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The news about Captain Crunch gave me pause, too. I'd encourage young folks on HN -- self-employed or otherwise -- to start planning for old age now. Not tomo

The news about Captain Crunch gave me pause, too. I'd encourage young folks on HN -- self-employed or otherwise -- to start planning for old age now. Not tomorrow, not after the exit, etc, now. You get absurd amounts of leverage for starting early. Self-employed US folks get access to the two best pension plans in the country which are not funded with tax dollars: the Roth IRA and the SEP-IRA. You can set up a Roth account trivially; the SEP takes more work but lets you sock away min($54k, 25% of your compensation) every year in a tax-advantaged fashion. Max out contributions. Buy broad market index funds. DO NOT raid the retirement account to pay for weddings, house downpayments, new businesses, college expenses, etc. For similar reasons I'd suggest everyone with dependents get term life insurance (cheap and easy when you're young and healthy) and strongly consider getting private long-term disability insurance.

kasey_junk 9y ago
This is, of course, all very reasonable and important advice. Everyone should follow it. But it turns out that medical expenses are beyond the scope of normal and appropriate financial planning. They are a systematic problem in the United States and require a systematic solution. In many cases, the insurance required to prevent the kinds of financial problems in the OPs question are unavailable at any price and the expenses associated are financially harmful for all but the richest members of our society. There is basically no way to answer this Ask without addressing the systematic problem of health care.
- aeontech 9y ago
  Fixing heath care would certainly work, but that seems nearly unachievable with the current political system (recall that even ACA that is so vilified was largely based on Republican plans in the first place). Though I suppose civil rights and voting rights also seemed nearly unachievable at first... So is there really nothing between the two extremes of "fix everything" and "donate what you can when you hear from someone in need"?

kasey_junk 9y ago

This is, of course, all very reasonable and important advice. Everyone should follow it. But it turns out that medical expenses are beyond the scope of normal and appropriate financial planning. They are a systematic problem in the United States and require a systematic solution. In many cases, the insurance required to prevent the kinds of financial problems in the OPs question are unavailable at any price and the expenses associated are financially harmful for all but the richest members of our society. There is basically no way to answer this Ask without addressing the systematic problem of health care.

aeontech 9y ago
Fixing heath care would certainly work, but that seems nearly unachievable with the current political system (recall that even ACA that is so vilified was largely based on Republican plans in the first place). Though I suppose civil rights and voting rights also seemed nearly unachievable at first... So is there really nothing between the two extremes of "fix everything" and "donate what you can when you hear from someone in need"?