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Comment by glitchcrab | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's a mindset thing, but I can't think of anything worse than wasting ~16% of my life like this (average male lifespan in the US is around 79 years). You're sacrificing a fair chunk of your prime years in the hope that it pays off long term; imagine if you followed this and died at 40? What a waste of a life. Or what if you make some bad investment calls and it doesn't pan out? What a waste of your time.

I made some good judgement calls and I've worked for decent companies where I'm not on a treadmill chasing every dollar; I'm still well paid to the point where I go on multiple holidays per year, own a majority of my own home, paid cash for our decent cars, and my wife has taken extended maternity leave because we can cope fine without her salary. AND I got to enjoy the shit out of those years.

No way in hell I'd trade that for the two million.

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But to retire at fourty. What a dream. You get so much time back.

Hey, different strokes for different folks.

What is the quality of that time though? How much development have you missed out on? What relationships do you have? What's your health like? These are factors people don't think about.

I retired this year at 40 after a high demand career. I gave up a lot, but did manage to have a family and friends, though my health is completely trashed (big reason for the retirement).

This is exactly my point, I would rather enjoy those years than live like a hermit chasing something which may not even come to fruition.

There are many ways to retire at 40 that don't require sacrificing your youth to do so. Buying calls in a bull market for instance.

I don't know how to do that nor do I have the capital do that properly, I think anyway. What I do know is what the modern US school system taught me: get a skill, trade that skill for a salary, save, live below your means, and invest.

You’re far less hedonistic than the target for this article I think. I’m sure there’s a balance, a sweet spot between investment returns and quality of life. Maybe you’ve stumbled upon it. But for me growing up working class poor this, if I could do it over again, I’d do this. I didn’t get married until 29 anyway so I’m not too far off from the timeline I proposed.

Maybe you're right and I'm just not the right sort of person for this in many ways. However, I would question how living in such a way that you're literally counting every penny for so long would affect your relationship with money. It would be a crying shame to have worked so hard for so long to earn it and then not be able to bring yourself to enjoy it.

Paying cash for cars though? Everything I’ve read says that’s not a wise use of cash. The asset loses a ton of value and by paying cash you’ve used it all chasing something that will never appreciate. That being said if you can get value from something for 10+ years that only needs upkeep and insurance maybe the savings pays for that? I dunno.

For starters I don't buy brand new, the family car was a low mileage, well specced 18 month old car. I'm not concerned if we lose a bit more money on it than we would have spent on finance; we can afford it. I worked for a bank for some time and it left me very much averse to using credit if I don't need to - I saw some horror stories there of people who ended up with so much debt that they would never clear it. Here in the UK it's ludicrously easy to get crazy amounts of credit. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like to own things outright. The other car is my fun car (2018 BMW M3), I don't see myself selling anytime soon.

You pay cash for it and then run it into the ground. Cars will never be an investment (they're a depreciating asset, except in 2021), but this way you can keep your consumption to a minimum.

I've got a 14-year-old Honda that I paid $14K for. That amortizes out to about $1K/year. Annual repair bills and smog checks are still way less than $1K/year (I think I spend amortized $200-300/year, plus vehicle registration renewal, which is less on super old cars than new). I hear there are people out there now who spend $1K/month on their car payment. It's pretty nice to not have to deal with that.

It's got plenty of life left too - I'm hoping to keep it until EV technology stabilizes a bit and then just upgrade straight to whatever EV gets it right.

There is tons of great investment cars. Latest example of something nobody wanted until everyone does is VW Porsche 914, 2-4x in value in last ~5 years. You can never go wrong with any 911, Mercedes Pagoda or old BMW M. Even "newer" nineties BMW are starting to climb up from $1000 scrap value drift missile to $20-40K.

What’s the alternative to paying cash for a car? Borrowing to buy it (more expensive), leasing it (usually more expensive), or taking Uber everywhere (way more expensive).

For a long time it was common to get manufacturer-subsidized 0-1% financing on new cars.

Then supply chain stuff exploded and rates went up but it'll come around again eventually.

Transit/biking/walking? Or if that's not feasible where you live, having only one car per household instead of 2+.

Borrowing to buy it isn't necessarily more expensive.

You could pay $50k for an average new car, or $10K + $40K over 5 years at 5% (~$5k extra in interest)

If you put that $40k into the stock market, average annual returns for the S&P500 are ~10% going back to 1928, so you would have made ~$24k over 5 years on average. That would put you ~$19k ahead after you pay off the loan with interest.

You could certainly buy at the wrong time and lose out by taking a loan. There are plenty of +/-30-40% years in those "average" stock market metrics. But historically it's been a pretty good bet if you're a gambling sort.

>I’ll just take out a 5% loan to speculate on the stock market

Ok.

This is why you move somewhere with little rust and buy old classics. So many old mercs and porshes and rolls royces here in socal, among everything else you can imagine. A car like that bottomed out in depreciation 30 years ago. I've seen model A's, those probably bottomed out 90 years ago.

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