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Join the Engineering Leisure Class

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Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#171

Post by shard »

dilap wrote: post #60
toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

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…

Most of my family is here in SF. Since when is "living near your family" a "luxury"? Fuck that.

Living near or with family is a luxury in many cases. Consider the parallel situation where the father moves to somewhere else for a job, leaving wife and children behind, due to lack of opportunities in his area. Being able to say "fuck that" is a hell of a privilege.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#172

Post by Dewie3 »

jtzhou wrote: post #113
vinceguidry wrote: post #21

> 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-lan…

So now the goal post has been moved from having more leisure time to an appeal to nature.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#173

Post by j_lev »

boothead wrote: post #167
j_lev wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi - thanks for sharing and congratulations - sounds like you've made things work. > I spent Fridays working on a cool idea my brother and I had. That idea proved useful enough to pay the bills so I quit my job. Regarding this, it sounds like you already had a good idea of what your expenses were, and I think people underestimate how important this is. I recently quit my job and have jumped into the unknown. Firstly…

Interesting. What did/do you use to ascertain where all your money goes?

YNAB.

The developers are a bit accounting-nerdy, and it has lots of graphs/etc which I think would appeal to the HN crowd.

It's also very flexible. One example I can think of, my friend installed it on his wife's smartphone so she could record spending on groceries wherever she was. But my wife doesn't like this level of monitoring so I just give her a wad of cash each month and enter that as a general "cash for groceries" entry.

I've also seen people in the US say good things about Mint.com, which was not available to me here in Japan.

Normally this would be a good place to put my own 10%-off referral link. Instead I'm going to give a link to a forum thread where you can get 10% off AND someone else will then use your link:

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/reader-recommendations/43-d...

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#174

Post by imgabe »

vinceguidry wrote: post #21

> 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…

Having skills saves you both time and money in the long run. Let's say your toilet is broken. If you can fix it yourself, you need maybe a couple hours. You can do those couple hours any time, for example, on the weekend when you weren't going to be working for money anyway.

If you don't have any skills, you have to pay a plumber to come fix it, for maybe $200. That's already four hours of working at $50/hour. Plus, you have to be home to let in the plumber which is most likely during business hours, so that's maybe another 2-4 hours that you're not at work. Total time cost: 8 hours.

How long does it take to learn how to fix a toilet? Remember, you're a freaking engineer. A toilet is not that complicated. You should be able to watch a youtube video and learn just about everything you need to know in 10-15 minutes. Time spent learning to be self-sufficient pays itself back very quickly.

There's also additional risks to being overspecialized. What if the thing you specialized in becomes obsolete? Now you have no way to trade your time for money and you're absolutely useless for doing anything else.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#175

Post by AwesomeGorilla »

jasonkester wrote: post #170
twic wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously trying to generalise from your experience as one person to an entire city? There's certainly enough remote work going for you to find a job. Or for everyone reading this page to do so. But there are over 100 000 people working in IT in London. Are there 100 000 remote jobs available?

Remember, we're not trying to find remote jobs for everybody in London. Only enough for the ones smart enough to move someplace nicer and take a job with an American company. Also keep in mind that every developer job is a remote one. It may not be advertised that way, but if you've proven that you're good at what you do and you decide to move out of your felt cube and claim back your quality of life, your company wi…

There is going to be a tipping point if London property prices continue to rise. There's no point in having a start up in, say, Shoreditch if you can't afford to pay living salaries to people to work there, so either you a) move somewhere the salaries and office space is cheaper or b) you go remote and increase your talent pool. There's quite a few startups that have to be in London (e.g. they work in the finance industry) but there's likely more than a few that really don't need to be.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#176

Post by marktangotango »

BSousa wrote: post #166
mndrix wrote: 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…

Quick question since you have a few kids. Is real Wyoming a good place for them in terms of school and future? (really asking, no idea as I live on the other side of the pond). I work from home so I can move anywhere, and a more rural/calm place, earning less and having more time does appeal to me, but all the good schools here are in the city and I'm not brave enough to risk my kids future on my dreams of today.

Wyoming is the least populous state in the US, it's not small either. I've driven through Wyoming and Casper it's largest city. One could call it desolate meaning very little human habitation. Or one could call it a paradise on the plains depending on your perspective. Either way, there ain't shit there. Edit: Other than Yellowstone that is.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#177

Post by gambiter »

markfinger wrote: post #119
mndrix wrote: 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.

How do you get a part-time dev job? Do you just mean contracting?

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#178

Post by mndrix »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #112
mndrix wrote: 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?

Because I live in Wyoming. The state has no tax on income from work or investments.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#179

Post by mndrix »

BSousa wrote: post #166
mndrix wrote: 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…

Quick question since you have a few kids. Is real Wyoming a good place for them in terms of school and future? (really asking, no idea as I live on the other side of the pond). I work from home so I can move anywhere, and a more rural/calm place, earning less and having more time does appeal to me, but all the good schools here are in the city and I'm not brave enough to risk my kids future on my dreams of today.

I think that our local schools are about as good as government education can get. My kids' classes range from 11 to 14 students so they get lots of 1-on-1 time with a teacher. The teachers provide extra challenges for exceptional students. The teachers and school administration are very responsive to feedback from parents. Students graduating from high school with good grades get a full scholarship to the University of Wyoming, if they want it.

Having said that, my wife and I place much more emphasis on independent learning and life experiences than on formal schooling. Because my wife and I have plenty of time, we are able to encourage their education in ways we couldn't if we lived in an expensive city. Our lower living expenses also allow us to take trips and have experiences that we feel are more valuable than book learning.

Re: Join the Engineering Leisure Class

#180

Post by PopeOfNope »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #136
jnem wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but i cant find a reference to what MMM means anywhere. Im guessing you guys aren't talking about the Moon Miners Manifesto.. or talking about enjoying something "mmm.mmm.mmm"

Many Men of Michigan.

Everyone's a critic.
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