Am I missing something about where this guy is getting money? He posted his bank account, which is essentially empty, and it seems his only current income is $600/mo, which is less than half of his rent. So how is this guy surviving currently?
I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege" at every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings and barely any income would be freaking out unless they had some family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any discussion of is suspiciously absent.
Didn't he say he started with $80,000, spent it, and is now out of money?
Presumably he now needs to either get a job asap or make some hard choices. But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking about the future.
> I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege
He literally had enough money to blow $80,000 on 2 years of unemployment. Of course he is privleged. Most people in the computer industry are. Most posters to hn are. The average person lives paycheque to paycheque and certainly doesn't have 80k just lying around in their bank account.
> But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking about the future.
No, my specific point is that he does not sound like he needs to make hard choices, and he is alluding to continuing working on his own projects in the future. He writes:
> I made resolutions: to make $1M in revenue in 2025. Well, that's not really happening… But rest assured, I do everything possible to reach that goal rather sooner than later.
and
> blymp is the only one generating money — about $600/month — and the one I plan to continue next year. Yay!
and finishes with
> Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with myself. Cheers!
And sure, people that make a high income job are privileged, but I was using it in the sense that you frequently see it used online, specifically that he has a backup pool of money/support somewhere, most likely family, that he conspicuously leaves out of his post.
Ok, there are some comments like this one and a few others that seem to be focused on his apparent lack of anxiety, or that I'm calling him out for being "privileged".
I'm primarily calling him out because his story, as written, simply makes no sense, because reality. He has no money left, and is making less money than his next rent payment, but he is talking about continuing on in the next year doing the same things he did in previous years. Except in previous years he started with 80k, and this year he's starting with 0.
I'm really not particularly interested in his anxiety triggers, I'm interested in where he will be getting money for his next rent payment. There are literally only a couple options: he's got backup support somewhere that will provide him with funds/housing/food, he plans to get some "day jobs" to fund his lifestyle (which would then severely limit his entrepreneurial time), or he plans to just ride out the eviction process where he's currently renting until being homeless. One of these must be true, and I think it's a pretty critical part of his story that he just leaves out.
There is also the option that he paid a year worth of rent in advance, which emptied his bank account, and now he has no liquidity, but has a place to stay for the next 12 months.
But you are right that this is not clarified anywhere in the post, and the math as described does not add up.
I also thought it was funny, because it is if you have enough self confidence.
I had an agenda with 2-3 weeks worth of planning to stay with friends and aquaintances. I would never stay at the same place for more than 1 night. The friends would tollerate it for 2 weeks or 2 months but if i limit the visit to 1 day per week, 2 weeks or a month their patience would never run out. The deal was this: you pay for shopping i clean the kitchen entirely, i Cook an elaborate meal, clean the kitchen again, sleep and leave at 8 am.
The funniest were the ones who chose to abuse the deal and turned their kitchen into a giant mess. They pretty much didnt do anything for 14 days. I vaguely knew them, we didnt get along so well but i was excited to see the mess. This looks very welcomming! I joked. Some also ordered elaborate fancy 3 course meals that took some doing. They would enjoy the elaborate candle light dinner together after a day of hard work while i slaved away in their kitchen. Fucking hilarious.
Which part? The hosts often got the better end of the deal.
Today i would much enjoy a monthly elaborate dinner with my girl in exchange for 1x using a bed in a spare room i never use. Renting it out for a day for $ to a stranger is not going to happen but if it did it wouldnt cover the cost for professional cleaning plus a private cook.
I also had friends who never cook and ones who barely clean. I did whole office buildings, vacuuming a livingroom is not going to impress me.
Same. Mildy curious about the homeless life, just paid the last rent I could afford when I found a job. The main concern at the time was worrying my parents.
But after you point out he's secretly a lottery winner, then what? it's not like he's trying to sell you a course on how to live like he is, or saying that you should live this way. he's just documenting his life out in the open, journaling for future generations to read how we lived during the dawn of the Internet and the rise of AI. Hopefully we don't have to read he gets thrown out on the streets and is living in a tent. Maybe he'll move back in with his mom or stay with friends if he can't find a job. or maybe he will and the story will be about corporate life. it's not a particular ostentatious "hey look at my private jet and 7 Ferraris and luxury estates in 7 countries with staff" lifestyles of the rich and famous either. He's not bragging "I went to Dubai and spent $10,000s for a hotel room". it's, "I quit my job to write software to try and make my own company so I don't have to be a corporate drone with a boss."
> Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with myself.
He does talk about the future and seems to imply he’ll continue to not have a job.
If that’s the case, I’m with GP in wondering how he’s going to make it past January.
What is he supposed to do? I'm absolutely sure he's still looking, trying his best to find a job or a permanent solution to his situation. But there's no reason to complain and whine about things he can't change.
Life is shit sometimes, when he is out, he'll be out. Or he'll find some way of generating income, and then he gets another chance.
I've been in similar situations myself, and there is absolutely no reason to get stuck up regardless how stressful and painful it is, you can only do your best and that's it.
> I'm absolutely sure he's still looking, trying his best to find a job or a permanent solution to his situation. But there's no reason to complain and whine about things he can't change.
I'm baffled by these responses. The reason we're calling him out is because he literally says he is not looking, at least for another job, in his blog post. It's not about wanting him to be stressed and anxious, it's about trying to understand how he plans to not have a job in 2025 and just continuing on doing more of the same, when in previous years he said he started with 80k, and now he's starting with 0.
I read somewhere that most people in the US are definitely not paycheck to paycheck. The article I read claimed it's around 15-20% of the working population.
I saw the same stat, and felt like their definition was too restrictive (basically you had to spend 100% of your income on your bills). Usually a small amount of extra income gets spent and those people are also living paycheck to paycheck for all intents and purposes.
Well that's what paycheck to paycheck means: you barely have the ends meet for essentials. Not that you're zero after topping 401(k) and your yoga classes.
If losing your job means you won't be able to make rent this month, i'd consider that paycheque to paycheque. Like that is literally what the phrase is saying.
Whether that is because you simply dont have much money, or you spent it all on something frivilous is immaterial.
Yes, absolutely. I took a job where the company (a major one) effed up HR in some way where I and another person, who got hired at the same time, didn't get paid for around six weeks. He got evicted from his apartment. I had the means to keep mine. His life was ruined. Mine kept on. I believe his situation is / was far more common than mine.
My first job in NYC paid very little. I did something to my foot that required surgery and about 6 weeks on crutches. I ended up spending most of my paycheck at that time to getting car service from Brooklyn to Manhattan for work. During that time I was just spending whatever was needed to maintain the status quo. Only years later did I realize the privilege I was experiencing. During that time I remember colleagues remarking in disbelief that I was taking car service to work.
My thinking was the only alternative was the subway and no way thought I was experiencing privilege. I was just trying to keep my job.
That was my point. One is struggling with life and it may not have to do with money/resources. The struggle removes the sense of privilege from the fore front of one’s thoughts. I was spending $40 a day while earning $70 a day.
Later on I realized that for some people that would have ended their NYC experience.
So you were netting $30/day? Assuming you worked 21 days/month, that's $630/month before other expenses like food and rent. How on Earth did you survive at that rate, even with early 1990s NYC prices?
My uncle was a kinetic sculptor in NYC and he bought a condemned building in right next to the Williamsburg bridge in 1978 for $10k. I graduated college in 1991 and he still had a condemned building and had made 3 of the 4 floors into apartments. The 4th floor was original meaning a dirty, dusty, with no real facilities. The apartment was full of old broken furniture and building supplies.
He didn't want to work on the building he was doing a lot of work for the Exploratorium. His idea was to put in the 4th floor and have me try to complete the building to get a certificate of occupancy. So that is where I lived.
Williamsburg at that time was very different. One could not park on the street with out a chain to hold your car hood shut. One's battery would be stolen otherwise. The office I worked in was full of people who were concerned that I lived in that neighborhood.
So I had a very good set-up and I felt a lot of gratitude for my situation but it didn't feel much like a privilege. Sweeping the floors of that apartment was almost pointless for the first year or two...
$40/day on mass transit is not unusual either. If I commuted into the nearest major city (and, yes, it would involve a short drive and cheap parking( that's about what I would be.
Certainly costs have gone up. But, throw in commuter rail as opposed to just subway (and maybe some parking) and round-trip costs can easily be more than just a few dollars.
I have no idea how much those things cost because I was taking the subway for $2.50 cents a day. I'm sure people could pay more to get to work but my pay scale didn't provide me many options.
I'm happy to say I wasn't privileged but fortunate if that satisfies you.
You were absolutely experiencing privilege. I know you recognize it now, but hearing this is scary. This is why folks often vote Republican - they have no idea what life is like for very hard working actual poor people who would need services after breaking an ankle.
What can mask privilege was that I was raised by a single mother who had the privilege of trying to support 2 kids as a potter. We had good family support but it wasn’t glamourus.
But living paycheck to paycheck to most people definitely does include spending one’s money on non-bill things like lotto tickets, consumer goods, restaurants, and things beyond their means.
Thing is it's absolutely possible to scale up your spending to any income level. And this is indeed what happens with many people, this is how you get these NYT pieces on households struggling on $500k. If you go by this the whole expression is kinda meaningless.
There is a guy on YouTube that runs a channel called "I will teach you to be rich". Part of his content is like a call-in radio show, where people share their trainwreck expenses. It is unbelievable how people spend their money. And these are people frequently earning over 200K USD per year. If you watch more than a few episodes they all sound the same, and it is very hard to have any sympathy for their wasteful spending habits. When confronted by the host about various line items in their shared budget, the guests (invariably!) have unlimited excuses why this or that cannot be cut. Most people that I know that are earning more than 50% above median income are incredibly wasteful spenders. Most of them are in for a huge shock in their 50s when thinking about retirement.
Almost all of us are wasteful spenders in our own ways. The point of that guys show is to teach people to only spend money in ways that really matter to them. But, my matters might (likely) be your wasteful.
Maybe not any income level. Well, you can buy Twitter I suppose. But, yes, you can fly Netjets or whatever, buy supercars, have a bunch of personal staff, and eat out at Michelin-starred restaurants on a regular basis. And burn through certainly multiple $100Ks or even 6 figures annually pretty quickly.
There was once a billionaire in Brazil who blew it all.
Instead of Netjets you can own your own jet(s). Instead of restaurants you can buy them or have the chef come to your house. At the extreme end, you can start a space program.
Yeah. I sometimes feel like I'm being a bit extravagant but it's pretty small-scale in the scheme of things. No interest in multiple homes, yachts, jets, etc. Don't even eat out all that much except when I'm relatively modestly traveling.
Because when you look at the people in those surveys who “live paycheck to paycheck,” there’s an awful lot of them who say “after we pay for the mortgage and the car loans and groceries and max out our 401ks and contribute to the vacation fund, there’s nothing left.”
It definitely does not mean lotto tickets and restaurants. People living paycheck to paycheck do not go to restaurants. If you are going to restaurants it means you have funds AFTER bare expenses. Paycheck to paycheck means just enough to survive.
We definitely live in a time when one can create their own inflation. Khaki's in the USA can range from sub $50 to $900+. One can decide what is the correct price for our pants.
I think lifestyle creep is too general of a description.
The difference between $900 pants and $50 pants is more than lifestyle creep. I see it as indicative of a stratified society. Previous times had wealthy paying more for clothes but it showed in workmanship or materials.
In the words of Lucille Blutb:
How much could a banana cost, $10?
I see Lifestyle creep as an individual gradually spending more for meals and cloths
Not that I really go to Vegas much any longer (thank the stars!) but when I did for conferences regularly, I'd go into some of the shopping malls and would be (not really literally but close) "I couldn't afford a single thing in this store!"
I bet paycheck to paycheck like most things has a range of meanings circling around the same essential thing, which is that if you do not get paid next month you cannot afford to live the same next month as you did this one.
You might be able to make ends meet by cutting the 401K and yoga classes, but if that's what you need to cut to eat the next month, what do you cut to eat the month after that?
This guy was obviously not living anywhere near paycheck to paycheck.
Mandatory spending isn't stable either. In my 20s I had low income, but at the end of the month I'd have a bit of money left over. Then the next month my car I needed to get to work would break down or I'd need to get a new shirt to look nice enough for the dress code rules or something. So over time I went slowly into debt.
By this definition I was not living paycheque to paycheque, but my situation was definitely not good, compared up someone who made better money but spent it each month on nonessential.
I think this nails the problem with using that phrase as a rallying cry. There is a difference between people whose problem is that their income is too low to be secure and people who could easily live a secure and comfortable lifestyle if they just managed their budget better.
>people who could easily live a secure and comfortable lifestyle if they just managed their budget better.
and inside that group - people who made one bad decision, and people who have neuro-divergent issues that make managing the budget more of chore than it is for someone without the issue.
I'm not an English native speaker but that doesn't sound correct to me. If you need next month's paycheck in order to survive that month, for whatever reason (even if you gambled last month's money away, much less saved up for retirement or spent it on your health), that's my understanding of living paycheck to paycheck: you miss one paycheck and you're bust. (I assume you can't take it back out of that 401k thing or it wouldn't be a pension fund but a bank account. Correct me if I'm wrong about the mechanics of a 401k)
Dictionary seems to agree, Merriam Webster says: "to spend all of the money from one paycheck before receiving the next paycheck", not specifying that you can't have spent the money on semi-essentials that could perhaps be moved by a few months but you'd need to catch up with sooner or later
Random technical details: You can take money out of a 401k in a couple of ways that aren't retirement. The best way is an authorized reason: Up to a fairly small amount towards a first home. If you become disabled. If you are a victim of certain crimes. If you have a small (< $1000) emergency you cannot cover[0]. You can also take out that money at any time, paying a penalty on top of the tax required.
There is also a way to borrow money short term from your 401k that turns into an unauthorized withdraw if you don't pay it back in a relatively short time (a year?)
These all seem reasonable.
[0] Yes, there are rules to prevent the worst abuse, mostly limiting you to doing so once every three years, the small total, and the need to fill out paperwork explaining the unexpected cost.
The problem with “paycheck to paycheck” is that it evokes images of people struggling to make ends meet—to pay the rent, keep the lights on, and put food on the table. But a lot of people today are using it to mean someone who’s living beyond their means—spending $1100/month on a brand new pickup truck while sending their kids to private school and maxing out their 401k. That’s not a problem of an unfair economy; it’s simply poor discipline. And so when a half-assed marketing survey asks people if they’re living paycheck to paycheck, you end up with 60% of respondents saying, “Yes,” when in reality only maybe 20% are struggling because they’re in a truly difficult situation. The rest of them may just need to settle for a less expensive car and maybe turn down their 401k contribution for six months so they can pay off their credit cards.
Sounds all correct to me, just the second word in your comment: I'm not sure how this adds up to it being a "problem". It's what "paycheck to paycheck" literally sounds like, it's what the dictionary says it means, it's how people use it -- but apparently not everyone. If you want to refer to people who are financially struggling, not using a broad term but just saying what you mean sounds okay to me?
Paycheck to paycheck means just that - your income is balancing exactly your expenses. This doesn't mean that you are not living in modest luxury. Having enough money to cover essentials is just definition of - at the edge of poverty. Paycheck to paycheck is about (anti) fragility. They overlap strongly in the bottom part of the income ladder and diverge as you go up. You may be financially vulnerable even if pulling a lot of income. This doesn't mean that you can't get easier out of a hole if you fall with higher income, but paycheck to paycheck evaluate the chance of falling into it.
The problem with that is there are also a large number of people who make a large amount of money and still save very little. So we should maybe put more work into figuring out what is the fault of economic structure, and what is the fault of poor decision making. Perhaps define some metric that’s a measure of what percentage of people would be unlikely to be able to do anything other than live paycheck to paycheck to paycheck in their current setup and where they live.
This exact debate showed up on another thread here the other day. While I agree with you, I was surprised to learn that many people view it to mean that tdon't have anything extra *after* they've done all of their socking away of money each money. Which is weird to me, but hey.
if this is what you think, I highly recommend you watch some episodes of Financial Audit on YouTube. Lots of people out there living paycheck to paycheck because they spend all their money on DoorDash and interest on bad debt, even with good income.
The US Fed came out with a stat a few years ago that 40% of Americans wouldn’t have cash to cover a $400 emergency: they’d have to sell something, borrow, or other.
That’s pretty much paycheck to paycheck if your savings are that low.
The question asked how somebody would pay for an unexpected $400 expense. If you answered “credit card” then you were considered to not have the cash to cover an emergency. I’d use a credit card…and pay it off when it’s due.
How are you all discussing this question from memory without linking to the source?
Poorly, that's how.
When faced with a hypothetical expense of $400, 63 percent of all adults in 2022 said they would have covered it exclusively using cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next statement (referred to, altogether, as "cash or its equivalent")
I suspect multiple things are getting mixed together... I swear I remember reading what GP said much further back than two years ago.
Edit: That said, the part you quoted supports GP, the part in quotes seems to be what they actually asked. Credit is probably not what most would think of as "cash equivalent", that would be debit, checks, and transfers like Zelle.
16% straight answered like that, if you scroll down to the next table for non-cash-equivalent payments:
> Put it on my credit card and pay it off over time
Edit: The people running this survey also had the same thoughts about ‘maybe some people are choosing to not this directly even though they could?’ And added this question:
Based on your current financial situation, what is the largest emergency expense that you could handle right now using only your savings?
1. Under $100
2. $100 to $499
3. $500 to $999
4. $1,000 to $1,999
5. $2,000 or more
This is discussed just below the stats @Jabble sites!
To explore this potential difference between how people would pay for a small, unexpected expense and whether they could pay for it with cash or the equivalent, the survey included a question asking people what the largest emergency expense was that they could handle using only savings. Eighteen percent of adults said the largest emergency expense they could handle right now using only savings was under $100, and 14 percent said they could handle an expense of $100 to $499
So this statistic means most people are not living paycheck to paycheck right? (Although I didn’t think that “paycheck to paycheck” meant you would be ruined by an unexpected $400 expense)
Anyway, it still doesn’t seem like most people live paycheck to paycheck, according to your link:
> Some financial challenges, such as a job loss, require more financial resources than would an unexpected $400 expense. One common measure of financial resiliency is whether people have savings sufficient to cover three months of expenses if they lost their primary source of income. In 2023, 54 percent of adults said they had set aside money for three months of expenses in an emergency savings or “rainy day” fund—unchanged from 2022 but down from a high of 59 percent of adults in 2021.
Yep. In the US, I would of course pay for an unexpected car repair (or indeed most any expense) with a credit card. It doesn't mean it won't be paid off at the end of the month in essentially all cases. So one of those meaningless statistics.
YOU would, but a lot of people with credit cards don't even understand that it's a loan, or what compound interest is. They put the expense on the card and then pay the minimum payment, either until it's paid off with insane interest, or they keep racking up debt until they reach their limit and get a worse card, until they're trapped in a cycle of poverty
seriously, everyone in this thread should watch Financial Audit and see how people outside the silicon valley bubble really live. That show has extreme examples to be sure but there are so many people like this
I find it hard to sympathize with people that have enough money to pay off their card bills but don’t actually do so because they can’t be bothered to read.
It is easy to make mistakes when you margins are razor thin. They might be stupid mistakes it still happens and you notice them more because your margins become even smaller. I have been there, being really poor was hard on me.
Not an excuse for using credit cards, just an explanation why you should sympathize.
They aren't, debit cards are the default. Credit cards are just readily available and people like having credit.
Credit access in the US is ludicrous, you can be a terrible borrower (late or even tons of charge offs) and still get credit offers for credit cards. A lot of people then get into trouble because somewhere in their psychology the credit limit counts as money they "have" even though they understand they have to pay it back. That's why you have people talking about literally freezing their cards in a block of ice to control their spending.
Because paper money is inconvenient as hell. Have you seen the size of those 25ct coins! And then you go to buy the cheapest bottle of water, and you need 20 of them to buy half a liter.
Oh I see. But I mean why not just a debit/bank card that allows you to pay with money you have but not with money you don't? You just meant card in general. Yes I agree cash is now very inconvenient.
Basically, you're less protected against purchases gone wrong with a debit card or against fraud. A fair number of (mostly higher income) folks also get other benefits from credit cards--though that may not be relevant here.
However, a debit card usually covers the floor of needing a card of some sort to pay for a lot of things.
I suspect a lot of people in the US use credit card generally to mean card of some sort because credit cards are so common. You do mostly need a card of some sort (and a smartphone) for many purposes but it mostly doesn't need to be a literal credit card so long as you have enough money in the bank.
We have no savings right now (I am not working) and could afford a $400 emergency, but we live paycheck to paycheck. Income is good, the extra just gets spent on various things due to having multiple disabled people in the house. Eventually we hope to rebuild the savings.
As I recall, there was also some disagreement in discussions over what "having cash" meant. A lot of people have ready access to assets that aren't necessarily literally cash.
OP got divorced so they probably sold the house. Many people living on the edge could still end up pretty loaded if they sold everything and lived like OP.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/most-of-americans-are-living... had 65% but the methodoly seems kind of terrible, your number might be better. Either way, its a significant portion, and even those with more generally don't have the ability to quit their job for 2 years.
I’ve always understood paycheck to paycheck to describe households that don’t have a buffer. Meaning, if the paychecks suddenly stop, or a sudden large expense, there’s nothing to bridge the gap other than social programs.
By this definition, I would imagine a very large number of US households fit the mould.
Most Western European countries do have higher savings rates than the US, but, disregarding Switzerland, Ireland and the Nordics (ie small wealthy countries with very high cost of living), it’s not a _dramatic_ difference. People may be less likely to be living paycheck to paycheck, but being able to just take two years off not working, unless you had very low living costs, would still be very unusual.
I think the difference in available social services here is also necessary to take into account. Someone laid off in, say, Spain, already has full healthcare provided by the state, and qualifies for an unemployment benefit based on their most recent salary for up to 3 years - this makes for a significantly less precarious position than that same person recently laid off in the US.
I would have expected the opposite to occur because of that - lesser saving rates because they have more robust available social services and don't need emergency reserves.
And if go eg. Germany. Ridiculously, without kids, it's nearly more beneficial to go on unemployment support there. Since, when working, you blow like 50%+ on taxes.
Marginal tax rate is 42% on the first EUR after 278K. That would astonishingly high total income in Germany. There might be some remaining solidarity tax from the reunification, but I cannot see how you get to an effective tax rate of 50% on 100K income, which is considered excellent in Germany.
Can you share a worked example how effective tax rate can be above 50%?
Kinda useless to reply to a throwaway after 5h but let's see
1. Minor mistake. 42% marginal is at 60k~ish, the 278k number is 45%
2. The effective income tax rate around 100k is in the area of 25%. When there's numbers thrown around above 40% they usually include the 19% sales tax, CO2 tax etc. it's a slightly odd number including government induced cost.
VAT is never included in income tax comparisons. So, please tell me: How do you get to 50% effective tax rate in Germany with anything less than a ridiculously high income, like 250K EUR+?
A lot of people adjust their lifestyle to paycheck, so little is left afterwards. Concept of savings is quite foreign to them, they want to enjoy life now. So paycheck to paycheck, while sporting newest highend phone or other gizmos, nice package of vacations through the year or just look at fashion clothes they wear and how often they buy new ones.
I mean I would fit in this category too for maybe past decade, little cash left over after paycheck but I did like exotic 5 vacations per year and invested rest into mortgage for mountain apartment for rentals.
> Americans have higher disposable income at all income levels than Europeans
Most of this is eaten up by higher healthcare and university education costs, combined with a much worse social safety net compared to other G7-like nations. So really, are middle class Americans more financially stable than Europeans from G7-like nations? I doubt it.
He's privileged sure, not because he had 80K in the bank to burn through, but because he knows it's not the end of him when it's burnt through. He COULD get a job and steady income if he wanted, in at least that 80K range (probably double really). So meh. Good for him though for scratching his itches though. Any dude who can code can be a wage slave if they really want to.
To me, $80k sounds like a very small amount of "F-You" money. I'm not criticizing the OP at all, but if I quit my job with 80k in the bank, I would immediately start researching the most painful B2B problem I could solve quickly using AI. Not to generate an income stream, but to build an asset (the business) to sell.
That's the quickest path to $1M. Software developers are too caught up on salary (or 73 different "income streams" that all make $0), and rarely think about building a valuable business.
I posted an idea for a proven business a few days ago based on an area why my employer has given up on (too "small" for a multi-billion dollar company) and yet customers still seem to like and want[1]. I'm pretty sure this would be worth a few million at least, and I'd even be qualified to do it. Why don't I do it? Because it would be dull as ditchwater and I'd hate every minute of it. There's more to life than that.
The point is that solving dull business problems like that might be lucrative, but not many of us are motivated enough to do them.
I doubt doing oVirt is a million dollar idea. One of the biggest reasons for going with oVirt was redhat being behind it. rh will keep rhev on life support for its customers (thus staying in competition for a bit longer) and there are plenty other more popular opensource alternatives already. I mean, sure making millions isn't impossible, but you would not need good software so much, but good connections instead to make it work.
Yeah, Red Hat put a fair bit of money and investment into a direct VMware takeout using oVirt/RHV. Pretty much went nowhere. There's presumably some money int here post-Broadcom acquisition but Red Hat is mostly betting on Kubevirt and OpenShift. Some (presumably smaller-scale) customers will prefer more of a like-to-like lower-cost replacement but personally I wouldn't bet on it as a business.
Yeah, my feeling is that if you're a billion dollar business with associated high overheads, then a few million is not worth it. If you're a zero dollar start-up with focus and a tolerance for selling boring software to boring companies, then there's money in it.
I still remember something someone from IBM told me during my prior analyst gig. Don't remember the specific but something to do with Linux and Power I think. Basically, he said that if it's not a billion dollar opportunity it's not worth all the costs and distractions up and down the line to pursue.
You're right that the million dollar opportunity is a lot more interesting for a startup. Of course, it's also going to be a lot harder for that startup to displace VMware (which the potential customer probably is using). I'm not sure going after those crumbs is a terrible idea but there are already other option like Xen too.
Something can be both conceptually simple yet difficult to execute. (The key to losing weight is "just" to eat less and exercise, piano is "just a bunch of keys," etc)
Personally I have a mortgage and a family, so I'm not eager to burn through savings to build a company 0-1, but if I had to, I described exactly what I would do.
Hehehe, you just described most normal people: a mortgage a family, cannot just wake up and say I am going all-in “this great idea”. Your idea is therefore only reachable for early age people or singles.
I am trying to revive a project I believe strongly which is kind of ready to sale, but I cannot get a damn 4 hours to seat down and look at it without being interrupted by life’s chores or just being too tired
Anyway I have similar fantasies to yours. It feels good to not be alone, both in circumstances as in fantasy.
I've been there! I recently released an app that has been 99% ready for sale for a full year, and the only way I got it over the finish line was to wake up every morning at 5am to get an hour or two of work in before my kid wakes up. :) I'd love to do something bigger, but this will have to scratch that entrepreneurial itch for now!
I dunno. That seems a pretty quick path to a 74th income stream that makes $0. Especially at the moment, I'm not seeing a lot of money trees around. Not that I needed them, but when I semi-retired a number of possible revenue streams sort of evaporated--not that I looked too hard.
But if you deliberately quit, that may be the thing to do. A more conservative person would probably counsel getting at least a part-time job that pays a salary though.
To be specific, I would quit the other 73 income streams and stop any extracurricular activities until I shipped something. Even though AI feels overhyped (it sort of is), we're still early in the game, and there's plenty of money to be made. Businesses still have a ton of time-consuming, expensive pain points. You just have to pick an industry and go talk to insiders to figure out what to build.
I’m in business technology consulting. You’re right about tons of pain points and opportunity.
But the limiting factor is not AI or any kind of tech, it’s getting these businesses to trust you with fitting into their existing systems and giving you their time.
100%. Another reason to start by talking to customers. The product has to be more than useful—it has to fit into their current workflow. Most B2B startups underinvest in sales (which is not the same as sending 100,000 cold emails).
I won't argue if I had a bunch of other activities consuming most of my bandwidth that weren't bringing in any money. If you really need cash though, I might consider lower risk, lower reward options on at least a part-time basis as well though. Doing a startup isn't exactly a high ROI activity in general--especially in a max-hype area.
Very true—for a software developer, part-time consulting is probably the quickest path to making some money. It's a lower-risk, but much lower-leverage option than a 0-1 startup. Building a startup has a high risk of going to zero, but if you've chosen the right customer, the potential upside is dramatically higher than any other option.
That’s a good point. The article reads like an extended vacation, often spent trying to start businesses, that didn’t work out.
I was recently working six days a week with a nearly-empty fridge. My coworkers were scraping by. I have two jobs now. Due to a car repair, money is tight through December but we have food (and the car). Working 12 hours a day does cut into time I might build skills for a better job. Still progressing, though.
My coworkers and I at each job can’t usually take even a week off unless it was a paid vacation. A year or two? That’s like a dream goal for us.
Whereas, it’s terrible he had a divorce and lost everything. I’ve prayed that Jesus Christ bless he and his former partner with mutual forgiveness and new lives with peace. I thank Christ that He gave much joy in financial or other circumstances that would cause depression in most people. He is our Rock.
Privilege is relative. There are around a billion people today that won't make that much money in their entire lives. And most people alive today will never save even 1/10 that much money.
I called it out in an different thread. There's a safety net here that's simply not being mentioned. Nothing wrong with that of course, but let's not pretend that somebody with a monthly rent of ~1200 and a whopping ~60 CAD in savings would somehow magically be stress free. You'd be homeless inside a few months in the US.
Hard disagree. In his post he's talking about continuing on in his own projects, and about 2025 being essentially more of the same, except this time with no money and no significant stable income. There is other support somewhere he is simply not talking about, because he certainly doesn't mention being worried about paying his rent going forward.
Okay, I’m still not sure why it matters. It’s not like he’s being an ass or saying “anyone can do it” so what’s the harm?
Did you know there are people, right now, who are squandering a fortune on mundane things and won’t have to work a day in their lives? You can be jealous of them (I am) but that’s all.
The entrepreneur is maybe not too strict on the rent payments? Maybe he adds other housekeeping services that balance the money side?
Maybe he sells his body. The longer I think about the wilder it gets.
I agree with others that while it is intriguing to read about his last year, the way he finances himself on this low level is missing.
Depending on where you live even an income of 200k$ can have you living from paycheck to paycheck. So it is very impressive if he pulls this through but how, teach me.
I'm in a similar boat. -$800 in my checking and about ~$1000 left on my CC. Also from Canada. Morgage payment coming up in 5 days will put me in the negative, and another one in January as well. Should not have bought a house. I'm basically screwed, but I figure the wheels of the system or whatever will move slower than me finding work.
A little bit. It was a great idea at the time when I had work. It's been listed for sale for 2 months now which is to be expected with the rate frenzy.
similar boat 7 years ago. Luckily, I found a data science job that barely covered by rent and family expenses for 12hrs a day. In addition I had to freelance for a 2 to 3 hours everyday to make ends meet - basically sleep, work, repeat - rough patch - you will get through it. Hold tight, wishing you good luck!
Damn, brother. But if anyone can pull a rabbit out this hat, it’s you. Your main problem will be getting your giant brain through the door for a job interview.
If they have $1k left in available credit, and they were making tech wages, that means on just that one credit card they are probably $9k to $24k at least in the negative already. The $1k of remaining available credit is not yet debt, but the negative bank balance is.
It is also likely they have more than one credit card, and maybe also some student loans.
As a european, I also didn't realize what CC stood for and was tripped up by the math same as the person you're replying to. Not everyone lives in a world/country where living on credit is the norm (at least not yet).
I have credit cards in Eastern Europe for 25 years, so CC is not a rare term. I also never lived on credit, I used it just for transactions during the month fully covered at the end of month with zero interest. I did that because security and refunds used to be better for credit vs debit cards (with CC, it was the bank's money, so they were more interested to solve problems). When condition equalized, I closed all CC.
I don’t think living on credit is the norm even in countries that use a credit card regularly. The limit on my card is fairly high, but if I don’t pay it off every month my provider gets pissy.
The $1,000 available on the CC is not debt either, so the person does not currently have -$1,800. If the information we have is that the person has an $800 overdraft and a $1,000 line of credit that they’re not using, they’re $800 in debt, not $1,800.
I'm a contractor and last year my agency said there would be layoffs, which caused quite a scare, but in the end only contractors residing in Canada were affected.
They probably spent all their savings on the down payment, as approximately everyone on the planet who wants a place to live but can't pay for it all out-of-pocket does?
Investment shenanigans excluded, if you have enough savings to pay off your mortgage in case you lose your job, there's no point in getting a mortgage in the first place.
You're poisoning the well there, as that is the major reason to get a mortgage even when you have enough cash to buy a house outright. It's not "shenanigans", it almost always makes financial sense to keep your cash invested elsewhere when mortgage rates are low.
And who knows what the crowd will do in 2025 given new cabinet etc.? Deductions don't really affect me much going forward. I care but not planning around specific policies going forward.
Yeah I'm not saying it is a determinant. But the new/old head of state is the only one in the admin who matters legislatively. I'm merely musing on the pressure to balance a budget and give away all of our money. I hear he isn't so good with that. Go big or go home tho.
Standard exemption in the US for a married couple is around $30k. If your mortgage is so massive that the mortgage tax deduction is better than the standard deduction then in most cases you bought a far too luxurious house or in a far too “prestigious” location(SF, NYC, etc.). If you’re not already a millionaire you shouldn’t buy such property.
Standard deduction for single people is 15k. SALT can get you to 10k, and anything past 5k in mortgage interest (at 5% rates and 100k balance, you're already at the point) is gain over the std deduction. 22.5% on those dollars for many people. More depednnding on state tax.
As someone else commented, things can of course always change, but as things stand today, it takes a very large mortgage and/or very significant other deductibles to get over the standard deductible at this point in the US.
Sometimes I wonder how people manage to browse the Web without encountering "common" pieces of wisdom. Maybe we should bundle up a bunch of useful YouTube/TikToks as a supplemental education package for students.
Nah, people know those "common" pieces of wisdom. What people bringing them up often miss is, they're also unachievable for most people. Life isn't a MMORPG where you can check out of progression at any moment and spend some time grinding to build up savings. Life has a clock to it that doesn't stop, and most can't afford falling behind it much.
Had this same type of idea cycle around recently quite a bit lately. Similar issue, if this experience actually had the "uninstall", "quit", "leave", "exit", or red X in the corner, it would have been hit a long time ago. Much rather drop and go bodily join some fantasy or sci-fi land than the perpetual grind of meaningless, mundane, superficial, banal America. There's a reason millions spend almost every waking moment staring at a screen, playing a game about a fantasy or sci-fi land where you can actually feel like you accomplish something than interacting with the human race.
Frankly, a lot of MMORPG economies almost look preferable these days, and nearly as believable. At least in quite a few you can personally manufacture something and at least have a possibility of making money that's relevant. On Earth, rather challenging. Etsy for example:
Only 26% of Etsy shops are successful and run as full-time businesses, or 74% of all Etsy businesses eventually fail.
Average Etsy seller makes $2,900 per year
Almost every part of the world economy seems designed to punish every member for not being born rich and a celebrity at birth. What's the best way to get followers online and be an "influencer"? Already be a rich celebrity who's influential. Most followed on Instagram - Christiano Ronaldo (635m), Leo Messi (504m), Selena Gomez (425m), Kylie Jenner (398m), Dwayne Johnson (396m), ect ... The top 50 is pretty much universally previously known athlete, actor/actress, musician names. "Normal" influencers are an order of magnitude or further away down in the 10m, 1m, 500k range. It's simply another way to make even more money, have even more fame, be even more self involved, and take even more of the same photos.
One part that's been really bothersome lately is how many games actually seem better implemented than the "real" world. Farming Simulator being one of the perennial cases. The equipment is implemented down to the individual bolts and seals on the engines, and you can probably print out the CAD models and manufacture your own tractor they're so detailed. Yet the game actually implements numerous technologies that the "real" farming consistently refuses. Quicker iterations, quicker development, quicker releases and responsiveness to customers. Intermediate cost farming equipment for the starting farmer, bicycle and human powered equipment with low yearly input costs. The "real" farming sector appear unable to do little other than offer the same $500,000 super-rigs they've been offering for years. There was a post a while back where the Farming Simulator people actually complained to the John Deere's of the world "common guys, how about some entry level stuff, we don't have anything to offer our players."
Anyways, TLDR, would have quit, uninstalled, and then burned the computer in the yard a long time ago.
Winning a lottery (and then winning a lottery of not mismanaging your good fortune) is great when it happens to you, but it's not an effective strategy you can plan for.
> One part that's been really bothersome lately is how many games actually seem better implemented than the "real" world. Farming Simulator being one of the perennial cases. (...) the game actually implements numerous technologies that the "real" farming consistently refuses. Quicker iterations, quicker development, quicker releases and responsiveness to customers.
Oh yes. Game designers - and same goes for any fiction authors, really - have two things going for them here. One, they can skip the grind; the boring and annoying distractions from the goal that are also necessary to achieve it in the real world. And two, as you noticed, fictional worlds can be designed to work.
Like, what's the difference between a tractor in Farming Simulator and in the real world? The simulated tractor is meant to work - to do the stuff the tractors do. The real tractor is first and foremost meant to make money for manufacturer; whether it works and can do the tractor stuff, that's incidental.
Or in short, games implement the child's view of the world, where things are what they seem to be. Bakers bake bread, firemen help people, singers sing so everyone has fun, etc. Everyone plays their role straight. The real life, unfortunately, has people doing whatever to survive in a more or less structured matter; it may manifest in bakers and firemen and singers, but their roles and value provided are incidental and they're not fulfilled and they'd all rather be somewhere else.
The child's worldview is a lie. It's honest, it's good, it makes sense, but it's a fucking lie. I'm still having difficulties processing that it's a lie. And it's all too easy to immerse yourself in sci-fi/fantasy videogames or shows or books, because they all assume the world makes sense, that things are what they seem, what they're supposed to. When things are not what they seem, that's a goddamn plot twist.
So yeah, I can't help but daydream about how the world could look like if we could just do stuff directly, instead of incidentally as a way to make money to survive (and eventually, enough money to tell the world to GTFO, so we can live out our own fantasies of a world that works).
You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you save up an emergency fund instead of paying a downpayment then you're spending money on rent that you could have in retirement, and it's not like rent is consistently cheaper than mortgage payments anyway so if you can save up when renting you can save up when owning.
So the gamble is, do you spend 2 years saving up for 6 months of income as a buffer and send tens of thousands of dollars down the drain in the meantime, or do you roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens in the next 5 or so years? The people who end up in the best position will be those who take the second option, and most of the time it will work out.
The problem is that many people view home ownership as a cultural / political statement beyond all else. They desperately need to stop being a rentoid and become a landchad. The reality is that renting is often a better financial decision than buying, especially short term. Plus, in this economy there is no guarantee that you're going to be employed in one city your whole life.
Sure. but what isn't cultural? Being cultural does not mean it is irrational. It would probably be a better financial decision if people lived cells and ate nutrient paste.
The goal is to maximize your happiness. Putting yourself into a precarious and stressful financial situation because of memes is irrational. Buying a sleeping pod might be rational for some, not for others. Those aren't cultural though, they're personal.
Your personal preferences are influenced by culture, but they include your material realities. If you're making decisions about your finances/housing without considering your material reality, you've been meme'd into a decision. A lot of people have been influenced into believing that being an owner is always better than being a renter, so they make stupid decisions.
Im not going to argue against the idea that stupid decisions are stupid or that some people make them.
My point is rather that preferences, including the material reality that you seek, are almost entirely cultural. There is no culture vs reality, but rather some cultural values vs other cultural values
Maybe. It's very situational. Beyond the spreadsheets for a given location, there are times in your life when you want to be able to pickup and move fairly easily and there are times when you want to be able to put down roots and be in a pretty stable situation that lets you tailor things.
"Putting down roots" is the wrong way to look at it. You have to ask yourself if you're certain that you will be in one area for a long time. Everyone wants roots in LA or NYC, many of them wash out.
The short answer is probably everything in moderation if you're reasonably young. Maybe don't put every penny you can get your hands on into a down payment on a house, especially if you're also a bit uncertain about future income streams and life situation. But maybe you also don't really need a year or two comfortable emergency fund.
At some point, it probably makes sense to buy a place if you can if only for the stability as you get older.
Emergency fund is useless when expenses are 5k/mo, and that's just sitting in my room working in 15C with my food costs and expenses as low as can be. Burned through 40k already.
I'm gonna predict that in a 10-year trend, the house price inflation will have continued. Unless you could save faster than the bubble, you still wouldn't be getting/keeping a house in 10 years.
I'd have been WAY better off if I stayed at my parents and invested it all into the S&P or something similar, or even bitcoin (inb4 it's going to crash). Then kept building/working/saving, and in 10y I'll have been in a much better position.
Hindsight is 20/20 and you can't extract value from the economy without changing it. The values of certain things go up or down because certain people are or aren't investing in them. If everyone who wished they'd behaved differently had behaved differently, they often wouldn't even be any better off.
Somehow the little guy always ends up taking most of the system's losses, though.
If that's the case, the savings are not 'spent' but are simply invested in the house. They should be able to sell the house for the net value (market value minus mortgage outstanding) which should be roughly equal to the down payment.
High transaction fees on sales. Typically at least 5% in US, not sure about Canada.
Also don't forget taxes, insurance, mortgage interest needs to get paid while house is in your hands. Most mortgages have lots of interest during the first few years.
Can you imagine if buyers and sellers only had to pay, say 1% each? The whole market would become a lot more liquid. But nah, brokers are essential and have your interests at heart.
This issue is frequently raised on HN. If estate agents only got 1% of sales, then could not even cover the cost of an office and (usually) a car and pay them self a middle class wage. Most people buy one or two houses in their entire life. It makes sense to have an expert to guide them through the process.
Im not sure about Canada, but Private individuals can list on redfin and Zillow in the US. MLS posting must be from a broker, but you can hire one flat rate upload your listing
You can easily find the guy's LinkedIn. It appears that he is fully devoted to "entrepreneurship" rather than finding a traditional job, and currently lists himself as the founder of 2 current start-ups. So the unemployed part is basically by choice... and you'll notice, in the article, nothing stated about applying for jobs and not getting them.
I believe what this guy is referring to is that his startups currently aren't making money. And, to that end, this blog post is a marketing piece.
He didn’t link to his only revenue-generating project anywhere, so it doesn’t feel like much of a marketing piece to me. It’s just a blog post about what he worked on in 2024 (including hobbies)
It’s the privilege of renter’s protections. Even with nonpayment the landlord has to go through a Tribunal administratif du logement hearing to evict them and that usually takes at least a few months unless the tenant is trashing the property on their way out. The process can get extended every time the tenant pays rent so if someone is genuinely trying to pay as soon as they can, eviction takes a while.
Renter's protections is one of those ideas that sound good on paper. Having to keep a non-paying rentee is disastrous for a landlord who is also trying to pay their mortgage.
Sure, some landlords are large real estate companies, but all you're doing is forcing out small landlords and ensuring that large companies own all of the rental properties.
(Like all regulation, it is at a fundamental level pro-monopolistic, favoring large companies that can handle the overhead of complying with the regulation and punishing small players who cannot.)
If you lose the mortgage on your investment property, you lose your investment property. Risk/reward and all that.
If a renter is evicted, the consequences for their life are much more severe.
Not all regulation is pro-monopolistic. The accumulation of general regulation and restriction is often supported by incumbents but that doesn’t support the sweeping conclusion you’ve reached.
It's not as simple as saying that the downside for landlords is merely loss of their investment and that the downside for renters is homelessness. The risk of non-paying tenants influences market dynamics on both sides and impacts even landlords who never encounter non-paying tenants, and even renters who make all their payments perfectly.
For landlords, they have to be much more selective of which tenants they take, and deny rental applications for those with eg bad credit or incomes that are technically enough to cover rent but leave too little of a buffer. They have to either pay for some kind of insurance (I don't know if this exists but I would assume it does) or diversify across enough properties so that they're financially protected from the risk of getting a non-paying tenant. And of course, yes they may have to deal with the hassle of a drawn out eviction of a non-paying (and often intentionally or unintentionally destructive) tenant who will likely never be able to repay the landlord even if held liable in civil court, which raises their costs in aggregate.
For tenants, besides having those increased costs and income/credit requirements passed through to them, they also have to pay higher security deposits. But probably the biggest problem is the effect on supply. Small scale property owners (especially the kind that ends up becoming an "accidental landlord" because they eg bought a condo and then moved) are highly disincentivized from renting their property out, and when they do, they're highly incentivized to not put it on the open-market and instead opt for their personal network/word of mouth/in-group. For example, lots of large tech companies have internal housing rental groups and many properties may only be advertised in places like that, or within a tight-knit social group where there are real reputational risks to being a non-paying tenant.
Really the problem IMO is that excessively permissive rental protections are a kind of social welfare benefits that are purely born by one part of the private sector. If governments compensated landlords for unpaid rent and intentional destruction from uncooperative tenants (which they have done in some cases for eg covid, but these are often done ad-hoc so landlords can't count on them and adjust practices accordingly) who take 6-12+ months to evict, then most of these problems would disappear.
The landlord deserves zero empathy in these cases. It is his job to select a reliable tenant, that's usually his entire job. Anybody else who fails completely with their responsibilities at their job can expect to be fired and lose their income, or worse. There's an extremely large surplus of honest, tidy and reliable tenants, so it's not a problem for a responsible landlord to avoid going to court, if they just put in the minimum effort at doing their job. And if they can't handle that, they should sell the real estate and not be a landlord.
Sounds like he rents a room in a house/apartment, so it's probably one of his roomies that has the lease, not him. If that's the case, protections wont apply here.
Why wouldn't the protections apply? They can evict him without going through the proper process? Couldn't he make some sort of claim against them if they do that?
If there’s any record of him subleasing (like a pattern of monthly rent payments), most of the protections will apply. The roommate on the lease can’t legally force the subleaser out without the TAL hearing either. If they didn’t ask for permission to sublease, the roommate might have a problem with the landlord depending on the terms of the lease, but the tenant protections apply to anyone who’s renting living space.
> I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege" at every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings and barely any income would be freaking out unless they had some family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any discussion of is suspiciously absent.
I understand the sentiment but I don’t understand why point it out. It’s not like the blog post in question is putting anyone down, complaining about anything, or being obnoxious.
There will always be someone more privileged than you are. Why constantly remind yourself (and others) about it if the more privileged person isn’t harming anyone?
I point it out because he's leaving out a very important part of his story. He's come to the end of 2024 with no money left and no stable income, yet he talks about continuing on more of the same in 2025, so he's got to have some other significant support from somewhere, and that's critical to his story. In my mind the better analogy is fitness influencers that go into detail about their diet and exercise regimen, and then conveniently leave out their weekly testosterone shots.
I don't judge him at all for being privileged or what he's done. I judge him for leaving out what I think is the most important part of the story: how he could go on this journey and come to a point where he's got no money left but he isn't freaking out about being homeless or getting food.
I agree with your sentiment. I am at loss how he plans to pay his rent and food given 60$ to his account. The income he mentioned does not cover one month's rent. This is a stark difference between privilege and lack-thereof. The blog post is nonsense given he does not address any of his fixes, while leads me to believe he has family or spousal support (for otherwise, they would not be picking up new hobbies. I was once broke, and I recall being panicked and working gigs to pay my rent. The fact he is doing none of these leads me to agree with your observations).
I see a difference. Influencers try and sell you whatever they’re peddling and they’re manipulative because they hide part of the truth to make you think it’s easy.
This guy isn’t doing that, he’s writing some kind of report on doing his own thing. He’s not trying to sell you on it or anything.
There is no problem surviving for a young healthy man in Montreal. One can always uber, deliveroo, tend bars etc, and it pays pretty well. Nothing to freak out about.
Fair enough, but then talking about this going forward would be a critical part of his story, because he talks about continuing on in 2025 developing his projects and essentially more of the same, which becomes considerably more difficult if he's going to spend 30-40 hours a week driving for Uber.
I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege" at every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings and barely any income would be freaking out unless they had some family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any discussion of is suspiciously absent.