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Comment by BSousa | Hacker News Reader

I see this a lot here and in other places. I can't speak for the article's author, but not everyone is in the USA where software developers are payed 100k+.

I get paid 33k (EUR) a year. After taxes that is about 1500 a month. After bills and food, I have about 400. If I save every penny, in 2-3 years I have 1 year of living expenses.

Yay for me, except I'm in the top 10% earners in my country and earn about 3 times the national average (and 5 times pre tax minimum wage). Even in software development salaries are usually in the 20-25k range pre tax.

(Portugal if anyone is interested, but even when I was in the UK or Netherlands, there wasn't that much of a difference)

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Hm, I understand your comment but I'm going to push back on it.

Two years ago I was a Research Technician working for a neuroscience lab in Boston. I was paid 32k a year (USD), paid 700/month in rent (with three roommates), 150/month heating during the winter (each roomate!), various utilities etc etc.

In Boston, the "Living Wage" is considered around $12/hour [1]. I made $15/hr, technically less because I worked longer than 40 hour weeks.

Despite that, I still managed to hit my employer's 401k yearly match ($1600), a good chunk of my personal IRA (around $3000) and saved $7000 to an emergency account. I had calculated that 7k gave me around 5-8 month runway should things go pear-shaped, or if I wanted to start something on my own. If you add that up, I saved or invested nearly 36% of my yearly salary.

To be fair, I was single and young. Kids, mortgages, etc add a lot to your burden. But still, you'd be surprised how much money you can save when you just sit down and eliminate silly things sucking down your money.

[1] http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/2502507000

I didn't mean that comment as a complain so push back a lot :)

The thing I wanted to mention, is I'm actually doing well for myself (well, somewhat) but if you are earning 20k EUR a year, after taxes, you don't have that much to save after everything is payed.

But since you mentioned the 32k, care to share how much you would take home a month after taxes? Just curious...

(and yes, I have a wife and a kid, and I am atm the only provider)

Hehe, sorry, I always get into a fit when these threads pop up. :)

Totally understand your point about needing a certain minimum threshold to start saving. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you don't really stand a chance.

I just looked up my paystubs and it appears my monthly take home was just about $2000, after taxes. Perk of being poor in Massachusetts is that I was in the lowest tax bracket at least :)

No problem :)

Just to compare, 33k EUR gives about shy of 1500 EUR a month after taxes.

For what it's worth, I saved my first $10k back when I was making $34k/yr. It took about two years of living cheap (in Portland, which is around the average in terms of cost of living for the US).

Doing this was my absolute number one priority from the moment I landed my first job after university. As it should be for everybody.

Once you have that stack in place, you can think about moving off of "college student scrounge mode" and into a world where you might consider owning a new-ish car, television, moving to non-shared housing or an area without crazy hobos camping on your doorstep, etc.

This is easier when you don't have a significant other :)

In what way? Splitting rent/utilities/etc. in half is never a bad thing.

Just make sure you pick a significant other with similar priorities to yourself (which also is never bad advice).

Well, in my experience most young ladies ideas about frugality tend to differ a little from my own..

There's definitely a social pressure that once you get a real job you should have grown out of eating ramen and taking public transport.

While I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, it isn't as easy as mentioned. I think I mentioned this in previous comments, but finding someone that likes to liv frugally, and is a potential mate (all other things combined) isn't that easy.

And if you put a kid on the mix, it is event worse.

Yes, it is that easy.

Don't date people that don't have prudent attitudes toward personal finances. God forbid you end up sharing a bank account one day...

You will reduce your choice of partners very considerably. I would wager most people in their 20s have net debt rather than net savings.

My girl is extremely frugal compared to most of her friends, but we still argue about money a lot.

That has not been my experience. I am financially prudent and I still have 2-4 more than I know what to do with.

Never share bank accounts, ever. I'm married and we still have separate personal bank accounts and a shared for expenses. Personal accounts mean freedom to spend money on whatever you see fit. I'd never give that up.

But the author has children....Children are like totally dependent on the parents..It is a totally different story if he just has a partner/wife.

I'll exactly agree with the author -

25K GBP = 1500 GBP per month after tax. minus

600 for shared flat in bad area of London

240 for bills (gas, electricity, internet, phone)

80 for council tax

200 for train to work

180 for food

= 200

I'm yet to finish the month with more than 50 pounds, so there is 40 a week unaccounted for. For indication beer is 4 pounds.

I'm very happy at my job - the work is really interesting, but there is a week at the end of each month where I wonder what I've done wrong with my career.

Hey

Just a quick question, what area do you work with? 25k for London is quite low.

I ask cause I keep getting some offers from London and may be able to refer you to some.

I don't know what you are doing. I lived in Edinburgh for 4 years, at the top end, in my last 6 months I was earning £33k. Somehow in that time I managed to save £50k, while having a girl friend, going out on the weekends, and living in the city center. As well as trip overseas ever year.

I have no idea how people manage to spend so much money. I have never owned a car in my life. I never go to coffee shops, and I make my lunch from home. We do mainly cheap stuff, and go on cheap holidays.

I think your last paragraph shows that you do, in fact, have an idea of how people manage to spend so much money!

Actually, I lived in Edinburgh about 10 years ago. Cost of living there was cheaper (at the time) than here :)

But I admire the money you saved (I saved slightly less at the time)

What strikes me is the massive differential in wages between say Lisbon and San Francisco - and yet you would expect to be as productive or more working remotely for a SF company on 100K.

Do you look for remote on careers 2.0?

I did for a while, but never had much luck finding anything reliable.

Move. Save. Move back.

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