6 ms·

You know I hear this argument a lot and I don't buy it because it ignores a baseline at the lower end. I think there are a lot of people that are not concerned

You know I hear this argument a lot and I don't buy it because it ignores a baseline at the lower end. I think there are a lot of people that are not concerned with the luxuries you reference but are deeply concerned with their base needs and random setbacks life throws at them. They basically want to save for a rainy day so as avoid stress when they encounter bumps in the road. It's like asking someone who works for minimum wage why their worried about moving up to a salaried position because compared to the people in Sudan, they have a life of luxury.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
I think the point is about working out when you have enough. No matter how much you have, there is always the opportunity to be envious of others who have more. Acquiring more will not stop the envy or satiate that need. But you can decide that you have enough right now. Or you can set a goal and say "that is enough for me". That goal might be really high, or it might be really simple, that doesn't matter. The part that matters is deciding that you have enough at some point. I've been homeless, and having a warm safe place to sleep was enough. Now my sights are somewhat higher, but comparing myself to a friend who exited a few years ago is a constant source of misery. I have to keep reminding myself that I have enough at the moment, and to be grateful and enjoy what I have.
wwwdonohue 7y ago
I think 350k is a safe "lower end" baseline from which to build a rainy day fund, though.
- tmh88j 7y ago
  Is this a joke? $350k annual income puts you in the top 1% of earners in the US. Surely you don't believe less than 1% of people in the US can live comfortably and have a safety net, do you?
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    It's helpful to remember that the Bay Area is extremely expensive, and even more helpful to remember that some people have large families. I could pretty comfortably raise a family of 6 on $100K in a midwestern city, or a family of 6 on $80K in the rural midwest/south. Without sufficient retirement savings, mind you, and my safety net would be non-exisent. I'd need at least another $30K-$50K on those numbers to build a strong safety net (remember, it's a safety net for 2 parents + 4 kids, not for one person...). Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. > Surely you don't believe less than 1% of people in the US can live comfortably and have a safety net, do you? The number is larger than 1%, but probably still smaller than you think. The average American definitely doesn't have a sufficient safety net. IME, the average American raising more than 1 or 2 kids almost certainly doesn't have a sufficient safety net. So, no, you don't need to be in the top 1% of earners in the US to have a safety net. But if you have a large family, you probably have to be in the top 10% to live comfortably and have a safety net and retirement.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      > Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. Why? Each child might consume, generously, an extra 5k of food and 2.5k of clothes and other inputs per year. This is an increment of $30k on top of housing. For housing, you could add one or at most two bedrooms for four children. This does substantially raise housing costs, but there are still places in Sunnyvale for $1M or just above that that have three bedrooms. They may not be the nicest houses, but they would do. So, before you have kids, save your downpayment. On a 250k salary, this would take one to three years if you're thoughtful about it. Then buy the house and start popping out babies. Times will be tight if you need to pay for childcare, but that's a defined and short period of the childrens' lives. You're not going to be taking lavish vacations, but if you wanted those, you wouldn't have four kids anyway.
      - beamatronic 7y ago
        Cheap homes in the Bay Area have terrible schools. You’ll need to factor in private school if you go that route. That’s $25k per kid per year.
SeanAppleby 7y ago
You're completely correct, diminishing returns of income on happiness is well established, and I would be surprised if people here were not aware. This community skews very hard towards high earners though, so people here probably view that as something that goes without saying, but that isn't within the purview of this particular discussion about the rat race in tech. Among this community, it's probably true that a significant raise wouldn't significantly change their day to day lives, although obviously that is less and less true as their baseline income goes down.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Diminishing returns of absolute income on happiness, or of income relative to some cohort?
cloverich 7y ago
No one is denying a baseline. Its just _much_ lower than most think, and certainly doesn't include anyone who is a software engineer.
mnowicki 7y ago
I think the baseline becomes irrelevant at around 50k, maybe up to 100k-150k in some areas, but in those areas it's not hard to make 150k as a software engineer. I make 75k and save almost half my income while having all the material items that I want. Granted I don't want a lot, but I actually believe quite strongly that not having that constant desire for more and nicer material items makes me much happier than those who are stuck in that cycle. Not to sound douchy but I think that kind of materialism that is so extremely common across all levels of society seems to me like such an enormous and obvious problem that most people fall into for some reason regardless of how smart they are, and they would almost all be significantly happier just not caring about such sh*t. It's a crutch and prevents people from finding real meaning and happiness and for most it lasts their whole life or at least until they are too old to change. I know this isn't a novel idea, any slightly rebellious teenager can and will point out the obvious harm of this kind of mindset, but that only makes people disregard it even more. It's such an obvious problem, and most people even agree when you point it out, but then those same people live out the rest of their lives without doing anything about it. I blame social pressure and peoples tendency to not wander to far from the norm, combined with some conditioning and of course the addiction-mimicking dopamine effects

marcus_holmes 7y ago

I think the point is about working out when you have enough. No matter how much you have, there is always the opportunity to be envious of others who have more. Acquiring more will not stop the envy or satiate that need. But you can decide that you have enough right now. Or you can set a goal and say "that is enough for me". That goal might be really high, or it might be really simple, that doesn't matter. The part that matters is deciding that you have enough at some point. I've been homeless, and having a warm safe place to sleep was enough. Now my sights are somewhat higher, but comparing myself to a friend who exited a few years ago is a constant source of misery. I have to keep reminding myself that I have enough at the moment, and to be grateful and enjoy what I have.

wwwdonohue 7y ago

I think 350k is a safe "lower end" baseline from which to build a rainy day fund, though.

tmh88j 7y ago
Is this a joke? $350k annual income puts you in the top 1% of earners in the US. Surely you don't believe less than 1% of people in the US can live comfortably and have a safety net, do you?
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  It's helpful to remember that the Bay Area is extremely expensive, and even more helpful to remember that some people have large families. I could pretty comfortably raise a family of 6 on $100K in a midwestern city, or a family of 6 on $80K in the rural midwest/south. Without sufficient retirement savings, mind you, and my safety net would be non-exisent. I'd need at least another $30K-$50K on those numbers to build a strong safety net (remember, it's a safety net for 2 parents + 4 kids, not for one person...). Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. > Surely you don't believe less than 1% of people in the US can live comfortably and have a safety net, do you? The number is larger than 1%, but probably still smaller than you think. The average American definitely doesn't have a sufficient safety net. IME, the average American raising more than 1 or 2 kids almost certainly doesn't have a sufficient safety net. So, no, you don't need to be in the top 1% of earners in the US to have a safety net. But if you have a large family, you probably have to be in the top 10% to live comfortably and have a safety net and retirement.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    > Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. Why? Each child might consume, generously, an extra 5k of food and 2.5k of clothes and other inputs per year. This is an increment of $30k on top of housing. For housing, you could add one or at most two bedrooms for four children. This does substantially raise housing costs, but there are still places in Sunnyvale for $1M or just above that that have three bedrooms. They may not be the nicest houses, but they would do. So, before you have kids, save your downpayment. On a 250k salary, this would take one to three years if you're thoughtful about it. Then buy the house and start popping out babies. Times will be tight if you need to pay for childcare, but that's a defined and short period of the childrens' lives. You're not going to be taking lavish vacations, but if you wanted those, you wouldn't have four kids anyway.
    - beamatronic 7y ago
      Cheap homes in the Bay Area have terrible schools. You’ll need to factor in private school if you go that route. That’s $25k per kid per year.

SeanAppleby 7y ago

You're completely correct, diminishing returns of income on happiness is well established, and I would be surprised if people here were not aware. This community skews very hard towards high earners though, so people here probably view that as something that goes without saying, but that isn't within the purview of this particular discussion about the rat race in tech. Among this community, it's probably true that a significant raise wouldn't significantly change their day to day lives, although obviously that is less and less true as their baseline income goes down.

mcguire 7y ago
Diminishing returns of absolute income on happiness, or of income relative to some cohort?

cloverich 7y ago

No one is denying a baseline. Its just _much_ lower than most think, and certainly doesn't include anyone who is a software engineer.

mnowicki 7y ago

I think the baseline becomes irrelevant at around 50k, maybe up to 100k-150k in some areas, but in those areas it's not hard to make 150k as a software engineer. I make 75k and save almost half my income while having all the material items that I want. Granted I don't want a lot, but I actually believe quite strongly that not having that constant desire for more and nicer material items makes me much happier than those who are stuck in that cycle. Not to sound douchy but I think that kind of materialism that is so extremely common across all levels of society seems to me like such an enormous and obvious problem that most people fall into for some reason regardless of how smart they are, and they would almost all be significantly happier just not caring about such sh*t. It's a crutch and prevents people from finding real meaning and happiness and for most it lasts their whole life or at least until they are too old to change. I know this isn't a novel idea, any slightly rebellious teenager can and will point out the obvious harm of this kind of mindset, but that only makes people disregard it even more. It's such an obvious problem, and most people even agree when you point it out, but then those same people live out the rest of their lives without doing anything about it. I blame social pressure and peoples tendency to not wander to far from the norm, combined with some conditioning and of course the addiction-mimicking dopamine effects