I have a similar story. I only saved up about $2000 too, but I also had a 1-month consulting gig that would pay me about 5 months' salary. That was enough to spur me to quit my job and start working on my own. I earned over a year's salary in the past 3 months since I quit and haven't looked back since.
I was quite satisfied with the position I was in at the last two companies I left.
All the things you mention matter to me, but I added 50% to my salary on my first jump, then another 110% on my second. All in just over a year.
Money is still my primary driver. It will be until I am fully financially independent. Not just able to live on a FIRE budget of $30k a year, but able to chase my own fairly expensive interests.
You're right, I'm not going to leave for another $10k, but another $100k, sure, and right now that's not that difficult to achieve.
Diligent savings over many years combined with low-risk investments. The stable income it generates now covers all living expenses for my family. I'm still part of the 9-5 crowd by choice while I search for my next calling in life. However, the main job is now more of a training ground and networking center than a primary source of income.
Ummmmm, I'll continue taking the high salary every day. When I go home, where I REALLY live, it will be there that I enjoy myself in comfort and relative luxury.
At the time I got my first job in tech, I was working 2 jobs to clear $29K/year. My salary as a junior dev was $76K/year. My next role was $105K/year, then $120K/year, then $135K/year, then $150K/year.
At each level, my lifestyle adjusted to my income, and it did so completely subconsciously. It felt invisible; I can't think back to a particular time where I was like "I am going to spend more money because I can". It just happened.
I've always felt guilty about it, because I know that I'd be in a much more secure position if I had been more conscientious about how I managed my finances.
My SO went through a similar setup as the one described by the grandparent. Hers was ~15k, maybe up to ~17k by the end of the day, considering food and whatnot. I can't speak for her, but from my perception, the investment seems to have paid off: she's now working at a much lower stress level than before (her previous job was in high stress environment) and her salary and benefits (vacation time, perks like company-provided food and activities, etc.) have improved substantially. The job is also much more intellectually stimulating than her previous job. Given a couple years of experience, which anyone needs when changing a career, she could be making almost double than the cap at her previous job. All in all, she is way happier now than before.
I left my job at age 31 at the start of the pandemic to work on my own things.
My salary went from 6 digits to 4 digits - it's still there. I have a family (including young kid). I'm doing fine and don't hate my workdays.
It's a little tough turning job offers, again with 6 digit salaries, but let's see what happens. Maybe I'll break into 5 digits soon! I'm bootstrapped though, so it's a different world.
Yes. I’m not extraordinary by any means and my income was relatively modest compared to a lot of my programming colleagues. Just a saver at heart and someone who likes investing.
- dividends from publicly traded companies ~$30k per year
- investment properties net of expenses ~40k per year
- software side projects ~ 70k per year
I still work full time as I feel financial wealth can be fleeting if not tended to properly and prudently.
I wouldn't call my previous job "high paying," but it had a good enough salary. I could've stayed for years and save enough to live a good middle class life.
I've since left and joined a startup, I'm making slightly less and with less benefits but I'm definitely having more fun and learning 10x as much working in a small very early stage startup versus a corporate 100+ year old company.
How much of a hit did you take on salary, and how much did your cost of living decrease? Would you do it again? I've thought about leaving my career to do something that wouldn't require a commute, and would allow me to live in a very remote area, but I'm not brave enough to take the plunge
No, because I couldn't afford to meet my family's basic monthly expenses after that much of a pay cut. If the pay cut and insurance were not an issue, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
For a while in 2000 I went to six hours a day, paid purely hourly, for some audio driver and desktop application development, for a company that made audio interfaces. It was great, actually. I'd show up fully energized to work, put in a _focused_ six hours, get a lot done, and leave. I was single and didn't need to earn that much to meet my needs. It was not sustainable long-term because of the lack of health insurance, but everything else about it was great.
yup, my salary allowed my wife to recently switch careers and take a 50% salary cut. There is no way we could do the same for my career though unless we made drastic changes like selling the house and never retiring.
Contained in that question is a really interesting bit of learning.
There are many ways to go through your career and your 'wealth' cycle. What worked for me was that when ever I got a raise or "extra" money (bonus, stock vesting, etc) I always adjusted my savings rate so that my take home pay was unchanged relative to inflation. The company gave me a 10% raise and inflation was 3%? I added 7% of that raise to my savings rate. As a result, my savings grew and my lifestyle didn't change, I could always "live on" a much more modest salary than I was being paid. That gave me tremendous flexibility in being able to take jobs that had a 'pay cut' but had other aspects that made them desirable (learning something new, opportunities to develop a new skill, more fun, Etc.) And after a while the amount of money your "savings" is kicking off gets to be more and more significant. If you're lucky, then one day the number your savings is kicking off is the same amount you're paying yourself out of your own paycheck and then you can walk away at anytime, keep your life style, and never have to work again. That gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility in how you spend your time.
Yeah, mine hangs on the wall, unused. The pay would have been half what I made just doing software development. Oh well, I enjoyed my 20s and poverty was hard at times but didn't scar me.
reply