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On Time, Money and Health

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Re: On Time, Money and Health

#51

Post by maccard »

phgn wrote: post #44
alexpetralia wrote: post #4

One of my friends opined that if most people (limited to people on this forum, let's say) rationally priced in their future earnings, they'd be in debt more often, for longer and earlier in their life. The naive algorithm of "save as much as possible" might land high-earners with a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave. I think I agree with that.

Savings allow you freedom from having to earn money, the opposite of debt. For example, you can temporarily "retire" for a few years and do what you want without pressure. Either directly or indirectly, I think having debt limits you to the path & earnings you've "forecasted" - the opposite of freedom. At least that's the case for me.

> you can temporarily "retire" for a few years and do what you want without pressure

Not everyone strives to min max their time to the extent that they _can't_ be working while doing what they want. Assuming you're a white collar worker in tech, there are plenty of opportunities for you to make oodles of money, while having a balance between a job and life. Given the choice between being mortgage free in my 30s with an apartment in a cheaper part of town, and being able to quit work to travel/work on my carpentry for 3-5 years, or having a balanced life over the next decade, spending time and having experiences with family & friends, I'll pick the balanced lifestyle every single time.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#52

Post by kamaal »

pjc50 wrote: post #41
kamaal wrote: post #13

FIRE definitely makes lots of sense. Even if you don't believe in retiring early. You are in some way already retired by the time you hit 40. This is really for most ordinary folks out there, not the exceptional one's that are chasing law degrees and PhDs in 50s. Simple way to understand this is, 50s is your retirement decade. Therefore: 1. When you are 40, your resume has just 10 years worth value. 2. When you are 3…

> You are in some way already retired by the time you hit 40 Wish somebody had told me this before I came into work this morning. I didn't realise I was already retired.

Retirement is a part of moving ahead. If you are moving into late 40's and haven't retired yet, or at least on a path, you are stagnating.

Whether you like it or not. You can't stop age, you can't stop biology.

You are stagnating in your job, when you should have retired.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#53

Post by namdnay »

andi999 wrote: post #33
namdnay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average return of the MSCI World index since creation is more than 10% I believe… And for a long term investment the risk is minimal (there has never been a negative period of more than 8 years)

Housing market also never went down (I stopped reading news early 2008 though).

There were several housing price corrections over the past 50 years. And prices are higher today than they were in 2007

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#54

Post by maccard »

WJW wrote: post #30
alexpetralia wrote: post #4

One of my friends opined that if most people (limited to people on this forum, let's say) rationally priced in their future earnings, they'd be in debt more often, for longer and earlier in their life. The naive algorithm of "save as much as possible" might land high-earners with a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave. I think I agree with that.

> a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave Oh no! The tragedy of not spending everything you own! Sarcasm aside though, almost everyone will mispredict how much they are likely to earn in their lifetime and the opinion of your friend falters a bit in the presence of significant randomness. Estimating your future earnings too low is not really a problem, estimating too high can lead to serious problems when…

> Oh no! The tragedy of not spending everything you own!

I really don't think this contributes at all to the conversation. We're not talking about going out and blowing your paycheck. If your total lifetime earning over 40 years of working is $1.2M, and you only spend $1M over your entire lifetime, you could have just worked for 16% less time and enjoyed the time. Otherwise what was the point, just trying to maximise the number??

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#55

Post by cryptica »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #47
cryptica wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unbelievable that someone would downvote this. What kinds of freaks are hanging out here? That's not very nice.

I upvoted, but I’d like to know more about your story, if you are ok to post it.

I've been working almost nonstop (including many nights and weekends) for over a decade, became a skilled software developer, built some popular open source projects but I got to a point in my career where it started to feel like my employers were turning against me instead of trying to help me. I had to quit companies on several occasions to try to progress. Managers were witholding promotions and suppressing my career development and instead were promoting people who had no interest in software development and with less experience. I always told everyone about my ambitions.

Some of my colleagues at my last company suggested that my bosses may have been jealous of my open source success. But somehow it feels like every boss I've had over the past 6 years have been like this.

I often tried to raise funding from investors and Venture Capitalists. I must have applied to hundreds of different angel investors and firms over the past decade. I even attended events which I knew some specific investors would attend and managed to secure a coffee with some big investors. I'm a developer so networking is not natural to me but I pushed myself hard anyway.

In spite of having built one of the most popular open source projects in my country, I could not even secure a seed round from any investor. On the other hand, I've watched people I knew who were running projects with almost no traction at all raise over 1 million dollars. Everyone I know talks about it as if it's easy.

Everyone around me seems to be getting opportunities without trying and without any track record. On the oher hand I always seem to get overlooked for no apparent reason. It happens over and over. Feels like the world is against me.

My ex-colleagues even told me that my ex-boss (CTO) said that he regrets me leaving the company... I had made some significant contributions. I even saw a screenshot of a message that the CTO sent which paints me in a very positive light. Yet when I try to reach out to him to do some kind of partnership or sponsorship, I get no response. It's downright weird actually.

The only time I ever raised any money (or benefited from any exit) was a $10k donation from a member of one of my cryptocurrency communities. I guess they must have taken pity on my situation. I don't even care though. Nowadays, I will take anything I can get, by whatever means or social mechanism.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#56

Post by [deleted] »

mythz wrote: post #21

Maybe it's different for others but my best years definitely started from high-school, Uni and backpacking (teens-early 20s) which we had to do on a shoe-string budget which I attribute to hanging out with friends and meeting new people which is much easier to do when you're young. Strangely after Uni and backpacking my earning potential increased dramatically but my happiness definitely plateaued, so looking back I…

[deleted]

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#57

Post by coldtea »

mythz wrote: post #21

Maybe it's different for others but my best years definitely started from high-school, Uni and backpacking (teens-early 20s) which we had to do on a shoe-string budget which I attribute to hanging out with friends and meeting new people which is much easier to do when you're young. Strangely after Uni and backpacking my earning potential increased dramatically but my happiness definitely plateaued, so looking back I…

>Strangely after Uni and backpacking my earning potential increased dramatically but my happiness definitely plateaued

Not really strange. Why would something like "earning potential" correlate possitively with happiness?

Especially if for it to increase you also needed to spent time doing stuff for other people, indoors, attend boring meetings, day-in, day-out, lose touch with friends, forego activities, and so on.

Earning only makes things better when lack of money was a real concern (e.g. if you didn't have shelter, food, etc). But I presume you those that during Uni/backpacking years.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#58

Post by coldtea »

WJW wrote: post #30
alexpetralia wrote: post #4

One of my friends opined that if most people (limited to people on this forum, let's say) rationally priced in their future earnings, they'd be in debt more often, for longer and earlier in their life. The naive algorithm of "save as much as possible" might land high-earners with a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave. I think I agree with that.

> a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave Oh no! The tragedy of not spending everything you own! Sarcasm aside though, almost everyone will mispredict how much they are likely to earn in their lifetime and the opinion of your friend falters a bit in the presence of significant randomness. Estimating your future earnings too low is not really a problem, estimating too high can lead to serious problems when…

>Oh no! The tragedy of not spending everything you own!

Well, the trafic part is the spending your precious time accumulating money you haven't spent - which turns into totally useless when dead.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#59

Post by coldtea »

andi999 wrote: post #32
WJW wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a huge nest egg they end up carrying to their grave Oh no! The tragedy of not spending everything you own! Sarcasm aside though, almost everyone will mispredict how much they are likely to earn in their lifetime and the opinion of your friend falters a bit in the presence of significant randomness. Estimating your future earnings too low is not really a problem, estimating too high can lead to serious problems when…

I am shocked as well that intergenerational wealth building is not a thing. I mean do people really think 'I was poor/had to earn everything so my kids should have it the same way'?

Well, if you were poor, made something for yourself, and then had kids, then your kids had a non-poor home, care, clothes, things, toys, education, and so on, between 0 and 18 (or 22), no?

So, your kids didn't have it the same as you who grew up poor at all, even if you don't leave them an inheritance...

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#60

Post by drumselecta »

cryptica wrote: post #55
quickthrower2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted, but I’d like to know more about your story, if you are ok to post it.

I've been working almost nonstop (including many nights and weekends) for over a decade, became a skilled software developer, built some popular open source projects but I got to a point in my career where it started to feel like my employers were turning against me instead of trying to help me. I had to quit companies on several occasions to try to progress. Managers were witholding promotions and suppressing my car…

You sound pretentious, hence why you don't inspire VPs enough to follow your projects. For that purpose, being skilled in SWE is barely important comparing to relational skills. It's time to question yourself.
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