[pyrrhotech]

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading bot (got rich the old fashioned way of saving my salary, the bot is for fun and to grow hopefully faster than SPX with better Sharpe ratio, so far so good).

I think while you don't have "FU money" it's important for money to be the main focus of your life. You don't have freedom if you don't have a lot of money and you can't be 100% happy without freedom, at least in my experience, though I know opinions vary here.

[ajuc]

Well, I'm in my mid 30s and I only have a fraction of your net worth, but I've decided a few years ago that I'll be splitting my time +- 2 years of working, 9 gap months (spring-autumn), etc. I have a lot of health problems that will probably kill me before retirement one way or another so I don't feel like saving till I'm 45.

It helps a lot that I work remotely in IT and live in Poland which is a very cheap country and I'm very low maintenance (for example my ideal vacations is biking and playing D&D on the internet which is all I did in 2019 ;) ). I have 0 interest in cars and drive 1997 Fiat Punto in which a replacement engine costs less than my daily salary :) I know because we've burned it once by accident :)

I don't think money have to be the main focus, as long a your have a sustainable plan with big margin of safety. I could live for 10 years out of my savings easily, that's enough freedom for me if the alternative is delaying the freedom till I'm old. It would probably be a little different with kids, but we don't want to have kids with my wife, so that's not an issue.

[pc86]

I'm also in my mid 30's and still have a negative net worth but retirement savings are growing strong (especially since February/March). Net worth is only part of the picture; if inheritance is not a priority then you can have a stable and secure future with a very small net worth, you just (probably) can't retire until it's cleaned up.

[johnisgood]

I could become homeless any time. I have a client who pays me and I could live in Poland relatively nicely if it was steady. I should probably get more clients, but damn it is hard for me.

I am actually thinking of moving to Poland if this guy keeps paying me, but I probably should go after I got 2 clients minimum.

[piva00]

> I think while you don't have "FU money" it's important for money to be the main focus of your life. You don't have freedom if you don't have a lot of money and you can't be 100% happy without freedom, at least in my experience, though I know opinions vary here.

The thing is that not everyone can or will achieve that. If we know that, what's the main drive for others to do that? We don't live in a system where this is possible, I'm glad you've achieved it but preaching this "money should be the main focus of your life until you have FU money" will just make a lot of people frustrated and unfulfilled.

So why should that be the main goal of anyone's life when there is so much more to life than that? Are we all slaves to money then? Are our lives only meant to be lived after we are free from the shackles of money?

I really don't like that perspective.

[cweagans]

I think that the amount of money is more of a secondary point here. You're shackled to somebody else's schedule, whims, priorities, etc. until you have the money to not do that anymore. That doesn't necessarily mean 2.5m liquid though.

How much would you need to work if you bought a small-ish house, lived on a very strict budget, and generally kept expenditure to a minimum? There are places in the US where you can buy a house on a bit of land for just over $100k (ex: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/904-Grant-St-Tupelo-MS-38...). What could you do with half an acre of land, a paid off house, and minimal day-to-day obligations? Imagine: work for an hour or two per day so that you have money to buy food, pay power/electric, etc., then idk... read? write that book you've always thought about writing? get in shape? start a garden? go fishing? There are so many possibilities.

I recognize that moving across the country, having the money to pay off a $120k house, etc. is an enormous privilege for some people and I'm certainly not asserting that it's an opportunity that anyone could take advantage of. Only pointing out that the bar for FU money might be lower than you might think.

[throwaway_goog]

So I "retired" at 33 in the sense of having investment income > monthly expenses. Didn't own a house, but could've bought the Mississippi one you link to for cash easily.

What'd I actually do? Found a series of startups, none of which went anywhere. Fiddle around with technology, and learn some new technologies. Fret about how I wasn't being productive enough. I didn't read all that much - I read much more when I was in college. I got out of shape.

I have a friend who retired at a similar age who said "One of the worst parts about having money is realizing that most of your problems were not because of money in the first place, and then having to face them." Retirement removes a lot of constraints, but that also means that if you're still unhappy with your life, it's because of you and not your boss or employer.

[seibelj]

I think you need to start a family! Relationships are what will make you content.

[goldenManatee]

“Surely a baby will save this marriage.”

[rualca]

> I think you need to start a family!

What an irresponsible advise, given that you factored out the importance of the relationship with the significant other.

"Just find the love of your life!"

"Just live happily ever after!"

I mean, you don't even care if someone's personality and mental state allows for that. A family is not a retinue waiting on you to fullfil your every need, is it?

If starting a family was a silver bullet then we wouldn't see such a high rate of divorce and so many kids screwed up because their parents divorce sucked.

[seibelj]

Wow! You sound miserable

[piva00]

> How much would you need to work if you bought a small-ish house, lived on a very strict budget, and generally kept expenditure to a minimum?

I would need a lot because I like the city life, for example. I do found idyllic to go to the countryside here in Sweden and spend quite a few weeks there for summer and winter but that's not the life I'd like to be living for years.

I enjoy being in a city for my hobbies, such as music, it's easy to find good concerts, people to mingle and chat about those hobbies. I like the human connections of cities, I enjoy meeting my friends to do something, to see an art exhibition, to make music together.

Nothing of that is possible with little money, I'd need to save a lot through decades to keep this lifestyle work-free.

I don't want a family life so that leaves me tied to having friends and spending time with them, moving to the countryside would be worse for my needs than having to work.

Not everybody dreams of owning a house and settling down in peace in the middle of nowhere, with all the free time to look at trees and write about them. I love going to a secluded cabin, bringing all my music gear and staying there for weeks but it's not something to live on for years.

[cweagans]

I’m not suggesting that my specific scenario is everyone’s dream but that the bar for “I don’t have to work full time anymore” can be pretty low. If it’s not low for your specific wants, then that’s fine —- you’ve consciously made the choice that you want something different and your needs are higher.

I very rarely hear about FU money from people that don’t need millions of dollars to leave their job. It’s important (IMO) for people to know that that doesn’t necessarily _have_ to be the case.

[mewpmewp2]

That would be an extremely sad thing for me at least. Knowing that I would have no way to become truly free. Free as in I don't owe anyone my time. Maybe others can accept it or are forced to accept it. I just can't. But people of course are different.

Currently I just can't wait to reach that state. Sometimes I'm counting days even. I could never be happy/relaxed as long as I am forced to work, or forced to work under someone.

With regular work, I think I am saving around 70% of my total compensation, but I am also finding ways to do side-hustles. Hopefully I can hit something that will help me reach passive income or otherwise I will be dependant on my career compensation. So as long as I haven't achieved that state I will keep trying and spend most of my time trying to reach this state.

[nostrademons]

You already don't owe anyone your time. You contract with an organization to trade your time for money, which you can then trade for other stuff. Most such employment contracts can be ended easily by either party if they don't like it.

I've spent a significant amount of my career working on problems of my own choice, both in someone else's employment, with a co-founder, or on my own. The limiting factor turned out not to be time or money: it was that the set of problems that are worth solving in today's economy and can be solved by one person (or even a small team) is vanishingly small, and I just had a bigger impact when working with larger organizations.

[burntoutfire]

> it was that the set of problems that are worth solving in today's economy and can be solved by one person (or even a small team) is vanishingly small, and I just had a bigger impact when working with larger organizations.

That's an important observation. There isn't really that much interesting technical work left that a single programmer can do, as the field has been thoroughly mined for such work for decades now.

Interestingly, it's very different in art world - in technology, the new solution has to be an improvement upon state of the art, whereas in creative pursuits it merely has to be different and interesting. Hence, there's basically infinite work left for writers, painters, solo musicians etc.

[nostrademons]

It's cyclical in tech too. There are subfields of tech where one person can still do useful original work - cryptocurrency, for example, or drones, or some of the low-level kernel hacking like the recent io_uring post. The key is "impact", though - because those are currently hobbies that aren't really ready for mainstream consumption, you're not really going to make an economic difference with your work. There's a tipping point that needs to be crossed where a little subfield becomes a big business, and then suddenly all the folks that were playing around with that technology end up sitting on a gold mine of a career.

[floor2]

If you had millions of dollars, you'd still need to brush your teeth. And sleep and eat and shower and use the toilet. Would those things mean you're not truly free?

You'll always be 'forced to work' even if that work is just keeping your body alive and well. Perhaps it would be worth trying to find happiness now, rather than hoping it's hidden behind the next achievement.

[mewpmewp2]

There's a big difference for me between 8 hours of mandatory work vs 1 hour of self care/other misc activities. I would still consider myself free in this case.

I just don't see how I can find happiness when I have to give away 8 hours of my prime mental resources 5 days out of 7 while having stress of needing to meet expectations and impressing others. I just don't see how.

I just need to be able to do things when I feel like doing them as opposed to confirming with someone else's set routine and answering to them. Otherwise I won't be satisfied/happy.

[Viliam1234]

And even during that 1 hour you are allowed to make your own decisions about... the color of your toothbrush, just to give a stupid example. At work, you can usually only dream about this degree of freedom.

[derfabianpeter]

His main point was about not owing his time to someone. Not something. I can totally relate to that perspective. I value my time over anything else and it is apparent that money, if you have enough of it and use it wisely, gives you power over how that time is being used. Especially if you’re looking to the future.

It’s a matter of perspective though, as always, and to me, happiness lies in being able to set my agenda and share power over it with whom I choose, not with whom I’m forced to share it with.

[mewpmewp2]

It's odd to me how some studies say that above 70k income there's not much difference to happiness.

I've definitely got happier, more hopeful and more confident in myself as I've started to make enough to see that there's a possible way for me to escape this routine and still have decades of life left to live where I can spend time on whatever I want while still having youthful energy.

And I do feel like focusing on getting to that point as early as possible should be my main goal right now. The more money I make in present the more I can invest to achieve that point even earlier (as money makes money) as opposed to being half in, half out.

[username90]

Almost everyone just scales up their spendings though, there is no scenario where they can retire early.

[wait_a_minute]

There is certainly a difference between needing to give someone your time and needing to maintain your body/health.

[artemonster]

how is it possible to save 2.5 mil from salary? I am from upper 5% in germany in terms of salary, and I can only manage to save ~10kEur/year, while maintaining decent lifestyle. An order of magnitude lower than you'd need to retire with such a sum after 20 years or so. How do you do that? Genuine question

[InitialLastName]

I've struggled with the same issue. The keys, as I've learned them, is to a) get to a place where you can invest up front in reducing your cost of living in the medium-long term, b) run like hell from the hedonic treadmill of trying to keep up with your peers' poor financial decisions, c) look carefully at what parts of your "decent lifestyle" make you truly happier, which parts are performative, and for which parts you can replace spending with effort without a loss of quality (for example, you can learn to cook very nice food, at a much higher quality than you will get at a restaurant for much less money; there's also no better feeling than feeding your friends).

Keep in mind that the lifestyle changes you make now pay off more than double, by helping you save faster, by having those savings accumulate interest/earn you money, and by reducing the amount of money you need to sustain retirement indefinitely.

Finally, make compounding growth your friend, not your enemy. Kill debt ASAP, and start socking away as much of your money as you can in a growth-bearing account. If you can reliably save 50% of your income in an account that beats inflation by 4%, you can support your lifestyle indefinitely on growth after 17 years.

[diydsp]

+1 for cooking for yourself. It is time well-spent, especially if your partner is into it. And it can save money and be much healthier than eating out! Especially if you make a little extra and supplement other meals.

Also, eating out takes a lot of time... driving to a place, sitting there waiting for waiters to return a credit card, etc. The alcohol is super marked-up. You don't know the ingredients of the food well, it's usually loaded with sugar and fats. I don't mean never do it, but living that way is miserable.

And especially in the pandemic, eating out means tons of containers to deal with. Even if you push just push everything in the trash, it's still like a half a bag's worth. And if are a good doobie and wash the containers, recycle, save the leftovers, etc., it's nearly as much time as if you made it yourself. Again, not that you never should, but save it for special occasions if you wanna have a long, above-average healthspan.

[pyrrhotech]

salaries in the Bay Area are very high, and if you avoid the common pitfalls, you can save a lot. Personally I made about $200-220k average during my 10-year career and lived on 30-40k while saving the rest and investing mostly in equities (of course taxes take a big chunk). Now I spend $50k-ish but I pay for everything for me and my fiance. I plan on spending $75kish once we have a family of four eventually which is the maximum level I'd feel comfortable spending with my current wealth. It wouldn't cover all our wants but definitely most of them and all our needs, hence there is still some additional utility from growing wealth but not enough to justify the stress and anxiety of a career IMO

[uniclaude]

To anyone confused by the explanation (as $220x10 < 2.5M!), I would assume the key is likely in the investments.

Given the market of the last decade, investing everything above the 30-40k expenses and income tax in the S&P500 and re-investing the dividends would have brought GP there. Not really sure about how one can make it with 30-40k including rent in the Bay Area, but this sounds like the most reasonable takeaway for most readers.

[ckdarby]

Apartment $5k/m ($2.5k your half).

Prior to covid, find apartment within 30 biking to work, get two bedroom, split with roommate.

Going out $150/month

Limit yourself to going out with coworkers once a week, social gatherings once a week and a rule of only buying one drink while out.

Groceries & clothes $400/m

Make all your meals at home unless your work offered fully subsided meals and or on specific days subsided meals.

For clothing, only buy once the piece no longer serves it's function. Do not buy simply because it looks good or it has some "new feature".

Subscriptions $70/m

Netflix, Spotify, GitHub, Youtube Red, and Audible.

Books $50/m

Libraries are a good saving spot here but sometimes you're unable to get some of the new technical books.

Bike maintenance $500/yr

You're going to put wear and tear onto the trusty bike.

Remaining $0-10k/Yr

Yolo. Flights back to see family. Replacement bike if it gets stolen. Random transit trips to see friends.

[ckdarby]

Prior to covid an additional hack for those in SF was to attend a bunch of interesting tech related meetups.

Free beer, pizza and get to meet interesting people.

[analognoise]

Live like a hobbit while never marrying and being in the top .5% of all tech salaries for a decade.

You might as well get the advice "marry rich" - it's probably more likely.

[pc86]

I mean the snarkiness just doesn't have any reflection of reality.

Debt is a killer. I used to have a lot of credit card and personal debt, and was paying over $1,500/mo in interest on less than $100k USD/year. If you get stuck in that trap it's damn near impossible to get out of if you overextend yourself.

A lot of folks grossly underestimate what they spend eating out and drinking. Probably less of a problem now than a few years ago, but coinciding with my credit card debt phase I would have told you I spent "$100, maybe $150" a month when it was closer to $400-500.

If you're not set up for retirement (see below) there's little to no reason to be leasing a brand new BMW. I was absolutely guilty of this and it's tens of thousands of dollars I essentially set on fire for three years. You don't even have to sacrifice the nice car, my 2016 5 series was less than $25k out the door and I got it right after someone turned it in off-lease. My payment is less than theirs was and it'll be paid off before the warranty runs out. I'll then have an "asset" (not really) worth $5-10k, and can get another $25k off-lease car which will cost me less and get paid off quicker, if not in cash.

If you max out your 401(k) you are saving about $20k/yr while only reducing your taxable income by ~$15k/yr depending on your marginal tax rate. A Roth adds another $6k to that if you're under the cap (something like $140k for 2020) and you can withdraw the contributions from that account at any time without penalty. Not helpful for someone making $40k/yr but if you're making $100k it's hard to make a good argument not to max out your retirement unless you live in one of the outlier cities as far as rent and expenses.

There are absolutely the /r/personalfinance types who act like if you go to a restaurant more than once every six months you're going to end up destitute and starving while homeless. And the FIRE community is a borderline cult. But nobody working in our industry, even in super high-COL areas, really has to worry about retirement, even if they've made dumb mistakes like I did that ended up costing hundreds of thousands in the long run.

[ryandrake]

> If you max out your 401(k) you are saving about $20k/yr while only reducing your taxable income by ~$15k/yr depending on your marginal tax rate. A Roth adds another $6k to that if you're under the cap (something like $140k for 2020)

Even if you are above the Roth cap, you can contribute post-tax $6k to a tradtional IRA, then immediately roll into a Roth IRA. This is known as a "backdoor Roth".

Additionally, some employer 401(k) plans allow you to contribute post-tax money to your 401(k). The IRS specifies an upper limit of the total of [employee pre-tax + employer match + employee post-tax], which was $57k in 2020. The post-tax portion of the above can also be rolled into a Roth IRA. This is commonly referred to as the "mega-backdoor Roth"

Also, don't forget catch-up contributions to each if you are over 50.

Point is if you have the income to support it, you can save much more in a tax advantaged way than just that $19.5k pre-tax 401(k). Please look up the tax consequences of any of these options before doing them. They are straightforward but contain a few pitfalls, such as the pro-rata rule affecting rolling over traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs.

[burntoutfire]

Hobbits actually focused greatly on quality of life.

[bumby]

Out of curiosity, what timeframe were your working years? My concern is that "investing mostly in equities" (assuming a decent percent of growth stocks) can be the deciding factor if you happen to hit a good bull run but potentially disastrous if your market timing is off.

[pc86]

Time in the market >>> timing the market.

Even the absolute worst luck gives you perfectly acceptable returns on 30-35 year timelines. Multiple orders of magnitude better than a savings account, for sure.

Time and time again the best approach for highly compensated people who don't want to actively manage their finances is to put a chunk of every paycheck into a broadly diversified range of index funds and forget that it exists. In the US this means a) getting your company 401(k) match no matter what; b) putting the rest into a Roth IRA as cash flow/debt service allows; c) putting the rest into the remainder of your 401(k) as cash flow/debt service allows; d) putting the rest into a non-tax-advantaged brokerage account that basically mimics your 401(k) but probably has better fund options.

[bumby]

Except we mere mortal humans have the added constraint of limited time.

Meaning if you were planning on retiring during one of the long sideways or downturns your required "time in the market" may have just been extended by a decade. The impact of that depends on the unique time constraints of the individual and how well they addressed risk exposure.

Add to that, most economists don't think the long-term market returns will approach the past returns. Most now think 6% is reasonable, when the past was 10%-12%. This extends the horizon further unless you are willing to increase risk exposure by selecting higher growth stocks.

[pc86]

Future returns could certainly be less. But all we have to go on is what's happened so far. In the past even the worst entry+exit points are acceptable for retirement if not astounding, if you've saved something like 15% of your income for age 30-65 (I forget the exact numbers but that's more-or-less close to it). Yes, some people have to choose between cutting their standard of living and retiring on time, and retiring later for the expected standard of living. I'm not sure what we can do to change that? Like you said, we have limited time and everyone's situation is different. Go onto any of those retirement income calculators and compare the person who starts saving in their mid-30's but maxes everything out to the person who starts saving with their first job out of school and gradually increases from $100 or $200/mo.

Your comment was that equity investing can be disastrous if you hit the timeline wrong, and my only point was that unless you're speculating or are only in the market for 5-10 years, that has never happened. We have no way of knowing if that will happen in the future or not, but there's no reason to believe that we're going to see decades of middling or negative growth. There's really no other option if you want to have a real retirement unless you plan to just rely on whatever government assistance you can get.

[joshribakoff]

Statistically the best way to max returns is going all in as early as possible, not trickling money in with a DRIP/DCA

[mstipetic]

Germany is not set up to have people get rich from a salary. Everyone has a comfortable life, but it's very hard to get "rich." That's one of the reasons I left Germany

[taneq]

Honestly that sounds like a pretty good trade-off. The percentage of people who are ridiculously wealthy goes from tiny to tinier, and in exchange everybody else gets a good shot at a comfortable life.

[burntoutfire]

But it's also pretty hard to retire early... I'm grateful that I was born in Poland where retiring early is a real possibility (high tech wages compared to costs of living and low taxes make it possible) instead of a country like Germany, Belgium or Italy where you basically don't have such option.

[benhurmarcel]

Funnily enough, one of the reasons I'm looking to move to Germany is to get richer. Salaries in Germany are significantly better than most of western Europe (UK, France, Spain, Italy…) for a similar cost of life.

[0xy]

Not in tech it's not. London engineers earn more than engineers in any part of Europe with the sole exclusion of Switzerland.

[dm319]

I suspect people who grow up in (basically) a socialist country like Germany, France, Scandinavia etc will have far less impetus to 'get rich'.

If you feel secure in being able to maintain an income where you can enjoy both the basic and leisurely aspects of life. That you won't be made bankrupt by illness, or by unfair illegal/legal proceedings. In these circumstances the drive to sit on top of 2.5M to feel relaxed about your financial situation will likely fade away.

[alentist]

None of those countries are socialist. Why are you spreading this misinformation?

[rv-de]

When you're settling down you can still come back to Germany enjoying a mostly functioning society and reasonable expenses. You'll just need to figure out a way to evade taxes.

[mstipetic]

I have no reason to be there. Came there for the "startup scene" but realised after a while how weak, unoriginal and underpaid most of it is

[majewsky]

Living off capital gains is the easiest tax dodge in Germany. You pay ~50% on income, but only ~25% on dividends etc. (and that's before your financial adviser gets creative).

[ChuckNorris89]

Out of curiosity what do you do and where did you move?

[mstipetic]

I run magicsandbox.com. Right now moving to all remote, still weighing options but might settle back in my home country (Croatia)

[ChuckNorris89]

Nice, congrats!

[BoorishBears]

Everyone talks about how US tech salaries are inflated values because they don't include the cost of healthcare, a lack of guaranteed PTO, etc.

I like feel they're actually under-inflated (at least for comparing high paid workers in both places) because of equity.

The company I work at has rallied many times over 100% since I joined a bit over a year ago. I could sell my equity and "semi-retire" 30+ years early, working when/if I feel like it and not eat really into my savings

It wasn't some grand plan to join a company that would do well during a pandemic, but I did intentionally choose a public company since saying in the tech sector has exploded would be an understatement, and I wanted equity in that.

I'm guessing a lot of people who joined FAANG companies in the last few years are all probably sitting on enough to start thinking about that.

There are those who feel this is a bubble and not sustainable... maybe? But the way I see it is, even if this is the bubble before the next dot com era-style bust, it's better to have a position in it provided by my work and cashing out along the way, than not and end up losing my job anyways.

[ghaff]

>Everyone talks about how US tech salaries are inflated values because they don't include the cost of healthcare, a lack of guaranteed PTO, etc.

In all fairness, if you're working for a public tech (and many other) companies, you probably have good health insurance that's at least subsidized and 3-4 weeks of PTO which may not be great by European standards but isn't nothing. (Though admittedly increasingly shared with sick time so if you're out a lot, it's less good.)

[BoorishBears]

Yeah I didn't touch on that because some people argue it's still not enough, but if you're in the top 5% of earners in the US (which the poster above is in Germany) I think the difference in perks isn't as great as people play up

[HEmanZ]

In the USA top 5% income is about $300k USD[1]. With the relatively low tax rates, I would expect you can take home at least $200k (depends on the state). Like the original poster said, it's not that hard to live off of $50k in most of the US (even in the bay or NY, but you live like a college student). That leaves savings of 150k USD/yr from one source of income. Many families have two working professional adults and can almost double these numbers. Add in investment returns and $2.5 mil becomes a very achievable goal. I know a lot of people in their 30s like the poster and am closing in myself, it is not that uncommon in the US tech community.

[1]https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...

[bumby]

>Many families have two working professional adults and can almost double these numbers

It happens, but only if you have a loose definition of "many". If a family makes $531k, they are in the top 1%

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

[astura]

I think the GP way trying to say that if you are a high income earner you tend to attract/marry other high income earners.

[bumby]

You're right, thank you for the correction. In fact, although it's been awhile since I've read up on it, two high income earners marrying is a major contributor to the growing wealth inequality. Decades ago it was more common for a high income earner to marry a non-high income earner but (IIRC) that trend has been decreasing

[lnsru]

There is no secret, that Germany isn’t a country with decent wages. I can see a ceiling somewhere at €100k before taxes. If you are single, you give half away for taxes, if you are not, then you have family expenses. Living like a student I could save €36k yearly. Now it’s only €15-18k. Considering moving to Switzerland, but it’s simply too expensive with family. And good sounding CHF 135k aren’t that impressive with local prices.

[ghaff]

I can't speak to Germany, but in the US saving from a good but not extremely high-paying job over the past few decades, investing prudently but not too conservatively, maybe having a few moderately good stock wins from RSUs/options or otherwise, having bought and paid off a house in a not outrageously expensive area, gets you into that range. Depends of course on how you spend your money, educational expenses for kids, etc.

In any case, it doesn't require winning the startup lottery or having a $400K salary at Google.

ADDED: ~$2m + paid-off house is the sort of range people (typically engineers, non-software) I've had discussions about "targets" with have in mind.

[pc86]

I agree with everything you said but just wanted to add RSUs/options are only even offered to a slim minority of software developers nationally. I am well paid for my job generally, and particularly for my area, but even something like an employee stock ownership program is extremely rare around here and outright RSU/option grants are unheard of. You'd get laughed out of any interview for even suggesting an ESOP to most places that don't have it.

[ghaff]

That's certainly fair and many ESOP plans are not really an especially good deal. Over the past few decades, in spite of a couple significant downturns, even index funds would have done pretty well for you with regular contributions. But having some good stock wins in addition to that certainly can help.

[cortic]

Not the OP, but this is an interesting question; So you'd have to save at least 72k per year for 35 years. That would put you on the 45% tax in my country so you'd have to make 131k to be left with 72k after tax. Maybe +30k to live on, assuming you commute out of the city. So OP should be on something above 161k.

In the US the OP would be in the top 3% of earners, top 4% in the UK. Even if you are in the top few percent you still have to spend most of your life working to be 'free' for a bit at the end of it.

Of course if you are inside the top 1% you could probably get away with a 10-15 year sentence. Where the average wage is generally life with a few years of poverty like freedom at the end.

[quickthrowman]

> So you'd have to save at least 72k per year for 35 years

Yes, if you put it in a 0% interest savings account. Buying assets that give an ROI is what most people do..

[lukas099]

I live in a sorta expensive area (East Coast U.S.) and have managed to save >60% of my income every year since starting to work, even when I "only" made $65,000 a year. I did it by following a lot of the advice at mrmoneymustache.com.

If I do not retire early and continue on this path, I would probably reach $3.5mil by age 50.

[jandrewrogers]

The top 5% household income in the US starts at ~$270k, which leaves at least $100k for investing after taxes and ordinary expenses. Combine this with US investment market performance e.g. the S&P500 over the last decade, and it is straightforward how someone with a good income might arrive at $2.5M in a relatively small number of years starting from zero.

Americans have notoriously poor investment/saving habits, which obscures the fact that it is remarkably easy to accumulate liquid wealth in the US if you are a diligent saver. The median US household has enough investable income, after all ordinary life expenses, to accumulate a couple million dollars over a typical career. High earners can easily save 10x that amount.

[goldenchrome]

Since this is HN I'm guessing they work in tech, where 300k salaries (pre-tax) are common. Tax and SV living expenses use most of that, but you can still save a lot. You can save way more if you've got a high earning spouse.

The other key thing is investing in the stock market, specifically index funds which have a historical real return rate of 7%. Folks who invested since 2008 got way higher returns from a phenomenal bull run, but let's assume a more "conservative" 7% return.

Save 100k a year with 7% returns for 15 years and you have 2.5mil.

The flaw in that modeling is that your earnings typically peak later in your career, so OP may have made a lot of their money in the last few years from being a high level employee making 500k+ a year.

[_untom_]

This sounds off to me. I was able to save ~20k EUR / year while on a 40k/year PhD salary in Austria. I was living a decent livestyle (intercontinental yearly vacations, taking on cost-of-living expenses for my girlfriend, ...), yet I was far from the upper 5 % of the population, and living in an expensive-ish town (the gentrified/expensive area of Berlin i now live in has roughtlye the same overall CoL). So I am assuming your problems come down to varying definitions of "decent lifestyle".

[quantumofalpha]

>I am from ... germany

Well there's your problem. Extremely few well paying (say $150k+) jobs and crazy taxes don't exactly encourage wealth accumulation.

Try Bay Area - with tech salaries there and stocks growth being what they were this past decade, the real question is how is it not possible (if only you wanted) to have made $2M+ working for a FAANG for a decade there.

Or at least go for Switzerland, although market is much smaller there, beware. But I know multiple multimillionares in person who made it all on Google Zurich payroll.

[iwangulenko]

Indeed in Switzerland the taxes and living costs are lower than in SF/Nyc; hence, you are more likely to become a millionaire with a tech job here than almost anywhere else.

If Switzerland is an option, ping me. I am a well-connected tech recruiter with a solid network in Zurich, and I worked as a programmer before, so I know the tech scene here inside out.

[castlecrasher2]

I'm just revising my investment strategy so I'm no expert, but the book The Richest Man in Babylon (https://www.amazon.com/Richest-Man-Babylon-Magic-Story/dp/19...) helped me put finances into perspective. While it's stuff most of us already know (save money, make more money), the way it's presented helped me realize what I need to do now to be financially secure later.

[astura]

High salary and/or low expenses, invest the difference.

Most of that 2.5 million probably came from either interest or capital gains (which compounds). I've only been saving for a bit less than a decade and my increase in net worth for the last few years was greater than my total salary (before tax) the same year. [My salary is extremely low compared to Bay Area.] I save 40% of my after tax income.

[trianglem]

I make around 200K a year and live in a relatively rural part of the country and own my home so I don’t have a mortgage. I save between 60-100K per year. I don’t have kids yet though so that might change once that happens.

[boltzmann_]

> germany

That's why, just check how tech is pay in USA http://levels.fyi

[quaffapint]

Don't assume that's most of the US. Most of it is nothing like those numbers and for those with a mortgage and family , saving much of anything can be challenging.

[artemonster]

these numbers are crazy

[akhosravian]

Those numbers are real and it’s why tech hubs are both very expensive and worth moving to.

[pietrovismara]

You just can't. And that's how it's supposed to work. Only a very small minority of the population can reach that kind of worth. It's the foundation of this system, no matter if the baselines grows, there will always be rich and poor.

[artemonster]

I really don't undestand this "that's how it's supposed to work". Baseline doesn't grow, it only gets worse. Why the hell my landlord, just by the virtue of being born 30-40 years before, was able to afford buying a nice apartment, while working without education, for which I am giving away today a third of my net salary and with 0 chances of buying one, ever?

[pietrovismara]

Hey, you should just work harder. Work away your entire life and maybe you'll be able to afford a house too! Who knows, you might even get to buy 2 and start exploiting people poorer than you by asking them to pay to use a house you didn't build. The circle completes.

[tonyedgecombe]

Don't forget to cut out the avocado toast.

[sershe]

Nobody forces you to rent from him; and why are you comparing yourself-now vs him 30-40 years later, relatively speaking?

There are plenty of places in the US where you can buy a house now - housing in the US overall is actually cheaper than it used to be per sqft as far as I recall. Then, in 30-40 years you may too be renting out a paid-off house.

[teraku]

Hey I feel you. Same category.

The gist: If you didn't inherit, you are fkd in Germany.

MOST of wealthy people inherit it (and 2/3 of super wealthy inheritance in Germany is former Nazi money). It's unfair.

What helps me get by: I know my life is good, even though exiting the treadmill is most likely not possible. Enjoy what you have, invest a bit and focus on things that make you happy :)

[BoorishBears]

The person you're replying to says they're in the top 5% of earners in Germany, I feel that's closer to the small minority than most

[mellosouls]

I think while you don't have "FU money" it's important for money to be the main focus of your life

You may feel very differently when you are looking back on your life near the end of it.

[taneq]

I don't know how old GP is but their life sounds like it's pretty enjoyable and not what we generally picture when we think "a life whose main focus is money".

I think what they're saying is that it's important to focus on money early on if it's achievable for you to reach this level of independent wealth in a reasonable time frame.

[mellosouls]

They should probably phrase it better then - as it stands it's terrible advice.

[tiborsaas]

It's not a terrible advice. I'm still trying to but my first apartment at 38. It's essential to have a some financial ability (or willingness to plan ahead at least) to succeed in life.

[mellosouls]

"some financial ability" is not remotely the same as money being your main focus in life.

[ahelwer]

Don't overweight the opinion of someone on their deathbed. I don't think optimizing your life around how you'll feel about it during your final five minutes is a good way to go. Dying is a very lonely experience (every living thing goes into death alone, etc.), so of course your thoughts will be overwhelmingly focused on family friends etc. during that time.

[throw0101a]

> You don't have freedom if you don't have a lot of money and you can't be 100% happy without freedom, at least in my experience, though I know opinions vary here.

The amount of money one 'needs' depends on a lot of things, like cost of living in the area you happen to be in. While US$ 2.5M may not seem like a lot in the US, one can live like a king in may other areas.

One doesn't even need to live in one particular place: people cruise around the world, often spending less than US$ 40K per year in total expenses if you don't get too fancy:

* https://www.instagram.com/sailinguma/

* https://www.youtube.com/sailinguma

Your nest egg would allow for several decades at that burn rate.

[pc86]

$2.5 million is enough for a six-figure salary in retirement, without touching the principle. Assuming there is post-tax money in there, you're going to have a much lower effective tax rate than you did while working. And if you're retired you probably have much lower expenses than you did before (most retired folks aren't making a big mortgage payment even if they're young).

Unless you want to live an extravagant lifestyle (nothing wrong with that) $2.5 million is more than enough to retire in all but the most expensive US cities. And let's remember this is liquid, so real estate doesn't really count in that. One or two properties you're not living in could easily float that extravagant lifestyle for years.

[WJW]

2.5m at 3% SWR (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/safe-withdrawal-rate-sw...) would generate 75k per year thus resulting in a negative burn rate and last for infinite time (or at least until society no longer uses financial instruments). At the very least, it'd last much longer than "several" decades.

[mastax]

Never thought I'd see Sailing Uma on HN. That's the dream, just waiting for starlink to have more coverage.

[throw0101a]

See also SV Delos (with their 'giant' satellite dish), Sailing Ruby Rose, Sailing Ran, and the Wynns. (La vagabond has become too lifestyle-y for me; liked their earlier stuff on the Beneteau.)

[bumby]

My personal opinion is this only captures one third of what most people need to be happy. To paraphrase people much smarter than me, I think people need to meet the needs of 1) mastery 2) autonomy and 3) purpose.

Being financially free can certainly help with #2 but I don't think it inherently addresses the others.

[dusted]

An interesting point of view. Practically, I agree with you, that FU wealth is probably the most realistic way to achieve the freedom required for some personality types to achieve happiness.

I am unfortunately one of them, intellectually, I've conclude the same for myself many times over, and have been unable to change my view on this, as much as I'd love to find peace in my sitaution and enjoy life (tm).

What's hard about it is that it's probably impossible for most people to achieve this kind of wealth, after all, in the current socioeconomic situation, you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off.

Until we have robots doing our work, and almost-infinite access to resources through no or little work of our own, the traditional definitions are valid.

[jimbokun]

> you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off.

I was with you up until here.

The total amount of wealth in the world is constantly growing, and you can positively influence it's creation, by introducing new efficiencies or new goods and services that didn't exist before.

In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today is much greater than kings and emperors living centuries ago.

[dusted]

Don't miss my very last paragraph. :)

To elaborate:

The total AMOUNT of wealth is growing, and its uneven distribution makes my point even more obvious.

Explain to me how you'd expect to get the following services in a "everyone has FU money with no robots doing the work": Car repair, lawn mowed, anything built, groceries checked out, actually, anything at all.

The only reason these things work is because there's enough unequal distribution that _someone_ has to do something they don't really want to do, in order to give someone else something they'd like to have.

The traditional job is something that nobody wants to pay for doing, but almost everyone want to pay for having done.. In order for anyone to DO that job, they have to be poor enough to accept trading in their time for money.

I'm super lucky, as I'm almost doing the same thing at my job as I'd be doing in my free time, but I still take money for it, because, after all, I'd be writing slightly more interesting (to me) code if it was my hobby. It's just that my hobby won't make me rich, because my hobby is not in trying to turn a profit on my hobby.

[silly-silly]

>In many ways, the wealth of the average person living today >is much greater than kings and emperors living centuries >ago.

I dunno man, I'm average and can't afford N wives, have someone do my dishes, clothes, own and tend thousands of hectares of land for me, father 12 children.

Maybe i'm reading about different kings than you do.

[jimbokun]

But I bet the quality of health care available to you exceeds the imagination of those kings and emperors.

The probability of fathering 12 children, if anything, is probably inversely proportional to your wealth, these days.

Not sure owning and tending thousands of hectares of land has much utility in and of itself. It was a proxy for generating wealth, like someone owning a lot of equities today. But the question is what utility was available to purchase with that wealth?

Granted kings and emperors in some ways were better off in some ways than the median wage earners today, but not in others.

[dusted]

>But I bet the quality of health care available to you exceeds the imagination of those kings and emperors. This raises the question of what should be included in the definition of wealth.

That king probably had one or more personal doctors, people they more or less owned, whose sole purpose and responsibility was their well-being.

Even if the efficiency of that person might have been low, it's certainly a lot more than being able to rent an hour of a doctors time.

Also, I have a color TV, which no king at that time have, but is that technological progress really wealth?

By that definition, starving people with cellphones are still wealthy.

[ghaff]

>That king probably had one or more personal doctors, people they more or less owned, whose sole purpose and responsibility was their well-being.

(Assuming we're talking a couple hundred years ago or longer.)

Who didn't have access to antibiotics, vaccines, or any of a plethora of other modern drugs, germ theory of disease, anesthetics, etc. etc. I'll take an hour of a modern physician's time and access to hospital/pharmacy. Thank you very much.

Quantity doesn't always beat quality.

[kranner]

> you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off.

Even if that were true, all of your gain in wealth doesn't have to come out of a single individual's pocket. If you make something (e.g. an app) for which a lot of people pay a very small amount, presumably because they get some value in return, it seems a fair deal and leaves everyone else very marginally poorer, and not unfairly. If you consider the value they have gained from using your product as a form of wealth, then no one is poorer at all because you have created wealth.

[dusted]

Look at how much money people in silicon valley earn on average, then check how much it cost to live there, they're all rich by my standards, because I live in a rural area in another country.

What they can do with their wealth where I am is _VASTLY_ different from what they can do where they are. They're basically median wealthy among themselves, and they still have to go to work like everybody else, the numbers they're pulling seem impressive only at first.

I'm not talking about being fair or not, only that for the current economic system to work, you need equality of resources. I'm not saying it's a good thing, just, it's how it works. I'm all for changing that, I totally expected it to have been figured out already by the time I reached adulthood, but there are no flying cars (1)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Where-My-Flying-Car-Memoir-ebook/dp/B...

[DennisP]

Congrats. Level achieved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI

[pc86]

I'm surprised it took you until $2.5 million to see diminishing marginal utility.

[pastacacioepepe]

So are you saying that since the big majority of people in the world will never get to your kind of net worth (2 mil++) they will never have real freedom?

Glad that we agree, that's what I believe too and that's why I strongly hate capitalism.

You aren't free at all unless you have enough capital to stop being forced to take any job offer just to survive.

[lukas099]

You don't have to have that high of a net worth if your spending is lower. You only need to save 25x your annual spending to retire. If you only spend $30,000/year, you only need $750,000 to retire.

[Cthulhu_]

"only"; it's a very privileged position to be in if you are able to earn so much and spend so little to be able to head in that direction.

Personally, after spending most of the past decade in substandard / 'affordable' student housing, I'm now very comfortable with owning a house and making ends meet at the end of the month. I've got enough savings to keep afloat for a year if I somehow lose my job, and I even have some in the stock market because savings account interest is trash at the moment (iirc because of European money lending policy, causing cheap mortgages, causing low savings account interests, and causing climbing house prices from both low mortgage interest rates + investments in real estate).

[pietrovismara]

Still unattainable for most, and even when it is it requires to slave your life away. Not enough for me.

[sershe]

What is your alternative? Those tried so far involved being forced to take a job all the same, except you didn't even get a shot at freedom while doing it.

[nicoburns]

So 99.99% of the world can't be happy? Don't you think it's quite selfish of you to prioritise achieving this for yourself over allowing a greater number of people to have a more reasonable level of wealth?

[pyrrhotech]

I shouldn't speak for everyone. For me personally, I was happyish during my career but I'm definitely much, much happier now that I'm wealthy and retired. And it's not a short term buzz, I've been retired for 2 years and the feeling hasn't worn off. I know it sucks we don't have unlimited resources for everyone in society to be free and 100% happy. Maybe someday we will with full automation.

In the meantime, most people tend to agree with me that at least to a degree more money = more happiness, it's the reason that capitalism works afterall, and it raises the standard of living - or choice of not working - for all of us over time

[bumby]

>at least to a degree more money = more happiness

Except the research shows marginal “experiential” happiness (as opposed to “reflecting” happiness) occurs much, much lower than your threshold. To this point, both you and the comment you’re responding to could be right (although I’m not sure about their tone that you have a duty to give money away)

[Swizec]

The problem with those studies is that they’re based on cashflow. Yes more cashflow doesn’t increase experiential happiness after a point.

But it turns you into a wage slave. Turn off the cashflow and everything collapses.

Wealth gives you happy levels of cashflow regardless of working for it right now. Hence it creates freedom.

You won’t be more happy by having wealth, you’ll be more reliably/resiliently happy.

[bumby]

You're right that they focused on income (not quite the same as cashflow but it's a good point).

What was interesting is that above a certain income, life satisfaction actually began to decrease. I wonder if there is a similar corollary to wealth.

[torben-friis]

I’m curious, in which ways do you feel that money made you happier? As in, what were the important things it has enabled for you that weren't available under, say, an average engineer's salary?

[pyrrhotech]

Not the material aspect of what it can buy - but the freedom to not have to work is where the big boost of happiness came from for me, though I cannot guarantee it would for you if you truly love your career. For me, programming was always just a tool, a job, a means to an end. Sure it's kind of interesting, but there's far more interesting ways to spend my time.

Also, I hate bosses, performance reviews, bullshit non-producing jobs who make up the majority of your tech peers, commutes, forced social small talk with people you don't like, etc. So even if I 100% loved what I did everyday, I wouldn't like all that BS that comes with it.

Now, being able to spend my time as I please with full autonomy - that is where the incredible boost in my happiness has come from

[ghaff]

I guess it depends on your job. I have significant control over what I do and at least a decent chunk of it is stuff I would enjoy doing anyway. (Normally) I like to travel and like having a lot of interactions with peers at my own and other companies. Bureaucracy is annoying but not overly so. Not to say I won't retire--I will--but I'm also not in a big hurry and could probably negotiate some incremental time off if that became a big issue.

[bavell]

Agreed, freedom and autonomy to do what I want and like is what really makes me happy and money is simply a means to that end. I'm still just getting started and nowhere near where I want to be so the hustle continues...

[castlecrasher2]

Out of curiosity, what do you do with your day now that you're retired?

[crotho]

> most people tend to agree with me that at least to a degree more money = more happiness, it's the reason that capitalism works

What do you think capitalism is exactly? What's your definition that fits the context of that statement?

[the-dude]

> though I know opinions vary here

Why are you reacting so heavily on a quite balanced comment?

[nicoburns]

Do you really think "my only interest is money" is a balanced comment? I don't see how this even makes sense. If you didn't have other things that you wanted to spend the money on then it wouldn't be much use.

[dx87]

They said that they aren't only focused on money now, and that they care more about doing things they enjoy, pretty much the opposite of "my only interest is money". You should read the comment again, since it looks like you rushed to call them selfish without even understanding what they said.

[_dibly]

Well they qualified that statement with 'I literally have enough money not to worry about it and now my interest is in the things I spend my money on' so I'm not sure if that disqualifies what GP was saying. It's easy to say you're not solely focused on money anymore when you have enough money to never worry about your financial security again.

[bavell]

They never said that, you're putting words in their mouth. They said their main focus was money and that they're not speaking for everyone.

Yes, that's a very balanced comment. You are the one who is being unbalanced.