I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself • Hacker News Board

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#101

Post by ModernMech » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #39

cercatrova wrote: post #3

When I read stories like this, I always think of the systemic factors that are creating this behavior; that America, and indeed many countries in the world, do not have the social safety nets to take care of its own people when they can't work anymore. It would be better and more efficient for a nation as a whole to take care of its children so that they can choose their own avenues of success rather than needing to…

> America, and indeed many countries in the world, do not have the social safety nets to take care of its own people when they can't work anymore. I don't see any good alternatives to having children take care of their parents. Abuse is common at even the most expensive nursing homes. You can't always blame the caretakers either because being constantly surrounded by grumpy, dying people has a huge psychological toll…

> You can't always blame the caretakers either

What? There is absolutely no excuse for elder abuse. Are you kidding with this?

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#102

Post by Reedx » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

maxaf wrote: post #56

I’m 100% the opposite way. My wife is very frugal, but I save nothing. What’s the point of pinching every single penny? That’s not life; it’s survival. Even more ironic is the fact that this is multiple decades of mere survival all aimed towards one goal: ensuring survival in those decades when work is no longer possible. Perhaps I’m obtuse, but this isn’t a life worth living. I want to enjoy my healthy years in the…

One of the problems with this strategy is that it ends up becoming a burden to your family and others (who sacrificed to save for a rainy day). And it may happen sooner than you think.

> I’m keenly aware that I’ll be left penniless once I can no longer work, but I have a plan for that.

What's the plan?

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#103

Post by not_a_moth » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

Not sure what to make of this.

Marrying a rich man was the deus ex machina.

I thought the talk about breaking the "cycle of poverty" was pointing towards a heroic use of frugality to overcome, but no, solution was marriage.

And then the extremely/uncomfortable frugality, as opposed to healthy frugality, after becoming rich points to pathology more than anything else.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#104

Post by arkades » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #49

mpeg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like a recipe for marital disaster that she's living this extremely frugal lifestyle despite him making good money and he "goes along with it" (her words)

Only if you assume spending more money will make you happier though

As marginal utility goes, though, it sounds like “spending more money” in this story includes things like “having more than one room to live in.” And, admittedly this was an inference rather than baldly stated, “nice vacations.”

Money doesn’t just buy a different grade of items. It also buys a whole slew of novel experiences, of which you only get so many in your life.

Yeah, some amount of spending can make you happier.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#105

Post by adbge » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

StillBored wrote: post #100

mruts wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn’t really helped Japan get out of their 30 year depression, though.

And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression" They have 2% unemployment and some of the highest quality of living standards in the world. Sounds like they are doing something right. If you opt out of the growth is required mindset its perfectly possible there are other economic models which work just fine to live under despite the scary sounding descriptions.

> And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression"

The Japanese are committing suicide at higher rates than Americans[1], and a million of them have chosen to live as shut-ins rather than participate in society.[2] They're also not having children. Maybe that's your utopia but it sure isn't mine.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#106

Post by StillBored » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #68

em500 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people also save with the thought of giving away a ton of money at death, but this again holds money out of useful purposes until decades away. What makes you believe that? The overwhelming majority of savings are held in bonds, stocks and real estate, not in paper notes in a vault. You might quible over the usefulness of savings and investments vs other allocations, but assuming is useless is pretty extreme.

Thanks for writing this. Saving is not storing money. It is delaying your right to “use” it, thus allowing others to “use” it now (which is why you expect a return interest). That is why banks are not evil. On the contrary: they are the basis of a healthy economy.

Nothing is black/white. Banks which operate like your grade school basic economics classes are providing a healthy/necessary service for the economy.

OTOH, it might be debated that banks which take your money leverage it out and get huge returns while giving you a fraction of a percent, banks that charge 2-4% transaction fees for basic transfers for merchants, or fee harvesting people for more than their net worth are more economic parasites than useful service providers.

Much of modern banking in countries like the US are basically shifting wealth from the economic value creators to a few vampires growing their own personal fortunes which dwarf that of the other 99.999% of the population. The idea that they might return some of that to their customers though interest bearing checking accounts, removing low balance fees or any of their other abusive practices never comes up.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#107

Post by throwaway76792 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

maxaf wrote: post #56

I’m 100% the opposite way. My wife is very frugal, but I save nothing. What’s the point of pinching every single penny? That’s not life; it’s survival. Even more ironic is the fact that this is multiple decades of mere survival all aimed towards one goal: ensuring survival in those decades when work is no longer possible. Perhaps I’m obtuse, but this isn’t a life worth living. I want to enjoy my healthy years in the…

I'm... not nearly as extreme as the author, but pretty frugal. Not "rent out most of the house" frugal, but "make and stick to shopping lists", "spend a couple of days mulling over a purchase of 0.05% of my income" frugal. My spouse is like you.

Just a word of advice that you may already do. Please have very good communication with your wife about financial matters. This situation is very stressful for the frugal person, and it has caused all of our biggest arguments. The only thing we've found to help is very clear communication.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#108

Post by StillBored » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

danielvinson wrote: post #63

vmlinuz wrote: post #15

Just to be clear, this is a story of a person who has been traumatised by a combination of the worse parts of US and Chinese poverty. It's not a nice story, at all... Also, the two websites she runs, as linked at the bottom of the page - one of them is a blog/content site about living frugally, one is about making money any way you can. They're part of the same problem that the article (probably inadvertently?) illus…

Yes, this is being overlooked by most readers... this article is a woman plainly describing her mental illness.

Hard to describe that as mental illness, I might go the other way and say people so consumed by their social status that they throw away their perfectly functional year old iphone/cloths/cars/etc to buy the latest version are suffering far more harmful mental illness. And that might just be the surface, people who throw their lives away going into massive debt to buy the largest house and nicest car they can afford are clearly harming themselves.

Its an ugly cycle, people who check out of it are definitely not mentally ill IMHO. Average US consumerism is an addiction.

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#109

Post by m3kw9 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

The only practical advise to anyone to not spend money you cannot pay off the next money, otherwise there is something wrong are about to go seriously wrong soon with your finances. Telling people to be Frugal is as ambiguous as the world

Re: I’m not saving ninety percent of my income for myself

#110

Post by tathougies » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

cercatrova wrote: post #3

When I read stories like this, I always think of the systemic factors that are creating this behavior; that America, and indeed many countries in the world, do not have the social safety nets to take care of its own people when they can't work anymore. It would be better and more efficient for a nation as a whole to take care of its children so that they can choose their own avenues of success rather than needing to…

> ample free time to think, to explore, to experiment, to create

People would probably go crazy from the boredom and start killing themselves. Work and struggle are good and inspire more creativity and inventiveness than doing nothing