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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to know how the authors financials work. It sounds like a dream to work on something just because it's fun and fulfilling. I have mouths to feed and that dominates much of my career choices. I'm in a small town in a small country so earning a FAANG salary is not an option. I can't save up and go work on a dream project.

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If you don’t have mouths to feed then options are massive and life is cheap. For example remote work live in south america type of thing.

Is it really though? I imagine way more people would love to spend all their free time on their hobbies, and would sacrifice some of the luxuries of the modern world, but work crap jobs. And most of these people don't have kids.

See: the amount of miserable people on Reddit and elsewhere.

If you have good relations with your parents, you can grind away in their basement. For obvious reasons, many people cannot or do not want to take that approach

Not all countries have a social stigma attached to living with parents and a degree of parental interference/influence in your adult life is accepted. Perhaps this is because of high interest rates - can't just get out of dodge and take a loan on a house.

I don't think it is a money thing, but flexibility. Working 4 days for 80% pay is seen as a privilege. It shouldn't be. And the part time friendly jobs (supermarket checkout, Uber, etc.) don't pay well per hour. One workaround is to contract, 6 months contract then 6 months off.

If you want to work your entire life on your hobby without worrying about how to source money at all ... well that requires being born rich most likely.

I think for most people the blocker is themselves and societal expectations. "People will think you are a bum" is more of a blocker than "How much money left in account". Especially for people reading this comment.

life is cheap

Unless you want to retire in a western country, you still have to build up a decent pension. And to reduce costs later, it probably also a good idea to buy a house.

For the most part and in most countries, including wealthy ones, people born after 1980 don't really expect to have the luxury of being able to retire at all.

If you don't trust the pension system, you can invest your money differently. Buying and paying off a house before reaching retirement age already helps a lot, since it takes away a large future cost factor.

If you earn a reasonable amount in any country you can save for retirement. If you start young you can save way more than you need. It will mean buying a house that much cheaper than the best you can afford. You'll probably have to budget so you can keep track of your money.

If look at this study https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirement/the-national-stud... most got wealthy by saving. These are not billionaires but they will have very comfortable retirements.

> I have mouths to feed and that dominates much of my career choices.

I hear you. I often dream of having a more fulfilling job, but every other job that I could do would earn a fraction of what I'm making now.

It's weird, because we were doing just fine when we had less diposable income. But it really feels like I can't go back now...

If you find a good niche, you can remote work 3 days a week on a developer salary and still make more than many professions would full time. It takes deliberate effort to setup but it's very achievable.

That leaves you with 4 days a week to work on your own projects.

Seems like he's a DevOps consultant. 30 seconds of googling will reveal that. And since the company he works/worked for is Norwegian, the company financials are also open.

In any case, close to no-one here in Norway earns a FAANG salary. At lest not as a salaried employee.

Opportunities, choices and consequences. You got the opportunity to meet a partner and chose to start a family. Not everyone gets that opportunity in life, so either be happy with your choices or make different ones. But every choice comes with consequences.

Oh yeah I'm happy with my bargain. I'm also curious to see if the author has found a way to make a living out of this. If for other reason that to live the dream vicariously.

My guess is that the author lives in a European country with a much better social safety net than a place like the US.

Not having money is a reward in and of itself. Choices are much simpler.

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