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How do you 'retire on software'. I'm a software engineer and I have nowhere near enough savings for retirement, not even close.

• chucksmash 5y ago
  You make enough money from working in software that however much you will make in your second act (note: not necessarily zero) plus what you've saved up and investment proceeds thereof is enough to sustain you. The same as retiring in any other field.
• ticviking 5y ago
  If you only spend %50 of your paycheck, and invest the savings well it's basically 5-10 years to FIRE. It's more complicated than I make it sound there but ultimately it's a matter of deciding it's important to you to do this and making it happen.
  • hunter-gatherer 5y ago
    I think it is closer to investing 70% for a 10 year target, actually. And that is a pretty "great case" scenario.
    • Retric 5y ago
      Yea, there is often an unspoken assumption of moving to some ultra cheap location which is central to those ultra short time periods. If you can live on 10% of your income in retirement then you can save that up very quickly.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  A lot can be written on the topic, but it all comes down to the difference between your income and your expenses over the span of a couple decades. A median income with a median cost of living and a median lifestyle won’t do it, obviously. Otherwise everybody would be retiring early. There’s a lot written about finding remote, high-paying jobs and then living like an ultra-frugal bachelor. That’s actually much harder to do than people like to admit and the lifestyle isn’t for everyone. The more common approach is to get married, keep expenses reasonably low but don’t torture yourself, and one or both spouses should have a moderately high paying professional job. Consistently invest the difference between income and expenses for a few decades and you’ll get there. Nobody is retiring at 30 and living like a king unless they’re extraordinarily lucky with a startup or some other gamble. However, it’s very reasonable to retire before the age of 50 or even 40 if you’re smart about it and willing to live a moderately priced lifestyle.
  • gambiting 5y ago
    Yes, that's very nice and all, but what does it have to do with saving the planet? Even if you don't need to have a job to survive, how do you go about helping? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm genuienly curious.
    • hiptobecubic 5y ago
      Spending your efforts on environmental work rather than building blockchain-powered juicing machines or tinder for sweatshop workers.
      • gambiting 5y ago
        Yes but it's not one or the other - there's million different things to do in software before getting to the level of building blockchain crap. Also I'm really curious what people consider valuable environmental work - like, if you didn't have to work for money tomorrow, what kind of environmental work exactly would you take on?
        • hiptobecubic 5y ago
          Realistically, I think unless you are going to work on some hugely disruptive product, your best bet is probably something like local politics, as unfortunate as that is. For example, in my area I would probably push for the local mangrove coast line to be protected from development. Or perhaps for my county to ban or somehow restrict two-stroke engine use.
• throwaway5752 5y ago
  It was a typo, and I corrected it to read "retire from software". I expect it will impact my lifestyle.
• gruez 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29691039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29691039 make half a million dollars per year total comp, duh.
  • throwaway75787 5y ago
    Are you going to lobby or start an NGO or something? How can I help? I am currently in a major northern US city running my air conditioner, and tired of meaningless shit.
    • gruez 5y ago
      Are you replying to the wrong comment or something? I'm not the guy in that article. I was posting that link in jest.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]