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Comment by tekla | Hacker News Reader

Woah, you can't do that. It only requires only no effort to save money when you have tech salaries.

I've got to admit, the most difficult part of saving money is that first you need to be able to comfortably afford your basic expenses, in particular, housing.

No, the most difficult part is it's so easy to want to live beyond your means. Take a look around your city. If it's anything like mine, you will find people who are working fast food jobs and you'll find other people who are both are doctors making over half a million dollars a year and yet, at the end of the month, both are having troubles finding enough money to pay all the bills. Unless you are at the very bottom of that, you are already living beyond what need. I don't blame you for wanting more, but be honest, you are spending more money than you need to.

It's not that difficult.

If you live anywhere in the developed world, and you are reasonably able bodied, you can certainly save sufficient money for your long term needs.

there is maybe 1% of the population who can't do it, for everyone else it's a choice.

It requires relatively no effort just discipline for anyone to save money and live within their means. yet, most don’t most always have an excuse. Within the design and engineering department that I worked in more than half of the people did not save always had an excuse even before they were married and had kids.

Just setting aside 25% over time adds up to a sizable amount.

25% is a huge amount. Yes, it adds up. Over time, you don't get me wrong. But you need to ask, should you do that much?

Everyone will die, despite great medical advances over the past century. Someone who lives past 5 and doesn't die in childbirth, or an accident - only got a couple years of life expectancy. You should be thinking of saving money as this is something we're going to spend in the future. The goal is not to get the most money on paper. The goal is to... Well, you figure out your own goals. I don't know the right answer for you, but to try and enjoy life with the money you make.

Alternatively, since we are all going to die, would you rather not spend fewer of your years slogging away at work? And would you rather not be able to give your children a financial springboard so that they don't need to struggle as much during their early career?

Possibly, but why would you be saving up to millions of dollars? I mean, if you save 25% until you're, say, 40, 45, and then retire, that's fine. But people are talking about saving 25% until they're worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.

And not all jobs are a slog. There are bad parts about every job, but there are a lot of jobs that people enjoy, at least on the good days. People also often find that they enjoy talking to other people and a job gives them lots of reasons to talk to other people.

Retiring could be good but there are also a lot of people who don't know how to keep their life busy and they end up dying of boredom not long after they retire.

The early retirees I know seem satisfied. None of them appear to be dying of boredom, either.

The mindset of people seeking early retirement is not compatible with the mindset of a person who wants to accumulate wealth endlessly; saving until you have enough is the whole point.

Most people don't have that discipline. If you asked the average person to "just" save 25% of their earnings, they'd look at you like you had two heads.

A fairly easy method is, when you get a pay-rise, setup an automatic payment that pulls out the extra money you now get, and auto invest it.

Otherwise you end up with what's called lifestyle creep, if you leave it into your bank account you will always find something to spend it on.

It does depend a bit on how much money you were making, but I'd guess it applies to most here.

most people don’t have the discipline to floss their teeth

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