I've always found that "living at my means" has paid dividends. To many folks, 'round these parts, they'd consider it "living below my means," but that's mostly because they "live beyond their means."

I avoid personal debt like the plague. If that means living in a small house, and driving an old car, then so be it.

I've also found that learning to deliver software, as opposed to just "writing" software, has made me much more valuable.

Shipping isn't "fun," and many younger developers don't have the patience for it; but, when the rubber meets the road, shipping is what it's all about.

I don’t understand how delivering software is related to “how can I prepare for hard economic times?”

Let me tell you, as one of the highest performing team members in every organization I’ve been at: if a manager doesn’t care about you, no amount of performance will help you. It didn’t help me.

And whether a manager cares about you is mostly luck of the draw. Sure, there’s politics at play. But the most common situation is that you’re not really helpful to their career mobility.

In that situation, “learn to ship software” is the opposite of helpful. If your manager doesn’t have your back, and you can sense this, you need to look for a new job. Because I guarantee you’ll be the first to go. It all comes down to whether some dude in a proverbial suit likes you.

(Isn’t it interesting how it’s always some dude? I feel like women would be better suited to actually caring about team members.)

You should at least mention to those young devs that performance is one of the least important aspects of being a part of a team, for 97% of companies. It’s table stakes. Raising the stakes won’t help you if you can’t play the game.

As for preparing for hard economic times, my advice is pretty simple. Exploit the good times, and never assume it will last. If you can’t survive losing your income for three months, make changes. That’s pretty much it.

> Let me tell you, as one of the highest performing team members in every organization I’ve been at: if a manager doesn’t care about you, no amount of performance will help you. It didn’t help me.

I agree with the other comment that performance is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

You build your own brand. A good manager helps with that. A poor manager takes the credit and you aren't acknowledged.

I would say performance is a (more or less) necessary but not sufficient condition. We've all heard of cases where managers promote useless schmoozers, but my sense is that performance is still very very useful for being someone your manager cares about. If only because it more easily allows them to justify their patronage to their manager.

Generally fair advice, but the premise isn't always true.

I've had the funny situation for the last few years of my manager, being the CEO, doesn't like me personally. Most of my managers have, and the issue kind of come down to a culture clash where he's a salesperson and I'm an engineer, and I wouldn't put up with a habit of his of not paying his invoices on time which he's thankfully grown out of.

However he's seen that I deliver at the highest level, and he so he pragmatically keeps sending me projects so he can take his clip (it's a consultancy). This has continued for well over two years and even reached a steady state where I'm pretty sure it could be ongoing if I wanted, however the cost is he's pretty mercenary about it all and has consistently given me rescue projects others have left half finished.

So I basically agree with what you're saying, I think it's true generally. However reality is very complex with lots of individual situations that are out of ordinary.

Well, for one thing, it means that you have no problem hanging your own shingle. This is useful, for example, if you are an older fellow, and no one wants to play with you.

> I avoid personal debt like the plague. If that means living in a small house, and driving an old car, then so be it.

Going into debt that you can pay off and will make you a profit is good - because making a profit is literally the thing that gets you through bad times. (That's why having savings be 100% cash is riskier than investing - you are 100% guaranteed to not have it go up.) And recent years' zero-to-negative interest rates were the time to borrow.

But going into debt for a depreciating asset like a car is a bad idea, yes. A house is complicated, because land value likely means it's profitable, except that you can't sell it because you're living in it.

Debt is leverage. When times are good you are great, when they are not and the repo man cometh, they are awful. The banks always win via bailout or not.

Staying debt free is the only safe place, you have flexibility.

Think of it like crossing an ocean. When the winds are good let out the sails to be propelled along, when the storms come take it the sales and ride out the weather. If you want to do it all under your own steam without a bit of help, well it's a long paddle across an ocean so you will be confined to travelling a short distance in your life.

I feel like there’s a middle ground to be had here. You obviously don’t want to be over leveraged, but I don’t think a small amount of debt is inherently bad. I have a mortgage and some student debt, but they are a modest amount of my household income. You work to pay them off and save up an emergency fund, but the reality is that most Americans would never own a house without a mortgage. At a certain point, debt is essentially inevitable.

> But going into debt for a depreciating asset like a car is a bad idea, yes.

This is just as stupid as:

"But going into debt for a depreciating asset like a computer is a bad idea, yes."

They are both investments in potential tools. For many, an investment in a car can ultimately be cheaper than most other modes of transportation. Just like how companies finance their data centers with debt. Of course, it does not mean any car. Hell, it does not even imply a new car. But the advice of using debt to finance a car is always a bad idea is just patently false.

I think you may be missing the qualifier that actually makes this advice true.

>But going into debt for a depreciating asset like a car is a bad idea, yes.

It's important to not go into debt for frivoulous consumption. If you buy an old car, it actually doesn't depreciate very much as long as it's kept in working order. The same with a computer, if I go into debt to get the new M1 Max because I need a computer to code, that's not very smart.

I can code just fine on a $300 used ThinkPad, and I can travel just fine on a $4000 used car.

If I'm unfortunate enough to really need either of those for income geneartion but can't afford it, then it makes sense to borrow for it, but only to get the minimum you need to get the work done.

Of course it's much more fun to get a newish F150 and the latest Apple gadget on a 96 month loan...

The problem is that qualifier isn't correct. The test needs another qualifier, it should be a depreciating, non productive asset.

Many assets that are incredibly productive depreciate. If you're making a living as a house painter you definitely want to invest in paint brushes rather than smearing the paint all over the walls with your hands. The fact that the brushes wear out pretty quickly is irrelevant. Same goes for an auto mechanic buying sets of wrenches, and possibly the developer getting a much faster computer that increases their productivity.

Fact is that owning a reliable car is a prerequisite to many jobs and living situations.

The advice is usually given around consumption type "assets". Like don't go into debt to buy a jetski or golf clubs or something. It's a mistake to transfer that logic to productive assets.

You don’t take a loan to buy paint brushes, you may take a loan to bootstrap a painting business - the business is not depreciating.

I agree though, you’d take a loan to buy eg a CNC mill, and you’d expect it to depreciate. On the other hand, you could buy a CNC mill second hand and avoid the large initial depreciation.

Yes that's correct of course, I have always only considered this as personal advice, not a buisness advice.

> For many, an investment in a car can ultimately be cheaper than most other modes of transportation.

That's a joke, right? It's entirely dependent on one's location, and i think for more people here on HN the inverse would be true ( I'm assuming the majority of users here live in or around big cities, where tech was traditionally concentrated). In well developed big cities ( so excluding the many failures at urban design and planning in the US) public transit is at least decent, and i don't think there are any places around the world where owning a car is cheaper than paying for public transit ( with the caveat that depending on how you measure the time spent could alter that)

> i don't think there are any places around the world where owning a car is cheaper than paying for public transit ( with the caveat that depending on how you measure the time spent could alter that)

That's the world's biggest caveat. Investment in a modest car that stops you from spending 3 hours each way commuting over 4 separate bus routes from exurban home to exurban job is about as high a return on money as you're ever going to see. Not to mention grocery shopping kids and whatever else.

There are painfully few places in the U.S. where this isn't true. I prefer your model and I live in one of those places (Brooklyn) but let's be honest here about how the world actually works.

>Investment in a modest car that stops you from spending 3 hours each way commuting over 4 separate bus routes from exurban home to exurban job is about as high a return on money as you're ever going to see.

I know your example is exaggerated but even so making decisions about where to live and work like that is on a parallel with making poor decisions about your finances.

> I know your example is exaggerated but even so making decisions about where to live and work like that is on a parallel with making poor decisions about your finances.

Except for the fact that non-terrible housing in U.S. cities comes at a premium, and in the U.S. the majority of jobs are now in the suburbs, not the cities.

> I know your example is exaggerated but even so making decisions about where to live and work like that is on a parallel with making poor decisions about your finances.

The example isn't exaggerated at all. Unless you happen to live on a straight bus line to work, it's going to add many hours to take a bus downtown and then out to the office.

Office locations come and go, a house is for the long haul. You're not going to sell and move houses every time you chance jobs.

Many people have circumstances that don't allow them to choose the exact place they live.

Also living in less desirable areas often has a lower cost of living - offsetting the cost of a car.

It's definitely a trade off, in general the further out you are the bigger house you can buy. I strongly suspect people don't make the right tradeoff. The emotional draw of the big house overwhelms any thoughts about the long and expensive commute.

Chances are pretty high that living further from the city with a car is more cost effective than living in a city near transit with no car for a lot of people and jobs.

That, of course, is why people do it. I wish it wasn't true, I wish things were like Switzerland where every remote mountain town still has fast and effective connections to the national transit system. But they aren't, this is America.

> That's the world's biggest caveat.

Exactly. Not having a car is only a money saver if you place next to zero value on your time and what you can do with it.

If I switched to taking public transit to work, the additional childcare costs alone from the increased hours I'd be outside of the house would likely negate any savings I might have otherwise achieved.

Often on public transport, you can usefully do far more than you can driving, so it's not entirely wasted. I used to joke I was most productive on a train and so should set up my office on one.

Similarly for active transport, you get free exercise.

I live in Seattle. To get to work in Bellevue, I have 1.15hr commute by bus + walking.

When I lived in SF, I had a 1.5-2hr Caltrain/bike commute to Palo Alto. Missing a train would cost me 45 min. A car getting stuck in the tracks or a suicide would cost 1-2 hours.

A car currently saves me 2hrs, enabling me to have more time to cook healthy food myself and visit the gym with cadence. Imho, a car pays me in dividends.

I could live closer to work, but it’s difficult to socialize in those areas.

I'm guessing GP was thinking of non-US residents when making their claim (although I'm very skeptical of the implication that non-US-based citydwellers make up the majority of HN).

Non-US based city dwellers+ US city dwellers from the few cities that get public transit right-ish, is, in my opinion, the majority here.

What cities in the US get public transit right-ish? Nyc and ??

DC and Atlanta just off the top of my head.

Atlanta is only good if you actually live near a MARTA line.

Lol, you clearly don't live in the U.S.

With the exception of Manhattan, and some parts of D.C. and SF, no car = no job.

That's why i said that most cities in the US are massive urban design failures. NYC, DC, SF have mostly decent transit, and I'm willing to bet there are more Americans here on HN who live around there than outside of around there. When you add the people from European or Asian or African cities with good transit, i presume we're in the majority.

> NYC, DC, SF have mostly decent transit, and I'm willing to bet there are more Americans here on HN who live around there than outside of around there.

I'd take that bet. America is a big place and unlike Europe, our population is not concentrated in one or two major cities. There are huge numbers of tech jobs in places most people outside the U.S. have never heard of. Just as a for instance, there are over 15 cities in the U.S. larger than San Francisco, like Houston, TX or Jacksonville, FL.

I'm not going to argue about urban design, I agree the U.S. could do much better on that front. But for now, a car is an absolute necessity for the vast majority of Americans, including Americans who work in tech.

I made it around just fine in Seattle, Vancouver, DC (Tenlytown), and Nashville without a car. Bikes and ubers. Everywhere but Nashville was pretty easy to be a person, and Nashville was a PITA at times but doable.

> Bikes and ubers.

Ubers are cars, just with an extremely high markup.

I had a coworker so proud of not spending money on car. So he commuted on Uber. Over $50/day. That's over $1000/month!

> Ubers are cars, just with an extremely high markup.

This should be be on a billboard.

You could even take it a step further, ubers are worse than just owning a car. If I drive my car somewhere, I stop driving it when I get there. Ubers on the other hand, have to deadhead between different pickups and drop offs in addition to the mileage racked up during the pickups and drop offs themselves. So folks using uber are contributing more vehicle miles on a per trip basis than folks who are using their own vehicles.

> That's a joke, right?

Certainly not a joke. Unless you live in Manhattan, or happen to luck into a house within walking distance of your job (ignoring pandemic WFH), then in order to maintain a lucrative career you need to get to work, in time, without spending most of your day waiting for buses. That means investing in a car.

A car by itself is of course a terrible non-investment. But if it brings home that high salary, it becomes an investment.

I live in a big city with excellent public transportation. But I need 1h to the workplace with them and 30 min with the car. An monthly tickets cost around 80€ here. The car with gas assurance etc 300€. I win around 10h time if i take the car … so 10h*my hourly rate … its a win win for me, sorry public transport ;)

Not to mention even crappy used cars appreciated over the past two years.

Your advice might be okay for good times (investing, buying land, houses).

But in hard economic times, the global economy will be doing badly and therefore most investments will too, even housing (see 2008). Going into debt that you then invest is doubly risky: you have debt, plus you have a risky investment.

Saving cash is actually indeed the best way to prepare for hard times.

I apologize for being blunt, but you have it backwards.

A the adage goes: buy low sell high. In what people equate with "good economic times," prices are high, but in hard economic times everything is on sale!

That said, firstly and foremost we should all make sure to have enough savings to ride out hard economic times—including personal ones. That is, enough to pay our monthly expenses for a year or so, in case we become unable to work or we do not want to take income from investments (because say, the market is down). How long you should be able to last is a mater of individual comfort level, but IMHO, no less than 6 months.

Too much savings in the bank however—and this I believe relates back to the point being made by the original commenter—is actually not good. That money is losing value, and therefore so are you. You should invest it somehow, but that's not the only way. Another way is taking on debt, if that debt is the sort that generates a profit. We're not talking about car loans here (unless of course your a car dealer).

Please forgive me if I misinterpreted your point, but I felt it important to make this clarification.

> A the adage goes: buy low sell high.

Don't forget the other adage--Don't time the market.

> That said, firstly and foremost we should all make sure to have enough savings to ride out hard economic times—including personal ones. That is, enough to pay our monthly expenses for a year

Having a year of expenses is good practice in general. I'm not sure that qualifies one as ready for actual hard times at a societal level--not just a stint of unemployment, but global depression, accelerating price inflation, or even general European war and the rationing that could follow.

> Too much savings in the bank however—and this I believe relates back to the point being made by the original commenter—is actually not good. That money is losing value, and therefore so are you.

There are ways to save that protect you (somewhat) from inflation. Like short term bonds (ex: from treasurydirect.gov).

> Another way is taking on debt, if that debt is the sort that generates a profit. We're not talking about car loans here (unless of course your a car dealer).

Unless there is some full-proof investment scheme that you're aware of, this would essentially be gambling. If you take on debt and your profit-generating scheme fails (which is certainly possible in the "hard times" scenario that OP has envisioned), then you're worse off--you've got debt to service, on top of everything else.

Thanks for the clarification marcusverus.

> Don't forget the other adage--Don't time the market.

I did mean to to imply trying to time the market. The commenter wrote "Your advice might be okay for good times (investing, buying land, houses)." To me this says that it's OK to invest in good times but not bad. This in fact boils down t a form of attempted market timing—and the worst kind at that! Of course you should buy when times are good, but should also not stop buying when times are bad. If anything, bad times should be viewed as an opportunity. Hopefully you've prepared well to be in a position to take advantage!

> Having a year of expenses is good practice in general. I'm not sure that qualifies one as ready for actual hard times at a societal level--not just a stint of unemployment, but global depression, accelerating price inflation, or even general European war and the rationing that could follow.

I also did not intend to imply that having a years worth of expenses qualifies as preparation for "actual hard times." I was responding to the above comment, not the OP. That said, a year of expenses could be stretched for an awfully long time if needed.

> There are ways to save that protect you (somewhat) from inflation. Like short term bonds (ex: from treasurydirect.gov).

Naturally. This is an investment, which you should not avoid. We are saying the same thing. The only difference is that the commenter does not recognize debt as being good in some cases, but I would argue that not all debt is dangerous. If that were the case our economy would cease to function!

> Unless there is some full-proof investment scheme that you're aware of, this would essentially be gambling. If you take on debt and your profit-generating scheme fails (which is certainly possible in the "hard times" scenario that OP has envisioned), then you're worse off--you've got debt to service, on top of everything else.

No fool-proof scheme, and not gambling. If you have made solid investments, including those based on debt, and have given yourself enough runway to ride out hard-times (and of course this includes your debt repayments), then you should have no reason to panic or feel burdened.

* did not mean to imply

There could be contracts that generate future value but oneself needs money atm to fullfill it. I know still gambling… but with little risk depending on the conditions

> but in hard economic times everything is on sale!

In sufficiently hard economic times, everything is on sale because no one has any idea what will still be around tomorrow and what is going to drop to zero.

Putting war and personal risk of injury or forced relocation aside, which go beyond hard economic times, anyone with a sufficiently long-term view will not fall trap to "not having any idea about what will still be around tomorrow and what is going to drop to zero."

Investing, buying property is the best during "SALES" and those occur during hard economic times.

1. Build an emergency fund. I have enough to cover about 12 months of all my expenses.

2. Avoid life style creep when you start making more money.

3. Invest pre-tax, take full advantage of 401k and IRAs (make sure your expense ratio is low in your selected funds)

4. If you need a car be reasonable, take efficiency and repair costs into consideration

5. Learn how to do basic home/car maintenance

6. Learn how to cook

The idea of emergency fund is that you are not forced to sell during hard times. It is extremely likely that total market will recover and go higher than before.

Saving cash beyond emergency fund is like setting it on fire. Every year inflation is eating it away.

Inflation will wipe out that cash though.

Honestly, it's hard to give advice since it's so specific to the region and job market, etc.

Like many US engineers can easily afford to buy a house outright with $200k+ salaries, that isn't possible as often in Europe or Asia for example.

But basically do what you can to get fixed costs that you know you can afford and stability - i.e. a fixed rate mortgage, fixed rate utilities, and trade union membership and unemployment insurance, etc.

There are very few US engineers who can afford to buy a house outright. The ones making $200K+ salaries are mostly in HCOL areas where houses are very expensive. And the ones who can afford to buy outright are usually doing so based on equity gains, not salaries.

> Like many US engineers can easily afford to buy a house outright with $200k+ salaries

That's about 100K after taxes + medical (not included in taxes in the US) and other deductions.

With houses in good markets far above $1M, nobody making $100K net is buying a house outright. Or even being able to buy a house at all.

> Saving cash is actually indeed the best way to prepare for hard times.

Cash is the worst possible holding. Inflation will destroy it.

If you feel higher inflation is coming, holding as much debt as possible is what you want.

Of course, you do want to have enough cash on hand for short-term expenses, say like a year of living. Anything beyond that is very risky.

"Going into debt you then invest" is probably the exact wording used by pathological gamblers to justify betting their house at cards. In older times, that's how people gambled their way into slavery.

"I'll borrow some money to buy the seeds I need to plant my crops" and then the harvest goes bad and you have neither food nor money to repay the debt. Suddenly the wealthy neighbor you borrowed from is taking your land to pay for it.

Buying a house gives you extreme leverage, though, and with extremely favorable tax treatment. You can put as little as $25k down on a $500k house and when the land underneath it increases in value you get to keep all the upside and pay no capital gains on up to $250k in profit ($500k if you're married). And you'll pay, what, a fixed rate of 3.5% for 30 years?

If you find a bookie giving you terms like that, then you should take them.

This is a conversation about hard economic times, when the house could very well depreciate in value, and you'll be stuck with a mortgage worth much more than the house. Remember 2008? It was caused by people assuming like this that the value of houses always goes up.

Enter hyperinflation.

Exactly. OP was asking about hard times.

If you went into fixed interest rate debt before a period of inflation, you're likely to be fine.

This is sound. The difference between "below my means" and "at/above my means" is having a bunch of cash on hand so layoffs and market crashes are annoyances rather than crises. Not everyone can do this, but if you can, it's worth it for your sanity alone.

Also learn to cook. Cooking is infinitely cheaper than eating out.

There are a lot of comments about streaming services, which is similar to "make your own coffee." You can cut all that out of your budget at the drop of a hat. It's not particularly important as long as your saving margins are significant.

>is having a bunch of cash on hand so layoffs and market crashes are annoyances rather than crises

If you really planned well, getting laid off due to market conditions can be a blessing. I've allowed myself a 3 month sabbatical before and it was amazing. My costs were higher than I wanted them to be, so I started to stress (unnecessarily really) toward the end. I'm in a much better position now though.

Edit: Health insurance w/ COBRA is the biggest cost. I wish the ACA would apply to recently unemployed people and apply the subsidized zero income rate temporarily, at least for catastrophic events.

Your edit is good information to know. I didn't realize California's ACA marketplace won't let you enroll if you lose your job and have the option for COBRA until it's exhausted.

https://www.coveredca.com/special-enrollment/

> having a bunch of cash on hand

Not the best choice if denominated in a currency that loses its purchasing power by 8% annually and whose supply is managed by the people who called the 2007 housing market as "a little frothy", the 2021 inflation as "transitory", and habitually gives in to the crack addict tantrums and demands of the market for easy money if they even hint at tapering asset purchases. These people are somewhere on the spectrum from totally incompetent to actively malicious, and trusting them to steward the value of your cash savings is pants-on-head idiocy.

Identify any and all durables and non-perishables that you know for a fact you'll use in the future. Convert your fiat into those goods as fast as you possibly can. Appliances, canned food, dry rice/beans/wheat, toothpaste, keyboards, printer toner cartridges, whatever it is you use regularly, buy it now.

If you have variable-rate debt, pay it down. Pay it down now. The next rate adjustment is going to murder you.

You can also somewhat mitigate the collapse in purchasing power by converting your worthless currency into precious or base industrial metal ETFs, or globally-diversified equities. Just bear in mind that the government will steal 15-30% of your realized "gains" (which are not actually gains, just standing still in terms of purchasing power). Your half of a grass-fed cow in the freezer and 800lbs of Jasmine Rice will be taxed at precisely 0% when you eat it.

Or you can buy TIPS or other inflation-indexed securities and gamble and pray that the bullshit PCE/CPI deflator they pull out of their ass and dramatically lowballs cost-of-living increases we actually experience doesn't put you too deep into negative real yields.

There's no real winning when both your currency and your fiscal policy is managed by sociopaths, but we can still try to mitigate the damage by escaping the currency.

Ah I can relate. I might not be the fastest, most innovative or most technical developer but I've been told my super power is getting stuff delivered. I think this comes from a combination of communication skills, requirement gathering and prioritisation, and finally, as you say, patience.

Being on my own for the last 20 years with ups and downs I can sign under everything you say. Personal debt being #1.

This is excellent advice. The number one thing you can to do to improve your financial resiliency is to avoid debt.

Over the last 50 years this has been terrible advice on balance.

With more nuance it makes sense - avoid bad debt for lifestyle that doesn't produce future economic value, and avoid an excess of investment debt but carry enough investment debt in well considered assets that you can be part of our economic systems growth which is built into our society by design and enforced by our government systems.

Your advice is great for fairly financially savvy individuals, but most of us are not especially financially savvy. For the vast majority of people simple, albeit less than perfect, advice is much better than really good, but complex, advice.

Car dealers don't give cash discounts anymore. In fact it's often the opposite because dealers get volume incentives for financing more customers through the manufacturer's captive lender. And interest rates now are often still lower than the inflation rate, so if you have good credit you're actually coming out ahead by borrowing.

Right, asking for a cash discount is going to have the salesman laughing behind your back. They might give a financing discount, but they don't want cash. So read the fine print, but it may make sense to finance a vehicle for the anti-cash discount (like a $1000 discount coming from some program run by the lender) and then pay off the loan completely after a month. Depends on fees etc if this makes sense for you, but it might.

Diversify in as many areas as you can.

In income terms, diversify away from a single source by learning new skills, training up in areas you're a bit rusty in, learning totally new ones.

In savings or investments: diversify where you put them, spread them around so you're not dependent on any one scenario.

In eating: eat more interesting and cheaper things. Become vegetarian, if you aren't already.

In exercise: drop any gym memberships, use things like body weight to train. Run one day, do yoga the next.

In your media consumption: diversify in sources but don't take this as a cue to read more. Read less, much less, but read better. Ignore social media, it's all b&&&&&t. Find one or two sources of media that are reasonably middle line, and read around a topic in a diverse way. Don't get sucked in to anything, least of all the disaster scenario stuff you'll find.

Last but most important: spend all the time you possibly can with your family. Make them your focus, not your income and "future". Be in the now as much as you possibly can. You'll only have this time with your (small) kids for a very, very short period. They'll be flying off soon. Be there for them.

Best of luck.

Diversification is indeed the best strategy, but please do not become vegetarian on a whim. Consider the health implications it involves.

Another avenue is just being more conscious about the meat you eat. There's a difference between having meat-based products as a staple food (e.g. preprocessed meat, fast food / restaurant / take-out,...) and reducing which types of meat you eat, the frequency and where you buy meat products.

For instance, a local butcher shop might offer local products, and will be more expensive. But you can offset the expense by only having meat dishes on, say, Sunday. That's just one strategy. Another is to use the left-overs in a next meal.

Historically, meat was expensive, and not eaten daily. For intsance, in the UK, "sunday roast" was originally exactly that: a meal that was only eaten on Sunday after service. Sheppard's pie was then a dish made from the left-overs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_roast

There's more to it then that, but it's a good idea to be aware that historic eating habits do yield many good ideas on how to move away from modern day meat consumption patterns predicated by the abundance cheap meat.

And let’s not forget that cheap meat is possible only because of industrial-scale mistreatment of animals, the abuse of antibiotics, mass devastation of the natural world to grow feed for said animals, etc., etc.

We reap what we sow. We’re killing Earth’s biosphere, and soon enough our own species will face its doom.

But hey, let’s get another bucket of chicken and keep stuffing our faces with hamburgers.

Being flexible about types and cuts of meat can help with the cost also. At least at supermarkets in my area, a three or four-pound piece of pork shoulder might be buy-one-get-one-free, for about the same price as a pack of six chicken wings or a small strip steak.

One semi-major home repair completely overtakes any savings on food, of course.

What do you mean? While strict vegetarian might not be the best it seems there are still more health implications to account for when eating meat.

I am very much in the valley of despair on this manner, but for me individually (and food is indeed very individual), meat consumption leads to a much greater quality of life, with perceived health benefits.

I went fully carnivore and it lead to various health improvements. While I moved away from it due to my foodie tendencies, I currently do consume mainly animal products.

I plan on doing a vegan experiment as well, but I am just not getting convinced by the vegans I listen to, so I need to do more research. As it stands, I believe eating meat that grew naturally (e.g grass fed beef as compared factory farming) is more healthy and sustainable than veganism.

You were insinuating there are negative health consequences to vegetarianism without providing any scientific evidence.

I was saying that there could be negative effects, which is evidently true since I have experienced some.

People should check what's good for them instead of blindly following information they got by osmosis. Especially with regards to health.

Yeah you said so but we still don't know what those effects are and how your food supposedly caused them. Maybe there are different explanations for why you feel better now. I do agree that this can be very individual, but that is also the danger when people talk about their experience. You won't notice the long time consequences either, by definition.

That's only a problem if I advise people will go in a certain direction (which is what the original comment did). Instead I suggested people think about their decisions.

> I need to do more research

Where will you publish the study?

My wife has health issues that mean many foods will cause her gastrointestinal pain or worse. Unfortunately many of the meat substitutes that vegans/vegetarians eat will hurt her.

Your wife is not the norm and it does not give us any general info about vegetarianism being supposedly unhealthy.

Logic check: grandparent's observation, if verified, disproves a universal claim that vegan/vegetarian is healthier.

This is general information.

Logic check... Get off your high horse mate. Nobody is claiming that the vegan/vegetarian diet is the best diet for absolutely everybody, that would be an absurd claim. Outliers can and will exist. Eg. You have people that get health issues from eating onions, it doesn't mean that onions aren't healthy lol.

Funny! I tried to structure my prior comment to you with the exact same "get off your high horse" content since you were aggressive in your prior comments to the grandparent commenter, but didn't want to broach site standards.

We appear to have come to the same conclusion, so I'll leave it at that. Best of luck out there.

hundreds of millions of indians are vegetarians just fine, people who talk like this have usually read too many anti-vegetarian memes

To be fair, vegetarianism isn't unhealthy (or necessarily healthy--you could still eat Oreos all day), but leaping into a rapid dietary change out of fear might be. Vegetarianism works in India because there's an established tradition of cooking varied foods that meet nutritional needs and are tasty. Stereotypical American vegetarianism is 1/3 rabbit-food, 1/3 gooey cheesy pasta, and 1/3 synthetic meat-substitutes.

Or are just aware of the individuality of food.

fear mongering about vegetarianism implies a distinct lack of food awareness

I forgot we all mustn't question the current narrative

Who are "we" and what is the "current narrative"? I'm afraid you'll have to elaborate, I'm a bit of a luddite.

If you'd like to discuss any problems with widespread vegetarianism in India, which again, includes hundreds of millions of people, then I'm happy to continue this discussion.

Also, isn’t becoming a vegetarian somewhat the opposite of diversifying?

> Become vegetarian, if you aren't already.

This is very healthy. But make sure to take B12 if you're going vegetarian.

> Though deficiency for those starting out with adequate stores may take years to develop, the results of B12 deficiency can be devastating, with cases reported of paralysis, psychosis, blindness, and even death.

https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/vitamin-b12/

Edit: To the downvoters, care to explain?

Supplements are usually not necessary for vegetarians. If you include milk, cheese and eggs in your diet you probably get enough B12. If you are vegan you need to take a bit more care.

32 year vegetarian. Never had to take a supplement.

7 year vegetarian. Recently found out I’m low on iron. Probably because I don’t eat fortified cereals. As a male, I’ve been told not to worry about my Iron intake- but that’s bad advice.

Best is not to generalise and instead get a blood test to check vitamin levels. Talk to your GP.

Agree. The people who successfully transition to a significant diet change like vegan/vegetarian probably already see their primary care physicians. Hence they’re more likely to know they’re deficient. A major diet change would be journaling and testing glucose closely to see what spikes and doesn’t. This is more of a 80/90 thing though and not for everyone.

Personally, I avoid fortified foods because I supplement with higher quality forms elsewhere. Neon yellow urine is not right.

that’s like fearing walking down the street because you might fall into an open manhole cover… can it happen? yep, but it’s extremely rare. do most people ever need to think about it? nope.

> In exercise: drop any gym memberships, use things like body weight to train. Run one day, do yoga the next.

This is a bit like the avocado toast nonsense though - a gym membership costs about $50 a month which is nothing compared to the near $2000 mortgage payments.

I think this is a reasonable observation, but in certain high cost of living areas, and if you're willing to leave to save money in case of trouble, the math is slightly different.

E.g. in SF, you'll pay $3500+ for housing, and salaries are largely adjusted for that level of expense. But your savings are "future money", and you can choose where to spend that. Saving $300 a month, $4k a year, can add up to sums that are significant in a lower cost of living area.

Why the arbitrary comparison with (likely) the costliest outlay? I think it is sound to suggest eliminating gym membership, particularly if under-used. Moreover, it's not optional to pay your mortgage if you have one, gym membership is.

For people who struggle with their finances it's not just the gym membership. It's the gym membership, media subscriptions, daily latte, oversized car(s), holidays abroad, eating out daily, mortgage payments on a McMansion, new phone every year, overflowing wardrobe and on and on. Most people live pay check to pay check.

What you're describing is a lack of impulse control, not anything related to a gym membership specifically.

Yes.

Also $7,200 per decade or 3.5-4 months of mortgage/rent payments. Stack it with other similar cuts, each adds 3-6 months of living expenses. It isn't about the 1 it is about the whole. That said, I can definitely see the QoL argument, the original question tends to accept that QoL trade offs are made for financial gain.

I agree with your "avocado toast" assessment. Plus, for many people, the social aspect of a gym -- even if they talk to no one -- is motivating. Also, the equipment will normally be better and more diverse than you own at home.

But how are you going to eliminate the $2000/mo mortgage? If you sell your house and go rent in the same area at the same home size, you're likely to end up with higher rent than you had mortgage. If your mortgage is outsized for the area or your house is bigger than you need, you're still not going to be saving $2000/mo, it'll be at most in the $100s.

> Become vegetarian, if you aren't already.

A laudable goal in terms of sustainability and health, but in most developed countries not a cost saving measure. Meat is way too cheap, and often forms part of the bargains supermarkets use to attract customers.

In the long term and the most pessimistic scenarios doing without meat may be cheaper though.

> A laudable goal in terms of sustainability and health, but in most developed countries not a cost saving measure. Meat is way too cheap, and often forms part of the bargains supermarkets use to attract customers.

Where I live, this is no longer true; on the one side there was a big outrage at the super cheap meat (€3 / kilo at the lowest), pushing shops to sell meat at a higher price (and presumably better animal conditions, but I'm not convinced this is independently verified), on the other there's these certifications farmers can get for their animals' living conditions, and people are willing to pay extra for this.

Anyway, in our household, freezer vegetables are a staple. We tried fresh vegetables for a while, but there's a lot of stems (in e.g. broccoli) and it's not as fresh or affordable as the frozen stuff.

That said, I think that instead of raising the price of meat, they should lower the price, availability and diversity of vegetables.

I would also encourage people to avoid these "vegetarian meat alternatives"; they're kinda scammy in that the ingredients are cheap but they sell it at meat prices. It's a lazy vegetarian's option. If you want to avoid meat for whichever reason, learn to make meals without something that kinda looks like meat.

Fresh vegetables are cheap. Look at how immigrants do it.

You don't need to be an immigrant. Vegetables are cheap in UK supermarkets.

1kg carrots - 39p https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-carrots-2...

2.5kg potatoes - £1 https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-white-pot...

And so on. Vegetables are cheap. It's frustrating seeing people complain about food but not learn to cook. Making casserole is cheap.

Raw, yes. But I use alot more seasoning with vegetables. I spend more time chopping and simmering. And the end result just isn't as enjoyable as a steak.

If you consider the cost of healthcare in developed countries, it may be that meat is much more expensive.

You're somehow implying that eating meat is bad for human health, which considering how general a statement it is, is bound to be completely false.

Human beings have thrived eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years. And it's a lot harder to completely address all the nutritional requirements on a purely vegetarian diet, but not impossible.

We've only lived long enough to suffer from the effects of meat in the past century or two.

Here are videos exploring studies about meat, which convinced me.

https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/meat/

We've hunted large portion of large fauna to extinction. Agricultural society is a way to factory-farm peasants to use in warfare.

How is that actionable? Move to a hunter-gatherer state?

How is meat produced, if not agriculture?

In any case, agriculture barely employs anyone nowadays, with mechanization and animal factory-farms.

If anything, it's agriculture that's "unnatural". It only came about 10 thousand years ago, and most plants we eat have been vastly altered to fit our tastes.

With exception of USA, individuals cost of healthcare is not that high.

I pay several times more for my phone+internet per year than for my healthcare (and I have 2 separate chronic conditions)

> individuals cost of healthcare is not that high

What you don't pay for out of pocket, you do pay either in quality of care or through your taxes, one way or the other.

It's definitely possible to win this game compared to the US, because the situation in the US is so bad. We pay double and our health care isn't twice as good, not even close. You have to hustle hard in order to argue that it's even a smidgen better, let alone twice as good, because mostly it's just more expensive.

"spend all the time you possibly can with your family. Make them your focus, not your income and "future". Be in the now as much as you possibly can"

Retrospect is 20/20... (I'm making the assumption you have had young kids and are speaking from experience). I have spent loads of time with my kids in the last few years (more than many of my peers have) and at times think it has been to mine and (by association) their detriment. "all the time you possibly can" is just too emphatic-an aspiration to be realistic in the messy context of real life.

Regrets on some scale are inevitable so learning to accept them is important.

Balance is all.

I am confused on the suggestion to become vegetarian.

In economic hard times, one mist be picky and learn how to eat anything available.

I don't think diversifying one's income is necessarily good advice. I'd rather have one better paying job that allowed me to invest & save than multiple streams of income that split my focus too much. If you have a day job that covers basic expenses, getting a better job might be a better answer than getting a 2nd job.

There are second jobs that can be done alongside full time jobs...

I'm in a situation getting similar to this Ask HN... I have a family that depends on my income (plus, it's very stable/secure, enjoyable, but unfortunately under market pay). If I find a better job, and things don't work out, we'd have virtually no household income... However, I was able to find a second job (which required honing one additional skill) to pull in $3000/year working a few nights a year... Which helps pay for unexpected expenses.

It’s definitely harder to be comfortable taking risks when one have dependents. There’s a lot of ways to get ahead. Find a way that works for you.

So on a plant-based diet you can't save yourself?

Plant-based meals require far fewer resources and is cheaper, which means maintaining societal stability when resources are becoming low - as there is more to go around.

A lot of farm land is being used to grow foods for livestock. We could use that land to grow food for ourselves.

> So on a plant-based diet you can't save yourself?

I'd generally go for keto since that is more studied compared to strict carnivore.

> Plant-based meals require far fewer resources and is cheaper, which means maintaining societal stability when resources are becoming low - as there is more to go around.

But your health will (probably/maybe) be worse. There are ways to make cheap keto (ex: eating 10 eggs/day in my local area).

> A lot of farm land is being used to grow foods for livestock. We could use that land to grow food for ourselves.

Then eat grass-fed meat. I do so myself.

>Then eat grass-fed meat. I do so myself.

I'm not sure there is enough grassland in the world for everyone to eat grass-fed meat.

I believe (not really studied myself, but as with most things in life, I only do enough research on how to choose who to believe, not really KNOW MYSELF, reality is so complex that I don't have enough time to really know, and even if I do have time, I'm often not genetically predisposed to be good at it, so I still dont decide for myself, only who to believe)

that you should do keto or carnivore. Feel free to read or believe the vegan doctors or the keto/carnivore ones. But I've made my choice and I ~mostly have been right in my life, including this. Feel free to become a psychiatrist/psychologist/sports-science and do your studies and bring a better way.

Until then, eat keto/carnivore with the best red meat you can afford. And then worry about the world. And humans are smart enough to fix this particular issue.

The question wasn't about saving the planet, it was about spending less on food.

> The question wasn't about saving the planet, it was about spending less on food.

My bad. Then my answer is don't save by eating bad food. It will limit you more compared to the extra cash you'll save (unless you're poor and you have no choice).

Related:

Ask HN: What tips do you have for weathering a recession? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15798401 - Nov 2017 (104 comments)

Ask HN: How are you preparing yourself for a recession? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527383 - Mar 2020 (148 comments)

And in both cases the impending recession was not as imminent as the posters likely expected.

COVID-19 induced a recession all around the globe

That is technically true. Though the duration and severity did vary (and the definition of recession also varies around the globe). For example the U.K. consider the recession to have lasted 5 quarters whereas in the USA recovery (in some macroeconomic statistics) was faster with the economy being considered to be in recession for just two months. I don’t think a two-month recession is particularly concerning though a repeat of the GFC would be.

It's a case of "hope for the best but prepare for the worst". I mean the threat of another world - or nuclear - war is looming.

But that's me / selfish, imagine being Ukranian and having to leave the country. I hope they saw it coming and prepared accordingly.

As an armchair expert:

I wouldn't worry too much about it. A recession is not even close to the worst thing that can happen to you (both as an individual and as a family). It's not cancer, divorce or a horrific car accident. The only reason they're noteworthy is because they affect so many people at the same time.

Worst case scenario, you lose your job for a year or so and your portfolio gets fucked, but you'll survive and your children probably won't even look back at it that negatively (I know I didn't when my old man lost his job).

So much complicated advice in this thread, wow.

Keep it simple: do things that let you accumulate cash, so if you lose your job you won't also immediately get kicked out of your house and you'll have reserves to draw on. Consider that you might need to re-train etc.

Just build your savings. Don't do risky things that add to the complexity and your stress levels. Avoid crypto in particular.

I also have a family and I've been building cash.

Also: ignore people who tell you cash is bad because of inflation. Inflation is an effect that's known. Risks of various investments are combinations of "can be known" and "unknowable". Cash is king!

I'm not trying to be to mean when I say this but this is advice to be scared. Risk is something we all manage in our daily lives, We know the risk of inflation, yeah so we also know that just building a savings barely keeps you afloat from you throwing away %1-4 of your savings every year due to inflation. where I live (Canada) my basic savings accounts only have %1.85 interest.

Yeah there's risk in investing too, we all know that as well, but what level of risk is it that you should really afraid of? should I be afraid of investing in 3M, coca cola or how about a brand-new psychedelics/cannabis stock? Yeah probably for the latter, but you can even manage risk associated to that.

One risk we all don't like to think about is that our employers will let us go and we'll be out on the streets.

My point is, you can know your risks, understand and manage them. Watch your assets column so that something you think is an asset doesn't turn into a liability(something that doesn't generate profit), you want to be able to rely on a lot of factors for wealth generation because a wide array or complex risk can actually be better than single points of failure like trusting you will have / be able to find a job, that that crypto you put your life savings in won't be rug pulled, that the stock market won't crash.

Last piece of advice is to know what you can live on, if I lost my job today, what would be left in my assets column and how long a run way would I have if I could rely on my saving and the rest of my assets.

what if i live in Poland and 11% inflation eats more of my cash than i can accumulate each year? Interest rates are at sky high 3% after 2nd raise this year. Goverment knows that and just wants to ruin people economically.

And the traditional, near-cash liquidity hedges like precious metals already follow inflation. No need to dabble into such risky things as crypto.

What do you mean "follow inflation"?

Gold certainly hasn't tracked inflation

I have no investment advice for you, but it's always a good idea to streamline your economy, so that you can manage with less if something happens.

Make sure to have a small cash reserve so that you can manage for a while even if something devastating happens. Make sure to have a small stockpile of food at home so that you can make those money last longer. As a bonus, this will also count as basic prepping, and you'll be able to handle things like being snowed in for a week without too much problems (assuming you live where such a thing is possible).

Also cut down on non-mortage debt if possible, and make sure things like streaming subscriptions can be cancelled at a minute's notice; If you end up losing part or a lot of your income then you don't want to be stuck paying for things you don't really need (Spotify, Netflix etc).

Thanks, we don't have any non mortgage debt. Our mortgage is relatively low compared to most.

I'm not looking to invest, I just want to make sure I provide food and shelter for my wife and child.

Good idea to have a plan to rapidly reduce spending. I think I'll see what I can cut now. There are things I host that can be cancelled. No more VPS to host a personal email server I hardly use.

Not to encourage you to waste money, and there's definitely benefit in reducing clutter, but saving $4/mo on a VPS is unlikely to make a significant difference.

You're right but if I can find 20 similar costs to cut out I can start to make a difference.

That is the right attitude. Spotify, YouTube, Netflix... it all adds up.

Yes but OTOH when you're unemployed is when you have the most time to really use these services.

Where do you live? Some of the replies seems to be thinking you are living next to a oncoming zombie apocalypse.

What is your threat model?

Is it losing your savings to inflation? Having it taken away by a corrupt government?

Is it an invasion of the Russians?

Is it losing your job? Or the downfall of society to the point where nobody needs a programmer anymore?

Work for a company that is protected and you will be okay. Food, soap, and other basic boring stuff will be in demand. Luxuries not as much, so games might be bad, or as cheap entertainment they might do good as people buy the games that will keep them all year to avoid the expensive entertainment they did instead. Really it is a guess as to what will do well.

Most people have a job in bad times. The real problem is your wages won't keep pace with inflation so you have to be careful.

Pay off debts now. Get an emergency cash fund going. Max out your retirement savings (so you can afford to save nothing if needed).

Last, but most important: you don't know what is coming. Enjoy life as best you can now.

Paying off debt is usually good financial advice, but it is arguably the wrong thing to do if you expect higher and higher inflation (which you mentioned is your expectation).

If you expect inflation to keep increasing, then one of the financially smart things to do would be to take as much debt as possible and purchase hard assets with the debt (such as land or commodities).

For me personally, I wouldn't follow this advise because I don't like the psychological burden of being indebted. I just wanted to highlight how higher inflation expectations disrupts traditional saving advice. It nullifies the idea of hoarding lots of cash.

Keep in mind that if you get your advice from the internet, the one constant thing you'll see is everyone is always claiming the economy is about to collapse and there's about to be hyperinflation. (And yes, we are seeing inflation for the rest of this year. No gigantic Volcker rate hikes though.)

I don't know why they don't constantly predict deflationary spirals instead, which are even worse, but it's probably childhood memories of the 70s.

Correction: paying off fixed rate debt is arguably the wrong thing to do. By all means, take a good, hard look at any variable or extremely high interest rate debt.

The question was about bad times not how to invest if you do well in otherwise bad time. If you lose your job you need a little debt as possible, if you have zero debt and a paid off house your expenses are food and heat - you could afford a large house (not a mansion) working minimum wage, which might happen in the worst cases.

If you know for sure inflation will be through the roof, but you will keep your job: then taking on more debt at a fixed low rate now, and investing in something that grows is the right thing. However this is risky. I can tell you what investments would have worked in the past, but it isn't hard to find historical advice that turned out bad. As such I would never recommend taking on more debt to invest even though the math seems to work. Though not paying off the house and instead investing in something else might be good advice.

Note that when those who retire early are surveyed most paid off the house early. Even though they know the math says index funds are a better investment, the peace of mind from not having dept is something they all say is important. In short the best financial advice isn't always the advice that works in practice. YMMV

Absolutely agree, the crash is coming since ten years.. Any moment.

I dont believe we will see a crash.

Stocks might go sideways for quit a while.

But companies will keep chugging along and employ people.

Companies which will do well, are companies, telling people the world will end...

> Stocks might go sideways for quit a while.

Nasdaq-100 is down 21.33% in 7 weeks. According to wikipedia a stock market crash is a decline "of over 10% in a stock market index over a period of several days".

DAX declined even sharper (-16.5% in 12 days; -24% from recent highs).

Just as a heads up: this is similar to the 1990's where Iraq invaded Kuwait. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 18% in three months, from 2,911.63 on July 3 to 2,381.99 on October 16,1990. This recession lasted approximately 8 months. This recession is listed as a "stock market crash" on wikipedia. [1]

IMO when something loses 1/5th of its value in such a short time it could be considered a crash.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stock_market_crashes "Early 1990s recession"

If you weren't just interested in derailing the conversation, you would have looked up how this stacks up with a better index. I did, so you might be cheered to know that the S&P 500, a cutting edge market-weight based broad index, dropped 20.2% from 1990-07-03 to 1990-10-11 compared to the DJIA's 18%.

Yes, but there's never any good reason to bring up DJIA unless you're a TV reporter who needs a big number, so I think it's always a good deed to complain about it.

Importantly, no one serious should use the djia as a proxy for a larger sample like the economy. The stock market already isn’t the entire economy and the djia is selected to not be representative of the stock market.

DJIA was an important index in the before computer days (I guess up until the 1970s) when indexes were calculated by hand. Any reporter could calculate the DJIA in a few minutes and thus provide investors up to date information over the course of a day. Larger index like the S&P500 took long enough to calculate that by the time you did it the calculation was obsolete for news purposes - unless the market was closed. Thus DJIA would be reported hourly, while S&P500 was only calculated overnight.

Today we can update any index you might be interested in, in a few milliseconds. (I'm sure there are high frequency traders reading this who can give more accurate timings)

The DJIA selects a certain type of stock. Think more PG than TSLA.

Speaking broadly, we've already had two economic recessions and I'm confident a third one is coming / underway; hopefully it won't affect individuals too much, but now would be the time to make sure to have a low-risk / risk-free rainy day fund, instead of having everything in stocks or whatever, in case you are without a job for a while for whatever reason.

Simulate various scenarios. The point is to have made some tough decisions ahead of time, while you still have some peace of mind. Because the decisions you make now will be of higher quality than the ones you make when you are under more stress.

How would you scale down your expenses (if at all?) if your real income decreased by 10 %? What about 50 %? How long could you survive if you end up with no income? What consumption can you reduce, and what can you cut out entirely? When will you start cutting some things out? How much longer will that make any savings last?

Similarly, how would you scale up the household income if your expenses increased? At what rate can you withdraw from any savings?

A secondary benefit of this exercise is that it lets you find the pain points and see if you can do something now to limit their consequences later. (Is there e.g. preventative maintenance you can do on a car or your teeth that would avoid a more expensive breakdown later?)

----

In contrast to many others, I don't place such a high value on having an exact day-to-day budget. Generally, both expenses and income follow a fairly statistically stable pattern, i.e. it averages out.

You do want to know what the averages are, of course, but you don't need to meticulously track daily expenses and income to learn that -- it's enough to go back in history and sample, say, every sixth day. Much less work for basically all the same benefits.

Depends on where you are in the world. In the UK, there's this handy flowchart

https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

The essence is to have a budget. Understand exactly how much you spend and where you spend it. Once that's done, you can work out where (if anywhere) you can save money. It might be as simple as cutting out Netflix, or as complicated as refinancing all your debt.

Hi, that's a nice flow chart. Just one thing that I don't understand: Step 1. Make minimum payments on all debts. What does it mean? Isn't it better to pay all debts as fast as possible?

If you can, it is better in the long term, but if you're going through a tough time, struggling to make ends meet, then minimum payments might get you going an extra month, rather than getting you in the red immediately.

You should re-gander at the flow chart. I looked and noticed a "is a debt high rate? pay it off first" logic flow there.

You can't just "pay everything off", and so the above chart prioritizes things which have highest interest, as pay down aggressively first.

If you don't pay the minimum, that tends to make creditors unhappy. Paying the minimum balance stops them from "escalating" - which may mean anything from angry letters to court proceedings.

I think the idea here is that if the debt is less than 10% APY you’re better off building a emergency fund and can pay off the debts in later steps. With the emergency fund you’re less likely to find yourself in a situation where you take on more debt.

There are other steps involving overpaying debt, they just happen at different stages. They're in step 1, 4 and 8.

You wouldn't ask Reddit about how to be a well adjusted adult.

You wouldn't ask 4Chan about white collar workplace social norms.

When it comes to making ends meet most of HN lives on easy mode. If your situation is anything other than easy mode then the usefulness of anything anyone here has to say will approach zero. You don't know what you don't know. This means that even when someone is an outlier and has great advice on a topic in which you wouldn't expect is you won't be able to identify it.

So hedge your bets by asking your questions in communities that have relevant experience in the topic.

How employable (or otherwise earning capable) are you? If 10% of people lost their jobs, that would be a big recession. Would you be one of them, and if you were, would you have trouble funding another job that pays as well? It depends on your industry, current job, experience, network, personality, etc. If you're a philosophy professor, it may be tough to get the same job. If you're in a non-faddish in-demand area of software, with lots of industry connections, you can probably keep a good job regardless of recession. You need to be honest about this with yourself.

Biggest thing is move out of your high crime neighbourhood. Nothing worse than being a well off tech guy surrounded by people who want your things.

I don't even lock my door. If I left money on the side walk someone walking by would put it in my mail box, or even drop it off.

When you have a strong community everything will be okay.

I also have all the traditional planning. Food, gear ect. Don't be the guy who does his hunting at the supermarket, grow your own vege section.

But you can not do everything yourself a strong community is the most important thing.

We are tech workers most of us can work remotely, which really opens up the options of were we can live.

Long term find a wife with the same ideals and get some land to call yours, where the swings of government and media opinions can not affect you.

Learn how to do things yourself. Learn how to cook, fix your car and repair your house. I've saved so much money over the years by being a DIYer and it's very fulfilling. Some examples of me saving money: Replacing the transmission in my truck: shop wanted $7k, I did it all for $2.5k. Fixing my deck and expanding it: contractor wanted $55k, I did it for $7k. Leaky pipe in ceiling: plumber wanted $1k, I fixed it for $25. I could go on for days...

Does the math pan out when compared against salary increases in tech?

I happily DIY things, but for the joy of self sufficiency.

USA software engineer bias: At several 100k raises possible (which you receive every year going forward), even 50k one time savings are drops in the bucket over the course of a career.

I've thought long and hard about this issue. Why DIYing makes sense for millionaires:

1. Depth vs breadth of skills: You could double down and become the most efficient software engineer, giving you great depth of skills and you could just pay people to do things for you. This leads to a boring life and a flat personality in my opinion. I know too many people who just know how to do one thing well. They are very boring to talk to, don't have many original thoughts, and just annoy me to be honest.

2. Control over your environment: It is a great feeling knowing you are the master of your environment and not beholden to anyone to get things done. Knowing I have control of my environment is a great mental relief and frees my mind to think how things should be done in a fun engineering mindset.

3. General understanding on how things work. I am a polymath and want to know how everything works. By DIYing you need to understand the fundamentals of how a lot of different things work to come up with a solution to problems. It's a good mental exercise.

4. Exercise: I have yet to find a better workout than manually digging foundations or chopping down trees for firewood. Most importantly, it get you away from your computer.

I have a pretty risk tolerant personality. Cutting down trees is not for everyone. It takes planning and skills. If you live your life on a keyboard, you probably shouldn't jump into cutting down trees to start.

Apparently your long and hard thinking skipped the economics part.

It’s all about your time versus money in my opinion. Do you have more time than money, do it yourself. Do you have more money than time, hire someone.

I found the hourly rate of tradesmen to be comparable to software engineer rates ($150-$200 per hour). But because I work on salary, one hour or my time does not directly increase my cash flow. Also, I’m senior enough in my career that effort alone does not equate to salary increase.

Your mileage may vary of course.

> Replacing the transmission in my truck: shop wanted $7k, I did it all for $2.5k

> Fixing my deck and expanding it: contractor wanted $55k, I did it for $7k

> Leaky pipe in ceiling: plumber wanted $1k, I fixed it for $25.

How did you learn to do these things? There are many chances where things could go horribly wrong.

Do you have any resources for learning how to work on stuff? Any particular videos or books you'd recommend?

YouTube! I would not have the confidence or understanding on how to do anything without YouTube. Essential Craftsman is probably my favorite https://www.youtube.com/c/essentialcraftsman

YouTube is an amazing resource for learning. There are so many professionals making high quality DIY videos. And they’re actually entertaining. I recently installed a Mini Split AC in my garage and these two channels were invaluable.

- Electrician U: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCB3jUEyCLRbCw7QED0vnXYg

- Home RenoVision DIY: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnorhjQR4zJkT7AVNhu395Q

This is excellent life advice in general, and it feels great to know you can do it yourself.

We spent quite a bit of time thinking about mortgage repayments recently, and the overwhelmingly conclusion was to optimise for minimising short term repayments. The rationale was that with a young family our expenses are fairly high whilst our income is likely to increase in future.

The consequence of this is to prioritise a long mortgage over total repayments and to not necessarily pay off as much as possible, even keeping money back for day to day spending, assuming that's budgeted properly. Obviously there is a trade off; the smaller you can get your mortgage the more flexibility you have around adjusting repayments to help with living costs.

The long term view of inflation also suggests it might be better to hold more debt to ease things now. Though obviously that depends on how your wages might change in the longer run.

I believe it was Tim Bray who had an essay nearly 2 decades ago now where he argued that to have a good career in IT you should

1. Move into government work just prior to periods of economic downturn - making the standards and requirements that will be needed in the future.

2. Move into private sector work during parts of economic upturn where you could take advantage of all the stuff you had a hand in during step 1.

However not sure if world situation will translate to problems for tech industry.

The reality in today's world (at least for software developers in the US) is that government work pays so much less than private sector work that I don't imagine it pays to go into government work at any point of your career.

Ok well it may be the case now, but I remember when I was in government work - Danish government not U.S. - in approximately 2005 I was earning about 77% of what I would have in the private sector before taxes (so in Denmark not that appreciable a difference) but with

1. significantly more vacation.

2. I often worked 5-6 hour days (because I was done) and just went home with no one complaining.

3. much better pension.

So I sort of think it was actually about the same in value, except of course money is more liquid and thus more valuable than perks, but perhaps the great difference in value people see is partially illusory.

on edit: not sure what the difference would be nowadays as I consult and earn about 5-6 times per hour what I was earning back then.

The following has served me well, regardless of economic conditions.

0. Empower and partner with your spouse to make all the financial decisions. They should know absolutely everything. You can’t do it alone.

1. Zero debt. For a while I had house mortgage that I repaid at the first possible availability of bulk cash.

2. Max out tax saving investments. Try not to pay one penny more tax than absolute minimum.

3. Max out life insurance you can afford. Don’t combine life insurance with investment.

4. Buy good health insurance over and above employer provided.

5. Monthly investment in equity index fund.

6. Only when you are done with all the above spend whatever remains on your monthly expenses.

7. Don’t postpone making of a will.

> 1. Zero debt. For a while I had house mortgage that I repaid at the first possible availability of bulk cash.

Would disagree with zero debt being so high up in priority. Not all debt is equal. It's typically not worth it to pay debt back early if under ~3% interest rate.

Credit card debt? Yes as soon as possible. Student loans or a mortgage around 2%-3% interest rate? You're better off investing that money to make 5%-8% on it

>3. Max out life insurance you can afford. Don’t combine life insurance with investment.

Why not combine them?

When you combine them, you essentially get an investment product that's the same as investing in a diversified portfolio (because that's what the insurance company does with your money), but with a massive fee compared to the 0.05%-ish you'd be paying for that with a regular broker.

Jesus these answers are hilarious.

Assuming you’re in the U.S. or similar you don’t need a farm, a shotgun, and a Honda full of silver ingots.

Diversify your savings, avoid consumer debt, and be wary of new monthly payments.

Consider changing to more stable job if appropriate.

That should do it.

The question seems to have been interpreted as preparing for a mad max like scenario for some people.

They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.

On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed.

Except for one regular HN reader armed with an AK-47, a farm, and a bag full of potatoes.

Prepare for a recession/market crash? Diversify assets - property, bonds, shares, foreign and local, cash under bed.

Prepare for failure of government/war? Go be a "prepper" - Ie. have a few months worth of food and water stored. (not that hard in tins/pasta/rice). Get small solar panels for phone charging and a gas/wood camping stove. Download wikipedia.

In both cases, prepare to move countries. Often it's better to just leave than try to survive in subpar conditions. Beware that millions of others may be trying to do the same, and lots of governments don't like millions of refugees. Get yourself a passport for another country and you'll be far more likely to be let in.

Spend less. Save more. Invest wisely. sharpen your skills.

Be rich and keep your riches in as varied forms as possible.

Can't do that? Then don't bother, nobody can predict the future. Any advice you might receive here could backfire as much as it can pay off.

- one house or a piece of land can lose value depending on local conditions or be hard to sell when you could need cash.

- debt can go either way, maybe inflation makes going into debt right now a good idea, or maybe you won't be able to afford in the future and the investment does not pay off.

- savings means basically losing money right now. Will this trend hold? Who knows.

If you think its coming, move your money to hedges. But people have been predicting the next big crash for the last 5 years to no avail, so don’t be surprised if you miss out on major gains.

Really? Everything points to 'economy is fucked for the foreseeable future', people are worrying about possible food and energy shortages, and your take is 'don't forget your FOMO though, stonks still go up'?

That’s not what GP is saying. They are not saying you shouldn’t take steps to diversify and reduce risk. But conventional wisdom is that you can’t time the market, so you shouldn’t necessarily expect to beat the market by selling now and buying back in later when the war is over.

If you’re so confident, buy shorts and VIX calls. The stock market has proven to be largely detached from economic reality in the last few years, so don’t think any few indicators are proof that anything will happen.

You mean like in 2020 when the entire world was shut down because of COVID?

Or in 2018 when a trade war between china and US was just around the corner?

Or in 2016 when Brexit was the fall of the EU and Trump just got elected?

There's always something, and it's never clear that that something is going to actually be the real deal.

This is a good point. My fear is that thing just keep compounding.

If tensions rise we could see China and the west getting less friendly. I live in the bottom of the Pacific and we rely heavily on Chinese trade.

Generally, the best time to invest is precisely when everyone else is pessimistic about the market. When I say invest, I mean true investing. Long time horizon.

Like others have said, that’s aside from the point. You are more likely to lose than gain by timing the market. That’s what the GP is getting at.

If one has assets, my advice is to diversify them appropriately.

Everything has always pointed to the economy being fucked up for the foreseeable future. Many careers have been made on exploiting that fear.

They only thing that really counts in the end is that you, personally, have enough revenue to cover your expenditures. If not, increase the former and decrease the latter until you do. You may need to adjust your expectations too.

> predicting the next big crash for the last 5 years to no avail

It's precisely when no one (i.e mainstream media) is expecting, things go south. E.g 2008

However, ppl predicting crash will be right eventually because boom-bust happens in cycles. We just don't know when. Even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day.

some people have been predicting economic growth and are now predicting a recession... so there's that. the bond market is sending signals already, see LQD, HYG, JNK.

The "major gains" don't come during the time in which all signs seem to point towards the end of the world being near.

The gains materialize when the end of the world that everyone expected yesterday eventually fails to materialize.

My father has given me a version of the same advice in strange, disruptive, crazy economic times over the years: "At a certain level, the economy is just a collective state of mind. You can contribute to it, be a slave to it, or take advantage of it."

Look - I have small kids too, so I'm not advocating that you ignore it. Everyone with dependents should be proactive in considering how they are supported (in "good" economic times too). There are just so many interconnected pieces of a global economy that a wide brush of doom is far from inevitable.

The first question I would consider: What is the funding source of the company that I work for? Are we public and thus directly dependent on market swings? Or are we VC or private-backed, which is indirectly affected but could also weather the storm if forward-thinking? Or are we private + bootstrapped, which is generally a good thing until your customers start fearing the doom-and-gloom economy too.

What country are you based in?

In mine (UK) one the biggest outgoing costs is energy, mainly heating. There are various government schemes to help people with recent bills and ways of reducing energy consumption.

The biggest outgoing cost? Are you sure? I would like to see figures for that.

I haven't checked the statistics but here in Portugal at least for me the biggest outgoing costs are rents (by a large margin), followed by food. Gas prices and car maintenance costs are also high, whereas public transport is roughly on a par with monthly energy costs.

Are people in the UK all heating their homes with electricity?

I'd edited my post as you replied. Agree, food generally costs more.

Mortgage/rent, highly variable depending on where you live, house big enough etc and if a mortgage, how many years are you able to spread it over.

Most UK homes are heated by gas. My recent bill went up 50% to £1500/y. Is expected to increase by 50% again this year.

I see, that makes more sense than your original post. I don't know about mortgage but rents should also be much higher than gas costs nearly everywhere. High rents combined with inadequate salaries seem to be the biggest problem in most industrialized countries.

The thing with mortgages (and rents) is they're highly variable across the country, I'm in one of the lowest paid regions of the UK and a town nearby can have 2-bedroom houses going for £60K. That could amount to ~£150/m repayments over 40 years. The same house in South East England may go for quadruple that.

Gas is also one of the main sources of electricity generation here.

Energy has by far outstripped inflation here over the past year.

I guess OP meant it's the biggest outgoing cost after rent and food. (Depending on area, council tax is also pretty high). It has gone up 2-3x in the last few months and now costs as much as food for some people.

Gas heating is common in the UK but a) it's being phased out for eco reasons b) gas has increased in price as well

How secure is your job/industry? Not every sector will be hit equally.

Now might not be the best time to work in a startup that sells discretionary goods/services.

If you've got a solid job in an industry not too vulnerable to supply chain shocks or high interest rates you should weather the next downturn, as long as your expenditure is under control.

While you can't control all costs, one of the most direct and impactful is food. Good food matters to the whole family, but you have to take a careful look at what defines "good," because in times like these where supply lines are changing rapidly, some foods will become much more expensive than others for reasons not related to their relative nutritional value. Where you can, stick to things that can be either grown locally or canned and stored for long periods, and try to make the home cooking process simple and repeatable, even if you have to sacrifice variety.

Likewise, durables can be hoarded before price hikes hit. Try to figure out all the incidental <$100 things you'll need for a few years. Invest in containers and shelving for them so that they aren't lost in a pile, but have a proper space where they can be put. Just having some cardboard or cafeteria trays around can be enough.

Regarding the financial investments, the model I would use for crises is migration. When people move their money around and put it in different assets, train for careers, etc they are migrating from one "place" to another to avoid impending disaster, just as people migrate seasonally to go where the food and good weather is. If you get this simple call of "stay or go" right, you avoid the majority of the impact from economic crises, and can even come out ahead.

For me, I've set crypto as the place, and privacy coins as a large part of the allocation. It's probably not the place for everyone, and I respect the people going with cash, but it's a call made specifically on the premise of migrating to something that governments have little influence over, since, as you've probably noticed, they're doing all sorts of things that upend investments lately. And if I got the call wrong, they'll ban it and render my assets illiquid, but I'm relying on a game theoretic analysis that says that some countries will embrace it in order to get ahead of those that ban it, and therefore I'll have a way out to fiat when I need it.

Short answer: Mostly keep doing what you've always been doing, unless you see a good opportunity for yourself or see clear risk for your family.

Now is probably not the time to quit your job to work on that startup that you've always dreamed about. But that's more about your family situation. I have young children and I wouldn't quit my job even in good times.

"see a good opportunity:" Perhaps a career move shows up that's "defense" related?

"clear risk for your family:" Maybe if you live near the Russian boarder consider moving.

"Mostly keep doing what you've always been doing:" Maybe avoid traveling to certain areas. Assuming you've always been responsibly saving, keep doing that. Investing is a good way to beat inflation.

The worst thing you can do is panic. That's when bad decisions are made.

Defense is likely the “massive government spending“ the OP referred to. Good idea to get your slice during its heydays

Buy house with few dozens of acres of land. Buy tools to cultivate the land. Buy few sacks of potatoes, learn how to grow them. Buy few sacks of salt, ensure it's stored safely. Learn how to weld with gas, buy enough gas to be stocked. Buy medicines. Buy guns. Buy bullets and vodkas. There are many thing to do to survive in harsh times. But first thing you need to ensure: your own home where you can live; defenses against strangers; preferably good community, you can't survive alone; ability to grow enough food; something that could be used as a currency: salt, bullets, vodka.

Also be ready to evacuate from the city when time will come. Move early, roads will be stuck very quickly. Keep your car tanks full, keep few cans of gasoline as well.

OP was asking about hard economic times, not doomsday.

Has there ever been a time in the last 100 years when this kind of model has been useful. I understand the attraction, but I can't imagine how we could end up in the kind of situation where what you describe would be useful, without say total nucular war, at which point what you describe isn't enough.

I mean, it might be useful in Ukraine right now.

It does not protect you from being bombed to oblivion, or summarily shot by anybody with an ak-47 jealous of whatever you have, or raided by a military looking for food or entertainment, or expropriated in the unstable years ahead.

It might help if things don’t go too pear shaped, but this kind of event (a foreign invasion by a military with no regards for civilians) is basically game over regardless of your situation. The best outcome is you survive and rebuild.

If anything, Ukraine shows that civilization doesn't necessarily immediately collapse.

Despite the madness the only thing I learn about looting from Ukraine is:

- civilian would-be looters still getting punished

- Russian soldiers are looting

i.e. when your rations expired you get desperate and since the Russian army is armed and know they are an utter disgrace anyway this happens.

> If anything, Ukraine shows that civilization doesn't necessarily immediately collapse.

It’s been 20 days. I’d refrain from being overly optimistic just now. More likely than a full civilisation collapse is a return to feudal tribalism as in Afghanistan and Lybia, which is not very good either.

I don't think it's useful if in the threat model there is also the risk to get a misplaced missile on your house. Yeah you can defend against some poor guy/group of guys looking for food/things, but that's about it.

To be fair though, a missile on your house isn't exactly the only threat in the model right now in Ukraine.

Indeed it isn't, but it's plausible enough to make that other plan useless anyway.

Yes of course there has. Take the UK during WW2 for example, there was this campaign:

https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/

This is very costly advice financially, because getting good at these things takes significant time and mental energy. The opportunity cost that could be redirected into getting a high paying career so you have discretionary funds and learning safe investing should be weighed up against this.

However costly things can be worth it, it depends on your situation and preferences. But don't underestimate the time involved in learning broad ranged skills to look after a house, land, food production, repairs, survival skills, prepping etc which op is talking about.

Mate they'll go after your gold before they go after your land.

They can't go after something they don't even know you have.

They can make it illegal to privately hold gold. Wouldn’t be the first time in history. Good luck trading your gold for goods and services under these conditions.

I don’t think outlawing gold would stop the trading. Drugs are also illegal. Also in a crisis such as the one being discussed the laws and the concept of legality doesn’t mean much.

Btw it is estimated that the last time gold was declared illegal, only about 5% of gold owners gave it up.

But I can't eat gold. I'd rather have a homestead away from population centers than an equivalent in gold, because how likely - government takeover of your home - is that scenario? Where / when has that happened in the communities that HN people are active?

I mean it's happened to Russian oligarchs, but those were investments that they didn't even live in. It's happened to Palestinians, who live under an apartheid regime. But other than that, I can't recall anything like that happening. WW2 Europe maybe, for specific demographics.

What are you going to do with the gold? That's called bagholding, not a productive asset.

Actually, have you tried figuring out WHFIT taxes on $GLD? I ended up invested in it once and had no clue how you do it.