Reply to s/o cat's in the cradle

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "s/o cat's in the cradle"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Cat in the cradle poster here.

This is a super personal decision - and there a lot of variables at play. In my case, it was the choice between doubling my income, but moving from 35-40 hours a week with lots of flex, to 80+ a week, 5 days a week in the office, with little opportunity for vacation, likely weekend work, etc. It was a paradigm shift in comp for sure but an equally brutal shift for my home life.

The other part for us was whether this new role would in fact be setting a new negotiating position for future jobs; it wasn't totally clear that it would be unless I was open to moving to the west coast long term, which I'm not, so it wasnt as if 1 year at this other job meant I'd go on to make $400K for life.

I spoke with some friends of mine who made a good point: this isn't fuck you money - not even close - at best you save an extra hundred K or so a year for a few years which maybe means you pay off your house a few years earlier or maybe means your college fund is more funded, but this isn't the difference between retiring at 40 and retiring at 60. As one friend put it, "Do you really give a shit if you retire with $5M instead of $10M?"

I was also reminded of the parable of the fisherman - which several people I talked to brought up - if you aren't familiar with it, google it. Finally, I recommend you read "More than money" by Mark Albion. Its maybe $10 on amazon, its an easy read, but its interesting and a bit eye opening.

But most of all, I just thought about the day i'm sitting on my death bed - will my kids care if their 529 was 70% funded instead of 100% - will they give two shits if the house they inherit is worth $1M or $2M - if it has a mortgage to pay off or if it doesnt? Will I care? How much is enough? And what if, god forbid, the new job creates so much stress I don't even make it to that later age?

Everyone is different - you have lots of student debt - I didn't - but your statements seem incongruent though - you say you make enough but you hands down "what you need" financially. Both statements can't be true: do you actually NEED it?

Think through the tradeoffs..... best of luck! 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics