Ask HN: Financial independence in high cost of living city? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Financial independence in high cost of living city?

#11

Post by hwstar » Mon, May 25, 2015, 7:59 PM UTC

icki wrote: post #7

hwstar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been passionate about electronics since I was 6 years old. In my senior year in high school, I landed a part time job as an electronics technician. When I graduated, I worked full time for that company for 10 years as a self-taught electrical engineer. I started working on my college degree (Computer Science). I was able to take advantage of tuition reimbursement offered by the company to pay for college. Stud…

Thanks again for the reply. It sounds like you've always maintained some level of financial independence, even at a young age, which is awesome. Have you ever wanted to work on your own startups? It seems like you have some personal projects - why work a traditional career? If you could do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

Things I would have done differently:

1. I should have started earlier. I didn't start working towards financial independence till my second job. 2. I should have bought more rental properties.

Regarding startups:

For hardware products, startups involve a lot of effort. You usually have regulatory things to deal with and that is a big burden. Also the capital requirements are more than a pure software startup.

Re: Ask HN: Financial independence in high cost of living city?

#12

Post by notahacker » Mon, May 25, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

icki wrote: post #9

a3n wrote: post #8

Nothing wrong with wanting a detached home. Wanting one where it's too expensive, or getting one far away because it's affordable while continuing to work where it's expensive, probably requires a rethink. Right now you're building experience, knowledge and savings/investments, so you should probably focus on that. So live as cheap as practical where you are. At some point the curves will cross. If you still want a d…

This is definitely the pragmatic choice, and it's what I keep telling myself. Thanks for reverberating the message :) If I may ask, how do you feel about your personal situation right now? Are you living in an expensive city?

I don't know about the OP, but living in a city where the average cost of a detached house is well over $2M (CAD), I can assure you that flats and terraced houses can be quite pleasant too :)

Re: Ask HN: Financial independence in high cost of living city?

#13

Post by a3n » Mon, May 25, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

icki wrote: post #9

a3n wrote: post #8

Nothing wrong with wanting a detached home. Wanting one where it's too expensive, or getting one far away because it's affordable while continuing to work where it's expensive, probably requires a rethink. Right now you're building experience, knowledge and savings/investments, so you should probably focus on that. So live as cheap as practical where you are. At some point the curves will cross. If you still want a d…

This is definitely the pragmatic choice, and it's what I keep telling myself. Thanks for reverberating the message :) If I may ask, how do you feel about your personal situation right now? Are you living in an expensive city?

Denver's not so bad. It would be a great choice after you've done whatever you're doing where you are now, there's a reasonable amount of tech work. Lot's of telecom (but that's not all), something to do with being at 105 west I've been told. Boulder is nearby, and lots of tech jobs there. Also the skiing is great, and only when you want to. :)

Ah, here we go, "Denver's west-central geographic location in the Mountain Time Zone (UTC−7) also benefits the telecommunications industry by allowing communication with both North American coasts, South America, Europe, and Asia in the same business day. Denver's location on the 105th meridian at over one mile (1.6 km) in elevation also enables it to be the largest city in the U.S. to offer a "one-bounce" real-time satellite uplink to six continents in the same business day. Qwest Communications, Dish Network Corporation, Starz-Encore, DIRECTV, and Comcast are a few of the many telecommunications companies with operations in the Denver area." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver

EDIT: s/east/west/

Re: Ask HN: Financial independence in high cost of living city?

#14

Post by jasonkester » Wed, May 27, 2015, 9:20 AM UTC

It doesn't sound like you're looking for financial independence. It sounds more like you're looking to buy all the same things that everybody else buys and otherwise act like all the other adults you see, but be able to do so now with your entry level salary.

But that's what everybody wants. And it's why people end up living beyond their means.

If you want actual financial independence, that's pretty easy to pull off. Even in a place with million dollar houses. Just convince yourself that you don't need a million dollar house. Or a nice car. Or your own place without roomates. All you really need is to pay that debt down to zero over the next year or so then find an equilibrium where you can live on about a quarter of your take home pay.

Then you're done.

At a developer salary (even a canadian developer salary), that will start you down a path of saving a lot of money in a hurry. Enough that were you to lose your job entirely five years down the road you could happily coast along another five years before really needing to worry about money.

That's what you're shooting for. Notice that at no time do you do any of that coasting in a million dollar house. But if you keep at it, you'll eventually get to a place where you can buy that place in cash.