Andrew Merewitz

Engineering Leadership | Working Dad in Tech | Personal Finance for High-Income W-2 families

All ideas expressed are my own | Sr. EM @ Netflix | Ex-Amazon

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

@Tim_Denning love this

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

@danielbelfort Fantastic idea - look forward to more things like this

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

I feel like there's gonna be a resurgence of magazines/newspapers. The deluge of info online, especially given how much is AI these days, is both overwhelming and underwhelming. I would love to read a human generated, weekly newspaper or magazine on selected topics.

[Saai Arora @SaaiArora]

Drake concerts in sf go crazy

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

Check out my run on Strava: https://t.co/Q4k6DfuXG9

Get it done before the kids are awake 💪🏻

"I don't have time" is an excuse for "it's not a priority". There's always time for what's important

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

One of many reasons I believe real, human connection is going to be incredibly valuable going forward - we've moved too far in wrong direction.

[Sam Altman @sama]

cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night:

connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests.

every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc.

[Ramit Sethi @ramit]

Things I do not understand

- Venmoing money back & forth in a marriage
- Taking a HELOC to do home renovations
- Buying a house without running a buy vs rent calculation
- Complaining about lines at Disneyland and airport lounges. You are the line. If they reduced the lines, you’d be priced out
- Driving 10 minutes to save 10 cents on gas
- Working for 40 years without knowing how much money you need for retirement
- Calling yourself “middle class” when you have millions of dollars in net worth

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

@prd_008 @VaibhavSisinty @OpenAI Mind explaining your workflow for this?

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

How did all of our parents generation raise us using the world's least comfortable wooden rocking chairs

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

"Money loves speed, wealth loves time. Poverty loves indecision." @AlexHormozi

🔥 🔥 🔥

It's incredible how often I see successful people locked in indecision and end up doing nothing as a result. Could be a career move, planning a vacation, or many other areas of life

[Ramit Sethi @ramit]

27 simple (and surprising) lessons for living a Rich Life

1. Stop agonizing about the amount you spend on coffee. Focus on the $30,000 questions, not the $30 questions — things like your savings rate, investment rate, debt payoff plan, and housing costs.

2. I can fix a lot of problems with money, but I can't fix cheap. If your friends or family have ever joked about you being cheap — even though you prefer "I'm selective" — good luck.

3. The way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in your bank account. If you believe that when you have $50K or $500K more, you'll finally feel better about money, you won't.

4. Quick back-of-the-napkin rules I use:
- True price of a hotel: Take the price and add 50%, which covers tax + tips + incidentals.
- True price of housing: I personally add 50% to a mortgage to account for Phantom Costs (transaction fees/maintenance), though most people will pay less — I'd use 30% for most. Definitely run a calculation for this one.
- How much to spend on housing: Total housing cost should be less than 28% of gross income, though these days you'll likely stretch to 32% or even 34%. Higher than that, you're in financial risk.
- Car payment: 2.5x the payment for true out-of-pocket cost. It might even be more — my $350/month car payment was over $1,000/month once I factored in everything — but 2.5x is the sweet spot.
- Home renovations: Take your first budget and double it — and grizzled renovators say even that's light.
- Eating out: Triple it. Couples tell me they eat out 5x/week; the real answer is 15x (breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, everything).

5. If you're paying your financial advisor 1% in fees, you'll pay approximately 28% of lifetime returns in fees. Most people can manage their own money, but if you need help, get an advisor — just never pay a percentage-based (AUM) fee.

6. Renting can be a better financial decision than buying. Sometimes buying wins. You must run the numbers, starting with a buy-vs-rent calculation. I've made much more money renting for 20+ years — and lived in better places with almost zero maintenance. RUN THE NUMBERS.

7. What's your Rich Life? You should be able to answer with incredibly specific answers. "Financial freedom" is just words. "So I can do what I want, when I want" is embarrassingly vague. In my early 20s, my Rich Life was taking a taxi in the August NYC heat so I didn't have to sweat before a meeting. Then it was affording appetizers (because as a kid, we couldn't). THAT is specific.

8. You cannot live a Rich Life if you hate spending money. Learn to feel JOY spending, tipping generously, and paying your taxes. As Dan Kennedy says, "Why pay less when I can pay more?" (For the important things in life.)

9. There's a limit to how much you can cut, but no limit to how much you can earn. Learn to negotiate your salary (a single negotiation in your 20s, properly invested, can be worth hundreds of thousands). Start a side business. Yes, even for public school teachers.

10. Yes, you can get paid more. Earning is a skill. Whenever I post salaries, a LOT of people refuse to believe they're real. Step 1: recognize there are many highly paid jobs out there. Step 2: study those people's backgrounds (free on LinkedIn). Step 3: build similar skills (informational interviews are a great approach).

11. Increase your investment rate by 1% every December (e.g., from 6% to 7%). This single decision will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — more than all the coffee and vacations you ever take, combined.

12. Insurance is insurance, not an investment. If you follow someone telling you their insurance is a great way to make money, you're following a scammer.

13. Get the Big Wins right and the small stuff takes care of itself. There are about five: learn the basics of money, invest early and automatically, land a great well-paid job, secure stable housing, and invest in positive relationships. Nail those and you'll never spend 25 years agonizing over the price of coffee.

14. Two keys to a Rich Life: (1) Know your numbers — net worth, Fixed Costs (50-60% of take-home), Savings rate, Investment rate, and Guilt-Free Spending. Get my free CSP template to figure these out in 10 minutes. (2) Master your money psychology.

15. Fight for simplicity in your finances: 1-2 credit cards, 1 savings account, 1 checking account, and (depending on your needs) simple investments like a target-date fund. Then get on with your life.

16. If you have debt, make a payoff plan so you know the exact month/year you'll be debt free. 90% of people in debt don't know how much they owe, and 95% have never made a payoff plan. People in debt do everything EXCEPT pay it off — jumping between 0% cards, consolidating, running gimmicks. Make a plan and automate it.

17. Create a Worry-Free Number, below which you simply won't worry. You wouldn't stress over the price of a pack of gum. Start at $20 and revisit once a year. Your number may eventually reach hundreds or thousands. Good — adjust over time. If you're in a relationship, do this together.

18. If you have money but constantly feel anxious, add an extra $5,000 or $10,000 to your checking account.

19. To save money, pick your 3 biggest discretionary expenses and cut 50% within 6 months. That frees up hundreds a month. Trying to cut 5% on everything guarantees failure and makes you miserable.

20. Most people have the same vacation budget in mind: $5,000 — regardless of age, kids, or trip length. It's a number they picked up in their early 20s and it stuck, the same way you can spot older men by the hem of their pants. Adjust with the times and your ability.

21. You can live a Rich Life today AND a richer life tomorrow. Yes, even if you're in debt, even if you're not perfect, even if you regret decisions from years ago. Do not put yourself in purgatory.

22. There should never be "a money person" in the relationship. Both people must be engaged. One of you might focus on investing, another on certain bills — but both partners need to own a number and share it. Use the monthly money meeting agenda from my book, Money For Couples.

23. Build generosity in NOW — don't wait until you're "rich." Pick up the check. Tip big. Set an amount you want to give away every year and automate it. Wait for some magic number and you'll never build the muscle. The highest level of personal finance is always about the WHO: who do I get to surprise, delight, and be generous to?

24. Teach your kids about money young. Most people tell me their parents either never talked about money or only said "We can't afford it" — and now they do the SAME thing to their own kids. Money isn't something to protect kids from. Get them excited, teach tradeoffs, and by their teens they should be handling tax/tips at dinner and helping plan a family trip or car purchase. But first: you have to master it yourself.

25. Every December, do a Rich Life Review — solo or, in a relationship, together. Share your 20 most memorable photos of the year. Talk about what you want MORE and LESS of. Create a theme (one year ours was A Year of Beauty, another A Year of Adventure). THEN — and only then — look at your numbers. This should take days. Don't rush it.

26. A Rich Life is lived outside the spreadsheet. There's a subset of people — Optimizers, usually men — who spend thousands of hours reading financial subreddits and running Monte Carlo analyses.

27. Stop using the excuse "I wish they taught this in school." Many schools did — you didn't care. And there's unlimited free content and great books now. Get my book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, from any public library.

Follow me, @ramit, for more on money psychology

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

"I'm sorry accomplishing your dreams wasn't fast, easy, and free..... they wouldn't be dreams if they were" 💥💥💥

@AlexHormozi @ChrisWillx

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

530A** (oops!)

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

Setup 503A accounts ("Trump") for both kids today. I have to say - impressively smooth app and easy set up. Got the 1k for our daughter born this year seamlessly. Annoying you need to download an app for it, but otherwise great process. 🧵

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

One perk I see is that by funding it 0-18, could effectively fund the kids retirements so they never needed to worry about it. On the other hand, I'd prefer to have accounts I can give them access to when it's most meaningful (wedding, house, first car, etc).

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

I'm unsure if these accounts make sense to fund, yet, but figured I'd open them as folks are giving out free money. I like the appeal of converting it to Roth when kids are in low tax bracket, but I don't like yet another (large) account largely unaccessible until they're 60+

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

Loved the podcast with @stanine and @lennysan https://t.co/ud5OQ1T4LB

Great leadership lessons

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

@CoachRolfes 7-8% real returns more realistic historically

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

Again, why not have prime time games today? Why are the next round of games all mid-day EST? Huge missed opportunity #worldcup

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

Seems like a massive miss for the #WorldCup to have no daytime games Saturday and 1 game Sunday. Why not have games non stop from noon til midnight Saturday and noon til 8pm or so Sunday.

[Andrew Merewitz @AndrewMerewitz]

NYC Flyover!