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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to recommend you head over to https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance and https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence.

Emergency savings to live on should be 6 months to 1 year, depending on how easy it is for you to find work, and for retirement/voluntary reduction in hours worked, you'll want to plan on having saved up enough that you can draw 4% of the retirement savings every year; at that burn rate that should last until death.

Don't discount social security if you're entitled to it. You may not receive full benefits, but you will receive something. I suggest http://www.ssa.gov, calculating your benefit, and then reducing it by 25%. That takes into account the chance that Congress won't top of the SS trust fund with general tax revenue when the trust fund is exhausted.

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r/personalfinance is useful but maybe a little too starter and repetitive for op's stage. r/financialindependence is better but not that active. I'd recommend bogleheads.org where a large portion of the community is approaching or in retirement and also the mrmoneymustache forums for frugality/advice on making the money last.

Hmm I could live a year off my savings, but shouldn't you be insured? If I lose my job tomorrow I get 3500 USD/month for a year. I pay 10 USD/month for this insurance. (Backed by the government). Don't you normally do it like this in the US? Where I live all people get an insurance like this. Or is this pretty much the same as social security?

U.S. has it.

State Unemployment Insurance

http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.asp

Yes, but I believe it really only applies to actual employees (W-2 employees in the US), not contractors. If your contract ends or is cancelled and you can't find anything else, Unemployment Insurance isn't going to help you.

> I pay 10 USD/month for this insurance

In EU it can be easily 1000 USD/month. Compulsory!

Why does SSA.gov need a bunch of personal information, then ask how much you made last year and base its estimate entirely on that single number?

The SSA (Social Security Administration) is concerned about the quality of their records, and in general want you to double check them against what you think is correct.

It receives your earnings information from the IRS, as your benefit is determined by credits earned, which is determined by your income during set periods of time.

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