Hacker News Reader

It’s nuts to think a salary of $400k a year won’t get you rich, even in the Bay Area. If they’re not rich, maybe they should check in with a financial advisor because they’re doing something wrong.

View on HN

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/90487-annual-income-twenty-...

I agree, but only because I routinely speak with people who make double that and still struggle to pay monthly bills. Short answer: financial outcomes aren't about the number (above a basic threshold), and they’re almost entirely a function of behaviors & (some) luck.

Paying more is still a valid form of defense against petty corruption, though.

If someone paid me $800k per year, I would be retired in three years. You’re right on the behavioral aspect, for sure.

What often baffles me is the "buy a whole bunch of things on credit", and then get laid off and have not a penny left.

I've seen stories of actors in Hollywood banking $15M from a movie, buying all sorts of property with mortgages, boats, cars, all on credit, then losing it all due to default without that next movie.

Behaviour indeed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com