Supporting yourself and still coding a lot of cool stuff to give away isn't really that hard. There are plenty of service, light tech support, or even desk jobs which only require a few hours a day worth of real concentration, and leave you alone with your thoughts the rest of the time.

Covering rent + groceries in some sleepy midwest town with decent broadband is do-able on minimum wage, if you don't mint having a small apartment and older computers.

The challenge is in living the kind of lifestyle that most HN readers have or aspire to: living in S.F., going out to nice restaurants + clubs with your hip, hacker friends, owning multiple nice computers + tech toys, and flying to conferences and vacations all over the world several times a year.

That stuff gets expensive, fast.