11–20 of 349 posts
When I was a contractor fifteen years ago, I billed at $1,000 a day ($125/hr) in the US, not remote. Seems like wage stagnation has hit the software market as well.
Really enjoyed the story. I love seeing the personal histories of people in my profession.
>Preamble: I'm extremely lucky. ... So what you're going to read is 99% luck and 1% planets alignment. I mean, that's pretty much it and he states it up front. If that's the crux, then why write about this other than to brag?
> Take 2 months for holidays in-between contracts
> Do this for 7 years while investing most of your salary in a diversified portfolio.
Working $1000/day contracts for 5 days per week, 10 months per year is equivalent to $217K of contractor income per year. But contractor income is not comparable to normal career income because you have to handle additional taxes and health insurance, so this is more like a $150K (plus or minus) full time job once you subtract self-employment taxes and pay for health insurance.
But that’s also assuming that the author stated out making $1000/day, always made $1000/day, and always had availability of these easy, low-effort, $1000/day contracts whenever they wanted. Most people don’t start out contracting with an unlimited supply of contracts that pay exactly what they want.
Working a $150K job for 7 years isn’t really a recipe for getting “wealthy”. Even if you could reduce your expenses to below $25K per year (eg $1K/month rent, $1K/month for everything else) you might be able to save $100K of that annually after taxes. But that’s best case and you really have to compromise a lot to get there unless you really enjoy living in the middle of nowhere, never traveling, and none of your hobbies or interests cost any money.
So there’s a lot missing from this blog post. I suspect maybe the author got lucky with some outlier investments, but that’s not something that can be conveyed in a “how to” blog post.
FIRE type wealth trajectories are possible, but this isn’t what it looks like. Working normally-paid jobs for 7 years and just living your normal life doesn’t get you there (unless you luck into some 1000X investment somewhere or get a huge inheritance boost, but those are rarely mentioned).
> Work and self-actualisation can be rewarding and meaningful, but looking at the sea from an hammock and drinking too much beer with friends three times a week is also a completely respectable way of waiting for the gravitational swallowing of the planet. Part of wants to accept this from the author and the other part of me is wary. I didn't have a child because I wanted to be happy, I did it because I wanted a more…
But I still feel like pointing something out: Know that phenomenon where users that paid for software are typically more satisfied with it and give better ratings than users who didn't?
Whish I knew what the proper name for it is, but having kids is kind of the ultimate version of that :D
(Update: Thanks so much for helping me figure out what to call it!)
> Don't go too hard on crypto > 11.2% of NW is tied up in crypto
What’s the purpose of an article like this if the author starts with a list of decisions which lead to his success, but then immediately follows with “my journey was 99% luck and 1% planets alignment”? The article is clearly supposed to be a “how-to” of sorts, but then goes and muddies it’s messaging with that second part. The list of things to do isn’t really useful then, is it?
This seem like a pretty hard to follow "how-to"
>Preamble: I'm extremely lucky. ... So what you're going to read is 99% luck and 1% planets alignment. I mean, that's pretty much it and he states it up front. If that's the crux, then why write about this other than to brag?
If you grew up in a developed country, you're extremely lucky too.
> Don't go too hard on crypto > 11.2% of NW is tied up in crypto
I don't think we would question 10% of net worth in real estate.
Meanwhile, I got wealthy by living in big cities, showing up in person, and being pretty good at many things. There are multiple paths.