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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

This sounds a lot like me. In the 90s, in a brief foray to college, I racked up about $12,000 in debt. (Could have been worse). I was ashamed by it. I tore up my credit cards and repaid it over a few years. Around Y2K my brother and I each inherited about $40k from our grandfather. He spent his. I invested mine. Fifteen years later I used it to buy a modest house, for cash. I work every day and, without a mortgage or rent, I save almost all of what I make. I don't take extravagant vacations or buy myself fancy cars (although I don't have to skimp when buying people nice gifts for Christmas). On around $100k/yr I'm worth over $1M. I don't live like a monk, but I'm sure a lot of people would laugh at my simple lifestyle. I like cooking rice and beans, slow roasting cheap and delicious meats, and getting volume discounts on interesting wines. If my gf wants something I'll never say no, but I never dated women who were after me for money, because it's obvious to anyone that I'm not into spending for status. I recently bought my first new pair of shoes in 3 years. But there's nothing I want that I don't have.

Working as you do for a nonprofit sounds fantastic. My setup is a bit similar - after years of devotion, a good small company basically bought my freelance time in bulk and gave me 5% ownership, and I get to build beautiful software and set my own life.

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Just an outside perspective. Your talking about how it's easy to be frugal when you inherited $40k, earn >$100k and never have to be actually frugal, you choose to be.

Living on $100k means being frugal by the standards of the rich, anyway. I think it would be an error not to be frugal even if I considered myself rich, which I don't think I am. I'm happy that my tastes and preferences were set when I was in debt and waiting tables / driving taxi / doing three jobs. Up until I was in my mid-20s, making $100k/yr seemed totally unimaginable, so I appreciate what I have now in a way that I think a lot of people I'm exposed to take for granted. I still pretty much shop the same way, cook the same way, live the same way as when I was a cab driver, with a few additional perks I allow myself. Like a new laptop or new shoes every few years. I'm not just frugal; I literally don't know how to spend money, and the thought of spending it scares the shit out of me. I haven't let a higher income change my basic outlook. Because of where I am in my career, I'm surrounded by a lot of people who make 10x what I do and are worth 30x what I am. And I'm constantly appalled at their decisions and the stupid things they waste their money on. If I had that kind of money, I wouldn't be going to Burning Man or partying in Tulum or buying Lambos or adding a waterfall pool or hiring fire dancers for backyard parties. I'm not sure what I'd do, but it wouldn't be those things. I'd probably plow it into whatever new startup idea got me obsessed with code all night.

On the spectrum of all humanity, inheriting $40k in your twenties is on the lucky side, but it's also pretty basic. I wasn't born a Brahmin and I didn't exactly inherit Dubai. I also know a lot of people who were trust funders from birth and threw it all away, or blew their money on bad ideas. Or blew it up their noses and committed suicide - I knew several of those. Just from my own observation, most people who get money and don't know how to manage it are parted from it pretty quickly. This isn't to say I deserved to inherit something, just that, life finds a way to equalize out stupid behavior pretty quickly.

Reminding myself that that's the case is probably the only way for me not to go broke.

That's a fair point, but the broader message of avoiding lifestyle inflation is valid. I used to make a lot less money and have very little in the bank and now that I have a much better paying job (and had a lucky break with an acquisition) it's remarkably easy to justify things to yourself. "Sure you can make more money, not more time" - "this new thing is more efficient" - "if I have X then my life will be better" (that last one is sometimes, but rarely, true - we had a ~500 square foot house and 2 kids and a bigger home did dramatically aid our mental health.

I hate buying gas and feel guilty about it, but also would like to be able to seat 6 people, so suddenly a Model Y seems "reasonable". But sitting down and doing the math shows that even if my goals are environmental, keeping the 12 year old Honda and getting a rental car now and then is much better than a brand new EV (and vastly cheaper) - but before thinking about it carefully, I was tempted.

I really relate to this. Aside from having watched "lifestyle inflation" put people I know who make 7 figures a year into debt to their poorly chosen young ex-wives... I had a brief burst during the pandemic where I bought some wish list crazy stuff. A new guitar ($1300). A Roomba. A drawing tablet. A set of good wine glasses. A second car, one that was made after 1980 and doesn't fly off the road in the rain. And these things make you go, like - wow. This is a really well designed thing. It smells nice and feels solid in your hands. Shit, my life could be so much more enjoyable if my days and nights were spent touching these wonderfully designed objects, which I can afford to feel the pleasure of. Why do I deny myself the pleasure of having them? So I think the basic answer is that I don't want too much comfort in my life. Regardless of money. I think money corrupts by making you too comfortable, yeah, but my objection is more to the comfort than with the means to purchase it. Life should be a bit uncomfortable. Or very uncomfortable, when your 1980 Datsun is leaking freezing water and sliding across the freeway.

A lot of people seem to have the idea that being a full-grown human is being rich. To me, it's being able to plug all the holes in your own roof and always bearing in mind that we're just here for a limited period of time, to gain knowledge and experience, not things to make us lazy and comfortable. But maybe that's just like some weird post-religious self denial predilection I hold onto.

I would urge you to reconsider the car thing. There's a difference between being able to fix your own car/house (which I also derive a great sense of satisfaction from) and routinely taking the risk of debilitating lifelong health problems because of an accident that a newer car with better tires could have easily prevented. (I once spun out in the rain and totaled my car because my rear tires were bald, narrowly avoiding serious injury. Never again.)

Also crash safety is 10x better on current cars than even 10 years ago. You’re not going to appreciate the simplicity of the old car when you’re debilitated for life in a crash you would have walked away from without a scratch in a 2020 base model Civic. That’s not to mention auto emergency braking, traction and stability control, lane keep assist and blind spot monitoring that would have prevented the crash in the first place

I appreciate the attraction of the simplicity of older cars, but you are accepting that a crash could turn you into pink mist if you are lucky, lifetime of pain and disability if you are unlucky.

Yeah, the safety argument is pretty valid. Personally I'd love to forgo driving altogether and cycle everywhere, but that's impractical at the moment.

Seriously, not to mention the other families you can kill/maim if that happens.

It is a world-historical moral affirmation to deny sensual pleasures, likely because this recursiveness causes us to live closer to animals seeking utility from their bodies than immortals.

"But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything."-Aristotle, Nichomachaen Ethics, Book X, 6

Yes. This advice is decent if you're upper-middle class or above, socio-economically speaking, but to the majority of people, it's just not applicable.

Not to mention that we're in a society that incentivizes people to be irresponsible. I'm not allowed to earn six-figures or I'll lose healthcare. Same with inheriting/having more than a certain amount saved. My meds cost 300k/yr, so I hit OOP max the first month of ANY health insurance plan I have EVERY year. The wrong plan can cost me over 20k/yr.

I don't know you, and I probably shouldn't comment, but this way of life stops people getting rich. For you I'm sure that's OK. Like you say, you have everything you need. Anyway...

There are two things that practically every rich person I've met have in common (where rich is assets over about $100m that aren't inherited). The first is focus. They have the ability to see an idea through to the end. They believe in themselves, they believe in an idea, and they execute. By the sounds of it noduerme might have that sort of focus. To live frugally when you don't need to sounds like someone who has an idea and is sticking with it. That's awesome.

The second thing is need. Actually needing money, either just to start out, or to fund a lavish lifestyle, or to keep up status, is a powerful driving force. Setting up your life up in a way that removes the force stops most people executing on their ideas.

This is advice for anyone who wants to get rich - if you slowly grow your assets to a point where you're very comfortable, you probably won't ever level up to the point where you can buy a Lamborghini because you just won't need to. If your goal is to become rich most people don't seem to be able do it by slowly growing their wealth and then working on an idea. You have to use the need to be "%^&* you money" rich to drive your idea.

(This isn't universal of course. Some people come up with an idea later in life after they've got a house and assets and still execute brilliantly. But it's much more common to see younger founders who need success pushing an idea to a big exit.)

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I upvoted because it's spot on. Those are exactly the drivers to get seriously rich. And you spotted me. I don't need to be rich or drive a lambo. Need for fuck-you money comes from a couple places, that I've seen: * Dad was abusive, always put you down. You never felt good enough, you need to prove you're better than him. I had this. My brothers had it. One of them makes $3M a year and desperately tries to use it to impress our father. I guess watching that act made me realize that's a fuckin futile way to spend your time. * You had some other form of humiliation, maybe you're short or ugly, girls don't give you the time of day. (I'm short and not terribly attractive - girls like me well enough if we get talking, and I always play poor on dates, although I pay for things. I never, ever want someone to like me more because.. [edit] double edit here. At my ultra-rich brother's wedding, his wife stood up to give a speech and she said: " I always thought [brother] was short, but I realized he was a lot taller when he was standing on his wallet! " Needless to say, they got divorced and he's still paying for it ).

Just since we're speaking very bluntly. I found that when I'm single, I can usually meet a girl if I stick around somewhere until the end of the night. But I usually don't do that unless I'm starving. So you're exactly right, having the focus and having the need are two different things.

The only place where I personally think you're wrong is your overall pitch - "don't be this guy [noduerme]" - to young fellas that think getting rich is the end-all. Like said, if I needed it enough, I'd spend my time trying to get fuck-you money and be rich by those standards. But proving the size of my dick just isn't something I need to do, know what I'm sayin? And funny enough, that blase attitude I've developed about it really fucking pisses off the ultra-rich people in my life.

I've always found the real thing that people don't like, and I don't like, is the desire for approval. That childlike "look at me" thing that is endearing in a child but off-putting in an adult. I've seen it a few times among quite wealthy people, eg they try to impress you with how much wine they drink or how many cars they have, and it only works superficially. It's like a child somehow, and you often see them spouting their mundane thoughts in the media as if people want to hear what they think, or they start writing advice for other people to get rich.

The thing about socializing is you discover that if someone has one of these hangups (women, money, intelligence) everyone around them will let them demonstrate it. It's painful to watch sometimes. "Sure I'll try your car one more time". "Wow you're really smart".

By contrast I know genuinely megarich people who can't be identified as such, because they just don't have that need for approval.

There is no one I feel sadder for than the ultra-rich people I know who desperately want to just be liked. They're stuck in that phase of pre-school where it's like, "Look at how many legos I have! Do you want to play with my toys?" This is so superficially obvious, when you see it, I mean... you have to feel pity, because they're so desperate for love. For any real connection. And they can't trust anyone, either, because they'll never believe someone actually likes them for who they are. Having more money than you need to live comfortably is a fucking curse.

You’re incredibly wrong. Rich people just make friends with other rich people.

Speaking from experience, I don’t care if girls want me for my $. But I’m not looking for a wife right now. If I was, I would probably date women that I meet at higher social events instead of lingerie models.

I have a couple friends from before I got rich, but most of my friends now have similar status.

> Rich people just make friends with other rich people.

Those aren't friends. They're friendly competition. At best they're good to commiserate with. They're out to prove the same thing; they wouldn't be friends with you if you weren't rich. For proof, they think they have a lot of friends, but those people work for them.

> I don’t care if girls want me for my $

Recipe for disaster. I've seen so many people use their wealth as a tool of attracting women. You just magnetize the worst possible people to you. Tempting as it is - I'd rather front as a poor hippie and meet girls who like my personality. If they find out I have money, that's a bonus later, once I know they're solid & trustworthy people.

> The second thing is need. Actually needing money, either just to start out, or to fund a lavish lifestyle, or to keep up status, is a powerful driving force. Setting up your life up in a way that removes the force stops most people executing on their ideas.

I think I see the reasoning for this, but empirically, I don't agree. The need may be necessary, but it's clearly not sufficient for many people.

I would even say that it's just one of the possible means to get the focus going, but not the only one.

No one needs more rooms or roombas. I think he's referring to the need for 'respect' and ego gratification from other people. But rich people always find out this is bullshit - sometimes at the cost of years of being fake-handled by the people they trusted. Being rich can't buy you trust in your relationships. It's the opposite. You can never trust anyone who didn't love you when you were poor as hell.

It appears that you got downvoted a bit, and I’m sorry. I think that your point was well-made.

In my case, I have written infrastructure software that has, and will, change the world. It has already become a worldwide standard, and is used daily, by thousands of people around the world. It is not hyperbole to say that the software saves lives. That’s exactly why I wrote it.

I never made a dime on it. In fact, I spent thousands of dollars of my own money, and ten years of my life, shepherding it to the point where it could be taken over by a new team, and become ubiquitous. It was a difficult journey. The demographics of the users of my software are … challenging. I often weathered torrents of abuse, sabotage, and opposition, during the project. The new team will never have to suffer those particular slings and arrows. I’m an ornery, stubborn old coot, and could take it. I knew what I was signing up for, and many folks would consider me insane for doing it (they may have a point).

I’ll never get an award, and I have almost no recognition at all. Every day, I interact with people that use my software, and have no idea that I was the original author. I also deal with folks that know what I did, but don’t really understand what it took to get where we are. They seem to think that I sat down, and churned it out in a couple of months.

Not every achievement should be measured in money, and that’s great.

After tax I make a few hundred k/month. I spend almost all of it. I’m always motivated to keep growing my business, because if I don’t, I’ll go broke.

I love this lifestyle.

I have no idea how you can spend a few hundred thousand dollars a month while still working hard enough to maintain a high growth rate, which I assume is at least full time. I also cannot fathom making that much (or really any solid amount of money) and spending it all. Why no t put a solid chunk away in case your business goes belly up and you want to retire to a beach?

Any chance I could pick your brain on how I would start my own business and make it successful?

> a good small company basically bought my freelance time in bulk and gave me 5% ownership, and I get to build beautiful software and set my own life.

It was pleasant to wake up, and see where this thread went.

I think that happiness is alignment of wants and needs, coupled with the means to satisfy them.

Some people need to be rich, as it satisfies an internal metric, of some kind, so the enormous work and sacrifice that are required to be rich are worth it. Unless you are born into wealth, getting there is a great deal of work (and some breaks, but it’s always work). I have known folks that got there, and were devastated to find that it did not make them happy.

I need to be a craftsman, to work “with my hands” (so to speak), on small-batch, artisanal creations, so my work has been focused on getting to the point where I can do that.

> Some people need to be rich

See the comment I responded to below. I have a hard time with that mentality, but I get it.

> I need to be craftsman

I relate to this so much. Most of my best friends are mechanics, cooks, butchers, musicians. I actually only have one friend who's a programmer, and he's a craftsman too... I know him because we drunk-coded at the same bar for a couple years. People look at programming and don't get it...(yet - they don't understand yet, in 2021, but they will in 2040) ...that it's a clock maker's job. One friend who's a mechanic builds his own engines - just glorious, gleaming machines, one piece at a time. One time I was in his shop taking a distributor apart and said my job is like this, and he looked at me like I'm nuts. No, it's like this. Taking things apart to see how they work, and figuring out how to put them together. Lines of code are just like screws and weights and this thing that flies around the middle, distributing spark, that's like a for/next loop.

My Dad was a lawyer and he said, when I was a kid, "poor people work with their hands, rich people work with their minds." Well, I told him when I was 13 I would rather make something with my hands because it's honest. Programming, done right, is honest work - no better or worse than a creative mechanic's job. And it can be very artisinal in a way that satisfies your aesthetic sense and your sense of a job done beautifully. I don't think lawyers get that type of satisfaction.

Imagine if we took "onboarding" as seriously as clock makers used to.

Working with a master for a few years to learn the craft, step by step, always under an experienced gaze.

Or conversely, imagine what a clock would look like if it was cobbled together by someone who has just gone through a few weeks of clock-making bootcamp. I feel this is what some of our software looks like.

I believe that the problem is that the software development industry is completely built around engineers, staying at companies for two years or less. There’s lots of reasons for this. I think a lot of those reasons are cultural (SE culture, not nationality).

I stayed at my last company for almost 27 years. When I mention that in venues like HN, it’s usually mocked, and I’m basically called a “chump,” for doing it.

My only exposure to this weird, desperate, corporate ladder-climbing culture is via HN. It freaks me out to hear the lives coders are living inside these places, because it bears literally no resemblance to the way I articulate code or think about my job. I basically come here for the spectacle. I've been freelance since the first dot-com collapse in '98. I just come here to hear how $megacorp[$x] is abusing people. That being said, I always worry what if I had to go back to work for one...

I get a sense that you exist like myself, and other coders I've known, outside the furious competition for status in a FAANG, doing our own thing and crafting our own art. It's kinda calming and peaceful to watch from the grandstands while the central rat race shit show goes on.

[edit] I was also banned from here for 8 years for personally insulting the founder, who encourages and finances, uh, certain stereotypical corporate rat race bullshit.

A few years ago, I went to a dinner, hosted by Facebook. They were recruiting devs, and had a bit of an open house. I was curious about their operation.

The experience was fairly pleasant. I liked the people, but decided that the company wasn't really one that I wanted to join.

I was talking to one of the managers, there, and he boasted that he had been at Facebook longer than at any other company in his career. Since he was fairly young, I was curious.

"How long is that?" I asked.

"Twenty-seven months!" he proudly stated.

My girlfriend is doing code bootcamp to try to have an option outside of her current job. I do know one girl who did it a couple years ago, who was a bartender and is now writing frontend React for Nike and making six figures. My GF's very smart, and I want to encourage her, but I don't think it's going to work. She's not a watch-maker. She's good at people. Here's my glossy view on this. Everyone wants this glamorous job now of being an engineer. But you have to be a fuckin obsessive OCD geek to look at a shitpile of cat output and be like what the fuck went wrong here, I can't stop, sleep or eat until I figure it out. It's okay. Not everyone can or should make watches. How do you train them..? Put them in the woods with StackOverflow and give them something impossible.

There are plenty of good jobs for people who are good with people and know there basics of how to code, though, so that may well work out well for her even if she doesn't end up enjoying full on development.

I like your attitude. I feel we need more of it.

The last part of your story really resonated with me. Zero worries, pleasant job, and dealing with just the parts of a company that you're interested in (e.g. not having to worry about sales, marketing, or payroll on your own).

Great job!

I’m coming back from the first really expensive vacation that my family has ever taken (to Hawaii).

Was a lot of fun but if we hadn’t been able to do it with airline miles I don’t think I could have stomached the cost. We could afford it, it just doesn’t feel right to spend that type of money on a few days away.

IDK how it was in Hawaii, but don't feel bad. I'd much rather spend money on an experience (or friends and family) than on buying stuff. If it adds to the fabric and experience of your life, it's worth it. That's what money is for. The reason I think this is, it's the total opposite of sitting alone in your castle acquiring shit that you hope to one day show off to people.

I can agree with that to a point. At the same time, I could probably plan 3-4 trips for the price of the Hawaii trip.

Heheh. I know exactly and that's okay dude. Live and learn. I spent a totally bunk couple weeks in Surfer's Paradise once for the cost of a whole summer in Uruguay. Can't always get it right. Beaches get boring on the higher end, or if you spend too long, too. Nothin like a couple weeks in a beach town to remind you never to retire to one :D

> I'd much rather spend money on an experience (or friends and family) than on buying stuff. [snip]... it's the total opposite of sitting alone in your castle acquiring shit that you hope to one day show off to people.

What makes you think that everyone buying stuff is doing it to show off to people. I'd much rather spend money on stuff than experiences. Experiences are ephemeral and, once completed, exist only in your memory. The stuff I buy is generally something that going to make my life better in a continuous and ongoing way. A pond in the back yard, a nicer car (I buy used, but I buy a nice used car, with the bells and whistles that I think are important), a console system to play with my child, etc. I spend most of my life in or around my house... spending my money to make that time better seems fairly optimal behavior.

Another thing is you can sell your “stuff” on eBay to recoup the cost when you’re done with them or you can gift them to others. You can’t sell your vacation memory later in life. I went on vacations and did a lot of travel many decades ago. It was great in the moment but I can’t even remember most of them now. Those experiences are totally useless to me now.

That’s why I consider it financial insanity to spend your 20s traveling the world and “finding yourself” instead of working and saving. A year of 401k contributions when you are 20 probably results in subtracting 3 years from your retirement age. Make hay while the sun shines.

As a 30y/o who’s took a very stable primary job with great benefits and who works 3 other jobs +- 1 (engineer during the day… mechanic, photographer, general contracting moonlighting) I also obsessed over retirement and saving for my future. I only try to buy things that maintain value or will be extremely useful or life improving to me. However, I also think that the experience of traveling, depending on how you do it, provides immeasurable value to our lives, even if they do live in our memories and fade over time. Keeping a journal helps with calling back those memories, feelings, and things learned. I traveled a lot in my early 20s while still contributing to some sort of IRA. But I traveled very cheaply. Hostels and splitting bills and it has taught me so much about people, history, and the world that it has shaped how I interact with people daily. I can relate to people of other cultures more easily and have something to connect with which I believe is the ultimate experience, once we acquire the main things that we need to survive day to day. I don’t have many material goods, but the ones fondest to me I’ve taken to these trips or have inherited from others with stories behind their gifts. Having said all that, yes, I think taking vacations at all inclusive expensive resorts or just going somewhere to get drunk is waste, or at least not an ideal way to spend travel money.

I think it’s important to learn about the world and take in many experiences while we are young and capable because too many people don’t make it to retirement or can’t physically do the things they wanted to when they were 20-40

> That’s why I consider it financial insanity to spend your 20s traveling the world and “finding yourself” instead of working and saving.

I spent my 20s unemployed due to MS. I'm screwed for my whole life now. Then again I don't get to plan when I retire either so I guess it works out?

Traveling has been very valuable to me because I get to see that some of the unpleasant behaviors that are common in my area are not universal, but just peculiarities of the spot I happen to live in. It's somehow comforting to know that things are different in different places.

> I'd much rather spend money on an experience (or friends and family) than on buying stuff. If it adds to the fabric and experience of your life, it's worth it.

Yeah, that's what my stuff is: an addition to the fabric and experience of my life.

Spending money on pure "experiences" is, for me, wasted money. A memory of a vacation is worth less to me than some "stuff" I will use for the next 10 to 15 years[1].

For me, it depends on utility. I'm willing to spend on things I find useful, and I'm willing to spend on things I enjoy. Given the option between a vacation and replacing my 12 year old car, I'd replace the car.

I'm typing this on my main personal computer, which is a first generation i7, so at least ten years old at this point.

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