
Losing it All - shakycode
http://shakycode.com/post/119775920434/losing-it-all
======
spdionis
Very touching post. Good luck with your life.

I wanted to point out a funny thing though. Living in a post-soviet country I
can sense my bias that tells me that this is totally ridiculous. Probably the
difference between here and America is just so big. This situation is just
inherently absurd by the simple fact that selling that iPhone would give me
enough money to survive for 2 months paying a rent in a cheap apartment and
buying another cheap phone.

Besides that, the most important difference is that we _never_ take such big
loans here. Big loans are _scary_ for us. I understand how important they are
for developing an economy, but all around me most people would hardly get a
loan to buy a car. Even if the economy is poor, people are much more free
because they don't take insane debts. I think american culture really needs to
remember that debt is dangerous.

Just a quick thought about the abyssal difference between the 2 mentalities.

~~~
kranner
I was taking one of these life self-assessment quizzes yesterday. It has a
number of questions which you ponder and respond to in essay form. You can do
it in a text editor so it's private and is just an opportunity to think about
your life.

One of the questions was "how much credit card debt do you have, and how are
you planning to reduce it?" I found it pretty strange that the quiz assumed
that the reader would be certain to have some credit card debt; indeed enough
that they would need a plan to reduce it gradually.

As an Indian I find this a strange way of looking at things. To me a credit
card is a convenient payment method, not a facility to award myself
discretionary loans.

~~~
spdionis
Same here. If I actually needed a small temporary loan I'd reach out to a
friend, but never a credit card like that. We actually don't have such credit
cards here, although we have other options for micro-crediting.

~~~
kranner
It's much the same in India. Credit cards are not easy to qualify for, and in
most cases you can only expect to get one if you're employed somewhere full-
time. As a self-employed person for a large part of my career, I would always
have to ask other people to use their credit card for occasional use where no
other payment option existed (and pay them directly). I finally got one after
having put a significant amount of savings in the bank.

~~~
nindalf
Debit cards solve the payment problem for me. They're accepted everywhere, so
I've never seen the need to get a credit card at all.

~~~
kranner
Not all debit cards in India can be used for things like setting up a Verified
PayPal account, or an iOS developer membership or a recurring payment with a
hosting provider. Maybe it's possible now, but it wasn't for me when I tried
it.

------
downandout
This is just a suggestion, but if anyone else encounters a circumstance like
this, the best (counterintuitive) thing may be to go to school online. In the
US, federal financial aid will provide you with cash for living expenses.
There are several open enrollment online schools (here's one [1]) that are
cheap enough for you to wind up with about $4-$5K/semester in cash for living
expenses. It's not alot, but you can pretty easily "attend" classes online
part time while you try to work yourself out of your situation. You get the
"credit balance refund" about a month after classes start each semester, but
many online colleges have "semesters" that start every month.

While not homeless, my sister came to a crossroads in her career and is now
doing this exact thing. The extra $10K/yr basically pays her rent, she is
still able to work full time, and she'll have a degree in a field she actually
likes at the end. If OP suddenly had $5K in the bank, his road to recovery
wouldn't have been nearly as rocky.

[1] [http://www.apus.edu/](http://www.apus.edu/)

~~~
dredmorbius
Educational debt is non-dischargable. While it can be "easy money" for now,
_the debt will stay with you until you die._

And while specific skills training _may_ help, more education _won 't_ bring
clients online.

APUS is, despite its "public university" name, a private, for-profit
institution, owned by American Public Education, Inc.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Public_University_Syst...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Public_University_System)

[http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/apei](http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/apei)

[http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/American-Public-University-
Sys...](http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/American-Public-University-
System/Internet/American-Public-University-System-American-Public-University-
American-Military-University-866870)

Those interested in changes to U.S. bankruptcy code, including educational
loans, might care to look at the Student Loan Bankrupcy Exception at FinAid:

[http://www.finaid.org/questions/bankruptcyexception.phtml](http://www.finaid.org/questions/bankruptcyexception.phtml)

 _Student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy prior to 1976. With the
introduction of the US Bankruptcy Code (11 USC 101 et seq) in 1978, the
ability to discharge education loans was limited. Subsequent changes in the
law have further narrowed the dischargeability of education debt._

~~~
downandout
_> the debt will stay with you until you die._

You're wrong. It will stay with you until you pay it off, on relatively easy
terms, and payments only begin after you graduate.

 _> And while specific skills training may help, more education won't bring
clients online._

Most people seeking a degree aren't in fields where they are looking for
"clients". Most people want a degree so they can get a job. If you are
referring specifically to learning to code, I wouldn't recommend that anyone
use any paid school. There are more than enough free online resources to teach
yourself to become a very proficient programmer.

 _> hxxp://www.ripoffreport.com/r/American-Public-University-Sys... _

Most online schools, and indeed most online businesses, have one or more
"Ripoff Reports" posted. That site is hardly credible, and I question the
motives of anyone that would even post a link to such garbage on a site like
HN. Most of those "reports" are written by competitors of the business at
issue, angry ex wives, the owner of Ripoff Reports himself etc...it's an
extortion scheme, asking people for money in order to modify posts. Posting
there is SOP among scumbags. Their PageRank is their only asset, and they use
it for extortion.

 _>[http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/apei](http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/apei) _

I had no idea that they were publicly traded on the Nasdaq, but that bolsters
my confidence in them.

I only mentioned Apus because that is where my sister is going and it is
working out well for her. They are fully accredited, and a big chunk of the
money my sister is getting is in the form of Pell grants, which do not have to
be paid back (your eligibility for both loans and Pell grants can easily be
determined at [http://fafsa.ed.gov](http://fafsa.ed.gov)). Yes, you have to
pay back the loan portion once you have graduated and have a bachelor's
degree. My point was that in a situation like OP's, this would be the first
thing that I would do. If you were homeless or close to it, this would be by
far the best and lowest cost way to access cash, especially if more education
was in your plans anyway. When helping my sister look into this before she
enrolled, I was amazed that more people aren't using online schools.

~~~
lsc
There's a huge difference in the risk you are taking when you take on debt
that can be cleared with bankruptcy and debt that can not.

This is why I always say that the first thing your business should pay for is
an accountant. Same thing. Business mistakes? bankruptcy is the worst case.
Sure, it's not that weird for even smallish businesses to sign leases that are
worth truly intimidating amounts of money. My own company's co-lo contract
would cover a very high-end Ferrari. Leases are debt. But they can be
discharged through bankruptcy. Tax mistakes? Tax mistakes are for life (or, as
you say, until you pay them off, along with penalties and interest.)

I mean, I'm not saying that I'd never take such a loan, just that it is money
at what I consider completely brutal terms, and for me, at least, it would be
a last resort.

As an aside, I think that only taking loans that can be cleared by bankruptcy
is something of a sanity check. Nobody, right now, would loan me the money to
buy a Ferrari, because I can't afford a Ferrari (well, not a new one, anyhow.)
and this fact is obvious if you look at my finances, as a bank would before
loaning someone that kind of money for a car. I mean, I probably could usually
make the payments, but one financial misstep on my part, or some slight
flutter in my income stream and I'd be in bankruptcy territory.

Now, on the other hand, if that loan couldn't be cleared by bankruptcy? I
think it would be a reasonable risk for most banks to loan me the cash for the
Ferrari. I mean I'd be eating ramen, but I could make payments as long as
nothing went wrong, and even if I screw it up and they've gotta repo the
thing, It's pretty likely that my lifetime earnings, which they'll get to
garnish in this hypothetical world where car loans operate like student loans,
are going to be enough to more than cover the loan plus interest and
penalties.

The point being that operating without bankruptcy really moves the bar on how
much effort the bank puts into figuring out if you can afford something.

~~~
downandout
_> I mean, I'm not saying that I'd never take such a loan, just that it is
money at what I consider completely brutal terms, and for me, at least, it
would be a last resort._

Please look at my comment in the context of OP's story of _living at
Starbucks_ and being _beaten and mugged at gunpoint in the park where he was
sleeping_. I would say that's last resort territory. Hmm...that or take a loan
that you have to _start_ paying back in 4 years? I'm guessing that these
negative responses about bankruptcy discharge are mostly from people that have
never been in such desperate circumstances.

Also, even in less desperate circumstances, (such as my sister's, where she
simply got tired of working in her field) going to school and (hopefully)
dramatically raising ones earning potential isn't exactly a worthless pursuit.

~~~
lsc
Yeah, if I didn't have a safe place to sleep, I agree, taking loans that I
couldn't clear with bankruptcy would be something I'd be willing to do. Again,
your point that I've never been in any situation that desperate is quite true.
I've never experienced anything like that.

My real worry though would be that:

>going to school and (hopefully) dramatically raising ones earning potential
isn't exactly a worthless pursuit.

especially if you are going to a for-profit school? I... really think that
this idea that formal education means more money is a lie that we sell
vulnerable children, and a lie we sell ourselves, because we don't understand
how to end the cycle of poverty. Then we sell them loans they can't get out
of. It really seems pretty terrible to me.

I went to a pretty poor high school - I make a _lot_ more money than most of
the people who went to school with me who have gone on to get two year degrees
or four year degrees from low-end institutions.

I'm not saying that education for educations sake isn't valuable; it is. I'm
just saying that when it comes to ability to earn a living, for me and most of
the people I've known, for the people who did well after going to school?
School was part of a life that meant you were going to be successful; if you
took someone who otherwise didn't have that life and sent them to a low-end
school? it doesn't seem to help them much. college doesn't seem to do it
without the parents... and at least in my experience, if you _have_ the
parents, they will push you in to college, but if you resist, it doesn't seem
to depress your earning ability much.

See, my real worry would be that I'd go to school and at the end of those four
years I'd be no more employable than I was at the start, and at that point I'd
be way worse off, because I'd have this big bunch of debt.

None of this, of course, invalidates your suggestion that you take out the
loans and use them to live while you get a regular job again, doing whatever
minimum work is required to keep the loans. Obviously, having a place to
sleep, shower, and basic transportation is going to make getting a job way
easier- so yes, your suggestion is a completely reasonable last resort
suggestion.

I think the pushback you are feeling is that I felt like your attitude towards
those loans was that they were no big deal, and personally, I think they are a
very big deal, especially if you are trying to live on the salary you get if
you have a for-profit degree and nothing else.

------
esperluette
First off -- I'm so glad the OP is okay now.

A couple of things in your story seem weird to me, though. Did they really
foreclose on your rental house that fast? There were so many properties going
under in 2008 that I thought the banks were backed up for months ... Why
couldn't you just stay in the rental property until the bank came after it?
(PS have you checked to make sure you don't have a deficiency judgment out in
your name? Some people are getting charged hundreds of thousands of dollars
years after foreclosure!)

Also: you had no credit cards? With most modern credit cards you actually have
to call and ask them to stop sending you checks. You could have moved debt
from the car to a credit card pretty easily with those, then paid the mere
minimum for months.

Did you consider applying for public assistance at all? You could have also
tried to barter your skills for housing or food with a church or social
service charity.

Again, I'm glad you're okay, and thank you for sharing your story. So many
people don't realize they are a lost job or a bad accident away from
homelessness; I hope your story encourages more people to save for a rainy
day.

~~~
shakycode
Yes, I'm doing ok now. Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, the house foreclosed after 2 missed payments. Bank of America moved quick
in my instance. I could have stayed in the house but I also lost my car and my
house was very far away from my haunting grounds. Logistically it wouldn't
have worked. Plus there's the fact that I couldn't afford utilities (in Texas
you need A/C). I have no deficiency judgement as that was all cleared up after
I was forced to file Chapter 7.

No, I never believed in credit cards. I always tried to carry a low debt load,
at least as much as I can.

Yes I applied for public assistance, but since that year I made a good bit of
money on paper I didn't qualify for government assistance. Trust me, I
couldn't even get approved for WIC or Texas Lone Star.

I'm glad I was able to share my story with everyone. In America it's very easy
to lose everything (and gain it back again).

These days I save as much as possible and live a very frugal existence. That's
been my mantra ever since I recovered.

Cheers!

~~~
kjackson
Having gone through foreclosure myself, there is zero chance that you would
lose your house after 2 missed payments.

~~~
zymhan
You're not necessarily right just because you went through a foreclosure.

~~~
danyim
I haven't experienced one myself, but much of the inquiries about certain
facts (including kjackson's) makes me wonder if there were some artistic
liberties taken when writing this heartfelt story.

~~~
rev_bird
Right-o. From below: "The car was already behind on payments, that part I
omitted from the story. As well the house was behind on payments so I let it
go to foreclosure. Not the wisest idea, but it happened."

------
fsk
The big lesson is to keep an emergency fund of 6-12 months' living expenses.

He shouldn't have been buying a leveraged investment property until he had an
emergency fund.

With $100k+/year in income, he should have been finding a way to save $10k+
per year.

~~~
TTPrograms
I don't really see how people get to much more than $40K a year in expenses.
That's like a $2K/month apartment and a pretty nice used car with lots of
margin for going out.

Granted if you're too aggressive with IRA investing or student loan payoff you
can get in a situation like this. That's my downfall - I'd rather be in the
market, but you really shouldn't expose your emergency fund to that kind of
risk, especially given near-perfect correlation between market performance and
personal financial security.

~~~
softdev12
Food, housing, and cars aren't the only annual expenses to consider. The
biggest one you're missing is health (even with insurance). One major acute
health problem that lands you in the ER or the need to see a doctor could
easily adds thousands to annual expenses. This happens all the time. You'd be
surprised how many people get put into collections for unanticipated health
expenditures.

~~~
alphabetam
In America.

------
chrisbennet
Great story.

For those of you who are asking "Why didn't you have an emergency fund?",
please consider why you would say such a mean and thoughtless thing.

Are you asking because you want to learn something or are you asking because
it makes you feel superior because you made different choices? Do you like it
when someone asks you why _you_ made a big mistake (esp when they don't
actually care about the answer)?

~~~
yummyfajitas
I have, on a number of occasions, made serious mistakes. On several occasions
people have asked me "why didn't you X". Sometimes the answer is "I was stupid
and irresponsible". This makes me feel bad, and rightly so. Other times the
answer is "I didn't know I could X." Those are the times when I'm very glad
someone asked me the "mean and thoughtless" question.

Concrete example: a friend of mine graduated coding bootcamp and has been
interviewing for her first job. After complaining to me about 2-3 interviews
in a row where she bombed questions on the same topic (I think inner joins), I
asked a mean and thoughtless question: "why don't you maintain a queue of
topics you screw up on interviews, and study one topic each day". Her answer
was "I've got no good reason for not doing that".

So she made a queue. Then she shrank the queue. The number of questions she
messed up started going down. Now she has a job.

~~~
mikro2nd
Sometimes it takes an outsider to see the obvious. Kudos to you for being a
good and useful friend instead of just offering sympathy. (By all means offer
sympathy, too, but the actionable advice is the more valuable bit.)

------
grokys
This was a very touching story, and like others have said, I'm very pleased
the author has found his feet again.

However, remember that for many people life is like this every day and has
been since childhood. These people don't have the resources, skills or
networks to pull themselves out of such situations as did the author.

Next time you're tempted to judge someone who has less than you (and everyone
judges based on their own experiences, it's all we can do) - remember that
you've had it good, despite the downs and maybe they deserve some help too.

This is something I need to keep reminding myself of regularly.

------
shakycode
I'm not sure if I'm the only one who went through this. But I'm an IT
professional who was homeless and regained his life. Figured it would be a
good read for those out there who are out of work and/or homeless.

~~~
xtrumanx
It was a fantastic read. It's crazy how fast things got bad for you and up
again. To go through that in 4 months must have been a emotional roller
coaster.

It's also great to hear how many people helped out when you told them about
your situation.

~~~
shakycode
Thank you for the kind words. It was a roller coaster for sure. It's amazing
how many people in the world are truly good at heart. And to think I didn't
even have to ask for anything, I just put myself out there and people offered
help. Amazing world we live in. <3

------
larsiusprime
First of all, this was a very touching post. I'm glad things worked out in the
end.

I have a question which I definitely don't mean to be taken in the wrong way,
so please just take it as a purely informational query. If I were to find
myself in this situation, my first instinct would be to move back in with my
parents or otherwise lean on my network of family and friends (couch-surfing,
etc), especially if I was reduced to homelessness.

Please feel free to ignore this question if it's too personal, etc, but were
family/friends not among your list of available resources, or if they were,
was there some other reason you couldn't/wouldn't go there?

~~~
DanBC
You ask a great, important question. I have zero idea about OP.

We know that men do not seek help. That's why so many men die from testicular
cancer - a disease that's mostly survivable if caught early. Campaigns to get
me to check and get help if they find anything have reduced the death rate,
but we did need to tell some men to seek help.

We see a similar thing with suicide. "Soften the Fck Up" is an Australian
campaign to make it easier for a man to seek help than to die by suicide.
(They don't censor the word fuck on their website).
[http://softenthefckup.com.au/](http://softenthefckup.com.au/)

They're linked to Beyond Blue which has some research about men seeking help.
[http://www.beyondblue.org.au/resources/research/research-
pro...](http://www.beyondblue.org.au/resources/research/research-
projects/research-projects/men-s-help-seeking-behaviour)

It seems that some men just have a hard time seeking help, even when things
are desperate, even for things that are treatable and survivable.

------
spinlock
I love how he blames Obama. I had a different perspective on our last 2
presidents. I sold everything in the final 2 years of Bush's presidency then
bought into the stock market shortly before Obama took office. I've never had
to sleep at a Starbucks.

~~~
rsynnott
Was confused by that aspect, yeah. I'm not sure how McCain would have made the
global financial crisis abruptly stop...

------
rb2k_
One big takeaway:

When every single "personal finance" site tells you that having an "emergency
fund" of 3+ times your monthly costs (rent, food, insurance, ...) is very
important, they probably are right :)

~~~
rev_bird
Honestly, I often hesitate to just take personal finance bloggers' word for
this kind of stuff -- most of the time, personal finance/"early retirement"
personalities write about it because they've done very well with it, which
makes sense. But most of the time, they've done very well with it because they
have made astronomical amounts of money: $100,000 on HN isn't an earth-
stopping amount of money, but a $100,000 salary pretty much anywhere else is
an _absurd_ number.

Not everybody is going to pull in that much at their job -- on average,
probably less than half of that. Anyway, my point is that those bloggers are
probably right, sure, but they're right for _their_ circumstances, which are
frequently very unusual.

------
davisr
I'd like to think I know the situation you're in. A few years ago, I chose not
to go to college and instead jump into freelancing. However, doing the odd
website here and there wasn't the ticket to success because clients can and do
dry up, plus there's the overhead of finding them in the first place. So, I
started looking to form relationships with companies rather than small
business owners, and now things keep looking better.

All the time, I read on HN about _things_, but never about _people_. I'm glad
you shared this, because it reminds me there are humans here after all.
Everyone wants to paint their life in the best light, but it's rarely true.

~~~
shakycode
Freelancing is really tough but it helped me eat. Forming relationships is
everything! It all starts with a simple conversation.

And yes, there are humans here. We may post a lot of tech-ish stuff, but we
live, breathe, and love as humans.

I'm actually at a crossroad in my career right now. Trying to jump onboard
with a new company as I'm miserable where I'm at. I'm only hoping all of the
paying forward I've done since then can help me find a place I really love.
Have to stay positive and focused. Good things happen when you believe it. :)

~~~
pcunite
Shakycode,

Put some contact information in your profile. A friend of mine might like to
hear your story. Might help.

------
angersock
Things that strike me as odd about this story--and yes, odd things do happen
in dire times, but still.

1\. Why didn't the author just pawn the Glock? There are many shops here in
Houston, and you should've been able to get a few hundred for it.

2\. Why wasn't the rent being charged to the house letters enough to cover at
least the 1,500/month mortgage?

3\. Why couldn't the author stay with a friend?

4\. How did HPD not shoot the author? Harris County is pretty good at that. :(

It's a helluva story, and I'm glad the author is on the other side of it now,
but wow. ~

Some questions:

Were you by the Galleria, or in SW Houston? I'm getting it was SW Houston,
maybe on Holcombe/Belaire (that being like one of the only two B&Ns around at
that time)? Was the gym the LA Fitness on Wesleyan by chance? Was the movie
theater the Edwards on Wesleyan, or the Angelika (I think they hadn't closed
down yet), or what?

EDIT:

The hivemind clearly doesn't approve of trying to learn more about the
situation. So it goes.

~~~
ghufran_syed
Why not pawn the glock? Because you might get attacked by criminals while
homeless? When I was driving across the US with my wife and 4 kids a few years
ago, we somehow ended up in Las Vegas one night with about $5 in change and
nowhere to stay, thanks to extreme levels of stupidity by my bank which froze
my cards (Thanks HSBC!!!). Faced with the possibility of sleeping overnight in
a local park, I'm really, really glad we had firearms with us...

------
xentronium
Am I missing something? Why haven't you tried getting a low-pay day-job (like
cashier in mcdonald's) to get on your feet?

Also, I've heard a lot about american welfare programs, how come you weren't
applicable?

~~~
shakycode
I applied at several places but due to my age and experience I was deemed
"overqualified". So I resorted to other means to eat and survive during that
time.

I think I answered this before, but I didn't qualify for government assistance
as I had made too much money that year. I couldn't even obtain food stamps.
The American welfare system is focused on the long-term poor/destitute versus
those who fall on hard times.

~~~
NhanH
Out of curiosity, how old were you at the time?

~~~
shakycode
32 at the time.

------
DigitalSea
This was a great read. The part where he tried to kill himself by the fountain
and the gun jammed, wow. I wasn't expecting that. I am glad the author is
doing okay now, it is a reminder that this can happen to anyone at any-time.

As a developer I have had my fair share of job losses over the years, but the
one thing that got me through each and every job loss? Savings. I can't stress
how important it is to save money. It doesn't matter if you're on $100k or
$50k per year, try and at least save a little bit of money from each paycheck.

Recently I was contracting for a startup, like the OP I was earning some
serious money, around $10k per month (Australian Dollars) after taxes. After
paying my bills, I would set aside some entertainment money, money for a
months worth of food/fuel and I would move the rest into a high interest
savings account (the interest rate would increase when you cleared a certain
balance level) after six months unexpectedly the startup announced they were
done, the contractors were fired immediately and employees given a nice 4 week
period. I was a contractor, so I had no notice, just a "Thanks for everything"

Usually my first instinct would have been to panic, but living moderately
after all of my expenses, I had about 12 months worth of runway. It took me 2
months to find another job, not paying as much, but I didn't struggle. Always
save something, because for most of us it isn't a matter of when you'll need
it, it is a matter of when.

------
facorreia
"I pulled out my Glock from my bag, loaded a round in the chamber, and put the
gun to my head. Sobbing I sat there and let my life flash before my eyes and I
pulled the trigger."

Wow, this is disturbing. I'm so glad to hear that you could overcome that bad
turn. Your story is inspirational and shows that we should never give up.

~~~
shakycode
This was a dark time in my life. I believe everything happens for a reason.
That gun jammed and changed my life.

~~~
tlarkworthy
This is the shamanic trial. Your ego died, you have been reborn with new
wisdom and experience of the abyss.

[1]
[https://www.wingsofpeaceinternational.org/pdf/Shamanic_Journ...](https://www.wingsofpeaceinternational.org/pdf/Shamanic_Journey_Epic_Hero.pdf)

------
tunesmith
Having freelanced since the first dotcom crash, this reminds me a lot of my
own financial anxieties early on. I responded by going super-risk averse in
exchange for embracing the riskier income model. For those that are starting
out freelancing, the best advice I can give:

You're entitled to nothing! All you will have is what you earn, and you have
to keep your sense of accountability. If you find yourself stretching your
resources to buy something because you think you deserve it, remind yourself
that (in the words of Clint Eastwood) "deserve's got nothing to do with it."

Freelance cash is great, but it's a bit of a mirage, because security is far
more valuable than a recurring fat check that might stop recurring. Random
rough example: 3 years of guaranteed 5k/month is actually more valuable (on
average) than a monthly 10k check that has a 5% chance of ceasing each month,
assuming no further employment chances for the remainder of the three years.

My order of priority was always: bare minimum of expenses, max out retirement,
emergency fund, and _then_ balancing my desire to increase standard of living
with my desire to save. Also remember that buying luxuries has a nasty way of
also increasing your ongoing expenses. I tried to aim for an emergency fund of
a year, which meant keeping expenses low as much as it meant saving a pile of
money.

Volatile investments can make you richer faster, but they also have an
increased probability of dropping you below zero, and that's why you must be
conservative until you can afford to risk your capital. That applies even more
to leveraged investments like taking out a mortgage for a rental property.

Last priority should be purchases that don't make you any money - I'm
currently making more than the OP topped out at in his article, but I still
drive the same pickup truck I bought in the late 90's, because I personally
don't need anything nicer-looking. I work from my laptop for clients that
don't care what I drive.

This isn't to lecture the OP - he had his own circumstances and one hell of a
humbling experience - more power to him for making his way through it. But if
you're a 20-something freelancer that thinks you're doing well just because
you're on a 100k projected revenue... please think again. :)

------
ErikAugust
Heh - I'm kind of there now. Went from 125K last year to about $450/month now.
Didn't have as much stuff - but still have truck payments and a couple credit
card bills.

Freelancing and remote contracting can be very uneven. Luckily I had a decent
amount of savings to begin with when things dried up.

Kudos to you for sharing - and for being a brave and resourceful person to get
through it. The standoff scene is a crazy thing. Over nothing.

~~~
tomcam
That's extremely rough--sorry. Do you have an ad on Craigslist? Seems like
everyone I try to hire for a gig on CL here in Seattle is busy.

~~~
guessbest
Do they have to be in Seattle? Or would you be willing to hire for a gig
remote like from Austin, TX?

~~~
tomcam
At the moment I don't need anyone but over the years I have used CL for short-
term projects. Some of them were remote, some required in-person meets. I'm
just saying that they all seemed to get work on CL pretty regularly.

------
graememcc
This will be me soon. I have to move out of my flat in 3 weeks, and have
nowhere to go. The future's not bright. It's my fault, the result of
determined head-in-sand burying. No sympathy is due.

I've been living off my savings, with the aim of pivoting to a programming
career after years post university stuck in under-employment. My aim was to
build up a folio of work in lieu of the paucity of experience on my CV.

I continued to contribute to various pieces of Mozilla: if you're running
Firefox, you're running code I've written, and I managed to build an internal
web app that is now considered a fairly critical piece of their internal
infrastructure. Other successes included micropolisJS, my SimCity 89 in
Javascript port. Others like my functional library funkierJS and my fresh
rewrite of V8Monkey/SpiderNode I've not yet managed to get over the finish
line.

But as my savings dwindled, I refused to accept it, and focussed on how I'd
easily claw my way back out when I landed a good position.

Even in the past year, when I've been barely hanging on, I stupidly refused to
accept reality. I've lived on one meal of lentils for about 9 months or so -
shedding 6 stone has been nice; it would have been nicer if it had been in a
healthy controlled manner. The mobile phone is long gone, and with it my
world, and my friend's list shrank considerably. And still I wouldn't accept
the position I'd dug myself in.

And now, here we are. My landlord's patience is exhausted. No wonder. In 2 and
a half weeks, I become the perverse dual of the homeless guy who learned to
code: I know how to code but have sank the other way. There's no friend's
sofas or family to bail me out, though that seems fair - I should face the
consequences. At best I might get an emergency hostel with the heroin addicts
and alcoholics, although my city has a reputation for failing to meet its
legal obligations to the homeless.

And I did this to myself, the architect of my own demise.

Apologies for the wall of text. It was, at least, a little cathartic.

~~~
saiprashanth93
You have quite the wonderful portfolio for a guy who is learning to code. What
is stopping you from getting a job when developer demand is so high?

~~~
graememcc
Initially, I was convinced I hadn't done enough to be a convincing candidate.
Recently, more prosaic reasons: no mobile phone, no website (can't afford the
hosting), can't afford a haircut or suit dry-cleaning for attending
interviews...

------
tmalsburg2
Something like this is much less likely to happen in Germany because social
security is working really well there. You may say that Germans pay for that
with higher taxes but my response to that is: 1.) If that prevents people from
trying to kill themselves for no good reason, it's totally worth it. 2.) If it
helps highly qualified people to overcome temporary financial struggles more
effectively, that's also good for the economy.

OP, congratulations for pulling yourself out of this situation, very
impressive, and thanks for sharing your story.

------
Kenji
What's to take away from this story?

1\. Revolvers don't jam - that can decide between life and death

2\. The mind is remarkably good at warping memories to be more positive. Here
we have a man who (spoiler) tried to kill himself and later describing this
period of time as "not that bad".

~~~
shakycode
1\. I didn't own a revolver as I always favored semi-autos 2\. Yes, looking
back it now almost 6 years later it wasn't as bad as when it was happening.
Yes I was on the brink of dying but I came out a stronger person and have
learned to look back at the situation as a life lesson. If I let it haunt me
to this day I'd be right back where I started.

~~~
kw71
I think you made a lot of decisions in a young person's mindset - some of them
got you into the debt hole - but this one saved your life.

Thinking about my acquaintances there are four kinds of people among them who
carry automatic handguns. Cops. "Shooting enthusiasts" who spend a lot of time
and money practicing and are highly skilled. Former military. And wankers.

------
EdwardDiego
I'm not sure I understand what Obama had to do with anything?

------
PhasmaFelis
This is a good example, I think, of how complex the idea of "privilege" is, in
that you can have privilege even when you're pretty much at rock bottom.
ShakyCode was living on the street, but was able to secure some advantages and
eventually pull himself up because he was educated, well-spoken, and able to
make a good impression on people who could help him. Those options might not
be available to a lot of homeless people. When we say that it's possible to
have privilege even if you're poor and marginalized in some ways, this is what
we mean.

(I hope it's clear that I don't mean to belittle ShakyCode in any way; there's
nothing wrong with using whatever you have to make the best of a bad
situation. I don't know what I would have done in his place; I doubt I would
have had the emotional strength do do any coding at all in such a rough state,
and I absolutely respect what he was able to accomplish. And that's another
important point: saying that someone has privilege is not an insult; it's just
an observation.)

------
encoderer
What I see here is that people are quite generous when a member of _our own
tribe_ is harmed, hurt, or fallow.

I'm curious if it's because once you engaged him he was articulate and clearly
not a normal homeless person, or if it was just that humans empathize more
with people they resemble?

------
jacalata
> Now I understand why there are so many mentally ill homeless folks. The
> state of being homeless is very depressing and can bring about mental
> illness in the previously undiagnosed.

I'm not sure this is actually the explanation he thinks it is. A significant
portion of homeless people had mental illnesses before losing their house. In
many cases, illnesses like schizophrenia or untreated mood disorders
contribute to homelessness by making it harder to maintain the social
connections that form a safety net for many people (for instance, if the
poster had driven away all his friends with manic episodes before becoming
homeless, nobody would have been around to lend him a car and go get a new
contracting job).

------
bozoUser
Back in school I used regularly meet this homeless guy and very often bought
him subway and talk to him. One day he showed me his book which I saw him
scribble some notes plenty a time, during one of these on/off conversations he
told me that he holds a PhD from some univ. in Europe. What intrigues me is
that he had some background in astronomy or some similar field of science but
the way he would explain things & would always make me wonder how can such an
intelligent guy be homeless... This post brought back those memories as if I
am reliving it now..hope in humanity still exists.

------
mmrasheed
Very interesting story. I'm glad that the story has a happy ending. While
reading the story, I felt how the world still has a huge reserve of big
hearts, and they can only be found at the right situation. Also, gratefulness
is not only a great virtue, but also pays off sooner or later.

Being said all that, recently I've read many similar stories of sharp fall
from the height of success. It seems, many people working in the private
sectors are vulnerable to "keep running, or you are doomed" like theory. The
social and economical structure in many countries, even many developing
countries, are different which prevent the "fall from the cliff" like cases.
Strong family bonds, affordable permanent ownership of properties etc are key
to stability.

Many EU countries have balanced structure where you can choose to slow down in
your career path, and to enjoy life. Although government in those countries
charge a huge percentage of tax, they take care of their citizens to prevent
the sharp fall in career and life.

Perhaps, too strong capitalism, attention to too many distractions all over
the world, relying on numbers instead of the quality in those numbers etc are
affecting the whole domestic socio-economic balance.

------
znpy
I always thought that having a yearly subscription to a gym that provides at
least showers and lockers is a good idea.

OP's story seems to confirm.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Seems to be a great insurance plan for staying fit and clean when times are
rough. +1

------
rdegges
This was one of the most touching stories I've ever read here on HN.

I tend to read a lot of stories about people's misfortune, and how things
turned around -- but hearing the story from someone in similar shoes as myself
makes it feel so much more personal.

It's really scary how fast things can turn around, regardless of how
'successful' you are at your job / work. Especially if you're doing any sort
of freelancing / etc.

One thing I'd really like to know is this: what can people like myself do to
help others who are in a similar situation as the author? Are their specific
charities that are useful for this sort of thing? As someone who _wants_ to
help out, what can I personally do to make a difference? Is going and
volunteering at a soup kitchen something that's needed?

I'm genuinely interested in helping in some way -- if any of you have advice /
etc. I'd absolutely love to hear it.

------
bootload
_" In the end, money does not equal happiness. These days happiness is a good
cup of coffee ... I don’t care about materialistic things anymore instead I
focus on knowledge and experience and consider myself the wealthiest man in
the world because of it."_

That is the best lesson to know. Question, why did the weapon jam?

------
gasping
> The 4 months of “hell” were really not that bad looking back at it now. All
> of this taught me a great lesson in humility and resourcefulness. It also
> taught me to be kind and loving to your fellow man all the while making sure
> to “pay it forward”.

But it didn't teach them to save a year's living expenses so they'd never get
into this situation again? I wonder what is protecting them from becoming
homeless if they fall on hard time again -- probably nothing. With that said,
this was a really engrossing read and should reinforce the idea that
responsible spending is absolutely key to a comfortable life for those of us
who perhaps don't appreciate our nest egg of savings quite as much as we
should.

~~~
shakycode
Quite the contrary. The whole homeless experience has taught me to save every
penny I can in an "oh shit" or "emergency" fund. These days I'm well protected
and typically have 5-6 months worth of expenses in case the bottom drops out
again.

~~~
aces-
If you had advanced warning that you would go through the same financial
hardship, what would you do differently?

Have you considered driving an offroad vehicle out to BLM or USFS lands and
subsisting there for free? You can live indefinitely without paying rent in
some places.

------
jrbapna
This might be a bit impersonal, but why exactly could this person not get a
job? If he/she were previously consulting for over 100k a year, surely this
person would have some skills that would make them employable?

~~~
dnissley
At least in the US, it can be very hard to get a job without a permanent
address.

------
supster
This is really eye-opening, thank you for posting! I hope you are doing well
now! I'm wondering, as a fellow freelancer, what would you have done
differently leading up to the 2008 crash that would have perhaps made life
easier? Also seems like you had friends at the time, could you not have couch
surfed?

------
mpoloton
This is the risk involved in working as an independent. I have experienced a
similar situation but not as difficult as this story. I think most independent
contractors are generalists with a diverse set of skills. This makes them
disposable in such situations and reduce their employability.

~~~
mikro2nd
Risk, indeed. And always the first disposed of, yes. The first rule of being
and independent contractor is to have a year's worth of expenses in the bank.
Obviously you don't get to that instantly when you're starting out, but you
should try and get there as fast as possible. Two years safety cushion is even
better. Having no debt is a huge, immense advantage.

Disclosure: I've been without work for the past 20 months, and will remain
comfortable for another year if need be.

------
reustle
> You see, there is a lot of food that restaurants throw out every night
> because they can’t serve it the next day.

Is it possible to work out a deal with these (most?) restaurants to pick up
this leftover food and take it to soup kitchens? Releasing liability, and
things like that of course.

------
bdcravens
Thank you for sharing. We're very similar, same age, in Houston, so I can
definitely relate.

------
j_lev
Any chance you could put together a video of yourself explaining to people you
were homeless? You seemed to get really good responses from people, and I'm
intrigued as to whether there was something special about the way you
presented.

------
jakebasile
I am glad to have read this post. I have never been in as rough of a financial
situation as you have, but I have been in a similar state of mind many times.
I am happy that you were able to get back to a good place.

------
srameshc
Thanks Shakycode for sharing your story. I am glad you came out well and were
brave to look back and share your story with the world in a positive way.

------
blahshaw
This was sad for me to read, because it was completely avoidable with an
emergency fund and failing that, credit cards.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Maintaining savings is very important. I've regretted this mistake many times.

------
spacehome
> Material-wise, I had everything I needed and could ever want.

But not a 4-month emergency fund?

------
mirimir
That is an incredibly inspiring share! Thank you, OP.

------
djhworld
You write really well, thanks for this.

------
shocks
Good story, thanks for sharing.

------
sillygoose
I call bullshit.

This guy has 100k/yr in income but no savings at all? And his much highlighted
Nissan 350 Turbo _" pro street"_ was bought on credit? Where did the money go?
He had people renting his house, presumably for a monthly profit? Did he fail
to mention being a heroin addict, or where thd hell did all his money go?

He didn't sell his swanky car immediately, so he could rent a sucky apartment
to avoid being homeless?

He gets attacked by a bunch of hoodlums who beat him up _before_ he gets his
gun out? But he somehow gets it out anyway.

Then his assailant pulls a gun right back at him, and instead of shooting in
fear for his life, he proceeds to engage in a Mexican standoff (which the
other guy is happy to maintain too!), and walks up to the guy to deliver a
macho line, as if he's in a goddamn movie or something?

Then cops show up and somehow magically diffuse the Mexican standoff situation
without using any force themselves?

And finally, there's a time when he's got thousands of dollars of "tax free"
income (hah!) in the bank, but he's _still homeless_? Because having money in
the bank sure beats having shelter?

This story is complete bullshit.

~~~
djhworld
Even if it was bullshit, which I don't believe it is, what does he have to
gain from this other than karma points on HN?

~~~
sillygoose
My guess is that he's a psychopath and just making things up for his own
enjoyment. Maybe he's a Narc and just wanted more attention?

But either way, think about what I said about the article. If you're being
intellectually honest, you'll have to admit it doesn't make sense.

~~~
shakycode
Your guess would be way off. I am neither of those things. Simply a person
looking to share his experience. I have much better things to do with my time
besides fabricating elaborate stories on the public Internet. Not trying to be
defensive, but just saying that not everything on the Internet is rubbish.

I do however respect your opinion and view as an individual. That's your
right, of course.

