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Comment by astura | Hacker News Reader

It is

If you were making $50,000/year you might be able to save $10,000-$20,000 a year by cutting spending. However you'd be able to save infinity more by increasing earnings. If you were making $50,000 and got a raise and were now making $100,000/year a year that would let you save $50,000/year. You aren't going to save $50,000/year by cutting expenses.

There's no theoretical limit to your earnings, however, you can only save at most 100% of your salary.

It's also a LOT (and I mean a lot) easier to cut spending when you earn more.

I think what the GP meant to say was if you increase spending when you increase earnings you'll never save any money.

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> If you were making $50,000 and got a raise and were now making $100,000/year a year that would let you save $50,000/year.

These are the kind of simplifications that get thrown around all the time that are simply wrong.

You're forgetting all the extra tax you'll have to pay to earn that extra $50,000, so right from the start you are not getting anywhere near $50k extra into your account. You're forgetting it will cost you more to earn that extra (better work clothes, longer hours means buying more food, require better phone, on call, etc. etc.) and you're forgetting that when you earn more you'll spend more.

Certainly if you get a pay rise from $50k to $100k you have the potential to save more, but I still stand by the statement that it's not the best way to go about it, if in fact your goal is to work less (reduced hours or retirement). That's a very important point to keep in mind - the goal here isn't to save as much money as humanly possible, the goal here is to work less.

Salary goes up $50k, tax goes up $15k, expenses climb by $6000, net income goes up by $29k. Saving $29k on $50k is harder than saving $60k on $100k.

> longer hours means buying more food

this is where you're failing to understand the frugal mindset. People with a frugal mindset rarely if ever buy more food (if you mean, not make their own meals), no matter their work hours.

I'm not failing to understand it, I live it.

You wind up spending more on food because you're utterly exhausted from working longer hours. It's not that you want to, it's that you get backed into a corner and don't have a choice.

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