The value of having FU money (which doesn't have to be 7 figures).
I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
21–30 of 135 posts
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#22The server is starting to be a little too slow for me. Coralized link: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com.nyud.net/2012/06/21/i-just-ga...
Neither the original link, nor the above are working for me now... so much for keeping his freedom of speech.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#23Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make $4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of it spent so much time talking about how much money this is. I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I didn't really know when I was younger, this is not,…
It's highly dependent on local costs of living. And if it doesn't require full-time maintenance, allowing one to work (or not) on whatever one chooses while still collecting a comfortable income, that is absolutely FU money.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#24Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make $4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of it spent so much time talking about how much money this is. I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I didn't really know when I was younger, this is not,…
I think you are misunderstanding the point. It's not that he was saying 4k a month is FU money (although it could be) its that since he ostensibly already has FU money he can turn down 4k a month so he doesn't have to compromise his principals.
That said if you have zero debt, low expenses and a ton of money in an account that yields 4k a month in interest, 4k a month could be considered FU money.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#25It's certainly an interesting attitude.
But what if he had decided to change the banner, and give the money away to a charity instead?
Money is a tool you can use for good. If you are blessed with the kind of extra money he was suddenly given, you can use it to do good with.
Obviously it's all his choice, but making a big show of "freedom of speech" feels a little disingenuous. No government is trying to censor him; nobody is taking away his freedom; this is just a business negotiation. At no point was his freedom of speech ever threatened in the slightest.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#26Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make $4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of it spent so much time talking about how much money this is. I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I didn't really know when I was younger, this is not,…
$48,000/yr is easily enough to count, when it comes on top of whatever income you need to live on. I've seen people end up having to get a job, or take out a loan, or acquire some other millstone round their neck, for want of much less.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#27Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make $4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of it spent so much time talking about how much money this is. I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I didn't really know when I was younger, this is not,…
[deleted]
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#28Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make $4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of it spent so much time talking about how much money this is. I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I didn't really know when I was younger, this is not,…
$4k/mo post-tax ~ $6k/mo pre-tax == $72k/yr. There are a lot of programming jobs in the US that don't pay that.
And those jobs are going to want you to work, so a better comparison is to a pile of money that throws off $4k/mo post-tax. If that pile of money is invested in blue chip dividend-paying stocks with an expected return of 5%, you'll need around $1m to generate $4k/mo in passive income. (Obviously tweak your expected return and the corresponding principal required to fit your assumptions of market performance.)
$1m may not be FU money to you, but others will disagree.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#29Not being familiar with this guy's work, what's so honest about getting in bed with credit card companies and feeding them more signups? Selling lead generation for credit cards seems a little dishonest to begin with.
I want to agree with you. Could you be specific about what exactly is dishonest here and why?
I don't think it's inherently dishonest, but I do think that you have to have enough self-restraint to avoid pushing things that are questionable, but give good lead-gen kickbacks.
It's not 100% obvious where that line lies, admittedly. I run a small side-project site (started as just something for friends/family) that lists checking and savings accounts that are free of "gotchas": free checking w/ no minimum balances, online savings accounts without weird caveats, etc. (http://www.pfstuff.com/checking/ and http://www.pfstuff.com/savings/, fwiw).
But, I also show some AdSense ads alongside some of the pages... which have the bad habit of advertising precisely the accounts that don't fit my criteria, and which I'm trying to steer people away from. Not always, but Google's algorithms rotate in such "bad choice" accounts more often than I'd like. I can ban some of the more egregious "10% guaranteed interest!" type stuff via AdSense's settings, but not everything. Perhaps I should just pull the ads entirely? That'd be the idealist thing to do, but of course would remove the (modest) monetization potential.
Re: I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying credit cards are bad financial decisions is like saying getting a drivers license is a bad safety decision. Beyond the fact that you can use credit cards to your financial benefit, simply getting the card has no consequences whatsoever. (Unless you buy into the 'you must keep a balance to maintain good credit' myth.)
Your simile doesn't work. One needs a driver's license to drive. One does not need a credit card to make purchases. And getting card actually can be a bad financial decision as too many cards can negatively affect a credit score.
One does not need a drivers license to drive. One merely needs a vehicle.
The fact that not having a credit card damages your credit score should be enough to make even semi-intelligent people realize that credit score is not a fair and equitable measure of one's ability to pay on time.