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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

We started a trophy and award business because my spouse was already making shirts and stuff so we had most of the equipment. The overhead is really low thanks to quick shipping from a large employee owned national supplier (seriously, JDS industries is fucking awesome).

It's enough to pay for itself easily and pay for a vacation or two a year, for about 4 hours of work a week. If we really put effort in, it could replace our day jobs.

Where most people go wrong is their expectation. We expected this to fund a vacation and maybe car payments. That it's doing that is exactly right and we don't want to take it any further. If people had that view, instead of feeling like they have to make a billion dollars, I think side gigs would be a different beast entirely.

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There are many levels between "pays for a vacation or two a year" and "billion dollars". I think most people just want to make a comfortable living (which includes eventual retirement) and not have to work themselves to the bone.

You can see it in the comments though. Many many many people who fall for get rich quick schemes, whether it's an app or saas or drop shipping or whatever genuinely want that billion dollars.

You can be comfortable on not very much money with realistic expectations while not working yourself to the bone was kind of my point.

I think the bar has risen for what a comfortable life requires now. Housing costs have outpaced inflation for a couple of decades now. Health insurance has rocketed into the stratosphere, especially in states that dropped the Obamacare subsidies. Even staples like food and fuel are hard to keep up with. Lord help you if you have children and are trying to save for college. Projected costs for universities are getting to "buy a brand new luxury car every year" levels. Not to mention all of the school costs on top of that. It adds up so fast.

I appreciate you setting the bar on necessities. Too many people focus on the... "cheap" "luxuries" like air conditioning, smartphones, internet access.

> Housing costs have outpaced inflation

In fairness though, given inflation is the average, housing costs outpacing means something else underpaced.

You are right about "house prices", but not all housing costs. Home loan interest repayments are not included in official inflation calculations.

Sure, things like phones are much more feature packed and only slightly more expensive, so they get to be inflation adjusted as being significantly below inflation.

Imported goods.

Indeed, I'd just like to decouple my earning from the whims of corporate overlords who may decide at any moment that I am redundant. I have no serious ambitions to be a billionaire. For that dream I just buy a Powerball ticket once a year or so.

100%. It should be cool to make enough with a business to live a comfortable life, not enough to hoard LITERALLY ALL OF THE MONEY at the sake of others.

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