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Comment by fragmede | Hacker News Reader

I’m going to guess rent and living expenses, like for food.

But enough to eliminate the possibility of retirement? How much was he eating?

And how on earth was he planning to fund the rest of his retirement / very long covid with his seemingly outlandish cost of living?

Yes, I often hear about dudes making $200k in 8 months of work, living in inexpensive areas of the country, having trouble buying food.

This was a bunch of offshore workers.

Make 14k in two weeks while offshore, not have a dime to their name 2 weeks later when they're going back out.

That's a cool stereotype to talk about, but for every broke guy that makes $200k living in Wyoming, I know more that own 10 acres, a nice house, a 3000 sq ft metal building next to it, $10k+ in guns and ammo, several paid off older vehicles, and one nice one with a payment for the wife and maybe himself. That is much more common that someone that makes great money but just CANT curb his spending.

How many offshore workers did you work with? I worked with plenty and there were lots of guys who lived modestly and saved a ton.

But there were plenty of guys making 200k living paycheck to paycheck.

I didn't work with any offshore people. I knew a directional driller very well and visited him several times, and from there met a few welders as well while we worked on helping them install off-road suspensions onto their trucks. All had nice houses and sounded like they didn't have a care in the world. Very different from my silicon valley friends complaining about their high rent and housing costs.

No matter how inexpensive an area is today, how long do you think that will last when it suddenly has more $200k temp workers than longtime residents?

Those workers often have to pay out the nose just to eat ramen in plywood closets, the money doesn't go much farther than it would in a dense city.

Most guys I know had their housing provided on site. They then traveled home between jobs. Or others had RV trailers with them so they didn't have to go home, if they even had a home at that time.

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