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Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

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Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#141

Post by kls »

dedward wrote: post #125
d_r wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why someone would downvote you. Having a journey _is_ key, and this is why "FU money" would be useful. Given a lucky $5,000,000 lottery win, many people on HN would probably have a chance to leave the day job and finally take a shot at accomplishing their dream (perhaps building the next amazing geo-tagging-social-network, or opening a store, or whatever it might be.) Without a dream, people will just sp…

You just said something really interesting in there...... that perhaps it would be building the next geo-tagging-social network. That's the problem - assuming the readers are techies.... if I suddenly had my FU money - the last thing I'd want to do is start a technology company, unless it was something I was really super passionate about. I'd personally rather go back to having my computers as my hobby, and work on m…

That changes with time. Some people that make it have a tendency to take some time off and do those type things. A portion of people take time off to restore an old car, teach themselves art, music, woodworking, go back to school for something unrelated, build a house by hand and a multitude of other things, but eventual a good portion finally return to some form of work. Sometimes a new interest turns into a business venture or an interesting idea peeks their interest and they build a business around it, but if you are young chances are you will return to work at some point. To me this is the greatest advantage of FU money, it gives you the time to recharge your battery and really contribute something to a project instead of just slinging code to ensure that you family is fed. It allows you work to have a greater purpose, if not to society in general then at least to yourself.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#142

Post by kls »

wake_up_sticky wrote: post #131
bsnss-mn-cdr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree. I have had such roller coaster ride ( very little to mid six figures to negative to millions to almost nothing and then to a lot more than a few million ) by not being prepared, more than once, that I just started a blog about it. TheOfficialSoundtrack.com ( next post coming this week ). [EDIT: I will add that IMHO FU money is /not/ a few million USD.]

$3M would definitely be FU money to me. Not enough to live in opulence, but definitely enough to not have to work for a living.

Yes I would define FU as not having to rely on anyone else for financial security. I would say conserved and invested well FU money starts at 2M USD. It is different from the mega rich.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#143

Post by kls »

protomyth wrote: post #120
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

The more I think about this -- really think about it -- the more I become convinced that anonymity and a small amount of recurring income, along with a reasonably-frugal life, is probably the best outcome in life. EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying to be poor. I'm saying that the more your income becomes visible -- past just having a low-key life -- the more it gets in the way of things, both for you and your fami…

My brother pointed out to me that he thought life would be great if he "had enough money to control his schedule".

My life became measurably better when I gained the independence to set my own schedule. I have to say that financial independence (for me at least) brought a significant amount of happiness, that I am very fortunate to have.

I now work from my house, and have 3 small children. The ability to drop what I am doing to seize the moment when the kids are doing something eventful (walking for the first time, speaking there first word, playing video games with them, doing robotics with them) is an amazing freedom and blessing.

We frequently pick up and leave to go places on the spur of the moment, which also provides experiences that my kids would not otherwise have been able to do. The best part is I feel more creative than I have ever felt in my 17 years in the industry and I am far more productive and work longer hours without burnout.

I see a lot of people saying that achieving financial independence did not make them happier and I don't understand it. For me it gave me the ability to create an environment where I could have a more satisfying family life and a more creative work life. It has done wonders for my happiness.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#144

Post by altano »

davi wrote: post #138
pg wrote: post #65

I've been meaning to write about this one day. There are some things that change. For example, you learn to distinguish problems that can be solved with money from those that can't. You can buy your way out of a lot of schleps. Life doesn't get an order of magnitude more enjoyable, because you still can't buy your way out of the most serious types of problems, but a lot of annoyances are removed. The best part is wha…

There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. This resonates. I quit my dot-com job before the bubble burst and I had order 10^4 dollars in my bank account. I decided that rather than invest the…

10^4 dollars? 10^4 thousand dollars?

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#145

Post by wglb »

noahlt wrote: post #17

Was the term "FU money" coined by Neal Stephenson, or was it in use before he wrote Cryptonomicon?

In Soul of a New Machine, there is talk about the formation of Data General in 1969. The attorney advising the founders suggested that they set aside $1m each as part of any deal for the purpose of FU money. The usage may predate even that.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#147

Post by aaronsw »

hristov wrote: post #103
aaronsw wrote: post #6

In the short-term, my life was much worse. I spent a lot of really painful time struggling to come to grips with my situation. After that was over, things went pretty much back to normal. There's now a low-level fear all the time of losing all the money (something PG's written about recently) and I'm constantly worried I've invested it badly. I didn't make any dramatic life changes so people don't really treat me dif…

I am sorry to hear that. I read your blog, however, and it seems that you are doing something rather useful with your time. So it is probably not that bad. When you are truly miserable you cannot get anything done.

Yeah, I'm exaggerating. I think that the term happiness really refers to two different things. The first (call it happiness0) is how good you feel on a moment-to-moment basis. This is what I was referring to above (pg is always grinning and bouncing; I'm huddled in the corner furiously typing--again, I'm exaggerating). But happiness1 is how you feel looking back on what you've done. And when it comes to that, I feel like the happiest1 person alive. I certainly wouldn't give that up to get more happiness0.

I thought that money would allow me to increase my happiness1 by letting me choose what to work on. But it turns out all the things I've chosen to work on pay just fine, so in practice it hasn't really been a big deal. I think this ties in with something pg says above. Basically: if there's something you really want to do, just go do it -- don't wait for the money to roll in first.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#148

Post by patrickgzill »

altano wrote: post #144
davi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. This resonates. I quit my dot-com job before the bubble burst and I had order 10^4 dollars in my bank account. I decided that rather than invest the…

10^4 dollars? 10^4 thousand dollars?

I took that as meaning, "under $100,000" ...

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#149

Post by aaronsw »

jacksoncarter wrote: post #31
aaronsw wrote: post #6

In the short-term, my life was much worse. I spent a lot of really painful time struggling to come to grips with my situation. After that was over, things went pretty much back to normal. There's now a low-level fear all the time of losing all the money (something PG's written about recently) and I'm constantly worried I've invested it badly. I didn't make any dramatic life changes so people don't really treat me dif…

Did you tend to worry a lot before you had the money? You mention the misery is consistent. Is worry part of that. I think coming into money is pretty much like losing a limb or experiencing a tragedy. After a certain period of time, the person who has experienced the tragedy goes back to where they were, mentally, before the tragedy. Same with lots of money, eventually they return to their norm.

There's a lot of truth to this, but the worry about investing it wrong is definitely new. There wasn't anything I really worried about that way before the money. Maybe if I had a family to support, it'd be different, and I would have constantly worried about having to take care of them. pg talks about always being worried about being broke; I don't recall ever worrying about that. If anyone ever asked me, I guess I would have said that I could always just move back in with my parents.

Re: Ask PG & other successful folks: how did your life change after FU money?

#150

Post by Parabola »

noname123 wrote: post #116
mattmaroon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not dishonesty per se because it's not a conscious behavior. Most women don't know they give a rich guy bonus points, just as men consciously underrate the importance of their spouse's appearance. It's one of many areas where humanity's conscious thoughts and actions radically diverge. It's a subtle subconscious leaning. A similar example: doctors routinely prescribe things that get them paid more (for instance…

I agree with what you are saying to a certain degree, but following on your same line of thought, evolutionary psychology and what not - back in the cave-human age, cave-women look for security in a cave-man; this doesn't necessarily have to be money, but a sense of the cave-man's gravitas to inspire confidence and take care of shit when shit hits the fan. Counter-example to your thesis that women only want money: Mu…

Young women care about manliness of the sort you describe, because they don't meet many rich guys and aren't trying to get married anyway. Women in their late twenties care about money because they interact with people with real jobs all the time and want to get married, and are probably starting to get ugly.
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