I also regret that I gave up a FAANG level opportunity because my faily doesn't want me to go to another city. I would hit well over 200K TC by now -- a very comfortable salary in Canada.
Here comes a secret: It will never be enough for you. It's not the money that counts. It's the ratio of income versus expenses, if anything. And if you grow one and don't stop the other one from growing in unison, then you have gained nothing.
I know lots of people with 5x the income of me, but their expenses and lifestyle overcompensate, so they are much deeper into the hamster wheel than me.
I could retire any day (late 30s). I currently don't do it cause my work is fun and I like the people, and the more I keep going the higher my expenses could become if needed. But the finances don't keep me in my job. And if anything comes along that looks sustainably more fun I will quit in a heartbeat.
I don't want to wait until I'm 69 to retire for at most 11 years.
Plus none of us know how much time we actually have. A lot of people plan to retire at 68, die on the job at 67, and your replacement is in your chair next week.
Precisely because of this, you should be making music and games now. You never know if once you reach the amount of money you desire, death will knock on your door.
If you are already doing it, that's great. But so many people defer the enjoyment and overwork themselves waiting for that future where they hit the number.
I'm moving towards open source now, I do publish some projects under a different HN handle.
I'm lucky: I worked very hard and did decently well in the startup lottery, but I still left myself enough time to forge valuable relationships. I've witnessed people who chase higher and higher salaries but aren't that lucky, and end up using the years of their life where their mind and body are at their peak of their ability for work instead of play, and regret it.
I'm in my 40s now, and see some younger friends and acquaintances doing things like taking multi-month world trips, diving head-first into new hobbies/skills that take hundreds/thousands of hours to get good at, and I wish I'd done things like that in my 20s and 30s. In part because my responsibilities today make it difficult to do now, but also because I just don't want to do some of those things anymore, because they sound kinda exhausting at my age. But I still wish I had those experiences in my past to look back fondly upon.
I guess what I'm saying is that nothing is certain, and we can't reliably look back and say "if I'd done X 15 years ago, today I'd be able to do Y". Life just doesn't work that way. I think we should do what makes us happy whenever we have the ability to. Sure, look hard for and always be open to opportunities to take on work that could make a big change in your financial life. But be careful with those sorts of choices, because there's always opportunity cost.
> I know lots of people with 5x the income of me, but their expenses and lifestyle overcompensate, so they are much deeper into the hamster wheel than me.
Yes. A thousand times this.
What would that look like? Do you have kids or a family to support? I'm one of two gainfully employed breadwinners among an extended family of 13 adults and 2 kids (my own).
That's not a good assumption to make for everyone. There are many people who do grow income without growing expenses (see the whole financial independence movement).
I spend about as much now as I did 7 years ago when I made 4x less.
Meeting people in travel hostels would be one example. Being a young single on a beach abroad is another. Traveling in general is another.
Wandering around Prague with some beers and friends you made 6 hours ago hits different at 26 than it does as a retired 55 year old that waited to live their life.
I live on a beach in Mexico in my 30s and see both ends of the spectrum.
Don't get me wrong; my current situation is fantastic, and I'm in a much better place than I ever would have expected if you asked 25-year-old me where I'd be in nearly 20 years. But I'm still aware that there were paths I didn't take, paths that would have also made me happy.
But I agree there is beauty in what you said.
I thought the money would help, but with family, something will always suck it up. A trip, furniture, house, extracurricular, etc. I wasn’t getting much closer to any semblance of independent wealth, but I was burning myself out.
I’m glad for anyone who can pull it off, but I haven’t met them personally. I have met people who ground themselves down trying, though. It’s a risky endeavour.
You don’t have to go FAANG to earn over 200k here, either. But people will expect you to work for every cent of it, every working hour… and then some. It’s gruelling.
BTW getting 100+K working for an NGO is fantastic! I thought they mostly just pay for meagre money. I only earn some 130K and would definitely love to switch to an NGO job with lower pay.
I’ll be candid. I spent a lot of my savings on a home that cost way too much, and burned a lot of it on… Burning out. I was unemployed for some time after a layoff and good god, the timing was awful. It was only months after getting my mortgage. So it goes though. Buying the house did a number on me. I thought it was going to matter. I thought it would finally feel like I did something important. I think it was a net negative, though paradoxically, it was the kick in the pants I needed to start to realize how futile my goals and methods were, so it was good in some ways too.
I get what you mean about not feeling safe without the money. I grew up pretty poor and a lot of my motivations were essentially “never be poor again”. I’m still insecure about this, but much less compelled by it. I think going through a rough stretch of essentially living on lentils and water made me realize that the thing I was afraid of wasn’t actually practical so much as status-driven. In a weird way I actually enjoyed aspects of having to watch every dollar again. Having to be resourceful is engaging and interesting. Making good food with less makes cooking more exciting and rewarding. Solving problems around the house with fewer tools and supplies teaches you so much stuff you’d otherwise miss. I was confronted with the fact that I was previously comforted by money more from an ego rather than a practical or survival perspective.
Well, everyone is different, but that made me feel like a complete moron and I began reconsidering my relationship with work and money.
Which landed me here. Knowing what I know now, and without my savings, I’d totally take the route I’m on now. Without knowing and with the option to earn more? The idea of working this job would fill me with dread. Weird, right?
At my (our ?) level it's more a luxury of early retirement, but I had a friend who could never afford to move out. Her parents were pretty bad to her to say the least. She was stuck in a pattern of dating guys, moving in with them, getting kicked out and retreating to her parents.
As I told her money gives you options...
And not having money is a great way to suffer at least low-grade anxiety on a regular basis. Or a great way to actually be destitute.