Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's also "actually pretty easy to become financially independent" if you hit the lottery. Both our examples aren't really conducive to an actual discussion.

1. The number of fields allowing a new grad to get a six-figure job are very small.

2. The number of places offering the above while also allowing the new grad to live in an area where they can have a sub-$2k/mo footprint are incredibly limited.

3. Of the people who are actually able to take advantage of the above, the majority of them will have no interest in doing so. For every highly-compensated employee at Google living in a van in the parking lot there are several in houses they can't afford with credit card and student loan debt to boot.

4. Gaining financial independence for the sake of gaining financial independence is sort of a pointless goal.

My guess is if you collected every person in the US who retired by the age of 30 and removed those who inherited money, won the lottery, and started a business, you could fit them in in a single large room.

It's far easier to do a CS degree and get hired as a software developer (while not blowing your income on insanely high rent in San Francisco city-proper -- yeah you'll have to suck up a commute, live with roommates, or live almost anywhere else with a tech scene) than it is to win a lottery sum over $500k-600k. And there are more options than software -- just because the number of fields is small doesn't necessarily make it any harder if those fields are in high demand and you have the ability to work in them. This is actually conducive to an actual discussion, on HN, because a lot of us here have done this, are doing it (may have passed 30 though), or are still in high school and looking to do it.

Re 4. it's only pointless if you foresee nothing afterwards. To me there's nothing wrong with wanting to have "fuck you" money (not just being "independent") without really knowing what you'll do when you get it, you can figure that out later and you'll have many options available to you -- a lot of us just keep working, with the added benefit of being able to drop unsatisfying jobs without any anxiety of not being able to find a new one.

You must be CS Undergraduate

Nope, just very close to the fully financially independent group under 30. I work for a living.

Not sure that you understand that financial independence can be just as simple as a function of your total invested assets and expected future annual costs given the reasonable assumption that in the long run your investments will net you at least an average 5% return per year. Is that assumption guaranteed to hold? No, but it's reasonable, and that's what buffer room is for. My rent is $1300/mo, with utilities it's usually around $1500/mo, for a 3-floor house I share with a friend. With miscellaneous other expenses like food and entertainment I end up with living expenses in the neighborhood of $25k/yr, rent is my primary expense since I have no debt. When my investment assets reach $600k, 5% growth nets me $30k/yr (I'm ignoring taxes). So long as my average annual expenses does not exceed $25k/yr, and my average return stays at or above 5%, this is sustainable indefinitely.

And this isn't the only path to financial independence, it's just really straightforward for higher-than-average earners not burning an insane amount of their income on rent. (Mortgages are a different story.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com