15 Big Life Decisions, Compared Honestly

You have roughly 2,600 adult weeks after age 30. Retiring at 55 instead of 65 buys back 520 of them — 20% of everything you have left. Here's what that costs.

At a 20% savings rate, you'll need 37 working years to retire. At 50%, it's 17 years. The difference isn't incremental — it's half a working life.

FIRE at 40 gets you to freedom 15 years earlier than FIRE at 55 — but only if you can live on $30–40k a year forever, and only if nothing goes wrong.

Owning a home is the default 'smart' move in most cultures. The math says it's a good move only if you stay 7+ years and your alternative isn't an index fund.

Paying down a 4% mortgage gets you a guaranteed 4% return. The S&P expects 7% real, but with volatility. The right answer depends on temperament more than math.

Skipping retirement savings to buy a house earlier looks fine on a 5-year timeline. On a 30-year timeline, every $10k you didn't put in retirement at 30 costs you $76k at 60.

A FAANG SWE makes $400k+ at year 5. A startup engineer at year 5 has either made $0 (failed) or $5M (acquired). The expected value math is similar. The variance isn't.

Freelancers gross 30–60% more per hour than equivalent employees — and net less by year-end after taxes, benefits, and 30% of unbilled time spent finding clients.

9 in 10 startups fail. The 1 that succeeds creates more wealth than 30 years of corporate. The right move isn't to start; it's to start with conviction, runway, and a real wedge.

The math of moving abroad is almost always in your favor. The non-math — family, career, language, belonging — is almost always against you. Here's how to weigh both.

NYC pays 40% more than Austin but costs 80% more. The math says leave. The career, dating, and networking math sometimes says stay. Here's how to decide.

Cities optimize for density of opportunity, countryside for space and nature. The 'right' answer flips depending on life stage — most people who move countryside in their 30s wish they hadn't, most who do it in their 50s wish they'd done it sooner.

You have roughly 4,680 weeks as an adult. A one-year sabbatical is 52 of them — about 1%. Most people in their 80s say they'd trade 5 working years for one real sabbatical at age 35.

The financial cost of a second kid is roughly 60% of the first (shared room, hand-me-downs, scale). The time cost is ~120%. Almost everyone underestimates the time math.

If your parent is 65 and might live to 85, you have ~1,040 remaining weeks together. Living far means you'll see them ~150 of those. Living near: 800+. The math is sobering.