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Wow! Extremely low cost of living and close to your family. The opportunities are boundless! A perfect time to build an app, write a book, learn new skills. Ch

Wow! Extremely low cost of living and close to your family. The opportunities are boundless! A perfect time to build an app, write a book, learn new skills. Cherish this time. Squeeze every opportunity out of it like it was a wet blanket filled with golden drops. You don't have to be in San Francisco to get started. Do it from a barn! We're here if you need us.

bloggergirl 15y ago
I totally agree with erikstarck. This is actually an amazing opportunity -- when you get past the whole "being poor" thing. (Good news is that we're in a recession, so there aren't any Joneses to keep up with.) Now that you've had your cry and been flooded with support from HN, start the next phase of your life. The Starting from Scratch Phase. If you're having a hard time seeing your options clearly, pretend you're someone else and assess your life from their perspective. Like, what would Paul Graham do? Or what would a single mom do? Your life is filled with options. You just can't see them right now. So don't feel unemployed. Feel liberated. ...Or feel like smacking me for being optimistic when you're down and out. :) Sending love and hope your way...
- palish 15y ago
  I just got back from McDonalds since $1 McChicken is all I can afford to eat. This is the taste of liberation. Mmm.
  - donw 15y ago
    Learn how to cook. You only need some very basic, and very cheap, ingredients to make amazing food. By improving your diet, you will improve both your physical and mental health. You will also save money. For example, tomatoes, onions, beans, chilies, rice, and spices run about $5 total, and with that you can make a gigantic bucket of vegetarian chili packed with vitamins and complete proteins. Add meat for a better amino profile, and the total will only hit about $8. I've been struck down by crippling depression before, and had to build back up. The three things that made recovery possible were a good diet, exercise, and a project to focus my mind on. The diet helps you keep your body from going to hell, the exercise provides a surprising amount of calm, and the project gives your mind something to do so that you don't dwell too heavily on that which you can not change.
    - holri 15y ago
      Also grow your own vegetables in the garden. It's not only cheap, it has also no pesticide pollution, tastes much better and is very healthy because it's fresh. But the most important thing is the psychological effect: You seed, you care, you work on it, you watch it growing and then you harvest and eat your own effort. That's like beeing an entrepreneur on a small scale. Build on this positive experience and grow to bigger tasks.
      - yardie 15y ago
        I would just like to add that starting an organic is not cheap. It's cheaper than, for example, scuba diving or photography. But gathering the materials to get started was a more than I anticipated at first. Just like produce, the chemical free, organic stuff (soil, fertilizer, seeds) cost more than the general stuff. But you only have to do this once, after that it's just the recurring cost of maintaining it. But it is wonderful to be out in the sun, eating stuff I grew fresh.
        jtheory 15y ago
        "starting an organic is not cheap" You mean garden, right? Not farm? A garden is very much a kind of "do only as much as you feel like doing" kind of thing. I have a mini garden, which I suppose is more or less organic by default, because I don't fertilize (or buy soil for that matter), with chemicals or otherwise. I had a big compost bin already -- it was there when we moved in -- so I dumped a bunch of the soil from the bottom of that into some planters, plugged in seedlings for tomatoes and peppers from the supermarket plus a few basil plants, and just watered those now & again. At one point I put in stakes and tied the plants to them to protect them from getting blown over, but otherwise that was all the work (beyond harvesting the veggies when they were ready). We also have fruit trees and berry bushes, which are even better -- it doesn't work out every season (sometimes there's a late frost that kills the cherries, etc.) but every year we get at least something -- sometimes an overwhelming amount of either cherries, apples, figs, kiwis, raspberries, red currants, and some other kind of berry who's name I can never remember but is sort of like a big raspberry. It's important to pick trees/bushes that are relatively "native" to your area so they won't require much care (our fig is a bit too far north for its liking, unfortunately, so the fruit isn't often ripe in time), but otherwise it's easy going. Final note: ideally find a neighbor or two who already has a garden going. You can research how to grow anything online, but there's such a glut of information -- often focused on people with more spare time than you may have, and often based on a different region than yours -- that it's much easier if you have someone local you can ask for advice.
  - jbjohns 15y ago
    No, this is the taste of upcoming medical problems.
babul 15y ago
Though I agree with the sentiment, this is a lot easier to say when external to the problem. Much of it is about fixing or changing lifestyle and behaviour, and in such cases it may be easier to go for "safe" wins, such as a day job, with certain and known results (positives such as known income, and the negative such as web-app/startup opportunity cost) and building up and moving forward before re-exposing one self to risk (esp as it is similar as per his situation before). The higher risk 'do another startup' could be the way to go, but in such an environment/situation, I fear this perhaps is only shying away from underlying problems and hence it is better to take safe route and fix them first.

bloggergirl 15y ago

I totally agree with erikstarck. This is actually an amazing opportunity -- when you get past the whole "being poor" thing. (Good news is that we're in a recession, so there aren't any Joneses to keep up with.) Now that you've had your cry and been flooded with support from HN, start the next phase of your life. The Starting from Scratch Phase. If you're having a hard time seeing your options clearly, pretend you're someone else and assess your life from their perspective. Like, what would Paul Graham do? Or what would a single mom do? Your life is filled with options. You just can't see them right now. So don't feel unemployed. Feel liberated. ...Or feel like smacking me for being optimistic when you're down and out. :) Sending love and hope your way...

palish 15y ago
I just got back from McDonalds since $1 McChicken is all I can afford to eat. This is the taste of liberation. Mmm.
- donw 15y ago
  Learn how to cook. You only need some very basic, and very cheap, ingredients to make amazing food. By improving your diet, you will improve both your physical and mental health. You will also save money. For example, tomatoes, onions, beans, chilies, rice, and spices run about $5 total, and with that you can make a gigantic bucket of vegetarian chili packed with vitamins and complete proteins. Add meat for a better amino profile, and the total will only hit about $8. I've been struck down by crippling depression before, and had to build back up. The three things that made recovery possible were a good diet, exercise, and a project to focus my mind on. The diet helps you keep your body from going to hell, the exercise provides a surprising amount of calm, and the project gives your mind something to do so that you don't dwell too heavily on that which you can not change.
  - holri 15y ago
    Also grow your own vegetables in the garden. It's not only cheap, it has also no pesticide pollution, tastes much better and is very healthy because it's fresh. But the most important thing is the psychological effect: You seed, you care, you work on it, you watch it growing and then you harvest and eat your own effort. That's like beeing an entrepreneur on a small scale. Build on this positive experience and grow to bigger tasks.
    - yardie 15y ago
      I would just like to add that starting an organic is not cheap. It's cheaper than, for example, scuba diving or photography. But gathering the materials to get started was a more than I anticipated at first. Just like produce, the chemical free, organic stuff (soil, fertilizer, seeds) cost more than the general stuff. But you only have to do this once, after that it's just the recurring cost of maintaining it. But it is wonderful to be out in the sun, eating stuff I grew fresh.
      - jtheory 15y ago
        "starting an organic is not cheap" You mean garden, right? Not farm? A garden is very much a kind of "do only as much as you feel like doing" kind of thing. I have a mini garden, which I suppose is more or less organic by default, because I don't fertilize (or buy soil for that matter), with chemicals or otherwise. I had a big compost bin already -- it was there when we moved in -- so I dumped a bunch of the soil from the bottom of that into some planters, plugged in seedlings for tomatoes and peppers from the supermarket plus a few basil plants, and just watered those now & again. At one point I put in stakes and tied the plants to them to protect them from getting blown over, but otherwise that was all the work (beyond harvesting the veggies when they were ready). We also have fruit trees and berry bushes, which are even better -- it doesn't work out every season (sometimes there's a late frost that kills the cherries, etc.) but every year we get at least something -- sometimes an overwhelming amount of either cherries, apples, figs, kiwis, raspberries, red currants, and some other kind of berry who's name I can never remember but is sort of like a big raspberry. It's important to pick trees/bushes that are relatively "native" to your area so they won't require much care (our fig is a bit too far north for its liking, unfortunately, so the fruit isn't often ripe in time), but otherwise it's easy going. Final note: ideally find a neighbor or two who already has a garden going. You can research how to grow anything online, but there's such a glut of information -- often focused on people with more spare time than you may have, and often based on a different region than yours -- that it's much easier if you have someone local you can ask for advice.
- jbjohns 15y ago
  No, this is the taste of upcoming medical problems.

babul 15y ago

Though I agree with the sentiment, this is a lot easier to say when external to the problem. Much of it is about fixing or changing lifestyle and behaviour, and in such cases it may be easier to go for "safe" wins, such as a day job, with certain and known results (positives such as known income, and the negative such as web-app/startup opportunity cost) and building up and moving forward before re-exposing one self to risk (esp as it is similar as per his situation before). The higher risk 'do another startup' could be the way to go, but in such an environment/situation, I fear this perhaps is only shying away from underlying problems and hence it is better to take safe route and fix them first.