7 ms·

So roughly, the author is saying something like: if ( outsourcing_cost * alpha > opportunity_cost ) { outsource(); } and discusses how that alpha

So roughly, the author is saying something like: if ( outsourcing_cost * alpha > opportunity_cost ) { outsource(); } and discusses how that alpha should be calculated. The author also mentions some side benefits of doing some tasks and getting better at them. Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life? If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge? In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?

nicbou 6y ago
> wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier, doubly so if you are also fighting other battles. Sometimes there is a solution, but it's just not attainable for everyone. > are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements? I didn't want to make this post about my own lifestyle, but it might qualify as an answer: 1. I reduced my expenses. You don't need to earn the money you don't spend. I've always been frugal, but I recently took more drastic steps with point #2 in mind. For instance, I cut my rent by 42% by moving to the edge of the city into an older apartment. Well, actually 30% because I have a garage - a lifelong dream of mine. 2. I went freelance to have more control on how much time I sell. I didn't think this was possible, until a contractor at my old job said he took 3 month vacations between contracts. The more you earn and the less you spend, the longer you can go between contracts. At the average rate [1], I could cover my expenses in 3 months. The 4th month pays for a nice trip. 3. Decouple your income from your time. I built a website, and it grew enough to pay the bills. Now I live from it. I spend 20-30 hours a month on it (though it requires about 10). This was a stroke of luck. I couldn't reproduce that if you asked me. That's about it. I'm well aware that this could only happen in specific conditions with a healthy amount of arbitrary luck. However, it did result in significant quality of life improvements. Anyone can appreciate the value of having so much free time. It's only a matter of using it well. I don't know if there's any wisdom to extract from this, but I hope it helps. [1] https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/freelance-developer-rate https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/freelance-developer-rate
- xupybd 6y ago
  Any chance of you going into more detail about your website? I love those success stories.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    It should be on the website linked above. There isn't much to it. I help people settle in Germany, and get affiliate income from the services they need along the way.
- Jabbles 6y ago
  > How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier This is a fantastic quote - you could write whole essays on how it relates to open sourcing a software project.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  How do you cover medical when freelancing? Do you have a family to support?
  - potatoman22 6y ago
    Europe
  - nicbou 6y ago
    https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance Health insurance is tightly regulated in Germany. It's not free, but it's very, very unlikely to bankrupt me.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
One could save a decent amount of money for self and family by being handy with basic tools, plumbing, that sort of thing - but most in UK cities don't.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  IME in the US anything beyond trivial handiwork risks causing damage that costs more than paying a professional from the start. Sadly my experience with professionals is the quality of their work is basically random. Sometimes I pay a lot and the quality is terrible. Sometimes I pay very little and it turns out great. And at the end of the day I don't have the time or strength to do everything I could possibly learn and do myself. So my experiments will continue until the neglect from the previous owners is fully repaired.
KozmoNau7 6y ago
>"Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life?" I heartily recommend it. Get off the "keeping up with the Joneses" carousel, reduce your living expenses and enjoy both having your money stretch much further as well as building up savings. I invest a sustainable amount of my monthly income into climate-friendly mutual funds, as I expect climate change to drive massive innovation in that field. I do not invest in any other segments, for moral reasons. We prefer to live a frugal life and try to avoid buying unnecessary things. In our current living situation, we are lucky enough to not need a car on a daily basis (bicycles and public transit work great here), so we've joined a nonprofit car sharing service (dedicated cars, not people's personal cars) for the occasions where we do have to go outside of practical public transit reach. In general, we try to buy second hand when possible and repair our things ourselves. Most of my clothes have one or another kind of fix or slight modification at this point, aside from t-shirts, which are just hopeless in that regard. Men's shirts take repairs so much better. One thing you learn quickly is that tightly-fitting clothes wear our a lot quicker, especially those with elastic fibers added. Looser-fitting clothes last significantly longer. Tightly-fitting synthetic athletic wear does last pretty well (probably due to the reduced friction), but we are trying to avoid synthetic fibers. It also becomes a hobby in its own right, as I'm writing this I'm adding suspender buttons to some nice thick cotton twill pants that I found recently, because it beats the hell out of belts for comfort. It's hard to find anything but dress pants with suspender buttons these days and clip suspenders chew up the waistband. On the occasions where we do have to buy something brand new, we try to find the locally (Europe, in our case) produced products, both for the environmental impact and for the worker protections factor. Organic and sustainable production is something we prefer to seek out, as well. It's not hard to live frugally and you don't have to take it to extremes, if you don't want to. Just learning to repair things instead of throwing away and buying new, is a great first step. I recognize that we are privileged in that we can actually choose to live like this and have the services around us that make it practical, but I think most people would feel a lot less stressed if they slowed down and lived in a more frugal fashion.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Repair and reuse is great, though can be time consuming. It's harder now that I have kids. My extended family here in the US expect to buy new things for them on the regular. No amount of explaining has changed that. And I'd rather not cut them off over their bad consumption habits. The culture in the US seems to be that 'new' is always best. Pollution and slave labor are just boring details, meant only for Dateline specials.
robocat 6y ago
Also taxes return value to an individual - infrastructure, education, healthcare, etcetera. Rating the personal benefits you get from government at $0 usually means you are freeloading IMHO.
pilom 6y ago
"In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?" Get a comfy bed. Buy comfortable shoes. Spend more money on things that make you happy and less money on things that others tell you should make you happier. Housing is a great example, there is a lot of evidence that housing size doesn't improve happiness but living close to work and minimizing commute time increases happiness significantly.
- nicbou 6y ago
  I sort of disagree. You might end up buying yourself a really nice cage. I'd rather ride a bicycle around the country than drive a Mercedes to work.
Bakary 6y ago
>If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge? Willpower and a natural inclination are the key elements here. It's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it will be the main force behind people's choices to smoke or not. This applies to almost every other aspect you could think of that requires some degree of effort or interest. An example of a non-obvious life hack would be Anki. It works exactly as intended, meaning that it makes remembering things far easier than before. But the catch is that you have to do the cards everyday. Therefore only a minority will actually use it. There is no free lunch. You can generally try to optimize your life, but this sort of Less Wrong style ideology inevitably butts up against some awkward truths about existence, mainly that it has a free-form and serendipitous side to it that can't be gamed so easily or by reason alone. You can't power your way to an interesting life just by the mechanical application of hacks as it requires some luck, some feeling for things, and some intuition. Even if you do manage to attain an artful way of living that exploits your personal circumstances really smoothly, you are not safe from a change in your mindset or any aspect of the house of cards that will suddenly make it all crash down.

nicbou 6y ago

> wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier, doubly so if you are also fighting other battles. Sometimes there is a solution, but it's just not attainable for everyone. > are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements? I didn't want to make this post about my own lifestyle, but it might qualify as an answer: 1. I reduced my expenses. You don't need to earn the money you don't spend. I've always been frugal, but I recently took more drastic steps with point #2 in mind. For instance, I cut my rent by 42% by moving to the edge of the city into an older apartment. Well, actually 30% because I have a garage - a lifelong dream of mine. 2. I went freelance to have more control on how much time I sell. I didn't think this was possible, until a contractor at my old job said he took 3 month vacations between contracts. The more you earn and the less you spend, the longer you can go between contracts. At the average rate [1], I could cover my expenses in 3 months. The 4th month pays for a nice trip. 3. Decouple your income from your time. I built a website, and it grew enough to pay the bills. Now I live from it. I spend 20-30 hours a month on it (though it requires about 10). This was a stroke of luck. I couldn't reproduce that if you asked me. That's about it. I'm well aware that this could only happen in specific conditions with a healthy amount of arbitrary luck. However, it did result in significant quality of life improvements. Anyone can appreciate the value of having so much free time. It's only a matter of using it well. I don't know if there's any wisdom to extract from this, but I hope it helps. [1] https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/freelance-developer-rate https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/freelance-developer-rate

xupybd 6y ago
Any chance of you going into more detail about your website? I love those success stories.
- nicbou 6y ago
  It should be on the website linked above. There isn't much to it. I help people settle in Germany, and get affiliate income from the services they need along the way.
Jabbles 6y ago
> How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier This is a fantastic quote - you could write whole essays on how it relates to open sourcing a software project.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
How do you cover medical when freelancing? Do you have a family to support?
- potatoman22 6y ago
  Europe
- nicbou 6y ago
  https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance Health insurance is tightly regulated in Germany. It's not free, but it's very, very unlikely to bankrupt me.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

One could save a decent amount of money for self and family by being handy with basic tools, plumbing, that sort of thing - but most in UK cities don't.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
IME in the US anything beyond trivial handiwork risks causing damage that costs more than paying a professional from the start. Sadly my experience with professionals is the quality of their work is basically random. Sometimes I pay a lot and the quality is terrible. Sometimes I pay very little and it turns out great. And at the end of the day I don't have the time or strength to do everything I could possibly learn and do myself. So my experiments will continue until the neglect from the previous owners is fully repaired.

KozmoNau7 6y ago

>"Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life?" I heartily recommend it. Get off the "keeping up with the Joneses" carousel, reduce your living expenses and enjoy both having your money stretch much further as well as building up savings. I invest a sustainable amount of my monthly income into climate-friendly mutual funds, as I expect climate change to drive massive innovation in that field. I do not invest in any other segments, for moral reasons. We prefer to live a frugal life and try to avoid buying unnecessary things. In our current living situation, we are lucky enough to not need a car on a daily basis (bicycles and public transit work great here), so we've joined a nonprofit car sharing service (dedicated cars, not people's personal cars) for the occasions where we do have to go outside of practical public transit reach. In general, we try to buy second hand when possible and repair our things ourselves. Most of my clothes have one or another kind of fix or slight modification at this point, aside from t-shirts, which are just hopeless in that regard. Men's shirts take repairs so much better. One thing you learn quickly is that tightly-fitting clothes wear our a lot quicker, especially those with elastic fibers added. Looser-fitting clothes last significantly longer. Tightly-fitting synthetic athletic wear does last pretty well (probably due to the reduced friction), but we are trying to avoid synthetic fibers. It also becomes a hobby in its own right, as I'm writing this I'm adding suspender buttons to some nice thick cotton twill pants that I found recently, because it beats the hell out of belts for comfort. It's hard to find anything but dress pants with suspender buttons these days and clip suspenders chew up the waistband. On the occasions where we do have to buy something brand new, we try to find the locally (Europe, in our case) produced products, both for the environmental impact and for the worker protections factor. Organic and sustainable production is something we prefer to seek out, as well. It's not hard to live frugally and you don't have to take it to extremes, if you don't want to. Just learning to repair things instead of throwing away and buying new, is a great first step. I recognize that we are privileged in that we can actually choose to live like this and have the services around us that make it practical, but I think most people would feel a lot less stressed if they slowed down and lived in a more frugal fashion.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Repair and reuse is great, though can be time consuming. It's harder now that I have kids. My extended family here in the US expect to buy new things for them on the regular. No amount of explaining has changed that. And I'd rather not cut them off over their bad consumption habits. The culture in the US seems to be that 'new' is always best. Pollution and slave labor are just boring details, meant only for Dateline specials.

robocat 6y ago

Also taxes return value to an individual - infrastructure, education, healthcare, etcetera. Rating the personal benefits you get from government at $0 usually means you are freeloading IMHO.

pilom 6y ago

"In other words, are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements?" Get a comfy bed. Buy comfortable shoes. Spend more money on things that make you happy and less money on things that others tell you should make you happier. Housing is a great example, there is a lot of evidence that housing size doesn't improve happiness but living close to work and minimizing commute time increases happiness significantly.

nicbou 6y ago
I sort of disagree. You might end up buying yourself a really nice cage. I'd rather ride a bicycle around the country than drive a Mercedes to work.

Bakary 6y ago

>If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge? Willpower and a natural inclination are the key elements here. It's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it will be the main force behind people's choices to smoke or not. This applies to almost every other aspect you could think of that requires some degree of effort or interest. An example of a non-obvious life hack would be Anki. It works exactly as intended, meaning that it makes remembering things far easier than before. But the catch is that you have to do the cards everyday. Therefore only a minority will actually use it. There is no free lunch. You can generally try to optimize your life, but this sort of Less Wrong style ideology inevitably butts up against some awkward truths about existence, mainly that it has a free-form and serendipitous side to it that can't be gamed so easily or by reason alone. You can't power your way to an interesting life just by the mechanical application of hacks as it requires some luck, some feeling for things, and some intuition. Even if you do manage to attain an artful way of living that exploits your personal circumstances really smoothly, you are not safe from a change in your mindset or any aspect of the house of cards that will suddenly make it all crash down.