Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot on whether to keep climbing the corporate ladder or settle into a steady job with a decent income. I’m 48, earning around 180k gross per year, and my wife works part-time. We have two kids and own a modest but comfortable house in Switzerland, where it’s easy to fall into the trap of constant comparison with others.
The company I work for is stable, and as long as I don’t make any major mistakes, I should be secure for the foreseeable future. However, over the past couple of years, I’ve realized that chasing career growth comes with significant sacrifices—stress, lack of time, and, ultimately, little happiness in return. For me, the extra money isn’t worth it anymore.
Recently, I’ve started exploring the idea of simplifying my life—something like the “Mustachian” philosophy resonates with me. Financially, I feel content and don’t have big ambitions for my career anymore. I’ve even considered reducing my working hours to 80–90%.
That said, I’m feeling a bit directionless right now. I’ve looked into other jobs, but nothing exciting has come up so far.
Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences—whether warm or cold!
Any inspiration or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I’ll repeat what I said on here multiple times already that I think gets lost in the FIRE movement: Time now is worth more than time in the future.
You never know what the future will hold. Maybe FIRE would be amazing at 50, but who knows if I’ll be healthy, who knows if my children will be, if my relationship will be, who knows what I could and would miss if I saw nothing except FIRE all the time.
I feel more secure saving money, I like reading about finances on here, but I do not follow FIRE anymore. I earn well, I could earn really well if I increase my part time job to full time, but it would (and has) cost me my sanity, my well-being and my family time - not to mention that my family would suffer anyways by me being unwell.
The best thing I did for my well being was reduce my workload. Not only has it helped my relationships but it has also helped me like my work more, it has actually increased exponentially now that I don’t feel like I have nothing else but work.
I haven’t dealt with the drive to climb the corporate ladder but I’ve neared burnout trying to do what I thought was good when good was potentially impossible to meet. A real 80%-90% helps with life balance but if you don’t actively protect your time, an 80% can also become a way to work at 100% but only get paid at 80%. I’d say it’s a mix of company culture (how actively protective of your free time they are) and your own attitude toward yourself and your colleagues. I’d consider it a good tradeoff if it allowed me to spend more time with my family and I had enough money for my needs.
As for getting you directions, it’s hard to do while knowing nothing about you. I guess what you’re after is the concept of Ikigai: list what you’re good at, what you love, what you can get paid for and what the world needs and the item that gets on all 4 lists should be what could get your life to be simpler. If no item gets on all 4 lists, I’d look at those that are on 3 or 2 and ponder how I can adjust them for them to fit the spots they lack.
Do it, but, as @Wolverine have said, don’t let your 80% become 100% again. Take a full one day free per week and don’t do any work on this day, as well as during weekends and your vacations. Force yourself if you have to, even if it feels like you are wasting your time by not working.
Thx. That depends on how you spend the time that is available to you. Hanging out on the couch is probably not the best value Transmit to them. But there are great examples out there to make your contribution to the world and show the kids What’s possible outside of the usual given 9 to 5 grind for 40+years of your life
Indeed. I have been doing this now for three months. Having less income is the first observation And one needs to make clear financial decisions And be willing to resist certain expenditures. On the other side, life seems much more balanced And there is time for family and personal hobbies. I feel better recovered when I return to the office.
I think it’s a process letting go of the money and being more conscious about your spending And at the same time more time in your life To be in life
I believe what typically happens is that most people (including me) use money or career success as proxy for happiness
But as and when we have enough career success / money, people do realise that money is supposed to fund happiness but it is not happiness
So I suggest to also think about investing more time in rest of life (friends , family , helping out for a cause) because most likely you have been allocating more of your time and energy on work. That would also give you direction.
Indeed that’s what I feel lately. I’m stopping consciously to reflect on this as I feel the conflict in me. Career va the other things. Frankly, there is also a side in me that says find a job where you can put your heart more into and things will be different. The current job is ok. But finding the whohearted job is not something I have accomplished yet
Chronic working on my off days here, little bit here little bit there, little bit of prep, email sorting, meetings setting and all of a sudden you’ve worked 2-3 hours on your day off…
True, but heavily depends on how safe you think you are and how safe you really are. The job market has been dire for a few years already (at least in my field: pharma consulting), and I’ve seen first hand many people in my parents’ generation enjoy the unprecedented growth (in my country, Greece) of 1950-2000 only to become destitute right before or upon retirement, lacking both the strength and opportunity to attempt a recovery. Being a 60-year old night watchman or making coffees, standing for 8 hours straight for 600 euros sounds like hell to me. FI is the driver, RE is the icing, for me at least.
OP if you can continue chugging along with a good salary, meeting your financial goals, and enjoying life then drop the stress related to career ambitions like the sack of bricks that it is. Nobody here will get a statue for our contributions to humanity
The rate race is exhausting me. When I was younger I was just a dreamer and I always thought that hard work and being competent would you get to certain places. Well, unfortunately it’s more who you know and who’s willing to lend you a hand (and most of the time you end up selling your own soul). Had a minimalism phase but went to far and had to chill, I was getting too anxious with clutter but also going to far with minimalism. I have started a side hustle and in the future I would definitely like to reduce to 80% and give it a shot. If it goes well I would like to quit the game, it’s never easy to leave money on the table, plus I need to take care of my family. My full time job has good benefits but I feel it’s sucking life out of me by forcing me constantly to chase the
I’m currently struggling with something similar. I’m currently flirting with the idea of reducing to 80% next year and doing something else with the 20%. But my case is a little different. I don’t want more free time, but simply more variety. I currently have an office job. My idea would be to look for a 20% job that brings variety to the office routine. I would then have an 80% office job and a 20% something-else job. I would even put things away in the Migros racks. Or stand at the cinema box office.
Whatever you do: go for it! Working and not enjoying it or have to less free time is never good.
What I have seen around me is that people very often (if not always) fall in this trap. They continue to deliver the same output over a 4-days week but loose 20% of their salary. And it is not about proper time boxing, even if you manage to always be offline on your free day, productivity is unfortunately elastic (when you are not doing a job where productivity is directly correlated to your worked hours, e.g., vendor in a shop or working on a manufacturing line).
Imho the only way to really benefit from a 80% is to get the time off as additional holidays.
Looks like you might have entered what some call midlife crisis. Do you have a bucket list? Do you know what to do with your spare time? Have you invested in some non-traditional forms of capital yet: family, social, spiritual, health, political? Go your own way without comparing and you might become the envy of your peers.
If you have difficulties finding your way, you might want to create room for what is to come. Maybe accept assistance (coaching, therapy, NWTA) to get closer to your goal?
You didn’t ask for advice but for our experience. Here it is: I’ve reduced my workload to 80% when my son was born and became careerwise invisible to my boss. I got a divorce during my midlife crisis a few years later with the result that the relationship to my son took a permanent hit. I embraced voluntary simplicity and it gave me great calmness. I embarked on the FI-journey and became an accompanying “spouse” when my gf went abroad and came back. When my work content was boring I started a side gig to do what I was passionate about. I was fascinated by a physical goal and trained 2 years for it, only to be in the best shape of my life at age 50. When through not much fault of my own I lost 2 consecutive jobs at age 55+, I could remain positive as I had recently completed my journey to some level of lean FIRE. I practised resilience through learning bushcraft and informing myself about survival in general.
I find raising kids and being a loving husband is one of the noblest things to do. Everything else pales in comparison. I have failed in both. You may do better.
+1. Easier said than done. The best way is probably to be away from the computer when you are not working. Of course there are also personal things to do, so need to be careful about it. If necessary, have separate computers for work and for gaming personal stuff.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Seeing the number of marriages and relationships that end, I think we put too much focus on relationships being forever. I think the reality is that relationships only last for a certain amount of time and we should take the best of what we can from them.
I’ve been working 80% for 8 years now. I treat my day off similar than I do a weekend day or a vacation day: I never open the laptop, I’m 100% unreachable, everything has to wait till the next working day, period.
On the days I work, I work normal working hours (i.e. I don’t “compensate” in terms of hours for the day off).
It’s actually less than 20% in terms of net salary, due to progressive taxes.
The biggest value of an extra day off for me is sort of that I don’t have the commitment to show up / be available / be present for work. If the employer gets more productivity out of me in the 32 hours that I’m available, good for them. I value the 1, uninterrupted calendar day of not having to be present/available more than the productivity potentially given away for “free”.
My wife and I both arranged our day off to alternate between Monday and Friday. This arrangement was verbal with our managers/teams; officially the day off was e.g. Friday.
That way we got a long weekend every other week, and we would typically do a four day trip somewhere (before kids), and then take it easy on the short weekend.
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