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

My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

software.rajivprab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 583 posts

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#101

Post by mmarq »

merrvk wrote: post #57
dogma1138 wrote: post #40

So rough calculation here.. $100K first job which is around £74K in the UK… you aren’t likely to get anywhere near that as a grad masters or not here but after taxes and student loan payments (which are deducted from your income in the UK) and all other deductions you’ll end up with £42,908.26 per year, that’s $56K. And this is where this breaks down for people in tech outside of the US at least. In the UK the path w…

Tax in the UK is absurd (for what most actually get out of it)

In the UK, the stronger drag on wealth accumulation for the poor is the absurd taxation on the middle incomes (50K+), especially given the very low level of service of public schools, healthcare system, childcare, etc…

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#102

Post by sneak »

tdrdt wrote: post #41

The author was lucky to earn a huge amount of money. 99% of the people can't do anything with this advice because they don't have any savings to begin with. I wonder if the author even understands how lucky he is.

> The author was lucky to earn a huge amount of money.

He's not earning "huge" amounts of money for jobs in that field. (Additionally, it's a field that most intelligent people can enter with 1-3 years of study.)

https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1447997574556880902

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#104

Post by ZephyrBlu »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #60
Retric wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living off 4% works in retirement because you can in part live off principle. In early retirement it’s not going to work out nearly as well because you get the reverse of dollar cost averaging, removing money in down markets is more expensive than in good ones. You need either dramatically reduce spending when your portfolio is down or to live well below the expected returns.

I’m not sure I understand. Is it really true that you can’t extract 4% cash money per year off of a million dollars, even in a down market, without shrinking the principal? $100k should be enough to live comfortably off of in the Midwest.

I'm confused by your question. If you take 4% of the principal and the market does not return at least 4%, your principle has shrunk. This does not account for inflation either.

The Trinity study that the 4% rule comes from is based on having some assets left after 30 years, not the original principle being intact.

Trinity study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#105

Post by CodeGlitch »

bjornsing wrote: post #51

> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I’ve been very privileged, especially in the educational opportunities I’ve had. This might sound reasonable from a US-centric perspective, but to me it reads like utter nonsense. The main privilege here is access to the US labor market and tax policy. There are no stories like this one where I live (in Sweden). Absolutely none.

The modern "progressive" thought-process is to feel guilty about having a good education. I went to private school in the UK and the only thing I feel is infinite gratitude to my parents for forking-out the money to send me there (they were not rich, they were both teachers).

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#106

Post by lbacaj »

sneak wrote: post #95
pyrale wrote: post #58

Turns out, earning half a million dollars every year makes it easy to be a millionaire after a few years.

Your flip comment seems to belie the fact that he's only earned at least a half a million dollars for one year. Most of his years he earned substantially less than that. The majority of his NW comes from investment and savings, not income. The point of the article is that cutting expenses, saving, investing wisely, and aggressively pursuing pay raises can yield a few million well before retirement age. These sort of…

Not to mention, he was also living in expensive areas. It’s amazing he saved and invested that much.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#107

Post by ix101 »

bachmeier wrote: post #68

Sees initial salary in 2009 (peak recession) was $100,000 Sees last salary was $625,000 Chuckles and closes the article about achieving financial independence

The article gives some general advice on how to manage your personal wealth. Probably the exact figures could have been expressed as percentage increases to give the article more appeal. However, for budding engineers in the early stage of their career it gives some idea of what is potentially achievable (in US).

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#108

Post by itsthejb »

I know I shouldn’t, but reading about people who successfully surfed the tech bubble makes me groan. Because, even though I’ve also done well in Europe, I almost moved to the U.S. twice (couldn’t get offers), and passed up interviewing at Shopify before they exploded

So it’s painful thinking that you were very much in the right place at the right time, but were just a step or two away from the stratosphere… however, it’s all relative I guess, those with 2 mil envy those with 5 mil

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#109

Post by supernova87a »

Here's 2 questions for the "FIRE" crowd.

1) To stop working when you hit a certain number seems to me to be falling into the faulty logic illustrated in Freakonomics -- when a taxi driver works every day towards a certain $ figure, he suffers on crappy days (keeps on driving to little benefit) when fares are just not coming, and cuts off his earnings on great days where business is pouring in like crazy. Instead, you should call it day early when the business sucks, and ride it when times are good.

If you're good at what you do, aren't physically being exhausted by your work, and pulling in good money, why wouldn't you keep on working and make the most of your time + skills? Did you go through all your education and training just to hit a certain number and call it quits?

2) In some ways I don't get the "financially independent" life. Sure, you're no longer absolutely needing to have a job. But what do you do with the rest of your life? You're just retired at 50? With what to challenge / strive for?

Maybe I'm just fortunate in that I don't mind working / find some fulfillment from it, and don't have a burning desire to sit around with no activities for 5 days a week. Maybe if I were smarter about it, I could be some kind of board member or something? Is that what people do? What takes the place of work?

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#110

Post by ZephyrBlu »

sneak wrote: post #95
pyrale wrote: post #58

Turns out, earning half a million dollars every year makes it easy to be a millionaire after a few years.

Your flip comment seems to belie the fact that he's only earned at least a half a million dollars for one year. Most of his years he earned substantially less than that. The majority of his NW comes from investment and savings, not income. The point of the article is that cutting expenses, saving, investing wisely, and aggressively pursuing pay raises can yield a few million well before retirement age. These sort of…

> The point of the article is that cutting expenses, saving, investing wisely, and aggressively pursuing pay raises can yield a few million well before retirement age

Most people will have nowhere near the same results as the author by implementing these things.

The biggest factors here are:

1) Earn a lot of money

2) Don't spend it all

I don't think this post has much educational value at all because I think most people already understand those points, they just can't execute on them in a meaningful way.

Post reply on HN