I feel you. But I’m sure you already have enough FU money to retire and spend your time in a modest beach hut in vietnam until you receive ahv and ergänzungsleistungen 
? Being dependent is a matter of perspective and the size of your needs. Or to put it to the extreme: You could be free tomorrow on social welfare. I’ve actually read a story about an ex-banker who preferred social welfare to his former job because he could finally do whatever he wants all day long instead of being a work slave.
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Apologies if it resonated that way, it was not my intention.
Could have probably stated it in a bit kinder way.
Just expressed a blunt truth - with age and experience you will appreciate things other than just pure money (at and outside of work) more than it.
But on my second read, it seems you already do see that, since you wish to accumulate it and get out of the grind ASAP. 
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with 35 yo, you would be missing half of your potential career - the one that gives you FAT FIRE and real challenges in life instead of just the ability to press the FU button.
I now have fantastic colleagues, senior directors and VPs, enjoying their Aston Martins over the weekend. But also on the week before they have been working permanent 12 hours a day, one of them only sees her teen son over the weekends or over FaceTime… Never envy a 250k+ comp. There’s enough personal sacrifices in there.
I’m personally super happy with my 80% job and a full day within the week with my lil one. They are only small once, you need to enjoy and be with them until you can.
And let’s be honest. Unless you suddenly receive triplets, a 100-120k salary would give you a very comfortable living style in Zürich, especially on a double earner model.
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Sorry if I failed to make myself plain. My point isn’t that money doesn’t make you happy, money helps a lot for happiness (though it, indeed, doesn’t do all). My point is that, sometimes, a high compensation comes with a price, and, depending on your situation, personality and aspirations, the price isn’t always worth paying.
What I was trying to underscore is that I don’t think you have the right assessment of what may be required from such a job when comparing it to stripping or getting f*****, though I do wish you the opportunity to land up in such a position (high pay, high responsibilities job) along with the wisdom to navigate that decision and its follow-ups well.
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At 24, I too was chasing money and would have accepted any job that paid a lot. Then I learned, around 30 and on the verge of burn-out, that the most important thing was to have quality time.
I’m not saying, I admire people who get high salaries. It reflects their experience, their commitment and their skills. You can always earn more money, but you can’t get your time back.
If I can get 130-150K as an employee of a company at around 45-50 with an interesting job and “office” hours, I will be fully satisfied. If I want to get more, I open my own company or work as a consultant. Then I will know exactly why and for whom I am working.
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I think you have the right mindset in your situation. Why care about making money for some random tech/finance company? Is that really your purpose in life? If so, you’re truly a great sad work slave and I’d hire you on the spot as soon as i found my own company 
It all changes as soon as your job actually means something to you, like being a scientist working on human genetics, working for the marginalized people in your country etc. But even then I’d value my time & health way higher than my job.
The real sad thing is that people actually don’t know what to do with themselves without working. It’s been ingrained so deeply in us since school that our value as human beings derives from our performance.
Also, I believe that most people in this forum will never actually retire even when they reach FI. They might be financially independent, but mentally they are not, for the following reasons:
a) afraid of letting go of their income (just one more year)
b) depending on positive feedback for your work (small ego)
c) depending on the power, status and reputation your job gives you (small ego)
d) not knowing who you are and what you want outside your job (lost soul)
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I feel another “Bar brawl” thread is going to be created very soon
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In my opinion, you can’t get a really high salary without caring a bit about the business or what the company offers as a service. It’s called conscientiousness.
You have to be arrogant to be successful. In this sense you have the right mindset and I wish you success in achieving your goals.
PS: do not take the term arrogant as a criticism 
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So I might be an exception I guess.
Currently working 100% but I would not be afraid of letting my job go tomorrow if I could afford. Thing is, we are a family living only on my income and in the current setup we are barely saving anymore, filling one 3a is already challenging without selling some positions (which might still make sense regarding the tax return). Still we have money invested and growing with time so it’s better than living on the edge.
Of course I would not be comfortable to stop working, live with zero income for more than a few year and consume our saving by selling investment. Even if it might last 3,4, 5 even 10 years in the best conditions (of the market and our spending reduction), it would be a Damocles sword over my head while I try to start my own business and start living out of it.
But if you tell me that I could get 70-80% of my income guarantee, I would stop working tomorrow and figure it out to not spend our saving. Even if you tell me that I can start a business and start earning and it will be completed up to 80% of my current salary until I’m earning as much (and not on top of anything I could manage to earn, like a UBI), I would do it right away.
Not sure if it’s what you mean in here.
And just to clarify, I don’t give a f* about feedback for my work, I don’t depend on power, status, whatever and I perfectly know who I am.
Even if I would be granted 80% of my current salary and not allowed to earn anything more, not starting any business, I would keep me busy for years between the family, personal hobbies and some low budget traveling.
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I agree with this.
In my experience, this kind of attitude is very difficult to hide even for few years and might prevent you to access these higher responsability positions. Also regarding the “options” to prolong your pay, when we hire people, we talk a lot with previous employers.
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There’s another effect at play, that is on the way, people mature, get better at setting boundaries, managing their life balance and simply get paid to do what they like and how they like it so they don’t need to stop working anymore since working aligns with what they want to do in their life.
I’ve started my journey toward FIRE on a “I need to escape the rat race now!” mindset. My work environment is evolving and I have started to enjoy actually exerting the influence I get to have in my position and the impact this allows me to have. I may grow to learn to find some kind of balance that would make this something I could actually pursue, even though there are thousands of other things I’d be willing to do with my time and I don’t expect to be bored nor lonely in FIRE.
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Think of it the other way round: Do you - as an employer - really care about the personal wellbeing of your employee? No, at the very best you might care about it as long as it affects his/her performance.
So how hypocritical of you is it to expect your employees to actually care about your company?
You’d have no problem letting them go as soon as their performance sucks, regardless of their wellbeing.
And just thinking of all the narcissist but incapable guys who made it to CEO positions (think swiss banks), i highly doubt your selection processes are any effective. The most power-hungry predators make it to the top, not the idealists.
There your neoliberal/capitalist credo actually bites you in the ass: The best way to care for society is to care for yourself. So i’ll care for you by squeezing the highest salary for the least effort out of your company. You’re doing the same for me the other way round, cheers mate 
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Hey @CHRad,
That all makes sense that you could spend more of your time immersed in your interests… however there’s also value in already dedicating time and doing those things that interest you NOW, regardless of the amount of work and work stress you have. It’s been proven repeatedly, by rigorous psychological and sociological studies, that leaving work at work (as TeaCup suggests below) and spending time with family, friends, and interests has a positive effect on your overall state.
Long rant to basically say… don’t wait till you’re FIRE to do the things you want.
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wouldn’t 100-120k on a double earner model land you around the 250k anyways ?
Anyway, too much blabla here.
Can we go back to the original topic please ?
May I ask moderator to split this topic ? Sorry to be a bit of a nuts breaker, but I am more interested to keep the track on the original theme than to talk about speculative income and lifestyle.
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This.
At the beginning of the journey, one actually doesn’t realize that there are a couple of years (5-10) between the date when one decides to go for FIRE and the date one can actually fire. That is a really long time. 5-10 years is enough time to figure out how to actually make work not “suck that much”.
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It might be a false assumption though that each well paid job has a lot of downsides. There are all 4 combinations of { highly paid, poorly paid } and { enjoyable, not enjoyable }. There definitely are poorly paid jobs which are not enjoyable either.
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Oh, I have been very careful to use terms implying that some very well paid jobs have a compensation in line with the also very high job requirement/drawbacks. I have no doubt that there are (many) well paid jobs where the compensation has nothing to do with the harshness of the work, that can be occupied by people absolutely not qualified for them. Also that there are a lot of low paying jobs where the pay doesn’t compensate at all for the harshness/drawbacks of the work.
Compensations at the highest levels of the corporate world and IT in big corporations have skyrocketed. Are the people doing it really worth multiples more than they would have been 40 years ago, while other people at other very hard and potentially very stressful with also high responsibilities jobs have seen only a fraction of that augmentation?
MrCheese’s job title makes me think that his falls in the former (high paying but pay in line with requirements), though I could be wrong, of course.
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Hi @Wolverine, that’s very true and I myself have this idealistic view of life where I sort of believe that the worth is not really there. Alas, life is not idealistic nor fair and if, as an individual, one seeks maximization of their well-being it’s an interesting proposition to get into those sorts of jobs.
Paradoxically what happens most of the time with getting into these jobs is one gets more autonomy in their work and that may counterbalance the ‘stress’ side. There’s many high earners on fat fire forums sharing the stress and load of their daily jobs and often it’s way less then one would think.
But as someone already said, this is an interesting discussion that would warrant it’s own thread.
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Hi TeaCup,
I like these ideas! Any advise how to get these skills? Books, ressources, coaches, setting goals,… Or just practice and learn it the hard way.
Thanks
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