5 ms·

fuck being rich. I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to a

fuck being rich. I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it.

amelius 5y ago
You don't work in IT, I suppose?
- enriquto 5y ago
  I guess I do, but in academia (and in Europe). Is it different in the U.S.? How many years worth of a professor salary do you need to buy a house in a major city?
  - ericmay 5y ago
    It really depends on the city, but I'd say in most major metro areas in the U.S. average home price is going to be $300,000 or so.
    - edoceo 5y ago
      Zillow says Seattle is over $800,000. Can't find salary info for UW (the big university). Tech-folk making $150,000+
      - the_only_law 5y ago
        > Can't find salary info for UW (the big university). In most states the salaries of state employees (at least over a certain amount) are available. Since UW is a public school you should be able to find them here: http://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries.aspx http://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries.aspx Filtering by UW employees I can see at least one professor making $627k in 2019, and I imagine there are lower tier professors making a fraction of that (some associate professors making < $100k).
      - ericmay 5y ago
        I would consider Seattle an outlier. Look at Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Pittsburgh, etc.
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      Universities in expensive cities tend to have housing-specific perks because otherwise recruiting/retention would be very difficult. One school we considered allows faculty to forego $30k/yr in salary in exchange for a beautiful home they can live in as long as they teach there. The school will customize the home to the professor’s liking, perform all maintenance (down to the lightbulbs), and pay all property taxes.
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    Depends on the price of the house in a major European city (which could be pretty high, I imagine).
jl2718 5y ago
This is near to his point. Salary is trading ‘wealth’ for ‘money’. You could literally build that house to achieve ‘wealth’ faster than you can earn it by saving money from salary. This essay helped me understand how I made this mistake over well more than that decade you fear. The 80-90% saved from two decades of engineering salary did absolutely nothing to get me closer to debt-free housing security. Money is amazing when you see it for the first time, but it ends up being worthless. Investments too - risk of unmitigated loss for an individual investor is structurally greater than the potential for post-tax gain. So he’s saying to build wealth, not money, and definitely avoid status games. (But we’re here posting, so, failing that last one spectacularly.)
- polishdude20 5y ago
  Wait, so you're saying to build a house rather than buy it because it's cheaper? I think the overwhelming amount of costs of a house is the actual land it's on. You can't build land.
  - eloff 5y ago
    I'd need a minimum 700,000 to buy a lot or a condemned teardown home on a lot here in Vancouver, BC. Actually that's not Vancouver, that would be an hour away in Maple Ridge or Langley. I'm ok with building (or subcontracting the building of) my own home - but I still can't afford the lot to even start the process.
  - jl2718 5y ago
    You can build a house anywhere if you don’t need a salary tied to an expensive area.
    - polishdude20 5y ago
      Yeah the dream of remote. I sometimes think of getting a remote job and leaving for a cheap area but things like family and friends really tie me down here. It would really suck to see my parents only once or twice a year knowing that there's maybe 20 years or so left with them.
nodesocket 5y ago
Have you thought about a career change? You mentioned below you are a professor, a nobel endeavor but obviously not a very lucrative one (financially). Perhaps there is another career you can also love which pays you more and open doors of freedom.
- enriquto 5y ago
  I see this problem as a societal, not a personal failure. Minimum wage should be enough to live comfortably, but the housing market is bonkers.
  - dinkleberg 5y ago
    You can (rightfully) blame external sources, but doing so isn't going to make any difference in your experience of life. If your desire is to own a house, there are actions you can do to get there. Is it fair? No, but neither is life.
    - csunbird 5y ago
      That is the main point. Why is life not fair and why do we not try to do things to make it fairer? We all try to unbalance the system by trying to get more money or more power, instead of trying to work together and make it fair for everyone.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ativzzz 5y ago
        Because we are humans, and the factors that drive humans who are capable of making widespread change that would make things fair steer them towards wealth and power instead. That's just reality.
      - dinkleberg 5y ago
        You can help yourself and also help others. I can say with certainty that debating these points on HN isn't going to have any impact on the fairness of life. Committing to action is an admirable thing, idle words bemoaning the unfairness of life doesn't help anyone.
Koshkin 5y ago
Why exclude getting rich as a way to become able to afford?
pmoriarty 5y ago
"I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it." In what country and what area? There are places which will pay you to move in, and living there is free. They might not be places you want to live, especially not with a family, but they exist Then there are places that are super cheap by developed-nation standards.. like Eastern/Central Europe, parts of South/Central America, Asia, Africa... pretty much anywhere. Even in the US, if you live far enough from a metropolitan area or in some less desirable locations you can find really cheap homes, or cheap land on which you can plop down a trailer or a kit-home, or build your own out of cheap alternative materials. Again, you might not want to live in such places for a variety of reasons.. but they're affordable.

fuck being rich. I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it.

amelius 5y ago

You don't work in IT, I suppose?

enriquto 5y ago
I guess I do, but in academia (and in Europe). Is it different in the U.S.? How many years worth of a professor salary do you need to buy a house in a major city?
- ericmay 5y ago
  It really depends on the city, but I'd say in most major metro areas in the U.S. average home price is going to be $300,000 or so.
  - edoceo 5y ago
    Zillow says Seattle is over $800,000. Can't find salary info for UW (the big university). Tech-folk making $150,000+
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      > Can't find salary info for UW (the big university). In most states the salaries of state employees (at least over a certain amount) are available. Since UW is a public school you should be able to find them here: http://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries.aspx http://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries.aspx Filtering by UW employees I can see at least one professor making $627k in 2019, and I imagine there are lower tier professors making a fraction of that (some associate professors making < $100k).
    - ericmay 5y ago
      I would consider Seattle an outlier. Look at Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Pittsburgh, etc.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    Universities in expensive cities tend to have housing-specific perks because otherwise recruiting/retention would be very difficult. One school we considered allows faculty to forego $30k/yr in salary in exchange for a beautiful home they can live in as long as they teach there. The school will customize the home to the professor’s liking, perform all maintenance (down to the lightbulbs), and pay all property taxes.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  Depends on the price of the house in a major European city (which could be pretty high, I imagine).

jl2718 5y ago

This is near to his point. Salary is trading ‘wealth’ for ‘money’. You could literally build that house to achieve ‘wealth’ faster than you can earn it by saving money from salary. This essay helped me understand how I made this mistake over well more than that decade you fear. The 80-90% saved from two decades of engineering salary did absolutely nothing to get me closer to debt-free housing security. Money is amazing when you see it for the first time, but it ends up being worthless. Investments too - risk of unmitigated loss for an individual investor is structurally greater than the potential for post-tax gain. So he’s saying to build wealth, not money, and definitely avoid status games. (But we’re here posting, so, failing that last one spectacularly.)

polishdude20 5y ago
Wait, so you're saying to build a house rather than buy it because it's cheaper? I think the overwhelming amount of costs of a house is the actual land it's on. You can't build land.
- eloff 5y ago
  I'd need a minimum 700,000 to buy a lot or a condemned teardown home on a lot here in Vancouver, BC. Actually that's not Vancouver, that would be an hour away in Maple Ridge or Langley. I'm ok with building (or subcontracting the building of) my own home - but I still can't afford the lot to even start the process.
- jl2718 5y ago
  You can build a house anywhere if you don’t need a salary tied to an expensive area.
  - polishdude20 5y ago
    Yeah the dream of remote. I sometimes think of getting a remote job and leaving for a cheap area but things like family and friends really tie me down here. It would really suck to see my parents only once or twice a year knowing that there's maybe 20 years or so left with them.

nodesocket 5y ago

Have you thought about a career change? You mentioned below you are a professor, a nobel endeavor but obviously not a very lucrative one (financially). Perhaps there is another career you can also love which pays you more and open doors of freedom.

enriquto 5y ago
I see this problem as a societal, not a personal failure. Minimum wage should be enough to live comfortably, but the housing market is bonkers.
- dinkleberg 5y ago
  You can (rightfully) blame external sources, but doing so isn't going to make any difference in your experience of life. If your desire is to own a house, there are actions you can do to get there. Is it fair? No, but neither is life.
  - csunbird 5y ago
    That is the main point. Why is life not fair and why do we not try to do things to make it fairer? We all try to unbalance the system by trying to get more money or more power, instead of trying to work together and make it fair for everyone.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ativzzz 5y ago
      Because we are humans, and the factors that drive humans who are capable of making widespread change that would make things fair steer them towards wealth and power instead. That's just reality.
    - dinkleberg 5y ago
      You can help yourself and also help others. I can say with certainty that debating these points on HN isn't going to have any impact on the fairness of life. Committing to action is an admirable thing, idle words bemoaning the unfairness of life doesn't help anyone.

Koshkin 5y ago

Why exclude getting rich as a way to become able to afford?

pmoriarty 5y ago

"I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it." In what country and what area? There are places which will pay you to move in, and living there is free. They might not be places you want to live, especially not with a family, but they exist Then there are places that are super cheap by developed-nation standards.. like Eastern/Central Europe, parts of South/Central America, Asia, Africa... pretty much anywhere. Even in the US, if you live far enough from a metropolitan area or in some less desirable locations you can find really cheap homes, or cheap land on which you can plop down a trailer or a kit-home, or build your own out of cheap alternative materials. Again, you might not want to live in such places for a variety of reasons.. but they're affordable.