"All I need is a dry place, a laptop, and the internet to be happy."

Martin Lasek is working full-time and moonlighting to build his product, Wishkit. And "moonlighting" is not an exaggeration — he's working from midnight to 4am most nights after his family goes to bed.

Wishkit is still in its early days, so I caught up with Martin to talk finances and find out how he's making it work. 👇

Understand your happiness, then fund it

We all know that money doesn't buy happiness. According to Martin, it does make life easier, but only because people are doing it wrong.

💰 "Most people do it in the wrong order. They do it the hard way. They stick with what they think makes them happy and start chasing money to afford it. Instead, they should start by exploring how they can be happy with as little as possible, and THEN start earning money." —Martin

As Martin sees it, if you start by chasing money and stigma, you'll likely need $10,000/mo to be happy. But if you do it the other way around, you can get by on $1,000/mo and be truly fulfilled. And $1,000/mo is a lot easier to achieve.

He sees this as "winning life".

Of course, that means you won't have "shiny things and fancy cars", as he puts it, but if you've already found happiness, maybe you don't need those things.

💰 "All I need is a dry place, a laptop, and the internet to be happy. If everything else is taken away from me, I can still live the rest of my life genuinely happy. Fulfilled. The only difference between people's levels of happiness is perspective." —Martin

The true superpower, according to Martin, is to need nothing and still be happy.

Donning the indie hacker cape

Martin is a full-time iOS software engineer at Alaska Airlines. It doesn't leave much time for indie hacking, but he makes it work.

From 5-11pm, he spends time with his wife and 2-year-old son. His son goes to bed at 8 and his wife is in bed by 11 or 12. Once the family is asleep, he says he puts on his indie hacker cape and works on WishKit. That means regularly staying up until 4am to grind out features.

That's a pretty gnarly schedule. Here's what it's bringing in:

• Revenue: $125/mo
• Full-time job: Undisclosed
• Personal account: $10,000
• Business account: $0

His business expenses are low:

• Total: $53/mo
• Heroku Dyno: $7/mo
• Heroku PostgreSQL: $9/mo
• Google Domain: $60/year
• Google Workspace: $12/mo
• SendGrid: $20/mo

But his personal expenses are high:

• Total: ~10k/mo
• Mortgage: $5k/mo
• Car: $500/mo
• Travel and entertainment: $500/mo
• Food: $800/mo
• House improvements: $500/mo
• Son's college fund: $100/mo
• Au pair: $800/mo
• Misc (utilities, insurance, gas, etc.): $1800/mo

Don't be spendy, but don't hold back

Martin's wife budgets, but he doesn't really see the point, particularly since he doesn't see them as being very "spendy" anyway. In his mind, as long as you consistently increase your savings every month, then you can sit back and enjoy life.

💰 "It's okay to overspend on things if the opposite means you'll be stressed out. Happiness > Money. Relax. It's ok." —Martin

He does have one splurge, though. He gets a new iPhone every 2 years and has done so since the 3GS. Same goes for his Macbook, which is never older than 3 years.

💰 "I deeply love coding. So much that when I don't code my mind is always still there. When I go on a walk with my wife and my son and she asks what I'm thinking about, she can bet the answer is something to do with coding." —Martin

He calls it a splurge, but I'm not so sure — seems like a necessary business expense as an iOS developer.

Do it yourself

Speaking of not being spendy, Martin's a big DIY guy and it saves him a ton of money. That's where the $500/mo housing improvements come in.

He recently built a deck in their backyard, which cost $1,300 in materials instead of $7,000 to have it built. He has also built fences, installed outlets, put down artificial turf, etc. It's faster, cheaper, and he gets to say that he built it.

Enjoying this format? Subscribe to get future peeks behind the curtain and learn how other indie hackers are thinking about money:

Money In, Money Out

Breakdowns of how indie hackers handle their finances.

Subscribe

Invest in VR (and only VR)

Martin invests in Unity and Apple because he has no doubt whatsoever that VR is the future — he says it's going to be too convenient for consumers and professionals not to use it.

You might have also noticed a $100/mo investment that Martin makes for his son. He invests it in the S&P500 and it'll serve as his son's college fund. He estimates he should have about $35,000 in the fund in 15 years when his son turns 17 years old.

Oh, and one other thing he mentioned:

💰 "I only invest what I am okay with losing." —Martin

Wise words.

Utility eating

Beyond financial investments, he invests in ordering in. Often, his wife cooks. But when it's his turn, he orders food instead of cooking. He sees it as an investment because it gives him an extra 30 minutes to work.

He also likes to save brainpower in his food consumption. As he says it, he's a "utility eater". As long as it's nutritious and semi-healthy, he'll eat it for lunch and dinner 7 days in a row. Then choose a different meal and do it for another 7 days in a row. No thinking required.

Don't go into debt... go into strategic debt

According to Martin, there are three ways to pay for something.

1. If a car costs $20k, you can go $20k into debt and pay $500/mo. Now, you have $500/mo less available to you and you'll be much less flexible.
2. You could save up $20k and pay it in full. You'll be more flexible month-to-month, but you probably just blew through your savings so you've got nothing as a backup.
3. The third option is to have $20k saved up but choose to go $20k into debt and pay $500/mo. Then, make the payments with your savings. You'll stay flexible and you'll still have money for emergencies.

He calls it "strategic debt", and it's the only way he does debt.

Well, for the most part, anyway. He does have a mortgage. And you may have noticed that the payment is quite high: $5k/mo. He says he's doing this for his son. His home is in a nice area with good schools, and that means buying there is more expensive. He can only afford it by being very frugal elsewhere.

Early-stage marketing budget should be $0

Finally, let's circle back on Martin business expenses, which are only $53/mo.

According to Martin, if your product isn't making money, it shouldn't cost more than $100/mo. Including marketing. Which means buying ads is a bad idea.

And he knows this from experience.

He spent $750 on ad placement. It brought in 2,000 visitors and zero conversions. Since then, he's focused on the many free ways to validate and grow his product.

Simply tweeting about his progress has brought in more conversions (though fewer impressions) than his ads. And it doesn't cost a dime.

You can find Martin at martinlasek.com or check out WishKit.

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!