Hacker News Reader

Comment by acconrad | Hacker News Reader

My relationship with money. I make more than like 98% of the population but my parents grew up middle/lower class so I'm just constantly worried about having enough for retirement, and having enough money for kids, and having enough money for their education, AND any possible illnesses/issues having seen families with health insurance crippled by things like cancer treatments. It seems like no matter what, I find myself cutting my own hair, using grocery bags for trash bags, and generally being a bit crazy in the frugal dept while also socking away 85% of my paycheck because it just feels like there is not enough.

View on HN

If you can live on 15% then you only need ~4x your salary in savings to retire.

See: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-nee... and https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/

Insurance at it's core is amortization for individual risks you cannot bear the burden of, but as a group people could. Things like illness, accidents, disability etc. I recommend you get a fiduciary and explore insurance for the risks and annuities if you want to remove risk around your income too .

For most people the challenge is that they're running much higher than 15% of their pay. So it takes forever to get the equity required to no longer need an income stream (AKA job)

Try putting some amount ($20, $100, doesn't really matter) aside which you will spend on 'useless' things every month. Just make sure you spend that money and you don't spend it on things you buy normally. After a while you might find that if you spend $20 dollar on useless stuff, it might be worth spending $2 on trash bags. That should help relax your relationship with money.

I struggle with this too. People who grew up in more well-heeled upbringings always comment on how certain things I do aren't "worth my time" since I am so used to money being more valuable than time instead of the other way around. I spend hours optimizing for "small" bargains and cost savings like my peers do (out of necessity).

Just imagine how the people who didn't save 85% of their paycheck feel!

I think we all worry about this; some are more frugal than others.

However, I know I didn't really worry about this the way I do now until I started having a family.

Move to a country like Norway or Germany where it doesn’t matter how much you make. Social security covers the basic and medical needs. Problem solved.

Living on the minimum amount of pension isn't as easy as it sounds, especially if you never had a well paying job. There are a lot of very poor old people that have to be supported by their families if possible or by smaller side incomes.

Nor is living on wellfare in one of those places, however, OP has a job and will have one there too. If is just the feeling of safety that if everything goes wrong, you and your family are covered no matter what. That takes away the healthcare and pension strssses. In the meanwhile nothing changes and he would be in the 95% there too; big pension. But no stress for ‘what if’ while getting there. It helps, I know, I am from the Netherlands and just the thought that you have a safety net is all that matters even though I will never use it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com