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Monday Morning Motivation:

Time to beast mode this spreadsheet #deadlines
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Yes for me - I took a 25% pay cut for a less stressful job and I am much, much happier. Happiness has a price tag imo. I used to revenge spend on a more lavish lifestyle but now I don’t feel that need because I’m not frustrated.
150k year + happiness = my goal
Ask my wife.
Rising Star
Research the concept of “hedonic treadmill”. When I was 18, I thought $100k was the magic number. When I was 25 I though $200k, now I’m 32 and think $300k is the magic number.
Money is NOT everything! You know what everything is? Your health. If you don’t have good health then u have nothing. Hopefully you won’t find out the hard way that it’s true
60-80k :-)
Key takeaway: the magic number is different for everyone! Could be higher or lower than 85K
4m - can roughly expect 5p returns each years. That’s 200k. More than enough to do what I love and not have to work a second of the day
This is 4m in the market. Salary will have to adjust to get me there asap
Rising Star
For fellow econ nerds, this post is describing the law of supply. In this case, supply of professional labor.
Rising Star
Laughed out loud at "in the wild"
It’s not about how much you make, it’s about how you spend the money. If your happiness is contingent on material goods, the ceiling can be endlessly high. If your happiness is hinged on experiences, research shows ~95k (~110k adjusted for inflation) is the point of diminishing return.
🥴
In France we usually say 75k€ is the happiness wage. You earn 4 grands a month after taxes. School and healthcare is free here... If you don’t live in Paris it’s way enough
Pro
Enough for me is just being paid what I feel I'm worth compared to my peers at the same firm. I'm happy around 120k, but that's closer to the middle of my pay band than I'd like it to be.
10k/month after tax, keep the bills under $6000/month, and use the rest to save and invest, in half way there.
Rising Star
I think the issue is that people usually fall into lifestyle creep as their salary progresses. Wanting to pay for elite private schools, fancy vacations a couple of times a year, expensive high-end cars, etc... money will never be enough until you begin to learn how to detach yourself from these arguably unnecessary desires.
For me though... probably $175-200k would give me the lifestyle I’ve wanted since I was a kid.
Pro
“Elite” private school is definitely not necessary. After going to college and seeing the vast majority of other peers from very middle class or poorer backgrounds make it, a good public school or normal private school (acknowledging some can be comparable in price) will do just fine and allow you to get into all of the elite colleges. Money only helps a little if your kid is stupid, lazy, and bombed their standardized tests
The number changes once you reach it. 100K, 150K, now making over 200k and think my number is 400k. I am happy but now it’s a matter of staying motivated for the (highly generic) grind.
I stay at 40-50 hours per week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. 400k will motivate me enough (then my number will change again, hopefully).
Chief
I’ll let you know when I find it. All I ask is to make enough money to prove that money can’t buy happiness.
$1M per year in HCOL
225k is my floor if the perfect job appeared
I make far more than that now, but it doesn’t really change anything significantly from a day to day perspective ( obviously LT and retirement savings it does).
More.
Enough to spend money without really worrying about it. Not designer clothing or super fancy cars, but enough to get a nice house and go out to eat and a couple vacations a year. Ideally can do this without a full time job. So for me, enough is when I can do it by living off my investments and properties.
250 k in nyc is what would make me feel comfortable, happy, stress free.