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Comment by mndrix | Hacker News Reader

I've been doing this for 8 years and love it.

I'm married with 5 kids. We live in rural Wyoming (no income tax, bought a comfortable house for $86k). We've always lived well below our income so we have no debt and sufficient savings.

I mostly choose to work on "products". That helps me focus on problems that people actually care about without any of the startup pressures. Although, I've also written several open source libraries that I thought the community might like.

I started by telling my employer that I would only work 4 days each week. I spent Fridays working on a cool idea my brother and I had. That idea proved useful enough to pay the bills so I quit my job.

I'm much more relaxed now and spend better quality time with my kids. In hindsight, it would be worth almost any sacrifice to get to this point again.

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Hi - thanks for sharing and congratulations - sounds like you've made things work.

> I spent Fridays working on a cool idea my brother and I had. That idea proved useful enough to pay the bills so I quit my job.

Regarding this, it sounds like you already had a good idea of what your expenses were, and I think people underestimate how important this is.

I recently quit my job and have jumped into the unknown. Firstly knowing where all my money was going, and secondly spending about 12 months trimming off all the fat was an important part of the process to give me the confidence to try this. These days I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world with my wife for about $2000/month (and over half of that is rent). We want for little. Several years ago this figure was closer to $4000/month.

Interesting. What did/do you use to ascertain where all your money goes?

YNAB.

The developers are a bit accounting-nerdy, and it has lots of graphs/etc which I think would appeal to the HN crowd.

It's also very flexible. One example I can think of, my friend installed it on his wife's smartphone so she could record spending on groceries wherever she was. But my wife doesn't like this level of monitoring so I just give her a wad of cash each month and enter that as a general "cash for groceries" entry.

I've also seen people in the US say good things about Mint.com, which was not available to me here in Japan.

Normally this would be a good place to put my own 10%-off referral link. Instead I'm going to give a link to a forum thread where you can get 10% off AND someone else will then use your link:

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/reader-recommendations/43-d...

Similarly, I went part-time a few years ago (4 days) and I would say it's been one of the better decisions I've made.

Given the typically high salaries in the dev world, working part-time is an easy path to maintaining a work/life balance which provides time to pursue personal projects.

How do you get a part-time dev job? Do you just mean contracting?

Quick question since you have a few kids. Is real Wyoming a good place for them in terms of school and future? (really asking, no idea as I live on the other side of the pond).

I work from home so I can move anywhere, and a more rural/calm place, earning less and having more time does appeal to me, but all the good schools here are in the city and I'm not brave enough to risk my kids future on my dreams of today.

I think that our local schools are about as good as government education can get. My kids' classes range from 11 to 14 students so they get lots of 1-on-1 time with a teacher. The teachers provide extra challenges for exceptional students. The teachers and school administration are very responsive to feedback from parents. Students graduating from high school with good grades get a full scholarship to the University of Wyoming, if they want it.

Having said that, my wife and I place much more emphasis on independent learning and life experiences than on formal schooling. Because my wife and I have plenty of time, we are able to encourage their education in ways we couldn't if we lived in an expensive city. Our lower living expenses also allow us to take trips and have experiences that we feel are more valuable than book learning.

Wyoming is the least populous state in the US, it's not small either. I've driven through Wyoming and Casper it's largest city. One could call it desolate meaning very little human habitation. Or one could call it a paradise on the plains depending on your perspective. Either way, there ain't shit there. Edit: Other than Yellowstone that is.

Starting by cutting down to 4 days a week (32 hours) is a good idea. I became an independent consultant in 1998, but for the 20 years before that I worked 4 days a week (and this was for a variety of large corporations - you have to ask, firmly sometimes).

I have never regretted the lost income from reducing my work hours.

No income tax is because you live in Wyoming, or because you don't work and therefore don't earn a salary?

no state income tax in Wyoming (also Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Texas; Tennessee only has taxes on investment income)

Don't forget Washington state! :-)

shhh, you'll queer the deal!

No income tax or sales tax in New Hampshire, but comparatively high property tax from what I understand.

Because I live in Wyoming. The state has no tax on income from work or investments.

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