planning on
| hoarding all your money and making your kids stock
| shelves to keep them away from "privilege"?
| em-bee wrote:
| this is a common attitude, especially in china where i
| have observed it, but it is much less common in europe.
| myself for example i am the total opposite. i don't know
| what my parents goals were, but i don't think it was
| giving us a better life. not that it matters though,
| because i am proud that i never needed financial support
| from my parents. i achieved more of my goals and dreams
| than my parents did of theirs because my parents, as
| imperfect as they were, gave me resilience.
|
| and that is what i want to give to my kids as well. not
| privilege. i want them to learn that not everyone has it
| as good as we do, and that we need to work in order to
| have a better life, and that we need to help others do
| the same. perhaps this is itself a position of privilege
| to be able to do that instead of living in a comfortable
| place in europe where my neighbors would like to go to to
| have a better life.
| mplewis wrote:
| This guy is spending more than he makes. Who is bankrolling
| him?
| titanomachy wrote:
| It sounds like he is bankrolling himself, by working and
| saving up money.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| According to the article, no he isn't
| javiramos wrote:
| Accutane killed my stomach for a good while
| Jabbs wrote:
| Are you looking for a job now? It seems the market is even
| tougher than it was a few years ago. I have built an app to
| scrape job listings directly from company websites if you're
| interested
| jjordan wrote:
| I'm interested, how can I check it out?
| Jabbs wrote:
| https://www.unlistedjobs.com/
|
| If you signup and want it free please just email me (listed
| on my profile). Currently asking $15/mo for the app
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I wonder how the dating world would go, given he's divorced, even
| before running out of money. I.e.: I think most women would
| immediately reject someone unemployed. (Even if he had money)
| Taking a risk like this while in a relationship is probably fine,
| but trying to start one with a stranger is likely to be
| significantly more difficult than while employed.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Just have to find someone else that's unemployed? Or someone
| that doesn't care? If there's men that don't care a woman is
| unemployed the reverse must be true too.
| mettamage wrote:
| The way I see it, the more disadvantages you have the more
| you need to make up for it with charisma. That's how I do it
| anyway. Charisma is trainable. It's not easy to train, but it
| ultimately is trainable.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Being single for a couple years isn't the end of the world.
| Besides, he's in the climbing community, which (at least from
| the outside) appears to be chock full of barely-employed
| attractive men and women who all sleep with each other.
| bradlys wrote:
| I have more experience with this than most of the HN crowd.
| I've not been working for 2.5 years. Being unemployed is
| considered unattractive but if you spin it - it's not too bad.
| I spin it as, "I did startups in SV, one of them went public. I
| have plenty of money." Most everyone gets it but some women are
| put off by it. I'm literally taking time away from SV because
| I'm on the hunt for a wife. I couldn't find one after being in
| SV for 8 years and so now I'm in NYC where at least I can
| actually meet women. I've traveled a lot as well but I don't
| recommend that as a way to meet your future wife. Dating
| culture outside of the US is very different and very few women
| will be interested in dating someone who is traveling around.
| There are also other issues like being used for a green card
| and so on. Sleeping/dating around casually isn't as much of a
| thing in other countries and it's a necessity if you're going
| to try to form an intense bond with someone.
|
| Overall, I think for a tech worker, the real issue is that so
| many women will not date a tech worker to begin with because of
| the low social status associated with dating a tech worker.
| I've met thousands at this point and it's honestly made me
| regret joining this industry. I do not advocate for it at all.
|
| I think the bigger hurdle with dating beyond that anyway is
| physical attraction. The bar for that is really high now. Being
| a rock climber only attracts certain types because rock
| climbing tends to have more lanky builds. You better hope
| you're attracted to women who only want to date slim built men.
| That is a niche woman. As well, you can't escape your baseline
| genetics like height, facial attractiveness, etc. People talk
| about rock climbers sleeping with each other all the time but
| it's mostly men who are rock climbing. There are some women but
| the ratio is 3:1 - which means you're 2/3 chance of not getting
| anywhere.
| louwrentius wrote:
| The amount of sexism and stereotypes about women is
| astounding. I don't feel you even see women as actual human
| beings, damn.
| bradlys wrote:
| Is it sexism to acknowledge that we have 80%+ men in tech?
| Is it sexism to acknowledge fields like nursing and
| elementary teaching have 80%+ women?
|
| You're free to exist in the real world rather than some
| third wave feminism utopia.
| htrp wrote:
| I mean you're not unemployed, you're retired.
| blamazon wrote:
| I didn't notice a difference personally during a long
| unemployment stint. Not being employed lends a lot of free time
| to focus on self development and to be an interesting person
| which is beneficial to dating. Also, an unemployed partner can
| do a lot of cooking and cleaning. I used large chunks of my
| time to plan and create elaborate meals for working partners
| and keep co-living spaces spotless and organized. This is
| substantially more challenging for me personally to do with
| full time employment.
| consf wrote:
| If he can convey his journey in a way that highlights his
| resilience, self-awareness, and ambition (even if his goals are
| still taking shape), it might resonate with the right person
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Don't quit your job to start something. Start something on the
| side. Spending down $80,000 in savings is a massive L.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Yeah, I don't get why people are praising this idea, it's a
| huge risk to take. If you don't have a safety net to catch
| yourself, don't do this!
| kbr- wrote:
| What if your job sucks so much energy out of you, it's even
| hard to imagine to do something on the side?
| em-bee wrote:
| job, family and more. i hire a helper for the housework so
| that i can get more time for myself. but i live in a
| country where such helpers are cheap. couldn't do that in
| europe.
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| Eric Bachman, this is your mom, and you, you are not my baby.
| nell wrote:
| Did he try to get a job at all? Being from Canada and technical,
| I will say OP isn't trying enough.
|
| https://digitalcareers.infosys.com/infosys/global-careers?lo...
|
| https://ibegin.tcs.com/iBegin/jobs/search
|
| https://www.epam.com/careers/job-listings?recruitingUrl=%2Fc...
| mekoka wrote:
| I've been there. Some advice.
|
| So you found yourself with some safety net and are contemplating
| reinventing yourself in some way. Maybe working on a side
| project, or supplementing your skillset by learning something
| new.
|
| My first and top advice is to move to a place where just
| breathing and thinking is cheap. Travel if you can (i.e. you're
| young, have no kids, no relationships, no obligations). The slow
| burn will alleviate the stress and the need to precipitate a
| decision. Nomadlist, Numbeo, and the numerous nomad blogs are
| your friends. Start working on your projects from there. Come
| back home when you have some feelers moving.
|
| Second. If your runway is only a year or two, prioritize
| acquiring a skill that'll make it easy to find work by the end of
| the run. Take a course on something trendy or valuable. If you
| choose to work on a project, also consider it the demo you'll
| eventually present to companies you'll interview at if things
| don't pan out. If you have 3 or 4 years, consider that you
| actually only have 1 to get something up and running.
|
| Third. Don't be too ambitious with your first project. Aim to
| build something that can sustain living in a place where it's
| cheap to just breathe and think.
|
| Good luck.
| cwalv wrote:
| Also, carefully consider the costs. It's usually pretty hard to
| get the first 80-100k; burning your principal to 0 probably
| doesn't make sense. If it wasn't hard for you, that income
| stream is worth a lot, so you should carefully consider whether
| you're burning any bridges. If you're not burning bridges or
| burning principal to 0, that's a complete reframing of the
| situation.
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| Other considerations aside -- Given the difficulties in the tech
| job market over the past couple of years, I highly doubt most
| people who click through this headline will relate to the story
| of a guy who _decided_ to quit with 2+ years of living expenses
| saved up.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| The problem with the "try a lot of projects, see what works" is
| that you lose out on exponential growth every time a project
| fails.
|
| A lot of people would be better off doing "intra-preneurship",
| meaning trying to innovate and strategize within their current
| company to make the job more fun, gain more autonomy, and advance
| their career prospects.
| ghaff wrote:
| At the end of the day, it's a bet. You'll probably make zero
| (or negative after expenses). You may make some passable
| income. You _might_ make a lot.
|
| Whereas working for a big company, you have a fairly reliable
| shot at bringing in a decent income with some stability.
|
| Nothing is guaranteed of course.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| I'm sorry, but what exponential growth are you talking about?
| No company will ever pay you that much as a regular salaried
| employee.
| itake wrote:
| Career growth. This includes job title, responsibilities, and
| compensation.
|
| Companies can promote you every 1-2 years, but you need to
| start that clock.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| It's not exponential though, at most you're looking at 2-3
| orders of magnitude growth unless you're a founder.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Not sure you understand what orders of magnitude means.
|
| 3 orders of magnitude is 1,000 times larger, so $100,000
| salary would become $100,000,000.
|
| Never going to happen.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| I perfectly understand what orders of magnitude means.
| The growth you've described does happen, eg if you start
| at $65000 as junior eng and end up in dozens of millions
| a year as a SVP or CTO at FAANG-level company. My point
| is that even that is not exponential yearly, unless you
| mean "exponential" in the narrow sense of "compound
| returns", by that is available to everyone with a
| brokerage account.
| itake wrote:
| "Compound returns" are exponential returns. Is there
| another definition of exponential that im not away of?
| itake wrote:
| My RSUs and total compensation has grown by 20-30% the
| last 3 years, despite my base salary only increasing
| 1-2%.
|
| If that isn't exponential growth, idk what is.
|
| RSU values compound.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Refreshers aren't priced at the price of the date of
| hire, that would be crazy. It's not more exponential than
| holding S&P 500.
| itake wrote:
| Refreshers are priced at when they were granted and
| compound 4 years. So you have 4 years of compounding
| growth. Refreshers also stack, creating more compounding.
|
| Once they vest, you can sell them to match snp500 past
| the 4 years.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's not exponential growth. It's not even linear-with-
| good-slope.
|
| And it's not even "give 1x work -same as before- and take
| x1.5 money" but more like "give 1.5x work and take x1.5
| money" at best (and usually less): more responsibilities,
| more stress, and more work time.
| itake wrote:
| > "give 1x work -same as before- and take x1.5 money"
|
| This is exactly my case.
|
| Here are my w2 compensation (salary+bonus+rsu) changes
| YoY working at $Yelp and $Grab:
|
| 2025 35.96% (projected)
|
| 2024 20.77% (projected)
|
| 2023 30.39%
|
| 2022 -0.65% <- promotion
|
| 2021 34.25%
|
| 2020 65.06% <- job change (December 2020; 2020 had a big
| jump due to unemployment in 2019)
|
| I don't think my work hours, responsibilities, or work
| stress has any connection to my compensation or career
| growth, primarily due to the "work smart, not hard"
| thinking.
|
| Even if you have zero promotions or changes in
| responsibility, RSU grants compound, even if your salary
| increase by only 1-6% (like mine did)
| oblio wrote:
| I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit a
| compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at some
| point.
|
| Or you manage to move into those staff/post-staff
| positions but those are very few, hyper competitive and
| during rounds a layoffs you have a huge target on your
| back.
| nickjj wrote:
| > I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit
| a compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at
| some point.
|
| Realistically it's not a bad problem to have.
|
| I'm no where near making a capped IC amount but if
| someone were in this position you really only need ~5-8
| years of working to pretty much set yourself up for life
| financially if you keep your living expenses reasonable.
| itake wrote:
| I'm 35. I survived 80% layoffs because I'm one of the
| lowest paid people in my grade and office.
|
| Im still earning way less than what I see reported on
| Blind and what my coworkers make.
| itake wrote:
| Fair, but the exponential growth function can be much more
| aggressive for a side project than your career. In a career,
| you max raises at 20% per year over a 5 year period? But side
| projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR.
|
| Also, within companies, you need everyone's unanimous
| permission to do anything.. if a problem is big enough, the
| team would do it themselves. If the problem is too small, the
| team won't integrate.
| moooo99 wrote:
| > But side projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR. Also,
| within companies, you
|
| Or, more likely, 0%
| itake wrote:
| Not really? You can mitigate this risk by purchasing an
| existing company with revenue.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _meaning trying to innovate and strategize within their
| current company to make the job more fun, gain more autonomy,
| and advance their career prospects_
|
| Assuming that's in an environment where it's possible (no
| shitty office politics, etc), the monetary returns from that
| ain't gonna be competing to a succesful project. Nor is the
| freedom and satisfaction ever going to be the same. And of
| course all progress in that front, is a round of layoffs or a
| change in management away from being nulled.
|
| So, it's a safer path (as much as being an employee is safe
| these days), but not achieving the same thing.
| asdev wrote:
| this is literally impossible at most companies due to politics,
| incentive alignments, OKRs etc
| EasyMark wrote:
| Right, most companies just want you cranking out the code
| their marketing department has determined as necessary, they
| don't care if you grow, prosper, are happy, or any of those
| things.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| Im not sure why there is even a single downvote, the
| comment is absolutely right on the money.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Innovating is all of those, and many managers will be open
| to cool new ideas and let you try stuff out if there's real
| promise. You might need to only spend a fraction of your
| time on it, or do it after hours. The problem is that many
| developers have bad ideas, or they can't market those ideas
| effectively. Remember that they will be able to claim a
| part of any success you find.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| You probably won't launch an entire product line out of your
| own sheer will, but you can totally push for smaller scale
| work. Push for creating a tool to improve your team's
| processes, or push for a few feature within an existing
| product. Focus less on the "entrepreneur" aspect and more on
| the "build fun and autonomy into your work" aspect. If you're
| trusted and respected within your organization, you'll
| probably be able to push through ever-larger projects
| (assuming they're not net-negative). This probably isn't a
| working strategy if you're within your first year, but if
| you're a respected senior engineer who wants to scratch an
| itch, you'll probably have much more success.
|
| Or, if you work at Google, push for a new chat app. It'll
| probably be approved.
| htrp wrote:
| >push for a new AI chat app
|
| ftfy
| david-gpu wrote:
| I once heard a conversation between an engineering manager
| and a _very_ senior leader at NVidia.
|
| The manager was sharing how challenging it was for his team
| to debug a certain type of code that they were responsible
| for. Without missing a beat, this _very_ senior leader
| replied: _" What do we need in order to make it fun? What
| kind of tooling or other improvements would make it
| enjoyable and easy?"_.
|
| I'm paraphrasing because I can't recall the exact words,
| but I was flabbergasted to hear how he framed the problem
| as a lack of "fun".
|
| Interactions like that are why I left NVidia with enormous
| respect for their managers and not just the very bright
| individual contributors I had the privilege to meet.
|
| I bet people who have been on the inside can guess who the
| very senior guy was. Absolute legend.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Interactions like that are why I left NVidia with
| enormous respect for their managers ...
|
| Um, you're being sarcastic yeah? (just checking) ;)
| david-gpu wrote:
| I left NVidia because I retired, not because I was
| unhappy with the managers or my coworkers. They were
| exceptionally good.
|
| You do realize there are all sorts of reasons why people
| leave a job, right? I left Qualcomm perfectly satisfied
| with my managers and coworkers, too.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Most projects are fun when they're a greenfield and then
| become a slog by the end when they're in maintenance mode
| with layers of cruft. My goal on any new project is to
| keep the "fun" going for as long as possible.
| generic92034 wrote:
| After a decade or two of maintaining a complex, "grown"
| application it might be become fun again. You really know
| all the quirks, all important patterns and call chains.
| You know the pains of the customers/users and, if you
| have the time, might be able to do something about it.
|
| Frankly, starting every other year on a completely new
| application/system does not sound so much fun to me, now
| that I am programming for more than four decades.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| You could copy the GP post and paste it under this comment
| again. Let me explain: You don't get any time to work on
| things besides what is in the sprint. Period. Is it
| dystopian? Yes. Is it the way many shitty companies work?
| Absolutely. Be happy, if you are not in such a place.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Threadripper was an entire product line launched from below
| at AMD, famously.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2017/09/05/amd-
| ry...
| jnwatson wrote:
| I've started something new at every company I've worked for,
| except the startup, which was already a new thing.
|
| My current employer, Google, seems particularly amenable to
| internal entrepreneurship. After all, they're essentially
| paying you not to create new external businesses.
| agumonkey wrote:
| That's how it goes at mine. I regularly whine about the
| amount of waste in there.. insane. I was more productive,
| creative and happier when jobless. In group you have to
| navigate all the hurdles, egos, fears around .. Makes me
| wonder how Xerox PARC managed to exist all (beyond the fact
| that they had a lot of money of course)
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I've had extreme control over my role over the past decade
| (leadership in startups) and I couldn't even do what you
| suggest. I'm not sure how you think the average person could
| consf wrote:
| I think the key is self-awareness. Some thrive on the freedom
| and risk of entrepreneurship, while others are better suited to
| optimizing and innovating within existing systems
| FredPret wrote:
| You only need exponential growth to work once
| aorloff wrote:
| But you have to be able to execute when it arrives
| j45 wrote:
| Exponential growth means getting the timing, positioning and
| right amount of execution just right.
|
| Also feels like chasing a lottery win. Some folks might be
| chasing a financial safety net first that is smaller, because
| the variables and formula of everyone's life in what they have
| to take care of is valid.
|
| I'm very happy for people who are able to swing for the fences,
| and also happy for the people working on getting more hits to
| bigger hits to swing for the fench. I know the latter is a much
| more sure way to get an outcome to have time freedom to really
| swing fences.
|
| Everyone does what they best can do, if there's not an option
| in front of them at work, some people have to try to create the
| option themselves if it's not geographically accessible.
| boiler_up800 wrote:
| This is the tech equivalent of 'my year of rest and relaxation',
| enjoyable to read with talk of sports and projects. I think I
| will try this after my current job runs its course.
| jumparoundwords wrote:
| Crazy to me that some people in the comments believe that 80k$
| dollar is peanuts. Even in Germany I could easily live with that
| for more than 5 years.
|
| If I had that kind of money lying around I would move to another
| country, pay for my whole education, learn a new language and
| still have enough money for multiple full-time start-up attempts.
| bradlys wrote:
| Cost of living in the US is very high. HN skews towards the SV
| crowd. $80k isn't even a year of rent for many here. If you
| instead bought a home recently in SV, $80k wouldn't even get
| you halfway through the year.
|
| There's a reason people get paid $400k+/yr in SV. The place is
| expensive and you need to keep people there somehow.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > $80k isn't even a year of rent for many here.
|
| $80k is more than the median annual rent on a three-bedroom
| house in San Francisco; if its "not even a year of rent",
| _even in the "SV crowd"_, that's because of lavish personal
| choices, not location-based necessity.
|
| > There's a reason people get paid $400k+/yr in SV.
|
| Yes, because the jobs paying that are highly selective and
| there is lots of competition for talent. The cost of living
| in SV is a consequence of the concentration of high-paying
| jobs, not its cause.
| jumparoundwords wrote:
| I do wonder what's keeping people there long term.
|
| With that amount of money you can have an amazing life in so
| many places on this earth, and these people definitely have
| the resources to do that. Have these people never experienced
| life abroad? Quality of life is much higher elsewhere.
| khushy wrote:
| How about that guy who wrote graphing calculator? Or the guy who
| put zip in windows explorer?
| consf wrote:
| It's a refreshingly honest and well-rounded reflection. Your
| growth in music and sports highlights how fulfillment can come
| from unexpected places... Wishing you luck for 2025!
| zynlo wrote:
| To the author: Thank you for this blogpost. I'm in a difficult
| situation myself and your writeup helped me reflect. I wish you
| all the best.
| hoherd wrote:
| Shout out to the low-FODMAP diet. I did that last year after
| having several months of abdominal pain and discomfort, and was
| stunned at how quickly a change in diet could solve these
| seemingly chronic symptoms. At the end of the second day I told
| my wife I couldn't remember the last time I felt so good. I'd
| recommend trying it for a few days to pretty much anybody,
| because doing it can't hurt, and who knows? It might make you
| feel better. It's not intended to be a long-term thing anyway,
| more of a diagnostic tool to help you learn about your body.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| I was low-fodmap for YEARS (a little onion on something would
| trigger an emergency bathroom situation for me...) . but now
| FODZYME means I even make onion jelly for my burgers with zero
| discomfort. it costs about a dollar per serving and you have to
| put it on after cooking (heat denatures it or something) but it
| is truly a game-changer. im not affiliated in any way except I
| just ordered another bottle.
| Nimishg14 wrote:
| Thanks for the honesty dude. I got fired earlier this year.
|
| I have been working on personal projects since.
|
| I have personal savings to last for around 3-4 years.
|
| Lately I have been stressing a lot, thinking about what would
| happen if I fail to make a single penny in upcoming years.
|
| Reading your post was a breath of fresh air.
| purplethinking wrote:
| I took over a year off working on a project before I joined
| another company. Never made any money, but in retrospect I see
| that I could have made it work in 2-3 years, but the stress
| would have interfered. Wish I could be more chill, but money
| stresses me out. Getting close to do it again, but this time
| I'm fairly close to being financially independent at a
| barebones lifestyle. I mean, with 22 years of living expenses
| saved I should be fine right? Right? I should be able to make
| some money at SOME point. But the reason I have 22 years of
| expenses is because I'm neurotic about money...
| crtified wrote:
| (I'll nest my thought here, as there's some relevance to your
| position)
|
| I'm looking a long way back to when I was in your position : I
| got fired about 10 years ago, after unrealistic expectations
| and mental health burnout led to me making regrettable
| statements to executives.
|
| The entire experience and time since is far too large to
| encompass in a post. But perhaps my biggest takeaway after all
| this time is that most people waste a great, great deal of
| money frivolously. Having even an average income, more often
| than not, leads to a lifestyle where it's standard to buy a $50
| version of an everyday item because it has a certain stamp and
| shiny packaging, instead of the $10 one that frugal people use.
| Going to the food markets with a comfortable income is a
| thoughtless experience of filling bags with items you like the
| look of, regardless of price or purpose. Tens of thousands are
| dropped on a whim for a change of travel-box (car). An
| executive spends more on daily coffee than I do on my total
| coffee+breakfast+lunch. The income finds a way to be spent, but
| the experience isn't necessarily that different.
|
| I'll indulge in another edit-in point. Home economics. It used
| to be a school subject. People thought it was about cooking,
| and sewing. Millions of mothers and grandmothers from past
| generations know that basic cooking skills actually = a lot of
| money in the bank. The best food you ever ate, at half the
| cost, in perpetuity. Concepts like these, where you trade a %
| of your time for directly applicable, $-winning skills (as
| opposed to using salary to pay others) is a key necessity of
| living sustainably outside the traditional 40-hour-week
| employment system.
|
| The best part is when you realise it's all the same. You'll job
| Here, or you'll job There. Everybody does 24hrs of _something_
| per day, and if you 're smart, you WILL find your way to
| comfort. Perhaps on surprisingly less money than you thought.
| It will just take time and persistence.
|
| And if not, well, the traditional job market always wants smart
| people too, sooner or later.
| mlboss wrote:
| Everybody's life is different but if I have to do something
| similar this will be my strategy:
|
| - Move to a low cost place where other indiehackers go: thailand,
| bali. - Start living in a cheap hostel with other indiehackers -
| Copy an existing app with lot of users and something that
| interest me - Start with the lowest price possible. Keep on
| adding features and introducing expensive plans - Non stop
| marketing on X, FB, Insta, reddit etc
|
| As soon as you leave your job it is a ticking clock. Every minute
| is important. I know mental sanity is important but life of
| entrepreneur is not best one if you want one. It is risky. It is
| a grind.
| theteapot wrote:
| Is Bali still cheap? I heard is was a mess now.
| kachurovskiy wrote:
| I wonder if a part-time remote job coupled with full time
| traveling on a budget would have been a more sustainable,
| enjoyable and productive approach. Hanging with pals in Montreal
| is cool but it's expensive and not very productive.
| em-bee wrote:
| the challenge is finding such a job.
| senko wrote:
| > a part-time remote job coupled with full time traveling on a
| budget
|
| a.k.a. Digital Nomad
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