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Join the Engineering Leisure Class

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Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#111

> Luckily, there’s a corner of the Internet dedicated to breaking the link between “comfort” and money. The problem with this is that it moves in the wrong direction. You spent all this time learning how to earn more money for your time. Then what do you do after you earn a bunch of money? Figure out how to trade your time for money again, just in different arenas? Why, so you can avoid having to spend more time doin…

"Also using single-blade razors."

For me, single blade razors offer a better shave. The fact that it's cheaper is just a bonus.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#112
post #90

I've been doing this for 8 years and love it. I'm married with 5 kids. We live in rural Wyoming (no income tax, bought a comfortable house for $86k). We've always lived well below our income so we have no debt and sufficient savings. I mostly choose to work on "products". That helps me focus on problems that people actually care about without any of the startup pressures. Although, I've also written several open sour…

No income tax is because you live in Wyoming, or because you don't work and therefore don't earn a salary?

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#113

> Luckily, there’s a corner of the Internet dedicated to breaking the link between “comfort” and money. The problem with this is that it moves in the wrong direction. You spent all this time learning how to earn more money for your time. Then what do you do after you earn a bunch of money? Figure out how to trade your time for money again, just in different arenas? Why, so you can avoid having to spend more time doin…

> Why, so you can avoid having to spend more time doing what you specialized in?

Yes. Part of enjoying life -- at least for most people -- is taking part in challenges and endeavors in a wide range of activities. If you can work for 4 hours a week and maintain a high income, this would fit the bill but probably not realistic for most people (do you have suggestions besides managing a portfolio of capital, or free-lancing?). MMM is not saying we should do everything ourselves, but to be smart about what we do save have more time for other activities. This is how humans have been biologically desired over millions of years -- to be adaptable and have a wide range of skills. Legs for running, hands for climbing and building and fixing physical objects, noses for smelling. Skills that are unnecessary for simply writing code but useful to use. The flywheel sounds a bit too mechanical and less in tune with our biological needs.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#114
post #89
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: piano - for most use cases, mid-to-high range digital pianos are more than good enough nowadays. They don't require tuning, they fit in even fairly small apartments, and they can be moved with relative ease. It's not uncommon to see professional musicians using digital; the action and sound are at least comparable to the real thing. Someone in my area sold me an old Roland RD-500 in excellent condition, two amps,…

Hey thanks for the advice. I actually have a digital. In fact I have something somewhat better than a digital: a hybrid (Yamaha N1). It has the action of a grand but I can still use it in an apartment. I also thought this would be good enough, but after taking lessons it's obvious that it's really not. Even though the action is supposed to be that of a grand piano, the reality is that when I actually try to play on a…

Check out the Kawai CA-65 or CA-95. They have extremely realistic action and I find them indistinguishable from a quality grand. The sound of course is not equal, however it is acceptable.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#115
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So relocate to bumfuck, england and do your work there. I don't think the idea is to ditch your job and still pay $3000 a month for an apartment.

What work? There are no jobs in Bumfuck, and not enough companies that hire remote workers for this to scale. As i understand it, the situation in the US is that there is Silicon Valley, where the salaries are high and the rents higher, and then half a dozen other places where there are significant concentrations of software jobs, and more reasonable living costs. This is not really the case in the UK. There's London…

There are quite a few startups and companies in other areas like Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds. They are still big (and somewhat) expensive cities but you can lower your cost of living.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#116
While I'm sure this sounds great in theory, I can't help but interpret this as coming from someone who is lucky enough to have the privilege of not being broke.

If you're part of the lucky privileged elite that actually has money to burn, then yeah, go for it. For the rest of us, though, saying "you should stop working for a paycheck so you have more time to do other things" basically translates to "you should stop eating, drinking water, and breathing oxygen so you have more time to do other things", which is plain nonsensical unless one happens to be a robot (which, while I'd love to be a robot, isn't really in the cards right now).

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#117
post #22

"An engineer earning an amazingly-not-uncommon salary of $100k/year ends up living in an expensive place like San Francisco, starts spending money on some admittedly lovely luxuries, and quickly becomes convinced that her spending is just about right for a comfortable life." Certainly, one way to manage all this is to not live in a place like San Francisco. But I think it is important to make sure people know that lo…

> I'm not trying to be hard on the author of this piece, but I do think it's important for people to know that engineers in SF even in dual income families struggle with housing and child care payments, not with luxury cars, expensive vacation, lovely luxuries. Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to…

"Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to $100K/year with much lower costs of living (Austin, Dallas, Durham come to mind, there are many more)."

And have their potential job prospects cut in half or worse.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#118
post #90

I've been doing this for 8 years and love it. I'm married with 5 kids. We live in rural Wyoming (no income tax, bought a comfortable house for $86k). We've always lived well below our income so we have no debt and sufficient savings. I mostly choose to work on "products". That helps me focus on problems that people actually care about without any of the startup pressures. Although, I've also written several open sour…

No income tax is because you live in Wyoming, or because you don't work and therefore don't earn a salary?

no state income tax in Wyoming (also Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Texas; Tennessee only has taxes on investment income)

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#119
post #90

I've been doing this for 8 years and love it. I'm married with 5 kids. We live in rural Wyoming (no income tax, bought a comfortable house for $86k). We've always lived well below our income so we have no debt and sufficient savings. I mostly choose to work on "products". That helps me focus on problems that people actually care about without any of the startup pressures. Although, I've also written several open sour…

Similarly, I went part-time a few years ago (4 days) and I would say it's been one of the better decisions I've made.

Given the typically high salaries in the dev world, working part-time is an easy path to maintaining a work/life balance which provides time to pursue personal projects.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#120
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not trying to be hard on the author of this piece, but I do think it's important for people to know that engineers in SF even in dual income families struggle with housing and child care payments, not with luxury cars, expensive vacation, lovely luxuries. Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to…

"Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to $100K/year with much lower costs of living (Austin, Dallas, Durham come to mind, there are many more)." And have their potential job prospects cut in half or worse.

What good is a job when you need $100-150K/year to lead a middle class life in SF?
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