I’m already in the area of diminishing returns, where none of my daily problems are really money related. To have any significant impact I’d probably have to double my salary, so I could afford exotic cars and stuff like that.
You could hire a cleaner, pay to have your lawn mowed, take your clothes to be washed for you and afford to fly somewhere on vacation a few times a year. Those are luxuries that many people can’t afford.
Machines have handled some of that. A vacuum cleaner still takes time, but it’s much faster than what came before, as with the washing machine…it’s not really comparable to the situation a century ago. And you don’t have to deal with random people having access to your house.
The lawn point is true, though the point of a lawn is kind of that it regenerates itself well, and unless you need something that you can run around on that repairs itself pretty quickly, you don’t really need one. Also, in the US, grass lawns really a tradition inherited from England, where it makes a lot of sense in terms of climate…though in the US, some places are really not all that well-suited to it. In the Southwest in particular, even maintenance aside, it really makes more sense to do other forms of landscaping unless you really, seriously have use for a lawn. Though I guess it still can be helpful to have a gardener, even in much lower-maintenance stuff.
Flying costs something, but it’s comparatively inexpensive these days compared to other forms of travel. I drove across the US a few years back when I had some free time – admittedly, not trying to get across as quickly as possible – and when you factor in hotel stays, fuel, and all that, even disregarding human time it’s considerably cheaper to fly.
googles
Yeah, it’s headed even further that way. Looks like I can fly from San Francisco to New York two weeks from now on Travelocity for $255 round-trip. The fuel alone for a car would run something like that.
That’s not to say that there aren’t luxuries out there to be had, just that I think that technology has helped spread out some past luxuries more-broadly.
I see your point, but as another person pointed out, machines take care of lots of things. Washer/dryers and dishwashers are already ubiquitous. I work in IT so I wear t-shirts and jeans directly from the dryer, no ironing or anything else. We also have robot vacuums that can even wipe the floors. We don’t have a lawn yet, but when we do we will get a robotic mower as well. And having a person cleaning up I think would teach the wrong things to our kids.
As for flying somewhere, we usually spend our vacations flying back to our families, so maybe that counts?
I think once you hit 6 figures (in Europe at least) there’s very little extra “happiness” from higher salaries.
The
in Europe at leastis the important part here. I make six figures in the US but am still terrified of unforseen medical expenses. Insurance is always dicking me over on basics. God forbid I need something realRobot mowers are pretty crappy. I’d recommend getting a nice zero turn instead, zip right through the lawn in no time and it’s pretty fun.
At current purchasing power, about 120k. Anything beyond that becomes nice to have, anything below and you’re giving something up.
One that would leave me not thinking about it anymore
Laid back, with my mind on my honey and my honey on my mind
Enough that I’m not completely broke before my next paycheck.
Seriously, that’s all it would take for me to be happy, a little bit of disposable income.10,000,000 per year. I could stop working after 1 year and live off the interest and never have to worry about money again.
Even a million would be enough for me there. That would give me average yearly income of 70k. That would maintain my current level of living and I’d probably just keep getting wealthier still.
70k of what currency?
Any currency that you’ve invested a million worth of
Ten million of what currency?
USD. I am using the 4% rule that states you can withdraw 4% of you investments annually and never run out of money. This assumes an average 7% market return and has a buffer for inflation and fluctuations. 400k per year is about double of what my wife and I make, so it woild allow us to have a cushy lifestyle.
For me, other factors are much more important than the salary.
A tedious job with unpleasant colleagues would never make me happy, no matter how high the salary. On the other hand, if I had a job that was fun and had nice colleagues, I would be happy with a salary that only covered the essentials.
Also, I would rather have a salary that only covers the essentials for 30 hours a week than a salary twice as high for 60 hours a week. What good is money if I can never spend it?
There are more factors that are more important to me than the salary. How much physical labor is involved in the job? Do I have to work at night? Do I work shifts or do I have flexible working hours? Does the employer offer a pension plan? Are there any other benefits? Where would I have to work, close to friends and family or far away? …
Yeah, there really isn’t just one threshold value that would make me happy. More is better of course, but there are too many other factors.
Though it’s probably worth mentioning that I don’t have any children and don’t plan on having any.
$80,000 / yr before taxes
I am fine with my current salary. None of the problems I have are due to having too little money. It is more that I have hardly any time to spend that money and live a fairly lonely life. None of that would be fixed by a higher salary, which is why I have little motivation to try to get promoted.
Money buys time friend
Not if it’s a salary
What?
Might be worth a job change to get better hours and similar or slightly lower income.
I would suggest volunteering at animal shelters on your days off might help with the fairly lonely life. The one by me let’s you check out dogs to go to the beach with and return.
I don’t care about the income. It’s the costs are killing me. If I could live without costs, that’d make me happy.
With income you can nullify those costs.
I remember a time when someone making “six figures” was extremely wealthy. Now six figures just seems to be the baseline for even having a chance at tackling home ownership in suburban areas. 120k is probably ideal. I don’t likely need more than that and it should be enough to pay for a comfortable lifestyle.
Getting there is the tricky part.
I make $115k per year, my wife makes another $20k or so, we have one kid, a tiny house in a slightly sketch part of our Midwestern city that I bought a decade ago when it was almost cheap, and both our cars are paid off… and we’re treading water financially. I don’t know how anybody my age is affording big houses and new cars, unless it’s just by snowballing debt at an alarming pace. I’m already underfunding my 401k just to maintain some liquidity.
120k what? Bananas per hour?
No, you’re confused. K is the currency, they only need 120 of them.
You are not as funny as you think you are.
I’m not trying to be funny. As a non-American am I supposed to assume that everyone is talking about US dollars? Why don’t people just specify units?
It’s the world reserve currency, it’s a safe bet to assume it’s USD when people are talking money unless specified otherwise
Yes you are. Whether you like it or not, that’s the default.
Says who?
OPEC
Says reality. Says the fact that you think you’re trying to take a stand and having to tell people not to assume US default
I earn enough, I’d rather just halve my hours.
And, did that work out for you?
No amount will make me happy.
Once your basic needs are met, the equation becomes: Salary = Expenses + Savings. So, the questions becomes, how much savings makes you happy?
If you are happy to work in your job until “retirement age”, a small savings rate will do, in theory; that is if the salary is adjusted for cost-of-living and tax.
Are you happy working this job for the rest of your life? Full time (whatever that means in your work culture)?
Yes, I’m lucky enough to have a good salary, but I can tell people there is no top limit. Once you have your needs met then you’re exactly right, it’s about retirement planning and savings, and there could always be more. The fact is that the only true money amount that will make someone happy is the amount that allows them not to work anymore
Money has long ceased to provide happiness. >80% of my salary ends up in a savings account, no idea if I’ll ever touch it.
Take a vacation
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.
Get into warhammer? 😂
Yeah that would be one way to get rid of excess money for sure… I could also develop a severe coke addiction, come to think of.
Out of curiosity, you able to share what you do for work? What little you’ve described sounds really interesting.
In the end it boils down to project management.
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 :-)
Bills plus car fuel and maintenance plus the cost of good quality food plus full coverage of medical insurance plus deductible (yay America) plus mortgage payments plus 10-20% on top of that.
Basically, cover the cost of very comfortable living and take the financial worry out of being alive.
Edit: echoing other comments, this would not make me happy directly. It would open up more possibilities to pursue the things in life that bring/grow happiness.
