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The quiet rebellion of a little life

caitlynrichardson.substack.com

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Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#91

Post by c0redump »

bdangubic wrote: post #61
fireynis wrote: post #5

I always think these kinds of mentalities are based on people who have never been in dire straits or financially insecure. Living a simple life is almost impossible, pursuing wealth is probably the only way to be secure in a simple life. Even if you FIRE, you need to pretty aggressively pursue wealth at the beginning to make it work.

with all due respect this cannot be further from the truth. americans are taught from young age that to make it in life they must increase their earnings. america needs modern day slaves working in cubicles 9-10 hours per day (even if you are at FAANG making high six figures you still a slave…). but economics which america would not dream teach their young is that you can also cut expenses :) this is the quiet life p…

> even if you are at FAANG making high six figures you still a slave

I’m sorry, but do you know what a “slave” is?

I can’t imagine the kind of hopelessly ignorant perspective a person must have to say something like this.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#92

Post by pdimitar »

the_gastropod wrote: post #90
pdimitar wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never made even $100k a year. Locality matters a lot. Privileged people being blind to their privilege. Nothing new. My original point still stands then. Keep finding stuff hilarious I guess, though.

I agree! Making > $100k is an absolute privilege. I am privileged as all hell finding myself interested in and decent enough at computer programming at a point in time where it was a relatively lucrative field to be in. That's serious luck! But if you're making < $100k and suggesting you need $200k in passive income to go to a farmer's market, cook pasta for dinner, read library books, grow some plants, and drink the…

Good thing I don't do any of those things.

I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that you came here to be snarky and tear down a straw man... one that doesn't exist.

I'm not going to bore you with my life story. But it has been an extremely bumpy ride and it's still not going well. Make what that info what you like. You'll probably say it's all my fault and I deserve it.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#93

Post by c0redump »

the_gastropod wrote: post #80
pdimitar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much did you make per year? How many jobs did you have? How many jobs did you hop?

In my most recent job, I earned $160k. During my ~15 year software development career, I worked for a total of 4 companies, none overlapping, none that required more than 40 hours per week. I saved ~60% of my take-home pay every year, and invested it in a 60/40 mix of VTSAX / VTIAX. I'm married, and my wife made $8,000 last year. I had to save enough to cover our collective expenses, otherwise this timeline would've…

Sounds like you did, in fact, enjoy significant investment gains just by being in the market for a long time. This is by no means guaranteed to be true in the future.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#94

Post by Swizec »

maiar wrote: post #64
Swizec wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money. Money is the best freedom buyer. Don't trust anyone who says "Money doesn't buy happiness". That's rich-people propaganda to keep the rest of us dependent. As Lucy Liu said in a fantastic interview: Do everything in your power to accumulate fuck you money as early as possible. Because then you ca…

The issue is game-theoretic. There’s value in having money, absolutely, but most people end up having to chase it and never get any. If one person chases money, emancipation results for him. If everyone chases money, as most of us are forced to do, we end up miserable, and nobody wins except the people we should be removing from power as fast as possible. Money clearly matters a lot, though. Why? Because we live in a…

> The issue is game-theoretic. There’s value in having money, absolutely, but most people end up having to chase it and never get any

We are on HN. The typical person here can achieve freedom for themselves and their family. And we should work to change the system also.

Remember that someone with 2mil can easily FIRE in America and still be closer to the destitute than the billionaires. 2mil is pretty achievable to most people on HN and we should definitely encourage each other to get there.

Vilifying small scale financial freedom is part of tall poppy syndrome and plays directly into the hands of wealthy oligarchs. The more people who think getting rich is bad, the better.

We gotta always remind each other that a millionaire is closer to us normies than they are to the billionaires.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#95

Post by the_gastropod »

4iuvosvjf23 wrote: post #81
the_gastropod wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my most recent job, I earned $160k. During my ~15 year software development career, I worked for a total of 4 companies, none overlapping, none that required more than 40 hours per week. I saved ~60% of my take-home pay every year, and invested it in a 60/40 mix of VTSAX / VTIAX. I'm married, and my wife made $8,000 last year. I had to save enough to cover our collective expenses, otherwise this timeline would've…

No kids right?

Everyone's circumstances are different. There are plenty of early retirees with similar backgrounds to my own that have kids (Mr. Money Mustache himself has a kid, for example, and retired at 30!) We currently have no kids. But I find the "kids are expensive!" thing is usually pretty overblown / not very creative about solving any problems. Kid spending is similar to the emotional and socialized high-spending expectations that plague the wedding industry. If one applies the same creative simple living strategies outlined in this article, there's no reason kids should increase one's expenses _that_ much. Saving up an extra $100k per kid is probably more than enough, and wouldn't delay an early retirement by more than ~6 months to a year in most cases.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#96

Post by bdangubic »

getreal99 wrote: post #84
bdangubic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with all due respect this cannot be further from the truth. americans are taught from young age that to make it in life they must increase their earnings. america needs modern day slaves working in cubicles 9-10 hours per day (even if you are at FAANG making high six figures you still a slave…). but economics which america would not dream teach their young is that you can also cut expenses :) this is the quiet life p…

How many jobs are in Hope, Arkansas? And I mean real jobs, not building React garbage from a coffee shop. How many people are in Hope, Arkansas, especially people you could easily connect with? How much housing is in Hope, Arkansas? How many doctors? Are there specialists? How are the schools? I'm so sick and tired of the techbro response to a rising cost of living and a lower quality of life is just "lol be poor :)"…

it is 2025 mate, you do not have to work in Hope to live in Hope… geeeeeez

as far as all the other questions, ask yourself the same for an urban area too :) and yes, there are great schools, great doctors, everything you need is there or a short ride away.

I am not surprised by your reply, expected to see many more, brainwashing is strooooong in the USA and these are very predictable responses

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#97

Post by bdangubic »

c0redump wrote: post #91
bdangubic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with all due respect this cannot be further from the truth. americans are taught from young age that to make it in life they must increase their earnings. america needs modern day slaves working in cubicles 9-10 hours per day (even if you are at FAANG making high six figures you still a slave…). but economics which america would not dream teach their young is that you can also cut expenses :) this is the quiet life p…

> even if you are at FAANG making high six figures you still a slave I’m sorry, but do you know what a “slave” is? I can’t imagine the kind of hopelessly ignorant perspective a person must have to say something like this.

when you have no control over your life, when you can get paged on your honeymoon or your kids birthday, when you need to ask permission to take time off… as society we are past what was slavery back in the day - now we got modern-day slavery, working for THE MAN

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#98

Post by the_gastropod »

pdimitar wrote: post #92
the_gastropod wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! Making > $100k is an absolute privilege. I am privileged as all hell finding myself interested in and decent enough at computer programming at a point in time where it was a relatively lucrative field to be in. That's serious luck! But if you're making < $100k and suggesting you need $200k in passive income to go to a farmer's market, cook pasta for dinner, read library books, grow some plants, and drink the…

Good thing I don't do any of those things. I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that you came here to be snarky and tear down a straw man... one that doesn't exist. I'm not going to bore you with my life story. But it has been an extremely bumpy ride and it's still not going well. Make what that info what you like. You'll probably say it's all my fault and I deserve it.

You said:

> The author frames it as if you can just semi-retire and still have $200K a year

I was just responding to that.

I am as bleeding heart a liberal as they come. I recognize most people have much harder lives than I've had. I made some assumptions based just on your $200k comment above, and the fact that—let's face it—most HNers are making ridiculously large sums of money, and there is no end to these similar "this is impossible!" style comments on this page.

Truly, I'm sorry to hear you've had to deal with so much strife. Nobody deserves that. If you'd like to share more, my email is in my profile.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#99

Post by smileysteve »

xigency wrote: post #15
eluketronic wrote: post #11

I’ve wrestled with this idea since reading My Side of The Mountain when I was quite young. Our society and culture constantly reinforces the perceived need to make enough money to retire one day, assuming that there is a necessary amount of money one needs to continue living and that one should stop working at some point. The fear of exorbitant medical costs in our privatized healthcare system scare me into thinking…

I'm coming to terms with the fact that if I want to leave any inheritance at all I will need to be voluntarily turning down medical care at some point in my life. I'm only 30 and I know for certain that lifespan is not the parameter I want to optimize. Rather, it is quality of life.

> lifespan is not the parameter I want to optimize. Rather, it is quality of life.

Fortunately, the 2 are often correlated, the best ways to prepare for a long lifespan are the same as preparing for a long health span, and that includes a high quality of life.

Re: The quiet rebellion of a little life

#100

Post by giraffe_lady »

pluc wrote: post #2

Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "i had to help my uncle jack off a horse". Use it. Shit is unreadable.

What specific sentences or phrases in this article could you not understand? For that matter what kinda shit does your uncle get up to that would create this ambiguity?
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