41–50 of 90 posts
You'll find yourself much happier in life spending energy to find good company (of people you enjoy being with) instead of trying to make things work with the people you just happen to be around with. It takes active effort to meet new people but on the long run it's worth the effort many times over.
Cults. Learn to see what they are early on, learn what groups are considered to be cults, read Lifton's "Thought Reform and the Ideology of Totalism" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychol... ), stay away.
Student loans. I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc. Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a develope…
I submitted this earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211654 Lots of misconceptions about student loans out there. Half of all debt out there is for graduate school, and most of those students don't have too much trouble paying it off. Yes, you can make a lot of money without a degree, but not for every profession. And not everyone can teach themselves do to the thing they want to do. You're not goin…
Then I saw the loans, and switched interest to computer science and programming.
Nobody is forcing you into a particular career, just switch, the definition of intelligence is general adaptability.
Shouldering yourself with hundreds of thousands in debt when you’ve never even had a job before is stupid. Period.
You might say, “are all doctors stupid?” And I would say they are not stupid, but the action of crippling yourself with debt is stupid.
I have friends who are doctors, who are 30, still laden with debt, living in tiny apartments and working 70 hours a week, and they hate it. If you ask them now “is it worth it” the answer is a resounding no. But they are in too deep now, they are a slave to their debt.
- Avoid borrowing money, be it in the form of credit cards or even worse, mortgage. I know this is not something you want to hear if you are on a mortgage deal already. But borrowing can limit your freedom in ways that are not immediately obvious. You trade your freedom for illusory prosperity. That said, a business loan for your business may not be such a bad idea. - If your plan is to become an entrepreneur, start…
Not borrowing money is bad advice. The best way to become rich is leveraged investment. A mortgage is simply a 5X leveraged investment in real estate. With interest rates around 3% on a 30-year fixed, tax deductible, you’re actually winding up borrowing at below inflation. Then you’re building principal too, yours and not your landlords. I wish I’d realized this sooner. When you’re young you could even consider borro…
3.51% this week, and that's a recent low, so “around 3%” is a stretch.
> tax deductible, you’re actually winding up borrowing at below inflation.
If you assume inflation will soon return to 1990s or earlier levels, maybe; US inflation has been under 2.5% for all but 5 years since 2000, and averaging even lower; you have to be in a pretty high tax bracket for even 3% to get close to breaking even with inflation at those rates, and actual rates are above 3%.
There are many great HN threads of investing, and the earlier you start, the earlier you can retire if you want.
High risk (as in life-changing) situations that can be avoided: driving drunk, unsafe sex etc. Most other bad stuff can be handled with money and/or time.