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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

I would LOVE to save 90% of my income, but I live in the bay area and 30% of my income goes to rent, 6-10% goes to food, 8-10% goes to transportation, 5-7% on utilities, none of which I'm splurging on, so these aren't exactly negotiable.

I also budget about 10% toward educational purchases (equipment and services, mostly tech) for personal projects and learning, which I think will financially benefit me long term even if it means I save less now.

OP's $1.7M in investments? If I had that, yeah, I'd surely be saving 90% of it, too. Maybe 95%.

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As Paula Pant of Afford Anything [1] would say, you can afford anything, but not everything. The author here is house-hacking [2], which certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it is one way to get around high housing costs.

I've listened to enough financial independence podcasts to know that it's absolutely possible to hit a 90% savings rate. There are guests on the show who have done it on much less income than my family, and we'll be lucky if we hit 40%. It just depends on what assumptions of necessity you're willing to give up to do it.

[1] https://affordanything.com/

[2] https://www.coachcarson.com/house-hacking-guide/

Sure, pretending that your rent/mortgage payment isn't an expense, and calling it "house hacking", makes it easier to claim a 90% savings rate.

I see your point, but I also don't think it's crazy to calculate effective savings as net wealth contribution over net wage income, which seems to be how she's thinking about it.

Actually, to me, savings percentage isn't important as a bottom line number. It's just a helpful intermediate number for understanding cash flow. I'm much more interested in net wealth contribution and how that dials up to future plans involving large sums of money (e.g. moving or expanding house, education, letting go of wage income, major philanthropy, estate plans, risk management).

Do you have your dinner table in your bedroom as the author does?

I only have one room, and I don't own a bed. I sleep on the floor on a roll-up Japanese futon and the same space becomes my daytime space.

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