I had no special circumstances, I just made a choice to put years of savings to work for myself immediately instead of in the uncertain future. I sold everything and lived simply. Not everyone could do it, but many could who think they can't.

Being able to save, especially for years, is a special circumstance. At least in the US where wages have been flat for quite a while even as cost of living skyrocketed.

I don’t want to sound like a know it all, but I managed to save a lot of money living in a big city in a grad student stipend, which is about $25k. It can be done. I spent very little biking, cooking from home, buying used, having roommates, not drinking, not buying much.

There are exceptions like kids and chronic health issues but most people could save a lot more money if they wanted.

I say this without judgment, people just have different priorities. I recognize my advantages, but I have more savings than most people in my family, despite probably having the lowest lifetime income.

This really needs a time frame. $25k in a big city means different things depending on era. The curves of wage growth, cost of living, and wealth disparity didn't start to diverge so wildly until the 2000s. This took a lot of people by surprise and people whose experiences diverge by era aren't always aware of how quickly things changed for other people.

Someone who graduated in 2005 will often have a completely different experience from someone who graduated in 2008 or 2009. People who haven't had to look for a job since the '80s are especially befuddled to learn "ask for the manager" leads to "there's an online application kiosk by the door, go there." Usually along with "we don't have any openings, but we keep it on file for 6 months!"

I graduated college in 2012, grad school the following 6 years.

You got lucky with the roommates, that's one thing outside of your control that can go very badly.

Per the US government (BLS), the median household has the ability to save about $1,000 per month without changing how much they spend on ordinary costs of living. So not everyone can but most people can if they choose to. Of course, Americans are notoriously poor savers, which is the bigger culprit.

There is a 21 trillion dollar economy built largely on companies fighting over that $1000 with lies and manipulation from people who devote careers to outsmarting people.

Another thread on HN helpfully has examples of people refusing to go along with it. I don't think they're representative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27629543

If I have monthly income of 3000 and spend it all, how am I to save 1000 monthly without lowering my costs?

This sounds impossible, unless maybe you’re not counting all spending as “ordinary costs”?

This is a term of art. An "ordinary expense" are categories of expenses required to live a decent average life, as evidenced by the fact that most people actually spend money on them. This includes housing, transportation, clothes, food, healthcare, utilities, taxes, etc. It makes no judgement on how the money is spent in ordinary categories e.g. buying a BMW is an ordinary expense because it is transportation. It isn't prescriptive and it includes pretty much everything you would expect. Ordinary expenses include a lot of luxury and non-essential spending.

If you look at all the categories that are "non-ordinary" because most people spend no money on them, they are pretty obviously lifestyle flexes. For example, if you blow your entire paycheck on a bar tab, that is not classified as an ordinary expense because most people don't do that.

Subtract the median ordinary expense from the median income, you are left with more than $12,000 per year as a surplus. This is called "discretionary income", money you can spend on fun, hobbies, or -- relevant to this thread -- savings. If we restricted it even further to ordinary and essential spending, the income level that no longer generates any surplus is in the region of 15th percentile IIRC. That is still 20 million households in the US with no ability to save but that isn't the experience of the vast majority of households.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve publishes surprisingly detailed statics of what people spend money on and how income surpluses are used.

It's not counting all spending as costs of living.

It does require discipline and sacrifice, and it's harder or easier depending on circumstance, but it is always possible. You may not be able to save very much, but even a small amount can get you through some situations that would otherwise have cost you more, in interest or lost time at work or whatever. Those small solutions add up over time, so that you're always better off with saving, than without.

Especially if you have kids and work as labor

> I just made a choice to put years of savings

In America (and much of the world) this is the ultimate special circumstance. The idea of being able to consistently save significant amounts of money for YEARS is foreign to billions of people.

Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed no matter what, and even its worst places - its prison cells - compare favorably to the finest hotels of other countries. You have so many options you feel constantly overwhelmed, stressing about making bad choices because everything your primitive heart could ever desire is not merely available, but plentiful and cheap. And it'll recruit you if you're not careful. Money fails to motivate when you have enough of it regardless. Life wants meaning.

Imagine having all the time in the world, just thinking about everything. Your whole life.

What would you do?

"Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed no matter what, and even its worst places - its prison cells - compare favorably to the finest hotels of other countries."

What I see are bored young males hanging out and getting in fights, not a whole generation of people learning cuneiform in their newfound free time.

Absolutely. There is no free lunch. UBI comes on the backs of the value adding class of society. Some people actually LIKE to work, hard as it is for some to believe.

The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon them in the form of paying for those young males to hang out and get in fights.

Ive had the dubious honor of knowing more than one kid who was never going to have to work a single day in life owing to who their parents and grandparents were. They tend to end up chemical addicted for the most part.

Idle hands do the devils work.

> The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon them in the form of paying for those young males to hang out and get in fights.

If anything existing basic income experiments have revealed the opposite:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stockton-ca-gave-residents...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/what-did-...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/richmond-califo...

Those experiments are worse than useless for predicting what would actually happen in a "true UBI" environment. I say "worse than useless" as opposed to just "useless" since they make people think they have some insight into what a UBI world would look like, but they really don't.

Giving a small number of people an amount of money below what they'd need to actually survive, with them knowing perfectly well it won't last forever has effectively zero in common with UBI. Give an entire contained population of people enough money that they can have all their basic needs met just with that money, and guarantee them it will continue for the rest of their lives, and I'd bet quite a lot that the results would be drastically different.

Also, not a big deal since you also provided two reasonable links, but many people will see that you linked motherjones and likely discount your comment entirely. It's on the same tier as OANN and breitbart.

Nah, empiricism is not bad. And attacking a single link in one isolated post that took me two minutes to search up links for hardly discredits an entire field of interest. Thanks for the concern though but this is hardly a thesis.

Sure whatever, but the rest of my post is more pertinent. These experiments have no value. Measuring the wavelength of the color of the sky is empirical and offers roughly the same insight into the impact of UBI on society. Empiricism on its own is nothing.

Okay, then sounds like the only way to know whether UBI is good or not is to go ahead with it and try it out. Good to know you fundamentally disagree with the ancestral post that claimed that it would empower idleness and drug addiction, like a puritan decrying alcohol, or dancing.

Yes, that would be the only way, but basic arithmetic yields the conclusion that it is not possible at present, even ignoring the political impossibility of it. And no, I very much agree with the ancestral post. I think it would empower a significant amount of addiction and other lazy and wasteful behavior. Which doesn't necessarily mean it would be a net negative for the world on the whole, but to deny that that would happen is to be disconnected from reality. I frankly don't trust the judgement or diversity of life experience of anyone who doesn't recognize that.

Any form of welfare or public benefit can be abused, obviously. But to claim that it would lead to significantly detrimental and widespread abuse is a serious criticism that requires serious study and analysis to back up. Without it, both your post and the ancestral post are simply posting polemics based on your own specific subjective viewpoint.

By your own measure, basic arithmetic has roughly the same insight into the impact of UBI on society. As is judgement and diversity of life experience. As you say, empiricism on its own is nothing.

I've not seen any serious proposals to implement ubi before automation has substantially increased unemployment. In that case, not only are people idle, but also desperate.

Fwiw, I don't mind working at all, but in an ideal world, my work would be varied and my hours would be of my choosing. Sure, you can get that if you freelance, but most corporate jobs want 8h/d 40h/w, at least, and is that how anyone wants to spend their time on earth?

Read the results of actual basic income pilot programs and you'll see that people are far from idle.

This is a side effect of society overly focusing on money instead of knowledge as the primary success metric.

Interesting. Perhaps we are kind of already at that point? Isn't that what video games like MMORPGs or Fortnite are for? Where the bored young males get to accomplish great adventures , build and show off their skills for status, compete and crush their enemies, and fulfill a sense of accomplishment.. all virtually?

I disagree, I've been learning Krav Maga in my newfound free time. Want to fight about it?

your skills are weak, old man.

> Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed no matter what

Realistic UBI proposals wouldn’t exactly provide a comfortable wage. They’d provide just enough to get by on the basics, if that. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be helpful, but it does mean that it won’t be an attractive alternative to work for anyone who isn’t comfortable staying poor forever.

UBI would still be a safety net, not an attractive alternative to working. The idea that UBI would enable people to become free of work and follow their dreams for free has been greatly exaggerated. It’s just not possible to tax enough to pay everyone high UBI wages. Safety net wages, maybe, but it won’t be a fun living situation to depend entirely on UBI.

Personally I think that even if UBI wouldn’t provide a living wage in today’s economy, that it will fundamentally change market dynamics in interesting ways. Companies constantly adjust prices up in the US because of increased buying power, aka “they can afford to give us more profit”. There’s an entire industry of cheap smartphones that don’t release in the US, only in India, China, and third world countries, and they’re plenty profitable, but they deliberately only release even more profitable models in the US.

I think creating a significant class of people with reduced buying power in the US will actually lower prices here, as at least some companies decide they don’t want to miss out on that portion of the market just to soak the rest of the Americans for even more money.

Of course that’s expressing a lot of faith in capitalism so it’s entirely possible, even likely, that it would somehow make the entire situation even worse.

Exactly 3 things: smoke weed, jerk off and play games on my Xbox. In that exact order.

Sorry for my honesty, I have no filter.

I'm more of a PC guy, but yeah, pretty much. For a while. But even that gets boring at some point. Human brains are weird, man.

I really wonder dude, I really wonder. The older I get the harder I find to be excited by shit. I do believe that if I was in the iPhone team I would've been like "another f-ing phone, why should I care?".

The paycheck is pretty much all that is getting me out of bed in the morning, even if at this point I can't say I really need it anymore.

Part of that might be that you lack the time or energy to properly explore new things though, and that lack of time or energy probably has something to do with getting that pay check.

I mean also maybe not, but I find it hard to devote time to things I know I am interested in because I work 9-5, 5 days a week. I spend time with my partner of an evening and have housework and exercise to take care of and after all that it feels like there is very little time and like I don't have a lot of energy to learn new skills or pursue hobbies, so what I end up doing is the things I know I like but that are not draining. Ultimately I spend a lot of time reading or playing video games or goofing off on reddit.

Even taking a week or two off isn't necessarily a good indicator, because you won't say, go and buy a bunch of paints and an easel and go "right I'm finally going to get stuck into painting" when you only have two weeks off and know you won't have time for it once they are up

I feel the absolute same way. I’ve learned to be satisfied rather than passionate/excited about work. It’s much more sustainable in the long run.

Guess its a normal part of aging, but maybe its not normal to not get excited by stuff you used to like

>maybe its not normal to not get excited by stuff you used to like

People absolutely fall in and out of interest in different types of activities. This is especially true of people who really jump into things with both feet.

That gets boring pretty damn quickly. You'd feel sick of yourself in a couple of weeks. Humans surprisingly want to feel meaningful. Tickling your pleasure neurons for day after day just doesn't feel good, it doesn't make you happy. Pleasure != happiness.

It reminds me of this meme: https://i.imgur.com/dRvwSsI.jpg

I don't know, I did it for a whole sabbatical once and some stretches in the Pandemic - it did not make returning to work any easier.

Now I agree about needing some variety, so I would probably get a PlayStation too.

Spend every waking hour out with my camera exploring every corner of every small town around me and writing about it.

Like this: https://viewfinderfox.com/first-post-vaccination-excursion-i...

But all the time.

Oh pretty cool. We've been doing that with my fiance for a few years. Her English isn't quite as good as mine but I proof-read it once.

https://hypertele.fi/fbd0998dd2834f08

Write crappy programs, make crappy art and music, and write crappy stories. I'm low in talent, high in motivation.

Most people are probably low in talent and motivation (because lacking talent is demotivating).

Don’t you? Why not? Because of financials? Job availability in your region?

There’s always an option. It might entail a more extensive change and change is hard, that’s for sure.

It indeed is a luxury to be able to take a year off at will. Big reason I can think of is financials.

In my opinion, burnout is a problem only faced by people who can afford to do so. I am not saying everyone doesn't face burnout, they probably do, but not everyone can afford to take a sabbatical, dip into savings, indulge in a hobby etc. There are many people who don't earn as much as a silicon valley engineer, have low savings to dip into, and perhaps even have/inherit debt - Making rent and being able to afford essentials takes priority to dealing with burnout in such situations.

2/3 of America lives paycheck to paycheck.

Taking a year off is definitely not the norm

Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them.

If you want to live a un-average life, you need to have un-average priorities and sacrifice. Few on HN should be living paycheck to paycheck.

Check out Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for a starting model. And yes, you'll have to sacrifice now to benefit later.

I totally recommend everyone read Dave Ramsay's work to understand how to approach money. It was an eye opener for me.

But you have to understand that consumerism is pushed down our throats from all around starting at a very young age. Dave Ramsay doesn't just come into your consciousness like advertising does, and unless one is close to someone who is very anti consumerism and advertising you will likely be subjected to an onslaught of messages aimed at your subconscious that you are completely ill-equipped to fight.

I think many people in these comments are speaking on behalf of the general population who does not have the luxury of taking a year off.

This comment of yours drips with privilege.

Edit: I was introduced to dave Ramsay's work in my 20s by a close friend who was wealthy and had businesses and homes. He volunteered with some organizations to provide financial literacy classes. I was lucky to have been given that reference.

While many here are commenting on the abstract general population, most are speaking about themselves with variations of "must be nice!"

When you fly, the emergency briefing tells you to put on your own mask before helping others. In lifeguard training, you're taught to keep yourself afloat before the victim.

If you don't have your own finances in order, your opinion on others' finances is just noise and about as valuable.

> most are speaking about themselves with variations of "must be nice!"

Not necessarily. It's called empathy. And your lifeguard story makes no sense.

A drowning victim will instinctively push the rescuer under the water, so the rescuer must have a secure flotation device. It was (probably still is) taught to pull the rescue-e to land by having the victim facing away with your arm around their neck and under the armpit facing away. This is to keep them from drowning you.

This is also biblical - take the splitter out of your own eye before you take the splinter out of another's eye (paraphrasing).

I know that. But it is not apparent why that was relevant to the conversation.

Better than Dave Ramsey, check out Bogleheads.org.

You (and everyone else) really do own your financial life. There can be curveballs-- a catastrophic illness, for example-- but for the vast majority of people, having money or not is really a series of personal decisions made over a lifetime.

Can speak for myself, I don't live paycheck to paycheck now but I grew up in a household with a lot less money than I make now in comparison - Involved lot of sacrifices and accumulating modest savings over a lifetime to help the next generation to live a bit better and make fewer such sacrifices.

> Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them.

There's also a cohort that might not earn a lot but is financially responsible, frugal and makes modest gains towards big goals e.g. education for kids, home ownership which can take almost a life time. There's a big spectrum from being poor due to being financially irresponsible and being lucky enough to be in their 20s, debt free and paying off a mortgage instead of rent (with help for college, down payment etc from family to have a healthy head start). Not everyone who doesn't have the means is in such a place because they are lazy or is financially irresponsible. Simply stating that most people are a certain way without evidence is just disingenuous and judgemental, perhaps exposes a bias more than anything.

> Involved lot of sacrifices and accumulating modest savings over a lifetime to help the next generation to live a bit better and make fewer such sacrifices.

Congrats. That's awesome and it's what we should strive for. Sacrificing sucks but doing it now so we have to do less of it later (or later generations have to do less) is powerful. Your parents setting that example for you - and you passing it down - is exceptionally valuable too. I grew up in similar financial circumstances without learning those lessons until much much later.

> There's also a cohort that might...

Yes, there are cohorts in all circumstances. That's why I said "most" and not "all."

Do you actually know anyone like this, or are you basing this off of what cable news personalities say?

I know plenty of people with no cable, no Internet other than their phone, living paycheck to paycheck... This idea that poor people just need to stop wasting their money is propaganda used to justify starvation wages

This is called the myth of overconsumption.

It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or failure rests solely on the individual.

It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation, rising costs of critical goods and services, rising inequality, and fundament structural inequities with society.

Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol82/iss4/8...

Here's some sourced data for my claims to look at the "myth" if you're interested:

"65% of Americans are still paying for cable TV."

"According to cable cord-cutting subscribers statistics for 2018, the average viewer in the US can save up to $104 per month by taking the plunge."

Ref: https://techjury.net/blog/cable-tv-subscribers-statistics/

"According to Zagat, if you are like the average American, you go out for lunch and dinner 4.9 times each week."

Ref: https://us1035.iheart.com/featured/sarah/content/2018-01-09-...

Average credit card debt in 2020: $5315

Ref: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/consumer-credit-...

Even if we assume these websites to be accurate, The data and conclusions are wildly speculative and ask more questions than answer. This isn't remotely evidence for your claim.

What are the demographics by age, geography for the people paying for cable tv, going out for dinners 5 times a week and that have $5k of credit card debt. You seem to be assuming they are all the same people, and you are assuming that correlation is causation.

Besides, even I indulge -

The link you shared about cord cutting statistics, if you read through the link, its making the point that cutting the cord was on the rise and in 2018 increased by 32.8% compared to 2017. In 2018 alone 33M people canceled their TV subscription. Seems like your data suggests people are increasingly doing what you want them to do, cutting the cord and saving money.

The link about people going out for lunch and dinner, it actually doesn't have any data in it. It appears to be a blog by a private citizen.

The link you shared about credit card debt, well that actually says that average credit card debt reduced by 14% from 2019 to 2020, while the avg fico across all generations increased. Seems like another trend that you wanted people to do. Surprisingly it also says that while avg credit card debt reduced from 2019 to 2020, student loan debt increased the highest of any debt category, by 9%.

Should I be concluding that people have been cutting the cord and saving money on cable tv, reducing credit card debt and investing in education? Or are we just cherry picking statistics to support a belief without really looking at the data.

"Us1035.iheart.com"

I have a strange feeling that your sources are as poor as your ideas.

Feelings and myths over data. Cool story bro.

And this is the myth of "The Man is keeping me down".

It allows people to ignore that their choices are by far the biggest factor in what happens in their lives, and instead allows them blame society and take no responsibility.

There's a spectrum between the extremes of "over consumption" and "the man is keeping me down". And in the middle there's also "simply playing the hand you're dealt".

Looking at the comments here, it seems like people cherry pick anecdotes or statistics to support their beliefs about the distribution.

I think your claim is partially true.

People can make good/bad choices but the amount and types of choices a person even has available to them, is very dependent on pre-existing family success/wealth.

Jeff Bezo's kids will have more choices/opportunities than a middle class kid who will have more choices/opportunities than a poor kid.

Starving Syrian Refugess have very minimal choices or opportunities.

So your average middle class or poor person has some choices but is much more at the mercy of their ENVIRONMENT than Jeff Bezo's kids who can bend the environment to their will with money.

Your heels seem pretty dug into your belief's so there's a good chance I'm wasting my time by talking to you but whatever.

Your unsourced colloquialisms is a pretty tone deaf response to this comment, but I guess you're demonstrating their point, good job

If you’re young, have no children, and don’t mind picking up and moving and giving up local connections, sure.

That’s not common, though.

Really though, the solution is to change jobs. Despite how it looks from HN comments, there are plenty of companies out there with good work life balance.

Painting this as a false dichotomy between staying in burnout-inducing jobs or dropping everything to become jobless isn’t helpful. There’s an entire spectrum of options that should be explored to change a burnout-inducing situation.

I found this working for state government. Trying to put my skills to use helping taxpayers get what they deserve in usable government websites. There is a lot of "feel good" there...feels like it did back in 96-97.