Money or Happiness

[Dos Perros]

It has been my experience that great fathers don’t raise kids with wandering moral compasses.

Eh, kids are wired differently. They're practically genetically programmed to disregard their parents once they reach sexual maturity.

I see plenty of families with one good kid and one mess....who you going to blame that on?

 

[Pony Soldier]

I started early with diversification. I studied multiple fields and took many short courses to make myselfs as available to multiple opportunities. Then I worked with federal and state agencies as well as private industry. As I got older I found myself well well known and in demand at many levels.

Did I get rich ? Hell no! But I haven't worked during hunting season since 1971. However I did make myself available during evenings and on weekends the rest of the year. Please note that hunting season is 5 weeks long plus waterfowl season.

I think the key is to be valuable to a broad range of needs. Have a favorable personality. And be responsive. I have been retired since 2015 and have spent my time turning down more work than I have taken.

Never quit looking at and for new opportunities. Being miserable at your job sucks. Everyone near you can feel it.

 

[Sneaker]

I would not stay at your current job to make it so that you can support your kids after they move out of the house, sure it’s nice to help them out a little bit, but my dad was well off and essentially paid for nothing after I went to school and I just worked my way through. Still got degrees from great schools.
Securing your retirement is important and you want to make sure your reach your retirement goals and timelines but that can be done in many ways as said by others.
I went to a big CPA firm. I worked a lot and it ended up being a real grind. I took a chance and went somewhere else in a different industry and the work day goes by so much faster, I’m in an amazing rural area now with BLM literally behind my house, I get way more time with the family, and it also doesn’t hurt that the $ eventually became far better. Some people love working, I’m not one of them. Even a change from 50 hours to 40 hours a week, that’s 500 hours a year you can do family and personal stuff… time is the real money.

 

[CorbLand]

It has been my experience that great fathers don’t raise kids with wandering moral compasses.

No matter what you do, kids are still independent humans that have the agency to make decisions for themselves. You can teach them all the best things in the world and they can still make the decision to ignore them.

Giving them a solid foundation helps create stability but it doesnt guarantee anything.

 

[cowdisciple]

So, how much is enough?

 

[49ereric]

So, how much is enough?

Enough is when you have no bills and live a simply life and can afford to fix what breaks imo.

 

[cowdisciple]

Enough is when you have no bills and live a simply life and can afford to fix what breaks imo.

I agree with that, but without quantifying it it's hard to tell when you're there.

 

[CorbLand]

So, how much is enough?

For me its when home is taken care of and I can afford to do the things I enjoy and bring me happiness. Those take both time and money to achieve.

 

[cowdisciple]

I look at it like this:

I think I could live very happily spending 75k/year (especially with no housing payment).

I figure a withdrawal rate between 3% and 3.5% annually is going to be sustainable indefinitely. So, 75k/.03 = 2.5m.

 

[MTN BUM]

Its not a dichotomy. Not a "enough" vs "not enough" decision. All of life is a continuum. We like to simplify it into these false yes/no answers, but the real answer is very rarely that straight forward. In this instance, each of us has to decide how far/hard/long we are willing to sacrifice time and energy doing things we dont necessarily like in order to do/have things that we want. The unpopular truth is that we all sell away our time in return for something, all we can do is decide the exchange rate for our time and how much we will trade.

 

[9.1]

I started early with diversification. I studied multiple fields and took many short courses to make myselfs as available to multiple opportunities. Then I worked with federal and state agencies as well as private industry. As I got older I found myself well well known and in demand at many levels.

Did I get rich ? Hell no! But I haven't worked during hunting season since 1971. However I did make myself available during evenings and on weekends the rest of the year. Please note that hunting season is 5 weeks long plus waterfowl season.

I think the key is to be valuable to a broad range of needs. Have a favorable personality. And be responsive. I have been retired since 2015 and have spent my time turning down more work than I have taken.

Never quit looking at and for new opportunities. Being miserable at your job sucks. Everyone near you can feel it.

This really resonates with me. I like to think I'm working on all of this currently for 40hr/week and in 10 years I'll be able to cut back to being a 30hr/week individual contributor with a good amount of PTO until I can qualify for Medicare.

 

[InteriorAKPopsicle]

I didn't read all 5 pages OP but I think there is good advice both ways.

I know that my job has days where I wish I could leave and days I'm enjoying it.
I am in a position where I finally have light at the end of the tunnel - my parents have never owned a home and have never been debt free. Even though I have a lot of debt from a questionable secondary school decision I see a future where I may be able to be debt free and we are buying a home in Alaska.
Looking ahead I can see where if I still feel the same way when we are debt free and have helped my 5 children to start their lives that I would look at getting back into Aviation or another field.

You say that you are very happy outside of work - is there a way to bring some of that to your job to help you? I have the freedom to spend a little time every day researching my hobbies or listening to podcasts about hunting etc.

I think that your best bet is to get you and your family stable - stability is generally very good for children and spouses though i am no expert. But since getting this job for the last 10 years my family has done a lot better than the first 7 years of our marriage where we leaved in constant state of checks and balances.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Have been in a similar boat at different times in my career. Always made good money and often didn't much like my job. I have learned to make the 60ish waking hours I have outside of work in a week a bigger focus than the 40-50 I spend at work. I was often guilty of letting the work hours ruin my hours. I learned a long time ago that at corporate jobs I was only a number and really they didn't give a sh*t about me or anyone else. Changed my perspective. I put in my time earn my paycheck and then the rest of time is mine. I will say that having extra cash gives me more options for my time.

 

[NCTrees]

Great question. I can say I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life chasing the dollar, for my family and myself, at great expense to time available with my kids. Hindsight being 20/20 there is no way in hell I’d make the same choices. However, a choice back then to work less, make less in order to spend more time at home could well have resulted in financial catastrophe for us, especially in ‘08-‘10. We barely made it as it was. Just because employment is historically good now does not make it so for the future. I was always told to make hay while the sun is shining. So, that’s what I did. I will say it feels pretty good knowing I’ve provided my family with some reasonable measure of insulation for when the next shoe drops.

 

[loganwayne]

my wife is constantly asking if she should quit her job and go back to school and try and make more money. I continue to tell her money doesn't mean shit if your not happy.
I keep telling her that if we needed to we have set ourself to a point were we both could take minimum wage jobs and survive. i know that's not ideal but i also want to be happy. At 30 i became debit free with a house in our name. Now if we buy something its a want not a need. Ive also worked plenty of 70+ hr weeks doing side hustles to get to this point.

Have you considered a side venture doing something you enjoy? something that could make passive or semi-passive income to make up the difference?

had a buddy who really like jeep Cherokees. he started buying/ flipping and parting them out on the weekends. in about 9 months he had 3 employees working full time and running his ebay shop for him and was considering quitting his day job till someone offered him stupid money to buy his business.

 

[Yoder]

It has been my experience that great fathers don’t raise kids with wandering moral compasses.

Go.. you know.

 

[Amos Keeto]

Life's too short to dance with ugly wimmen!

 

[Freewilly]

This is a great post.
the reply’s are terrific.

one takeaway that I have at age 63

yes live and enjoy your life, Take care of your loved ones. They will pay you back

 

[SOL2]

Both really matters ..

 

[Wapiti1]

Many pages in, and I didn't read every response.

Any opportunity to move within your company? That is what I did. I was in engineering/QC, got burned out, and trained in production. Put in and got a production position, and it was a whole new career path.

Jeremy