"he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible"
That's all there is to it.
America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
371–380 of 475 posts
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#372I think we're focusing on the wrong thing here (broadly), which is mocking the guy making $1.2m a year. Yes, that's a lot of money, and almost all of us (myself included) struggle to see how to spend that money. But at the same time, I feel some empathy for that guy - he's increased his expenses proportionally and he feels trapped doing something he doesn't enjoy with no end in sight. I know I've moved my expenses up…
"Lifestyle inflation" doesn't necessarily just mean nice vacations and fancy cars - education expenses for children are often a huge part of it. In the major coastal metros, living in a great school district or paying for an equivalent-quality private school is a tremendous expense. Parents also feel pressure to save enough to send their children to the best college or university that they can get into, which can be…
That's nothing for someone who makes 7 figures a year. Two kids going to $70k/year top boarding schools still leaves a ton left over after tax for saving $600k over 18 years.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my limited experience, and excluding obvious exceptions to the rule, the people who make 7-figure salaries are chosen for those positions because they are over-leveraged, and thus controllable.
Ding ding ding. In my brief foray in management consulting at a big three firm, both the company (helped by the credit card companies) sought to create a culture of excess. My colleagues were way overleveraged -- vacations weekly in Cancun, etc. This created dependence on the company, and ultimately intelligent workers who had no choice. By the time they made actual money (5-6 years), their expenses would way exceed…
I have pretty much no exposure to that world, and about half the comments here seem to agree with you, but I still don't understand.
I can appreciate that you might need a wardrobe with nice suits, a respectable looking car, and a few stories about places you've been and things you've done. It doesn't seem like it would super hard to craft that image without spending a lot of money.
How'd you get into the management consulting world? Is there a 500k/yr salary just waiting for me if I fake like I'm a Wall St guy from the 80s?
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#374I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life. I think the problem for most workers is the lifetime of toil, not the meaninglessness of the work. I'd happily dig ditches for 8-12 hours a day for 3 years if I knew I was completely financially independent with millions in the bank that. Actually, I'd rather do that…
That isn't how most people work.
Would you rather be the worst lover in the world but everyone think you are the best? Or the best lover in the world but everyone think you are the worst?
For most people, work is their identity, it is status, it is the ability to abuse underlings terribly with no consequences. Constructing your self-image this way leads to, imo, a great deal of emotional vulnerability. If I leave my job, what will other people think? I am not the boss anymore. I am just another normal person.
And btw, if you feel that you are doing whatever you are doing until you reach $X in the bank. Then that is the same.
The point of the article is that you can be happy working a shitty job for no money. But you have to understand what makes you happy, what is fulfilling to you, etc. Although it is true that some jobs/working environments are just shitty.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually when someone mentions a salary figure it's pre-tax. $500k in NYC is ~285k post-tax. If you have a family, a $1.5m house (which barely gets you a shabby 3-bedroom in a high cost city) will, assuming you put $300k down, be around $8-$10k/month in mortgage + property taxes + insurance + any hoa/maintenence, which is by itself 40% of your monthly take home.
> If you have a family, a $1.5m house (which barely gets you a shabby 3-bedroom in a high cost city) Uh... median house price in Seattle is less than half that. $1.5 million for a house in Seattle will get you an extremely nice house. Extremely nice. If you disagree, it's because you have incredibly high standards for what constitutes "nice". That's fine, but it makes it more than a bit silly to complain that you "ca…
I didn't mention Seattle...I'm referring to NYC or SF.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Lifestyle inflation" doesn't necessarily just mean nice vacations and fancy cars - education expenses for children are often a huge part of it. In the major coastal metros, living in a great school district or paying for an equivalent-quality private school is a tremendous expense. Parents also feel pressure to save enough to send their children to the best college or university that they can get into, which can be…
That's nothing for someone who makes 7 figures a year. Two kids going to $70k/year top boarding schools still leaves a ton left over after tax for saving $600k over 18 years.
That's the point. They can easily afford the $140k/year in education expenses if they keep working the 7 figure job they hate, but they couldn't really afford it if they took a huge pay cut.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need nearly the income described in this article to live in the neighborhoods in NYC with excellent public schools. The price of entry is below $200k after tax income, assuming you demand three bedrooms in your apartment, less if you can make do with two. Source: I live in such a neighborhood. Saving for college is a thing, but one year at this income is enough to sock away an entire college education.
True, although many families aren't willing to deal with the pressure and risk of the NYC high school application process.
In a good neighborhood, your only risk is that you will go to a very good school instead of a great one.
Look, it's not that I don't have any sympathy. My household makes about as much as this guy and live in a similar situation, although apparently I like my job much more. Doesn't mean my life is without problems. Doesn't mean I don't get sad sometimes. But there are ways to mitigate the downside we have access to which most families simply don't, because they don't have the excess income.
Also 99.9% chance this guy actually spends a ton more than he really needs to and therefore has trapped himself. Again, I'm not without sympathy, but this is one problem no social program will ever target. If you're to dig out of your spending habits you really will have to do it by your own bootstraps. Find a therapist, cut up your credit cards, whatever is necessary. If someone making $1M per year really wants to get out from under, there are in the best possible position to do so.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
5 years at a million a year, after taxes in a High COL state will be about 2.5M. A healthy sum indeed, but not enough to retire on, especially with a family.
Totally enough to retire on. The majority of families live on 75K/ year or less. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
Assuming a 4% withdrawal rate yielding $100k/year, seems weird to me to retire on a middle class family income (in non-expensive cities) or lower middle class salary (in more expensive cities) when you have the ability to continue making $1m/year gross.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve thought about this...especially among the very wealthy. Why continue to be a high pressure CEO when you basically never have to work again? My hypothesis is that most very high paying roles are incentive-based, and incentives can be addicting: meet a goal, get a million dollar dopamine hit. I don’t think these people hate their jobs as much as they might say they do.
It's more than that. People need purpose. That's why things like UBI are a pipe-dream. Any Fortune-500 executive could live a life of leisure with 2-3 years of planning. They tend to not make that choice.
Seems like that shows why UBI could work. The worry with UBI is that a ton of people just check out of the workforce forever once it’s no longer necessary in order to eat. If in fact most people want to work because they need purpose in their lives, that seems to indicate that this won’t happen.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's nothing for someone who makes 7 figures a year. Two kids going to $70k/year top boarding schools still leaves a ton left over after tax for saving $600k over 18 years.
That's the point. They can easily afford the $140k/year in education expenses if they keep working the 7 figure job they hate, but they couldn't really afford it if they took a huge pay cut.
Ah, I get your point now. But $140k/year in education for two kids is at basically the second highest tier of education in the world (only things being higher are elite international schools or comprehensive private tutoring). Where I'm from in the US you could get the best education in the state for probably $15-18k/year/kid