At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?
(edit) This insecurity is a 'feature', not a bug, in our social fabric though - it keeps workers compliant and 'grateful' to have income even when work conditions are otherwise unacceptable. It's why some fight so hard to prevent any expansion of a social safety net.
Personally, I only started feeling safe when my savings edged up towards 1M.. but I may also be more anxious than most.
(I mean it feels super foreign to me but it's a much better explanation than "greed" or "yeah but the house prices")
2-3 Cars to buy out of failing public transport
Private school to make up for failing schools or at least a house in a rich school district enclave
Private senior caretaker because there are no good adult homes for any price
Gated community for failed policing
Etc etc and you get stuck in this cycle of having to buy your way out of society’s problems that’s really hard to stop but also hard to maintain if you loose your job.
I'm sure a lot of us feel this way because you need some psychological threshold where you realize that even in the worst case scenario, you can keep yourself fed and still keep a roof over your head.
Make sure you hold on to those gains, a divorce could cut your safety net in half super quick.
Of course, living to acquire money to acquire (the perception of) safety is itself a form of suffering.
The lack of a social safety net contributes to further suffering in the form of anxiety.
Of course, the market can change (narrator: inflation is at 7% in the US now while Argentina looks on and says, “hold my beer”), leaving your savings and best laid plans diminished.
Our form of capitalism is a capricious master.
This is really it. I certainly have some lifestyle inflation in my life, but not a lot compared to many others in my income bracket. I have no desire to increase my consumption beyond where I've been for some time.
Even though I logically know I'm in a great financial position - especially compared to the average citizen - seeing the costs and trends just make the treadmill seem endless. Then you add in elder dependents, kids, and probably some extended family who will also need help. It tends to be overwhelming.
I'm coming to the conclusion "security" is an illusion and always has been, so I'm trying to take a different approach towards money moving into 2022.
Interesting that you put it that way - a few years back, when I was sort of floating in space the book "The Wisdom of Insecurity" by spiritual-entertainer Alan Watts, though a bit dated, was helpful for me on a personal level.
Freudian slip.
"Why don't you stop renting? Just buy a house like I did 15 years ago, taxes are so low!"
Right... your taxes are artificially low thanks to Prop 13.
"Why do we need high density housing? Just look further away from the city for cheaper housing, I'm going to stay put".
Don't forget to subtract sales commission and expenses.
Most homes that are near the sea are pretty damn expensive in the US. Or if not, have significant flooding, hurricane, and/or will probably be underwater thanks to climate change in 10-15 years.
Plenty of people in the world save for 20 years for a house.
https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/price-gdp-per-cap
And of course stuff like the American westward expansion, because land was dirt cheap as were materials (everything was forested so you just had to start chopping, more or less).
1. Healthcare costs: insane even with the good insurance I have. I'm chronically ill (though you wouldnt know it by looking at me) and I have to get a battery of simple tests done every year in order to not have my medicine withheld by my doctor (yes...they withhold it). These tests get expensive, with an MRI costing upwards of $2500 if necessary WITH my insurance. When I was on "public" insurance through an exchange I was paying $700/mo for even worse care. Now I pay $140/mo and that's "good". Because of my income if I lose my job my choices are COBRA (continuing insurance - really bad and expensive) or an exchange. Medicare (true "public" option) does not allow people with a certain level of assets to participate even if they have no income.
2. No guaranteed retirement: social security is simply a coffer congress raids periodically to fund the latest war/vote buying scheme. My generation will most like see significantly reduced and/or no social security according to the SSA. No company offers a pension anymore and most 401ks in tech don't match. This means every dollar you save is exactly what you get.
3. Absurd housing: I got fortunate and bought at the right time (thanks tech salary!) but I still have a mortgage 2x what my parents pay.
I make 4x the average family salary of my state. I still don't feel safe, and will not feel safe until I have paid off my house, saved at least enough for a 15 year retirement, and have guaranteed healthcare.
I don't think we should have a ton of "nanny state" benefits but the absence of any safety barrier at all to fall back on if things go wrong temporarily means that you necessarily have to become obsessed with money. Especially when you sit at the uncanny valley between middle and upper class, as we do in tech, and there really are no safety nets your tax dollars pay for available to you.
I think there are a few different types of people, some who think money buys happiness and too that I disagree. It however can buy other things, comfort, security, even freedom.
> Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?
Making money doesn't mean that it is not fun or fulfilling either. Some people also get value in their life from working hard. Working at a FAANG for example, you might work on a project used by millions if not billions of people, some people would find a sense of achievement in that.
So, yeah, different expectations.
While cost of housing is indeed crazy high, 2.5M for a starter home is quite an exageration.
Here's ~300 listings for under $1M:
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,condo,apartment_...
From what I understand most top US software engineers intend to retire earlier using that money. Question to you and other similarly-minded Europeans here: Do you intend to churn web services until you are 67 years old (dutch state pension age starting from 2024)? Are you sure that idea of learning yet-another-JS-framework when you are 60 will sound as appealing to you ("fun and fulfilling job") as it does now?
That strategy might work for some employees and not others.
And TBH, while work in FAANGs may not on average be more interesting than the most interesting startups out there, the kind of jobs vary wildly with smaller companies. It might be something that changes the world, or you may end up writing a CRUD app.
So the compensation level is actually a kind of bad-but-still-useful proxy for the quality of the work expected, at least it sets the lower limit. And of course, FAANG products do make significant impact (although not always positive). As long as you're OK with being a cog in a LARGE wheel. Not necessarily for everyone, but some people are fine and find fulfillment in that.
But why not just quit working for a salary altogether and pursue your "dreams"? I guess it turns out many people are not very imaginative with what they want to do with their lives and don't mind clutching onto their job even if money is not a big factor.
Few people want money for its own sake. Some people are competitive, they want to earn money for status reasons. Or they just want to advance their career and money is a follow-on from that. Other people want money so they can buy expensive things or live in a nice house. Others just want to support their family.
You think? Just one thing I read between the lines before LED lights. Europeans had 1-200 W of lighting in a room, or even less. Americans had 400W+.
I move that some things aren't even noticed but more wasteful in the US.
But there are multiple reasons why money is a bigger focus:
- less long term job security. And that lower paid fulfilling job might very well be less secure too. I want to secure my financials as quickly as possible.
- insane cost of housing. A family sized 1800 sqft house with a garden now routinely sells for $3M in my neighborhood. You’re looking at $120k per year in mortgage payments and another $40k in property taxes. That’s after a $750k downpayment.
- the cost of higher education for kids.
- the general cost of living.
We could all move to the French Riviera, I guess, or vote for a better system that isn’t a hellscape for a significant segment of the population, but for an individual who’s forced to live in the current reality, money is a short term fix.
The suburban hellscape where you can walk to a church more easily than a bar is simply not a substitute, even if housing were free of charge.
Believe me or not, very few people accepted. Surprisingly for me.
1) Salary change not worth it. Switzerland already pays a lot and for me it's the sweet spot for quality of living / disposable income. Considered the cost of living in SV I would be saving more or less the same amount of money regardless of the bump in compensation.
2) US working mentality is not healthy IMHO. Luckily I was able to experience the workaholic culture that my peers in the US show. Answering mail or reviewing code over weekends, late at night for their timezone, ... . If I am expected to do that to meet expectations thanks but not thanks. I value my work life balance too much. This compounds the 10/15 paid holidays days year vs 25 I currently enjoy.
3) I don't like commuting for that long. The 101 in SV is a nightmare and, honestly, I am not sure how people do that to themselves like spending 1+ hours each way every day. In Zürich it takes me 12 minutes door to door using public transportation.
That will be the case (riding a comfortable shuttle with WiFi) if you work in Mountain View and want to live in San Francisco (65km away). You can either move (much) closer to the office or just work in San Francisco (more likely if you find another employer).
Moving much closer obviously makes the monetary aspect of the proposition much less enticing since the rent is ridiculous. And if you happen to hit peak traffic where everyone is trying to leave the office, even being physically close might not get you home in 12 mins.
I have lived within 15 mins car/public transportation of the office(s) I’ve worked at in SF and SV for years and paying the rent has been more than worth it.
In a way, there's a selection bias: most of these employees already knew that they could get more in the same company by just relocating to a US office, and that it's not that hard to do. If they were still in Europe at this point, it meant that they had real reasons to stay.
The issue that arises when you hear about many large orgs is that they really don't have anything else to offer.
Most former FAANG employees do seem to like working in up and coming startups better with more control over the company vision.
I agree, but I was replying to a comment that suggests people quit extremely well paying jobs because they can earn more elsewhere, and not because of culture etc.
Of course you choose between staying at a place you know and trying a new place with better pay and some unknowns, so there's some risk involved, but in a lot of cases this risk is rather small.
I hope I don't come off as abrasive but I don't think you've had enough money if you think this is American or applicable only to a small subset of people.
Greed has driven people forever, in different systems of government, from communism, to fascism and capitalism. Leaders have always had (or had access to) a ton of capital to influence and control different aspects of their lives.
Also making a ton of money can be an instrument for good. There are a lot of wealthy folks that donate a lot of their money because they have an excess.
My current contributions are tiny, comparatively, but as my compensation increases, so do my charitable contributions.
Say you were to pull in 50M USD in revenue to your co. over 20 years, you own a plastics processing factory for example and you sell plastic products b2b, maybe you are a broker between multiple plastics recycling depots for example, there are many ways for you to cause 500M USD in total damages that cannot be traced back to you (for now) in pollution costs
We should follow your example of charity and apply it more broadly, on a systemic level and establish businesses that are more sustainable
I'm not a scientist, I'm just ranting