
Ask HN: What seeds you sowed years ago that you are reaping fruits of now? - ketanmaheshwari
This could be technical, social, financial or anything -- what was the seed and what fruits are you reaping now?
======
uvw
I took the first nice car I bought three years after I got my first job to the
dealer to replace brakes. They charged me $550 for it. After that I taught
myself how to fix things, starting with cars, plumbing, drywall, electrical
and each and every thing in my daily use. I haven't paid for any repairs or
upgrades to my house or my cars in over 10 years. I invested in tools and
educating myself rather than pay someone else.

I can now fix anything and everything that I use daily.

~~~
StangeStars
I did the complete opposite.

I paid a company to buy furniture from IKEA that I selected, deliver it,
assemble it and get rid of all the cardboards and waste. I just sat there for
three hours and everything was done. Best money I spent.

I also did the same while moving to a new home. I paid the mover to do
everything, dismantle beds and furniture, pack everything, then assemble
everything in the new property. I didn't feel the pain of moving at all.

I get that sometimes saving money and learning something new like fixing cars
is a good thing. But as a 45 years old, spending money to get peace of mind
and reduce stress has become the priority for me now.

~~~
uvw
For me it started because of money, but then it became a hobby. Besides, I can
go for an oil change and have everything done for me. However, it's fun
researching about different oils, finding a best price online, getting it
shipped and then doing the oil change with my young kid. I consider it nice
father/son activity. Having my son learn about things is a bonus.

Similarly, when I finished some unfinished part of the basement, I planned it
with my kid, went to Menards to buy drywall, picked a color, painted together.
He got a sense of accomplishment and so did I.

~~~
dave_sid
I can see your point. I’m currently fitting new doors in my house and teaching
myself how to do it. It’s a pain in the backside however, but it’s satisfying
and I feel a sense of pride every time I open and close the door to go to the
bathroom. I did that!

~~~
uvw
Yep. I am writing code professionally for long time, so that pride and sense
of accomplishment is hard to come by. But fixing anything, even small, gives
me that satisfaction every time I use it.

------
chmaynard
In 2014, after retiring from full-time work in the SF Bay Area, I decided to
use my savings to purchase some undeveloped land in southern Rhode Island and
build a custom home there. The results have exceeded all my expectations and
I'm very grateful.

[https://www.corememorymusic.com/this-new-
house.html](https://www.corememorymusic.com/this-new-house.html)

~~~
nine_zeros
Very nice! Would you mind sharing ballpark figures on how much a project like
this costs?

~~~
chmaynard
About the same as a 2br townhouse in Mountain View. Feel free to email me (see
my profile) if you'd like more information on costs.

------
QuixoticQuibit
Answering in the present as a mid-20s person who is currently sowing the seeds
of financial independence by saving/investing over half of my after-tax
income. Having compound interest working in my favor early is key to my FIRE
goals.

Want to set myself up to have the freedom to demand certain things at work,
whether that’s taking a sabbatical or working only 4 days a week without being
chained to my work for a living. And eventually I’d like to consider early
retirement.

------
enchiridion
A solid understanding of math. Not so much the specifics of certain subjects,
but the way of thinking.

~~~
jlongr
Agreed. Numeracy is a life-long skill whose applications pervade every aspect
of one's life. Making decisions and navigating the world become much simpler
tasks when estimation, analysis and forecasting are familiar tools at one's
disposal.

------
muzani
I inherited some code written by a junior. It was messy, with lots of code
(and bugs) copy pasted everywhere and gigantic god methods which took up 4/5
of the file. It would take 4 hours to copy a thing like loading a paaginated
endpoint, because of the heavily coupled nature.

I realized it would only take about 8 hours to refactor some of those parts to
30 minutes, and about a week to refactor that 30 minutes of work to 5 minutes.
The pages now not only load better, they're free from copy-paste bugs, and
easy to add new modules. At peak refactoring, I was removing thousands of
lines of code a week, with some good teamwork from QA to keep it clean.

A year later, and I'm now able to integrate new features in half a day
compared to about a week, leaving me about 20 hours/week free to do whatever,
which I'm using to upgrade the whole codebase to reactive and native code, as
well as learning iOS programming. It is very nice to go from a week behind
schedule to several days ahead of schedule.

My plan for next year is to keep cutting down the cost for new features.
Everything that takes me 20 hours to do today should take me 2-3 hours in the
future.

~~~
dave_sid
Well done. That’s the perfect attitude to writing and maintaining code.

------
frompdx
I had an idea for an app and I taught myself how to code so I could make the
app. I poured thousands of hours into learning. For a while it was like having
two full time jobs. At a certain point I knew it was what I wanted to do for
work. It was hard to get my first job, but I was lucky and got it. The rest is
history.

I never got around to building the app, but I did build a career.

------
noman-land
I taught myself how to pick locks when I was a kid and I've saved the day on
numerous occasions in my adult life where people were locked out at
inopportune moments and I was able to get us in.

~~~
non-entity
Haha, I've tried to teach myself a few times, but only when I was locked out
myself. Always ended up just calling a locksmith.

------
AnimalMuppet
I married the right person 30 years ago. I reaped 30 years of a pretty sweet
life. When I faced difficulties, I did so with someone firmly in my corner
that I could trust and count on.

Thanksgiving weekend 1984 I spent reading K&R. That's added up to a career
that has paid (and still pays) pretty well.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
My wife said, "That's not actionable." What I did from her point of view is, I
always treated her with compassion. And I listened with empathy, even if I
didn't agree. The fruit is how much she trusts me.

------
he11ow
I got good at networking on LinkedIn. I realized that it didn't need to be
weird, any more than meeting new people at events is weird. Over time, it
became just as useful a tool as actually meeting people in person, only I
could do it anywhere.

It helps if you've not got the option of discovering new people at events, for
example like the way things are now. It's making it hard for people who rely
on face-2-face to develop relationships with new prospects.

Separately, I always had this sense that it helps to have a trio: skills,
domain expertise, and a professional network. It took a while to build up all
three, and it's a process that's never done, but I always sensed to work
towards having not just one or two but all three.

~~~
StangeStars
How do you network on LinkedIn please? Do you just hit people up and add them?
How would one start?

~~~
he11ow
> Do you just hit people up and add them Yes and No. Yes, you reach out to
> people that are not in your network, and that have never met you. No, it
> helps if you connect with a message tailored to that person that makes the
> connection of where your professional interests overlap.

> How would one start? I actually wrote an article about this when everyone
> went into lockdown:

[https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-
linkedin-w...](https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-linkedin-
when-youre-shy-4c60f02b3afd)

------
codegeek
I forced myself to get into my own bootstrapped SAAS business in 2014 and it
is now in a reasonable shape where I can continue to grow it at any pace I
want while I enjoy a stability of enough revenue to sustain a decent
lifestyle. I m no way to close to being done :) but I can say with comfort
that I achieved the bare minimums and have replaced my meaningless corporate
life successfully. Has been a tough 6+ years but was worth it for me.

On a personal side, I taught myself how to cut my own hair few years ago and
boy it has been amazingly fruitful especially right now. My first 4-5 cuts
were nothing short of embarrassments but I am a pro now with the limited way I
give myself a buzz cut and scissors in front.

------
BJBBB
About 20 years past, helped a friend of a friend build a manufacturing
process, get accredited, and wrote some templates for his QA, QC, NRTL
submittals, etc. Did this mostly gratis. Got many good references, which
became the beginning of a side business.

Got my pilot's license and instrument rating through the old military flying
club system (while all else were getting drunk on liberty). It has oft been
the difference between servicing a happy client or perhaps getting hit with a
tort (the latter has yet to happen directly to me, but it has happened to a
member of the consortium because he was not able to get to a site before a
critical deadline.

------
pdxanon
White collar crime, decades ago. Unless laws change, it'll follow me for the
rest of my life.

~~~
muzani
Good fruit or bad fruit? As in cash or curse?

------
econcon
Not years ago but recent seeds

I wrote a blog post on filament manufacturing at home.

That blog post got over 25k views, many people contacted me on telegram. While
all the information is available for free in my blog post, few people asked me
to be their consultant for 10% share of profit.

So I ended up helping them setup their own filament manufacturing unit and now
I am recieving 10% of profit. We aren't competiting with each other as we only
target one country.

Right now money from review share is not a lot it's few thousands of dollars.
But we are combining efforts and helping each other get more sales.

This business is local, for example I found 1 guy from Germany, Italy and
United States and one university from India which are now making their own
filament. One guy from UK is also working on this but it's still in progress.

Here's the blogpost if anyone is interested:

[https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-
ho...](https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-
cheap-6c908bb09922)

------
mehta_rohan
Spent $10 on node.js course, now earning my living from it.

~~~
SftwreEngnr
That's a pretty sad view into the state of hiring.

~~~
detaro
It's sad that someone with self-taught skills can earn their living?

------
giantg2
Technically not from seeds, but apples, cherries, peaches, raspberries,
blackberries, and asparagus.

------
JackMorgan
Fitness: lost 50lb, which moved me from obese to normal BMI, then put on
enough muscle to squat 1.5x my bodyweight for reps. Then got into running just
enough to be able to run 3 miles on demand and 10 miles with a little lead
time to prep. This all took maybe five years. Now I'm hopefully 18 months out
from starting a thru hike of the Appalachian trail. The feeling that I can
just trot into a run at any time just feels so good after a lifetime of
obesity. Plus now exercise just feels so good, my biggest issue is overuse
injuries so I'm constantly mixing up my routine to fight that.

Finances: started saving more than I spend, so I can take off time as needed
to do big expedition projects like a 6-9 month thru hike. Also have learned a
huge amount about finance and economics, which helps a lot with knowing what
to do with saved money.

Location: moved from nowhere TX to the big city. Best decision ever. I was
making 29k a year as a programmer there, immediately doubled that when I
moved. The more I made, the more I could pay off debt.

Got debt free ASAP: paid off 200k student loan debt by living with my
grandmother as her cook, handyman, and cleaner for 3 years. This was awesome,
I got to learn a lot from her in those few years she was still pretty
coherent.

Food: started writing down everything I eat, this helped me break my emotional
attachment to eating that plagues my whole family. Now I'm 5+ years out from
losing 50# and still fitting in my new clothes. Also got good enough at
cooking that I can feed myself without getting bored, so I only really ever
eat out socially, maybe 2-3 times a week.

Drastically reduced drinking alcohol and caffeine: drinking makes me feel bad,
costs a lot of money, and caffeine makes me anxious. Today I drink less than a
beer a week, and I feel like crap when I do, so I rarely do. It's a bummer
too, because I'm a pretty handy bartender and barista after years of food
service work.

Engineering: got serious about my programming skills 10 years ago, and worked
hard to get much better at it. Finished SICP, Let Over Lambda, a couple of
Haskell books, and a million TDD katas. Now I'm extremely fluent in several
languages, and can solve most technical challenges encountered in a typical
software shop. I'm surely not a PhD in CS, nor am I master leetcoder, but I'm
pretty handy with unit tests and a repl in pretty much any environment. This
makes my day job so much more rewarding, and I'm able to work a chill job with
some fantastic coworkers.

Marriage to the right person: I'll never marry anyone else, but I choose to
remarry this woman every single day, 13 years later. She doesn't care about
money and isn't materialistic. She isn't addicted to social media. She likes
to work hard, then loaf on the sofa with me and play WoW. We're effectively
100% financially compatible. This is so important it's silly. This takes out
maybe 99% of potential stress between us. She's effectively already had kids
(raised her two much younger sisters, woot they just graduated college!), so
we're childless and really happy with that.

Career: learned progamming, made really good money doing it. Taught friends
and family how to program, now they've got careers too and are escaping
poverty. Feels pretty amazing to help my family really learn how to fish.

Art: picked up violin at age 30, taking lessons every week, I've gotten good
enough I can reasonably site read a lot of easy pop pieces. Learned enough
painting and drawing to really enjoy figure drawing sessions and portrait
painting. Both have helped complement my life considerably.

Materialism: been working on reducing this in myself. I've gone from a medium
house filled to the brim with crap down to a small apartment with just a few
select high quality items. My day to day emotional enjoyment has increased
substantially. It's easier to keep tidy, which helps a lot.

Mental health: I realized that I suffer from anxiety and an in progress with
doctors and therapists to sort out how to let go. I'm expecting high dividends
from this, so far it's better but not great.

Location: just moved a few miles away, but now I'm surrounded by forest. This
is amazing and I love it.

Old car: I just don't care one wit about looking cool or socially signaling
with a car. This saves money for actually cool stuff like violin lessons.

What didn't pay off as much as I'd hoped:

Writing a blog then some books: eh it was fine, but didn't even scratch 1% of
what I could earn in the open market as a developer. That time better would
have been spent focusing on my career.

Baking: contributed to my obesity in my mid twenties, even baking bread is
still a hell of a lot of empty carbs

Winter sports: eh they're fine, but really expensive and ultimately something
I enjoy just once or twice a year. Also I now have a limp when I sit for too
long from a pretty bad snowboarding accident. It goes away when I warm up, but
that freaked me out enough to say mostly it's just not worth it for me.

Moving upwards in the tech ladder: became a director of a whole office a few
years ago in medium software company. It largely made my life worse for little
benefit. I'd previously read the Gervais-Mclod series by michaelochurch and
believed it, but wanted to see for myself. Just started the process to step
down last month, couldn't be happier. I'd rather be a "loser" than "clueless".
Plus engineering is awesome, managing managers and budgets just isn't as
appealing to me. As Jack in Stargate says, "I've spent my whole life sticking
it to the man. If I do this, I'll be the man. I don't think I can be the man."

Buying a house: this was a wash, netted about the same, and I was pretty
careful about it all. Houses have a lot of unexpected costs. I'm glad I did,
and glad it's gone.

What I'm hopeful for:

Sailing: I want to get a liveaboard small sailboat. I expect this to be a
decent amount of work, but I love sailing and being near the water. Hoping to
try this for a year in 2023. Helps that my wife is am A&P mechanic, and she's
excited at the prospect of having a project always to work on.

Thru hiking: I plan to attempt the AT in 2022, I'm hoping this becomes a big
part of my life. I'm expecting to get into the culture of it, then earn money
to live on over winters. I've started several years ago doing more overnight
and weekend hikes to get used to it. I'm crushing a 45lb ruck every day to
build up tendon/muscular strength, with the goal of building up to a
consistent 60lb every day. Already my endurance is really increased, so I'm
hoping it's a good way to prepare in advance. Also my gear is pretty locked in
at <25lb total, so I'm hoping the heavier rucks translate easily into
endurance.

------
seanwilson
Created a subscription based Chrome extension:
[https://www.checkbot.io/](https://www.checkbot.io/)

It was a lot of work to get out of the door and I nearly went with one-off
payments but it's been going well.

------
coralreef
Tech stocks, bought them and sat on them.

AMZN 2014

NFLX 2014

TSLA 2014

NVDA 2016

Frankly valuations are getting bubbly now but I'll probably just hold for the
next while.

------
znt
Learnt Python to get started with webdev a decade ago.

It let me put bread on the table all this time.

------
p1esk
Nvidia shares. Put all my savings in them. 8x return if I sell now.

~~~
fratlas
What made you do it?

~~~
p1esk
That was when I realized deep learning is here to stay, and Nvidia owns the DL
hardware market. At the time, everyone said I was crazy to put all my eggs in
one basket.

~~~
adventured
"Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket." \- Andrew
Carnegie

Always depends on the quality of the basket and the eggs, of course.

~~~
jazoom
Also survivorship bias. We wouldn't be having this conversation if NVIDIA had
a major catastrophe like Wirecard recently had and owner of basket was unable
to sell shares quickly enough for some reason.

All eggs in one basket takes some serious bravery.

