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Comment by cbhl | Hacker News Reader

One of the least useful pieces of start-up advice I received in college was, "if your startup fails, don't worry, you can go live in your parents' basement."

Well, fine, if your parents owned their home, the worst you have to deal with is the shame of failing. If I did a start-up and it failed, it's probable that my parents wouldn't even have a basement for me to return home to.

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Hence you don't have a safety net and can't be an entrepreneur. If you can take the chance of getting rich or becoming homeless, good luck with that. Otherwise, 9-5 jobs are the only option.

If you are middle class (~$30k-$70k per annum) you can be wealthy* by focusing your spending on freedom, aka capital investments. I did not understand this was an option before reading the blog of Mr. Money Mustache[0]. Reading that and the Living a FI blog[1] may hopefully be as life-changing to you reading this comment as it was for me.

* Wealthy in time to spend with those you love

[0] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

[1] https://livingafi.com/

Woah, I've encountered me 4 years ago online. You sound just like I did.

To past me, I highly recommend audiobooking "Millionaire Fastlane". Do not let the awkward title turn you off. It'll put you in a much more productive mindset than Mr. Mustache.

What impact did this book have on you? What have you achieved since reading it that you otherwise would not have? Investments? What other books do you recommend?

I've adopted less of a scarcity mentality, and it reinforced the notion that I'll never get rich and achieve my goals by staying the course in my career. Not rich before age 65 at any rate.

Another book I recommend is "How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big". Adams has a great approach of using systems instead of goals.

I like MMM as much as the next person, but saying that his project of "live cheaply on dual, 6-figure incomes" is a workable path to FI for people making $30k-$70k is disingenuous.

I didn't know about MMM, thanks for that. I've learned about this phenomenon on a different website [1] and amazed by it. Small investments over a long period makes a huge difference but still, you need a long enough period or put huge amounts at the right time of the market. S&P 500 has worst performance of -3% over 10 year period. It gets better after 15 years and so on. Investing and hoping to retire early during this window is certainly not going to work.

I think everybody who works 9-5 should read the story about Grace Groner in [1]. It was a real eye opener for me.

[1] https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-mon...

Right: It's really annoying when some people peddle "rags to riches" stories where -- upon a bit more digging -- you realize that the protagonist was actually nowhere near "rags" status and that their family's affluence or connections were key factors in them being able to event attempt their lucky moon-shot.

This is a really great point. "Following your dreams" tends to come at the expense of your parents and not yourself. Which is fine if your parents can afford it I guess, but the idea that following your dream is a noble and brave act is seriously flawed.

This also applies to taking a low or non paying internship at a big company: free labor, subsidized by the dream-seeking intern's parents.

In LA, very often the dream is a job in the entertainment industry.

If its anything like the UK having family connections helps a lot.

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