Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

outsideonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 138 posts

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#41

Post by munk-a »

TameAntelope wrote: post #21
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here's the thing. I have $80 and need to pay $100 in bills. There aren't any money skills that can overpower math.

I don’t think that’s the right way to think about it. You usually aren’t born needing to pay $100, and having $80, there are probably decisions you make that put you more or less likely to be in that situation, some obvious, some not. Sometimes you do get shit luck, but I think there are always ways to mitigate the negative consequences of bad luck, and maximize the consequences of good luck. We have a lot of control…

You are born (possibly) needing a car to commute to work, and needing a place to live, and needing to eat - and those costs have been going up.

It is legitimately difficult and incredibly stressful to work in the service industry in San Fran unless you've lucked into being able to live in the downtown on the cheap. The suburbs that are affordable are hours away by car and more by public transit.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#42

Post by 29athrowaway »

If you love nature leave nature alone.

1. People hike somewhere

2. A positive review is written, that attracts more people

3. Because of the increased amount of people going to certain place, a hotel and a restaurant is built.

4. Restaurant workers and hotel workers need a place to live, so they build houses.

5. Houses need a power plant, water, trash service... police stations, fire stations, healthcare.

6. Nature is now gone.

7. The guy in living next to the formerly popular outdoor spot feels like having fun in the outdoors. The cycle is repeated until all outdoor spots are gone.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#43

Post by throwaway0a5e »

IMO problem the author had is she had too much money too early in her career and therefore didn't get thrown in the deep end with regard to using it efficiently.

I'm going to assume she grew up in a fairly successful middle class household based on education and some other details in the articles so it's a pretty safe bet money wasn't something she grew up learning how to use efficiently to "level up" one's life.

She's already starting from a deficit because she's a women of how society emphasizes wealth as an indicator for societal success for men more than women so she's not gonna spend her formative years having people tell her to chase the dollar.

Basically her parents didn't teach her and society didn't make her teach herself so it took her 20yr to figure it out.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#44

Post by kenward »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #23
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #4

I am bad with money. I’m also not abnormal. A 2017 survey by CareerBuilder found that 78 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, while a 2019 survey by Bankrate found that 60 percent of us couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency. For most in this predicament, it has nothing to do with being bad with money. It has everything to do with their income being 80% of their essential bills.

I agree that that's a major point. Still, I'm consistently utterly surprised by friends/family/colleagues with similar income but a very different predicament. I was raised on welfare myself and started out my early twenties with minimum wage jobs including factory work. Yet I always had savings, the idea that I couldn't cover a $1000 emergency would be insane to me, especially structurally. Did that mean I had to li…

My experience is pretty similar to yours but I think what you need to try to understand is that everyone has a different level of what is an acceptable "minimal" lifestyle. For a lot of people, these are habits/behaviors that they grew up with as well. It's complicated.

Lack of financial literacy is another problem that, I think, exacerbates the above.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#45

Post by Cola »

monoideism wrote: post #40
kuhzaam wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people adopt

I had my first kid at age 34, and part of my deeply regrets not going sooner (wife is much younger). I had some serious health issues by 45, which impeded by ability to raise my kids the way I wanted. Adopting in 40s? Will the parent even still be alive when the kid graduates college? With good luck, genes, and good diet/exercise, yes. Otherwise, likely not.

Life expectancy for a 40 year old in the US is ~80. It is very likely that with an average lifestyle the parents will be around after the child has graduated college.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#46

Post by wwweston »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #4

I am bad with money. I’m also not abnormal. A 2017 survey by CareerBuilder found that 78 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, while a 2019 survey by Bankrate found that 60 percent of us couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency. For most in this predicament, it has nothing to do with being bad with money. It has everything to do with their income being 80% of their essential bills.

This insight is hard to beat for explaining power.

I've found it pretty easy to save money almost on accident with a six figure income, even without keeping too close an eye on expenditures. Helps if you skip buying the luxury auto, don't pick the most expensive living quarters you can, keep eating out under $10-15/day, and if you can be lucky+conscientious enough not to have catastrophic healthcare expenses, but you don't even have to do all of that and you can save 20% and pay your taxes.

It's certainly possible closer to the median, but the belt has to be tighter.

Bottom third? Pinching pennies. Pick marginal housing. $25/week groceries. Turn down social invitations when your gas/transport budget's up. And saving for that $1000 emergency will still be slow.

There's something in a part of some people's psychology that wants to imagine that if you're just disciplined enough you can make it all happen no matter what the constraints are. Discipline can make a difference, but not the same scale of difference that greater resource inflows do.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#47

Post by rhexs »

neither_color wrote: post #35

After years of living for the moment and YOLOing, author felt bad because she was in her 30s and didnt have wealth, then her parents gave her a large lump sum of money and she was able to apply things she learned from financial management books. The end.

I can’t wait until I can move into a “retired millionaire’s” house at below market rent when I run into tough times. What an inspiring article.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#48

Post by mulmboy »

munk-a wrote: post #24
allenu wrote: post #9

I'm not a particularly outdoorsy person, but being a frugal person, I have noticed that a lot of outdoors activities really do "require" an investment. Equipment can be expensive, as can ski passes or trips. Once you hang out in those circles (as the article states), you don't want to have cheap gear. It's as with anything, I suppose, but with gear, there's always more and better things, which never interested me. I…

For seven thousand dollars you can get a computer that will make a saint weep (you can get something about 99% as good for like two grand if you build it yourself or four if you bought it prebuilt). Computers are insanely cheap joy boxes when compared to nearly every other form of entertainment - for that cost you're getting a piece of hardware that will be nearly top-of-the-line for three years or so now-a-days, and…

Computers are not joy boxes for a lot of people, or at least not joy boxes with any depth.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#49

Post by Swizec »

lhorie wrote: post #32
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I can tell you that there were $60 rounds of drinks purchased without a second thought and $25 cab rides to the bars. There were $1,500 ski-season cabin shares in Lake Tahoe and a $150-a-month membership at Equinox. There were multiple Starbucks lattes per day and $18 organic steak salads eaten at my desk. I don't think this is someone who can't cover essential bills with their salary. This is the trap kids fal…

It's interesting hearing others' experiences on this. Among my circles, my friends would sometimes comment on how weird it was to come to terms with the fact they were no longer dirt poor college students and how now they had disposable income and how guilty they'd feel spending money due to the frugal student mentality. To this day, I still don't feel the urge to buy things on impulse, or because peers have them or…

When it happened to me I went from a lifetime of being poor (not just college student poor, family poor before college even) to making 3x the national median salary in the span of 2 years.

Yeah it was a little intoxicating and I def overdid it. No regrets tho.

Moving to America (sfba) quickly fixed that. Now I’m back to being pretty frugal (but not too much) and investing in asset building. Turns out that’s more rewarding.

But your early to mid 20’s are a great time to go a little crazy if you can. It will never again feel the same. You have little responsibility and lots of time to catch up later.

Re: Young, Dumb, and Broke: Why Outdoorsy Types Suck at Money

#50

Post by mancerayder »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #4

I am bad with money. I’m also not abnormal. A 2017 survey by CareerBuilder found that 78 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, while a 2019 survey by Bankrate found that 60 percent of us couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency. For most in this predicament, it has nothing to do with being bad with money. It has everything to do with their income being 80% of their essential bills.

> I am bad with money. I’m also not abnormal.

Reading stuff like this makes me feel old. The - new generation? - who seem to always publicly remind themselves that they're good enough after all and just like everyone else and normal and it's hard for us ... and now don't get me wrong: these things can be true. But I grew up not standing on a soapbox and exclaiming these things, and not thinking or writing in that way.

It's kind of a race to the bottom if everything is treated like you're an object and not a subject, as in, blowing around in the wind by objective forces that are external. There really is a mix of external and subjective forces at play, but we're reminded of the external with this style.

I would have said, "I fucked up. I used to be bad with money. Now I do this: __ __ __. "Bad with money" implies an immovable predicament and "I'm not alone" implies systemic forces at play. Again, the focus on the absolute and removal of the subject.

Yes, I'm extrapolating quite a bit from so little, it's just that this style of writing seems ubiquitous now.

Post reply on HN