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

Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 341 posts

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#311

Post by hackerfromthefu »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #226
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #87

I've always found that "living at my means" has paid dividends. To many folks, 'round these parts, they'd consider it "living below my means," but that's mostly because they "live beyond their means." I avoid personal debt like the plague. If that means living in a small house, and driving an old car, then so be it. I've also found that learning to deliver software, as opposed to just "writing" software, has made me…

I don’t understand how delivering software is related to “how can I prepare for hard economic times?” Let me tell you, as one of the highest performing team members in every organization I’ve been at: if a manager doesn’t care about you, no amount of performance will help you. It didn’t help me. And whether a manager cares about you is mostly luck of the draw. Sure, there’s politics at play. But the most common situa…

Generally fair advice, but the premise isn't always true.

I've had the funny situation for the last few years of my manager, being the CEO, doesn't like me personally. Most of my managers have, and the issue kind of come down to a culture clash where he's a salesperson and I'm an engineer, and I wouldn't put up with a habit of his of not paying his invoices on time which he's thankfully grown out of.

However he's seen that I deliver at the highest level, and he so he pragmatically keeps sending me projects so he can take his clip (it's a consultancy). This has continued for well over two years and even reached a steady state where I'm pretty sure it could be ongoing if I wanted, however the cost is he's pretty mercenary about it all and has consistently given me rescue projects others have left half finished.

So I basically agree with what you're saying, I think it's true generally. However reality is very complex with lots of individual situations that are out of ordinary.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#312

Post by hackerfromthefu »

pibechorro wrote: post #212
astrange wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I avoid personal debt like the plague. If that means living in a small house, and driving an old car, then so be it. Going into debt that you can pay off and will make you a profit is good - because making a profit is literally the thing that gets you through bad times. (That's why having savings be 100% cash is riskier than investing - you are 100% guaranteed to not have it go up.) And recent years' zero-to-negati…

Debt is leverage. When times are good you are great, when they are not and the repo man cometh, they are awful. The banks always win via bailout or not. Staying debt free is the only safe place, you have flexibility.

Think of it like crossing an ocean. When the winds are good let out the sails to be propelled along, when the storms come take it the sales and ride out the weather. If you want to do it all under your own steam without a bit of help, well it's a long paddle across an ocean so you will be confined to travelling a short distance in your life.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#313

Post by [deleted] »

wnolens wrote: post #309
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought long and hard about this issue. Why DIYing makes sense for millionaires: 1. Depth vs breadth of skills: You could double down and become the most efficient software engineer, giving you great depth of skills and you could just pay people to do things for you. This leads to a boring life and a flat personality in my opinion. I know too many people who just know how to do one thing well. They are very bori…

Apparently your long and hard thinking skipped the economics part.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#314

Post by fortylove »

darkwater wrote: post #119
fortylove wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it might be useful in Ukraine right now.

I don't think it's useful if in the threat model there is also the risk to get a misplaced missile on your house. Yeah you can defend against some poor guy/group of guys looking for food/things, but that's about it.

To be fair though, a missile on your house isn't exactly the only threat in the model right now in Ukraine.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#315

Post by hackerfromthefu »

tharne wrote: post #222
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #87

I've always found that "living at my means" has paid dividends. To many folks, 'round these parts, they'd consider it "living below my means," but that's mostly because they "live beyond their means." I avoid personal debt like the plague. If that means living in a small house, and driving an old car, then so be it. I've also found that learning to deliver software, as opposed to just "writing" software, has made me…

This is excellent advice. The number one thing you can to do to improve your financial resiliency is to avoid debt.

Over the last 50 years this has been terrible advice on balance.

With more nuance it makes sense - avoid bad debt for lifestyle that doesn't produce future economic value, and avoid an excess of investment debt but carry enough investment debt in well considered assets that you can be part of our economic systems growth which is built into our society by design and enforced by our government systems.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#316

Post by hackerfromthefu »

vbezhenar wrote: post #58

Buy house with few dozens of acres of land. Buy tools to cultivate the land. Buy few sacks of potatoes, learn how to grow them. Buy few sacks of salt, ensure it's stored safely. Learn how to weld with gas, buy enough gas to be stocked. Buy medicines. Buy guns. Buy bullets and vodkas. There are many thing to do to survive in harsh times. But first thing you need to ensure: your own home where you can live; defenses ag…

This is very costly advice financially, because getting good at these things takes significant time and mental energy. The opportunity cost that could be redirected into getting a high paying career so you have discretionary funds and learning safe investing should be weighed up against this.

However costly things can be worth it, it depends on your situation and preferences. But don't underestimate the time involved in learning broad ranged skills to look after a house, land, food production, repairs, survival skills, prepping etc which op is talking about.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#317

Post by hackerfromthefu »

ploika wrote: post #83
wsc981 wrote: post #48

You should probably buy some farmland, have a farm somewhere. Could combine it with working remotely as well. That way, you will be more easily able to provide your family with food. Especially if both you and wife can do the farm work. And perhaps, with the farm at some point you might be able to live without needing to work much. Some inspiration can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T15gXm6ha_I

I'm going to push back very hard on the notion that it's easier to feed your family by picking up farming than by going to the supermarket.

Yup, if 'both you and your wife are doing farmwork' then who's got the time and energy to pursue a lucrative career? At least you could read about it on HN!

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#318

Post by ploika »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #317
ploika wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to push back very hard on the notion that it's easier to feed your family by picking up farming than by going to the supermarket.

Yup, if 'both you and your wife are doing farmwork' then who's got the time and energy to pursue a lucrative career? At least you could read about it on HN!

Especially with a young family to raise too.

A big polytunnel in the garden might make sense as a time-consuming hobby with practical benefits (though I still think it would be more expensive than just getting groceries), but not a farm.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#319

Post by dwg »

marcusverus wrote: post #196
dwg wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for being blunt, but you have it backwards. A the adage goes: buy low sell high. In what people equate with "good economic times," prices are high, but in hard economic times everything is on sale! That said, firstly and foremost we should all make sure to have enough savings to ride out hard economic times—including personal ones. That is, enough to pay our monthly expenses for a year or so, in case we b…

> A the adage goes: buy low sell high. Don't forget the other adage-- Don't time the market . > That said, firstly and foremost we should all make sure to have enough savings to ride out hard economic times—including personal ones. That is, enough to pay our monthly expenses for a year Having a year of expenses is good practice in general. I'm not sure that qualifies one as ready for actual hard times at a societal l…

Thanks for the clarification marcusverus.

> Don't forget the other adage--Don't time the market.

I did mean to to imply trying to time the market. The commenter wrote "Your advice might be okay for good times (investing, buying land, houses)." To me this says that it's OK to invest in good times but not bad. This in fact boils down t a form of attempted market timing—and the worst kind at that! Of course you should buy when times are good, but should also not stop buying when times are bad. If anything, bad times should be viewed as an opportunity. Hopefully you've prepared well to be in a position to take advantage!

> Having a year of expenses is good practice in general. I'm not sure that qualifies one as ready for actual hard times at a societal level--not just a stint of unemployment, but global depression, accelerating price inflation, or even general European war and the rationing that could follow.

I also did not intend to imply that having a years worth of expenses qualifies as preparation for "actual hard times." I was responding to the above comment, not the OP. That said, a year of expenses could be stretched for an awfully long time if needed.

> There are ways to save that protect you (somewhat) from inflation. Like short term bonds (ex: from treasurydirect.gov).

Naturally. This is an investment, which you should not avoid. We are saying the same thing. The only difference is that the commenter does not recognize debt as being good in some cases, but I would argue that not all debt is dangerous. If that were the case our economy would cease to function!

> Unless there is some full-proof investment scheme that you're aware of, this would essentially be gambling. If you take on debt and your profit-generating scheme fails (which is certainly possible in the "hard times" scenario that OP has envisioned), then you're worse off--you've got debt to service, on top of everything else.

No fool-proof scheme, and not gambling. If you have made solid investments, including those based on debt, and have given yourself enough runway to ride out hard-times (and of course this includes your debt repayments), then you should have no reason to panic or feel burdened.

Re: Ask HN: How can I prepare for hard economic times?

#320

Post by dwg »

jwalton wrote: post #191
dwg wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for being blunt, but you have it backwards. A the adage goes: buy low sell high. In what people equate with "good economic times," prices are high, but in hard economic times everything is on sale! That said, firstly and foremost we should all make sure to have enough savings to ride out hard economic times—including personal ones. That is, enough to pay our monthly expenses for a year or so, in case we b…

> but in hard economic times everything is on sale! In sufficiently hard economic times, everything is on sale because no one has any idea what will still be around tomorrow and what is going to drop to zero.

Putting war and personal risk of injury or forced relocation aside, which go beyond hard economic times, anyone with a sufficiently long-term view will not fall trap to "not having any idea about what will still be around tomorrow and what is going to drop to zero."
Post reply on HN