You don't really want a million dollars
ryanwaggoner.com
You don't really want a million dollars
1–10 of 177 posts
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#2One of the hardest parts of just hopping on a plane to some exotic destination is figuring out what to do with your "stuff" back home. People think that with a million dollars they'll pay off the house, car, quit their jobs and travel the world. Instead, they should consider selling the car and house (or renting it out) and living abroad instead of traveling. I have stayed in the Philippines for months at a time for far less money than a weekend in New York or Vegas. If you don't have to pay $1000 a month for a car (loan, insurance, gas, maintenance), and $2000 for housing in the US (including gas, electricity, phone, Internet, etc.) traveling becomes much cheaper. Even better if you can do some freelancing remotely or have a small business that generates a few hundred bucks a month.
I bet that 9 times out of 10, "I need more money" should really be rephrased as "I need less stuff"
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#3One of the hardest parts of just hopping on a plane to some exotic destination is figuring out what to do with your "stuff" back home. People think that with a million dollars they'll pay off the house, car, quit their jobs and travel the world. Instead, they should consider selling the car and house (or renting it out) and living abroad instead of traveling. I have stayed in the Philippines for months at a time for…
In late 2007, my wife and I sold our car, quit our jobs, put our valuables and personal records in a storage space, sublet our apartment (for roughly what our rent cost), and then spent three months trekking around Asia. It's really not that hard if you don't have pets or kids.
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#4The "HN Users, please upvote this" banner at the bottom is disconcerting. If HN is becoming a place people are desperate to get their stories voted up on, I fear the quality is going to start decreasing dramatically in the coming months.
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#5One of the hardest parts of just hopping on a plane to some exotic destination is figuring out what to do with your "stuff" back home. People think that with a million dollars they'll pay off the house, car, quit their jobs and travel the world. Instead, they should consider selling the car and house (or renting it out) and living abroad instead of traveling. I have stayed in the Philippines for months at a time for…
Very true, Here's PG's thoughts: http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#6The "HN Users, please upvote this" banner at the bottom is disconcerting. If HN is becoming a place people are desperate to get their stories voted up on, I fear the quality is going to start decreasing dramatically in the coming months.
> Hello there, fellow HN user! If you like this post, I'd really appreciate an upvote.
That has been there for a while, I thought he might of changed that to what you wrote but as it is now, it is just asking if you like it to upvote it which is how hacker news works. You don't get this if you don't come from hacker news either.
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#7The "HN Users, please upvote this" banner at the bottom is disconcerting. If HN is becoming a place people are desperate to get their stories voted up on, I fear the quality is going to start decreasing dramatically in the coming months.
Agreed. I wont vote a story up because of this. Same as tweets with "Please RT". stfu, I will RT if I think it's worth spreading, not because you tell me to
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#8Good article, but I thought that the title / headline was slightly misleading. I think a better wording of it would've been, "You don't really need a million dollars." The impression that I got from it, before reading it, was that it was yet another instance of someone winning a large sum of money through a lottery or other contest, and completely blowing it all away due to lack of proper financial foresight / other bad habits(or even being worse off because of lavish lifestyles; e.g. Lenny Dykstra).
That said, I agree with some parts of the post. If you can make it work, working for yourself in this field will give you the flexibility to live the kind of life you want if you make the proper adjustments. Once you do, seeing the world isn't as expensive as people may believe if you do the right research and strike a few good deals.
It's not for everyone, though. While a couple of my friends, who work in health care(married with kids; one is an RN, the other a radiologist), can certainly try to make lifestyle changes to save more money so that they can travel, I don't know how they would be able to work for themselves.
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#9The "HN Users, please upvote this" banner at the bottom is disconcerting. If HN is becoming a place people are desperate to get their stories voted up on, I fear the quality is going to start decreasing dramatically in the coming months.
That's a Wordpress plugin called "WP Greet Box" [1] and this message is only shown to users coming from HN, not everyone. Also, you'll be happy to know that I get grief for it every time one of my posts lands on the homepage :)
I understand your concern, but it's really just a reminder to vote the article up if you enjoyed it. I frequently read good articles and then forget to vote them up because something else catches my attention. I really doubt anyone is swayed to upvote an article they didn't think worthy because of this message. Just the opposite: some hacker types get worked up because they seem to be allergic to promotion of any kind, and thus won't upvote the article, even though they would have otherwise. But I'm betting that the balance of people who upvote because they liked the article AND because they were reminded outweighs the anti-promotion crowd. Either way, I don't think it's a big deal. Sorry if it offended you.
Re: You don't really want a million dollars
#10Nuts to that, I'll take the million please.
A million bucks, moderately levered and invested in rental property = cash flow for life. You won't live rich, but you'll sure cover your health insurance and some travel budget.