8 ms·

I've been meaning to write about this one day. There are some things that change. For example, you learn to distinguish problems that can be solved with money

by pg 16y ago

I've been meaning to write about this one day. There are some things that change. For example, you learn to distinguish problems that can be solved with money from those that can't. You can buy your way out of a lot of schleps. Life doesn't get an order of magnitude more enjoyable, because you still can't buy your way out of the most serious types of problems, but a lot of annoyances are removed. The best part is what I thought would be the best part: not having to worry about money. Before Viaweb I'd been living pretty hand to mouth, doing occasional consulting. It felt like treading water, in the sense that while it wasn't hard, I knew in the back of my mind that I'd drown if I stopped. Getting rich felt like reaching the shore. One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard.

dwwoelfel 16y ago
What kind of schleps have you bought yourself out of? If you prefer a less personal question, what kind of schleps could one buy oneself out of?
- dstorrs 16y ago
  Here are some "trading money for time / convenience" options that I'd love to be able to afford: 1) Shopping. For a few extra bucks, most large grocery stores will deliver. 2) Laundry. Pay a service to pick up / clean / drop off your clothes. 3) Travel. For long distances, fly first class (far more comfortable), or charter a plane (no TSA experience!). For in-city, take a cab. 4) Dining. Not in the mood to cook? Eat out whenever you want. 5) Taxes. Pay someone else. 6) Housecleaning. Hire a service. 7) If you want to get marginally obnoxious about it...never wait in line again. Just carry a big wad of cash and, if you find yourself stuck at the back of a long line, go to each person in turn and say: "I'll give you $50 (or whatever) for your place in line." Then of course there are opportunities that aren't available until you have FU money: 1) Travel. A lot. To exotic places that you could not otherwise afford. 2) Invest your money better. Many financial instruments (e.g. hedge funds) are available only to rich people; normal folks cannot invest in them, which means they cannot achieve the same level of returns. This is one of the reasons the rich / poor gap keeps increasing. 3) Live in whatever neighborhood you want. 4) If you have really serious FU money, pay your local telecom to sling an OC-3 line into your house, even if it means paying off the city to dig up the street.
  - leelin 16y ago
    Heh, here in NYC, even the debt-laden, paycheck-to-paycheck folks do 1-6 1.) FreshDirect - $99 a year for free grocery deliveries 2.) Any corner dry cleaner - $10 a week to drop off two loads of dirty laundry on the way to work. Your doorman will have it when you return that night. 3.) Your company buys you refundable tickets when you have to fly, which I argue is more stress-relieving than 1st class tickets (Dining and Taxes need no explanation) 6.) Whatever maid your doormen / super recommends - $60-90 every two weeks. A bit steep, but playing The Sims made me realize cleaning service is worth it.
    - arvinjoar 16y ago
      The Sims taught me to keep my stats balanced. I'm hungry at the moment, I better eat something!
    - bjoernw 16y ago
      I just moved to Manhattan. More like $1/lb for wash and fold. 7)Having a local farmer's market deliver a basket of fresh vegetables to you every two weeks.
  - frisco 16y ago
    These largely seem like the exact things you shouldn't do with FU money. Fly private? Bury your own fiber lines? Randomly give out $50 when the spot in line isn't really worth that? These sound like great ways to quickly end up without money again.
    - umjames 16y ago
      I choose to look at it this way: the true benefit of having money is the freedom of choice it can buy you, not the material items/services themselves. The freedom to choose not to spend your time doing things you don't like or find tedious sounds pretty good to me.
      - dedward 16y ago
        Bingo - time, your time, is the one thing you can't buy more of later. Having money makes you realize you actually didn't need as much of it as you thought you did.
amichail 16y ago
What sorts of new problems do you have when you are rich? Do people treat you differently? Perhaps they are not as nice?
- alexitosrv 16y ago
  And also, how the surrounding people has changed to you?
barmstrong 16y ago
So of the folks on here who got FU money - how do you invest it? Do you actively manage it or have a manager? I saw something on HN a while back called the permanent portfolio which looked simple and conservative (25% stock, 25% bonds, 25% gold, 25% cash) and was curious if any rich folks out there are using that in practice.
- jcl 16y ago
  Some prior articles: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1383376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1383376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447428 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447428
- isamuel 16y ago
  25% gold and 25% cash? I'm not an investment expert. But this seems like a pretty bad idea to me. For one thing, just holding currency is pretty much a guaranteed way to lose money, given inflation. And I always understood gold to be a sort of hedge against currency failure, war, and that kind of thing---which makes it odd to keep just as much currency as gold. Non-expert investors should basically just buy index funds and hold them, transitioning them slowly to less volatile bonds as they get older and are more vulnerable to risk.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
>In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. Haha, so true. As a software engineer one might expect writing a book to be easy by comparison, but once you actually start working on it, you find that writing a good book is anything but. Good analogy.
nonce42 16y ago
One thing I genuinely want to know is how much money it takes to be "rich" in Silicon Valley. In my experience, $5M yields a slightly better but still basically middle-class life. I suspect a lot of people are underestimating how much they need to reach the FU level.
- kscaldef 16y ago
  I guess there's some question of what "FU money" and "rich" means to you. Does it mean never working again? Does it mean working but not having to worry about your salary (for example, opening up careers like teaching that you might not have considered because of poor pay)? Does it mean being able to buy or do anything you want? Your answers to this are going to affect how much money is "FU money" for you. If it means not having to work, you might also consider why you need to live in Silicon Valley. It's not a particularly great place to live other than the job opportunities, and a million dollar house there costs a fraction of that in most of the rest of the country.
- detst 16y ago
  $5M puts you in the top 1%. I'd say that fits the definition of "rich" for most of the other 99%. Maybe $5M wouldn't put you that high in the Silicon Valley but I'm sure it's close. Also, can I ask if you experience is first hand? If not, be careful with appearances. I just recently discovered that someone I've known for years has significantly more money than their lifestyle would indicate. Not everyone lives extravagantly just because they have money.
  - nonce42 16y ago
    Thanks kscaldef and detst for your replies. I do think a lot about moving out of Silicon Valley especially since the state of California is in such a financial mess. Theoretically, I could quit my job now, but it wouldn't make much financial sense, and I enjoy where I'm working. My experience with $5M is in fact firsthand, and it feels a lot closer to "middle class" than to "rich". Maybe it's because I live a non-extravagant lifestyle and I just need to buy myself a Ferrari :-) But seriously, what I'd like is to find out from people who actually know, if there's a financial level at which life changes qualitatively. E.g. is there a level at which it makes sense to stop working and spend your time managing your charitable foundation and hanging out at TED and Davos?
mattew 16y ago
I had a sister with a severe mental disability (Rett Syndrome) who died at the age of 17. A very wise, (and very broke) parent of another girl with Rett Syndrome explained to us that if you have a problem that money can solve, you don't really have a problem. While I do not posess a great deal of monetary wealth, this idea has helped me differentiate between fiscal problems and other, in many ways, more challenging problems.
- ajju 16y ago
  From second hand experience I can tell you that if you have a problem that money can solve (for example a serious health problem for which an expensive cure exists), but not enough money to solve it, it can be as bad as or worse than a problem that money can't solve.
- vrikhter 16y ago
  I'll second that. Had Hodgkin's Lymphoma when I was 19. Clearly having health insurance was the key, but no additional amount of money would have stopped me from having chemotherapy. That was the age that I realized money didn't matter, being alive did.
davi 16y ago
There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. This resonates. I quit my dot-com job before the bubble burst and I had order 10^4 dollars in my bank account. I decided that rather than invest the money in an apartment house, or pay off debt from college, I would take some time off, and just... see what happened. I had enough money that if I wanted to get into e.g. videography, I could go out and buy a nice video camera and a computer to edit my movies (storage was a lot more expensive back then, no way to do this sort of thing on an iPhone!). If I wanted to get really into mountaineering, I could buy a bunch of gear and go wild. This was a first for me, my family and I had always been pretty broke as I grew up. And what happened? Well, I rediscovered my enjoyment of life drawing, and went to some open sessions, the kind where you pay $10 and everybody draws from the model. And I hung out with friends a lot, and basically re-socialized myself to learn how to relax and have a good time with people. And I ate out a lot, and I partied, and I horsed around. Oh yeah, and I discovered that I really like to run in the woods, up and down hills on narrow trails. But essentially, there was no 'passion' uncovered by that freedom. I discovered my passion when I went back to work. I was sick of programming for money, so I got a job in a molecular neurobiology lab. And that was 9 years ago, and I've been busting ass and totally engaged with science ever since. FU money would be great, but in some ways I feel I already had an experience of it -- or at least, of some of the more interesting things that can come of it. I do feel like I'll drown if I stop treading water, it would be nice to be rid of that sensation.
- altano 16y ago
  10^4 dollars? 10^4 thousand dollars?
  - patrickgzill 16y ago
    I took that as meaning, "under $100,000" ...
  - hugh3 16y ago
    If he had 10^4 thousand dollars I assume he wouldn't have to worry about whether to pay off his student loans or not. Unless he had a lot of student loans. I assume it means what it says. Tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. Nice to have, but far from FU.

by pg 16y ago

dwwoelfel 16y ago

What kind of schleps have you bought yourself out of? If you prefer a less personal question, what kind of schleps could one buy oneself out of?

dstorrs 16y ago
Here are some "trading money for time / convenience" options that I'd love to be able to afford: 1) Shopping. For a few extra bucks, most large grocery stores will deliver. 2) Laundry. Pay a service to pick up / clean / drop off your clothes. 3) Travel. For long distances, fly first class (far more comfortable), or charter a plane (no TSA experience!). For in-city, take a cab. 4) Dining. Not in the mood to cook? Eat out whenever you want. 5) Taxes. Pay someone else. 6) Housecleaning. Hire a service. 7) If you want to get marginally obnoxious about it...never wait in line again. Just carry a big wad of cash and, if you find yourself stuck at the back of a long line, go to each person in turn and say: "I'll give you $50 (or whatever) for your place in line." Then of course there are opportunities that aren't available until you have FU money: 1) Travel. A lot. To exotic places that you could not otherwise afford. 2) Invest your money better. Many financial instruments (e.g. hedge funds) are available only to rich people; normal folks cannot invest in them, which means they cannot achieve the same level of returns. This is one of the reasons the rich / poor gap keeps increasing. 3) Live in whatever neighborhood you want. 4) If you have really serious FU money, pay your local telecom to sling an OC-3 line into your house, even if it means paying off the city to dig up the street.
- leelin 16y ago
  Heh, here in NYC, even the debt-laden, paycheck-to-paycheck folks do 1-6 1.) FreshDirect - $99 a year for free grocery deliveries 2.) Any corner dry cleaner - $10 a week to drop off two loads of dirty laundry on the way to work. Your doorman will have it when you return that night. 3.) Your company buys you refundable tickets when you have to fly, which I argue is more stress-relieving than 1st class tickets (Dining and Taxes need no explanation) 6.) Whatever maid your doormen / super recommends - $60-90 every two weeks. A bit steep, but playing The Sims made me realize cleaning service is worth it.
  - arvinjoar 16y ago
    The Sims taught me to keep my stats balanced. I'm hungry at the moment, I better eat something!
  - bjoernw 16y ago
    I just moved to Manhattan. More like $1/lb for wash and fold. 7)Having a local farmer's market deliver a basket of fresh vegetables to you every two weeks.
- frisco 16y ago
  These largely seem like the exact things you shouldn't do with FU money. Fly private? Bury your own fiber lines? Randomly give out $50 when the spot in line isn't really worth that? These sound like great ways to quickly end up without money again.
  - umjames 16y ago
    I choose to look at it this way: the true benefit of having money is the freedom of choice it can buy you, not the material items/services themselves. The freedom to choose not to spend your time doing things you don't like or find tedious sounds pretty good to me.
    - dedward 16y ago
      Bingo - time, your time, is the one thing you can't buy more of later. Having money makes you realize you actually didn't need as much of it as you thought you did.

amichail 16y ago

What sorts of new problems do you have when you are rich? Do people treat you differently? Perhaps they are not as nice?

alexitosrv 16y ago
And also, how the surrounding people has changed to you?

barmstrong 16y ago

So of the folks on here who got FU money - how do you invest it? Do you actively manage it or have a manager? I saw something on HN a while back called the permanent portfolio which looked simple and conservative (25% stock, 25% bonds, 25% gold, 25% cash) and was curious if any rich folks out there are using that in practice.

jcl 16y ago
Some prior articles: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1383376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1383376 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060019 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447428 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447428
isamuel 16y ago
25% gold and 25% cash? I'm not an investment expert. But this seems like a pretty bad idea to me. For one thing, just holding currency is pretty much a guaranteed way to lose money, given inflation. And I always understood gold to be a sort of hedge against currency failure, war, and that kind of thing---which makes it odd to keep just as much currency as gold. Non-expert investors should basically just buy index funds and hold them, transitioning them slowly to less volatile bonds as they get older and are more vulnerable to risk.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

>In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. Haha, so true. As a software engineer one might expect writing a book to be easy by comparison, but once you actually start working on it, you find that writing a good book is anything but. Good analogy.

nonce42 16y ago

One thing I genuinely want to know is how much money it takes to be "rich" in Silicon Valley. In my experience, $5M yields a slightly better but still basically middle-class life. I suspect a lot of people are underestimating how much they need to reach the FU level.

kscaldef 16y ago
I guess there's some question of what "FU money" and "rich" means to you. Does it mean never working again? Does it mean working but not having to worry about your salary (for example, opening up careers like teaching that you might not have considered because of poor pay)? Does it mean being able to buy or do anything you want? Your answers to this are going to affect how much money is "FU money" for you. If it means not having to work, you might also consider why you need to live in Silicon Valley. It's not a particularly great place to live other than the job opportunities, and a million dollar house there costs a fraction of that in most of the rest of the country.
detst 16y ago
$5M puts you in the top 1%. I'd say that fits the definition of "rich" for most of the other 99%. Maybe $5M wouldn't put you that high in the Silicon Valley but I'm sure it's close. Also, can I ask if you experience is first hand? If not, be careful with appearances. I just recently discovered that someone I've known for years has significantly more money than their lifestyle would indicate. Not everyone lives extravagantly just because they have money.
- nonce42 16y ago
  Thanks kscaldef and detst for your replies. I do think a lot about moving out of Silicon Valley especially since the state of California is in such a financial mess. Theoretically, I could quit my job now, but it wouldn't make much financial sense, and I enjoy where I'm working. My experience with $5M is in fact firsthand, and it feels a lot closer to "middle class" than to "rich". Maybe it's because I live a non-extravagant lifestyle and I just need to buy myself a Ferrari :-) But seriously, what I'd like is to find out from people who actually know, if there's a financial level at which life changes qualitatively. E.g. is there a level at which it makes sense to stop working and spend your time managing your charitable foundation and hanging out at TED and Davos?

mattew 16y ago

I had a sister with a severe mental disability (Rett Syndrome) who died at the age of 17. A very wise, (and very broke) parent of another girl with Rett Syndrome explained to us that if you have a problem that money can solve, you don't really have a problem. While I do not posess a great deal of monetary wealth, this idea has helped me differentiate between fiscal problems and other, in many ways, more challenging problems.

ajju 16y ago
From second hand experience I can tell you that if you have a problem that money can solve (for example a serious health problem for which an expensive cure exists), but not enough money to solve it, it can be as bad as or worse than a problem that money can't solve.
vrikhter 16y ago
I'll second that. Had Hodgkin's Lymphoma when I was 19. Clearly having health insurance was the key, but no additional amount of money would have stopped me from having chemotherapy. That was the age that I realized money didn't matter, being alive did.

davi 16y ago

There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. This resonates. I quit my dot-com job before the bubble burst and I had order 10^4 dollars in my bank account. I decided that rather than invest the money in an apartment house, or pay off debt from college, I would take some time off, and just... see what happened. I had enough money that if I wanted to get into e.g. videography, I could go out and buy a nice video camera and a computer to edit my movies (storage was a lot more expensive back then, no way to do this sort of thing on an iPhone!). If I wanted to get really into mountaineering, I could buy a bunch of gear and go wild. This was a first for me, my family and I had always been pretty broke as I grew up. And what happened? Well, I rediscovered my enjoyment of life drawing, and went to some open sessions, the kind where you pay $10 and everybody draws from the model. And I hung out with friends a lot, and basically re-socialized myself to learn how to relax and have a good time with people. And I ate out a lot, and I partied, and I horsed around. Oh yeah, and I discovered that I really like to run in the woods, up and down hills on narrow trails. But essentially, there was no 'passion' uncovered by that freedom. I discovered my passion when I went back to work. I was sick of programming for money, so I got a job in a molecular neurobiology lab. And that was 9 years ago, and I've been busting ass and totally engaged with science ever since. FU money would be great, but in some ways I feel I already had an experience of it -- or at least, of some of the more interesting things that can come of it. I do feel like I'll drown if I stop treading water, it would be nice to be rid of that sensation.

altano 16y ago
10^4 dollars? 10^4 thousand dollars?
- patrickgzill 16y ago
  I took that as meaning, "under $100,000" ...
- hugh3 16y ago
  If he had 10^4 thousand dollars I assume he wouldn't have to worry about whether to pay off his student loans or not. Unless he had a lot of student loans. I assume it means what it says. Tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. Nice to have, but far from FU.