Ask HN: I have £100k to spend. How can I use it to increase my quality of life | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I have £100k to spend. How can I use it to increase my quality of life

9 pointslifechoice328 comments

I'm a 32 yr old software dev and have been working pretty hard to save over £100k GBP. I have decided to quit my job, and hopefully discover some new passions over the next few years

- Want to learn more life skills, and challenge different parts of my brain, and have different experiences to stay stimulated - The lifestyle is not healthy, sitting all day, staring at screens, you don't fully undo the damage even by breaking up the day with frequent exercise. All of my close colleagues have poor posture - It's easy to become isolated, I work in an open plan office surrounded by smart people with headphones on - I don't see myself growing older to continue working on a computer when I'm 60. My body is giving me signs that I won't be able to. My father is over 60 and does pottery full time and loves it.

The goal here is to find a lifestyle where I can stay active throughout the day and discover new passions which I may pursue.

Looking for any advice on this, how do you find a new passion? How would you spend the money? I went straight from college to full time employment and haven't stopped working until now. My passion has always been software development. I wouldn't mind investing in courses like blacksmithing, welding, dancing, cooking! Maybe volunteering on a farm. Train to become a paramedic? Become a yoga instructor? Learn the violin.

Feels silly starting dance lessons at 32, ideally I would have started while younger. On the plus side, I do have a big chunk of money which can pay for specialised training, something harder to do when you're younger (you have the time but not the money).

My yearly costs are around £20k, supportive partner, no kids, live near London. Mentally prepared that after a few years I can struggle to get a job in software dev if I want one and prepared that I may not earn any money for the next few years. I'm taking a risk that I'll find a passion and be able to monetize when the time comes. I do have some backup savings.

Have you tried pair programming? it's more sociable, but your entire team has to do it, all code needs to be pair programmed, not a part of the time. That might increase your quality of life.

That money is not gonna increase your quality of life. You, and only you, are the only capable of doing it. It is up to you alone to find something that fills your brain. To me is software engineering, I do see myself doing this when I'm 60. But your life is only yours and it is up to you to decide how to live it, not even 1M pounds can change that.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself to find the new perfect career.

You could easily take a year off and just try anything that catches your fancy for a brief amount of time. For example you could do a weekend course on gardening. You could go and spend a weekend at a monastery. You could spend a weekend here (https://tasteofselfsufficiency.co.uk/ask-andrew-2).

The only way to find your passion, unless you already know what it is, is to just try things. Remember you also have the option to continue to do software engineering but less of it - you could do well contracting, especially as you live near London.

With regards starting new things late in life - you don't have to make money from dancing. You could do it for the joy of it and make money doing your day job (which might not be the same as you are doing now).

What you are doing will require courage though - there will be the temptation to just fall back to what you already know as it is sometimes hard to build a completely new career - at least one that pays as well as software.

Good luck with whatever you try to do!

>How do you find a new passion?

Try lots of things out! There are 10,000 things to try. That's where the money would come in very handy.

Stuff like violin - sure, some lessons might be good soon after you start, to make sure you're getting the basics right, but 99% of the time spent on it will be practising and playing on your own (and later with groups), and 99% of what you learn will be from that. (I'm a musician) Dancing I guess is the same. Find the masters you love to see/hear and learn from them, copy from them, study them. Maybe a similar thing applies to all areas.

"Feels silly starting X at 32".. There's always someone younger! If you want to do it, who cares. Everyone's terrible at it when they start doing anything. (I think a lot of people don't realize that, and it stops them doing things they spend their lives wishing they could do, e.g. play flute) I have way too many things I'm passionate about, but occasionally meet people who haven't found anything yet, it's very strange. I guess no-one told them a passion or 3 in life is worth looking for! And it's fun looking anyway. Like online dating but you're the one doing all the rejecting. haha. Good luck!

I also think of doing the same thing. I'm 26, with $60k saved. One thing that would be cool would be to move down to like 3 cities in South America, each for a month, and become reasonably fluent in Spanish. Or for any language. Spend your free time in the evening working on a project so that you're marketable when you finish.

Go to SEA and go to a Muay Thai camp and get in the best shape of your life.

Find a smaller town in the mountains and go hiking every day for a month. On rainy days, hang inside with a coffee and meditate, journal, yoga.

I also hate the idea of sitting in a cubicle every day like this. It just seems to be so limiting. Everything about the day is expected, and little is left to chance. Such a boring way to live.

Start by getting fit. I would go and live on a beach for 3 months. Exercising in soft sand (running, volleyball, etc.) will do your body the world of good with the least risk of injury.

You will find that you will be spoilt for choice for ideas once your body is firing on all cylinders - after all the body is the temple of the mind. Ideas will come especially if you base yourself where you are likely to meet people with lots of different backgrounds.

Hydroponics has an interesting future, worth looking into if you want a mix of tech and activity.

Zappa said "You are what you is", I would add "remembering". Friends and family make the memories sweet and it's the memories that count when all is done.

I would save enough to be financially independant. That gives you true freedom, then you don't even have to work. But it would also take about £500k GBP to give you 20k/yr for the rest of your life. This might take another 5-10 years, so do a fun vacation somewhere. Then you are set forever.

You are making a reasonable decision I think. I've been thinking about doing the same thing. I want to study more of the classics, meditate, etc. Seek ways to be creative! Also, tennis is pretty cool.

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