Ask HN: What would you do?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6282318

by brokemediocre • 13 years ago

11 11 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Imagine this:

You are 30.

No Family, pets or friends and no attachments besides a 6 month lease on a tiny studio apartment and a full time job that pays $56k a year after taxes.

No possessions besides your laptop, mobile phone, a guitar you can't play and clothes/shoes.

You have only $10k in savings.

You have mediocre programming skills.

What would you do to achieve financial independence in the next 10-15 years?

onion2k• 13 years ago

If it was me, I think I'd work very hard to fix the "no friends" bit before even considering the future financial independence bit. Your mental wellbeing is far more important than being wealthy.

Fortaymedia• 13 years ago

Agreed, the friends thing is a must. Why do you have a guitar you cant play? Either its going to stay there as a reminder that you failed at something or use it for inspiration to start! if not dump it. Possessions are not everything but friends are, so GET some. get to local meets, online and off. - and what about those mediocre skills eh? Find one programming language that you prefer and excel in it. Create an app, templates, anything as a side burner - you could even write articles for technology and development blogs. Now as for the financial security, I really cant help. Just get a high interest savings account and save save save. - But remember tomorrow is a new day and could be your last. Don't get wound up, tight or hard. Relax, enjoy yourself and your life and start living fuller. Give it meaning. Maybe read this: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~gongsu/desiderata_textonly.html - helped me once. Hope it helps. - If you want a twitter friend, add me @mgpwr

mechanical_fish2• 13 years ago

Agreed.

You've got food and shelter and clothing and a job, which is more than a lot of people can say. Now focus on being happy. Go out and be around people. Tune up that guitar. Get one of those pets that you don't have.

Level up in programming (or accounting or mathematics or surface-mount soldering or art history, for that matter) if that's fun, but don't think of it as some kind of necessary step in making more money. Frankly, taking steps to make yourself happier and meet more people may be just as likely to help you make money in the long run.

Get a project and work on it every day. Practice practicing. Read The Power of Habit.

vincie• 13 years ago

I'm a bit like you (but older - 44 yrs, divorced). I am trying to "build something". I use the spare time I have to practise and practise and practise. And then practise some more.

Edit: After reading a few comments from people feeling sorry for you, I'm afraid I might have missed your call for personal emotional support. Sorry about that. But if you were not after sympathy, then my original post stands. Practise to improve your skills (doesn't have to be programming). Do lots of practise while you have so much free time. When family and friends (and pets) come around, you will wish you were family-less, friendless and pet-less. And don't feel sorry for yourself.

ScottWhigham• 13 years ago

I can't tell if this is an "exercise" we, the community, are playing at, or whether this is your real life and you are actually trying to get ideas. I don't really have the time to participate in the exercise but, in the event that this is really your life, here's my response:

That sounds miserable - I agree w/ @onion2k about fixing your situation before you work on other things. Life is not short, it's quite long and you have a lot of years left. "No family, pets or friends" for the next 50+ years sounds like you would be getting the least out of life itself. Read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and work from there towards a few more ideas about how you can improve your life and health.

Casseres2• 13 years ago

First, like the others mentioned, I would work on getting friends. If you want an idea on where to start with that (assuming you don't want to be friends with anyone from work): From what I understand, Meetup.com is a great way to do this. Develop a hobby that has minimal costs, and then find a group that meets for the purpose of that hobby.

---

To answer your question: Considering you want to achieve financial independence quickly, it's good that you don't own much stuff, otherwise your stuff would own you.

I recently discovered the blog Early Retirement Extreme. There is a post [0] which gives the simple equation which must be true if you want to become financially independent: "your annual expenses < 3% of your invested savings"

Assuming you keep the same living costs before and after becoming financially independent, you will need to solve this equation:

living costs = SWR * ( income - living costs ) * ( ( (1 + ROR) ^ number of working years ) - 1 ) / ROR

where SWR = Safe Withdraw Rate and ROR = Rate Of Return. SWR of 3% is taken from [0].

Assuming you can get 10% on your investments and can live on 25k a year, let's enter some numbers and solve for working years:

25k = 0.03 * (56k - 25k) * ( ( (1 + 0.10) ^ X ) - 1 ) / 0.10

X = 13.7 years

Assuming 10% again, and working for 15 years, let's see how much you could have to live on:

X = 0.03 * (56k - 25k) * ( ( (1 + 0.10) ^ 15 ) - 1 ) / 0.10

X = 29.5k

So if you worked for an extra 1.3 years, you could bump up your living expenses from 25k to 29.5k, a jump of $4500 a year.

EDIT: I forgot to include the 10k you have already saved up. I would probably leave that out of the investments and keep in an emergency fund (keep it in your savings, and future savings would go straight to your investment account).

---

[0] http://earlyretirementextreme.com/can-i-retire-young.html

xauronx2• 13 years ago

I don't understand how you haven't already achieved financial independence. I would love to have $10k in the bank and no commitments. Unless you left out the $60k in student/loans and debt then... I double my previous statement.

Casseres2• 13 years ago

"Financial independence is a term generally used to describe the state of having sufficient personal wealth to live indefinitely without having to work actively for basic necessities." [0]

[0] Cummuta, John. "The Myths & Realities of Achieving Financial Independence". Nightingale Conant. Retrieved on 14-Sep-2009

xauronx2• 13 years ago

Interesting, thank you for the education. I always considered "financial independence" having a positive net value/no debt. I guess you can tell what kind of situation I'm used to.

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

Work on your skills. You do that by lots of coding, with good examples. Find an open source project, read until you're sick of it, then try to fix something. Rinse, repeat.

Ask HN: What would you do?

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