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On Quitting

lindaeliasen.com

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Re: On Quitting

#121

Post by yummyfajitas »

icedchai wrote: post #107
brnlsl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kinda stuff just drives me nuts. No, they're not all trust fund kids. The OP quit her job at Dropbox(!), and it looks like her previous jobs were at Squarespace(!) and MailChimp(!). I can only assume that she is highly skilled and productive and has been well compensated for it for years. Perhaps she saved up? Some people have good jobs and save money. Is that hard to understand?

You know the average American is incapable of saving even 5% of their income, right? That's why this is so unbelievable to some.

Strangely, the average Indian (vastly poorer than even poor Americans) manages to save 20%.

Lets distinguish "incapable of saving" from "unwilling to reduce consumption".

Re: On Quitting

#122

Post by harryh »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #87

I'll say it — this post is a vapid pile of crap. It's so over the top dramatic, "I'd been idolizing for years". Really? If your biggest struggles involve feeling guilty about $5 drinks you need better things to worry about. So now "I quit my job" is the new learn nothing, "amazing adventure" startup-y blog post. FML.

Indeed. Most quit lit is tiresome.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/don...

Re: On Quitting

#123

Post by johnward »

redblacktree wrote: post #85
johnward wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for the record when someone says "not to be x" they are almost always about to be X. I was wrong. You are in a situation similar to me though. About the same income/housing price with a wife and first child on the way. There is no way I'm saving 20% in the foreseeable future though. I have two car payments though. One that will be paid off this year and the other I'd like to get rid of but I'm too upside down ri…

I have yet to pay off the house, but my wife and I (similar situation to the two of you) managed to pay off $47k in debt (credit cards, student loans, and car loans) in two years. In the months that followed, we saved a six-month emergency fund. We just stuck to a budget, and put every other penny on debt. We followed the Dave Ramsey plan. People poo poo him for not being sophisticated enough, but it's about changing…

I'm taking the snowball approach right now too. Maybe I will eventually get to where I can put away 20% but for now that extra money goes to paying down debt. Aside from $100 a month that goes into an emergency savings fund and 4% into my 401k.

Re: On Quitting

#124

Post by gregd »

tomjen3 wrote: post #118
gregd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? I keep reading these stories of people who up and just quit jobs at dream companies, which I can totally understand. But what I'm absolutely gobsmacked about is, "then I took 13 months off and roamed the country". Da fuq? I've been working since I was in 9th grade and have NEVER had enough money saved up to take 3 weeks off, much less 13 months.

I don't get this mentality at all - if you don't have savings to cover 3 weeks, what are you going to do if you become unemployed? I "only" have about 4 months worth of salary saved and I feel like I need to watch my expenses, cause that is not enough.

Well in my almost 20 year IT career, I've only ever been unemployed for 3 months. For the last 10 years, I've had two jobs.

What does anyone do in the US who finds themselves unemployed? They scramble to find a job..any job to make ends meet and when that doesn't happen, they live out of their car. And when they lose their car, they live in a homeless shelter.

Re: On Quitting

#125

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mistermann wrote: post #24
mathgeek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be single or a renter to save. You just need to make it a priority. I'm the sole breadwinner with a wife and two kids, and we pack away 20% out of every paycheck. We own our home and both cars. Do we live a garish lifestyle? Certainly not, but we travel a lot and adhere to our budget (thank goodness for remote jobs).

> We own our home and both cars. Whether that is possible depends a lot on where you live - from what I can tell, outside of a few major cities there are plenty of places in the US where you can buy a house for <$200k in the US, good luck with that anywhere in Canada.

I realize that things have changed, but around 15 years ago, a friend of mine sold her ~$30,000 house in a city in Saskatchewan to move to a ~$20,000 house in the country.

Hard to imagine that housing prices have gone up 10x in that time.

Re: On Quitting

#126

Post by lovich »

mathgeek wrote: post #16
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not save any money when you work? If you are not saving 10% - 15% of your paycheck into an account where the money is immediately accessible, you are living above your means.

You don't need to be single or a renter to save. You just need to make it a priority. I'm the sole breadwinner with a wife and two kids, and we pack away 20% out of every paycheck. We own our home and both cars. Do we live a garish lifestyle? Certainly not, but we travel a lot and adhere to our budget (thank goodness for remote jobs).

How are you supporting 4 people with roughly 56k a year and own a house and 2 cars at the same time? Its not unbelievable if youve paid off those expenses over a long time and didnt have student loans. But even one bad car repair could be a couple percent of your total budget for the year. My student loans would be 8.5% of your 70k paycheck alone

Re: On Quitting

#127

Post by a-priori »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #125
mistermann wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We own our home and both cars. Whether that is possible depends a lot on where you live - from what I can tell, outside of a few major cities there are plenty of places in the US where you can buy a house for <$200k in the US, good luck with that anywhere in Canada.

I realize that things have changed, but around 15 years ago, a friend of mine sold her ~$30,000 house in a city in Saskatchewan to move to a ~$20,000 house in the country. Hard to imagine that housing prices have gone up 10x in that time.

Here's a chart of housing prices over time in Canada, adjusted for inflation:

http://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Rabidoux_h...

In their index, housing prices were about 100 in 2000 and about 180 in 2013, so houses were about 80% more expensive in 2013 versus 2000. That is in real terms. You'd expect it to be more like 103% more expensive in nominal terms (assuming 2%/year inflation).

Here's a good source for recent housing prices in Canada:

http://crea.ca/content/national-average-price-map

It shows that the average sale price in Canada was $433k in August 2015. But there's tremendous variation within Canada. Vancouver was around $900k; PEI was $158k. It looks like Saskatchewan was around $253k, so a bit over half the national average, with Regina and Saskatoon being more expensive in the $310-320k range.

About 15 years ago you would have expected prices to be about half that in Saskatchewan, or maybe $125k. So no, house prices have not gone up 10x in the last 15 years and $20-30k were not typical house prices in Saskatchewan at the time.

Re: On Quitting

#128

Post by lovich »

Killswitch wrote: post #116
mhurron wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that lack of empathy is a significant personality disorder. > Did you have any medical conditions that needed care > Not that I know of. Others do, it's often sort of important to handle them. It can also limit the cities you can live in. > Were you single > No. Right here I start thinking your now being disingenuous, second income? > car, which took a 3rd of that $800/mo So you lived in Chicago on 528 a mon…

> The 'million dollar house' you want to keep throwing around I mentioned it once. You're the one who keeps bringing it back up. > Right here I start thinking your now being disingenuous, second income? No second income. My fiance has never, and will never pay anything for me. > So you lived in Chicago on 528 a month and saved enough to move. You are leaving things out. This was either 40 years ago, you were getting…

>Oh sorry, I left out the $600/mo the startup I worked for paid the owner of the spare bedroom I lived in. My bad. $1400/mo. And 40 years ago? I'm 30, I moved from Chicago in March of this year.

Were your SO and kids not living with you? I cant imagine putting 3+ people into a spare bedroom. If you guys did do that, its impressive but its certainly not within the realm of normal in the US. If you didn't have them with you, than saying you had 1400 a month to support yourself, your SO, and your kid/s is not an accurate accounting of your living expenses for Chicago

Re: On Quitting

#129

Post by YuriNiyazov »

gregd wrote: post #89
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know where to start with this comment. If you read any "how to plan your life financially" books which are not written for multi-millionaires, but the average "Working Greg", you will see that the agreed upon advice is that you are supposed to save about 25% of your after-tax earnings. I didn't make up 10%-15%, I intentionally lowered the amount from the standard advice because I knew that 25% would elic…

You are still not understanding me. You know nothing about me or my living situation. My state's unemployment maximum amount per week is $538. That barely covers my rent each month.

So, basically: if you got fired tomorrow, four people would be homeless, and 2 people would be foodless because you don't have any savings, and you consider yourself to be a responsible human. Bravo.

Re: On Quitting

#130

Post by thfuran »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #121
icedchai wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the average American is incapable of saving even 5% of their income, right? That's why this is so unbelievable to some.

Strangely, the average Indian (vastly poorer than even poor Americans) manages to save 20%. Lets distinguish "incapable of saving" from "unwilling to reduce consumption".

Am I merely "unwilling to reduce consumption" if I refuse to save money by not paying for internet or a cellphone plan?
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