I'm wondering what really smart people who know a thing or two about business would do with say 50'000 Euro in my situation. And when I look for smart people online I tend to check out hacker news. How could I invest it in a way that symbiotically connects with starting a "new" life? 50k or even 100k is nowadays an amount that's on one hand a lot of money but on the other hand not enough to buy anything really significant. I mean there are houses for 50k but I'd have to invest a lot of money to renovate etc and they'd be in the middle of nowhere which comes with further costs. So - yeah, I don't know.
Let's consider it a thought experiment. You get an opportunity (or just thrown into that situation) to start from an almost blank slate and you have 50k and no debts. What would you do?
Ask any older guy, they'll either say they wished they had-- or they'll have great stories from when they did.
My suggestion is backpacking around the world.
Leave it there, try not to spend it, and try to get a higher paying job.
The only thing I'd suggest is that, depending on what your personal safety net looks like (if you hit 0, can you live with your parents?), you put the 40k into ETFs/stocks too instead of just cash.
Just wondering - Why did you quit the job and the apartment?
Personally, I'd look into Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey, Morocco, Albania, rural Spain, southern Italy, Romania, or Bulgaria. You can live comfortably on 1,000 euros a month in these countries, which gives you 4+ years of runway.
I will put all of it into investing in myself. Maybe I could take some time off to focus on learning something that I always wanted and can earn huge income from or perhaps start a more risky endeavor such as a business.
To maximize the utility of 50K, I would move to a well connected but cheaper cost of living country.
In the end, what do you want to do? Do you want to use this opportunity to increase your potential to earn more or do you need a break to get back on track?
Are you enjoying life currently?
An example could be to take a position using options contracts around a companies earnings release thinking the stock will go up (because you've researched it, not guessing) and hedging so losses are minimal in case you're wrong. This might mean a company is say at $90/share and you think it will go up to $105 so you get options contracts for $105 and contracts at $85 in case it falls. I've only skimmed the surface of how this works since I have limited knowledge but that is the gist of it. There is a lot more detail involved with put vs call contracts and buying vs selling them and how the options greeks impact pricing, etc. There are tools out there that let you understand better the risk at different stock prices/options using statistical models.
Obviously if you don't have interest or don't fully understand how these work you could turn your 50k to 0k rather quickly.
Under normal circumstances (Covid restriction and war and such), I would travel. I did some stupid shit (wasting money, etc) in my 20s, but traveling was the one thing I don't regret at all. Meeting new people in new places is about as symbolic as it gets to starting "new" life.
If you insist on investing, I would leave the money as it is.
Now for my advice. The fastest way to become a thousandaire is to start as a ten-thousandaire. Keep the money out of your mind for a bit, and figure out what you want out of life next. Once you know, then go think about the money.