4 ms·

This is a honest and fantastic postmortem. The lessons teach us more than the success stories. I had the same problem of envisioning bigger product goal than

by ww520 15y ago

This is a honest and fantastic postmortem. The lessons teach us more than the success stories. I had the same problem of envisioning bigger product goal than I can achieve; I simply overestimated my energy, attention, or ability. Nowadays I try to trim down feature ruthlessly and limit scope to the bare minimum. Work not needed are work done great. Hope it's not too intrusive. Is $10K/month necessary for living expenses? Thank you for the great self revelation. I'm sure you'll gain more from it even it doesn't pan out the way you want. Good luck.

carbonica 15y ago
> Is $10K/month necessary for living expenses? While at first glance, the "needing 10k/month" seems surprisingly high, it's likely he means "need 10k/month to maintain my present lifestyle." I doubt he actually means "I need 10k/month to survive," just that having a family means less compromising on lifestyle. If kids are in school, maybe even private school, those expenses are likely something he doesn't intend to compromise on, which is completely fair. If he has a nice home in a nice neighborhood, he still has to pay property taxes. Healthcare costs more for a full family than 1 person. And so on. Sure, there's a path toward having lower living expenses, like moving where property taxes are lower and taking kids out of private school. It's just going to be a lot harder to take.
pchristensen 15y ago
$10K/mo is a little more than my current salary, but I would have to exclude taxes, health care for four (COBRA is a US law that lets you buy your old employer's health plan for 18 months after you leave, and at my last job it was $1800/mo), etc. I live in Chicago which isn't NYC or SF but still isn't cheap. Plus I would need more savings bc of unpredictable cash flow. Plus stress kills productivity.
- ahi 15y ago
  $1800/mo. Damn. That's the equivalent of working a 40 hour week $10.80/hour job. I'd be pushing my kids down the stairs to make sure we got our money's worth.
earl 15y ago
$10K/mo before taxes == $6300/mo after taxes, at least in SF. If you have a family and either rent a 2 bedroom or have a mortgage, you'll spend $2500+ on shelter. Etc etc. It doesn't go as far as you'd think.
- riffraff 15y ago
  sorry, but if you spend 2500 out of 6300 you are still left with 3800. Let's assume you spend 2000 on bills and food, which seems scaringly high for me, you are still left with almost 2k for "fun stuff". I understand I have a point of view based on living on $1k a month in good ole europe, but that seem to go quite far. Am I missing some other basic life expenses you have in SF?
  - earl 15y ago
    Well, $2k is probably on the low side for bills and food. Transport: $1k+/mo, roughly: $250 to park your car at home, $250 at work, $350 car payment, insurance, gas, etc. Plus $100 for public transport for your partner, plus $80 for random taxi rides. Plus savings for maintenance. A family of 3-4 can easily spend $700 - $1000 on groceries. And we haven't discussed clothes, medical, school, etc, or any savings for a rainy day. Or entertainment; just to pick an example, movie tickets run $12 in the city so taking 3 people to the movies with a shared popcorn is $50, etc. Or $200 if you get a babysitter and just take two people out to a movie plus a modestly priced dinner.

by ww520 15y ago

carbonica 15y ago

> Is $10K/month necessary for living expenses? While at first glance, the "needing 10k/month" seems surprisingly high, it's likely he means "need 10k/month to maintain my present lifestyle." I doubt he actually means "I need 10k/month to survive," just that having a family means less compromising on lifestyle. If kids are in school, maybe even private school, those expenses are likely something he doesn't intend to compromise on, which is completely fair. If he has a nice home in a nice neighborhood, he still has to pay property taxes. Healthcare costs more for a full family than 1 person. And so on. Sure, there's a path toward having lower living expenses, like moving where property taxes are lower and taking kids out of private school. It's just going to be a lot harder to take.

pchristensen 15y ago

$10K/mo is a little more than my current salary, but I would have to exclude taxes, health care for four (COBRA is a US law that lets you buy your old employer's health plan for 18 months after you leave, and at my last job it was $1800/mo), etc. I live in Chicago which isn't NYC or SF but still isn't cheap. Plus I would need more savings bc of unpredictable cash flow. Plus stress kills productivity.

ahi 15y ago
$1800/mo. Damn. That's the equivalent of working a 40 hour week $10.80/hour job. I'd be pushing my kids down the stairs to make sure we got our money's worth.

earl 15y ago

$10K/mo before taxes == $6300/mo after taxes, at least in SF. If you have a family and either rent a 2 bedroom or have a mortgage, you'll spend $2500+ on shelter. Etc etc. It doesn't go as far as you'd think.

riffraff 15y ago
sorry, but if you spend 2500 out of 6300 you are still left with 3800. Let's assume you spend 2000 on bills and food, which seems scaringly high for me, you are still left with almost 2k for "fun stuff". I understand I have a point of view based on living on $1k a month in good ole europe, but that seem to go quite far. Am I missing some other basic life expenses you have in SF?
- earl 15y ago
  Well, $2k is probably on the low side for bills and food. Transport: $1k+/mo, roughly: $250 to park your car at home, $250 at work, $350 car payment, insurance, gas, etc. Plus $100 for public transport for your partner, plus $80 for random taxi rides. Plus savings for maintenance. A family of 3-4 can easily spend $700 - $1000 on groceries. And we haven't discussed clothes, medical, school, etc, or any savings for a rainy day. Or entertainment; just to pick an example, movie tickets run $12 in the city so taking 3 people to the movies with a shared popcorn is $50, etc. Or $200 if you get a babysitter and just take two people out to a movie plus a modestly priced dinner.