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Why I hate the weekends (2017)

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Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#311

Post by nathan_f77 »

koheripbal wrote: post #310
nathan_f77 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year. I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.

This completely ignores inflation. By spending that 3.5% on living, you are actually losing a portion of your wealth each year. In order to remain "flat", you need to be earning 7%, in order to spend 3.5%. ...but of course, this also completely ignores the risk. Assets don't give 7% for free. The investor is accepting the risk - that's the whole point. So in reality, you need to be earning closer to 10% in order to m…

No, the safe withdrawal rate of 3.5% does account for inflation. The idea is that the S&P 500 should return around 7-8% per year on average. Lots of information about this in the "r/financialindependence" FAQ [1], particularly the "What about inflation?" section [2]. These results are based on the Trinity Study [3], which is also known as "the 4 percent rule." 3.5% is a more realistic withdrawal rate for a very long retirement, and 3% would be very conservative. 2.5% would almost guarantee that you die with more assets than you started with.

It's also very important to decrease your expenses during a market crash, and to never panic sell. You could also have some other income streams like rental properties, or software businesses.

If you just want to hold cash and bonds, retire at 30, and expect to live until you're 100, then you need to save up 70 * 100000 = $7 million, and spend $100k per year until you die. (Although $100k in 2089 will be worth a lot less than 2019.)

And who knows, maybe longevity treatments and gene therapies will become widely available in the next 70 years, and people might live until they are 200. Or even indefinitely. If you think that might be a possibility, then you should definitely invest in the stock market instead of keeping everything in cash. There is such a thing as "too little risk" when it comes to investing.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq#wiki...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#312

Post by matwood »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #243
matwood wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the feeling that if I stopped working for just 6 months, my career would be over. That's not true. There are many companies who are still writing and maintaining new code in Java 1.6 for example. > Today I just wasted the second half of the day doing nothing at all; just watching mind-numbing videos on Youtube. I try to do this and just can't. I get antsy. When I 'binge' Netflix is max 2 episodes and I have…

Maybe that's fine if you want to be writing Java 1.6, but you've basically given up at that point if that doesn't bother you slightly. I've seen Java 1.4 in production as late as 2017 but I didn't have to work on it, nor would I be happy doing so. Some people are though I guess. And I'd say that's exactly right as we need those people to maintain that system. Or we just need clients who aren't such hellish tire kicke…

The OP said their career would be over if they jumped off the cutting edge. My point was that many people have fine careers in software without staying out on the edge. In fact, that is how the very large majority of software engineers function.

Do these people work at FAANG? Probably not, but if you want to work there you are accepting the stress that comes along the position.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#313

Post by watmough »

ioddly wrote: post #40
wilkystyle wrote: post #2

> I feel like my whole life is centered around work. Even though I work a (what is considered) reasonable 40-hour work-week, I feel like too much of time is taken away from me. Not only is it actually being in the office but commuting too. My morning are devoted to getting ready for work: dressing up, packing up a lunch and so on. As someone who also works a reasonable 40-hour a week job, I cannot emphasize enough ho…

I've ended up in a situation where I am commuting one hour each way to a client's office once per week. This is my choice -- I could work totally remote, but I have found it necessary in order to resolve some issues to go in. The difference is even more stunning when you are only doing it 20% of the time. I am fried when I get home, and commuting in Houston on a regular basis can take years off your life. People get…

Or you can adapt around it.

I'm super lucky and 1) Work from home 2 days a week, and 3) When I do travel to the office, I rotate my day forward to start from 5:30 am and finish at 2:30 - 3 pm to avoid traffic.

15 years ago in Houston, 6:30 am was adequate to avoid most traffic when commuting from the Northside, nowadays, you need to be out the door about 4:30 am. That's a huge change. Traffic on I45 ramps up in the Spring area, right around 5 am.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#314

Post by quickthrower2 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #241
quickthrower2 wrote: post #91

I find the typical work in developer jobs very fatiguing. It involves reading through loads of old code that other people have written over the years, trying to figure out how it all hangs together and where I inject my change in. For some reason that does my head in. Greenfield work is a lot less tiring, but much more rare in my experience. It's also a career path of it's own and hard to get on. I.e. you need greenf…

I drop comments and refactor the spaghetti code so that each time I come back to it it gets easier. I think I like that better than greenfield, it's like being a topiary artist instead of a farmer.

Problem with that is it takes a few years at a company before you've seen it all and are comfortable with all of the code. I've been job hopping a lot because, well, had bad experiences with certain companies. I hope I get to stick this one out for a while to get to that comfortable spot of knowing the codebase well.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#315

Post by eeZah7Ux »

mavhc wrote: post #17

We moved from a 7 day working week to a 6 day working week about 2000 years ago, and to 5 days about 100 years ago, it's time to move to 4 days. In addition the 5th day should be used for lifelong education, people should be expected to learn about all the new things that have been invented since they left school, or refresh what they're not good at.

In many rural societies work and leisure were constantly intermixed. An craftsman/shopkeeper/farmer could spend 110 hours a week on the workplace while doing 20 hours of active work.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#316

Post by [deleted] »

watmough wrote: post #313
ioddly wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ended up in a situation where I am commuting one hour each way to a client's office once per week. This is my choice -- I could work totally remote, but I have found it necessary in order to resolve some issues to go in. The difference is even more stunning when you are only doing it 20% of the time. I am fried when I get home, and commuting in Houston on a regular basis can take years off your life. People get…

Or you can adapt around it. I'm super lucky and 1) Work from home 2 days a week, and 3) When I do travel to the office, I rotate my day forward to start from 5:30 am and finish at 2:30 - 3 pm to avoid traffic. 15 years ago in Houston, 6:30 am was adequate to avoid most traffic when commuting from the Northside, nowadays, you need to be out the door about 4:30 am. That's a huge change. Traffic on I45 ramps up in the S…

[deleted]

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#317

Post by dokem »

gnulinux wrote: post #9

This resonates with me. I love my work, I really like what I do, I think it's mentally challenging, interesting, and important for our world and civilization and I believe I'm compensated well enough. But it's tiring ok? And all I can ever do on weekends is lying on my bed watching netflix. I work 9 to 6 and work out intensely for 2 hours every week day. By the time it's saturday I'm both physically and mentally exha…

Do you smoke pot? That's how smoking makes me.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#318

Post by rootusrootus »

WaltPurvis wrote: post #237
rootusrootus wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty trite. Most people don't have that luxury.

True. It's also true that most people don't have the luxury of complaining that 40 hours of indoor office work is too hard (even downright unethical and inhumane). Most people in the world wouldn't even be able to conceive of the concept of complaining about the inhumane torture of having to do 40 hours of indoor office work per week.

People in that position are also very unlikely to be reading posts on Hacker News, so I think it is okay to exclude them from consideration when judging the merits of the blog post.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#319

Post by tkumarb »

gnulinux wrote: post #9

This resonates with me. I love my work, I really like what I do, I think it's mentally challenging, interesting, and important for our world and civilization and I believe I'm compensated well enough. But it's tiring ok? And all I can ever do on weekends is lying on my bed watching netflix. I work 9 to 6 and work out intensely for 2 hours every week day. By the time it's saturday I'm both physically and mentally exha…

Hugs

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#320

Post by darpa_escapee »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #248
darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a software engineer, I can't afford to not be on the cutting edge. I have the feeling that if I stopped working for just 6 months, my career would be over. Stop following hype and focus on practical business solutions. You'll have no problem finding work after doing so. You need to remember that things like Wordpress solve the majority of business needs and skills related to it are in demand next time you feel l…

Isn't that just something WordPress developers say? I work on enterprise "Line of Business" applications and WordPress has no place in that world. I'd agree it solves most of the "we need a website" needs. And some of the "we need to be able to sell shit through our website" needs. But not "the majority of business needs". Though I agree with your fundamental assessment of just focus on how to deliver business value…

> Isn't that just something WordPress developers say?

I don't know, I don't ask for their take on the market. However, I've consulted with businesses where "We use Wordpress for X" is incredibly common to hear and they don't have problems with it, even if it wouldn't be my first choice of a platform.

> But not "the majority of business needs".

The majority of businesses are small or medium-sized, where Wordpress with a few standard or custom plugins are enough to suit their needs.

Wordpress certainly isn't a good platform for IT and software, and I'm not aware of any SaaS companies trying to use it for their business.

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