Curious what you mean by shady deals on the digital point forums.
What kind of deals are these?
I don't want to work very hard
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Re: I don't want to work very hard
#12Re: I don't want to work very hard
#13What are your hobbies?
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#14"The thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life more refined, with a bleak capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me. - Einstein
I think most people on HN could relate to this quote. Like it or not, as professional developers, we rarely create, but simply refine. It was fun at the start of my career, but now my professional life seems rather unimaginative.
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#15Working on your own without any bosses or superfluous meetings is a big motivator. Especially when rent & grocieries are on the line.
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#16> Does anyone else feel like this? yes. if only there were an easy answer. i think the best one is to create a good product for which there is a need, not necessarily an innovative one, and set it up to autopilot mode similar to what was discussed in the 4HWW. except more tech-oriented. as an example, you don't need many customers to pay you for shared hosting to have a decent level of income. if you don't have much…
Yeah, my current expenses are a little under 20k/y. It's how I affored the idleness between jobs, and I've stretched it as long as I can.
To make 20k/year safely for the next 60 years you need around 1/2 a million invested well which you skim off 4% and use the rest to keep up with inflation. (70% stocks 25% bonds, 5% cash or cash equivalents.)
Saving 1/2 a million is hard but if your willing to live off of 20k/year then ~7+ years at 120k and you can reach that (tax is your major problem). Max out your 401k etc and dump the rest directly into savings. Now clearly you don't really want to work 7 years strait at a high stress job so aim for 1.5 to 2 years, take 4 months off collecting unemployment if you can and ~10 years out you can do it.
One way to get a major tax break is buying a home. (This is risky.) The market is down, but will still probably fall for a while. Try and get a home with a low interest rate tax deductible loan and you can funnel a lot of money into savings fairly quickly. If you can find a home / location where you can rent out your extra space to cover most of your overhead your golden. But watch out for all the extra costs that go along with home ownership.
PS: Long term heath care will become a problem. Also try and get as many quarters working to maximize the amount of SS you can get.
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#17Make your hobbies your work. There is really no other way. I only ever worked for 2 weeks in my life, the rest of the time I've just been playing around with programming. It's not work, it's what I would be doing anyways!
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#18You could rob a bank.
Other than that, I'm not sure I know of a surefire way to make money without doing anything, except for the "work like hell for a few years" thing.
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#19Several quotes came to mind when reading this:
"If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." - Anna Quindlen, Harvard Commencement speech
"No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.'" - The late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, speaking at another Harvard Commencement
There's another quote that also springs to mind, but I can't remember who said it. It is "time is the ultimate luxury." I think of this more often as the years go by and more responsibilities land on my plate, and my personal and family time suffer. I like what I do, but there are real sacrifices that come with leading a career-driven life.
Re: I don't want to work very hard
#20As much as I sympathize with your sentiment, I'd just like to point out that the real benefit of a larger-than-necessary paycheque is being able to actually save money for when you are too old or technically outdated to continue working.
It's certainly enjoyable to switch on and off from work and live off savings, but then you eventually get to the point where you can't find a job to switch back on to, and your savings are all gone...