Ask HN: I have $1000 growth fund that expires on Feb. 2nd. What do I buy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I have $1000 growth fund that expires on Feb. 2nd. What do I buy?

3 pointskotojo10 comments

I just hit the requirements for tenure to get access to my growth fund for the year, but it expires on Feb. 2 and the new years fund will come in and this $1k will disappear. I need help figuring out what to get in that time!

Related information: Anything I buy that is a course/subscription (pluralsight, lynda, etc) needs to show completion of a course by that deadline, and all purchases have to directly tie to growth in my day job. So, buying a book on Elixir when the tech stack at work is React/React Native/Golang would get rejected, but books on any of our stack or ios/android programming would be approved.

When the new year starts I plan on getting a subscription to linux academy to go through their aws cert courses, but really am not sure what to buy by Feb 2nd besides a pile of books. Really just feel like I'd get something on go, and all the top rec books (clean code, prag prog, etc).

Splurge (and read) TAOCP box set + the newer titles. https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Programming-Volumes-1-4A-Box...

So they've designed a growth fund that bans annual subscriptions?

Seems like you're just looking for a way to burn $1K at this point. There's lot of good usages but not in 15~ days with a hard cutoff for whatever you buy.

I'd just get an annual pluralsight sub after Feb 2nd, and then you can even learn things in your own time unrelated to your job (it isn't per course, it is all you can eat, like Netflix).

Not a ban on annual subscriptions, but I need to show proof of completion of a course to get the reimbursement for it. So if I bought pluralsight now I'd have to make sure I complete a course by Feb 2nd and show proof completion to get them to approve it to take out of the 2019 budget. If I submit proof on Feb 3rd they'll take it out of the 2020 budget.

So you can buy books on stuff that you (presumably) already know, but not anything that would help your growth as a professional? Seems a little backwards.

Yeah, this is a bit more strict than I'm use to with a growth fund. Like I said, I couldn't buy a book on elixir since it doesn't relate to the day to day, but I could buy things about professional growth or things like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" or programming books that aren't explicitly about a language we use, but tangentially related to the day to day (Swift/Kotlin book to help with mobile, even though we use React Native)

Purchase a one-off MOOC?

Make a deal with some coworkers to buy them books now off your 2019 allocation in return for a slice of their 2020 budget?

Can you go to a conference? There are lots of those happening!

They have to happen by that Feb 2nd deadline. After Feb 2nd I get the 2020 budget that I can use to go to conferences with though!

Nice, you should come to Miami! https://superconf.com/

how about AWS/Azure/GCloud prepaid credits ( for work-related-research, of course.... ) ? buy it and leave it there for when you need a lab online.

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