Comment by clord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by clord | Hacker News Reader

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Many things wrong with this:

1. Is money really a precaution? Why is money in the bank guaranteed safety from a bad spell? Can't the government take everything but 100k if they need to?

2. Why isn't having food production on site considered guaranteed safety against a bad spell? Between our savings and the food production on site we could survive in place for a decade. When we lived in a place-in-the-city working two jobs with all of our assets in a (few) mortgages we were two or three paycheques (or a bad tenant) away from losing everything. The bank had a lien on all of our assets, even though we were nominally a 1%er.

3. What can money really fix in a bad-spell? I mean, can you buy skills? Can you buy relationships? Those things have to be made. Nevermind that if the bad spell is actually bad for more than just you, money might not have the same value as it does.

But I will grant that money does have a lot of benefits too, which is why:

4. I have money in the bank... I mean, why are they mutually exclusive for you?

Yes, you are looking at it from multiple wrong angles.

1. Yes, it is. Government will not take the money (and I don't buy any "omg inflation" arguments, since last crisis has actually in effect reduced inflation everywhere) and even if it does - if you cannot live through bad spell on 100k you have a problem.

2. Sounds like bad reserve managment i.e. missing "money in the bank". I haven't heard anyone recommending to go for mortgage with less than 6months reserve. And you had multiple mortgages with "two or three paycheques" in reserve? Seriously?

3. Money can almost always provide time (to heal, get a job, opportunity to choose less well paid job with more / flexible free time etc.), which can (for most people) be converted to relationships / skills. If you cannot make friends / learn new things given enough time, once again you have a problem.

4. > but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress?

Does not sound like you have money in the bank. Especially considering the tiny reserve (two or three paychecks is really ridiculously small, especially when you have multiple mortgages).

1. You've got some reading to do about how banks are going to deal with bank failures after the fiascos of 2008. start with: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bailin.asp

2. You're right, which is part of why we bailed on the situation while the real-estate market supported our exit and converting the assets into something real.

3. the time it buys you depends on it's value.

4. Zero mortgages right now actually. you're not a careful reader.

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