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Comment by ram_rar | Hacker News Reader

Please dont ruin your present to become financially independent. I know people who cut their own hairs and do a whole lot of stuff to micro optimize their savings. That kind of lifestyle is just not worth it.

As long as you're being mindful of being cash flow +ve and save some $ for rainy day, you're good.

I Started with

1. Emergency fund (6months+ expenses or whatever you're comfortable with), 2. 401(k) / IRA (if you're employer provides it), 3. indexing (simple plain old vanguard low fee fund).

thats about it, nothing more.

I am a chase private client, own a house and could probably retire within next 3 yrs or sooner if I really wanted to... I dint think of FI all the time, it just happened.

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>cut their own hair

Actually many of us think is worth it. Take the price of that haircut, pay 10% compound interest on it for 60 years, then ask yourself if you really care what your hair looks like.

I used to spend money on these things when I was younger, but with a few decades of adulthood under my belt, I care less about nice haircuts and fancy cloths.

Now, time is more valuable that anything else in life, and financial independence buys me that time.

The notion that we should all sell ourselves as wage slaves so that we can afford a new iPhone every year is bonkers.

Reject it all. Live Free.

Rejecting haircuts isn't living free, it's living without a haircut. Self image is important for most people and hygiene is the base of that.

Haha. Whats unhygienic about cutting your hair at home for free rather than paying somebody to do it for you?

The other aspect is the time; so not only money, but time.

My hair grows thick, and I need to cut it every week or 2 to make it life comfortable. a 10 minute walk or ride + a haircut is an hour, and I'm happy with how i look.

For this kind of calculation to work, you have to determine if your physical appearance impacts your income. For the vast majority of professionals, the answer to this will be yes. Like it or not, that's the world we live in.

It's easy to go overboard, but it's not that expensive to get regular decent haircuts, wear nice shits, etc. On a developer's salary it's basically noise, and the ROI over a lifetime will almost certainly be positive.

It's important to do a cost/benefit analysis, not just a cost analysis. :)

You can have a job and still be free. The two are not mutually exclusive. OP's point is that you shouldn't slave away the prime years of your life saving for the dream of FIRE on some beach, island, or etc.

I think the idea that you'll be so much happier once you're on that beach than you are now is equally as insane as conspicuous consumption.

Having a job is not relevant. It's about _requiring_ a salary. If every single person _had_ to work but you removed the financial incentive almost nobody would do their exact current duties or work their exact current hours. They would switch things to be happier. The more of a financial incentive there is the harder it is to make that switch. And the entire point is that you can lessen the financial incentive by lowering your ongoing costs and you can completely eliminate it sooner by saving and investing. Imagining a straw-man that slaves away and saves too much is not helpful to anybody except as a 'gotcha, your rule-of-thumb life advice is wrong in one case' pedantry. It seems ridiculous in a context where seemingly nobody saves money or plans for retirement. Nobody over-saves. This is made-up smug-bait peddled to those who are far from saving too much and want to feel good about it. "Can you believe this guy cuts his own hair? Scoff!"

Your last sentence is also a straw-man. You are attempting to debunk what constitutes a click-bait headline. Nobody will defend that ridiculous, oversimplified, universally-extended argument. What is even your point? The full statement requires so many variables to fully qualify, what truth are you attempting to convey?

I think hindsight’s and the OP’s point is to not over index one way or the other. You can optimize for happiness now and very likely suffer later or optimize for probably happiness later and suffer now or pick somewhere in between. I agree that a lot of the discussion from the FIRE cohort sounds like you should suffer now for rewards later with an almost religious zeal.

>That kind of lifestyle is just not worth it.

Different people have different tolerances. For some, a spartan lifestyle "costs" them nothing at all.

> I know people who cut their own hairs

I've had my partner cut my hair for many years; this was less time investment than going to a stylist.

Now I just shave it.

For some it's fine. If someone wants to have it styled that is great too.

Cutting your own hair sounds like such a minor sacrifice if it means you can work whatever job you want to after 30 and retire at 40.

I've found that I'm actually happier when I am more frugal. Spending money on things, more often than not, just makes us lazier, not happier, in my experience.

Emergency fund + max out tax-advantaged account contributions + your-age-in-bonds-percent low-expense-ratio index investing = great Bogleheads advice.

What's funny is a marine biology grad student in the article wondering how much they should be saving. Until one finishes that PhD, career investment and putting the, say, $100/month discretionary stipend funds towards healthy food and bicycle safety maintenance, rather than eating instant ramen noodles to save an amount that will make negligible difference in retirement, makes sense. (Or, if trust fund grad student, especially in a difficult field like marine biology, live like a grad student on stipend, and Bogleheads the rest.)

I seriously hate 401k-s. I’ve got about 20 options to choose from and all of them tank if the market tanks. (This is what’s available through my employers plan) I should be able to specify that for the next 12-months I want everything going into precious metals, if I want. I think having to wait until retirement age for tax purposes is ridiculous as well. The street clearly benefits more from it than I do.

When you change jobs you can roll it over to a self directed IRA and do just about anything that doesn’t require margin.

You can open a personal 401k at a brokerage and then roll over the money in your employers plan to said account. Then you can invest in whatever you want (including ETFs that track precious metals if you want). Then you get the benefit of your employer's match, if they have one, plus making your own investments.

I did not know this! Thank you. It looks like I can do that yearly as well.

I have never heard of being able to do a personal 401k despite looking for something like this a lot with my previous job. Is it a proper 401k — are there tax advantages benefits to it? Do I have to be self employed?

vanguard.com

Open a 401k, rollover your existing 401ks to it, select whatever funds you want.

https://investor.vanguard.com/small-business-retirement-plan...

It is limited to business owners.

https://us.etrade.com/what-we-offer/our-accounts/traditional...

It's not technically a 401k, but has the same tax advantages. Just be aware that there are limits to your total tax advantaged contributions, so if you're maxing out your work 401k, you'll only be able to add funds via roll over.

Learn Asset Allocation. (That's the way to make an appropriate risk-level for your own situation.)

You will need market returns. You will also desire some measure of safety. AA gives you those.

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