18 ms·

The Joy of Fuck-You Money (2018)

143 points by cercatrova 6y ago

jonnycomputer 6y ago
UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Its one of the best ways to rebalance the power relationships between employer and employee.
- game_the0ry 6y ago
  That's interesting, never thought of it that way. Upon ruminating on that concept, I think at the core, fuck you money and UBI are - I can express myself and nothing can financially ruin me or make me homeless.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I consider the private healthcare market in the US to be the same sort of impediment as a lack of UBI - except that when it comes to healthcare it's an even bigger burden to remain with your current employer if you're going through stressful times (i.e. have cancer).
    - jonnycomputer 6y ago
      Yes. People are desperate to keep their health insurance through their job, and this is also an impediment.
      - game_the0ry 6y ago
        I can relate - I am about to get married, kids will follow soon, and I am already anxious. I have a couple of ideas for indie hacker-type side hustles but not enough time bc I am prepping for tech interviews at FAANGs.
        RyanGoosling 6y ago
        get a 15-yr mortgage. the 30-yr one is a scam. Buy a small condo, hopefully work remote from lower COL (Sacramento even). Live small for a few years, then upgrade incrementally over time. Most importantly, don't max out your budget, especially in rent/30-yr mortgage situation. Don't have your MS? Get it.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money Erm no, it's probably only barely what you need to survive, nothing close to what people refer to as FU Money.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    When I worked retail in college, “fuck you money” for my colleagues could be as little as $2,500. One guy I worked with worked from 5am to 2pm in the mall bakery, took a nap in the backroom, the was a line cook from 4p-midnight. Mostly because of some debts and a situation that prevented his wife from working.
  - Robin_Message 6y ago
    FU money implies never needing to work again... ...which is exactly what UBI intends.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      FU money means you have more than what you need. Relying on UBI means you become slave to a system that does not depend on you (external) for your survival, which is the opposite of actually having FU money. It's a big old trap.
      - EGreg 6y ago
        What you need is a function of what you have come to expect. Electricity. Wifi. Fast internet. Air conditioning. Running water. Access to nutritious food and good medicine. Some of those are needs, others are not. The ones which are directly maintaining you in good health are needs. Don't sacrifice your needs (8 hours of sleep a day, for example) for your wants (a shiny new iPhone or bigger apartment) over the years. It's not black and white. As we give more and more UBI, we rebalance the power dynamic between employers and employees. It starts to obviate the need for minimum wage laws and unions, because people can start to ask for 30 hour work weeks, time off to raise their own kids, study a new career, contribute to science and open source software and so on. They'll be able to take more entrepreneurial risks, too. A society with UBI would have a lot more people contributing to gift economies.
- fiftyfifty 6y ago
  I've always thought UBI and Universal Health Care could be huge boons to the start-up economy. Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business. If that was even remotely true then France would the most active center in the world in terms of business creation. I hate to break the news for you, but it isn't.
    - chickenpotpie 6y ago
      Why France in particular? Sweden is consistently rated one of the top countries to start a business and they have universal healthcare
    - jakeva 6y ago
      I don't think the person you were responding to argued that removing those hurdles would create the most active business creation in the world. Enabling successful business creation is a worthy goal, one I think you'd agree France does accomplish. Not being the superlative isn't the same as failure.
    - FpUser 6y ago
      There is UBI in France? How one is protected from loosing the income there? Let's say I give nice warm and fuzzy F-U to my boss and quit. Where do I get money then?
      - hycaria 6y ago
        If you're over 25 with no income, you're eligible for the RSA (~500€/month). Healthcare is free if you don't have any income.
        6y ago
- Proziam 6y ago
  I have written about this before, but I believe this perspective is worth repeating. UBI is a fantastic idea in theory. It is more efficient in terms of capital and human resources than the current system, probably by an order of magnitude or more. However, it does suffer one deep flaw that I haven't seen anyone promoting UBI address. How do we ensure that UBI doesn't become weaponized against the people it's supposed to be helping? If UBI is passed it becomes the single most important issue to the majority of voters. Someone running on a platform of 'more money' will (even if it's economically a bad idea) likely win elections based on it. If there is an economic need to decrease the UBI payments it will be the death knell of political careers. But the biggest concern I have is this: We've already seen big legislation like the Affordable Care Act come under attack and eventually get essentially removed (in that case overwritten by the American Health Care Act on Mar 4, 2017). What would the damage be to the people who come to rely on UBI as part of the general economic system, only to have it rapidly reduced or removed entirely?
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    UBI fuels local economies, in long term this is actually more beneficial to economy and recovery from some market crash. Even if the increase of UBI would be used to get votes, its better then what we currently have - lover taxes for mega rich. At least this way I get something.
  - erosenbe0 6y ago
    I believe some of the original proponents of UBI tended to be for balanced budget amendments. This perhaps yields some sort of equilibrium. Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm.
    - Proziam 6y ago
      > Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm. Most of the sources of misery in the US are economic, unfortunately. The political parties in the US have a long history of being poor trustees of the nation's wealth. I make the comparison to Norway often because Norway has the world's largest social safety net in the form of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. Norway has $1.1T, roughly $200,000 USD per citizen, that can be used to maintain economic stability and secure social programs even in hard times. The US absolutely could have accomplished the same thing, but instead we've racked up a national debt per citizen of over $70,000.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nodesocket 6y ago
  I’ll leave Naval Ravikant’s reasoning why UBI is a terrible idea since he should have much more clout here on HN than me. I am honestly dumbfounded that HN always seems to be so absolutely pro-UBI, like it’s a magic bullet that will end poverty and all of human suffering. People want to earn their money. It feels better, it promotes self-confidence and also is part of the ethos of America. “The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here." "People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”
  - JeremyReimer 6y ago
    I think the idea is that a UBI would provide only enough money for subsistence, and the human drive for greater wealth and status would continue unabated. Status and meaning are certainly important, and people would continue to seek those out. It's possible that many more people would want to become entrepreneurs, given that there would be a social safety net if they failed. Right now, most entrepreneurs come from an upper middle-class background, often with financial assistance and cushioning from their parents.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    $1000 a month is not going to reduce anybody's drive to work. It'll pay for food and rent if you have a roomie, but nothing else. If you want a new phone, you need to work. If you can't stand having a roomie, more work. Et cetera. And the thing about UBI is that everybody gets money, even Bill Gates. So nobody's a second class citizen.
- fareesh 6y ago
  Citizen, you have watched a video featuring Benjamin Shapiro. Your UBI has been deducted by $1
- trident5000 6y ago
  All that happens with UBI is that prices meet demand and rise. Dollars are worth less. There is never going to be a situation where we just hit the printing press and everybody gets to live a leisurely good life. Living a good life really comes down to national production and logistics more than money distribution (the rich have piles of money but they dont typically consume in line with their wealth, like Jeff Bezos is not taking up 50 nurses or buying 100 single family homes or eating 100x his share of food). For example if I gave everyone 250k and told them to all go out and buy a ferrari, its actually impossible. There are not enough cars and prices would rise substantially to box out people again. The same principal goes for homes, healthcare, education, etc. The best way to increase standard of living is to increase production and efficiency to meet everyone's needs in all service and product categories.
  - Marazan 6y ago
    Citation needed.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      Assume rent was your only expense, and your landlord currently charges you $1000/mo rent. He cannot charge you $1200/mo because you can't bear it. If he learns that you started getting $200/mo for free, he can easily raise your rent to $1200/mo. Now in the real world, we have multiple expenses, so prices rises will happen proportionally among them. The consumers with UBI can bear price increases, so the producers will soak it up.
      - bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Alternately, UBI allows you to quit your job, move to WV and pay $200 for rent. What constrains your landlord from jacking up rent is competition. If he jacks up rent by $200 but the landlord across the street has an empty apartment he'd be glad to rent out for $1000 he'll think twice about jacking your rent. The housing crisis in America is a supply issue. UBI has nothing to do with it. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. If they pay for UBI with deficit spending it might crank up inflation, but if it's fully funded it won't.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  UBI is a sham that only drives inflation. At first it looks and acts like a stimulus. Over time it just drives inflation. Rent will go up proportional to your UBI and your landlord will make more money but you won't, for example.
  - foobarbecue 6y ago
    The point is the relative effect is has between people to counteract inequality. If Alice has a job, and Bob is unemployed and broke, Alice has infinity times the purchasing power of Bob. Bob may only need a tiny bit of purchasing power to start his economic engine and get ahead, but his battery is at 0% and he's screwed. The point is to get enough juice in the battery to start the engine. And yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage
    - annoyingnoob 6y ago
      Where does the UBI money come from? How do we pay for UBI? In year 1, Bob has extra money. By year 3 Bob's rent goes up. Did Bob's UBI go up proportionally to his rent? After a few years, Bob ends up in the same place - unless we keep injecting more money over time, which creates inflation.
      - Rule35 6y ago
        Like most social-engineering plans the solution is more social-engineering - price controls, standardized rent, etc.
        annoyingnoob 6y ago
        You avoided the questions.
        RyanGoosling 6y ago
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  > UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Which is partly why there's so much opposition from the powers that be. Similar for universal healthcare - these things reduce the amount of power employers have over employees.
- Rule35 6y ago
  Why would we want to give money to people who won't work? And how would it be a benefit to those whose money would be used? Welfare attempts to uplift people, but UBI is never ending and would come to be seen as a right, not a gift. Welfare makes people and communities stronger, UBI would not.
  - eggsmediumrare 6y ago
    This made sense 30 years ago when we needed humans. Now we don't really need that many humans. "Work harder" is stupid advice when there is no work.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      I for one am certainly not ready for humanity to stagnate. There are a lot of improvements left to made, and a lot of work left to be done.
      - eggsmediumrare 6y ago
        There will be a few very intelligent people who will make the improvements while the rest of humanity does... Something. TBD.
        Rule35 6y ago
        Whatever the massez do, it'll be while force-fed soma. If we do have a huge privileged class who doesn't need to work we can't risk them getting uppity and continually demanding more so we'll keep them on a short leash. And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it. It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps. Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
- jkinudsjknds 6y ago
  Everytime UBI comes up I see a slew of common arguments about inflation and rents. I think those are debateable. But globalism isn't. If everyone gets some money for free, the cost of labor will need to go up, because the marginal utility of those salaries will be lower. This is especially true for people at the bottom, but also for those in the middle. To some extent this will raise prices, specifically to the point at which the lower class needs to work to survive, because That Is How It Works. But they will still probably be better off, debateably. What isn't clear is what happens to all of the jobs that can be exported to countries without UBI that are now that much cheaper. If you raise the price of labor and jobs leave the country, you've made the country net poorer, and in all likelihood increased wealth inequality by squeezing people out of the middle.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  Does that appear to be the case for the millions of people already receiving checks from the government?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    They don't understand redistribution vs inflation.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      You've made this comment a lot in this thread. Suppose, for the sake of argument, UBI is implemented by the pure redistribution of wealth. No debt. No draining some capital reserve. Steady state redistribution. The act of distributing wealth to new people will shift demand in accordance with their demands. The newly UBI-ed masses won't be chasing the same rich-men goods as the rich men they soaked. The aggregate demand for not-rich-man goods will go up. So then those prices will go up. When the price for goods goes up without any increase in their quality, all else constant, that's inflation. At least by my layman's understanding. Why do you keep insisting that redistribution won't cause inflation?
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Youre only looking at demand. There's another factor you're missing. SUPPLY and demand. If supply is static then yes, you are correct. But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities and is highly scalable and economic productivity will increase to match demand. And the increased productivity/value from the economy will have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering. This as a side effect also creates jobs and just generally increases the well being of the middle class and poor as a whole not just from the UBI. This will also distribute the population throughout the country more evenly so rent prices will go down as well... as people don't have to live in certain areas that happen to have jobs and can afford to innovate in B.F.E without the risk of becoming homeless if they fail which in aggregate will have some businesses succeed and stimulate those areas of the country.
- tastyfreeze 6y ago
  UBI is a path to government dependence for everybody. Making the government bigger and making everybody rely on it to survive is very likely to turn out worse than reducing the size of government and letting people keep their earned money. We do not need a larger government!
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    UBI removes massive amounts of gov't bureaucracy in the bloated and disjointed safety net programs in the US and the bloated gov't salaries of the people running them. It's actually a small gov't conservatives dream.
    - tastyfreeze 6y ago
      I would need proof of that claim. As it has been proposed UBI is in addition to existing welfare programs. We cant even pay for the current budget. How are we supposed to add more?
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        UBI is a social safety net, the goal is for it to replace those other social safety net programs.
        tastyfreeze 6y ago
        Replacing other social safety net programs is not how UBI has been proposed. It has been sold as a guaranteed income for all. Not once has discontinuing other social safety net programs been included in UBI proposals. It is always "we could replace all programs with UBI". If the end of other programs is not included in a UBI bill then we will end up with both... forever. So, I will ask again. We can't afford what we have. How can we add more?
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        We can afford the current social safety net we have pretty easily. We spend around 2.3T to entitlement programs and takes in around 3.8T. What's putting us in debt is massive tax cuts for the rich and insane health care costs. I don't think there's been a comprehensive bill for UBI floated yet.
- core-questions 6y ago
  What happens if everyone says Fuck-You, though? I mean, at the end of the day, we need farmers, truckers, grocery store workers, and a whole host of people in between to make sure we don't starve. How do we make sure people keep working these necessary-but-sometimes-grueling jobs in a world where they could just quit and be on the UBI?
4gw45yw 6y ago
Your periodic reminder that Hunter Biden is a child rapist.
1996 6y ago
Missing part: the sadness of having too much fuck you money - like if you don't have to work ever again. When you have more than you can spend, many things lose meaning.
- jsperson 6y ago
  Only if you're selfish. I'd say Bill Gates has made an art out of enjoying too much money.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - boucher 6y ago
    Gates is a complicated fellow. It's worth pointing out that he's richer now than he has ever been.
- et2o 6y ago
  I’ll take your word for it. I can think of many fulfilling things I’d rather be doing if I didn’t have to work everyday.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > I’d rather be doing if I didn’t have to work everyday. For a while, then it would lose meaning. I tried not working, it made me feel very empty inside. Human need goals. We aren't made to be idle for a long time. I'll try to explain that better: "Fuck you" is when you refuse or sever a social connection. Don't do it too often. Because when you don't need any social connection, you have successfully create your gilded cage. I've learned from my mistakes: Now I'm still retired but I work here and there, doing consulting or helping people, and learning biology. It feels much better.
    - toolz 6y ago
      There are many objectives that are interesting to pursue that don't have anything to do with working to sustain a lifestyle. I can sympathize for people who have traveled the beaten path for so long they're unsure how to create their own path once it's not laid out in front of them, but I think anyone in that position who laments their situation must lack any creativity or drive to learn how to create their own unique goals.
ouoeouoeu 6y ago
The concept of living frugally to require less money is the basis of FIRE ideology, which the article decries. Unusual.
- neogodless 6y ago
  > I’m living on about US$10,000 to $15,000 a year. I'm not sure the article decries frugality. Unless I'm really missing something, I don't think you're right. It just says that being financially independent and having "f-you money" are not the same thing. Which I agree with - having enough money to say no to a bad job is plenty enough "f-you money" but I'd want about 20x more to consider myself financially independent.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    I don’t get it. That sounds miserable, not like freedom at all. Sure you don’t have to work, but can you really do much else? Same reason I never understood FIRE. Yeah I can live off a minimal amount of money, but then I can’t afford to do the things I wanted to do if I wasn’t working.
    - neogodless 6y ago
      You may be reading into things I didn't say. First, I didn't say I was financially independent (at all) let alone based on my current spending. Second, I didn't mention my current spending, nor did I call it "minimal." Third, I didn't say I couldn't afford to do things based on the money I do have. FIRE means literally "financial independence, retire early." None of that prescribes spending the absolute bare minimum just to survive. You may be thinking more along the lines of earlyretirementextreme.com, which embraces a whole different level of independence and capability and minimizing expenses and resource consumption. But you can reach FIRE simply by accumulating and investing about 25x your annual spending, whatever that spending may be. Personally, we live in a big house, have a somewhat expensive pet, drive two late model (albeit economical) cars we enjoy, travel, eat well, have nice laptops, etc. We just did and do all spending mindfully and somewhat optimally. Often you can put the Pareto principle into play, and get almost all the enjoyment of something for a fraction of the cost. Sometimes you can simply avoid waste.
neogodless 6y ago
For what it's worth, I believe this phrase, at least within the realm of financial bloggers, originated here: https://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ https://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ I've followed a few, Get Rich Slowly, Mr. Money Mustache, and Jim Collins, which has a great series of posts on long-term investing. I'm wrapping up six months of unemployment this week, and I didn't have a care in the world during that time. We didn't lose money, our investments grew more than ever, and we spent lots of time together however we pleased. I'm not able to retire permanently, and I return to paid work on Tuesday, but there is great peace of mind in having "f-you money," especially if you do live a bit frugally and keep your mandatory, recurring expenses low.
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  As a common trope in tech, it's at least as old as 1999. From Cryptonomicon: The subject heading of Avi's first message is: "Guideline 1." We look for places where the math is right. Meaning what? Meaning that pop. is about to explode we can predict that just by looking at age histogram and per capita income is about to take off the way it did in Nippon, Taiwan, Singapore. Multiply those two things together and you get the kind of exponential growth that should get us all into fuck you money before we turn forty. This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck you money." It was not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators. Sometimes when Avi is working at his computer he will leave the spreadsheet running in a tiny window in the corner so that he can see the current value of "fuck you money" at a glance.
  - mister_tee 6y ago
    this isn't quite the same term but in 1989, legend is that some Microsoft employees wore buttons or shirts with the acronym FYIFV; the IFV is "I'm fully-vested." A more outwardly passive-aggressive version of the term. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/archive-inside-microsoft-a-velvet-sweatshop-or-a-high-tech-heaven/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/archive-inside-microso...
glenmorangie_14 6y ago
I'm not sure I agree with the author about FU money not equaling FIRE money. I've always thought FU levels of money let you say FU at a level that could hurt your career, not at a level that could only hurt your job. I've got a healthy savings account, but I couldn't say FU to my boss because I'm not sure how that would affect me getting another job.
- bengale 6y ago
  Yeah I think the authors reference to ‘no thanks’ money is closer to the mark. Just enough to remove the fear of saying no but not burning bridges on your way out.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Burning bridges is always a bad idea. You never know when your fortunes might shift. There is no such thing as a risk-free investment. If actual risk doesn't get you, inflation will.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Yes, perhaps it should be a different term. How about "No thanks" money?
- mobjack 6y ago
  Sounds like a needlessly expensive standard. It is not that hard to quit without destroying your career. Personally, I am satisfied with two weeks notice money.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  You don't have to literally say "fuck you" to the boss. I just told them I was quitting. The project was delayed another 6 months (which meant 18 total) and I was miserable, clearly I wasn't productive anymore. I was even honest about it when they asked my plan, "I have enough money and assets to last 2-4 years right now depending on how frugal I am. I'm going to sell or give away everything in my apartment, my lease is up next month, and I'll buy a ticket to Spain and start there." (I ended up getting another job instead, no regrets as it turned out well.) I was nowhere near FIRE, but I had enough money I didn't have to stay in a bad or undesirable situation.
fizwhiz 6y ago
> Unlike FIRE, there are degrees to this. r/leanFIRE, r/FIRE and r/fatFIRE would disagree.
- dmoy 6y ago
  also r/chubbyFIRE, and plain old r/financialindependence The regionals: r/fican, r/europeFIRE, etc The subsets of population: r/FIREyFemmes, etc The niche ideas that aren't big enough for their own subs: BaristaFI. etc etc
- walletburst 6y ago
  Also my favorite, Coast FIRE: https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/
TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
I've had fuck you money for a few years in illiquid form. But this year is the first year I started selling stock and crypto and pushed my checking account into seven figures. The psychological impact of that is quite huge. Its not just about being able to say fuck you ... I have always done that. There's a peace of mind that comes from knowing that no matter what happens to me, my kids have enough cash just sitting there to eat, get health care, and pay for their education ... until they are old enough to handle things on their own.
- greedo 6y ago
  Why would you have 7 figures in a checking account? In the US, FDIC would only cover $250K of that in case of bank failure. It's a small risk (unless you're using a very small bank), but why take it?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dmoy 6y ago
    There are quite a few checking accounts or equivalent in the US that subpartition into multiple sweep accounts for >>$1m of FDIC coverage. Fidelity for example covers you up to $1.25m
  - TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
    I'm about to buy some rental properties.
- big_curses 6y ago
  If you literally mean in a checking account, I'm curious what your reasoning is for keeping seven figures in liquid assets. Aren't you just losing money to inflation?
  - TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
    I'm about to buy some rental properties. But I have more than that already invested in various things.
motohagiography 6y ago
This is pure attitude. I used to say I had "fuck you bus fare," which admittedly depends on a robust regional public transit system, but the principle is the same. Sure, it's good to do things like getting your finances in order, clean your room, etc., but there is a choice you can make about how you relate to the world where your happiness is not conditional or contingent on other things. Choose it, and keep choosing it, and when you notice you don't, choose it again. The OPs part II of the article is about that kind of stoic view, and where I disagree with him is he frames it as there being something standing between you and "serenity." However, it could be just a device, as who would listen to someone that told them there was nothing external standing in their way. Surely, what kind of asshole would say that to someones face? A boy with a skateboard and a bus pass doesn't have to take shit from anybody.
- neogodless 6y ago
  Have you ever had to make that choice? If I don't do whatever shitty thing my manager asks me to, I won't eat next week. My family won't eat next week. The water will be shut off. (etc.) I mean you could still have the attitude of "f-it!" but you wouldn't have the resources you need to be sure you don't starve.
a2tech 6y ago
I'm impressed he can live on 10k/year. Thats not even enough for rent in a small city in the US unless you're knee-deep in roommates or a heroin squat.
- rendang 6y ago
  Plenty of medium-sized cities where you can rent your own 1 bedroom for ~$500 https://www.apartments.com/omaha-ne/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/omaha-ne/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/greensboro-nc/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/greensboro-nc/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/jackson-ms/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/jackson-ms/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/tulsa-ok/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/tulsa-ok/1-bedrooms/?so=2
- martindbp 6y ago
  It is impressive, but not working also opens you up to any living arrangement without work location being a factor.
  - a2tech 6y ago
    I guess that exposes some of my 'need to work' preconceived notions.
- pwg 6y ago
  The "eating out" line here (https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/) implies the blog author is (or was, as of Sep 19, 2018) living in India. It is likely easier to live on 10k/year in India than in the US.
cushychicken 6y ago
Love it. It's a lifestyle I actively subscribe to. I'm climbing the FIRE treadmill like this guy talks about. I live frugally, and I save like a madman. I'm on track to have stable, passive income for myself, and my family, for the rest of my life, by the time I hit 45. And I'm certainly not living like a monk along the way. And you know what? I've got a huge war chest that I can pull from if I ever need to tell someone "Fuck you". I may not be financially independent yet, but I have more than enough money to tell a boss who wants me to do boring, shitty work to fuck off if I ever need to. Thankfully, I don't have to right now. But things can change in the blink of an eye. Fuck you money is a condensed store of options for when things get rough.
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  When we're talking about passive income in a general sense, are we talking about buying stocks and funds that generate dividends and/or growth that sustain a 4% (or whatever) sell-off rate to pay for basic life needs, but the asset is valuable enough to keep chugging along despite that? Thanks.
  - cushychicken 6y ago
    Most FIRE advice advocates for selling a small amount of long term funds every year, as they're taxed at a lower rate than dividend income. I read a bunch of Mr Money Mustache to get me started on this path. Recommend that you take a look at his blog to read more about it in detail.
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  How incredibly great for you.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I was reasonably close to hitting my FIRE goal, assuming I wanted to continue living as frugally as I had been, when I was laid off. I had to decide: do I pull the trigger now, and work on some kind of part-time project to try to fill in the little bit I'm missing, or do I find another six-figure job? I realized pretty quickly the decision was stressing me out, which for me, made the choice easy. I booked a flight to Hong Kong and planned to look for another job in about six months. Of course, life being what it is, I met my now-wife in Hong Kong, so I've extended my career for a few more years to make things even more comfortable. Still, I definitely feel like I am well-situated enough that I could walk away from anything, take some time off, and find another job "whenever." It's always on a spectrum!
BlameKaneda 6y ago
To me, the definition of "Fuck-You Money" is being so affluent that you can make a frivolous change/purchase/investment that will not put a dent in you financially. If I had Fuck-You Money, I'd buy a manual transmission sports car without knowing how to drive stick. In the event that I messed up the clutch, I'd buy a new car.
ldbooth 6y ago
This has been so many times in so many ways. Go with what holds your attention. Galloway's version does it for me: Rich = Passive Income > expenses https://youtu.be/uNrjrDV9-YQ https://youtu.be/uNrjrDV9-YQ
jacquesm 6y ago
Money by itself is useless, it's like a tool in a toolbox that needs to be used in order to be effective. Un-allocated capital translates into options: things you could do, if you wanted to. And that in turn translates into less stress and a safety net. But once spent it is no longer available in that role so the big trick is to ensure that your 'stash' doesn't diminish in an unsustainable way if you should ever have to tap into it. The rate at which you can tell people to get lost has a pretty hard limit unless you reach a really high level of independence and even then: what goes up can come down. So be careful how frequently you tell people to get lost, it's a small world.
vecinu 6y ago
I'm amazed by the author's $10-15k/year spending [1]. I subscribe to the FI portion of FIRE and am very frugal 99% of the time but wow, some of these bloggers are spending an impossibly small amount of money per year by geographical arbitrage. I wonder how many people that subscribe to FIRE are in the US, especially VHCOL or HCOL places where incomes are likely to be high. My conservative 2bd rent exceeds the author's YEARLY budget in 3 months here in SoCal. I would love to cut back even more but I touched the limit on where I started giving up on happiness and satisfaction if I optimized my expenses too much. I guess I'm realizing that these folks are truly outliers, how many people that subscribe to FIRE are actually practicing geographical arbitrage, especially if you're considering having a family with kids, pets and a home? [1] https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/
- thebean11 6y ago
  Yeah $15k is impressive. I wonder what the author is doing for healthcare? That alone can easily cost $15k.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    It doesn't look like he's paying for health insurance based on this itemized list: https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/
    - derekp7 6y ago
      If you're young enough you don't need health care (until you do, as I found out the hard way).
- parsimo2010 6y ago
  Living frugally implies living in a low cost of living area. Practically none of these people are preaching that you can maintain your same lifestyle and just magically cut 80% of your expenses (the trick is finding the cuts that save lots of money but don’t sacrifice as much quality of life). You’re not going to do it in Southern California. I would go so far as to claim that anyone preaching FIRE concepts in California is probably not eating their own dog food or has some other consideration that doesn’t apply to most people (has a big inheritance/trust fund, sold a company, had their parents give them their house, etc.) If you want to do FIRE and aren’t just rich already, you definitely have to live elsewhere. You’re going to do it in a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. You can do it with a family, but your kids will complain and you had better hope your spouse is on board. It’s clearly not for everyone. If it were easy lots of people would do it.
kryogen1c 6y ago
the article and the comments here rather neatly miss the point of the movie. whether or not you have FU money (or what FU money is) is the wrong question. john goodman, whom the article quotes, is not a protagonist. the safety goodman is describing is exactly what mark wahlberg cant stand. "You're born... as a man... with the nerves of a soldier, the apprehension of an angel, to lift a phrase, but there is no use for it. Here? Where's the use for it? You're set up to be a philosopher or a king or Shakespeare, and this is all they give you? This?" perhaps your first instinct is to think this is a first-world problem, an ignorance of privilege, but remember - wahlberg is in debt to two bookies that will likely kill him, and he triples down on a loan from a third who promises to kill not just him but also his whole bloodline. to whit: “The only thing worth doing is the impossible. Everything else is gray.”
annoyingnoob 6y ago
I have a family of 5 and I live in California. I don't think its possible to get my expenses down like the author proposes here. Heck, property tax is over 10k a year by itself. Life isn't all about money.
- sequoia 6y ago
  I've come to the conclusion the author just isn't considering people with families in this equation. I lived with intermittent work or no work at all when I was single & childless, but I can't say "fuck you" to my wife and kids and bring them along a journey of poverty because I want to thumb my nose at the system. For better or worse.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Presumably you are earning a lot more than the author by working in California.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
> In fact, all my bosses have been great. Lucky guy.
sequoia 6y ago
> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. I really hope Taleb doesn't say this because it's really really stupid. You can call a situation bad without comparing it to chattel slavery. As someone with family, I am curious about how others with families approach this "fuck-you" topic. I suppose it just doesn't include us, as we've made the choice to assume responsibilities that are (or should be) impossible to walk away from. If saying fuck you to a salary includes saying fuck you to my wife and kids, well I'm not going to do that. And believe it or not it doesn't make me feel like a literal slave to my employer. For single people (especially younger) it's great advice I think. You're unattached, that has its own benefits, why not make the most of it?
- graton 6y ago
  >> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. > I really hope Taleb doesn't say this because it's really really stupid. You can call a situation bad without comparing it to chattel slavery. https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-own-another-person-4145a1802bf6 https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-own-another-person...
- neogodless 6y ago
  Whether talking about FIRE or just "f-you money", it means having enough money to amply take care of your responsibilities regardless of your situation, with enough of a runway to find another source of income. There may be situations (and professions) where burning one bridge burns all bridges and your only option after all that will be change your line of work, or take a huge pay cut. Ideally, you always make your choices about ongoing costs in a way that you aren't tying yourself to some high level of income and thus eliminating all sense of "f-you" options. During my six months of unemployment, my unemployment payments covered my required expenses, for most months - all responsibilities, same food as when I was employed. Due to the pandemic, we didn't spend as much on travel, and certain forms of entertainment, but we spent more on others. That's just because my life and my spending is designed that way. This is all a roundabout way of saying "avoid lifestyle inflation" which very commonly occurs where every raise is accompanied by spending more and more money. Getting a car to signal your raise. Moving into a more expensive house/neighborhood. We certainly spend money on things we enjoy, but in general there's a law of diminishing returns, and lots of spending fails to bring the joy we think it will. So yes, "f-you money" should be defined by you as having more than enough to say "no" to a bad situation, while still being able to comfortably care for your family, and to avoid imposing painful restrictions on their lives while you seek new income.
EGreg 6y ago
These people discuss having $5M or $10M before you can relax and feel you have "f u money" I encourage everyone to read through the blog of this fellow, Mr Money Mustache, which I discovered many years ago. Early Retirement through Badassity. It's not just about having enough money for all your wants. It's about reducing your wants to just your needs. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ Another great book about it is the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. Stoicism is like the Western Buddhism, and probably developed around the same time. Basically, learn to separate your wants from your needs, and make sure your needs are covered several times over. It's not black and white -- we as a society come to expect more and more, but previous generations did not all have their own house, they didn't even have clean water running to their house. I would say needs is whatever can maintain you in optimal health, and everything that supports that. Everything else is more and more optional, and you can practice (like going to the gym) denying yourself gratification in those things. It is also why orthodox Jews, and the Amish, and others, have lifestyles where their health and emotional well-being is often independent of how much stuff they have. In the US, unfortunately, we have an opiate epidemic, a quarter of middle-aged women are on antidepressants, the kids are overmedicated with ADHD, and the elderly in the old folks home are on all sorts of things. All so our society could have a "good economy", specialization, all young adults can live in their large air conditioned apartments alone, etc. This is extremely different than most traditional societies around the world, where families live together, children are watched by grandparents and respect their elders etc. and there is quite a lot of collectivism and people aren't "spoiled" by individualism and wealth. And also perhaps consider that this stoicism is not just for money, but also for sexual gratification and attraction to one's partner, as well. Easier said than done, but just like waiting to have $5M to be truly able to relax and be happy, maybe waiting for the most attractive and compatible person to come along to start a family, is something society has been telling us to do. As for me, I couldn't become a stoic in this department LOL, so I appreciate any insights.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  I met Pete Adeney (Mr. Money Moustache, or MMM) in his hometown of Longmont, CO, in 2017. Back then I was trying to build "the city of the future", and he was into that stuff too. I already liked him through his blog; but after that meeting, I liked him even more. He's authentic. Even more so in person. Most of his advice is really sound. I hardly find anything I disagree with. I don't agree much with his stance on Bitcoin [0], but I really like that he's trying to defend people from the quasi-religious crypto-zealots that populate Twitter these days. [0]: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-stupid/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-st...
yboris 6y ago
On the topic of frugality, I think it's immensely important to reflect on this graph at least once a year: https://income-inequality.info/ https://income-inequality.info/ More than 85% of the people in the world live on less than $30 per day [0]. Many of us in the US are accustomed to such a high quality of life we can't even fathom what it's like for the vast majority of the world's population. Being frugal and giving 10% to cost-effective charities is what I choose to do (see Giving What We Can [1] ) [0] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [1] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
- silicon2401 6y ago
  I'm not a charitable person (I'm only concerned with caring for myself and my loved ones), but even then I never understand this kind of mentality. At $100k income (assuming no tax), 10% is $10,000. How much does that come out to over 10, 20, 30, even 50 years? Even if I were charitable I'd still rather save and invest everything, so that that money can grow and I can donate more later. Instead of a lump sum of 10k today, why not have an amount of wealth that can provide a continuous supply of funds from interest?
  - yboris 6y ago
    Because the benefits individuals receive today compound. Consider how much of a health cost there is to being sick with malaria? Preventing a case of malaria is likely to have a much more positive effects (compounded into the far future) than doubling the donation in the future. Especially that malaria is a transmittable disease: lower the population of those carrying malaria, you have fewer malaria cases in the future. Prevention often costs far less than curing. Look at the positive effects of smallpox eradication!
    - mvolfik 6y ago
      Yes, and this is even more relevant now in the pandemic. Many countries have agreed to ensure access to COVID vaccines for third world, yet they are still getting pretty much none, while Europe is already full of scandals with celebrities and rich people skipping priority lines and getting vaccinated
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Tade0 6y ago
> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. I discussed this the other day with a friend of mine who already has years' worth of fuck you money(I have months at best). We were complaining that the worst people to work with are those who can't afford to lose employment(usually due to their financial situation), because over time they gradually evolve into these yes-men who will do anything to save their ass - even if it means making everyone else's job harder in the process. All intelligent, talented people. It's just that they've been conned into living a lifestyle which shepherds them into such a position. I've been putting off getting a mortgage because I don't want to join this crowd, but real estate prices are not getting any lower, so I might end up with one soon anyway. And to think I'm actually in the privileged, 30% group of those who can afford any housing.
- mempko 6y ago
  If everyone tried to have Fuck-You Money, nobody would. Why? Paradox of Thrift. The only reason this person can have Fuck-You Money is because other people aren't frugal. One person's savings is another person's lost income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
  - orwin 6y ago
    Yes, accountability is a 0-sum game. One man's debt is another's saving, all that jazz (well, except when a default happen, and in this case money is created, but in EU more than 90% of savings + circulating money is from debt and would'nt be surprised if this is more than that in the US). That's why states and companies should be as indebted as possible as long as it doesn't endanger them.
  - Tade0 6y ago
    Actually, he worked two jobs (in IT at that) for a year. Two annual engineer salaries make for a nice cushion. Few people can pull this off though.
- 6y ago
GoodJokes 6y ago
ITT: People that have cushy lives patting themselves on the back.
tristor 6y ago
I am the furthest thing from practicing FIRE, after all my primary hobby is racing cars (cheap cars... but racing anything is expensive). But just by finding ways to be frugal in other areas of my life and prioritizing savings and investments over material things, I've been able to have a healthy cushion for most of my adult life. It has also come in handy a few times when ethical considerations forced me to make a career move. At this point in my life, I have a target to retire at 50, and will at that point have enough residual income from investments that I can work only when I want to for the remainder of my life. That's an achievable goal for anyone working in tech, and it does empower you to be more real in your work life, but it's also a sliding scale of how aggressively you want to cut things out of your life to save money. I think the author has the right concept, but their actual breakdown in terms of expenses isn't realistic for most people in the US. I live in a very low cost of living area and still couldn't bring my expenses as low as the author of this article.
abraxas 6y ago
I used to have FU money. Now I don't. Well, not entirely true - I still do but the lifestyle creep has snuck up on me as I wasn't deliberate in my spending. Made a couple of bad decisions like building a second home in a country which I'll likely never visit again due to its political circumstances but seemed like a bargain at the time (yeah, I know). Also my family has slowly got used to more expensive gifts and higher expense entertainment choices and now the seven figure balance sheet doesn't feel so liberating anymore :( I'm now working towards being more deliberate with spending and cutting down our set of possessions that provide us little value. Mostly that second house.
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innagadadavida 6y ago
A couple of things that these types of articles fails to capture: 1. Medical insurance. For a family of 4, this can be quite a bit and paying out of pocket will be a big expense this is the biggest risk. 2. Immigration status. There are a lot of immigrants who are in the system and they cannot retire if they are on a visa. 3. High cost of living areas. If most of your friends and family are in areas like the Bay Area, your property taxes and mortgage will be a significant expense. You don’t want to just move out in order to be financially independent.
bobbydreamer 6y ago
In today's world, best returns ever one got from fuck-you money is from bitcoin amd it's no longer a fuck you money category.

143 points by cercatrova 6y ago

UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Its one of the best ways to rebalance the power relationships between employer and employee.

game_the0ry 6y ago
That's interesting, never thought of it that way. Upon ruminating on that concept, I think at the core, fuck you money and UBI are - I can express myself and nothing can financially ruin me or make me homeless.
- munk-a 6y ago
  I consider the private healthcare market in the US to be the same sort of impediment as a lack of UBI - except that when it comes to healthcare it's an even bigger burden to remain with your current employer if you're going through stressful times (i.e. have cancer).
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Yes. People are desperate to keep their health insurance through their job, and this is also an impediment.
    - game_the0ry 6y ago
      I can relate - I am about to get married, kids will follow soon, and I am already anxious. I have a couple of ideas for indie hacker-type side hustles but not enough time bc I am prepping for tech interviews at FAANGs.
      - RyanGoosling 6y ago
        get a 15-yr mortgage. the 30-yr one is a scam. Buy a small condo, hopefully work remote from lower COL (Sacramento even). Live small for a few years, then upgrade incrementally over time. Most importantly, don't max out your budget, especially in rent/30-yr mortgage situation. Don't have your MS? Get it.
ekianjo 6y ago
> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money Erm no, it's probably only barely what you need to survive, nothing close to what people refer to as FU Money.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  When I worked retail in college, “fuck you money” for my colleagues could be as little as $2,500. One guy I worked with worked from 5am to 2pm in the mall bakery, took a nap in the backroom, the was a line cook from 4p-midnight. Mostly because of some debts and a situation that prevented his wife from working.
- Robin_Message 6y ago
  FU money implies never needing to work again... ...which is exactly what UBI intends.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    FU money means you have more than what you need. Relying on UBI means you become slave to a system that does not depend on you (external) for your survival, which is the opposite of actually having FU money. It's a big old trap.
    - EGreg 6y ago
      What you need is a function of what you have come to expect. Electricity. Wifi. Fast internet. Air conditioning. Running water. Access to nutritious food and good medicine. Some of those are needs, others are not. The ones which are directly maintaining you in good health are needs. Don't sacrifice your needs (8 hours of sleep a day, for example) for your wants (a shiny new iPhone or bigger apartment) over the years. It's not black and white. As we give more and more UBI, we rebalance the power dynamic between employers and employees. It starts to obviate the need for minimum wage laws and unions, because people can start to ask for 30 hour work weeks, time off to raise their own kids, study a new career, contribute to science and open source software and so on. They'll be able to take more entrepreneurial risks, too. A society with UBI would have a lot more people contributing to gift economies.
fiftyfifty 6y ago
I've always thought UBI and Universal Health Care could be huge boons to the start-up economy. Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Loosing health insurance and all of their income has to be a major hurdle for many people taking the step to start their own business. If that was even remotely true then France would the most active center in the world in terms of business creation. I hate to break the news for you, but it isn't.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    Why France in particular? Sweden is consistently rated one of the top countries to start a business and they have universal healthcare
  - jakeva 6y ago
    I don't think the person you were responding to argued that removing those hurdles would create the most active business creation in the world. Enabling successful business creation is a worthy goal, one I think you'd agree France does accomplish. Not being the superlative isn't the same as failure.
  - FpUser 6y ago
    There is UBI in France? How one is protected from loosing the income there? Let's say I give nice warm and fuzzy F-U to my boss and quit. Where do I get money then?
    - hycaria 6y ago
      If you're over 25 with no income, you're eligible for the RSA (~500€/month). Healthcare is free if you don't have any income.
      - 6y ago
Proziam 6y ago
I have written about this before, but I believe this perspective is worth repeating. UBI is a fantastic idea in theory. It is more efficient in terms of capital and human resources than the current system, probably by an order of magnitude or more. However, it does suffer one deep flaw that I haven't seen anyone promoting UBI address. How do we ensure that UBI doesn't become weaponized against the people it's supposed to be helping? If UBI is passed it becomes the single most important issue to the majority of voters. Someone running on a platform of 'more money' will (even if it's economically a bad idea) likely win elections based on it. If there is an economic need to decrease the UBI payments it will be the death knell of political careers. But the biggest concern I have is this: We've already seen big legislation like the Affordable Care Act come under attack and eventually get essentially removed (in that case overwritten by the American Health Care Act on Mar 4, 2017). What would the damage be to the people who come to rely on UBI as part of the general economic system, only to have it rapidly reduced or removed entirely?
- me_me_me 6y ago
  UBI fuels local economies, in long term this is actually more beneficial to economy and recovery from some market crash. Even if the increase of UBI would be used to get votes, its better then what we currently have - lover taxes for mega rich. At least this way I get something.
- erosenbe0 6y ago
  I believe some of the original proponents of UBI tended to be for balanced budget amendments. This perhaps yields some sort of equilibrium. Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm.
  - Proziam 6y ago
    > Although I can think of some states with balanced budget constitutions that act only nominally to constrain spending, as they are based on abusable projections, so the impediment is not firm. Most of the sources of misery in the US are economic, unfortunately. The political parties in the US have a long history of being poor trustees of the nation's wealth. I make the comparison to Norway often because Norway has the world's largest social safety net in the form of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. Norway has $1.1T, roughly $200,000 USD per citizen, that can be used to maintain economic stability and secure social programs even in hard times. The US absolutely could have accomplished the same thing, but instead we've racked up a national debt per citizen of over $70,000.
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nodesocket 6y ago
I’ll leave Naval Ravikant’s reasoning why UBI is a terrible idea since he should have much more clout here on HN than me. I am honestly dumbfounded that HN always seems to be so absolutely pro-UBI, like it’s a magic bullet that will end poverty and all of human suffering. People want to earn their money. It feels better, it promotes self-confidence and also is part of the ethos of America. “The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here." "People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”
- JeremyReimer 6y ago
  I think the idea is that a UBI would provide only enough money for subsistence, and the human drive for greater wealth and status would continue unabated. Status and meaning are certainly important, and people would continue to seek those out. It's possible that many more people would want to become entrepreneurs, given that there would be a social safety net if they failed. Right now, most entrepreneurs come from an upper middle-class background, often with financial assistance and cushioning from their parents.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  $1000 a month is not going to reduce anybody's drive to work. It'll pay for food and rent if you have a roomie, but nothing else. If you want a new phone, you need to work. If you can't stand having a roomie, more work. Et cetera. And the thing about UBI is that everybody gets money, even Bill Gates. So nobody's a second class citizen.
fareesh 6y ago
Citizen, you have watched a video featuring Benjamin Shapiro. Your UBI has been deducted by $1
trident5000 6y ago
All that happens with UBI is that prices meet demand and rise. Dollars are worth less. There is never going to be a situation where we just hit the printing press and everybody gets to live a leisurely good life. Living a good life really comes down to national production and logistics more than money distribution (the rich have piles of money but they dont typically consume in line with their wealth, like Jeff Bezos is not taking up 50 nurses or buying 100 single family homes or eating 100x his share of food). For example if I gave everyone 250k and told them to all go out and buy a ferrari, its actually impossible. There are not enough cars and prices would rise substantially to box out people again. The same principal goes for homes, healthcare, education, etc. The best way to increase standard of living is to increase production and efficiency to meet everyone's needs in all service and product categories.
- Marazan 6y ago
  Citation needed.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Assume rent was your only expense, and your landlord currently charges you $1000/mo rent. He cannot charge you $1200/mo because you can't bear it. If he learns that you started getting $200/mo for free, he can easily raise your rent to $1200/mo. Now in the real world, we have multiple expenses, so prices rises will happen proportionally among them. The consumers with UBI can bear price increases, so the producers will soak it up.
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Alternately, UBI allows you to quit your job, move to WV and pay $200 for rent. What constrains your landlord from jacking up rent is competition. If he jacks up rent by $200 but the landlord across the street has an empty apartment he'd be glad to rent out for $1000 he'll think twice about jacking your rent. The housing crisis in America is a supply issue. UBI has nothing to do with it. Inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. If they pay for UBI with deficit spending it might crank up inflation, but if it's fully funded it won't.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
UBI is a sham that only drives inflation. At first it looks and acts like a stimulus. Over time it just drives inflation. Rent will go up proportional to your UBI and your landlord will make more money but you won't, for example.
- foobarbecue 6y ago
  The point is the relative effect is has between people to counteract inequality. If Alice has a job, and Bob is unemployed and broke, Alice has infinity times the purchasing power of Bob. Bob may only need a tiny bit of purchasing power to start his economic engine and get ahead, but his battery is at 0% and he's screwed. The point is to get enough juice in the battery to start the engine. And yes, the cost might be some inflation, but predictions of inflation have lately failed: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970595276/bond-voyage
  - annoyingnoob 6y ago
    Where does the UBI money come from? How do we pay for UBI? In year 1, Bob has extra money. By year 3 Bob's rent goes up. Did Bob's UBI go up proportionally to his rent? After a few years, Bob ends up in the same place - unless we keep injecting more money over time, which creates inflation.
    - Rule35 6y ago
      Like most social-engineering plans the solution is more social-engineering - price controls, standardized rent, etc.
      - annoyingnoob 6y ago
        You avoided the questions.
        RyanGoosling 6y ago
UncleOxidant 6y ago
> UBI is how you make sure everyone has Fuck-You money. Which is partly why there's so much opposition from the powers that be. Similar for universal healthcare - these things reduce the amount of power employers have over employees.
Rule35 6y ago
Why would we want to give money to people who won't work? And how would it be a benefit to those whose money would be used? Welfare attempts to uplift people, but UBI is never ending and would come to be seen as a right, not a gift. Welfare makes people and communities stronger, UBI would not.
- eggsmediumrare 6y ago
  This made sense 30 years ago when we needed humans. Now we don't really need that many humans. "Work harder" is stupid advice when there is no work.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    I for one am certainly not ready for humanity to stagnate. There are a lot of improvements left to made, and a lot of work left to be done.
    - eggsmediumrare 6y ago
      There will be a few very intelligent people who will make the improvements while the rest of humanity does... Something. TBD.
      - Rule35 6y ago
        Whatever the massez do, it'll be while force-fed soma. If we do have a huge privileged class who doesn't need to work we can't risk them getting uppity and continually demanding more so we'll keep them on a short leash. And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it. It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps. Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
jkinudsjknds 6y ago
Everytime UBI comes up I see a slew of common arguments about inflation and rents. I think those are debateable. But globalism isn't. If everyone gets some money for free, the cost of labor will need to go up, because the marginal utility of those salaries will be lower. This is especially true for people at the bottom, but also for those in the middle. To some extent this will raise prices, specifically to the point at which the lower class needs to work to survive, because That Is How It Works. But they will still probably be better off, debateably. What isn't clear is what happens to all of the jobs that can be exported to countries without UBI that are now that much cheaper. If you raise the price of labor and jobs leave the country, you've made the country net poorer, and in all likelihood increased wealth inequality by squeezing people out of the middle.
tengbretson 6y ago
Does that appear to be the case for the millions of people already receiving checks from the government?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  They don't understand redistribution vs inflation.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    You've made this comment a lot in this thread. Suppose, for the sake of argument, UBI is implemented by the pure redistribution of wealth. No debt. No draining some capital reserve. Steady state redistribution. The act of distributing wealth to new people will shift demand in accordance with their demands. The newly UBI-ed masses won't be chasing the same rich-men goods as the rich men they soaked. The aggregate demand for not-rich-man goods will go up. So then those prices will go up. When the price for goods goes up without any increase in their quality, all else constant, that's inflation. At least by my layman's understanding. Why do you keep insisting that redistribution won't cause inflation?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Youre only looking at demand. There's another factor you're missing. SUPPLY and demand. If supply is static then yes, you are correct. But the supply for most 'not-rich-man goods' is made of commodities and is highly scalable and economic productivity will increase to match demand. And the increased productivity/value from the economy will have a deflationary aspect that you're not considering. This as a side effect also creates jobs and just generally increases the well being of the middle class and poor as a whole not just from the UBI. This will also distribute the population throughout the country more evenly so rent prices will go down as well... as people don't have to live in certain areas that happen to have jobs and can afford to innovate in B.F.E without the risk of becoming homeless if they fail which in aggregate will have some businesses succeed and stimulate those areas of the country.
tastyfreeze 6y ago
UBI is a path to government dependence for everybody. Making the government bigger and making everybody rely on it to survive is very likely to turn out worse than reducing the size of government and letting people keep their earned money. We do not need a larger government!
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  UBI removes massive amounts of gov't bureaucracy in the bloated and disjointed safety net programs in the US and the bloated gov't salaries of the people running them. It's actually a small gov't conservatives dream.
  - tastyfreeze 6y ago
    I would need proof of that claim. As it has been proposed UBI is in addition to existing welfare programs. We cant even pay for the current budget. How are we supposed to add more?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      UBI is a social safety net, the goal is for it to replace those other social safety net programs.
      - tastyfreeze 6y ago
        Replacing other social safety net programs is not how UBI has been proposed. It has been sold as a guaranteed income for all. Not once has discontinuing other social safety net programs been included in UBI proposals. It is always "we could replace all programs with UBI". If the end of other programs is not included in a UBI bill then we will end up with both... forever. So, I will ask again. We can't afford what we have. How can we add more?
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        We can afford the current social safety net we have pretty easily. We spend around 2.3T to entitlement programs and takes in around 3.8T. What's putting us in debt is massive tax cuts for the rich and insane health care costs. I don't think there's been a comprehensive bill for UBI floated yet.
core-questions 6y ago
What happens if everyone says Fuck-You, though? I mean, at the end of the day, we need farmers, truckers, grocery store workers, and a whole host of people in between to make sure we don't starve. How do we make sure people keep working these necessary-but-sometimes-grueling jobs in a world where they could just quit and be on the UBI?

4gw45yw 6y ago

Your periodic reminder that Hunter Biden is a child rapist.

1996 6y ago

Missing part: the sadness of having too much fuck you money - like if you don't have to work ever again. When you have more than you can spend, many things lose meaning.

jsperson 6y ago
Only if you're selfish. I'd say Bill Gates has made an art out of enjoying too much money.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- boucher 6y ago
  Gates is a complicated fellow. It's worth pointing out that he's richer now than he has ever been.
et2o 6y ago
I’ll take your word for it. I can think of many fulfilling things I’d rather be doing if I didn’t have to work everyday.
- 1996 6y ago
  > I’d rather be doing if I didn’t have to work everyday. For a while, then it would lose meaning. I tried not working, it made me feel very empty inside. Human need goals. We aren't made to be idle for a long time. I'll try to explain that better: "Fuck you" is when you refuse or sever a social connection. Don't do it too often. Because when you don't need any social connection, you have successfully create your gilded cage. I've learned from my mistakes: Now I'm still retired but I work here and there, doing consulting or helping people, and learning biology. It feels much better.
  - toolz 6y ago
    There are many objectives that are interesting to pursue that don't have anything to do with working to sustain a lifestyle. I can sympathize for people who have traveled the beaten path for so long they're unsure how to create their own path once it's not laid out in front of them, but I think anyone in that position who laments their situation must lack any creativity or drive to learn how to create their own unique goals.

ouoeouoeu 6y ago

The concept of living frugally to require less money is the basis of FIRE ideology, which the article decries. Unusual.

neogodless 6y ago
> I’m living on about US$10,000 to $15,000 a year. I'm not sure the article decries frugality. Unless I'm really missing something, I don't think you're right. It just says that being financially independent and having "f-you money" are not the same thing. Which I agree with - having enough money to say no to a bad job is plenty enough "f-you money" but I'd want about 20x more to consider myself financially independent.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  I don’t get it. That sounds miserable, not like freedom at all. Sure you don’t have to work, but can you really do much else? Same reason I never understood FIRE. Yeah I can live off a minimal amount of money, but then I can’t afford to do the things I wanted to do if I wasn’t working.
  - neogodless 6y ago
    You may be reading into things I didn't say. First, I didn't say I was financially independent (at all) let alone based on my current spending. Second, I didn't mention my current spending, nor did I call it "minimal." Third, I didn't say I couldn't afford to do things based on the money I do have. FIRE means literally "financial independence, retire early." None of that prescribes spending the absolute bare minimum just to survive. You may be thinking more along the lines of earlyretirementextreme.com, which embraces a whole different level of independence and capability and minimizing expenses and resource consumption. But you can reach FIRE simply by accumulating and investing about 25x your annual spending, whatever that spending may be. Personally, we live in a big house, have a somewhat expensive pet, drive two late model (albeit economical) cars we enjoy, travel, eat well, have nice laptops, etc. We just did and do all spending mindfully and somewhat optimally. Often you can put the Pareto principle into play, and get almost all the enjoyment of something for a fraction of the cost. Sometimes you can simply avoid waste.

neogodless 6y ago

For what it's worth, I believe this phrase, at least within the realm of financial bloggers, originated here: https://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ https://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ I've followed a few, Get Rich Slowly, Mr. Money Mustache, and Jim Collins, which has a great series of posts on long-term investing. I'm wrapping up six months of unemployment this week, and I didn't have a care in the world during that time. We didn't lose money, our investments grew more than ever, and we spent lots of time together however we pleased. I'm not able to retire permanently, and I return to paid work on Tuesday, but there is great peace of mind in having "f-you money," especially if you do live a bit frugally and keep your mandatory, recurring expenses low.

hprotagonist 6y ago
As a common trope in tech, it's at least as old as 1999. From Cryptonomicon: The subject heading of Avi's first message is: "Guideline 1." We look for places where the math is right. Meaning what? Meaning that pop. is about to explode we can predict that just by looking at age histogram and per capita income is about to take off the way it did in Nippon, Taiwan, Singapore. Multiply those two things together and you get the kind of exponential growth that should get us all into fuck you money before we turn forty. This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck you money." It was not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators. Sometimes when Avi is working at his computer he will leave the spreadsheet running in a tiny window in the corner so that he can see the current value of "fuck you money" at a glance.
- mister_tee 6y ago
  this isn't quite the same term but in 1989, legend is that some Microsoft employees wore buttons or shirts with the acronym FYIFV; the IFV is "I'm fully-vested." A more outwardly passive-aggressive version of the term. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/archive-inside-microsoft-a-velvet-sweatshop-or-a-high-tech-heaven/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/archive-inside-microso...

glenmorangie_14 6y ago

I'm not sure I agree with the author about FU money not equaling FIRE money. I've always thought FU levels of money let you say FU at a level that could hurt your career, not at a level that could only hurt your job. I've got a healthy savings account, but I couldn't say FU to my boss because I'm not sure how that would affect me getting another job.

bengale 6y ago
Yeah I think the authors reference to ‘no thanks’ money is closer to the mark. Just enough to remove the fear of saying no but not burning bridges on your way out.
- lisper 6y ago
  Burning bridges is always a bad idea. You never know when your fortunes might shift. There is no such thing as a risk-free investment. If actual risk doesn't get you, inflation will.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Yes, perhaps it should be a different term. How about "No thanks" money?
mobjack 6y ago
Sounds like a needlessly expensive standard. It is not that hard to quit without destroying your career. Personally, I am satisfied with two weeks notice money.
Jtsummers 6y ago
You don't have to literally say "fuck you" to the boss. I just told them I was quitting. The project was delayed another 6 months (which meant 18 total) and I was miserable, clearly I wasn't productive anymore. I was even honest about it when they asked my plan, "I have enough money and assets to last 2-4 years right now depending on how frugal I am. I'm going to sell or give away everything in my apartment, my lease is up next month, and I'll buy a ticket to Spain and start there." (I ended up getting another job instead, no regrets as it turned out well.) I was nowhere near FIRE, but I had enough money I didn't have to stay in a bad or undesirable situation.

fizwhiz 6y ago

> Unlike FIRE, there are degrees to this. r/leanFIRE, r/FIRE and r/fatFIRE would disagree.

dmoy 6y ago
also r/chubbyFIRE, and plain old r/financialindependence The regionals: r/fican, r/europeFIRE, etc The subsets of population: r/FIREyFemmes, etc The niche ideas that aren't big enough for their own subs: BaristaFI. etc etc
walletburst 6y ago
Also my favorite, Coast FIRE: https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/

TheMagicHorsey 6y ago

I've had fuck you money for a few years in illiquid form. But this year is the first year I started selling stock and crypto and pushed my checking account into seven figures. The psychological impact of that is quite huge. Its not just about being able to say fuck you ... I have always done that. There's a peace of mind that comes from knowing that no matter what happens to me, my kids have enough cash just sitting there to eat, get health care, and pay for their education ... until they are old enough to handle things on their own.

greedo 6y ago
Why would you have 7 figures in a checking account? In the US, FDIC would only cover $250K of that in case of bank failure. It's a small risk (unless you're using a very small bank), but why take it?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dmoy 6y ago
  There are quite a few checking accounts or equivalent in the US that subpartition into multiple sweep accounts for >>$1m of FDIC coverage. Fidelity for example covers you up to $1.25m
- TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
  I'm about to buy some rental properties.
big_curses 6y ago
If you literally mean in a checking account, I'm curious what your reasoning is for keeping seven figures in liquid assets. Aren't you just losing money to inflation?
- TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
  I'm about to buy some rental properties. But I have more than that already invested in various things.

motohagiography 6y ago

This is pure attitude. I used to say I had "fuck you bus fare," which admittedly depends on a robust regional public transit system, but the principle is the same. Sure, it's good to do things like getting your finances in order, clean your room, etc., but there is a choice you can make about how you relate to the world where your happiness is not conditional or contingent on other things. Choose it, and keep choosing it, and when you notice you don't, choose it again. The OPs part II of the article is about that kind of stoic view, and where I disagree with him is he frames it as there being something standing between you and "serenity." However, it could be just a device, as who would listen to someone that told them there was nothing external standing in their way. Surely, what kind of asshole would say that to someones face? A boy with a skateboard and a bus pass doesn't have to take shit from anybody.

neogodless 6y ago
Have you ever had to make that choice? If I don't do whatever shitty thing my manager asks me to, I won't eat next week. My family won't eat next week. The water will be shut off. (etc.) I mean you could still have the attitude of "f-it!" but you wouldn't have the resources you need to be sure you don't starve.

a2tech 6y ago

I'm impressed he can live on 10k/year. Thats not even enough for rent in a small city in the US unless you're knee-deep in roommates or a heroin squat.

rendang 6y ago
Plenty of medium-sized cities where you can rent your own 1 bedroom for ~$500 https://www.apartments.com/omaha-ne/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/omaha-ne/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/greensboro-nc/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/greensboro-nc/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/jackson-ms/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/jackson-ms/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/tulsa-ok/1-bedrooms/?so=2 https://www.apartments.com/tulsa-ok/1-bedrooms/?so=2
martindbp 6y ago
It is impressive, but not working also opens you up to any living arrangement without work location being a factor.
- a2tech 6y ago
  I guess that exposes some of my 'need to work' preconceived notions.
pwg 6y ago
The "eating out" line here (https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/) implies the blog author is (or was, as of Sep 19, 2018) living in India. It is likely easier to live on 10k/year in India than in the US.

cushychicken 6y ago

Love it. It's a lifestyle I actively subscribe to. I'm climbing the FIRE treadmill like this guy talks about. I live frugally, and I save like a madman. I'm on track to have stable, passive income for myself, and my family, for the rest of my life, by the time I hit 45. And I'm certainly not living like a monk along the way. And you know what? I've got a huge war chest that I can pull from if I ever need to tell someone "Fuck you". I may not be financially independent yet, but I have more than enough money to tell a boss who wants me to do boring, shitty work to fuck off if I ever need to. Thankfully, I don't have to right now. But things can change in the blink of an eye. Fuck you money is a condensed store of options for when things get rough.

TurkishPoptart 6y ago
When we're talking about passive income in a general sense, are we talking about buying stocks and funds that generate dividends and/or growth that sustain a 4% (or whatever) sell-off rate to pay for basic life needs, but the asset is valuable enough to keep chugging along despite that? Thanks.
- cushychicken 6y ago
  Most FIRE advice advocates for selling a small amount of long term funds every year, as they're taxed at a lower rate than dividend income. I read a bunch of Mr Money Mustache to get me started on this path. Recommend that you take a look at his blog to read more about it in detail.
GoodJokes 6y ago
How incredibly great for you.
pwinnski 6y ago
I was reasonably close to hitting my FIRE goal, assuming I wanted to continue living as frugally as I had been, when I was laid off. I had to decide: do I pull the trigger now, and work on some kind of part-time project to try to fill in the little bit I'm missing, or do I find another six-figure job? I realized pretty quickly the decision was stressing me out, which for me, made the choice easy. I booked a flight to Hong Kong and planned to look for another job in about six months. Of course, life being what it is, I met my now-wife in Hong Kong, so I've extended my career for a few more years to make things even more comfortable. Still, I definitely feel like I am well-situated enough that I could walk away from anything, take some time off, and find another job "whenever." It's always on a spectrum!

BlameKaneda 6y ago

To me, the definition of "Fuck-You Money" is being so affluent that you can make a frivolous change/purchase/investment that will not put a dent in you financially. If I had Fuck-You Money, I'd buy a manual transmission sports car without knowing how to drive stick. In the event that I messed up the clutch, I'd buy a new car.

ldbooth 6y ago

This has been so many times in so many ways. Go with what holds your attention. Galloway's version does it for me: Rich = Passive Income > expenses https://youtu.be/uNrjrDV9-YQ https://youtu.be/uNrjrDV9-YQ

jacquesm 6y ago

Money by itself is useless, it's like a tool in a toolbox that needs to be used in order to be effective. Un-allocated capital translates into options: things you could do, if you wanted to. And that in turn translates into less stress and a safety net. But once spent it is no longer available in that role so the big trick is to ensure that your 'stash' doesn't diminish in an unsustainable way if you should ever have to tap into it. The rate at which you can tell people to get lost has a pretty hard limit unless you reach a really high level of independence and even then: what goes up can come down. So be careful how frequently you tell people to get lost, it's a small world.

vecinu 6y ago

I'm amazed by the author's $10-15k/year spending [1]. I subscribe to the FI portion of FIRE and am very frugal 99% of the time but wow, some of these bloggers are spending an impossibly small amount of money per year by geographical arbitrage. I wonder how many people that subscribe to FIRE are in the US, especially VHCOL or HCOL places where incomes are likely to be high. My conservative 2bd rent exceeds the author's YEARLY budget in 3 months here in SoCal. I would love to cut back even more but I touched the limit on where I started giving up on happiness and satisfaction if I optimized my expenses too much. I guess I'm realizing that these folks are truly outliers, how many people that subscribe to FIRE are actually practicing geographical arbitrage, especially if you're considering having a family with kids, pets and a home? [1] https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/

thebean11 6y ago
Yeah $15k is impressive. I wonder what the author is doing for healthcare? That alone can easily cost $15k.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  It doesn't look like he's paying for health insurance based on this itemized list: https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/ https://thedeepdish.org/2017-spending/
  - derekp7 6y ago
    If you're young enough you don't need health care (until you do, as I found out the hard way).
parsimo2010 6y ago
Living frugally implies living in a low cost of living area. Practically none of these people are preaching that you can maintain your same lifestyle and just magically cut 80% of your expenses (the trick is finding the cuts that save lots of money but don’t sacrifice as much quality of life). You’re not going to do it in Southern California. I would go so far as to claim that anyone preaching FIRE concepts in California is probably not eating their own dog food or has some other consideration that doesn’t apply to most people (has a big inheritance/trust fund, sold a company, had their parents give them their house, etc.) If you want to do FIRE and aren’t just rich already, you definitely have to live elsewhere. You’re going to do it in a remote area with crappy internet and cold winters. You can do it with a family, but your kids will complain and you had better hope your spouse is on board. It’s clearly not for everyone. If it were easy lots of people would do it.

kryogen1c 6y ago

the article and the comments here rather neatly miss the point of the movie. whether or not you have FU money (or what FU money is) is the wrong question. john goodman, whom the article quotes, is not a protagonist. the safety goodman is describing is exactly what mark wahlberg cant stand. "You're born... as a man... with the nerves of a soldier, the apprehension of an angel, to lift a phrase, but there is no use for it. Here? Where's the use for it? You're set up to be a philosopher or a king or Shakespeare, and this is all they give you? This?" perhaps your first instinct is to think this is a first-world problem, an ignorance of privilege, but remember - wahlberg is in debt to two bookies that will likely kill him, and he triples down on a loan from a third who promises to kill not just him but also his whole bloodline. to whit: “The only thing worth doing is the impossible. Everything else is gray.”

annoyingnoob 6y ago

I have a family of 5 and I live in California. I don't think its possible to get my expenses down like the author proposes here. Heck, property tax is over 10k a year by itself. Life isn't all about money.

sequoia 6y ago
I've come to the conclusion the author just isn't considering people with families in this equation. I lived with intermittent work or no work at all when I was single & childless, but I can't say "fuck you" to my wife and kids and bring them along a journey of poverty because I want to thumb my nose at the system. For better or worse.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Presumably you are earning a lot more than the author by working in California.

UncleOxidant 6y ago

> In fact, all my bosses have been great. Lucky guy.

sequoia 6y ago

> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. I really hope Taleb doesn't say this because it's really really stupid. You can call a situation bad without comparing it to chattel slavery. As someone with family, I am curious about how others with families approach this "fuck-you" topic. I suppose it just doesn't include us, as we've made the choice to assume responsibilities that are (or should be) impossible to walk away from. If saying fuck you to a salary includes saying fuck you to my wife and kids, well I'm not going to do that. And believe it or not it doesn't make me feel like a literal slave to my employer. For single people (especially younger) it's great advice I think. You're unattached, that has its own benefits, why not make the most of it?

graton 6y ago
>> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. > I really hope Taleb doesn't say this because it's really really stupid. You can call a situation bad without comparing it to chattel slavery. https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-own-another-person-4145a1802bf6 https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-own-another-person...
neogodless 6y ago
Whether talking about FIRE or just "f-you money", it means having enough money to amply take care of your responsibilities regardless of your situation, with enough of a runway to find another source of income. There may be situations (and professions) where burning one bridge burns all bridges and your only option after all that will be change your line of work, or take a huge pay cut. Ideally, you always make your choices about ongoing costs in a way that you aren't tying yourself to some high level of income and thus eliminating all sense of "f-you" options. During my six months of unemployment, my unemployment payments covered my required expenses, for most months - all responsibilities, same food as when I was employed. Due to the pandemic, we didn't spend as much on travel, and certain forms of entertainment, but we spent more on others. That's just because my life and my spending is designed that way. This is all a roundabout way of saying "avoid lifestyle inflation" which very commonly occurs where every raise is accompanied by spending more and more money. Getting a car to signal your raise. Moving into a more expensive house/neighborhood. We certainly spend money on things we enjoy, but in general there's a law of diminishing returns, and lots of spending fails to bring the joy we think it will. So yes, "f-you money" should be defined by you as having more than enough to say "no" to a bad situation, while still being able to comfortably care for your family, and to avoid imposing painful restrictions on their lives while you seek new income.

EGreg 6y ago

These people discuss having $5M or $10M before you can relax and feel you have "f u money" I encourage everyone to read through the blog of this fellow, Mr Money Mustache, which I discovered many years ago. Early Retirement through Badassity. It's not just about having enough money for all your wants. It's about reducing your wants to just your needs. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ Another great book about it is the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. Stoicism is like the Western Buddhism, and probably developed around the same time. Basically, learn to separate your wants from your needs, and make sure your needs are covered several times over. It's not black and white -- we as a society come to expect more and more, but previous generations did not all have their own house, they didn't even have clean water running to their house. I would say needs is whatever can maintain you in optimal health, and everything that supports that. Everything else is more and more optional, and you can practice (like going to the gym) denying yourself gratification in those things. It is also why orthodox Jews, and the Amish, and others, have lifestyles where their health and emotional well-being is often independent of how much stuff they have. In the US, unfortunately, we have an opiate epidemic, a quarter of middle-aged women are on antidepressants, the kids are overmedicated with ADHD, and the elderly in the old folks home are on all sorts of things. All so our society could have a "good economy", specialization, all young adults can live in their large air conditioned apartments alone, etc. This is extremely different than most traditional societies around the world, where families live together, children are watched by grandparents and respect their elders etc. and there is quite a lot of collectivism and people aren't "spoiled" by individualism and wealth. And also perhaps consider that this stoicism is not just for money, but also for sexual gratification and attraction to one's partner, as well. Easier said than done, but just like waiting to have $5M to be truly able to relax and be happy, maybe waiting for the most attractive and compatible person to come along to start a family, is something society has been telling us to do. As for me, I couldn't become a stoic in this department LOL, so I appreciate any insights.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
I met Pete Adeney (Mr. Money Moustache, or MMM) in his hometown of Longmont, CO, in 2017. Back then I was trying to build "the city of the future", and he was into that stuff too. I already liked him through his blog; but after that meeting, I liked him even more. He's authentic. Even more so in person. Most of his advice is really sound. I hardly find anything I disagree with. I don't agree much with his stance on Bitcoin [0], but I really like that he's trying to defend people from the quasi-religious crypto-zealots that populate Twitter these days. [0]: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-stupid/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/01/02/why-bitcoin-is-st...

yboris 6y ago

On the topic of frugality, I think it's immensely important to reflect on this graph at least once a year: https://income-inequality.info/ https://income-inequality.info/ More than 85% of the people in the world live on less than $30 per day [0]. Many of us in the US are accustomed to such a high quality of life we can't even fathom what it's like for the vast majority of the world's population. Being frugal and giving 10% to cost-effective charities is what I choose to do (see Giving What We Can [1] ) [0] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [1] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

silicon2401 6y ago
I'm not a charitable person (I'm only concerned with caring for myself and my loved ones), but even then I never understand this kind of mentality. At $100k income (assuming no tax), 10% is $10,000. How much does that come out to over 10, 20, 30, even 50 years? Even if I were charitable I'd still rather save and invest everything, so that that money can grow and I can donate more later. Instead of a lump sum of 10k today, why not have an amount of wealth that can provide a continuous supply of funds from interest?
- yboris 6y ago
  Because the benefits individuals receive today compound. Consider how much of a health cost there is to being sick with malaria? Preventing a case of malaria is likely to have a much more positive effects (compounded into the far future) than doubling the donation in the future. Especially that malaria is a transmittable disease: lower the population of those carrying malaria, you have fewer malaria cases in the future. Prevention often costs far less than curing. Look at the positive effects of smallpox eradication!
  - mvolfik 6y ago
    Yes, and this is even more relevant now in the pandemic. Many countries have agreed to ensure access to COVID vaccines for third world, yet they are still getting pretty much none, while Europe is already full of scandals with celebrities and rich people skipping priority lines and getting vaccinated

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Tade0 6y ago

> Companies prefer hiring employees who have families, and mortgages to service, and who faithfully trot along on the consumerism treadmill. As Nassim Taleb points out, it’s the only way you can legally ‘own’ a person today. I discussed this the other day with a friend of mine who already has years' worth of fuck you money(I have months at best). We were complaining that the worst people to work with are those who can't afford to lose employment(usually due to their financial situation), because over time they gradually evolve into these yes-men who will do anything to save their ass - even if it means making everyone else's job harder in the process. All intelligent, talented people. It's just that they've been conned into living a lifestyle which shepherds them into such a position. I've been putting off getting a mortgage because I don't want to join this crowd, but real estate prices are not getting any lower, so I might end up with one soon anyway. And to think I'm actually in the privileged, 30% group of those who can afford any housing.

mempko 6y ago
If everyone tried to have Fuck-You Money, nobody would. Why? Paradox of Thrift. The only reason this person can have Fuck-You Money is because other people aren't frugal. One person's savings is another person's lost income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
- orwin 6y ago
  Yes, accountability is a 0-sum game. One man's debt is another's saving, all that jazz (well, except when a default happen, and in this case money is created, but in EU more than 90% of savings + circulating money is from debt and would'nt be surprised if this is more than that in the US). That's why states and companies should be as indebted as possible as long as it doesn't endanger them.
- Tade0 6y ago
  Actually, he worked two jobs (in IT at that) for a year. Two annual engineer salaries make for a nice cushion. Few people can pull this off though.
6y ago

GoodJokes 6y ago

ITT: People that have cushy lives patting themselves on the back.

tristor 6y ago

I am the furthest thing from practicing FIRE, after all my primary hobby is racing cars (cheap cars... but racing anything is expensive). But just by finding ways to be frugal in other areas of my life and prioritizing savings and investments over material things, I've been able to have a healthy cushion for most of my adult life. It has also come in handy a few times when ethical considerations forced me to make a career move. At this point in my life, I have a target to retire at 50, and will at that point have enough residual income from investments that I can work only when I want to for the remainder of my life. That's an achievable goal for anyone working in tech, and it does empower you to be more real in your work life, but it's also a sliding scale of how aggressively you want to cut things out of your life to save money. I think the author has the right concept, but their actual breakdown in terms of expenses isn't realistic for most people in the US. I live in a very low cost of living area and still couldn't bring my expenses as low as the author of this article.

abraxas 6y ago

I used to have FU money. Now I don't. Well, not entirely true - I still do but the lifestyle creep has snuck up on me as I wasn't deliberate in my spending. Made a couple of bad decisions like building a second home in a country which I'll likely never visit again due to its political circumstances but seemed like a bargain at the time (yeah, I know). Also my family has slowly got used to more expensive gifts and higher expense entertainment choices and now the seven figure balance sheet doesn't feel so liberating anymore :( I'm now working towards being more deliberate with spending and cutting down our set of possessions that provide us little value. Mostly that second house.

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innagadadavida 6y ago

A couple of things that these types of articles fails to capture: 1. Medical insurance. For a family of 4, this can be quite a bit and paying out of pocket will be a big expense this is the biggest risk. 2. Immigration status. There are a lot of immigrants who are in the system and they cannot retire if they are on a visa. 3. High cost of living areas. If most of your friends and family are in areas like the Bay Area, your property taxes and mortgage will be a significant expense. You don’t want to just move out in order to be financially independent.

bobbydreamer 6y ago

In today's world, best returns ever one got from fuck-you money is from bitcoin amd it's no longer a fuck you money category.