Ask HN: How do I get $2.2M dollars?
I've decided that the optimal path I want in life is $2.2 million dollars, and then to live the rest of my life off of the interest generated from an index fund (approx $80K/year after tax).
Right now I'm in college studying Computer Science, and in my free time I write (I'm not any good at either yet, but now's the time to get good, so I'm not worried).
I've thought about a start-up, but the risk and reward are both too high. A successful startup is around the $10 million to $1 billion, depending on what you create. This is way over my goal. I'm sure the risk is proportional to the potential money earned, so it'd be inefficient to overshoot my target.
109 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] thread2. Live far below your means, saving most of your salary.
If you can live with less than 80K you will (A) save faster (B) need to save less money.
See http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
Also, you're young, so you may find you have different life choices in the end. Saving money is always a good plan, but there's other paths to having a life and a job (I cover them all in my book: https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/).
Data structures and algorithms interview questions are the only thing that Google and FB care about.
Yeah, it was a 50% technical role, but Google didn't care about the OTHER 50% of the job at all...
If one year from now it's up 10x, that doesn't mean it's a good idea now.
Seems mostly like common sense, really. Regarding "over-shooting"--the risk of startup-like-entities is manageable, particularly if it's a low-input resource.
Lower-risk passive-income projects don't necessarily bring in a lot of money, but they're largely no-input once the initial investment is made, and every little bit helps.
I doubt you can consistently make that kind of return year in, year out. Accounting for 2% inflation its looking even worse.
There is a pretty good discussion here which expands further - https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/5xmr3y/does_anyo...
I would recommend starting with Interactive Brokers or similar API (it is free), small linux VPS, some data for back testing and off you go, for around $100 you can start + a lot of time of course... Start by testing any trading strategy you can fin on the net for free, they will fail, but you'll observe why and one day you will find your own edge...
For the money, yes, to make money you need money, e.g. trading with less than 6 digits account is not going to make a difference and for sure it will take time, this is not a get rich quick gimmick...
Be VERY CAREFUL.
There is time to be IN the market and there is time to be OUT of the market.
Get rich quick does not work in the stock market. Get rich quick = lose money quick in 99.999% of cases.
Also checkout our affiliate program where you can earn .003btc per paying user referred :)
We also provide a live API and bulk data to the technical HackerNews types.
There is a lot of money flying around in the Crypto space right now and with some good forecasts/data you can go a long way even manually trading :)
People are often tricked into thinking that trading is a zero sum adversarial game whereas in reality we can all benefit with the surge in crypto, I don't have the capital to trade much myself so I sell the trading system and reinvest in both trading and the trading system.
Unfortunately affiliate programs do come across as spammy less than 1% of traffic currently comes through the referral program so no one's using it really
[0] reddit.com/r/financialindepdence
When do you want to retire with this $2.2M? That might guide your investment choices. Sounds like you might want to take some financial/econ classes as well ;P
It's very rare for you to meet someone serious about saving money. Before you know it, they're complaining that you never do anything even though you have plenty of money (relatively).
Are you sure you won't want a relationship? You're young enough that within a decade you'll be a completely different person. It doesn't seem that way now, but a decade is a massive force.
There are other things you'll be giving up: Pets, for example, are quite expensive. Sinking $3k into an electronics hobby is also rewarding. You'll also be buying everything second-hand if you're really serious about saving, and it's hard not to become frustrated with all of the poor-quality things in your life.
And then before you know it, your youth will be gone. Time is more valuable than money.
Just think carefully about your goals. It's easy to set a lofty aim, like becoming a doctor, and then set yourself on a trajectory you may regret.
Can't agree more. If I had to do it over again, I'd just live my life, not worry about being super frugal or saving a ton of money.
Daily "spending money" to go to the movies or the bar with friends is very very little when compared to the average salary of a Google engineer.
The way to save up money is to get a job that pays 2X or 3X more than a comparable job (or in other words, don't work for startups. Go work for one of the big 5 tech companies).
You are wasting your time if you are worrying about saving 20 dollars here and there by not going out to a bar with friends.
The second account is then used for daily expenses such as groceries, restaurants, and other entertainment.
Ha! What nonsense. It is cheaper for two people to live together, to cook together, to go on holiday together, to travel together, to game together, to invest together...
I'm struggling to think of anything that isn't cheaper when done as a couple. Even if you find the cheapest living space possible - it becomes a lot cheaper if someone else is contributing 50% of the costs.
In order to repeat finding someone like that, I'd suggest the following: open yourself up to all dating channels (in-person, online, Tinder, etc), make yourself visible, and be honest about your objectives. If you don't wanna be too direct about your frugality, you can casually name drop Mr. Money Mustache as a personal hero and anyone with similar interests will get the hint. Then once actually dating, aggressively cull anyone that doesn't meet your money-saving criteria.
As you might expect with all things dating, this is time-consuming, difficult, and discouraging at times. But if you're reading this, you're technically minded and you already understand that it's all just a numbers game, and success is just a matter of time. Adopt a systematic approach and you'll get there eventually
To end on another positive anecdote: I've met at least a handful of female candidates that are equally frustrated with the average guy not being seriously able to save money. So when you finally find the right person, the relief is mutual and it kicks off the relationship on a strong positive note.
Hang in there and good luck.
For precisely this reason one should find out exactly what they need to be content and quit the rat race as soon they can. No point slaving away your time at work for unnecessary comforts.
I’ve read a lot of Alan Watts recently, and his deal is enjoying life where you are. But at the same time, I really value personal freedom and doing my own thing.
And on top of all of that, I want to be happy with my future SO, whoever she is. Maybe I’m just going through a conflict of goals right now.
Life is a huge and beautiful thing, and I just want to live as much of it as I can.
Even if you are not living in somewhere that cheap, 80k should be enough to afford you dating, children (or two) and probably even enough to live off that one income stream.
of his best friend's ride..
Google, FB, ect pay 150k+ total compensation to new graduates and can quickly rise to 300k+ for "senior developers" with 4-5 years of experience.
I'm not really sure how much higher it goes after that, once your are promoted higher than a "senior developer". But it is probably a lot. And I am NOT exaggerating on those previously mentioned salary numbers.
Basically: Get awesome grades, get a top offer, jump ship when you can earn 15% more elsewhere (and its not a down step job), Save at least 20% of your gross salary into some kind of index ETF/fund, live way below your means, wait 10+ yrs.
* Assuming you're in the USA
Whoops, now you have some hundreds thousand of student loan.
Unless you studied abroad in a country with free education.
No, you can't, because the mutual ownership is a significant part of what marriage entails. An economic partnership in which the partners provide mutual support and can therefore adjust, dynamically and informally, together the distribution of marketed work and non-marketed support work is fundamental to marriage.
This happened to my parents in the 70s. They retired in the early 70s and then BOOM inflation went nuts and what was a comfortable retirement turned into subsistence.
doesn't seem likely anytime soon, but it is still a risk.
2,200,000 = Delivering $1 of value to 2.2mi people. Just play with that numbers until you can figure out something that you can build that fits into that model....
$1 of value to 2.4mi people (in a year) // (i fudged the number to make the math easier)
$1 of value to 200k people a month
$2 of value to 100k people a month
$3 of value to 75k people a month
$4 of value to 50k people a month
$8 of value to 25k people a month
$16 of value to 12.5k people a month
$32 of value to 6.25k people a month
...
The tricky part is figuring out what people want to pay for.
There are also abstractions to this... like advertising... An average cpm is $2.80. So you'd have to get ~$3 of value from 75k people a month (if they viewed 1000 pages/mo each).. or 75mi page views a month would get you 2.2mi a year.
In the case of building something, that replaces the need for $2.2M in capital, which means the 75mm page views/mo reduces down to 2.7mm views/mo, or in the case of the SaaS business, looks something like:
$1 of value to 80,000 people / year
$1 of value to 6,667 people / mo
$5 of value to 1,334 people / mo
$6.67 of value to 1,000 people / mo
$10 of value to 666 people / mo
The key insight is that $7/mo (in perpetuity) from your "1,000 true fans" gives OP the lifestyle he/she is hoping for.
In fact, it might be easier to build one product that millions of users pay $1/year for a few years than it would to get $1/year from 80,000 till one's death.
build a company and then sell it.
Get $3.5m and give away $1.3m. You'll have exactly what you asked for.
If you get atop job, salary plus options you could do it. Of course, unless you spend it.
This is a good question, and I’m going to keep thinking about it.
I have a lot of experience in this area. (Obsessed about retirement from about age 22, and set a goal for 30. Did it.) This is a very important question to ponder at the beginning. :)
I should probably add why I'm asking this question. I thought all those years I was working my ass off, missing out on so many things in life, and destroying my marriage over this goal that I needed to have the money first THEN realize my dreams. If your dreams are "freedom" and "doing my own thing" you probably don't need $2.2 million to do them today. But I don't know what they are, so that's why I asked. Sure, if your dream is to buy Ferraris and pop expensive champagne every night, you really do need that money.
Mine or more simple: traveling practically full time, getting a farm and building crazy inventions on it, etc. I really didn't need a lot of money to do either of these things. For example there are sites like workaway.info where you can go live and work on a farm, or on a beautiful vineyard in France, or in a cool hotel in the tropics, etc. TODAY.
There are similar resources for travelers.
For anything I could imagine wanting back then, I could've easily achieved by being a little resourceful, creative, and reaching out to those who could help me in exchange for my skills/talents.
Bottom line is, you would be amazed at the life you can live outside the mainstream economy. I think it's one of the best kept secrets in the world.
I don't regret how I did things entirely, but thinking about this very carefully in the beginning would've saved me a whole lot of heartache and distress.
I'm excited for you and wish you the very best.