Sure, some landlords are large real estate companies, but all you're doing is forcing out small landlords and ensuring that large companies own all of the rental properties.
(Like all regulation, it is at a fundamental level pro-monopolistic, favoring large companies that can handle the overhead of complying with the regulation and punishing small players who cannot.)
If a renter is evicted, the consequences for their life are much more severe.
Not all regulation is pro-monopolistic. The accumulation of general regulation and restriction is often supported by incumbents but that doesn’t support the sweeping conclusion you’ve reached.
For landlords, they have to be much more selective of which tenants they take, and deny rental applications for those with eg bad credit or incomes that are technically enough to cover rent but leave too little of a buffer. They have to either pay for some kind of insurance (I don't know if this exists but I would assume it does) or diversify across enough properties so that they're financially protected from the risk of getting a non-paying tenant. And of course, yes they may have to deal with the hassle of a drawn out eviction of a non-paying (and often intentionally or unintentionally destructive) tenant who will likely never be able to repay the landlord even if held liable in civil court, which raises their costs in aggregate.
For tenants, besides having those increased costs and income/credit requirements passed through to them, they also have to pay higher security deposits. But probably the biggest problem is the effect on supply. Small scale property owners (especially the kind that ends up becoming an "accidental landlord" because they eg bought a condo and then moved) are highly disincentivized from renting their property out, and when they do, they're highly incentivized to not put it on the open-market and instead opt for their personal network/word of mouth/in-group. For example, lots of large tech companies have internal housing rental groups and many properties may only be advertised in places like that, or within a tight-knit social group where there are real reputational risks to being a non-paying tenant.
Really the problem IMO is that excessively permissive rental protections are a kind of social welfare benefits that are purely born by one part of the private sector. If governments compensated landlords for unpaid rent and intentional destruction from uncooperative tenants (which they have done in some cases for eg covid, but these are often done ad-hoc so landlords can't count on them and adjust practices accordingly) who take 6-12+ months to evict, then most of these problems would disappear.
That makes it -$1800CAD.
Thanks for noticing.
If they have $1k left in available credit, and they were making tech wages, that means on just that one credit card they are probably $9k to $24k at least in the negative already. The $1k of remaining available credit is not yet debt, but the negative bank balance is.
It is also likely they have more than one credit card, and maybe also some student loans.
As a european, I also didn't realize what CC stood for and was tripped up by the math same as the person you're replying to. Not everyone lives in a world/country where living on credit is the norm (at least not yet).
Investment shenanigans excluded, if you have enough savings to pay off your mortgage in case you lose your job, there's no point in getting a mortgage in the first place.
You're poisoning the well there, as that is the major reason to get a mortgage even when you have enough cash to buy a house outright. It's not "shenanigans", it almost always makes financial sense to keep your cash invested elsewhere when mortgage rates are low.
But the rest are still there.
Sometimes I wonder how people manage to browse the Web without encountering "common" pieces of wisdom. Maybe we should bundle up a bunch of useful YouTube/TikToks as a supplemental education package for students.
So the gamble is, do you spend 2 years saving up for 6 months of income as a buffer and send tens of thousands of dollars down the drain in the meantime, or do you roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens in the next 5 or so years? The people who end up in the best position will be those who take the second option, and most of the time it will work out.
At some point, it probably makes sense to buy a place if you can if only for the stability as you get older.
My point is rather that preferences, including the material reality that you seek, are almost entirely cultural. There is no culture vs reality, but rather some cultural values vs other cultural values
Had this same type of idea cycle around recently quite a bit lately. Similar issue, if this experience actually had the "uninstall", "quit", "leave", "exit", or red X in the corner, it would have been hit a long time ago. Much rather drop and go bodily join some fantasy or sci-fi land than the perpetual grind of meaningless, mundane, superficial, banal America. There's a reason millions spend almost every waking moment staring at a screen, playing a game about a fantasy or sci-fi land where you can actually feel like you accomplish something than interacting with the human race.
Frankly, a lot of MMORPG economies almost look preferable these days, and nearly as believable. At least in quite a few you can personally manufacture something and at least have a possibility of making money that's relevant. On Earth, rather challenging. Etsy for example:
Only 26% of Etsy shops are successful and run as full-time businesses, or 74% of all Etsy businesses eventually fail.
Average Etsy seller makes $2,900 per year
One part that's been really bothersome lately is how many games actually seem better implemented than the "real" world. Farming Simulator being one of the perennial cases. The equipment is implemented down to the individual bolts and seals on the engines, and you can probably print out the CAD models and manufacture your own tractor they're so detailed. Yet the game actually implements numerous technologies that the "real" farming consistently refuses. Quicker iterations, quicker development, quicker releases and responsiveness to customers. Intermediate cost farming equipment for the starting farmer, bicycle and human powered equipment with low yearly input costs. The "real" farming sector appear unable to do little other than offer the same $500,000 super-rigs they've been offering for years. There was a post a while back where the Farming Simulator people actually complained to the John Deere's of the world "common guys, how about some entry level stuff, we don't have anything to offer our players."
Anyways, TLDR, would have quit, uninstalled, and then burned the computer in the yard a long time ago.
> Most followed on Instagram - Christiano Ronaldo (635m)
Christiano Ronaldo was not born rich. He was born in a poor family in a poor region of one of the poorest EU country in the 80's.
Oh yes. Game designers - and same goes for any fiction authors, really - have two things going for them here. One, they can skip the grind; the boring and annoying distractions from the goal that are also necessary to achieve it in the real world. And two, as you noticed, fictional worlds can be designed to work.
Like, what's the difference between a tractor in Farming Simulator and in the real world? The simulated tractor is meant to work - to do the stuff the tractors do. The real tractor is first and foremost meant to make money for manufacturer; whether it works and can do the tractor stuff, that's incidental.
Or in short, games implement the child's view of the world, where things are what they seem to be. Bakers bake bread, firemen help people, singers sing so everyone has fun, etc. Everyone plays their role straight. The real life, unfortunately, has people doing whatever to survive in a more or less structured matter; it may manifest in bakers and firemen and singers, but their roles and value provided are incidental and they're not fulfilled and they'd all rather be somewhere else.
The child's worldview is a lie. It's honest, it's good, it makes sense, but it's a fucking lie. I'm still having difficulties processing that it's a lie. And it's all too easy to immerse yourself in sci-fi/fantasy videogames or shows or books, because they all assume the world makes sense, that things are what they seem, what they're supposed to. When things are not what they seem, that's a goddamn plot twist.
So yeah, I can't help but daydream about how the world could look like if we could just do stuff directly, instead of incidentally as a way to make money to survive (and eventually, enough money to tell the world to GTFO, so we can live out our own fantasies of a world that works).
Also don't forget taxes, insurance, mortgage interest needs to get paid while house is in your hands. Most mortgages have lots of interest during the first few years.
Im not sure about Canada, but Private individuals can list on redfin and Zillow in the US. MLS posting must be from a broker, but you can hire one flat rate upload your listing
Somehow the little guy always ends up taking most of the system's losses, though.
I'm a contractor and last year my agency said there would be layoffs, which caused quite a scare, but in the end only contractors residing in Canada were affected.
Your tagline on your profile made me laugh.
Sell your house. You can't afford it.
You might want to reach out to your mortgage provider and see if they can help. Often they will.
Where in Canada are you?
I'm in Toronto. My info is on my profile.
But he’s not. He’s specifically spelling it out by saying his gut and stomach issues are very likely tied to the stress of his no stable income.
Did you know there are people, right now, who are squandering a fortune on mundane things and won’t have to work a day in their lives? You can be jealous of them (I am) but that’s all.
Presumably he now needs to either get a job asap or make some hard choices. But it sounds like the post is supposed to be a retrospective so its not surprising he isn't really talking about the future.
> I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege
He literally had enough money to blow $80,000 on 2 years of unemployment. Of course he is privleged. Most people in the computer industry are. Most posters to hn are. The average person lives paycheque to paycheque and certainly doesn't have 80k just lying around in their bank account.
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.
Instead of Netjets you can own your own jet(s). Instead of restaurants you can buy them or have the chef come to your house. At the extreme end, you can start a space program.
The sky’s the limit!
The difference between $900 pants and $50 pants is more than lifestyle creep. I see it as indicative of a stratified society. Previous times had wealthy paying more for clothes but it showed in workmanship or materials.
In the words of Lucille Blutb:
How much could a banana cost, $10?
I see Lifestyle creep as an individual gradually spending more for meals and cloths
You might be able to make ends meet by cutting the 401K and yoga classes, but if that's what you need to cut to eat the next month, what do you cut to eat the month after that?
This guy was obviously not living anywhere near paycheck to paycheck.
By this definition I was not living paycheque to paycheque, but my situation was definitely not good, compared up someone who made better money but spent it each month on nonessential.
and inside that group - people who made one bad decision, and people who have neuro-divergent issues that make managing the budget more of chore than it is for someone without the issue.
Whether that is because you simply dont have much money, or you spent it all on something frivilous is immaterial.
I'm happy to say I wasn't privileged but fortunate if that satisfies you.
He didn't want to work on the building he was doing a lot of work for the Exploratorium. His idea was to put in the 4th floor and have me try to complete the building to get a certificate of occupancy. So that is where I lived.
Williamsburg at that time was very different. One could not park on the street with out a chain to hold your car hood shut. One's battery would be stolen otherwise. The office I worked in was full of people who were concerned that I lived in that neighborhood.
So I had a very good set-up and I felt a lot of gratitude for my situation but it didn't feel much like a privilege. Sweeping the floors of that apartment was almost pointless for the first year or two...
Your comment really brought it home for me.
Now imagine that, but no family support and one of you has cancer.
This exact debate showed up on another thread here the other day. While I agree with you, I was surprised to learn that many people view it to mean that tdon't have anything extra *after* they've done all of their socking away of money each money. Which is weird to me, but hey.
Dictionary seems to agree, Merriam Webster says: "to spend all of the money from one paycheck before receiving the next paycheck", not specifying that you can't have spent the money on semi-essentials that could perhaps be moved by a few months but you'd need to catch up with sooner or later
There is also a way to borrow money short term from your 401k that turns into an unauthorized withdraw if you don't pay it back in a relatively short time (a year?)
These all seem reasonable.
[0] Yes, there are rules to prevent the worst abuse, mostly limiting you to doing so once every three years, the small total, and the need to fill out paperwork explaining the unexpected cost.
That’s pretty much paycheck to paycheck if your savings are that low.
Poorly, that's how.
When faced with a hypothetical expense of $400, 63 percent of all adults in 2022 said they would have covered it exclusively using cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next statement (referred to, altogether, as "cash or its equivalent")
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2023-economic-we...).
Anyway, it still doesn’t seem like most people live paycheck to paycheck, according to your link:
> Some financial challenges, such as a job loss, require more financial resources than would an unexpected $400 expense. One common measure of financial resiliency is whether people have savings sufficient to cover three months of expenses if they lost their primary source of income. In 2023, 54 percent of adults said they had set aside money for three months of expenses in an emergency savings or “rainy day” fund—unchanged from 2022 but down from a high of 59 percent of adults in 2021.
Edit: That said, the part you quoted supports GP, the part in quotes seems to be what they actually asked. Credit is probably not what most would think of as "cash equivalent", that would be debit, checks, and transfers like Zelle.
16% straight answered like that, if you scroll down to the next table for non-cash-equivalent payments:
> Put it on my credit card and pay it off over time
Suppose that you have an emergency expense that costs $400. Based on your current financial situation, how would you pay for this expense?
If you would use more than one method to cover this expense, please select all that apply.
a. Put it on my credit card and pay it off in full at the next statement
b. Put it on my credit card and pay it off over time
c. With the money currently in my checking/savings account or with cash
d. Using money from a bank loan or line of credit
e. By borrowing from a friend or family member
f. Using a payday loan, deposit advance, or overdraft
g. By selling something
h. I wouldn't be able to pay for the expense right now
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-supplementa...
Edit: The people running this survey also had the same thoughts about ‘maybe some people are choosing to not this directly even though they could?’ And added this question:
Based on your current financial situation, what is the largest emergency expense that you could handle right now using only your savings?
1. Under $100
2. $100 to $499
3. $500 to $999
4. $1,000 to $1,999
5. $2,000 or more
This is discussed just below the stats @Jabble sites!
To explore this potential difference between how people would pay for a small, unexpected expense and whether they could pay for it with cash or the equivalent, the survey included a question asking people what the largest emergency expense was that they could handle using only savings. Eighteen percent of adults said the largest emergency expense they could handle right now using only savings was under $100, and 14 percent said they could handle an expense of $100 to $499
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
Not an excuse for using credit cards, just an explanation why you should sympathize.
In the US everyone is basically forced to have a credit card and use it but many have little financial literacy, especially immigrants.
However, a debit card usually covers the floor of needing a card of some sort to pay for a lot of things.
How do you even get a mortgage without a credit score?
Credit access in the US is ludicrous, you can be a terrible borrower (late or even tons of charge offs) and still get credit offers for credit cards. A lot of people then get into trouble because somewhere in their psychology the credit limit counts as money they "have" even though they understand they have to pay it back. That's why you have people talking about literally freezing their cards in a block of ice to control their spending.
By this definition, I would imagine a very large number of US households fit the mould.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/paycheck-to-paycheck-and-five-...
>>> 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/payche...
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.
It's easy, just build a million dollar asset and sell it. Pssh, I am on my third one this week.
Personally I have a mortgage and a family, so I'm not eager to burn through savings to build a company 0-1, but if I had to, I described exactly what I would do.
The point is that solving dull business problems like that might be lucrative, but not many of us are motivated enough to do them.
Is there a way to contact you? I couldn't find it in your profile, unfortunately.
You're right that the million dollar opportunity is a lot more interesting for a startup. Of course, it's also going to be a lot harder for that startup to displace VMware (which the potential customer probably is using). I'm not sure going after those crumbs is a terrible idea but there are already other option like Xen too.
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.
But the limiting factor is not AI or any kind of tech, it’s getting these businesses to trust you with fitting into their existing systems and giving you their time.
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.
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.
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per...
Marginal tax rate is 42% on the first EUR after 278K. That would astonishingly high total income in Germany. There might be some remaining solidarity tax from the reunification, but I cannot see how you get to an effective tax rate of 50% on 100K income, which is considered excellent in Germany.
Can you share a worked example how effective tax rate can be above 50%?
1. Minor mistake. 42% marginal is at 60k~ish, the 278k number is 45% 2. The effective income tax rate around 100k is in the area of 25%. When there's numbers thrown around above 40% they usually include the 19% sales tax, CO2 tax etc. it's a slightly odd number including government induced cost.
1. Most Americans are not paycheck-to-paycheck. It is what politicians constantly say depending on whether they are in power or not.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1dbpaag/do_th...
2. Americans have higher disposable income at all income levels than Europeans (Western Europe included).
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/xgoouz/americans_ha...
> Americans have higher disposable income at all income levels than Europeans
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.
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.
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.
Today i would much enjoy a monthly elaborate dinner with my girl in exchange for 1x using a bed in a spare room i never use. Renting it out for a day for $ to a stranger is not going to happen but if it did it wouldnt cover the cost for professional cleaning plus a private cook.
I also had friends who never cook and ones who barely clean. I did whole office buildings, vacuuming a livingroom is not going to impress me.
I'm primarily calling him out because his story, as written, simply makes no sense, because reality. He has no money left, and is making less money than his next rent payment, but he is talking about continuing on in the next year doing the same things he did in previous years. Except in previous years he started with 80k, and this year he's starting with 0.
I'm really not particularly interested in his anxiety triggers, I'm interested in where he will be getting money for his next rent payment. There are literally only a couple options: he's got backup support somewhere that will provide him with funds/housing/food, he plans to get some "day jobs" to fund his lifestyle (which would then severely limit his entrepreneurial time), or he plans to just ride out the eviction process where he's currently renting until being homeless. One of these must be true, and I think it's a pretty critical part of his story that he just leaves out.
But you are right that this is not clarified anywhere in the post, and the math as described does not add up.
> my specific point is that he does not sound like he needs to make hard choices
Then, a subset of those people (myself included) replied saying they wouldn't sound much different in a similar situation.
Maybe you can send your question to the author if they have a contact form/email on their website.
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.
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.
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.
Also with the cost of living shooting up so much - C$80k of today is probably as much as $50-60k of 2019.
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.
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.
I understand the sentiment but I don’t understand why point it out. It’s not like the blog post in question is putting anyone down, complaining about anything, or being obnoxious.
There will always be someone more privileged than you are. Why constantly remind yourself (and others) about it if the more privileged person isn’t harming anyone?
I don't judge him at all for being privileged or what he's done. I judge him for leaving out what I think is the most important part of the story: how he could go on this journey and come to a point where he's got no money left but he isn't freaking out about being homeless or getting food.
This guy isn’t doing that, he’s writing some kind of report on doing his own thing. He’s not trying to sell you on it or anything.
I believe what this guy is referring to is that his startups currently aren't making money. And, to that end, this blog post is a marketing piece.
I don't mean to be one of those people that shout "privilege" at every turn on the Internet, but most people with no savings and barely any income would be freaking out unless they had some family or support network to lean on, which I noticed any discussion of is suspiciously absent.