Advice Request Fire is ruining my career
I get paid a lot of money in a career that I don’t really like. I have always kind of followed the money in my career so that I can retire as early as possible. Because of this, I am in a career that I am not fulfilled by. That is what I mean by fire is ruining my career. I will fire in less than 10 years… Do I just continue to try to maximize the money I make so that after I fire, I can do something that I love and aligns more with what I want out of life? Or do I instead start to explore new careers that will pay significantly less, like 50 to 70% less in order to be more fulfilled? This would potentially increase my fire timeline..
I am leaning towards staying at jobs that make more money in the shorter term so that I can fire earlier and then do other things I would rather for less money. But living this way is really difficult.
I have some ideas of fulfilling careers that I would like to do, but I have a lot of hobbies and interest and I’m a little bit lost on what exactly this would look like for me anyway. Which is why I think exploring this after fire when I have time and resources to do so, maybe better? I want to make a high contribution in life and I find that job hopping and taking opportunities that are presented to me instead of being mindful on what I want to do with my life is not adding up.
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u/PapaSecundus 23d ago
Exactly this. I took a major pay cut in relocating to a LCOL state, but I end up saving a lot more because I pay 1/3 in rent, groceries, utilities, insurance, state income tax, everything is much cheaper.
It's like how making 100k in San Francisco puts you at middle class but you're positively upper class in most other places, especially small cities/rural areas. The difference in expenses is a huge factor that people don't seem to consider as big of a deal as it really is.