I only have money for paying rent, bills and food until the next month. I don't have a job yet and I already spent my savings. I'm looking for a job but if I don't get one or any income by the en of the next month I will have to move and find a way to survive. This made me wonder about the financial situation of the people in this forum.

< 1 month9.5%
1 month8.1%
1 - 3 months5.4%
3 - 6 months12.2%
6 months - 1 year16.2%
1 - 2 years17.6%
2 - 5 years14.9%
5 - 10 years5.4%
10 - 20 years6.8%
> 20 years4.1%
74 votes \ poll ended
related

Will lose my apartment next week. I have amateur web dev skills, but it's difficult to find work for crypto (can't get a bank account or regular job) and I don't know how to improve my skills ("amateur" isn't good enough in a over-saturated market, but no idea how to become professional). The cheapest rent where I live is around $200/month, but it's difficult to find this anymore. $300-$400/month is more common, but it's difficult to find even one gig for $40 every month. I was homeless on the streets before. The only danger is cops.

Hope you can find work or a place to live. There is a "Jobs" section in Stacker.news, as well as freelance platforms like Microlancer.io and FreelanceForCoins.com. If you post your job search in Twitter, maybe some Bitcoin companies would see it?

I heard in the US, people can camp or sleep in their car on "BLM land" for free (and hopefully cops won't harass people). Couchsurfing.com is paywalled behind a credit card now, but maybe a KYC-free card from TheBitcoinCompany.com or Ezzocard.com could work. If you are religious, maybe ask a church if they could help.

I think the best way to improve your skills is by practice. Start building projects that you find interesting research what you need to learn to build. Do it however you think is right and then ask for feedback on the internet. People will show you how you could improve your solution and here is where you learn. Keep the cycle on and with the time you'll be an expert.

Thanks for the advice. I'll look through the jobs section here. If I have to move I'll ask friends/family to let me live with them for a while. But it is something I prefer not to happen. I hope you can find a work and keep your apartment too.

Thanks for the feedback, it means a lot. I have been programming and building projects since 2008 (and trying to work for crypto since 2016) but still stuck in this amateur stage... I know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, Node.js, Python, Jekyll and Linux sysadmin but still at a hobbyist standard. I was looking at the Nostrica Hackathon projects and they are much better than anything that I could make. Just don't know what to do, in order to reach that standard. Some type of mentor may help, but I can't afford to pay for this.

Mentorship would be ideal. Meanwhile take a look at some books. Clean code is a good one. Also, you could share a repo with something you have done so people can give you feedback on how to make it better

Recommending "Clean code" for an amateur considered harmful.

I don't think so, but it would be great if you could share some other more suitable books.

Here is the PHP code: https://codeberg.org/anarkio/kuno I apologize that it's messy, amateur-level and not fully tested. The source code for Bitejo will hopefully be published tomorrow.

Cool. Interesting project. I don't know much about PHP but I can give you some general feedback.

  • Following conventions is always good. It makes easier to others to understand and modify the code we write. BEM is something you can follow when writing styles.
  • Always write code that is pleasant to read. Avoid lines with more than 100 characters and use indentation and blank lines properly. Always follow the style guide of the language you are using.
  • Avoid magic numbers in your code. Use always constants with meaningful names. Same with strings.
  • Take into account the complexity of the functions/algorithms you write. Nested loops are too complex the most of the times. Take a look at Big O notation.
  • Do not store app configurations in code. Use environment variables. The twelve factor is a good methodology to follow when writing code for production.
  • Do not commit commented code.
  • Read quality code. Look for projects you find interesting and you think are high quality code and learn how their code is written.

I hope this help you. Also, keep an eye on the tech trends (frameworks, languages and tools), being up to date is a must.

Thanks. Do you know any procedural PHP codebases that I could read? (I am already familiar with the Wordpress codebase and have made some custom functions/plugins before.)

I will upload the (messy) PHP code for https://kuno.bitejo.com to Codeberg today. Will also upload the code for https://bitejo.com but want to try to clean it a little first.

Here is the Bitejo source code: https://codeberg.org/Anarkio/bitejo As a warning, it's messy, low quality and most of it should probably be rewritten...

I live in my van in Europe. It's not allowed officially but I never had any bigger problems in three years. Police came by once in Greece and told me the locals there don't like me sleeping there and even suggested another spot for me to go to.

If you don't stay in one place for too long and don't bother the locals it's not a problem.

This is the way, hotel parking lots have free wifi. Get a power box and solar panel for some power!

Thanks for the info. I'm also in Europe but don't have a car (never learned to drive, can't get a driver's license due to no ID), so I would find some private places to close my eyes outside (to risky to sleep due to cops), and spend the day walking around (to avoid accusations of loitering) and looking for public wifi/charging (no more than 1 hour at one place).

How come you don’t have an id?

No country will print ID for me (even if I give fingerprints and a biometric photo). Red Cross/UN/other organizations don't issue IDs. Stateless/non-citizen passports technically exist but in reality the state refuses to print them. More info here: https://agorism.blog/anarkio/roadblocks-to-obtaining-government-id and https://index.statelessness.eu/

I heard in the US, people can camp or sleep in their car on "BLM land" for free (and hopefully cops won't harass people).

You heard right; you can legally sleep in your car in a lot of places in the US. In some places (e.g. Texas), your car is legally considered a part of your house. However, a few cities treat sleeping in your car as a crime, so it's worth researching before spending the night in a city.

There are quite a lot of people living in their cars on BLM land. BLM requires that you move periodically (e.g. 150 miles every 2 weeks), but how far and how long depends on the location in the BLM system.

Bob Wells is a well-known advocate for this lifestyle. He's got tons of videos about living in cars, trucks, vans, etc.

What exactly are your current skills? What tools do you use? Do you have your "profile" page that would showcase the things you have done? (this is all important...) Are you easy to work with, do you have good communication skills? Let me know, because I may have a smaller project for around a monthly rent worth...

One practical way to become "pro" (I know this classification is stupid, but that's where things are...) is to learn a wider portfolio of technologies - like learn React quite well and create your own website that showcases your projects really nicely.

Also learn to set up businesses with https://www.squarespace.com/ (or similar generators). A lot of non-tech businesses prefer to just talk to a person and get the result, rather than clicking in some UI - so that could be another edge for you. So expand the services that you offer this way...

ABL - Always Be Learning!

do you have an email/way to dm I can contact you at?

3-6 months or so for me, could probably stretch that up to one year maximum depending on other factors.

With that time you release some pressure but still not able to relax too much yet. I hope you can extend it

What skills/experience do you have?

I'm fullstack developer. Around 8 years of experience

What tech on the fullstack? (which prog languages and which main frameworks?)

Python, Ruby, JavaScript, TypeScript.

Flask, FastAPI, Django, Ruby on Rails, Express, React, React Native.

Please DM me on Nostr, I could need some Ruby / Rails development in the next future.

From info provided that sounds like a good skillset! I'm not sure if I would have any other suggestion than to create solid CV and go to as many job interviews as possible. If it would be helpful I can check your CV. Feel free to DM me on Nostr (my npub is in my SN profile) and I can see if there are any immediate red flags in the CV - I hired a lot of engineers over the years...

The other option is that you create something on your own (startup, get investors, etc), but if you have only a month of runaway, that may be too short of a timeline - so perhaps taking even boring/shitty job for 6 months could get you the time to create your own thing.

Cool, thanks. I'll send you my cv.

I think that with inflation going the way it is, having cash savings is a hard pill to swallow, yes I earn in fiat so I have some to pay bills and a little in case of emergency but I can see that the amount of "months/time" those savings can keep me going gets less and less as the months go by, only saving grace is how bitcoin is offsetting that decrease

Have strike or cashapp available to quickly convert to fiat for emergencies until bills can be paid directly.

If you are in USA cashapp is by far the fastest and easiest way to put Bitcoin on a fiat dollar debit card.

I can lightning into cashapp and have all lightning funds available as dollars within 10 minutes

We don't have an LN to fiat rail here in South Africa, I would have to go through a P2P market or buy vouchers via bitrefill, bit of a ballache, while the currency is dog shit, still gets you stuff, why spend the good money when you can spend the bad, right?

How easy/fast is to use p2p markets there? Do you use binance? Have you tried robosats?

There's a reasonable P2P market on Paxful, premiums are a bit steep, only payment method I could access on robosats would be paypal, then I would need to push that fiat to my bank account and declare it as foreign income to get the fiat swapped from USD to Zar, ball ache of note and add that to my income tax for the year, ball ache of note

P2P is slower for now- trade off for privacy. No I do not use binance

Robosats is highly recommended.

That's true, a more accurate projection should include inflation.

Although, for times less than 1 year I don't think it will affect that much unless it is a big hyperinflation. I hope the people with more time than that be able to protect their savings against inflation.

There will be always income. Mind cannot stop working ;)

Long enough.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @pi 23 Mar

The biggest expenditure for me are school fees. Private education is not cheap! It would all depend on how well Bitcoin does.

Church can help. You might have to work outside of your profession. Skilled trades (plumbers, laborer) always need help and usually pay at par

I put 2-5 but reasonably it would be longer if I was willing to take all of my savings, investments and equity in home to zero.

i live on the wire.

What does it mean?

it means im on a fixed income and essentially poor. compared to how people aspire to be, and most exist in the first world. but im not complaining, either.

How do people have money stacked away for 3 months? 6 months? 20 years!! That's some Zen shit. I need to learn how to do it. Wow. Love you guys.

Is selling BTC allowed in the context of this poll, or do we consider it the 8th cardinal sin?

Nothing is a sin in this thread

This is not a straightforward question. You need to consider your liquid savings but also potential returns from existing investments, minus your expenses and inflation over time. Here's a calculator... https://ffcalcs.com/how_long

That's true. This data will help only to have a broad vision of our financial status.

Thanks for the link. That is a helpful calculator, but it needs an update to allow inflations larger than 10%.

Ha ha! Yes, you’re right. Inflation could be infinite.