Do you follow the money or the freedom?

[BlueAlpha1]

Would you rather make a lot of money and have less free time, or make little money with an easier workload?

You're a single 27 year old dude whose bills only amount to $1300 a month (before food, gas, entertainment, and misc). You can live on 2 grand net altogether.

My options now:

Scenario 1: Do you get a job working online as a travel agent making <$2000 a month? You love the freedom to work remotely, have holidays with family, and never having to ask to take a day off. But the job is barely enough to pay the bills. And you're not saving anything for the future.

Scenario 2: You work in sales for a Fortune 500 company and don't like the job, but there's an extra 1k or more leftover every month. Hours are long and you don't have much time for a life outside of work. You miss holidays and important social events due to work.

 

[Tenacity]

Would you rather make a lot of money and have less free time, or make little money with an easier workload?

Make a lot of money with less free time.

The reality is that making little money today is very risky when you consider cost of living increases as well as how jobs are continuing to be slashed for technology and cheap labor overseas.

A guy should be trying to make as much money as possible and put that away in good investments so he can eventually have FREE TIME as he will have enough in savings/investments to take a month, a quarter, a year, or 3 years, etc., off of work if he wants to.

Unless you work 24 hours a day, there's always free time. Saturday or Sunday come to mind.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

Make a lot of money with less free time.

The reality is that making little money today is very risky when you consider cost of living increases as well as how jobs are continuing to be slashed for technology and cheap labor overseas.

A guy should be trying to make as much money as possible and put that away in good investments so he can eventually have FREE TIME as he will have enough in savings/investments to take a month, a quarter, a year, or 3 years, etc., off of work if he wants to.

Unless you work 24 hours a day, there's always free time. Saturday or Sunday come to mind.

I see your point, but there's definitely another side. Let me explain.

The whole 9-5 path to retirement isn't cutting it either. Wages are down, hours are longer, corporations are demanding more for less, pensions are disappearing, social security is going bankrupt, interest accounts on savings, CD's, mutual funds are at a pathetic low. People used to consider it a worthy trade off to do a job they didn't like because it paid well, they used to get a pension after 30 year, and could save 4% on just a savings account along the way. How is it rational to keep playing by the same rules when the overlords keep moving the goalposts back?

How is this any of this now more of a workable solution than throwing caution to the wind, cutting expenses significantly and living a life of minimalism while pursuing a more modest wage doing something you enjoy?

I have a big problem with the idea of delayed gratification philosophy of "sacrifice all your time now for free time later." The entire "retirement" meme is a scam, unless a person genuinely makes it to $2-3 million net PLUS social security at the end. My grandfather worked 40 years for one company, saved up a few hundred thousand in that time, sold his home for $400,000 in New York, moved to Florida and bought a condo for $170,000. So he had $230,000 net gain from the home swap plus other assets which added up to about $600,000 - plus $2,100 in new money in social security every month. Fast forward 12 years and 18 cruises later and he's down to $25,000 in his savings account and maybe 75-100k in the market left. He never had a pension, and what these companies are offering with 401k's now is simply LAUGHABLE to try to live your final 15-20 years on.

Besides, who wants to only begin to enjoy life at the crusty old age of 67? And in the mean time we all know that 2 days to yourself per week is not enough free time to live a balanced life my friend. The meme of the attorney making $200,000 a year at 30 years old but hating life is a real thing. There's also a spiritual aspect to this. I don't believe in god. I believe this life is it, and when you come to that realization, you hate spending time on things you don't deem worthy causes.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. If the first response had been "screw the good job and follow your dreams", I would have given the other side: that's all well and good but how the hell can I enjoy my free time on $10 an hour? The reason I posted the thread is I see both sides. It's not an easy qustion.

For more on the "forget the money and do what you love for less", I recommend Alan Watts.

 

[Tenacity]

How is this any of this now more of a workable solution than throwing caution to the wind, cutting expenses significantly and living a life of minimalism while pursuing a more modest wage doing something you enjoy?

Brother you make a lot of good points, but the reality is that trying to live a 100% Minimalist lifestyle is going to be very hard considering cost of living increases.

I'm somewhat of a Minimalist myself in theory, but not in total actualization because I actually believe the true answer to your question is a balanced approach.

- Try to make as much money as you can
- Try to squeeze in some free time
- Try to live below your means, but enjoy your LIFE at the same time
- Try to have enough after expenses to where you can put away at least $5,000 per year in investments

It's not waiting until you are 60 to enjoy life, but it's also not spending all you have during your 20's - 50's either. It's not working your entire 20's - 50's and not enjoying your life during that age, but it's also not enjoying your life and not working ENOUGH to generate income to sustain you now and later.

 

[BlueAlpha1]

Brother you make a lot of good points, but the reality is that trying to live a 100% Minimalist lifestyle is going to be very hard considering cost of living increases.

I'm somewhat of a Minimalist myself in theory, but not in total actualization because I actually believe the true answer to your question is a balanced approach.

- Try to make as much money as you can
- Try to squeeze in some free time
- Try to live below your means, but enjoy your LIFE at the same time
- Try to have enough after expenses to where you can put away at least $5,000 per year in investments

It's not waiting until you are 60 to enjoy life, but it's also not spending all you have during your 20's - 50's either. It's not working your entire 20's - 50's and not enjoying your life during that age, but it's also not enjoying your life and not working ENOUGH to generate income to sustain you now and later.

You're right. The ideal answer is a balance, but unfortunately so often this does come down to an either/or choice. It's typically something like this.

John loves dogs. They bring light to his life. He also happens to be good selling faucets. He can either work at a dog kennel for $10 an hour and love getting up every day, but have nothing and live in the hood. Or he can sell faucets to the tune of 50 hours per week, have cool stuff, go all in during his 2 weeks vacation per year, but hate getting up in the morning. Both have their problems.

I've lived in garbage apartments because I was lazy, didn't want to work, and chased the cheap rent. My neighbors were drug dealers, everything broke and I was embarrassed to bring a girl over, but expenses were low. I also just recently signed a lease for a brand new place that would be considered luxury. Rent is 30% higher, but I can't take living with bums anymore. But I'm going to have to work a lot harder than last year to keep up.

It's worth noting I am biased toward the idea of working remotely because travel is my passion in life. I have never felt more alive than I did jetting off to a soccer game in Barcelona with total strangers on a completely different time zone than my loved ones were on back home or having a party at a hostel in DC with people from 25 different countries present. I felt masculine vitality in these moments. A corporate 9-5 life does not allow for this. Somehow the idea of doing that every day makes a lower wage bearable...

This is the conundrum I've been grappling with for 20 damn months now, jumping from job to job and traveling and living on a large stash I had put away.

 

[The_flying_dutchman]

Always choose money:
1) if you have a high salary now, it gives you more leverage in salary negeotiations when you move onto the next job. You don't necessarily have to stay at this job forever
2) Cost of living rises a lot faster than people are aware
3) Don't let yourself get accustomed to living too easy a life, reality has a tendency to creep up on us and it's better to stay hardened and focused

 

[guru1000]

Would you rather make a lot of money and have less free time, or make little money with an easier workload?

You're a single 27 year old dude whose bills only amount to $1300 a month (before food, gas, entertainment, and misc). You can live on 2 grand net altogether.

My options now:

Scenario 1: Do you get a job working online as a travel agent making <$2000 a month? You love the freedom to work remotely, have holidays with family, and never having to ask to take a day off. But the job is barely enough to pay the bills. And you're not saving anything for the future.

Scenario 2: You work in sales for a Fortune 500 company and don't like the job, but there's an extra 1k or more leftover every month. Hours are long and you don't have much time for a life outside of work. You miss holidays and important social events due to work.

If a gun were put to my head and I was forced to make the binary choice quoted above, I would choose Scenario 2, be extremely frugal, and make smart investment decisions.

If no gun were put to my head, I would choose neither. But the choice would definitely include working long hours now while you're young for the greatest l/t compounding appreciation of your savings/investments and begin to dial the hours back in your 40s, while you are still young enough to get the hottest of women while concomitantly enjoying life's fruits.

FYI, unless you make huge financial strides in your 20s and 30s--which is not the case for 95% of people--you will not begin to see and enjoy the fruits of your labor until your 40s+.

 

[speed dawg]

Would you rather make a lot of money and have less free time, or make little money with an easier workload?

You're a single 27 year old dude whose bills only amount to $1300 a month (before food, gas, entertainment, and misc). You can live on 2 grand net altogether.

My options now:

Scenario 1: Do you get a job working online as a travel agent making <$2000 a month? You love the freedom to work remotely, have holidays with family, and never having to ask to take a day off. But the job is barely enough to pay the bills. And you're not saving anything for the future.

Scenario 2: You work in sales for a Fortune 500 company and don't like the job, but there's an extra 1k or more leftover every month. Hours are long and you don't have much time for a life outside of work. You miss holidays and important social events due to work.

I'd go option 2, and save as much as possible. The unfortunate truth is that money IS freedom. Hard cold fact. Go to work. There is literally nothing - NOTHING - you can do about the state of the economy, or what top CEOs are doing. Everyone is out for themselves. Work as much as you can (get some OT in there if possible), save money, learn something, develop skills. Hopefully those skills translate to something very useful when you're in your 30s and 40s and have more free time.

My experience was that I did not like my job either in my 20s. However I kept at it, got good at it, and now I somewhat enjoy it simply because I've gotten pretty good at it.

 

[BeExcellent]

Choice 2 to arrive eventually at Choice 1.

Make money and seize opportunities while you have the boldness of youth and a long horizon.

Once you have built something that buys back your time you have used money to provide freedom, an enviable place to be.

When you have created choice in your life you can pick & choose what you do & who you spend time with from a place of choice and strength rather than a place of need and desperation.

The more fully you commit to your goals, the more authentic and true you are to your talents (e.g., LeBron James is never going to ride race horses for a living & Edgar Prado is never going to be an NBA player), and the faster you get a never quit attitude, the more inclined you are to recognize opportunity and say yes when it knocks.

And when opportunity presents itself make a decision & burn the boats.

But you must prepare yourself to meet opportunity. Otherwise you will waver when it arrives. And opportunity will not wait.

You must be ready in advance.

 

[SteR]

Personally, I lean towards scenario one. The problem is making the assumption that you will live long enough to enjoy this supposed freedom. There are no guarantees in life.

I only mention this because I have a friend that took option 2. The man literally worked night and day and became very successful. He was diagnosed with cancer and has only just finished treatment - he seems to have the all-clear for now. The problem is it's made him completely re-evaluate his lifestyle.

Now I'm not saying give up all plans of saving for the future, but if you can, I'd try not limiting myself to working night and day with the plan of enjoying yourself when you reach X age. The trick would be to find a balance that lets you enjoy yourself AND prepare for the future..

Just my 2c

 

[BlueAlpha1]

Personally, I lean towards scenario one. The problem is making the assumption that you will live long enough to enjoy this supposed freedom. There are no guarantees in life.

I only mention this because I have a friend that took option 2. The man literally worked night and day and became very successful. He was diagnosed with cancer and has only just finished treatment - he seems to have the all-clear for now. The problem is it's made him completely re-evaluate his lifestyle.

Now I'm not saying give up all plans of saving for the future, but if you can, I'd try not limiting myself to working night and day with the plan of enjoying yourself when you reach X age. The trick would be to find a balance that lets you enjoy yourself AND prepare for the future..

Just my 2c

This is a very sound position. My father passed at age 56. He had put in 40 years at one company, and was counting the final 9 years away from retirement. In fact he would have taken a buyout at 62. He was 85% the way there and died.

I'm not saying you've gotta YOLO $20,000 a weekend at the strip club or travel 10x a year, but this idea of "planning for the future" becomes a silly obsession after a while. When you call your boys 6 months ahead of time who you know make good money and get PTO, and they tell you they can't take a 4-day weekend sometime next year because it's too risky (or some such nonsense), it becomes crazy.

No matter how much you try to live 20 years from now and mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. It is all you have.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I'm facebook friends with a lot of my graduating class from law school, from nine years ago. I've seen what the job does to them physically. Everyone balloons upward in weight. Guys lose their hair. All they do is work. If you want to make partner, you had better be billing 60 hours a week, which means you are at work for 80. They have trophy wives, nice cars, and big houses, but they hardly ever get to enjoy any of it. A typical birthday for one of their kids will be the wife bringing the kid to the office on their lunch hour. I think all of them hate life, but keep working for fear of being left by their trophy wives.

 

[SmooveMooves]

Great discussion. I find myself preparing to answer the same question. I think I'm going to choose scenario 2 and look for other options to be self employed and create more income.

@BlueAlpha1 is right. You are not guaranteed your life. 40 years at a company, passing at 56? That's sad man, my condolences.

The general consensus seems to be to find a balance. I agree, I would never work a job I loathe.

 

[samspade]

I definitely work less and enjoy my free time. My job comes with a 35-hour work week, and more than 30 days of paid vacation including holidays. There are no late nights unless I choose to work late. However, the pay is merely adequate, which is fair, since I'm not busting my a$$.

I've worked jobs that involved long hours with diminishing returns, and they weren't for me. Sure, there was potential payoff down the road, but I hated being chained to a desk and getting calls on weekends about work.

My secret is that I don't want a lot. I have very few possessions and keep purchases to a minimum. So I'm able to save and use my money for more "freedom."

 

[BlueAlpha1]

I definitely work less and enjoy my free time. My job comes with a 35-hour work week, and more than 30 days of paid vacation including holidays. There are no late nights unless I choose to work late. However, the pay is merely adequate, which is fair, since I'm not busting my a$$.

I've worked jobs that involved long hours with diminishing returns, and they weren't for me. Sure, there was potential payoff down the road, but I hated being chained to a desk and getting calls on weekends about work.

My secret is that I don't want a lot. I have very few possessions and keep purchases to a minimum. So I'm able to save and use my money for more "freedom."

Curious what rent costs in your market.

I just signed a lease at a new place in Florida with a roommate, it's $1,598 for a 2x2. So my portion is $799, but that includes everything. Cable, utilities, internet, furnished, washer & dryer in unit, parking, gym & saltwater pool. It's corporate-style apartments but in a college community.

Gotta figure you're getting a $300 pp monthly value with all these things, so standalone rent is only about $500.

It's just that $799 "feels" high because I've always lived below my means, but this is considered luxury in central Florida.

 

[Steady Eddie]

BA, you're a saver like myself. You're also ambitious. But what you are, at this moment in time, is physically and mentally exhausted.
You need a break from the constant drudgery of penny pinching. I understand, I did the same myself when I was your age.
Take $5000 (and no more) from your savings and go and have fun. Relax and unwind in Australia, Goa or the French Riviera. You choose. But I beg of you don't spend all of your savings chasing this lifestyle.
Because the mentality that saw you save that money in the first place, along with your ambition to better yourself, will return.
The BA in two years time will thank himself for showing restraint during this time.

 

[logicallefty]

I struggle with this problem daily. I work 3 x jobs; police officer, private detective, IT security specialist . Love the first 2 . Cant stand the third but thats where 90% of my income is at. I live extremely comfortably. Ive done the math and have several ways i could ditch the IT gig and all its benefits, and just do the jobs i love, but money would be very very tight and id have no health ins or retirement for probably a year. Hard, hard decision

 

[Swampcamel]

Option 2 into Option THREE, which would be to develop passive revenue streams. Most people do this through the real estate market because it's less risky than developing a product. The more streams you develop, the less you have to work and worry about money. This is a lot easier to do in this day and age, though, because of the internet and the value people place on digital goods, so eBooks, mobile apps, subscription-based websites, etc., are much easier streams to develop than an actual physical product, though the lifetime of the stream is typically going to be shorter with a digital product unless your concept is good enough to scale and develop over time.

 

[Julian]

this isa realy good discussion right here boyos. i my self work in finance and the hours and the work sucks. not to mention im working for a complete scam system (banking). and its a drain on my soul. this is temporary for me tho...as i plan to love freely and on my own terms within a year. i lknow thats tje mosy i can do. i see my superiors at work and thinking thats the job i can workmyself up to..and i dont want that. its meaningless to me.

 

[christoff522]

Have multiple sources of money.

Have a job, and in your spare time work on something you enjoy that can make you money.

Save the money from the hobby as much as possible. work that hobby project until it is something you can live on permanently, then go and be free - and then save/invest as much of that money as you can so a. it protects you in case of crisis b. it will be enough to live on when you are older.

Even then, if possible, work another angle for money.

Never, ever suck yourself into one angle - because then you are vulnerable.