Comment by reactordev 3 days ago
I was going to say this. Money comes, money goes, that’s life. Ideally you’re smart enough to save and invest to weather these storms but for those (like myself) that are still working hard post 40, we know it’s all part of the game.
I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you.
I'm literally one of these people. My only work experience is a GSoC internship in 2021. I have yet to get hired and I've been looking for 4 years, graduated in 2022 right before ChatGPT came out. I've had no choice but to become a generalist as a consequence, and over the last year or two my interviews have dropped to zero and absolutely none of the advice I've gotten from anybody has helped. Just my personal experience.
Yeah, I'm really sorry this happened. I'm managing a bit better since I graduated in 2017, but I still pretty much had my senior trajectory yoinked from under me. The market is completely different now than back when I graduated.
I don't really have any advice for the present. We're in a storm, so do what you need to weather it. If there's any downtime you do have, use it to prepare for when (if?) the market bounces back:
1. Network. Nothing serious but just get to know people in your area. Keep in contact and they might one day have an in for some work.
2. work on personal projects. They aren't being looked at now, but it'll help you stand out when the market corrects itself.
3. consider some adjacent skillsets. At some point, if this last longer than any of us expect, it may be best to vouch for yourself. learning some graphic design can help you sell your own apps or make websites for others. Learning some art can help you sell games. embrace the generalization and be able to take small products from start to finih by youself. If you don't want to get completely out, you may want to start shaping your career around being your own boss instead of relying on others to employ you.
4. take care of your physical health. I don't know your body, and you may already be doing this. But it's always important to remind people (especially in a field like tech) that sometimes a breath of fresh air and 10 minutes of walking can make all the difference. Don't let yourself get cooped up.
Best of luck out there.
Thank you for this. Networking is tricky (at least in person networking) because I live in an area that pretty much has no tech hub at all. I call it the state nobody talks about because the only time I've ever heard it mentioned is in elections lol. But I've certainly tried to network and will continue to do so.
I can't do graphic design or UI design more generally but I absolutely love to develop software and work with tech. But I am trying to diversify because I don't know what else to do. As a result my resume puts me as a generalist which doesn't exactly help my chances... But eh. I am definitely trying to work with what I have, it's frustrating and really demotivating though.
Probably not helpful, but as a high school dropout and self-taught developer in the industry since 2012. It seems like new grads are being stuck in a similar situation to what the self taughts had to go through to break into a job. Companies care about your work-related experience and dgaf about your college experience. The advice I have is build and contract. Focus on projects and results. If worse comes to worse just set up an LLC and say you've been employed as a developer there for the last 3+ years.
Hustle culture.
I would echo this as well. When I started, I was still in high school (mid 90s) and the only thing they cared about was “make it work”.
Post college, it was about “what have you done?” vs “where did you go?” and so I demonstrated several projects I had done for the passion. A game engine. A graphics website community. Some novel networking libraries. A MUD. Finally, a database. By the time they got to the mud and database they were ringing me non-stop.
All of these projects done over a weekend or two while working other jobs to afford rent. Call centers are a personal level of hell.
I firmly believe if people in this country were smart with their money in the way Dave Ramsey preaches, the entire service sector would collapse.
> turning in 1000's of job apps struggling to find a job
This is the entire problem. It's called job hunting, not job fishing. I.e. you should be seeking out specific exact positions that you know are worthwhile and tailoring yourself for them, not casting a net and hoping.
There is value in both. Sometimes fishing will find a great job at a place you have never heard of. Often hunters come home at the end of the day having got nothing.
Hunting is still your better bet overall. figure out who has a need and position yourself to fill it. This also takes a lot more time to pull off than just sending 1000 resumes, and there is no guarantee. there is generally a mix of course, you start by casting a net to see what is there, and then when there is a potential bite you start tailoring your resume to that potential. Not all leads will result in something. Who you know is always important.
I'm gonna have to hold your hand when I tell you this: when you tell the younger generation to "save" or "invest" they are going to walk away from that conversation knowing they were just speaking with one of the most mind-numbingly naive Olds they're going to encounter in probably the next several months.
Please, if you ever want any respect from anyone younger than you ever again in your entire life, do not say those words again.
At some point you are going to have to grow up and take matters into your own hands instead of blaming everyone for your situation.
I’m not old. Just wise.
I appreciate the point you're trying to make, and I agree taking responsibility for one's own life circumstances is the only way to improve them, but surely you understand that 'save and invest' is wholly unsuitable advice for someone with no disposable income or no income at all.
Who else is responsible for you?
You have two options. Continue to point fingers and complain and be broke, or start putting $100/mo in VOO and save what little money you have for your future?
I know it sucks. I know income inequality is huge. I know the only way out of this is to put in sweat equity. I know the only way to put food on the table is to have a second job at a gas station. I’ve been there. However, as much as you DON’T want to hear it - the only way out of your mess is by you working your way out of your mess.
This is so clique it's painful.
Just grow up. Bootstraps! I did it, why can't you?
Well first off, you didn't do it, you got fucked up the ass and asked for more. Your parents and their parents lived in an America where one person could own a home, multiple cars, and care for a large family. They lived in an America where layoffs did not exist, where shareholders were at the bottom of the totem pole, and where companies like GE prided themselves in how much money they gave to their employees.
We now live in an America where GE has been run into the ground, dragged through hell, revived, and then damned again, only for the demon that did it to be praised as a Capitalist God - a template, an alchemist of money, who could seemingly create value out of thin air.
Of course, nobody has stepped back and asked what "value" we're measuring. Not that it matters, because whatever you measure, GE don't got it.
You could have been better off, but you weren't. You're complacent enough, but baby this train goes downtown. There's no reversing course. However hard it was for you, it will only get harder.
Of course, this is big picture stuff. Small picture, can you do things to help your situation? Of course you can. But those things become harder, they become rarer, they become more elusive.
Just get a job and you'll be good! Oh wait no, that doesn't work anymore. Just go to college and you'll be good! No wait, that doesn't work either. Well, just own a home, that's the path to financial freedom! Um, well, actually no not that either. Well just invest in the stock market!
Yes, great idea! I wonder how long that will last! I wouldn't hold your breath.
The only thing they can control is themselves and their habits though.
I’m not avoiding the fact that the economy is fucked. I’m fully aware. It’s up to you how much you’re willing to continue to pay or what you’re willing to sacrifice. It sucks, but the only thing you can control is yourself.
This is so condescending and infantilizing of young people. Of course many of them have it hard. They’re not the first, and they won’t be the last, but they’ll figure it out.
I graduated right before the collapse in 2008, and I’ve spent the last 17 years hustling, scraping, and clawing to make, save, and invest every dollar I could. It wasn’t easy, and after a divorce and a recent layoff, it’s still not. Particularly in one of the most expensive cities in the world, with kids and child support.
I worry a lot about my kids and their future economic prospects. I don’t want them to suffer, but the reality is that suffering comes for all of us, and saving and investing has been good advice for millennia. Blaming others and refusing to take responsibility for your own life and predicament has never been good advice. I hope my kids have the strength of character to resist the learned helplessness you’re offering here.
What's condescending is telling a whole generation of people who are working two jobs and barely able to make rent to "save".
I'm older than you and now doing fine AND able to save/invest but after multiple once-in-a-lifetime events that reset all of my progress each time, the last thing I need to hear from some out-of-touch old person is bullshit avocado toast pull yourself up by your bootstraps comments.
Wait, so the entire generation is working two jobs, or they're unable to find work? I constantly hear both...which is it?
And no one here said anything about avocado toast or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Sounds like you're just making assumptions and ranting against a strawman.
Serious question: if your kids were in the situation you're talking about, struggling to pay rent, and you couldn't help them financially, what advice would you give them? What would you hope they'd do? I'm genuinely curious.
So you have two options. One, you can change your habits and save your money. Two, you can get a higher paying job and save your money.
Both options require effort and discipline. If someone working two jobs can’t make rent, then who is to blame for it not working out? Society? The government? Your landlord? Who? Who do you be angry towards if not yourself?
It’s out of touch because they are out of touch. I was out of touch. We all go through this and realize this is it. This is all there is. This is life. Welcome to being fully grown.
As I’ve said before - I’m here for the revolution if that’s what it takes. I’ll be on the front. I’m not rich. I’m not a home owner. I just know there’s only one path carved and they’re at the bottom of the slide hoarding it, taxing us more for each body down.
Capitalism is a disease but it’s been that way for multiple millennia. Humans vs humans. Survival of the fittest. Stuff they don’t teach in private school. Only the school of hard knocks. So, again, who do we blame, if not ourselves? Why do we buy the boomer products? Why do we subscribe to the boomer media? Why do we put up with it?
I'm a bit over 40, not liking parts of my FAANG job, worried I'll lose it, and worried no where in the industry is as fun as 12 years ago, but being on the low end of Fat FIRE makes it a lot easier.
FI is more valuable than RE. After three years or so I got the itch again and decided to self fund my own thing. Also looking back on around 10 years ago more fondly..
Yeah; I've heard a few people say versions of you get bored if you retire early, and I've soon to be retirees talk about how the people they know who retired to go do nothing just wasted away.
I like tech; my challenge now is finding a gig with interesting work and a good work-life balance and p75 pay. That, and knowing when I actually have enough net worth to have more freedom. The problem is you never think it's enough, but not because of greed, but because of fear.
Boredom is a personality trait IMHO. Some of us never get bored, there's only lack of time and funds for hobbies and exploring.
I know a lot of people who retired early and are not bored. I know other people who went back to work (not always the same job) just because they needed something to do. People are different. If you need a boss to keep you busy doing something then you shouldn't retire. If you can find plenty of things to do in life (hobbies, travel...) then you can retire. Without knowing you I can't say what is right.
Of course your job/boss matters. Some are worse than others.
> Also looking back on around 10 years ago more fondly
When the work didn't suck and the product didn't suck.
Being FI helped me out greatly in December 2020 when My company laid off half of my team and expected me to take on double the load, including lots of extra after hours on-call support. I had a pretty great time not working for ~3 years during Covid. However, I am back to work after an old friend and boss offered me a WFH job that I couldn't refuse. He has since retired so I will stick around until current management pisses me off again, they downsize me or I just get sick of logging into teams/outlook at 7AM every morning.
That advice isn't correct for someone who is just finishing school now. They need to stay alive in a down ecconomy where they can't find a job.
In a couple years when things recover (or at least they find a job) it starts to be good advice. Even then I question max 401k - time works for the young and so a maxed 401k makes for too much money in retirement and not enough to enjoy now. Save for retirement yes, but max is too much when you are young - and if you keep saving will always be too much. Max 401k is good for the rich, or those who didn't start young and so their accounts are way behind.
>Even then I question max 401k - time works for the young and so a maxed 401k makes for too much money in retirement and not enough to enjoy now.
Except the 401k is so tax advantaged that you are foolish to not use it as your basis for financial security. Pre-tax money + employer contributions mean 401k is far and away the fastest method of building up a significant chunk of capital to protect yourself from hardship. Yes there are penalties for early withdraw, but they come out far less than what you would alternately be able to build up with just post-tax savings from your paycheck.
Again, how much money do you need? At some point you are taking a risk, and I don't know any seer/medium/prophet/God/gods who both are talking and I trust (plenty are talking that I don't trust). Even if follow your plan of emergency savings from the 401k, you still don't need to max things out as you should be taking some risk as odds are it won't happen anyway - frankly if things get that bad you should spend more time enjoying life now as your life after that emergency will be bad no matter what and so in the worst case you should save less.
And how are those who are not saving, affording to put down money for down payment and closing costs?
Saving for retirement doesn’t necessarily mean 401k but you can borrow from your 401k for down payment assistance so you really should be saving for your eventual retirement from day 1.
Only if you bid on the same houses. Bid on a smaller house.
Don't forget too that inflation works for you! If you save and get in a nice house early and the STAY THERE (I can't emphasize enough how important this is - sometimes life forces you to move, but avoid it), your payments measured against inflation will go down - just put that difference into a 401k (that is don't do a cash out refinance along the way as so many do) and in 30 years the house is paid off and your have a great retirement account.
When you are in the early years the above plan looks impossible, but time is your friend.
Only to those who refuse to hear it. They will continue to ignore the advice while those who hear it put it into practice and when you’re both 50, they will have their house, a retirement account. While you’ll be bidding on your starter home.
Others are criticizing you but the reality is that people usually spend more and save less than they could. There are plenty of people with modest income who manage to build a decent retirement. But it takes discipline. You have to be okay with sacrificing for the future.
As an "Old" who was a kid in the late 70s to early 90s, I'm telling young folks that there is no first world poverty like there was then. Not just because "we" were poor, but because you couldn't get "stuff" anyway. Like, the biggest TV I ever saw back them was 25". Nobody had a computer. Unemployment across the board was high. I saw my first kiwi fruit or avocado when I was 10. Clothes were expensive (even thrift / store brand). "Stuff" of any kind was expensive or non existent.
Yesterday my BIL threw a perfectly working tower PC in the recycling because he couldn't find anyone (not even a charity shop) to take it. Last time I was at e-waste I saw half a dozen 42 inch TVs that I'm willing to bet we're working.
However we were wealthy in one way: we had a stable home, and optimism. I may have had old clothes, one pair of worn shoes and a 4th-hand uncool bicycle, but there was no question of ever losing the roof over my head. And there was a future that looked like it was full of possibilities. "Stuff" was getting cheaper and more available. I remember our family being able to afford our first microwave oven. Our first VCR (1991). We didn't get rich, things got cheaper.
Today, it's like we're looking at the future as if we're already post-peak, and it's all downhill from here. There's tons of stuff around but nobody wants it. People have also lost the positive attitude, optimism. It'll get you through a lot of bad times. Years and years of shit. Lose optimism, and it's all bleak no matter how big your TV is.
If I could choose a safe to be reborn in, I'd take "our" poverty of the past over this.
In the part of the world I'm form, my childhood of the 90's to early 00's was exactly the same, and I experienced explosive increase in "stuff" surrounding me. Going from landline phones and phonebooths as status quo - to mobile internet just in 10 years. But I digress. Your point made me wonder - is it possible that the culture of material wealth - is the problem here? Could we have stepped on a poisonous flower - and now suffocating in the abundance of stuff we dreamed about as young people, now realizing, but not brave enough to admit that there is no meaning in it? And the optimism we had then, was a byproduct of a tighter communities, common struggles and just the architecture of life where we had to interact and care for one another more?
Are we post peak?
Everyone is worried about AI for good reason but if he's the promise is true then we see significant productivity improvements.
The pie might be shared out worse than even today but there would be more pie.
We are in a period of deglobalisation, but also a period of reorganisation. Today's supply chain is less efficient than 2021s. We are materially poorer as a result. But after the dust settles, it will be a lot more efficient than it is right now. Even with no ai.
Potentially we are in a dip. Stuff for worse, but it can get better.
I'm younger than you - probably median HN age - but I've felt the exact same way for 10 or so years now. Just like you're saying, my generation has it objectively very good from a consumerist abundance PoV. Part of it is lower quality materials and manufacturing, but even if you disregard that factor, it almost certainly still holds. But that increase in material wealth hasn't brought happiness; if anything, it has done the opposite.
The optimism decline feels like it really started around 2001, and the downward curve has steadily continued ever since, down and down. Worst of all, it seems completely warranted, even if you try to look at it as objectively as possible, disabling news-headline-induced emotions as we're all prone to. The world has gotten too complex, everything too intertwined, making for an increasingly volatile and dangerous system.
And besides that major trend, it's also just many of the smaller things getting worse by the year - enshittification of both physical and digital goods, declining government services and so on.
>the reality is that people usually spend more and save less than they could.
You can't save your way out of rent being 70, 80+% of your paycheck. For my area, minimum wage is $18 and your best hope for rent is sharing a $3k 2 bedroom apartment. quick napkin math suggests $2400 take home pay and ~$1800 eaten up between the rent split, utilities, gas, and the most basic rice and beans diet of "groceries". Not even including potential health insurance or car notes or student loans.
If you don't have the fortune of a family who'd house you for free/dirt cheap then you don't have much to save. You're already sacrificing for the present.
Renters, make sure you vote. NIMBY really hurts you when the house owners who vote make it impossible for you to get affordable rent. Rental properties get higher property taxes: rent goes up, or the quality of the house goes down. When cheap apartments cannot legally be built: there are no cheap apartments.
Some of the YIMBY stuff is coming in the form of stricter environment regulations and even union labor rules and high minimum wage. Looking at you, NYC, where building 99 unit buildings and no more is the norm because otherwise the wage becomes $40/hr. It's called 485-x.
There's no escape in the US from the problem. It's either California with weird complicated property tax laws that make no one sell, Texas with unlimited and disgusting urban sprawl, Florida with shoddy construction, or NYC with big headaches tied to strict building incentives for tax breaks.
The answer could be ugly - less regulation, but now you're going red and not blue, which is very much the opposite attitude that many pro urbanization folks tend to be.
I'm not sure, other than I think the issue is that it's not Not Enough Building. It's that we allow investors to buy everything up. In NYC this year, 40 percent of condo transactions were without financing contingency. Explain that one.
> I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you.
401k max is $24,500. How much do you expect a person to earn to be able to max it out? And what percentile income is that at the bottom and top of the age range you consider “young”?
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-age-calculator/
Tldr: you are telling almost every 20 to 30 year old to not party.
If you are offered a 401k, you have the means to max it out. People who make less than $60k aren’t usually offered 401k’s.
I’m not telling you to forgo partying. I’m telling you to pay yourself first, before you do. Don’t max out a credit card for a trip. Don’t cover the table’s check when you only have $200. Be responsible, but still have fun.
>If you are offered a 401k, you have the means to max it out.
Given rent, saving for house downpayment, student loan payments, auto loan payments, and possible childcare/healthcare costs, I don’t think we live in the same reality (based on income statistics). Perhaps you are only referring to doctors/software engineers/lawyers/IB/PE employees?
>I’m not telling you to forgo partying. I’m telling you to pay yourself first, before you do. Don’t max out a credit card for a trip. Don’t cover the table’s check when you only have $200. Be responsible, but still have fun.
This is very different than:
>Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party.
> Given rent, saving for house downpayment, student loan payments, auto loan payments, and possible childcare/healthcare costs, I don’t think we live in the same reality (based on income statistics).
These things all come after savings, not before. If you can't afford them using post-saving money, then you need to get a better job, or a cheaper living conditions. Easier said than done, I totally agree, especially nowadays. But that's the mentality you need to really take saving seriously.
A younger person shouldn't max out their 401k unless they are rich. When you are young time works for you and so a maxed out 401k is a very large retirement in the future (which you might not even live to see!). The max is useful for older people who didn't start young.
Worst advice ever. Maxing out early is like throwing a boulder down a mountain as opposed to a stone. The sooner you start the better in the long run.
What they have to avoid is cashing it out when times get hard.
I have known several people who died before they reached 50. I have known a number of others who retired early because the doctor (correctly) said their cancer is incurable - they had 9 months to enjoy all that savings. I knew someone who planed a great retirement, and her health declined such that even though she lived to 76 (just under average) her entire retirement was spent making regular trips to the hospital and even when not in the hospital her pain was such that she couldn't enjoy anything in life (her husband had a few years to enjoy the savings after she died).
If you know for sure exactly how long you will live and how good your quality of life will be then the advice to max out early is probably good. However you don't know - average advice is good for average but if you are an outlier it isn't useful and you don't know. As such you need to compromise and part of that means you enjoy a little more now when you know you can, as opposed to a lot more in the future if you live that long. Exactly what they means is personal of course, but this conflict is why I would suggest a more modest retirement.
In all of those cases, all of that 401k money is freely available to use. They would be dead if it wasn’t for the fact they saved and had it. How hard is this to understand? It’s designed to trap your money on purpose so you save it because you’ll end up spending it and not having the resources for your health in the end.
Besides, once you have a healthy 401k, you’ll realize there’s things you can do with it in the short term. Like borrow for a down payment. Use it for hospital bills. Funerals. Hardship withdrawals. Even a Roth has this. Saving vs spending will always be the story of the grasshopper and the ants.
You telling someone with 50k in debt, turning in 1000's or job apps struggling to find a job they studied 4+ years for and not being able to even pay rent to "just save"... is exactly how we got into this situation to begin with.