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On Time, Money and Health

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Re: On Time, Money and Health

#2
I'm 23 and have been thinking about this a lot lately. It forced me to consider what I value. Do I want to spend my money on a nice flat? Clothes? Food? Etc.

I found it very difficult when you try to factor in compensation growth and the time value of money.

If I choose to save more money now, that benefits me more in the future because it has more time to grow. On the flip side, saving more money now means less money to spend on enjoying myself and I can't get my youth back.

For compensation growth, if I knew that my compensation would grow by x times in say, 10 years then I could plan accordingly and save less money now because I know that I will be making a lot more money in the future. However, I can't know that so how do I take this into account?

The result of this was me coming up with a very boring answer: save 30-40% of my net income (Equity comp makes this more like 50-60%) and make no assumptions about compensation growth. I'm naturally quite frugal so this isn't difficult, though I think that this is probably overkill and I should loosen up my spending a bit.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#3
Yeah, don't delay your dreams until retirement. Your health and energy will be limited.

At the same time, there is no need to spend money in a stupid way right now. Defaulting to a frugal mindset in most domains will buy more free time later.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#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.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#5
My life is already wasted. I've seen too much and I know too much to ever be completely happy. The best I can do is try to leave behind some kind of positive legacy. Maybe with 20 more years I will achieve something.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#6

I'm 23 and have been thinking about this a lot lately. It forced me to consider what I value. Do I want to spend my money on a nice flat? Clothes? Food? Etc. I found it very difficult when you try to factor in compensation growth and the time value of money. If I choose to save more money now, that benefits me more in the future because it has more time to grow. On the flip side, saving more money now means less mone…

Unless you overspend too much, saving currently it's likely a portion of what you'd be earning in several years. (Assuming some IT field, due to the nature of hacker news)

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#7
I love cycling. Did my first solo touring cycling trip over ten years ago when I was in my twenties. I've done a cycling trip every couple of years since then, until I got a mortgage. Then I started focusing on my career and kept delaying the next trip, thinking "next year will be the year that I'll make time for it". Now I'm approaching my 40s, I have a medical condition that limits the enjoyment I get out of cycling, and due to covid travel restrictions I can't travel to the country I want to cycle in.

Don't delay.

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#8

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.

The problem is, how do you price your future earnings appropriately?

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#9
post #5

My life is already wasted. I've seen too much and I know too much to ever be completely happy. The best I can do is try to leave behind some kind of positive legacy. Maybe with 20 more years I will achieve something.

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

Re: On Time, Money and Health

#10
post #6

I'm 23 and have been thinking about this a lot lately. It forced me to consider what I value. Do I want to spend my money on a nice flat? Clothes? Food? Etc. I found it very difficult when you try to factor in compensation growth and the time value of money. If I choose to save more money now, that benefits me more in the future because it has more time to grow. On the flip side, saving more money now means less mone…

Unless you overspend too much, saving currently it's likely a portion of what you'd be earning in several years. (Assuming some IT field, due to the nature of hacker news)

Yes, I work for a tech company that pays me well with a lot of room for growth and I realize that this is very early days.

I've considered this before, but it feels very unnatural to bet on my compensation increasing drastically even though I can see that it's very possible if not likely.

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