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Comment by friedButter | Hacker News Reader

Is retirement planning (Live "below your means" and put in 20-30% or more of your salary towards long term investments), and family support (you fund your kids education and parents post retirement needs, and your kids fund your post retirement needs and your grandkids education) such an alien concept for Americans? When you manage it internally, instead of paying interest to a bank, you just have lost opportunity costs of investment within the family.

AFAIK, most Asian countries do work this way. Given American salaries, this should be very easy to manage in US

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There is lots of Americans who barely get by. I recommend taking a look at "Nickeled and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. So many people simply cannot afford to put that much money aside. To the point of family support: Many Americans move across state lines a few times during their lifetime. That very much weakens family bonds. On top of that it's much harder to take care of your parents alone while your siblings live in different states. It in fact also makes having children harder.

++1 for "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America". A fascinating read, it's the narrative of writer Barbara Ehrenreich as she goes undercover and participates in the minimum-wage economy in the US. It recounts not just her time on the clock, but equally the trials and trade-offs of simply surviving on such incomes.

Welcome to the internet! Good guess - that style of extended family reliance is quite alien to many Americans, often discussed under the topic "collectivism v individualism" or a similar name. That aside, there are many other differences in financial expectations and abilities in the two cultures, so a simple comparison of salary amounts isn't a good way to tell if Americans "should be able" to do something that happens in other countries.

Is that why China has seen protests numbering in the hundreds of thousands of workers put out by more efficient management methods? They can afford to protest? Or are they in crisis, realizing the cost of living is skyrocketing and they all of a sudden have no money to honor either end of that bargain?

There's a growing recognition today of a social crisis in Korea where the working generation today is less willing to support the parents who sank every dollar into pushing their children into lucrative professional careers. It sounds terrible, but from the children's perspective, they experienced less choice about their future because they're just an investment vehicle for their parents. The exact compact you describe breeds generational resentment.

Interesting. This sort of resentment is not showing up in India (yet). Perhaps a generation or 2 later it might since the N-2 today still has govt funded pensions and the N-1 generation again either has pensions or stocked up on wealth through the economic boom after the Indian economy opened up in the late 90's

> your kids fund your post retirement needs and your grandkids education

Given American cost of living, this is no longer feasible.

Also the impact of divorce and other kinds of freedom, the structure of obligation no longer works like that either.

It’s easy to consider putting 20 to 30% of your salary towards savings and investments when you are making Silicon Valley money. It’s not so easy when you are making minimum wage while paying school loans, or even if you are one of the families earning the median household income of ~$60k and you have a couple kids.

> It’s easy to consider putting 20 to 30% of your salary towards savings and investments when you are making Silicon Valley money.

Only if you are making Silicon Valley money somewhere outside of Silicon Valley. Otherwise, not so easy.

Hm? I dump about 25% of my compensation while living in the Valley (right in Sunnyvale), even while paying 100% of the rent/costs for my 2 bedroom apartment and take multiple vacations a year. I actually even debated dumping almost 6% more, but I want to save up for a trip to Japan in a couple of months.

Would you be willing to disclose your earnings so we can decide if your anecdote can be considered common for Silicon Valley or not? Also do you happen to have any dependents?

I'd do this if I wasn't supporting kid/wife. Most problem I hear when trying to hire people from outside the valley is when they have a family: the salary in tech allows a confortable appartement, but not easily a house in a good school district.

Fair enough. The moment you have a kid, the 20/30% figure goes out the window if you live in San Francisco or any other expensive part of the Valley.

Good in theory but difficult in practice. I only know what I know because I read about it, was lucky to be exposed to retirement planning, everyone else? Not so lucky.

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