Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money. Or: "FU, Money" (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money. Or: "FU, Money" (2012)

micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com

90 pointsMz88 comments

I see someone already mentioned Mr Money Mustache, which is great. But for really getting to "independently poor" you can't beat Early Retirement Extreme: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/

Similar idea, but he got his living expenses down to something under $10k/year (initially, I think they've risen a bit since) so that he could retire a lot earlier. At various points he talks a lot about how having the skills to support yourself is worth more than having money to buy things, a topic briefly touched on in the linked article.

I just wish his English was a little more grammatical and properly spellchecked, but I guess you can't have everything. :)

I'd like to also recommend this book. For people who think the $10k/year figure is only possible in cheap places to live, the author lives in SF Bay Area. Here's some more details: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...

Retire to a (parked) RV to live on rice and lentils and not get medical care or have children. Such an inspiring way to live...

You're exaggerating somewhat, though not a ton. It's definitely not a lifestyle for everyone - I'm definitely not aiming for that. But a lot of the concepts can be applied to living a less Spartan lifestyle while still spending very little. Knowing how to make and maintain as many things as possible, live well in a small space by minimizing extraneous possessions, keep yourself in shape so you don't need medical care, cook tasty meals with inexpensive ingedients, that sort of thing.

And you have to admit, being financially independent at the age of 30 is worth a lot. Not having to work 2000+ hours a year makes up for a lot of little inconveniences.

"The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways to insure that freedom - you can be rich or you can you reduce your needs to zero." (John Boyd)

edit: for more about this interesting man, read "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War" by Robert Coram.

>"The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways [...] or you can you reduce your needs to zero." (John Boyd) //

If you reduce your [other] needs to "zero" you still need money to be "free to do things". There are many activities that are free - but often you need to pay to get somewhere to do them.

For example we live on very modest means but are able to afford a holiday each year. We'd love to go abroad, the only prohibition to that is the cost of passports. We're entirely free to travel abroad and experience a different culture with our kids, we just don't have the money to do it.

Boyd was a highly influential fighter pilot and military strategist. He himself took the latter path. He was known as the Ghetto Colonel because he hardly spent a dime of his income. His idea of "doing things" is probably vastly different from your idea. I doubt he would consider going abroad with no goal other than experiencing other cultures to be "doing things".

So, um, where does that leave us. Is that acceptance that it's just a nice quotable phrase with no real basis or what?

Why do you feel that teaching children about other cultures by direct experience is not "doing things". One can watch TV, read stories, meet people from all around the world but the only way to really understand your position as a global citizen and to appreciate the cultural wealth, the different challenges and the bond of humanity that we share on our small blue speck of earth is to travel - even just once. My ideal would be to sail as a family for a few months; but that again is not something we can aspire to without a vast change in wealth. As a child I felt I learnt a vast amount from my parents taking me abroad.

Tell me what things he did without finance?

It's a truism that we can't reduce our needs to _zero_ and live.

http://www.dnipogo.org/fcs/comments/c199.htm seems like it probably gives a good, though biased in Boyd's favour, review of his life. Notably:

>'John Boyd always said the choice facing us all is "To Be or To Do." Paradoxically, Genghis John did things — and still ended up being somebody.'

So he disproved his own maxim it seems.

His life seems to be rather defined by being involved in extreme expense of money - involved in development of fighter aircraft, part of the Pentagon. There is no mention of his personal life beyond that he smoked cigarillos until just before retirement - perhaps that was the only expense he allowed himself in the support of his 7-strong family? Maybe he grew his own tobacco? On land he acquired without money?

I would guess his definiton of "doing" has to do with producing instead of consuming. Travelling is basically a very active form of consuming culture. In terms of changing the world, it's no more useful than reading Wikipedia articles all day. (And note, further, that his definition of changing the world was also probably rooted in a military geopolitical sensibility. Travelling doesn't destroy dictatorships, etc.)

>In terms of changing the world, it's no more useful than reading Wikipedia articles all day. //

In and off itself, yes. But education is far from impotent in changing the world - would you consider someone to be properly educated if they had only stayed at home and only fed on data rather than experiencing the world outside?

>"The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act." (John Boyd, via Wikipedia)

My intention is to help my children to become rounded individuals who will as much as they are able make a positive impact on the world. Consumption is a necessity of life however.

>Travelling doesn't destroy dictatorships //

How many wars might we prevent in the future by fostering a sense of world citizenship rather than nationalism, by encouraging greater understanding of humanities shared nature and of the need for us all to work together to properly use the resources we have?

He was an odd, singular character and I think the quote describes his own philosophy - not necessarily what he thought others "should" do.

One of his points was that if he got a sweet Pentagon consulting gig after his military career, then he would be reluctant to bite the hand that fed him. He could not be objective: if a lousy idea came down the pipe from on high, he might have to rubber stamp it in order to keep cashing paychecks.

This form of integrity cost him a lot - prestige, financial success, family harmony and wellness. I don't know if most people would be able to make those decisions.

To my mind, he's sort of like rms - an extreme outlier who defines success in a very different way from most people, and yet is objectively successful by various measures.

If you want to understand John Boyd you should read one of the many good biographies about him, one of which was named in this thread already. I don't think just one Internet article will suffice to give you enough of a picture to be able to really grasp the significance of the things he said.

That too requires money ... but thanks for the tip.

There are these things called libraries. But at this point I'm going to assume you're trolling.

I don't see how it's trolling - the assertion is that one can be free to do things by reducing ones needs _to zero_. My assertion is that once free one needs resources (eg financial) to enable the doing of things. Boyd for example spent millions - through his job - on the development of fighter aircraft.

For me to get to the library costs ~£3 in bus fare, they don't have the book and so there is a stocking fee. They have an online order system which is also charged for which of course I need to own a computer. These things cost money to do.

My assertion is that the basic statement is absurdly false - no-one has given a context in which it is true.

Perhaps Boyd was prone to hyperbole and instead meant "reducing your needs will deplete your finances at a lower rate thus leaving you free to spend your money on doing things"; not very pithy and hardly a surprising statement.

Don't get me wrong, Boyd seems like a remarkable and insightful character but I'm calling him out on this one, at least unless someone can provide context to justify the quote.

> We'd love to go abroad, the only prohibition to that is the cost of passports.

? A US Adult Passport costs $110 and last 10 years; that's $11 a year. (Kids are less.) Are you in a country where it costs a lot more than that?

Yes, passports for 4 of us cost more than our budget for a holiday. We could of course buy on credit ...

FYI if you just want to go to Mexico or Canada, they have Passport "Cards" that cost less.

This concept is different but similar to Mr. Money Mustache's ideas. Minimize expenses, because why wouldn't you if you're not less happy for it, and invest all the money you don't spend with your minimal lifestyle. In 10 years, you could retire if you've made a high salary for the past 10 years. The guy publishes his spending every year, and he spends around $25k-$30k per year for him, his wife, and his son. This is with smartphones, cars, and a large house. Because he lived like this, and because he and his wife both made good white collar incomes, he retired in his early 30s and just does whatever he wants now.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com

To be fair, his house is completely paid for, so the $25k-$30k does not include rent/mortgage for his house.

He didn't get a paid-off house for free though, he paid it off himself.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/11/the-elephant-in-th...

Which basically eliminates the big metro areas unfortunately.

It doesn't eliminate Chicago or several other smaller rust belt cities. Even right in the heart of downtown Chicago, modest apartments are under $200k.

It doesn't get rid of the substantial opportunity cost of the money used to pay for that house. It's not at all fair to ignore that when stating his yearly expenses.

They are more like $40-50k when you include it.

Opportunity cost is important to consider, but it's not the same as cash out of pocket.

And if you're going to include the opportunity cost of the house, then you also have to look at the cost of other options. Having a mortgage house costs money, and rent costs money. A paid-off house that you can maintain yourself may be the cheapest option - though that's not true for everyone all the time.

There are unconventional options that are much cheaper (camper, RV, tent) but that's a whole different lifestyle.

Sadly a completely paid for house in California can still cost you $15K/year in taxes and insurance, not to mention maintenance like the occasional roof or paint job. But it helps clearly.

But I wonder a bit if this catches on if you will start seeing "retirement communities" in places like Las Vegas which have a number of houses available for 100 - 150K where taxes and insurance are less than $3K/year. If you work on the utility angle (massive insulation to avoid large heating/cooling bills) can you make that work?

If retired, why live in an undesirable place like Las Vegas solely to save money? I'd go overseas to find a more enjoyable environment with cheaper COL.

Fair point. Although my inlaws did that (living in Brasil) and it has its pluses and minuses. My father-in-law wants me to smuggle in paper towels when we visit, which I find funny.

"On the hills to our right, a short distance out from Randolph, was the spot where John Randolph of Roanoke had spent the greater part of his eccentric and unhappy existence. It would be hard to imagine contradictions more glaring than those that lurked in his environment. His home consisted of two rude structures, erected in the bosom of the primeval forest: one his summer residence; the other a mere log cabin, his winter residence. Yet the lonely occupant of these two dwellings was as haughty an aristocrat in his way as any who ever wore a coronet."

-- Below the James: A Plantation Sketch, by William Cabell Bruce, 1918

I wish there was a viable solution for making micro-payments! How many people know to the penny what they need per week to remain independent? How many people really know the difference between wants and needs?

Since she quoted two different numbers in the story, I'd like to propose (assuming we figure out how to give small amounts efficiently) that we each give either $1.34 or $2.49. I think it would be cool to have at least 52 donors (one for each week of a year), but what if we blew it out with half of the HNers donating?

Keep up the good work. You'll be more independent when you stop depending on food stamps, but you're on your way. Also, I recommend ordinary reusable cups instead of plastic disposables.

Thanks for your kind words. But I have cystic fibrosis, as does my oldest son. Our very expensive health issues are the reason I am deeply in debt and cannot work a normal job. Disposable cups are dirt cheap germ control compared to the thousands of dollars per month in medical care I and my oldest son are supposed to require.

Cheers.

Sure, that makes sense. Wow, I didn't know it was cystic fibrosis.

I like your comment about the medical care that you two are "supposed to require." :)

I can imagine circumstances that do not permit the cleaning of reusables.

It's interesting to see someone else talk about this. Becoming something like independently poor has become sort of a goal of mine. It's a little surprising to me to realize how hard this is. There are so many organizations eager to give me a high salary for full-time development work, which has a high probability of keeping me feeling unhappy and trapped. But if I only want to work 30 hours a week, and I only need to make about $25 an hour to live - so far that seems like a harder situation to find. It's like, I'd be happy to give up all this extra money for more time and less stress, but there aren't as many takers for that deal.

Decent developers routinely charge $40-$50/hour on remote work sites like eLance - and these are ones in foreign countries who don't speak all that well English - so you can compete easily. I don't work on it since I can charge two to three times as much in person, but it sounds up your alley. It's common to specify a number of hours per week, or do project based pay and have the contractor fill out time sheets.

> Decent developers routinely charge $40-$50/hour on remote work sites like eLance ...

This topic comes up every so often. It rarely ends up as a silver bullet to financial independence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6350201 (4 months ago)

You might try: https://grouptalent.com/welcome/

What do you do? I am working in a way towards the same. I would love to talk. Contact details on my profile.

Apply to smaller companies. I run a tiny software consultancy, and we'd be happy to hire someone with that arrangement.

Agreed. We hire folks that have their own businesses or projects. One of our employees likes doing contract work and helps run an annual tech conference. He didn't want to be tied to a specific schedule; sometimes he works a lot, sometimes he works a little. He knows he has a steady paycheck, though it is smaller than it would be if he were working full-time for us. We've known him for years, and knew he was working on our Open Source stuff already, for free, so we know he's got the interests of our users and software in mind.

There are flexible positions out there. Another option is to start your own company. That's what I did when I wanted freedom. I made the mistake of starting a hardware company the first time...the second time I made it software, and made sure nothing about it required me to answer phones or be in one place for any length of time.

This position is harder to maintain as you get older. I'm assuming you're a young guy and probably aren't even thinking about retirement.

Even young, given current salaries for software developers, this is very viable. I was earning ~$80,000/year as a newly graduated bachelor of Computer Science working 40-hour weeks at a flexible consulting shop before I started my Masters degree.

Given my living arrangements and lack of dependents, it didn't require any effort at all to save 50% of this money and put it into long-term (retirement) investments. Ten years of a similar arrangement would ensure a very decent nest egg, assuming I kept living below my means. Given that skills and salaries increase quickly, after a couple of years it would almost certainly be possible to scale back 25% and keep saving more or less the same amount.

As long as you are in a position to plan ahead, this shouldn't be a problem. It helps to view the glass as half full rather than half empty; many people will only see the negativity in any suggestion. Money is often a subject where the naysayers talk louder than the rest.

I'm with you 100%. Although, in terms of planning ahead, you might want to have a family or girlfriend/boyfriend in the future which will eat into your cash flow considerably. Also, you'll probably want nicer shit as time goes on. Living in a shitty apt in some crappy part of town loses it's novelty when you know you could easily, for a little bit more a month, get a better place.

Just something to plan for.

Depending on the area you live in, with a salary like that and that level of savings, you can own a house by your early to mid 30s. A decent house here can go for as low as $100k (middle Georgia). Lower if you're willing to accept older homes and the issues that usually entails (asbestos, will need more in upkeep costs earlier, 60s/70s stylings for the interior). A single professional can make in the upper 5 to low 6 figures. After retirement accounts, you can pay off that mortgage in 5-10 years. If you don't go for the ludicrous $500k homes (or higher) that we have around here, you can live nearly debt free (in this case a mortgage no worse than rent at the decent apartment complexes). And by your 30s be debt free (I was late getting into the job market after a failed attempt at grad school, so for me it'll be late 30s, but close enough).

Reading things like this make me wish that 15-years-ago-me had thought about that, and been making that kind of money.

That is presuming a real lot and is quite insulting.

I've lucked out in finding an organization that's just like that. The founders are all older married guys with kids, who want to be their own bosses and also not spend too much time at the office. They're not hypocrites, so no one has to spend too much time at the office. We work about 35 hours a week, but I'm fairly sure that if someone wanted to reduce that to 30 or even 25, it would be fine, so long as they got plenty of work done at work. The pay is right around the amount you mentioned, as a starting wage. We treat each other and our clients well. It does exist... www.radarhill.com.

If there's still the expectation that they "[get] plenty of work done", then that's pretty much the opposite of what the parent/article are talking about. You're talking more about a company that has flexible office hours and just focuses on results, but still expects a full-time amount of "results" per person. The article, on the other hand, is talking about delivering fewer results, for less money.

If you're working 30 hours, they're paying for 30 hours of work. It's understood that you wouldn't be producing as much as a full timer.

>But if I only want to work 30 hours a week, and I only need to make about $25 an hour to live - so far that seems like a harder situation to find.

My experience is that finding consistent independent work is "easy" up to $50/hr. Beyond that, and I need to go through agencies where they expect me to pretend to want to be full time.

I have manged to leverage that to get a part time gig that paid better; e.g. I got a high paying gig through an agency, proved myself difficult to replace, /then/ suggested they let me go part time on the same hourly rate. Worked okay for a while.

But yeah, my experience is that you can demand $50/hr from random craigslist gigs. There is a /lot/ of remote work available at $25/hr. I remember in the early to mid aughts, I supported myself for a few years this way; I had a primary gig that gave me a retainer that was large enough to cover rent (I think I was charging them $35/hr for retainer hours, and $45/hr for hours above that. I mean, I was in my early to mid 20s, so it wasn't great money, but it wasn't terrible. ) then I would take random gigs over and above that for more money; I had about three regular clients that I didn't have "retainer" agreements with, so there was always enough money.

Hm. I wonder if it's easier as a SysAdmin, because it's very clear that my work is going to be required on an ongoing basis? Some people seem to think that after the project is done, they won't need the developers. But most people understand that you need a sysadmin ongoing.

As a sysadmin, the major problem is if two clients happen to have emergencies at the same time (DDoS, phishing hack, hardware failure, or something else that's hard to mitigate in advance without more money than such a client is prepared to spend).

>As a sysadmin, the major problem is if two clients happen to have emergencies at the same time (DDoS, phishing hack, hardware failure, or something else that's hard to mitigate in advance without more money than such a client is prepared to spend).

You resolve this with your 'retainer' agreements. Client agrees to pay a monthly fee, I agree to a certain level of availability, and to prioritize said client over my other clients and/or my personal stuff.

I've also tried to set a schedule when I was available, then if you wanted me outside of that schedule, you had to agree to pay a incident fee to wake me up. But, I haven't had anyone bite on that idea. I think the retainer thing is more traditional.

Even with a retainer, of course, you can't get real 24x7x365 coverage with one person. that's just not how the physics of the situation work.

And in that case, I only had one client that had a retainer. Without a retainer? Sure, when shit breaks, the client is going to call and whine and cajole and threaten, and sure, I'm going to try to help him or her out, but... any pre-existing agreements I have come first.

The bare truth, though, is "I'll get to you after I clear up this other mess" is "good enough" for most things. Especially for employers who are picking sysadmins up off craigslist for $50/hr.

Here's some encouragement from Mr Money Mustache. Earlier in his career he took a 20% pay cut in exchange for every Friday off.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/25/the-joy-of-part-ti...

I've got several colleagues considering this. As their children move out of the house and the mortgages get paid off. They've qualified for the pension (collected at 60? 55? I can't remember, it's far enough off that it doesn't affect my planning much here). They're only in their late 40s or early 50s, so if they switch to 60/80% time they'll take a pay cut, we'll have money left to hire more people. We'll retain their knowledge base. They can ride to retirement comfortably with long weekends every week.

You may be dealing with the flip side of being overqualified. If you are looking for the type of work that'd pay you a high salary for full-time development work it's unlikely you will find many $25/hr 30 hour a week job. But if you lower your sights to more mundane work -- perhaps in an associated field rather than in full on development -- I think you'll have a lot more success.

Of course, those jobs may well be less fulfilling professionally, but that's just another trade off along with the money.

The overhead of an employee is too high to make low hours work. You will almost certainly need to do freelancing / contracting.

Have you considered taking on freelance/contract work? I worked on remote contracts for one year at ~20 hours/week. It covered expenses while I got to work on my own products, travel, spend time with family, and relax. It was an amazing experience.

Some places I'd start looking are:

(1) http://letsworkshop.com - terrific resource for freelance gigs

(2) http://weworkremotely.com - very high signal

(3) Recruiters - most deal with full time employment, but they usually have some clients that want contractors. Some firms even offer subcontracting arrangements (they take a % of your rate, but even then it's usually much more than $25/hour)

(4) Old co-workers/bosses - usually the best way to get contracts since you have a connection

(5) http://hnhiring.me - HN posts every month

The first one or two contracts might be difficult to find. After that, referrals start kicking in. Plus you might find a client who requires long-term part-time work (that's what happened for me).

Move to Amsterdam; we all speak English and 24-hour work weeks are perfectly normal here.

I'm not sure if it's possible if you use the US-NL immigration agreement, but you might even get innovation subsidies in which case you can become an independent consultant, work 4 months of the year and spend the money you earned tax-free in the other 8 months.

The innovation subsidies (WBSO) require 1225 hours/year, I believe. Pretty hard to get (lots of red tape) but worth it though, very happy with them.

I've not heard of these - is there a site with more info?

There's plenty of info one Google search away, but easiest is probably to just ask one of the providers that will handle the registration for you.

I use subsidiefocus.nl, but feel free to shop around. Just keep in mind that there are sharks out there that will get you to pay E2000/yr and bind you for multi-year contracts; so shop around and be wary of AdWords advertisers.

Oh yeah; also make sure you inquire about the RDA subsidy which is not that big, but is often available on top of the WBSO subsidy.

I did a quick Google, but couldn't find any particularly useful sites. However, I shall keep looking.

Are you searching in Dutch or English? In Dutch the top 4 results are all pretty good.

What exactly do you want to find out about it?

I think only 500 hours/year in some cases, but even the full 1225 is doable with the 4 months on 8 months off schedule.

But yeah, get them through one of the subsidy offices. It'll cost you 700 to 1200 Euros but increases the chances you'll get it and is definitely worth offloading the administrative hassle.

Try teamtreehouse.com - or, ping me, as I know 1-2 other companies that would gladly hire a talented person that wants to work a bit less.

You don't need money to have a happy and interesting life-- if you're willing to forgo having a family, quite likely for good. Then schools and spouses and making sure your kids get to make decisions instead of being affected by them... all of those responsibilities go away.

The shitty thing about it is that it's too competitive, these days, for people who decide to slum it in their 20s to get back on the career track. The people who think they can fuck around while living on a shoestring are going to face horrendous age discrimination when they decide that the career thing is actually important.

In a morally decent society, people wouldn't be shut out of having a family (properly, which means giving your kids the chance, should they have the talent, of being owners rather than mid-grade meat for society to devour and destroy) based on decisions they made at 22-23. But we don't live in a morally decent society, so scratch that line of thought.

So unless you're already an owner yourself, you'd better hurry up to be mid-grade meat lest your children will surely become mid-grade meat themselves. That's quite a decision for a 22 year old.

> mid-grade meat

This is laughable urban yuppie status anxiety stuff, which I guess is kind of michaelochurch's schtick. There is life outside of the Bay Area, ya know.

As it stands it's practically advantageous to be broke and have kids. There are a million programs and subsidies and scholarships to milk. You pay virtually no taxes. It's the middle class that gets milked.

Yeah, being so broke you don't pay taxes is awesome! Lucky duckies![1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Ducky

Believe it or not, many of those programs childcare programs are for anybody regardless of income. Yeah, I'm speaking as someone who has gone to MANY of them. We had one that was completely free for anyone who lived in the county and there was tons of middle class people who lived in the county, probably more middle class than poor people. The well off don't want to send their kids there, they want to spend time on a waiting list to send their kids to an expensive but "good" childcare place. Same as they want them to go to a "good" school, so they spend twice as much in housing.

> As it stands it's practically advantageous to be broke and have kids. There are a million programs and subsidies and scholarships to milk.

Most of those programs don't make up, even in their domain, for not having moderate income, not to mention that several of them are either time limited (both in consecutive terms and lifetime terms), or require you to be actively seeking improvement in your financial situation, or both.

> if you're willing to forgo having a family, quite likely for good.

Kids you have now will die around 2100 or so. Even if we avoid nuclear annihilation, as seems increasingly likely, the world will be a pretty awful place by then.

Barring total catastrophe, I simply don't see how a relatively stable population with incredibly advanced automating technology and biotechnology would be incapable of "fixing" the world.

A small minority will be perfectly capable of "fixing" their bit with multi-billion-dollar storm surge protection, desalination, etc. Given that the rest of humanity will be motivated by the threat of death, I wouldn't rule out total catastrophe. There are levels of survival you should not be willing to accept.

I'd worry more about the problems we can't see coming than the ones we can, personally.

Not everyone is barring total catastrophe.

that's the spirit

You state a controversial opinion (as evidenced by the responses) that the world will be a pretty awful place by 2100 as fact. Can you justify it?

I wonder how someone really believing this can go on being motivated to do anything.

Who cares? We'll all be dead by then.

There are many reasons to do things that have nothing to do with the state of the world in 2100. For example, there may be value in improving the remaining lives of people who will be dead before then. Think about it.

Broke people have kids that turn out fine all the time.

Also, broke people have kids who have miserable lives all the time.

as do rich people

Statistics suggest the poor kids will be worse off, and that on average, they're starting with a setback they won't ever recover from.

1.2% of households in the US (463,000 households) had "very low food security" for both adults and children in the household in 2012. That is to say, some children went hungry at some point during the year. (In a far larger number of households, adults were able to shield children successfully while going hungry themselves.)

Missing meals as a child is correlated with poor outcomes later in life.

With all possible respect, pffffft. I've seen 75 year old men get hired for entry-to-mid-level network administration gigs. Age discrimination? Get away from the Valley.

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