Comment by spidersouris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spidersouris | Hacker News Reader

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> You must balance enjoying your time now with investing in yourself and your future.

That is, to me, one of the most difficult things to apply in life, and I feel like the rest of your post doesn't exactly provide an answer on how to achieve this. There are so many things that I want to do in life but that I cannot afford to do now, and which I always postpone to later. And it feels like I'll let a great deal of things unachieved because I'm already too busy on things that are consuming my time right now.

The same applies to budget. I try to save as much money as possible for the future, and thus I restrain myself from doing things that I may consider too expensive for what they are worth, or choose not to do/purchase things which I do not consider essential as much as possible. I think I managed to do quite well up to this point (I'm 22 and have 20K in savings, starting from barely zero), but I'm still questioning on the utility of doing all of this. Even if I lost all my sources of revenue tomorrow, I wouldn't survive for a very long time with my savings. And if I wanted to launch some business in the near future, I doubt such an amount of money would take me very far.

You’re young. You could die early, but it’s statistically unlikely. There’s a balance.

With 20k (and if you’re really lucky no debt) and a job that most people on this site have, you are lucky and will be able to do some things others can’t.

I’ll give you one. I spent about $2,000 in 2014 to take my wife to Paris and London (part of the trip was covered by my work, so it was a little less expensive). At the time we had debt, we were young (mid 20’s) and could afford it but the more prudent thing to do would have been to throw that money at debt or invest it. The S&P 500 was roughly 1900 at that time. Today it’s 3900. So invested I would now have $4k in the bank. As someone in my mid-30s, no amount of money can bring me back to my 20s with my wife in her mid 20s, without the responsibility of kids, for a week in Paris and London.

And playing that further out - if that money even 20x’d by the time I’m 80, at that point I’d still give it up to have had the experience with my young wife.

Not sure if that makes sense - but recognizing these tradeoffs while you can and making the decision to take the action is a tricky thing to get right. You can always make more money but you can’t make more time, and you won’t get your youth back again. So have fun. But everything in moderation and recognize that you need to take care of your future self as well (e.g. don’t take two years off around Paris and London and lose your job, etc…)

The only currency we really have is time and that can’t be banked or stored, only spent wisely or foolishly.

Choosing when to convert time to money is important but also recognizing when you can convert money to time.

I think that is a wonderful story and a wonderful illustration of the idea I was trying to get across.

> Even if I lost all my sources of revenue tomorrow, I wouldn't survive for a very long time with my savings

But you will survive longer than not having those savings at all. Or even worse, having debt. The extra burn down maybe the difference between accepting a shitty job or being able to look around for a better one.

I've recently experienced a family emergency and I was glad I was in position to fork out hefty some of money without even thinking about it, thanks to saving agressively.

> And if I wanted to launch some business in the near future, I doubt such an amount of money would take me very far.

Again, at least you will have _some_ run way to try something different. Savings give you options.

I feel like what you are doing is reasonable. Once you have savings (and arguably you already do), maybe take a big adventure!

One story I have that I think agrees with you is from when I was looking after my first child.

I was left alone to care for her, my wife needed a break and so went away for a night off. Btw, this is a good thing to arrange if you have a fairly new baby in the house - it gives the person getting the night off something to look forward to and provides real respite.

Back to the story, the baby (unusually, for she was a sweet little thing) would just not stop crying. She sensed mummy was away and was not happy (probably a commentary on my skills). I spent what felt like half the night with a howling baby, but in hindsight was probably a lot less than an hour. During that time I suffered a deep, deep trough of despair. I was under pressure at work, we were frankly bust financially, I wasn't all that physically well at the time and I was a shitty dad. I felt like I could see my life rolling out in front of me like no man's land in the European first world war (think, mud bath/moonscape/wilderness).

The thing that helped me was the fact that I could think back to evenings spent on tropical beaches, weeks in the mountains of different continents and meals in restaurants designed by Michaelangelo. I thought "Well, if this is what life is to be then that's ok. It was my decision and I have had a great time already, there is nothing I regret" and that really helped. Without that I don't know what I would have done, probably gone downstairs and drunk the contents of the booze cabinet, it's terrible to even write it. But, I understand why people in similar situation take drugs or go crazy.

Of course, 1 hr later my daughter was asleep and my mind set altered back to the reality of my privileged middle class existence. My problems didn't go away, but they were of course minor in the scale of real problems (as we all find out eventually). Some people end up in the literal no mans land of a european war, some people end up homeless, some people have their babies taken from them. None of this happened to me, thank whatever deity.

Go take that big adventure, it will give you a perspective that may prove priceless.

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