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Didn't he say he started with $80,000, spent it, and is now out of money? Presumably he now needs to either get a job asap or make some hard choices. But it so

• osrec 2y ago
  I read somewhere that most people in the US are definitely not paycheck to paycheck. The article I read claimed it's around 15-20% of the working population.
  • bawolff 2y ago
    https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/most-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-heres-why.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/most-of-americans-are-living... had 65% but the methodoly seems kind of terrible, your number might be better. Either way, its a significant portion, and even those with more generally don't have the ability to quit their job for 2 years.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • fwipsy 2y ago
    Maybe you got it from Noahpinion: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-other https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...
  • wigster 2y ago
    over a third in the uk
  • camdenreslink 2y ago
    I saw the same stat, and felt like their definition was too restrictive (basically you had to spend 100% of your income on your bills). Usually a small amount of extra income gets spent and those people are also living paycheck to paycheck for all intents and purposes.
    • varjag 2y ago
      Well that's what paycheck to paycheck means: you barely have the ends meet for essentials. Not that you're zero after topping 401(k) and your yoga classes.
      • truckerbill 2y ago
        <2 months rent p.m. and no savings basically, is a generous definition
      • hombre_fatal 2y ago
        Well, you threw 401k in there for some reason. But living paycheck to paycheck to most people definitely does include spending one’s money on non-bill things like lotto tickets, consumer goods, restaurants, and things beyond their means.
        • varjag 2y ago
          Thing is it's absolutely possible to scale up your spending to any income level. And this is indeed what happens with many people, this is how you get these NYT pieces on households struggling on $500k. If you go by this the whole expression is kinda meaningless.
          • ghaff 2y ago
            Maybe not any income level. Well, you can buy Twitter I suppose. But, yes, you can fly Netjets or whatever, buy supercars, have a bunch of personal staff, and eat out at Michelin-starred restaurants on a regular basis. And burn through certainly multiple $100Ks or even 6 figures annually pretty quickly.
  • xivzgrev 2y ago
    The US Fed came out with a stat a few years ago that 40% of Americans wouldn’t have cash to cover a $400 emergency: they’d have to sell something, borrow, or other. That’s pretty much paycheck to paycheck if your savings are that low.
    • ghaff 2y ago
      As I recall, there was also some disagreement in discussions over what "having cash" meant. A lot of people have ready access to assets that aren't necessarily literally cash.
    • eek2121 2y ago
      We have no savings right now (I am not working) and could afford a $400 emergency, but we live paycheck to paycheck. Income is good, the extra just gets spent on various things due to having multiple disabled people in the house. Eventually we hope to rebuild the savings.
    • taxman22 2y ago
      The question asked how somebody would pay for an unexpected $400 expense. If you answered “credit card” then you were considered to not have the cash to cover an emergency. I’d use a credit card…and pay it off when it’s due.
      • dingnuts 2y ago
        YOU would, but a lot of people with credit cards don't even understand that it's a loan, or what compound interest is. They put the expense on the card and then pay the minimum payment, either until it's paid off with insane interest, or they keep racking up debt until they reach their limit and get a worse card, until they're trapped in a cycle of poverty seriously, everyone in this thread should watch Financial Audit and see how people outside the silicon valley bubble really live. That show has extreme examples to be sure but there are so many people like this
        • Aeolun 2y ago
          I find it hard to sympathize with people that have enough money to pay off their card bills but don’t actually do so because they can’t be bothered to read.
  • readams 2y ago
    It"s definitely not true https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-other https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...
  • bronco21016 2y ago
    I’ve always understood paycheck to paycheck to describe households that don’t have a buffer. Meaning, if the paychecks suddenly stop, or a sudden large expense, there’s nothing to bridge the gap other than social programs. By this definition, I would imagine a very large number of US households fit the mould.
  • browningstreet 2y ago
    Recent Noahpinion on this… https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-other https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...
  • mplewis 2y ago
    50% of Americans don’t have an emergency fund. That’s paycheck to paycheck.
  • jknoepfler 2y ago
    No idea how credible the underlying BoA study is, but from [1]: >>> According to our analysis, in 2024, around a quarter of all households fall into this camp, an increase from 2019. They define living paycheck to paycheck as spending 95+% of income on necessities (housing, food, etc.) [1] https://institute.bankofamerica.com/economic-insights/paycheck-to-paycheck-lower-income-households.html https://institute.bankofamerica.com/economic-insights/payche...
• turnsout 2y ago
  To me, $80k sounds like a very small amount of "F-You" money. I'm not criticizing the OP at all, but if I quit my job with 80k in the bank, I would immediately start researching the most painful B2B problem I could solve quickly using AI. Not to generate an income stream, but to build an asset (the business) to sell. That's the quickest path to $1M. Software developers are too caught up on salary (or 73 different "income streams" that all make $0), and rarely think about building a valuable business.
  • ghaff 2y ago
    I dunno. That seems a pretty quick path to a 74th income stream that makes $0. Especially at the moment, I'm not seeing a lot of money trees around. Not that I needed them, but when I semi-retired a number of possible revenue streams sort of evaporated--not that I looked too hard. But if you deliberately quit, that may be the thing to do. A more conservative person would probably counsel getting at least a part-time job that pays a salary though.
    • turnsout 2y ago
      To be specific, I would quit the other 73 income streams and stop any extracurricular activities until I shipped something. Even though AI feels overhyped (it sort of is), we're still early in the game, and there's plenty of money to be made. Businesses still have a ton of time-consuming, expensive pain points. You just have to pick an industry and go talk to insiders to figure out what to build.
      • ghaff 2y ago
        I won't argue if I had a bunch of other activities consuming most of my bandwidth that weren't bringing in any money. If you really need cash though, I might consider lower risk, lower reward options on at least a part-time basis as well though. Doing a startup isn't exactly a high ROI activity in general--especially in a max-hype area.
        • turnsout 2y ago
• gdilla 2y ago
  He's privileged sure, not because he had 80K in the bank to burn through, but because he knows it's not the end of him when it's burnt through. He COULD get a job and steady income if he wanted, in at least that 80K range (probably double really). So meh. Good for him though for scratching his itches though. Any dude who can code can be a wage slave if they really want to.
  • zeroCalories 2y ago
    I admire the self-confidence and the freedom it brings. I sometimes wish I had the courage to go down my own path.
• OtomotO 2y ago
  The average person in the US maybe. And the third world. In Western Europe? Not so much. I mean, yes, there are poor people, but the middle class mostly doesn't live paycheck to paycheck.
  • rsynnott 2y ago
    Most Western European countries do have higher savings rates than the US, but, disregarding Switzerland, Ireland and the Nordics (ie small wealthy countries with very high cost of living), it’s not a _dramatic_ difference. People may be less likely to be living paycheck to paycheck, but being able to just take two years off not working, unless you had very low living costs, would still be very unusual.
    • jajko 2y ago
      A lot of people adjust their lifestyle to paycheck, so little is left afterwards. Concept of savings is quite foreign to them, they want to enjoy life now. So paycheck to paycheck, while sporting newest highend phone or other gizmos, nice package of vacations through the year or just look at fashion clothes they wear and how often they buy new ones. I mean I would fit in this category too for maybe past decade, little cash left over after paycheck but I did like exotic 5 vacations per year and invested rest into mortgage for mountain apartment for rentals.
    • swiftcoder 2y ago
      I think the difference in available social services here is also necessary to take into account. Someone laid off in, say, Spain, already has full healthcare provided by the state, and qualifies for an unemployment benefit based on their most recent salary for up to 3 years - this makes for a significantly less precarious position than that same person recently laid off in the US.
      • Fokamul 2y ago
        And if go eg. Germany. Ridiculously, without kids, it's nearly more beneficial to go on unemployment support there. Since, when working, you blow like 50%+ on taxes.
• hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  > But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking about the future. No, my specific point is that he does not sound like he needs to make hard choices, and he is alluding to continuing working on his own projects in the future. He writes: > I made resolutions: to make $1M in revenue in 2025. Well, that's not really happening… But rest assured, I do everything possible to reach that goal rather sooner than later. and > blymp is the only one generating money — about $600/month — and the one I plan to continue next year. Yay! and finishes with > Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with myself. Cheers! And sure, people that make a high income job are privileged, but I was using it in the sense that you frequently see it used online, specifically that he has a backup pool of money/support somewhere, most likely family, that he conspicuously leaves out of his post.
  • gr4vityWall 2y ago
    > my specific point is that he does not sound like he needs to make hard choices Some people are just like that. I've been in similar moments (financially) as that guy, and as weird as it sounds, I was laughing at it. lol I don't think me or him are immune to anxiety by any means, but that our triggers are probably different.
    • jiggunjer 2y ago
      Same. Mildy curious about the homeless life, just paid the last rent I could afford when I found a job. The main concern at the time was worrying my parents.
    • theendisney4 2y ago
      I also thought it was funny, because it is if you have enough self confidence. I had an agenda with 2-3 weeks worth of planning to stay with friends and aquaintances. I would never stay at the same place for more than 1 night. The friends would tollerate it for 2 weeks or 2 months but if i limit the visit to 1 day per week, 2 weeks or a month their patience would never run out. The deal was this: you pay for shopping i clean the kitchen entirely, i Cook an elaborate meal, clean the kitchen again, sleep and leave at 8 am. The funniest were the ones who chose to abuse the deal and turned their kitchen into a giant mess. They pretty much didnt do anything for 14 days. I vaguely knew them, we didnt get along so well but i was excited to see the mess. This looks very welcomming! I joked. Some also ordered elaborate fancy 3 course meals that took some doing. They would enjoy the elaborate candle light dinner together after a day of hard work while i slaved away in their kitchen. Fucking hilarious.
• maronato 2y ago
  > Here's to a promising year 2025. My third year without a job. A year when I give more than I receive. A year of patience. And a year of an even deeper connection with myself. He does talk about the future and seems to imply he’ll continue to not have a job. If that’s the case, I’m with GP in wondering how he’s going to make it past January.
  • rnts08 2y ago
    What is he supposed to do? I'm absolutely sure he's still looking, trying his best to find a job or a permanent solution to his situation. But there's no reason to complain and whine about things he can't change. Life is shit sometimes, when he is out, he'll be out. Or he'll find some way of generating income, and then he gets another chance. I've been in similar situations myself, and there is absolutely no reason to get stuck up regardless how stressful and painful it is, you can only do your best and that's it.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      > I'm absolutely sure he's still looking, trying his best to find a job or a permanent solution to his situation. But there's no reason to complain and whine about things he can't change. I'm baffled by these responses. The reason we're calling him out is because he literally says he is not looking, at least for another job, in his blog post. It's not about wanting him to be stressed and anxious, it's about trying to understand how he plans to not have a job in 2025 and just continuing on doing more of the same, when in previous years he said he started with 80k, and now he's starting with 0.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• sheepscreek 2y ago
  $80k is by no means “privilege”. Bear in mind, we’re talking about the Canadian dollar that doesn’t stretch nearly as much as USD. Also with the cost of living shooting up so much - C$80k of today is probably as much as $50-60k of 2019.
  • OnlineGladiator 2y ago
    > $80k is by no means “privilege” Privilege is relative. There are around a billion people today that won't make that much money in their entire lives. And most people alive today will never save even 1/10 that much money.
• nickpsecurity 2y ago
  That’s a good point. The article reads like an extended vacation, often spent trying to start businesses, that didn’t work out. I was recently working six days a week with a nearly-empty fridge. My coworkers were scraping by. I have two jobs now. Due to a car repair, money is tight through December but we have food (and the car). Working 12 hours a day does cut into time I might build skills for a better job. Still progressing, though. My coworkers and I at each job can’t usually take even a week off unless it was a paid vacation. A year or two? That’s like a dream goal for us. Whereas, it’s terrible he had a divorce and lost everything. I’ve prayed that Jesus Christ bless he and his former partner with mutual forgiveness and new lives with peace. I thank Christ that He gave much joy in financial or other circumstances that would cause depression in most people. He is our Rock.