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Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#71

Post by m_t »

iffycan wrote: post #63
anyfoo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I thought budgeting was only for when money is tight, but it is amazing how much clarity and overview a budget gives you over your financial situation, and how it helps in attaining even larger goals. It’s just a shame that desktop YNAB isn’t developed anymore. I will hold onto YNAB4 until it falls apart.

You might be interested in this: https://www.bucketsisbetter.com

> Buckets gives you an untimed, free trial for as long as you need to decide if it works for you.

Why yes that is how you can make me try it out!

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#72

Post by Festro »

0898 wrote: post #14

Automating cold outreach emails. I organise an event for people who run agencies in London (www.agencysummit.co.uk). I use bots to find relevant people on LinkedIn, and then pay somebody on Fiverr to find their email addresses. Then, I put them into Reply.io and send short two sentence emails asking people if they'd like to check out the event. It works. Two or three times a day, I get push notifications telling me s…

Wow, illegal marketing. Go you.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/electroni...

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#73

Post by Balgair »

Marriage.

She is my everything, and though as a GF she was that too, marriage is just deeper.

Many of my single/unmarried friends don't have the trust and support that I have. I try to tell them that 'pulling the trigger' is not with a gun aimed at your head, but more of the starter's pistol in a 3-legged-race; it's fun. Yes, we have issues, just like all humans. But as we have both grown and changed, holding each other up is something I can't believe I used to not have.

Many 'millenials' seem to view marriage as a capstone to their pyramid. Get 'a degree', get 'a career', find 'the one', fall 'in love', etc. That's wrong, marriage a cornerstone you build a life together on top of. And yes, I am lucky, I know it, and I love her even more as a result.

Maybe readers can extend this to any committed relationship, but I highly recommend taking the time to find that person and jumping in when you are only 70% certain of the commitment ( about 1 - 1/e, for the math folks). Don't wait, just love.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#74

Post by jbuss »

tmikaeld wrote: post #55
jbuss wrote: post #35

Using a chrome extension[0] to block social media sites during work hours. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site/eiimnmi...

Seems this particular extension is very upfront about the fact that they gather quite a lot of data from your tab history/usage/habits and then pass that to 3rd parties. https://yourblocksite.com/privacy.html

Hadn't considered that. Are there others you would recommend?

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#75

Post by aaronpk »

Waterluvian wrote: post #11
aaronpk wrote: post #5

Spending less and saving more.

Spending more and saving less. To explain: savings is great and smart. But I never evolved past university frugal living. I recently realised that I was living like a student despite a good salary. So I bought some nice furniture and other things. I didn't realise I was missing out on reduced life friction.

That makes sense. Until I started tracking it, I was surprised at how much I was spending that I really didn't need to be. That's more the kind of spending I was talking about.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#76

Post by smoe »

Only enable desktop notifications that I actually need to respond to immediately. Since about two years I only get notified for:

- Laptop about to fail (Battery less than 10min, out of disk space)

- Calendar

- Site reliability alerts

Similarly I hide things like menu/tasks bars by default and just toggle them in for the rare cases I need some information from there.

It is just such a pleasant experience to have 100% of the screen be used by stuff relevant to the task at hand and only allow very specific distractions. It is a bit less pleasant at times to make it clear to some coworkers, that just because the company uses a chat system and project management tools with live updates, that not everyone has to respond to anyone immediately.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#77

Post by analogwzrd »

analogwzrd wrote: post #19

I've got two: buying a house and going back to grad school. For buying a house, I latched onto the idea that I needed a 20% down payment so I wouldn't have to pay for mortgage insurance so I was trying to save like crazy. Meanwhile, the property values were going through the roof and I realized that I'd always be chasing that 20%. I sat down and ran some numbers with a mortgage lender and that made everything a lot c…

My undergrad is in EE and I'm going back to grad school for embedded systems. Even as a EE, I found myself doing lots of software work - writing little C# apps, C++, data processing code in python, matlib scripts, and once in a blue moon writing firmware for microcontrollers

With embedded systems, I can still use my EE background to get my hands on hardware and I'm learning enough software skills to deliver much more professional software whenever I need to.

As a EE, I knew how to code but never got a lot of formal software training so learning git, focusing on my modular code, etc. has been really nice.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#78

Post by nrs26 »

valleyer wrote: post #42
dahart wrote: post #27

1: Kids. My wife and I waited to get married, and then were part scared after we got married, and part selfish and wanted freedom to play and travel, so we waited more. I don't regret our adventures at all, but after we had kids, I realized my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel. 2: Startup. I wanted to start my own business my whole life, and I waited to try until I had enough of…

Is there some factor you can share that allowed you still to enjoy your “freedom” even after having kids? I share that same fear.

I am curious about this (and share the same fear) as well.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#79

Post by analogwzrd »

jrowley wrote: post #45
analogwzrd wrote: post #19

I've got two: buying a house and going back to grad school. For buying a house, I latched onto the idea that I needed a 20% down payment so I wouldn't have to pay for mortgage insurance so I was trying to save like crazy. Meanwhile, the property values were going through the roof and I realized that I'd always be chasing that 20%. I sat down and ran some numbers with a mortgage lender and that made everything a lot c…

For going back to grad school, was this a masters or phd or mba or something else?

Masters. If I got a phd, it wouldn't be in engineering. I thought about an MBA, but I felt I needed to focus on becoming much more technical.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#80

Post by framebit »

Balgair wrote: post #73

Marriage. She is my everything, and though as a GF she was that too, marriage is just deeper . Many of my single/unmarried friends don't have the trust and support that I have. I try to tell them that 'pulling the trigger' is not with a gun aimed at your head, but more of the starter's pistol in a 3-legged-race; it's fun. Yes, we have issues, just like all humans. But as we have both grown and changed, holding each o…

Oh man, yes.

For us, and for so many of my friends, it was hard to get over whatever big life thing seemed to stand in the way of getting married. "I just want to [finish my PhD, get a promotion, start my next big project, figure my life out 100%] before getting married." My consistent advice to them is don't wait! Your partner should be there to help you in your goals, not to drag you down! It'll be so much easier to finish your thesis, advance in your career, and figure out life when you're doing together in a position of strength.

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