wtf? 20k a month just by selling 'shaobing'. This is just another shitty marketing 'news' for a MMO called "Yuan zheng"[1] [1] http://yz.q1.com/
It's rare for some to share their earnings, it invites competition.
Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
81–90 of 169 posts
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#82What are other promising businesses programmers in the US can start?
Cutting spending and keeping my programming job instead of starting a new business has worked out really well for me. Passive investing of my savings earns me $500/month and I don't have to do any work at all. Other options for those outside of SV is landlording. In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs). Not exactly…
"In some mid-west cities you can earn over $10,000/year/house after all taxes and expenses (including saving for long term expenses like roofs)."
Possibly true anecdote. However with the median family income for the country being $45K or so, thats implying the profit alone exceeds something like 25% of the median tenant gross income. So thats like a $1M CEO waterfront house not joe6pack's house.
Somewhat more realistically, you can expect your average family to spend maybe 1/3 their income on housing, and your profit will probably be a fraction of that, and you'll only have tenants a (large?) fraction of the time, so from a scalability standpoint to earn a median income you probably need to rent out one to two dozen houses, which rapidly becomes a full time job and is quite a capital investment. Also it becomes interesting to express various typical maintenance costs as "months of rental profit" rather than $. A furnace might be more than a years gross profit, yet only guaranteed for 20 years... times ten other major appliances all carefully value engineered to fall apart...
One worrisome part about long term prices is a Z percentile resident will more or less always live in Z percentile housing. Now the capital cost of that housing solely depends on about 1/3 the resident's income put toward the mortgage interest payment... and that rate was at multi-generational lows aka prices were at multi-generational highs. J6P can afford to pay the bank $2K/month means he can borrow how much, depending on interest rate? So what happens to your capital investment when median income inevitably continues its multi-generational decline, while at the same time, interest rates inevitably rise resulting in crashing sale prices? There are other cultural effects like retiring baby boomers wanting to downsize, kids having mortgage sized school loans therefore unable to afford a mortgage, etc.
Just saying, focusing on return OF capital is probably more important than return ON capital, when you're doing long term real estate investment. From a diversification stand point it can work if you have 100 or so houses, but its rough at a smaller scale.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#83I really dislike these type of stories. Basically saying "Investor buys lotto ticket; outperforms DJIA by 5 billion percent." Or a more realistic example, the stories that flow when gas prices spike. Like the person with the diesel engine running off waste grease from restaurants. It's nice this person found a profitable niche but the concept itself doesn't lend itself to even linear growth.
Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.
> Running a diesel engine off waste oil is
> a great idea
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like the parable of the mexican fisherman: An executive from America was standing at the pier of a Mexican village, taking a much needed vacation. It was his first in more than 10 years. He noticed a small boat docked with just one fisherman on board. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The executive complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took…
The fisherman laughed, and a few years later there was a shortage of fish, and his family suffered having not built up any reserves of money or assets. The parable of the fisherman is basically the Ant and the Grasshopper told up until some time before winter. Exaggerated obviously, but then parables always are, that's why they are almost useless.
You can find a contradiction in anything if you look hard enough.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We commonly say that hackers should save up 3-6 months of floating money It's not hackers, it's adults. This is called an "emergency fund". 3 to 6 months cash that's easy to access in the event of a genuine emergency, including loss of work. Personal Finance 101.
Exactly, and if your monetary stream is inconsistent, then 3-6 months should really be considered insufficient. You're shouldn't be regularly be eating into your emergency fund.
Totally agree. I would say closer to a year, but some would disagree. Less than 6 months is not enough, especially for freelance/consulting types.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what does an American employee do about unexpected (long term) health issues? (For short term issues there is insurance, whether in the form of savings or actual insurance.)
Long term care insurance.
Long term disability is more appropriate. Long term care is more appropriate for the elderly. To your point, however, insurance products exist to assist when a long term health issue arises.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what does an American employee do about unexpected (long term) health issues? (For short term issues there is insurance, whether in the form of savings or actual insurance.)
Long-term disability coverage has been part of all the insurance plans I've had over the years in the US. I assume that it's pretty common across US insurance plans, at least for full-time employees. Such coverage pays some percentage of your salary for many years from the beginning of a long-term disability. I think that both of those numbers vary widely from plan to plan.
Provided you have insurance in the first place. (The rest of this post is seemingly invalid in California:) Contractor? No, you don't get insurance. Don't you have COBRA? You can't afford that? Well, golly, better hope that you don't get sick.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#88But does he double his net income?
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.
> Running a diesel engine off waste oil is > a great idea Once enough people are doing it, it will be classified as a fuel and politicians will be tripping over themselves to regulate and tax it. Also, at some point there won't be enough waste grease to fuel the market, and the prices of unused vegetable oil will go up possibly limiting its use for food.
To add to this, has anyone actually tested the diesel engine to make sure it meet all emission standards?
How safe are the fumes to be burned around cities? Remember when we found out lead in gas was unsafe to be inhaled from exhaust pipes?
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.
> Running a diesel engine off waste oil is > a great idea Once enough people are doing it, it will be classified as a fuel and politicians will be tripping over themselves to regulate and tax it. Also, at some point there won't be enough waste grease to fuel the market, and the prices of unused vegetable oil will go up possibly limiting its use for food.
Not to mention the simple fact that it's hardly a waste product in most places as-is.