If you are already making 200-300k per year with one salary, I do not consider any salary increase "life changing." I mean, making 400, 500, 600 per year could change things on the margins, but you are still working for that income. Plus in many instances, the added income comes with serious step ups in responsibility and stress, which means you will be spending at least some portion of that increase on stuff that will help you manage that -- more help at home, more money on vacations or other stress-relievers, etc. A step up in income can also come with expectations of a certain lifestyle, and it's easy to say "oh I can resist that" but the truth is that if you are at a partnership meeting and everyone else is discussing their Christmas in Aspen or the Swiss Alps, you might change your tune.
After about 200k, the only way to truly change your life is some kind of large lump sum (inheritance, sale of a side business or property, etc.) that could free you from working for a living, or enable you to make some kind of professional left turn without having to deal with financial hardship to do it. How much it would be kind of depends on what you want. For me, 2-3 million would do it, because I'm in a place with my mortgage and retirement savings and kids where that would be enough to essentially permit early retirement with not only no decline in lifestyle, but also I could do a couple things I really want to do that now feel tricky to accomplish. But other people have bigger dreams where they'd need 10 or 20 million. Other people could probably change their lives with just a million or so in free money. It depends on where your life is at now, how much debt you have, and what your goals are.
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