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How I got wealthy without working too hard

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Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#101

Post by throwaway143256 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #55
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > 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…

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job How common is this as contractor pay outside the US? I'd find it hard to hit the lower end of that (i.e. 440 eur per day) in fully-remote jobs, despite the pandemic making remote jobs more common. For context, I'm a Python dev, in finance. I used to do Java, which I note still seems to offer higher salaries, but I wouldn't be tempted to return. Maybe the AWS route could work…

Very common, worked Netherlands, Belgium and Germany for ~10 years, doing 200k eur annually on average, contracting, Python, Java, senior dev, devops, etc. My immediate contracting colleagues, about 20 guys and gals are doing comparatively (I.e., ~90 to 120 eur rates, ~2000 hours a year).

Edit: apparently very common for my bubble at least, no idea if this is “normal” In Netherlands, Belgium and Germany..

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#102

Post by jawns »

jagger27 wrote: post #9

> Preamble: I'm extremely lucky. Good for the author, but this really says it all. Specialization as a software developer seems like good advice though.

Specialization can accelerate your career during the first decade (or maybe first two decades) of working.

But I've found that people who are generalists end up doing better further into their careers, particularly if their job includes a leadership/management component.

I'm not saying that if you're in the top 0.1% on one very specific technology, you won't be in demand throughout your career.

But should you choose a leadership/management path later in your career, you're often going to need to be able to do a bunch of things reasonably well, and that's a generalist's sweet spot.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#103

Post by [deleted] »

wonderwonder wrote: post #73
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > 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…

100k invested a year at 8% return is $963k, essentially a millionaire and very wealthy in most of the world. Nothing fancy required just get standard stock market returns. Even going slightly less aggressively, if you are self employed you can put ~52k a year into a an i401k pre-tax and then 6k into an IRA. So 58k a year makes you a millionaire after 11 years. Run it for 20 years and you have 2.8 million and can reti…

[deleted]

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#104

Post by FpUser »

marktangotango wrote: post #78
stagger87 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why do you think that? All the numbers work out. Even in your hypothetical scenario, investing 100k for 7 years, especially in the last 7 years, would easily bring you 1M total investments. > FIRE type wealth trajectories are possibl…

> would easily bring you 1M total investments. I think this is the disconnect with GP, $1M isn't what anyone can really call "wealthy" nowadays. Yes, it's a lot of money, but does not allow one to live what most people consider to be a rich lifestyle.

You could get up to 10% on 1M investment annually (that is what my friend has). Sure he does not have private yacht but one can live quite comfy on 100K without lifting a finger and that is what he does.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#105

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

fhd2 wrote: post #15
jcroll wrote: post #2

> 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…

I can relate, I have three and I feel it does give my life more meaning. 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…

it's called cognitive dissonance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance (sortof anyway).

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#106

Post by PragmaticPulp »

softfalcon wrote: post #93
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > 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…

I mean, even the author agrees with you. They start their story with this: > Preamble: I'm extremely lucky. If we live in a Simulation and life is just a Video Game, mine was started on difficulty level “Very Easy”: I was born in a developed country in the 80s (Italy), with access to fresh water, very good carbohydrates and a decent education system. So what you're going to read is 99% luck and 1% planets alignment.…

That’s quite a cop-out for a blog post that contains a lot of specific, actionable steps.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#107

Post by hsn915 »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #29
jcroll wrote: post #2

> 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…

The biggest reality check in my life was working at an engineering firm with a bunch of near retirement baby boomers with no children. They all came across ass listless, unhappy, and living a life with no greater purpose. It was unquestionably one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. As you get older and friends drift and pass away family is one of the most important things in life. I know anti-natalism is hip rig…

All the old but happy people I know have children (and grand children). The more, the happier.

All the grumpy old people I know have no children, or just one.

On a day to day bases, it might feel like taking care of children is plenty stressful, but in the long run it's the ultimate form of joy/happiness.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#108

Post by lawkwok »

hsn915 wrote: post #88

As far as I can tell, the suggested way of working would be incredibly stressful for someone like me. First, I have to learn stuff I hate just because the market currently demands it. I can't really bring myself to do that. With everyone jumping on AWS and the latest JS frameworks, I stick to programming in Go and deploying static binaries to a single/cheap VPS. I basically only have one library in my 'npm' depdenden…

This is what I think whenever someone tells me to sell something on Amazon or create an NFT. “Technically” I could figure it out and have the time to do it, but I wouldn’t because of the soul sucking nature or the pursuit.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#109

Post by hobofan »

Chris2048 wrote: post #55
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job > 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…

> Take a $ 500-1000 / day, full-remote job How common is this as contractor pay outside the US? I'd find it hard to hit the lower end of that (i.e. 440 eur per day) in fully-remote jobs, despite the pandemic making remote jobs more common. For context, I'm a Python dev, in finance. I used to do Java, which I note still seems to offer higher salaries, but I wouldn't be tempted to return. Maybe the AWS route could work…

Fully-remote I couldn't say (I feel it'd be much harder for client acquisition to build the same level of trust), but pre-pandemic, and shortly after its start I was able to consistently make ~800EUR/day (100EUR/hr) on gigs where I was in the office 1 day/week in Berlin. ~75% of clients accepted that rate on the spot, so with a lot of inbound requests, you could probably even push for more.

That was mostly for full-stack (Node)JS jobs.

Re: How I got wealthy without working too hard

#110

Post by marktangotango »

jacobmischka wrote: post #84
marktangotango wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would easily bring you 1M total investments. I think this is the disconnect with GP, $1M isn't what anyone can really call "wealthy" nowadays. Yes, it's a lot of money, but does not allow one to live what most people consider to be a rich lifestyle.

I absolutely can and will call $1M wealthy. Anyone who thinks it isn't is absolutely living in a bubble.

I once shared this outlook, but when one considers their own ideas about the lifestyle "wealthy" entails, and run some numbers, specifically determine the annual spend for that lifestyle, one will quickly realize the truth. A million can be blown in a year, or SWR'd (safe withdrawal rate) at $40k a year indefinitely. Can you retire on $40k a year? Would you want that level of income and lifestyle?

Of course this depends on location and cost of living. I am referring to someone in the US.

Edit: Specifically, does anyone (in the US) consider a $40k year income to qualify as "Wealthy"? Since that's what's being discussed here.

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