Hacker News Reader

Comment by remote_phone | Hacker News Reader

The only question to answer is, “are you happy?” I’m almost 50, I don’t have a high profile job, failed at getting into Google 5 times, but just bought my wife a $20,000 grand piano for our anniversary without thinking about it. My kids make me happy, my house mortgage is less than 1X my household earnings, my work pays well and I have a great Work Life Balance.

We all die within 120 years, and if we are cremated, there will be no trace of us left in this universe. Who cares about anything except our happiness and our ability to make those around us happy during this short time we are alive?

View on HN

Man, these earnest wealth brags are really annoying here. There's was no reason to mention the piano, but you did.

He mentioned it because it shows that while he hasn’t been in the rat race he’s done well enough to treat his family well. I’m happy for him, and honestly 20k isn’t that much money in the big scheme of things so he probably didn’t think of it as a brag

>and honestly 20k isn’t that much money in the big scheme of things so he probably didn’t think of it as a brag

lol are you bragging in the same exact way? 20k isn't much money in the big scheme? 20k is median more than people in 136 countries have

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

Most people here live in the first world...

I think the point is even if you don't work for google you can afford the piano.

Sounds like the kind of advice I'll like to give my 38 year old self when I'm 50. Thanks for sharing your perspective :)

As someone who wants to be financially independent, how did you make so much such that household income > mortgage? Do u just live in a crappy neighborhood? Even on Midwest states tech yearly salary is about half of a decent house?

He’s had 20-30 years to make mortgage payments.

And has not paid off the mortgage.

No we haven’t. Our decision is to pay off the mortgage as slowly as possible. The interest rate on the mortgage is 3.5% so if inflation rises significantly, we will be paying negative real interest rates for much of the duration of the mortgage.

Historically inflation is approximately 3% on average, also, re-financing your mortgage could be very advantageous for you, the lowest rates you can find right now hover around 1.7%.

Basically we got lucky. We bought our house 7 years ago, just before the housing bubble went crazy again. I live in the SF Bay Area to be honest we almost gave up and went back to renting but managed to find a house just before we gave up.

My wife makes 50% more than me, but we bought a house that we could afford on one salary. It’s in a nice neighborhood but not super fancy. It’s the house I plan on dying in. We have lived well below our means and was able to save a good down payment that helped. Not living above your means and maintaining a standard of living well below that is the most important thing, in my opinion. Not having worked for FANG (not being able to get in because I’m not good enough to pass the interviews) and not being able to amass great wealth from stocks, basically it’s been from saving.

My wife is more successful than I am, but I stunted my career to take more of the child rearing. That said my career isn’t terrible, I make a good salary but I turn off my phone at 3pm every day. My calendar automatically rejects all meeting requests after 230pm and I pick up the kids and spend more time with them to give my wife the opportunity to further her career.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com