Probably a negative correlation. The more I earn, the more free time I am able to afford and the cooler holidays I can plan. Anyway, 24k / 800k on holidays is 3%. I’m sure many people are spending a bigger chunk of their earnings. I think your expenses are in check. With that kind of income it’s hard to screw up your road to FIRE 
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Trotro. When I made the jump from lower middle management to upper middle managemant I first kept up my work hours - 12 hr days, some weekends, always thinking about work. And saw negative outcome/ feedback. Stressing the organization, starting too many things… I created avalances of work for myself and especially others. Nowadays I pick my initiatives carefully and assign people to it and then spend time thinking through tough problems with them instead solving/executing. I work 40 hrs now, take plenty of vacation and no weekend work. I can and do ditch useless meetings. Disclaimer - this maybe works in megacorp only.
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To add some color to @finalcountdown’s account in pharmaceuticals: in high paying IT jobs the reflection point of making enough versus still having fun was for me around 400k. This is for a job including hands-on work and about an equal amount of management work.
For me personally, the fun part touched on near zero [fun perceived] when my income reached maybe 600k to 800k. The crazy part is that if I had the stomach^Wignorance to pursue my pure own interests, I am fairly sure that I would reach FI with 5M as pursued by @finalcountdown by now. Oh well, I’ll go with 4M.
And that was in Switzerland? What kind of position, what type of employment?
Also curious to hear about those positions! 400k, 600k, 800k as an income in IT?
Maybe I should reconsider my self-employment 
This! Plus you need to right connections to get to upper middle mgmt or senior mgmt. Still amazed about those high figures. Definitely hats off! Of course, we only see those numbers now. We don’t know how hard you had to work to get there.
Just make sure to come back to Switzerland every 6 months. Otherwise you risk loosing your C-permit (unless your Swiss citizens).
Just note that the weather is usually better in Pharma city. I’ve heard of people moving to Zug for tax reasons and coming back after two years, because the weather sucked in early spring and autumn. But if you’re traveling anyway, you won’t really care.
In terms of taxes (especially with your income), Zug is definitely the better option. I was also considering Zug, but it’s really small compared to the city you’re currently living in (hello neighbor 
)
And that was in Switzerland? What kind of position, what type of employment?
It’s what people at Hoolie call middle management. At most peer companies (e.g. Stripe, Niantic, Apple, etc) this would probably be a ‘director’ position. I’m probably also on the upper end of the salary spectrum due to being an early employee and some extra stock thrown in for some extra efforts along the way.
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In Switzerland, 400k is quite high for IT. I don’t know what you qualify by some experiences and if you are speaking about a specific IT domain.
I have checked some stats regarding wage distribution: 400k would be in the top 0.5% to 1%
You’re right, these are pretty high numbers, and making twice as much sounds crazy. On the other hand our CEO made about 280 million in 2019, a couple hundred times as much as me, and over a thousand times as much as the median salary in the company. So who am I to boast with my numbers …
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Congrats, former colleague
I don’t fully understand your situation though:
So I assume you’re aiming to quit / change / retire, am I right?
So I assume you earn more than that (800k), am I right?
So you’re at Hooli since a long time, right?
So to recap: you earn north of 800k, you’re at Hooli since forever, “fun’s run out”, and you don’t have the 5M you need to FIRE. Am I missing something?
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That’s roughly it. Over the past few years I’ve averaged between 600-800k, with the current market prices I’m at ~4.5M total net worth and I’m just about to quit.
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I’m ginving your my CV, maybe I can come already and shadow you just to make the switch as seamless as possible.
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“Aufrechterhaltung der Niederlassungsbewilligung”.
For temporary stays/travels abroad that would be the proper way of ensuring one can return.
How about you give me a quick training, then I get one of these mission impossible masks to look like you and nobody needs to quit 
Btw in my profession (core banking development) the highest rates I’ve seen are around 2400 CHF per day for short term assignments (10-20 days). A project manager was getting some 330 CHF per hour and he worked long hours. With 2000 hours in a year he could squeeze maybe 660k per year. But I would hate to be in his shoes. Such stress, sending email at 05:00 and at 23:00, in calls all day long and having 100 people under you. No thanks.
Please don’t forget that those 660k are not the same if you are self-employed. Somehow earning 660k as an employee will have much more. Self-employed people need to pay AHV part for employer, KTG, laptop, etc.
Thanks for the numbers btw. Sounds about reasonable, from what I know.
For this kind of money, you could even think about cosmetic surgery 
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SF: thxx!
YFM. Congrats, really happy for you. Good to see you did not fall victim to OMY. What age does this allow you to RE at?
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My impression is that 400k total comp would be the top 10% comp at IT places with similar comp to Hooli (I guess that includes at least FB, Apple, …), @Your_Full_Name is more like the 1% there.
10% is not everyone, but also not unreachable, after spending a significant part of your career there (e.g. 8+ years, remember that at least in the past there would be many more junior folks coming every year fresh out of university)
Assuming you’re addressing me: a little over 50. Had I learned about investing in my twenties or so (instead of maybe 8 years ago), I probably could have shaved off 5+ years or so to get to where I’m at now (even though the crazy high salaries I only saw in the recent few years).
Oh, and what’s OMY?
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Not bad for 4.5M. OMY is short for one more year syndrome, ie the reluctance to walk away from a job due to pay although not happy about it anymore.
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Ah, yeah, I can definitely see OMY happening … Thanks for explaining! When trying to find out myself, my employer’s search engine came back with acronym expansions that didn’t make much sense (“Oh My!”, “On My Way”, and – my favourite one – “Oriental Magnetic Yellow”). 
It is probably removed on purpose from the search engine, because your employer doesn’t want that people would know they are victims of OMY, having more than enough funds to retire, but still working there 
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@ma0, I’m afraid I’m irreplaceable. The last time I threatened to quit my VP stepped in and convinced me to stay by (1) changing my performance rating post lock-in of the ratings*, (2) throwing some extra RSUs on top of the pile, and (3) gently but ultimately removing my boss at the time.
Just kidding (about the being irreplaceable).
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* Among the troops this is kind of unheard of in the philosophy of performance management at Hoolie, though anecdotally I’ve seen it quite regularly. In both directions. :-/
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