

[Ask] Should I save up money or follow my dreams - emiunet

I&#x27;m 28, an ordinary engineer (don&#x27;t know how to do business) from an average family (nothing to inherit). I&#x27;ve been working for 6 years but saving only the last 2 (before that I had to pay my master degree school fee myself).
Now, everything seems to be hang somewhere in the middle for me. I have money but not enough to buy house and settle down. That means I&#x27;ll need to continue working and saving as much as I can.
Yet the youth part in me still wants to study further, learn new things, explore new places, meet new people, visit as many countries as possible.. That is usually not cheap and difficult to save money.
I can&#x27;t decide which desire is stronger.
Is anyone in the same situation? and what would you do?
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gexla
Fortunately, because of the internets, you can do your job from anywhere.You
can have it both ways, but you need to learn the business side.

You don't know the business side probably because you have never attempted it.
Though some people seem to shoot off faster and more successfully than others,
everyone has to start off with those same stumbling first steps. You might be
surprised with what you can do on that side.

The most simple and direct way to start a business which will enable you to
uproot yourself is to do freelance development. This is relatively easy as
starting businesses goes, but it's not as easy as showing up to your job and
punching a clock. If this is something you would like to explore, then start
today. Always be building your professional network through social media
(Twitter and G+ are great) and look for people who need your skills. Let
people know that you are looking to do independent and you might get some
responses. You can also look through freelance sites like Elance and Odesk,
which are easy ways to gst started if you have difficulty finding clients
elsewhere.

Elance and Odesk have a reputation for being markets with horrible projects
and worse pay, but that's because most of these people haven't even tried to
look for work there. I routinely find projects which pay as well or better
than my regular freelance rates. You need to comb through the listings to find
the diamonds in the rough. In your areas of development, you will find
listings where people don't know what they are bidding on and bid up crazy
prices. You will see projects where you know exactly what the client is
looking for and you may even be able to make a killing on it at less than what
the competition is bidding for. You are a native English speaker, you know
exactly what the client needs and you can give them a fair rate. Sold! This is
also a good place to build up your network.

Traveling can be cheaper than you think. For example, you can live in much of
S.E. Asia on less than 1K / month. In the Philippines, I have yet to live in a
house / apartment which costs more than $200 / month. Utilities (internet,
electric, water) are around $120 / month for me and that's high. The visa is
another $60 / month. That's just $400 / month for base living expenses. Add
another $200 / month for food and you are taking care of all the basics for
$600 / month. Feel free to add whatever budget you like for going out on the
town and travel.

Another perk of living in S.E. Asia is that flights to other areas are cheap.
I can get a round trip ticket to the capital from where I live for less than
$100. I haven't checked prices lately but when I first got here I could get a
one way ticket to Hong Kong and Singapore for $60. There are specials like
these all the time. You could pick one place as your base and use that as a
jumping point to explore the rest of the region. Knock out a project, take a
vacation (or work on that vacation) and then come back and get started on the
next project. This is S.E. Asia, but you will find similar opportunities in S.
America, Africa and even Europe. Once you have had your fill of one base, then
uproot again and plant your flag in a new region.

If at some point you decide that you want to go "coding cave" and work on your
own project or learn a new platform, then you could do that rather than go on
vacation. Looking at the prices I gave you above, it would be easy to knock
out month long project which would sustain you for 3 - 4 months of doing
nothing but your own projects.

Don't like working with a bunch of clients? Get a remote job. I have had gigs
which were basically long term jobs where I could put in as little as a half
day and have the rest of the day to myself. These usually aren't as flexible
though, and the pay usually doesn't have as much top side potential.

You can have it all, but you need to learn how to bring in client work.Start
now, but don't overwork yourself. Take on little gigs. Get in touch with as
many people as you can. Every new contact is a potential source of work down
the road. I never run out of work. As soon as I start seeing a possible end
point, a client I haven't talked to in months, maybe years comes out of the
blue and asks about my availability. Once you see that you can start possibly
hit larger projects (which you can't do now because of your job) and clients
are contacting you enough that you believe you can stay busy, then go ahead
and take the leap.

One thing that really helps is that you have savings. To do all this, you
should have about six months of savings. The more the merrier. If you get
beyond that then you start to get to the danger point where you get desperate
for cash flow and take on jobs you otherwise wouldn't. You can do it with
three months of savings, but anything less than that is danger zone.
Personally, I went full backpack mode and left with just one month of savings!

Also, don't wait for the perfect moment. Start the above now to build up some
clients, but set a date where you will buy your ticket. Or buy your ticket now
for something like 6 to 8 months out. I was in a situation where I was
waiting, waiting, waiting, but then my roommate sold his house and I had to
move. Rather than find a new place, I pulled the trigger and bought my ticket.
Otherwise I probably would never have left.

There are a ton of stories on HN about this sort of thing and about
freelancing in general. The stuff I have posted above has been repeated here
(and much more golden information) many times.

You are filling your head with incorrect info because you have never actually
tried this. Take the leap and you will see it's not that hard. You will
probably even wonder why you didn't do it earlier!

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hardwaresofton
Hi, I'm certainly not a life expert (and you should maybe question anyone who
claims to be), but here's what I think:

-You're doing pretty well (in this economy that is chewing people up and spitting people out), if you have time to think in broad strokes about your future this way. Reflect & be grateful for that, I am similar, and try to often

-Whether you should settle down or not is really more about family/relationship progression right? If you've found the right person and you feel like you're ready to settle down, then settle down. If that isn't the case for you yet, and you're single, then there's nothing holding you to physical location other than family, which is certainly an advantage when it comes to traveling spontaneously or taking less-than-stable actions.

-The youthful part in you shouldn't be held back by anything. With the vast expanse of the internet, there is SO MUCH that you can learn. To address them in order

1\. Study further - Depends on what you want to study, but enroll in some of
the open courseware stuff, and learn away! Or just pick a thing, and start
actively learning about it

2\. Learn new things - Similar to 1, pick a new thing, start learning it, and
actually utilize it to change yourself (like if you decide to pick up cooking,
start actually cooking daily -- that'll make lasting change)

3\. Explore new places -- This is tied into travel, if you want to travel,
then start using those vacation days! You can even do 1-2 day trips (weekend)
to places like Canada over the weekend to start out, little mini vacations.If
you want to uproot yourself (of course this depends on #1) -- do it! I would
first try moving with the company you're with now (see if they do overseas or
placements/rotational stuff) -- or try and find a new job abroad. It would be
great to have something set up BEFORE you leap, but if it's really killing you
to not be out there experiencing the world, then just go, and try and apply
for jobs or get work when you get there

4\. Meeting new people - This one is hard once you get out of college/high
school. Usually (unfortunately), work is the easiest way to really get to know
someone (spend a large amount of time around them), but outside of that, you
have to take to hobbies. Pick up a hobby (maybe bowling? something more
active?), go to a wine-tasting class (something over long periods of time, so
that you really get a chance to socially interact), join a church, etc.

Also you might want to cater to that youth-urges while you're still young.

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sejje
Your details muddy the line a bit, but I'm hoping your original question is
boiled to its simplest form: "Save money or follow dreams?"

You already know the answer. Dreams, every time.

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sharemywin
Learn a language where you would like to go. Find a job for a US company that
has an office there. Best of both worlds.

