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I might quit soon too. To be honest - seeing my peers buying homes (with, of course, no discussion about how they made it happen), getting married, traveling a

I might quit soon too. To be honest - seeing my peers buying homes (with, of course, no discussion about how they made it happen), getting married, traveling a lot, enjoying nice things, and having kids is kinda putting a sour taste in my mouth. It's a very biased feed. It's basically an endless feed of the highest points of everyone in your entire social circle. I do some of it but I tend to balance it out with, "I don't think I'm ever gonna fucking make it in this area." Social media is a bit like the news but on the opposite side of the spectrum. "Yes, yes, I get it. The world is ending." I care but I don't care to where I need to have it shoved in my face where I'm going to do things to make the world even worse. (What good is a world that survives if it is full of anxiety?) I'm not reading the general news generally anymore when I can and maybe I'll transfer that to social media soon. (Today was a bad day - a peer of mine who is younger than me just bought a place in SF; I'm struggling to make it in a 400sqft in-law unit) I notice I feel better and it's not like anything I missed is of real substantial importance to my daily life. It's just filler. I know my core political philosophy - so it's not like it'll affect my voting decision much. Reminds me of the article someone posted in response to the 8 year old dying. Something about ignoring the bullshit in life because you don't have time for it. You don't have time for bullshit and most of social media and the news is full of bullshit. I think it could be really great but most of the time... it's just bullshit. Here it is - life is short: http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Do you think your peers were able to purchase homes through means not accessible to you? Not to speculate on your circumstances, but it's truly something how many people I know making six figures that choose to rent these days (in competitive, expensive housing markets). One possibility might be, we become so accustomed to renting. I can't imagine developing my career further, and then all of a sudden in 5 years, having to care for a lawn, home maintenance, etc. on top of the demands of work. I also wouldn't discount the number of people who might be house poor: banks will give you loans for far more than a financially savvy person would suggest taking (e.g, only borrow up to 2/3rd's of the maximum amount a bank will give), to keep flexibility in your budget. To tie this to social media: what we see isn't reality. You're "competing" with their curated self versus your own. You may see the purchases, but certainly not the debt coming with it. The people with the best-looking lives on social media probably don't have the healthiest of finances, unless you're following truly wealthy people.
- bradlys 7y ago
  Banks will definitely loan out crazy stuff. But it's not very common, from my knowledge, to buy a $1m+ home with less than 20-30% down. (You have to pay PMI and a really high mortgage then anyway) To have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around before you're 28 is pretty remarkable. Especially if you aren't at FAANG. The means they were able to do it through were likely rich family (no one here of course will say their family is rich) and high paying job ($300k+/yr). Both of which I am not in (for my position in my region). I'm at a startup. Watching my peers, who are not in companies like mine, just skyrocket in wealth is rather discouraging. It's even more harsh because it's usually a couple who are sky rocketing and I'm just sitting here with a SO who will never make anything substantial. Love them to bits but the lack of financial contribution is practically suicide here. I know everything isn't perfect. It's curated. But the point is that often their highs are way higher than mine. I already know their lows are nothing like mine because I know a lot of the people well enough to know that much. Side note about home buying: a lot of statistics online about homes being bought for x and what kind and where and all that. But there's very little information on who is buying and what they're doing with the home! I only recently discovered that all the homes being bought under $1m in the Bay area aren't being owner inhabited. They're all being converted into rentals and as investment property. It explains why East Palo Alto hasn't gentrified.
  - blankcheque 7y ago
    I was able to amass ~$500k+ in liquid assets before 27 with a combination of attending a top college, not having any college loans when I graduated (worked hard all through college to make sure this was the case - parents are not wealthy), working at a startup that grew significantly for several years (significant equity upside), and investing everything I possibly could into the stock market over the past few years (greatest bull run in the country's history). I also paid <$1500 a month for rent in SF for many years by living in converted rooms or having room-mates to keep costs low (relative to market rates). Many of my peers were paying >$2.5k-$3k to have their own spot. I was keeping expenses low and aggressively investing the difference in companies whose trajectories were all but inevitable in my opinion (+ some broad market index funds which have also done extremely well). The weird thing about money is that once you get the flywheel turning (not easy), it compounds like magic given that you've made some good decisions. My intent here isn't to boast. I figured you might appreciate a specific example of circumstances leading to building a modest level of wealth as a 20-something software engineer. Involved was a lot of hard work, luck, timing, right place (SF), right company, good decisions, help from others, sacrifice, obsession, and a bunch of other things but I'll spare you the boring details. You could boil it _all_ down to luck if you'd like - but that's a bit too cynical for my tastes.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

Do you think your peers were able to purchase homes through means not accessible to you? Not to speculate on your circumstances, but it's truly something how many people I know making six figures that choose to rent these days (in competitive, expensive housing markets). One possibility might be, we become so accustomed to renting. I can't imagine developing my career further, and then all of a sudden in 5 years, having to care for a lawn, home maintenance, etc. on top of the demands of work. I also wouldn't discount the number of people who might be house poor: banks will give you loans for far more than a financially savvy person would suggest taking (e.g, only borrow up to 2/3rd's of the maximum amount a bank will give), to keep flexibility in your budget. To tie this to social media: what we see isn't reality. You're "competing" with their curated self versus your own. You may see the purchases, but certainly not the debt coming with it. The people with the best-looking lives on social media probably don't have the healthiest of finances, unless you're following truly wealthy people.

bradlys 7y ago
Banks will definitely loan out crazy stuff. But it's not very common, from my knowledge, to buy a $1m+ home with less than 20-30% down. (You have to pay PMI and a really high mortgage then anyway) To have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around before you're 28 is pretty remarkable. Especially if you aren't at FAANG. The means they were able to do it through were likely rich family (no one here of course will say their family is rich) and high paying job ($300k+/yr). Both of which I am not in (for my position in my region). I'm at a startup. Watching my peers, who are not in companies like mine, just skyrocket in wealth is rather discouraging. It's even more harsh because it's usually a couple who are sky rocketing and I'm just sitting here with a SO who will never make anything substantial. Love them to bits but the lack of financial contribution is practically suicide here. I know everything isn't perfect. It's curated. But the point is that often their highs are way higher than mine. I already know their lows are nothing like mine because I know a lot of the people well enough to know that much. Side note about home buying: a lot of statistics online about homes being bought for x and what kind and where and all that. But there's very little information on who is buying and what they're doing with the home! I only recently discovered that all the homes being bought under $1m in the Bay area aren't being owner inhabited. They're all being converted into rentals and as investment property. It explains why East Palo Alto hasn't gentrified.
- blankcheque 7y ago
  I was able to amass ~$500k+ in liquid assets before 27 with a combination of attending a top college, not having any college loans when I graduated (worked hard all through college to make sure this was the case - parents are not wealthy), working at a startup that grew significantly for several years (significant equity upside), and investing everything I possibly could into the stock market over the past few years (greatest bull run in the country's history). I also paid <$1500 a month for rent in SF for many years by living in converted rooms or having room-mates to keep costs low (relative to market rates). Many of my peers were paying >$2.5k-$3k to have their own spot. I was keeping expenses low and aggressively investing the difference in companies whose trajectories were all but inevitable in my opinion (+ some broad market index funds which have also done extremely well). The weird thing about money is that once you get the flywheel turning (not easy), it compounds like magic given that you've made some good decisions. My intent here isn't to boast. I figured you might appreciate a specific example of circumstances leading to building a modest level of wealth as a 20-something software engineer. Involved was a lot of hard work, luck, timing, right place (SF), right company, good decisions, help from others, sacrifice, obsession, and a bunch of other things but I'll spare you the boring details. You could boil it _all_ down to luck if you'd like - but that's a bit too cynical for my tastes.