Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

It's relatively easy for software devs to live comfortably on $50k and make $150k+.

Can confirm. Have done this for the last several years. Wife stopped working a few years back due to an injury (but no disability or other income for better or worse), so I've been the sole breadwinner the last few years. I've typically been bringing in between $150k and $220k (gross), and we've spent most of the last ... 7-8 years not doing or buying much. Min obligations each month are now around $3000/month (mortgage, utilities, food, insurance), so there's been a bunch of savings.

I can't retire and never have to work again, but I'm slowing down a bit, and spending more time not earning money (gym, reading, travel, etc).

On second though, if I absolutely needed to, we could probably 'retire' tomorrow, and do a bit more belt-tightening - savings/investments would last probably another 10-12 years without any major changes to lifestyle, then could collect social security. But that's... not something I want to do. I like doing most of what I'm doing, and am just being a bit choosier about what I do now.

EDIT: no kids, semi-rural southern US.

EDIT 2: Moderately high, but irregular, income from consulting/contract dev/tech work. Not W2.

$150k and $220k (gross) + semi-rural southern US. Impressive!

Selling time (hourly), I can't keep it up forever, and 10 years ago it was more like $100-$120k. I already see this year slowing down some, but it might be back to more like $120k, but on a part time effort, which will be nice in its own way. I was regularly putting in 50+ hours/week, and it's just not something I could maintain long term.

Maybe in the US. Maybe.

Here in the UK, after tax, $50K/yr doesn't even cover my mortgage, and I live in a house that over 100 years ago, according to the 1911 census, supported a family of 5 on a carriage drivers single income.

I earn a top 1% salary as a dev and retirement will still be 20-25 years away for me under ideal conditions - i.e. a 40% savings rate.

My condolences, outside the US is definitely harder. At least you can still invest in the S&P 500.

I'm guessing a bus driver in 1911 was kind of a high skill job, sort of like software development is now. How many people could drive a car back then, let alone a bus?

Carriage as in the horse drawn variety

Omnibus (i.e. carriage) driver.

What's a top 1% salary in the UK?

This will give you an idea.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f...

In US terms somewhere around $240K USD, before tax.

Sounds like you have a really expensive lifestyle man.

Even most US devs don’t make $240k USD.

He said he's in the UK. So his net income is somewhere around 120k USD. It's big money, but not that much.

When I calculate the post-tax income for $240k USD in SF it comes out to $155k: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#SLKSX....

$120k is also an underestimate given that the top tax bracket in the UK is only 45%. If you apply that, you get $132k (Still an underestimate). $132k is roughly in the same ballpark as $155k.

It's not like the difference between the same income in the US and UK is 50%, and even if you were on $120k USD net that's the same as the median gross income of a SWE in the US.

I don't understand where "not that much" is coming from.

It's coming from housing prices in London and SF. Also energy prices in the UK the last few years grew considerably. I agree it's a lot of money, but given how much it costs to buy a house or an apartment in London and SF I'd say it's not that much if you want to retire early. I used London and SF in these examples because it's hard to find jobs with that much compensation outside them. And this is all without considering kids. You'll probably want them to have a good education and not struggle all their life from student loan debt so you better save some of your income for them.

All I hear is "I earn a 1% income and want to live a 1% lifestyle". Yes, if that is what you do with your income of course it's "not that much".

Nice house in London/SF = $$$

Kids = $$$

"good education" (I.e. nice schools) = $$$

No student debt for your kids = $$$

Retire early = $$$

This seems like a classic "3 options, pick 2" kind of scenario. You can never have it all at the max level (Except maybe if you're a billionaire).

It's amusing to watch you bash around numbers and percentages and yet not understand cost of living differences especially with the energy crisis currently in the UK

I don't get what you mean. SF CoL is definitely higher than UK CoL (Even London).

At that kind of income CoL also doesn't mean that much unless your lifestyle matches your income (I.e. lifestyle inflation). The energy crisis should not significantly affect people with top 1% income.

If they have their mortgage already paid off, yes, very much so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com