Honestly, I’d like to double mine (to about $400-500k AUD pa) and only work 40% meaning I’d be on about 175-ish… and it’d be fine. Sadly I can’t see it happening any time soon.
Edit: I know I’m doing well, but I find work super draining and would love to work part-time.
The one I’m on is fine. I dont need more money to be happy. Safety and security matters a shitload more than material stuff, and unfortunately money doesnt guarantee those without a bunch of other lifestyle compromises
Words can convey negative connotations. Why perpetuate negative colloquialisms that serve to preserve hierarchies of world order? “Third World “ is a constructed designation meant to oppress. Stuff matters, even if it doesn’t to you.
I never said it didn’t, this just isn’t the right place and in this context it does not matter. It’s a term we all know the meaning of and that’s what’s important.
I wouldn’t say I’m sorry for making you think about the context behind the meaning of words, but because you have had to spend so much energy on this, I apologize.
Anything over $100k is plenty to live, travel, and invest with if you don’t plan on having kids. There’s a point where it’s time and experiences that are more valuable than the money, so I’d prefer fewer working hours or more engaging work than simply just salary increases. I’m certainly happy to receive bonuses and raises, but as an engineer who has never made under $100k/yr the money doesn’t change anything about the way I live and enjoy life (note that I don’t have expensive tastes and carefully watch for lifestyle creep).
There’s a point where it’s time and experiences that are more valuable than the money
I think what you mean is there’s a point where free time and experiences are more valuable than food and shelter.
Money isn’t balancing against these things. Money is the thing the brings you things of value. It’s not Money vs Y. It’s money spent on X vs money spent on Y.
I make 120k in a medium sized city where the median income is about 75k. I’m pretty content, tbh. I also don’t buy shit i don’t need. Most of my expenses are my hobbies. I do have a lot of hobbies. But I still make enough every two weeks where I’m able to stash it away in a savings account.
Now if I only knew how to and had the balls to invest beyond retirement accounts.
Investing tip #1: don’t take advise from strangers on the Internet
Investing tip #2: get a zero commission trading app, like Fidelity or TD Ameritrade, and just squirrel away a bit of each paycheck/monthly/whatever into a low expense ratio, broad market ETF, like VOO (etfdb.com/etf/VOO/#etf-ticker-profile)
Start slow, but contribute regularly. Keep enough cash in the bank for emergencies, and don’t bother even thinking about trying to “time the market” - just set it and forget it.
Criteria for that one: low expense ratio, so you aren’t losing (much) money to the fund manager, large market cap, so you are less succeptible to shock, and the ETF probably isn’t going anywhere, and as a S&P 500 ETF, it holds stocks from all 500 businesses in the S&P 500 (weighted by the respective market cap of said businesses), so it’s not tied to any single sector, making it more resilient for long-term investment.
Oh I travel a lot, we get 30 days of paid leave. I’ve also changed countries for work 9 times over the last 22 years already, so you could say traveling is part of my work, in a sense. Travel doesn’t really make a noticeable dent in my savings though.
I’ve always tried to be more of a generalist than a specialist and wanted an international career. So I started with a vocational training as a banker, thinking that finance works pretty much the same all over the world. In Germany where I’m from originally you learn banking as a trade, not at university, so you basically work full time in a bank and attend classes at a vocational school for about 2.5 years and then graduate with a diploma in banking.
I’ve then started a bachelor’s in business administration (again very generalist on purpose) in evening & weekend classes while continuing to work in the bank, and then by chance the university I attended opened a campus in Luxembourg. Since that’s full of banks I just thought I’ll try my luck and was eventually hired by a wealth management office there and could continue my degree more or less seamlessly (had to take one semester break for the local students to catch up).
In the job I did all kinds of stuff from back office, trade support, some customer facing roles, a bit of compliance and KYC, and eventually they asked me to support with a major IT implementation project since I had working knowledge of 2/3 of the inhouse departments, so that was my first stint into project work. Took about 2 years and was big fun.
By the time I was about to graduate I was however fed up with all the rich people and decided to try my luck at the opposite end of the spectrum, reached out to a ton of NGO’s, development agencies etc., and eventually got a job as a project consultant for a microfinance holding operating local microfinance banks in Africa and Central Asia. They basically brought me on as domestic staff in the respective countries (Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Georgia) to implement projects locally. I’d take on operational roles during this period (head of finance, deputy COO, head of IT security…) to have the required local authority, and would after project implementation phase myself out and hand the project over to daily operations there. Typically I’d be 6 months - 2 years in country, depending on the complexity. At that time I also started to work on a part-time MBA, since in many countries it’s getting harder and harder to receive a residence permit with only a bachelor’s. Didn’t aim for the stars here, I wanted a cheap and easy degree, and managed that in about 3 years.
Afterwards I joined the holding’s head office and actually devised the projects and coordinate with other consultants in the target country to help them implement it, but that got boring soon. In my spare time I ventured into the medical field as I had seen a lot of crap down in Africa, got certified in medical entrepreneurship and ISO 13485 auditing (medical device quality management systems), and ultimately a German startup wanted to open a factory in China and approached me if I wanted to help set it up. They were basically looking for someone with entrepreneurial spirit and track record of succeeding in foreign countries, not really an industry expert as they had enough of those in-house.
So we’ve embarked on a fact finding mission in late 2017, and ever since early 2018 I’ve been living in China now, first as local CEO of the factory, and then doing what I always did - hiring teams, setting up facilities, and making myself redundant. I basically stepped down through the ranks from CEO over CTO and COO to regulatory director, then procurement manager and will soon leave China as a supply chain auditor. Which is ideal since I will only interact with suppliers, making me location independent. I’ll essentially work from home or at the supplier’s site from now on, and have chosen Malaysia as my new home starting April/May. Just waiting for the paperwork to be out.
I’ll be a grossly overpaid auditor, basically… But they wouldn’t dare cutting back after I was fundamental in setting things up to begin with :-)
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