Yesterday I couldn't get to sleep thinking I'll never be able to buy a house.
IT salaries in Spain are higher than most but not enough to buy anything. At the rate I'm saving money I'll be able to get a loan in around 8 to 10 years or more actually, because by then I'll need even more savings for that. But if I ever want to have kids and a family or I have any emergency I won't be able to save as much.
Millennials are not buying anything. They can't. The very few I know who have bought a house is either because they had help from their parents or bought an old house in small towns far away from everything.
I was born lucky (high-income parents who encouraged me to learn coding and had money for computers) and have financed most of my bootstrapping with sweat equity.
For example, I've done some joint ventures with business people who were willing to give me 50% of market rate but then a big chunk of equity. I have never worked for $0 and no one should ever do that.
Eventually I became sought after enough that I can make market rate and still get equity.
Startups are like lottery tickets, and if you aren't just born rich, you have to find a way to get more lottery without going bankrupt or ruining your quality of life.
Working remotely. Biggest investment in mental health (open office space trauma) while now I have a private office, better payment (usually USA clients), more free time (saving 2+ hours/day compared to office).
seeing a therapist. A really low investment (~30€ per session) and the returns are really _really_ worth it. In my case, I sometimes got stuck on a heated "debate" and they really helped me think clear.
Best _financial_ investment: so far, it would be bitcoin, because it has enabled me to own an apartment and get out of just renting forever. It was getting impossible for me to save, but to maintain a mortgage is not a problem, even with eventual interest rate hikes.
A hair clipper that I bought 10 years ago. Cost me 25 euros. But a hair cut costs 20 euros. I need one every month (because I'm partially bald). So 20 * 12 * 10 = 2400 euro savings. That's a 9600% return on investment!
Having a family is the best "life hack" ever. Finding meaning in life comes much much more easier when you have your family and loved ones surrounding you.
If I had to do the same choice (i.e. early retirement vs having a family) I would choose having a family every single time.
I've given up all hope that my 5 year old son will ever pay off financially. He is just way too cute to not wind up as the winner in whatever practical arrangement we have.
Solar panels because not only is it a decent financial return (effectively 10% pa interest, and climbing with energy prices), but that's a lot of energy generated sustainably instead of by fossil fuels. I'd recommend this to anyone. From a UK perspective, it seems solar PV is still worth doing financially even without getting paid anything for export, now that electric prices are shooting up. And the possibility of one day charging your car from it.
Technical skills, to the tune of 21% income increase year after year when averaged over the last 10 years (so about 6x from when I started).
Ironically, it slowed mostly because I tried to be a full time stock traded at some point, then realized that if I wanted active income, a job was the way to go.
Learn English. It was 10$ per hour twice a week for several years. As a return, I can read anything readable (if it is not being translated into English, there are big chances it is not worth reading), I can speak to you, I am not locked down in our mambo-jumbo cultural space.
I so much love when somebody judges :) My reading goals are mostly whitepapers from few scientifical areas I am trying to follow, what can be more open-minded?
Of course, if you are talking about some sophisticated fiction, you are going to experience giant losses of content, usefullness of which may be not so high for such me then for you. And by the way, if it is needed to read something being translated from a language I do not know, I'd rather search for the one has been translated into my mother language.
The judgement is a reaction to yours, that "if it is not being translated into English, there are big chances it is not worth reading". This is a textbook example of being close-minded, and implies two things: a narrow view of the world, "things that don't cross cultural borders to reach the english-speaking/reading population are rarely worth reading" ; and the lack of any language-specific things.
> My reading goals are mostly whitepapers from few scientifical areas I am trying to follow, what can be more open-minded?
Considering that things can be both out of your reach and worth reading would be more open-minded than your current stance.
> Of course, if you are talking about some sophisticated fiction, you are going to experience giant losses of content, usefullness of which may be not so high for such me then for you.
This is not only about "some sophisticated fiction". An example from the tech world: "Le Langage Caml", a textbook on OCaml, doesn't have an English version. This leaves a hole for people interested in OCaml that can't read French, since this book is a great way to start with the language, and there aren't many book on the topic in the first place.
> And by the way, if it is needed to read something being translated from a language I do not know, I'd rather search for the one has been translated into my mother language.
That's fair, but as I've said, often some things are lost in translation. People from different countries will not always speak in ways that map perfectly well to English. Even with a relatively close culture and language here in France, translating the degrees of formality/informality that people have when talking together is hard. This is why sometimes people take entire movies and transpose them to another country: you can't just translate everything. This is even happening with the UK and the USA, two countries that mostly share a language. But just sharing that language isn't enough to understand how people live, how they think, how they express themselves, what they value.
Now, you may not be interested in all of that. That's fine. But don't dismiss it as "not worth".
This is not the strongest interpretation of what GP was trying to say. You are assuming you know more about what this individual wants to read that the individual yourself, just to make a very obvious statement that presumably everybody in this thread is already aware of.
I think it is. As someone that learned English too (French is my first language), I know how much it expends your world. You suddenly have access to a wealth of knowledge, resources, media that you didn't have before. However, I would never say something like:
> if it is not being translated into English, there are big chances it is not worth reading
English may be the language with the most written text (altough I'm not even sure of that), but that's still a fraction of what humanity produced. Dismissing the rest as "probably not worth reading" makes no sense to me. That doesn't prevent me for recognizing that for exemple knowing English is a big advantage in software, since there are more resources and they are often higher quality than what I can find in French. The keyword here being "often". Not "always". And that's taking a very "technical" and "easy to translate" domain. When taking into account culture and all of that, I know that people that can't understand French miss a lot of French culture. Just like I know that I miss lots of culture from languages I don't understand.
You'll get tasty (and often healthier) meals for a fraction of the cost of a restaurant or a take-out. You even get a meditative/relaxing effect if you cook out of pressure, only once a day and not just for yourself. Your family and friends may even appreciate you more...
losing a a few BTCs I bought in 2016 on bustabit, lost about 100k but the lesson that you cant win games that are rigged from the start is an important one and it's priceless! You can't win big in someone else's house
My montly mortgage payment for the whole house is ~67% of what I was previously paying to rent a single room. And of that 67%, only 4% is interest (and that 4% is going to go down with time)
So effectively I'm spending 3% of what I was spending previously.
The Tandy I bought with lawn mowing money when I was 12. BASIC included. Library card was free. Something like a 3000-fold return, I guess, but I'm not done yet.
About 20 years ago I learned how Linux generally worked. It's usually more in the background of what I work on now but feels like that skill has paid off for about 20 years straight in the form of money, promotions, thought patterns that apply to other software, time saved on managing servers. All kinds of stuff. If I had to pick just one I bet that would be it.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 94.3 ms ] threadEDIT: Getting an education, and having a job since I was 19, is probably also a good investment. :)
EDIT 2: Adjusted for inflation, that $600K sum is close to $800K now.
IT salaries in Spain are higher than most but not enough to buy anything. At the rate I'm saving money I'll be able to get a loan in around 8 to 10 years or more actually, because by then I'll need even more savings for that. But if I ever want to have kids and a family or I have any emergency I won't be able to save as much.
Sad.
Millennials are not buying anything. They can't. The very few I know who have bought a house is either because they had help from their parents or bought an old house in small towns far away from everything.
Only 30% of the people younger than 35 have their own house, down from almost 60% in 2004.
Sounds good, right? You see these all the time.
But the truth is this is one successful startup after 10-15 attempts, each of which cost me either cash or market-rate salary.
So if you factor in the opportunity cost, it's a lot more like:
$800k => 30% stake in bootstrapped $100M company
Still very good, but easily could have happened 10 years from now or not at all. Bootstrapping is definitely gambling.
For example, I've done some joint ventures with business people who were willing to give me 50% of market rate but then a big chunk of equity. I have never worked for $0 and no one should ever do that.
Eventually I became sought after enough that I can make market rate and still get equity.
Startups are like lottery tickets, and if you aren't just born rich, you have to find a way to get more lottery without going bankrupt or ruining your quality of life.
I should have bought more hair clippers...
It's an investment in time and energy, compromises, sometimes career plans, etc., but it's worth it.
edit: estimated cost is somewhat tapered career goals and likely foregoing early retirement, and the "return" is higher quality of life.
If I had to do the same choice (i.e. early retirement vs having a family) I would choose having a family every single time.
Ironically, it slowed mostly because I tried to be a full time stock traded at some point, then realized that if I wanted active income, a job was the way to go.
That's such a close-minded view of things, and that's also assuming that translation is not a lossy process.
Of course, if you are talking about some sophisticated fiction, you are going to experience giant losses of content, usefullness of which may be not so high for such me then for you. And by the way, if it is needed to read something being translated from a language I do not know, I'd rather search for the one has been translated into my mother language.
> My reading goals are mostly whitepapers from few scientifical areas I am trying to follow, what can be more open-minded?
Considering that things can be both out of your reach and worth reading would be more open-minded than your current stance.
> Of course, if you are talking about some sophisticated fiction, you are going to experience giant losses of content, usefullness of which may be not so high for such me then for you.
This is not only about "some sophisticated fiction". An example from the tech world: "Le Langage Caml", a textbook on OCaml, doesn't have an English version. This leaves a hole for people interested in OCaml that can't read French, since this book is a great way to start with the language, and there aren't many book on the topic in the first place.
> And by the way, if it is needed to read something being translated from a language I do not know, I'd rather search for the one has been translated into my mother language.
That's fair, but as I've said, often some things are lost in translation. People from different countries will not always speak in ways that map perfectly well to English. Even with a relatively close culture and language here in France, translating the degrees of formality/informality that people have when talking together is hard. This is why sometimes people take entire movies and transpose them to another country: you can't just translate everything. This is even happening with the UK and the USA, two countries that mostly share a language. But just sharing that language isn't enough to understand how people live, how they think, how they express themselves, what they value.
Now, you may not be interested in all of that. That's fine. But don't dismiss it as "not worth".
The point you’re making about the access of English is very interesting, and has very little to do with this criticism.
> if it is not being translated into English, there are big chances it is not worth reading
English may be the language with the most written text (altough I'm not even sure of that), but that's still a fraction of what humanity produced. Dismissing the rest as "probably not worth reading" makes no sense to me. That doesn't prevent me for recognizing that for exemple knowing English is a big advantage in software, since there are more resources and they are often higher quality than what I can find in French. The keyword here being "often". Not "always". And that's taking a very "technical" and "easy to translate" domain. When taking into account culture and all of that, I know that people that can't understand French miss a lot of French culture. Just like I know that I miss lots of culture from languages I don't understand.
You'll get tasty (and often healthier) meals for a fraction of the cost of a restaurant or a take-out. You even get a meditative/relaxing effect if you cook out of pressure, only once a day and not just for yourself. Your family and friends may even appreciate you more...
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
After failing to take care of mine the way I should, I needed weightloss surgery a couple years ago
Don't get to where I did - invest in quality food and activity
You'll thank me for it later
My montly mortgage payment for the whole house is ~67% of what I was previously paying to rent a single room. And of that 67%, only 4% is interest (and that 4% is going to go down with time)
So effectively I'm spending 3% of what I was spending previously.
I'll also say my house. It's at least doubled in value in the past 5 years.