

Ask HN: I am stuck, what should I do? - isthereawayout

Posting this from a throwaway.<p>Flag the topic, if you will, but I need to say the things out before I get a mental breakdown and I there isn't anyone  who I could bother with my personal problems.<p>Long story short, my parents are divorced for a long time and my mother is very close to being laid off from the job, where she's been working for ~20 years. To make the matters worse, she got into a house debt, which needs to be repaid for 7 more years (I knew and was telling her that was stupid from the start, but that can't help now). To make the matters even worse, she might get into some legal process for the things she probably never did (scapegoat).<p>I am 19. I have some job, hell, I even dropped from the college to get some real world experience, but I'd never believe anyone telling me that real world experience reaches me so fast. With my salary it's quite probable I can sustain barely enough income to pay the debts and make some living for us both, but I dunno for how long (remote working with salary much above average for our country).<p>I am thinking about moving to some other country, hoping that life'd become easier to cope with there. I am a ruby/rails programmer with some 1.5 years experience and 10 years romance with the computer and I believe that my English is bearable enough to communicate with others.<p>I've always thought there's not a single thing I can't handle, but this is a situation I could never imagine getting into. I don't really seek any sympathy, I am begging for advice, because I reckon that HNers' experience combined could help me out.
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jacquesm
She could sell the house at 5% below market that should make the sale go
through quickly.

Use the proceeds to rent a very small place and try very hard to get another
job. Cut down costs to the bone asap.

If your mother has been working there for 20 years she should be entitled to
some severance package.

Do not borrow money or otherwise increase the debt to plug the hole, that way
lies madness.

The rest is too vague to be able to give you any actionable advice or even
options.

~~~
isthereawayout

        > She could sell the house at 5% below market 
        that should make the sale go through quickly.
        > Use the proceeds to rent a very small place 
        and try very hard to get another job. 
        Cut down costs to the bone asap.
    

Yeah, if we manage to sell the home, we're left with about 50% of its cost
which is enough to buy a smaller place in this city or rent a much better
place somewhere in Asia (for example) for years. With my mother nearing her
50, I really doubt she can find any decent job (she's a financial director [I
dunno what they call this position] in the biggest company in the city).
However, I've been thinking that she could learn something with my help and
freelance. But I'm not sure if there's any job out there in the internets that
can be taught in a short timespan.

    
    
        > If your mother has been working there for 
        20 years she should be entitled to some 
        severance package.
    

Never happens here, unfortunately. Employees aren't protected from the
employer at all.

~~~
fooandbarify
_However, I've been thinking that she could learn something with my help and
freelance. But I'm not sure if there's any job out there in the internets that
can be taught in a short timespan._

That's a cool idea. On of the easiest that comes to mind would be chopping
Photoshop files for Wordpress themes or HTML/CSS templates - it might seem
somewhat daunting but if you gave her a starting point she would basically
just have to cut and paste into the right parts a lot of the time. Even though
there are tons of people already doing it I suspect that finding and
partnering with a good designer would still be quite profitable. Depending on
her English skills, another option would be getting into SEO - there's still a
lot of room for growth in that market and the technical requirements can
sometimes be fairly minimal. Copywriting might be an applicable related field,
whether in her native language or by offering translation services from
English to her native language (obviously depends on her English reading and
what her native language is).

 _she's a financial director [I dunno what they call this position] in the
biggest company in the city_

A more industrious option might be to try leveraging your combined experience.
There are endless opportunities for providing very basic and extremely niche
enterprise apps which pay pretty nicely. She may have some ideas in this
regard related to her job, either for an application that would make a common
task easier or that would just compete with a complicated app. One of my
favourite models is to compete with a complicated ancient piece of enterprise
software by _reducing_ the feature set and offering it for cheaper. The trick
is to keep things extremely simple.

------
fooandbarify
I don't _really_ know what to tell you, except to offer some encouragement.
I'm only a few years older than you, and while my experience was different I
have also been through some bad times. Even now, I'm in a very rough spot
financially, but I'm on my way out. Everybody goes through their own personal
hell sometimes, and in my case I found that the most important keys to getting
out of it are determination (which it sounds like you have), an independent
and resourceful spirit (which it sounds like you have) and the ability to ask
for help (which you just did). Note the last two: never be too proud to ask
for help, but never count on getting it, either.

Without knowing where you are now, I can't comment on your decision about
moving to some other country, but fortunately you have valuable skills which
will help you find work anywhere. Definitely consider the cost of living in
any country you want to move to compared to the amount of money you can make
working remotely - it sounds like you're in an area with comparatively low
wages, and by that standard I assume the cost of living in your country is
less expensive than, for example, the US.

~~~
isthereawayout
Thanks. I'm quite sure, I'm in better spot than lots of people that have to
struggle for survival on daily basis.

I've always dreamed about moving to Asia, probably India (or wherever they
speak English, really). Living costs should be even less than here (they're
quite low where I live, to be honest) and I heard there are great
opportunities for tech guys there. I just wonder if I need some kind of work
visa or something like that. Indian HNers, anyone? :)

~~~
raghava
Work visa (and related) rules in India -
<http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/work_visa_faq.pdf>

Portal for details about immigration to India -
<http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/>

>>Living costs should be even less

Most of the times, yes. However there are differences; afaik, metros like
Mumbai or Delhi are costlier than places like Chennai or Bangalore. (And
places like Mysore (where I am), cost of living is even lesser; (comes at a
cost: no multiplexes / big shopping malls / nightlife etc) US $ 1000 (that'll
be approx INR 45,000) per person per month would be more than sufficient to
lead a good life)

>>heard there are great opportunities for tech guys

Indian startup scene is warming up, and _a_lot_ of web 2.0 ones in them.

>>Indian HNers

You could also try posting in <http://hackerstreet.in>

Good luck!

------
jluxenberg
Can you mother consider a strategic default on her house debt? If she's
looking at debt she can't afford to pay off, bankruptcy is probably a decent
option.

~~~
isthereawayout
Real estate isn't going down here; thus, strategic default is not an option,
but we probably could get some decent amount of money if we can get it sold
and after we pay the mortgage to the bank (probably with some extra fee?). The
problem is, that it takes lots of time to sell it here.

~~~
jluxenberg
If she expects to be able to pay it back in the future, she could take a
second mortgage against whatever equity she has in the house.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_loan>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_line_of_credit>

~~~
isthereawayout
I'm not really sure this is applicable. Banks here work differently from those
in USA or EU, they won't give you a loan 90% of the time if you got a mortgage
on your hands. Sounds impossible? Well, people don't trust banks and banks
don't trust people.

Thanks for advice anyway.

~~~
ars
It would be helpful if you said where "here" is.

~~~
isthereawayout
Sorry, but no. No hard feelings, please.

~~~
ars
Not even the country? Certainly no hard feelings, but I think you would have
gotten better answers.

I hope that answers you did get helped you.

