Rich tech CEOs don’t want for much. How’s it feel, bud?

What are you talking about? We mostly buy whole foods. I literally posted the kinds of things we’re buying in a comment below.

It’s not as if we’re taught to do that in school.

It’s crazy, isn’t it? I went to a “good” school (non-public school, better education from elementary through high school) growing up and even then our home economics courses only taught us how to sew and make pillows and shit (I’m not entirely knocking it, I can stitch up and patch clothes). The only teacher who taught financial education was a substitute we might have seen for one lesson twice a year or something. I still remember him too, Mr. Roland. He called it his Roland-omics course.

It’s been like… 25 years now or something. Mr. Roland, bro, sir, if you’re still out there, thanks for the head start. I completely bombed financially in my 20s, but recovered in my 30s after bankruptcy, in part remembering and working on a lot of the stuff you taught, and I’m thriving now.

Like, a lot of people in the thread talk about how people overspend on vehicles. Okay, I don’t disagree: America could generally do just fine with less-extravagant vehicles. But…think about how many decades and how many marketing resources have been devoted to achieving that state. There are a lot of experts with a lot of data working very hard on that.

I mean, yeah. But… consumerism. It’s literally the problem. People need to work on their susceptibility to this. Just because something is sold to you does not mean you have to buy it. I don’t buy anything major without at least a few weeks to a month of research, and longer the more expensive it is. And I’ll commonly wishlist something if I feel an overwhelming sense of desire to buy it and can’t figure out why. Sometimes I legitimately want something, but other times it’s just social or advertising pressure, memetic desire. I figure if I come back later and still want it, it’s worth considering, but often it just gets removed from the list. The desire, the want is temporary. Marketing is very good at manipulating your base desires and making something seem like a need when it’s far from it.

People and businesses will always be selling, always manipulating.You have to learn to curb your impulses and tame the monkey brain. There is a level of personal responsibility required.

I’m with you. I’m around $120-125k depending on bonuses. I could in theory make more, but I work remotely, have plenty of PTO, the job’s pretty cushy for several months the year and only rarely super busy and stressful, and I’m already saving aggressively. I haven’t capped off and could make more (heck, I’m not even senior where I am), but it would likely come with work life balance issues and a side helping of misery. No thanks.

Having enough money to live and thrive is important, but knowing when it’s enough and enjoying your life outside of it is just as important.

Same, we’re not buying anything fancy. Bulk meats, some fresh fruit and vegetables, and we buy a lot of dry and powdered goods that keep (wheat gluten, pastas, beans, etc.). Milk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, some bread. We get some snacks here and there, but minimally and generally it’s stuff that can be added to make meals anyway, like tortilla chips and the like, or dips that can be thinned to make convenient sauces.

We even make our own treats, like I make my own yogurt and peanut butter from starter and whole peanuts and cashews, and my wife makes homemade ice cream sometimes.

I’d like to see that too. It’s probably terrible. My wife and I probably spend $600 every 5-6 weeks and it’s just the two of us, no kids. And we bulk shop (Sam’s Club) so it’s cheaper. Back when we went to the supermarket it was like $500 every 2-3 weeks.

We both have health conditions, so we don’t do takeout, do all our own cooking to account for our needs. Our bill is probably a bit higher do to that, but it mostly involves avoiding salt and sugar and eating healthy as possible.

Keep your head up bro, you’ll make it. Sounds like you’re already putting in the effort and thinking about the hard stuff and the costs involved, which is more than most ever do. Lotta folks just spend and spend and put their heads in the sand when the future comes up.

Seriously, people are nuts about spending, cars and trucks especially. Some of these things cost more than my monthly mortgage, and nearly always financed with crap terms.

My last car before I got the new one in 2020 was an ‘07 Hyundai Accent hatchback and I beat it up for 14 years.

If I hadn’t moved out to the boonies and needed something that could handle at least light off-road, I’d still be driving it. I went for a 2020 KIA Sportage CUV with AWD I put some good all-terrain tires on it (Nitto Nomad Grapplers). It’s not fancy but it has an ICE engine and can handle hills, mud, etc. and goes where I need.

I get that people want fancy cars and shit, but I just can’t even. I got a decent direct drive racing wheel for my PC setup; if I wanna drive something fancy I’ll do it virtually, without the $800+ monthly payment.

Edit - yikes about the girlfriends. My wife is as frugal as I am, probably even more so. She’s very anti-materialism. Back when we were actually broke I spent a lot of time stressed and angry over financial stuff, especially over “big” purchases (like anything over $50 or $100, which is sad to think about now). Nowadays I encourage her to get stuff she wants. She rarely wants things, and when she does, it should be quality, no point in skimping. We have it and we’re talking like hundreds sometimes, neither of us is springing for huge purchases without consulting each other.

I also make a point to donate to our local food bank monthly and buy food for the holiday food drives in the area because I get I have it better than most these days and feel like I should be doing what I can to help.

I make low six figures, definitely not in survival mode. I’m probably abnormal, as I grew up with money insecurity, and had to file bankruptcy in the early 2010s.

When my income started going up, after a certain point I just started living like it didn’t. I save 30-40% of my pay every month. I’m not cheap, but I’m frugal and willing to wait for sales on stuff if it’s not something I need right this moment.

I have well over a year of expenses in a HYSA.

I bought my last car in 2020 for 24k USD fora new previous year model that was still on the lot and paid 1/3rd cash up front with a zero interest deal financing to keep the monthly cost down.

Paid off all my debts, student loans, everything but the mortgage. And since I work remotely and am an introvert, my wife and I moved to the rurals and got a mortgage for half of what it would be in our previous city. I will likely have it paid off in 2-3 years, maybe 6-7 years into a 30 year mortgage.

Living on six figures had not been all that difficult. I don’t even really think about money anymore and it’s a weight off me. It’s living on six figures while keeping up with the Joneses, celebrity influencers, and advertisers, going into massive debt for sake of appearances and potentially invoking the envy of others to prove you’re somehow better or you’ve “made it” and “deserve it” … that’s hard.

I honestly don’t understand what you’re talking about or inferring from my comment, but it sounds pretty cynical the way you describe it.

Edit - would you mind clarifying? I’m assuming I’m misunderstanding, as again, I don’t really know what you’re talking about with Christianity, rational economic theory, and Margaret Thatcher here. I’m not a Christian, nor am I British. And until I looked it up just now, I’d never even heard of rational economic theory. Not sure how it relates here.

Regarding the “reddit tier” advice on cutting people off… This is my personal lived experience. I’ll just say sometimes you’re better off without some people in your life. If you want details I’ll be happy to share, but it’s off topic to the post thread. Suffice to say, sometimes there are people who are only a net negative on you, socially, personally, mentally, and emotionally. Associating with terrible people leads to bad results.

For me the most important factor is partnership. My wife and I split up our responsibilities equitably and we each play our roles well. We’re also flexible enough to cover and support each other when needed. If you can’t do that for each other you don’t have a partnership.

This is a big one. Like… I can cook, but I hate doing it. My wife went to culinary school in her youth and enjoys it. So she does nearly all the cooking, and I generally take care of dishes and laundry. She does the periodic sweeping, and I’m more inclined to mop and/or vacuum, take out trash, and general maintenance stuff. I handle our finances for the most part, but I don’t keep up on news and info well. She has time to keep up on financial, political, and tech sector news and keeps me informed on anything important so I’m aware of things going on that could potentially affect us financially. We’ve got a balance of chores that works for us, and doesn’t leave either of us annoyed or exhausted.

I’m in my 40s. I don’t have any kids, but am married nearly 20 years, home and property owner, bills, the household handyman “fixer,” managing health conditions, etc.

1. Find work you enjoy. I know that’s easier said than done, but you spend much of your waking hours at work, and it bleeds into everything. Find a way to make it suck less. A bad job will suck the life out of you.

2. Find hobbies you enjoy. Preferably more than one, you can burn out on things you enjoy as much as you can with work.

3. Cut off negative people. Social connections are important, but be wary of social vampires, people who leave you exhausted and stressed. Cut them off, even if they’re your own family. If that’s not possible, keep as low contact as possible, put them on an information diet, and gray rock them.

4. Make time to connect with your spouse. Cuddle in bed, talk about your day. Hug. Engage.

5. Make time for exercise. Don’t say there’s no time. Don’t make excuses. Get it done. It’s one of the most important things you’ll do for your physical and mental well being, and should improve your energy levels over time.

6. If at all possible, contribute to causes that matter to you. If you have the funds, maybe donate to your local food bank, homeless shelter, animal shelter, or maybe volunteer if you don’t have funds. It can help a lot to feel like your contributing meaningfully to society and your community, and jobs may pay the bills, but don’t always provide that sense of meaning and contribution.

7. Practice gratitude. Spend some time thinking of the things you appreciate and are grateful for, the good things, even just small stuff.

None of this advice is particularly specific, but it’s mostly worked for me. Dunno what else I can suggest. You sound stressed and possibly burned out, so take some time to find your stressors that are triggering this feeling of being overwhelmed and “over it” and try to focus on the good and meaningful things.

No illusions on my part. RAID5 NAS with periodic disk archive backups.

• Books
• Audiobooks
• Retro game ROMs
• FLAC music collection
• Movies, TV, and anime series

Got what I need locally and intend to keep it that way. I’m sick of sites like Amazon with “Buy Now” buttons that are really “rent now via restrictive terms and only via devices we approve until we decide you no longer need access.”

Neat write up.

Power consumption is a big reason I ditched my full size server for an AMD mini-PC. Way more efficient with a tdp of 25w, and idles pretty low (sub-10w, I forget the exact wattage).

I’m not really doing a lot with it, it’s mostly for Plex and Jellyfin, and I’ve got a separate VM hosting home assistant. It’s running Proxmox, and plenty of headroom if I needed more VMs or containers.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. President Camacho was not smart, but he was well meaning. As soon as he knew there was someone smart enough to fix their problems he put them on task and worked to improve people’s lives.

There’s nothing well meaning from the current administration and anything good that possibly comes of it is happenstance. The current administration is not idiocracy, it’s a kleptocratic authoritarian nightmare.

I use an AMD mini-PC with Ryzen 5700u, 32GB RAM, connected with my home NAS. Similar software stack, the server is hosted via Proxmox, no issues.

I have a Zigbee antenna. Will have to double check. I’m pretty sure the lights work with the antenna, but scenes are only possible if you’ve integrated them (generally via hue through something like Homekit).

This is why it’s a great idea to refuse to install everything that’s possible, including smart switches, cameras, lights etc. that rely on the good will of some company to keep running.

Even then you can get fucked over. I’ve used Hue smart lights for years, and back when I bought them, you didn’t need an account to use them, just an app and network connection. Years later, they forced an online login for the app, requiring you to be online to interface with the bulbs. You can kind of work around it with Home Assistant, but you still need the account now to add the bulbs, and I don’t think scenes work without an account either now.

Linux install: maybe 10 or 15 minutes tops from booting USB to desktop access, login is local, network connection is optional.

New eyewitness photos, surreptitiously captured from inside The White House: