Doubly true.
happiness > $$$
^The two aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.
No, but I haven’t found much greater happiness from any amount over say $100k. Just more stress and more corporate BS. The increased happiness between $100k to $200k hasn’t matched the increased frustration with career and corporate life/responsibility. I also don’t live in NYC and we have two solid incomes. An extra few gold coins doesn’t move me much anymore.
This might be true in the U.S. with your silly private schools and expensive health care, but my biggest child related expense is about $1k/mn in daycare and that goes away at age 5. I bank $3k a year per kid for post-secondary which should fully cover them up here for anything they want to do. So $15-17k a year per kid cost I think. Not really that big of a deal. And daycare is tax deductible.
^Wait, you don’t live in the Holy See?! In reading your other posts, I had liked thinking you were some secret and brilliant Vatican Banker. I am now questioning everything
Seriously though, if money is not an issue, and you hate the corporate enviornment/corporate politics (I’m with you on that one), why don’t you just start your own business? It sounds like you have the mind and work-ethic for it. It seems to me that you aren’t tired of working hard, your’re just tired of working hard for bs.
^^ Geo, start a AF hedge fund! what would you call it?(_N__on_hacksaw Capital?) Who would do what? would you employ Purealpha but make him work in a separtate room so you wouldn’t have to listen to his anti-west whining? …oooh oooh, can I work in derivatives analysis? 
Wait, a management position running billions of dollars at a bank only pays 200k these days?? Man I’m glad I got out of the sell-side and never looked back.
Actually, i dont send my kids to private school and my insrance pays all their healthcare costs, but im still at a run rate of about 80k/yr for two 2 year olds. Most of the cost is nanny, food, and entertainment related. This also doesnt count the extra 70k/yr we’re spending to live in a bigger apartment.
^Yeah, but it’s all relative. Especially when you rake in seven figures of tax-free interest.
When complaining about your job, be careful. Back when I flew airplanes, I complained constantly until I realized most people have difficult lives and would have switched places with me in a heartbeat.
Geo,
My spouse experienced the same symptoms you described. Earlier this year the spouse made the move out of a publicly traded firm (and “bigger” bucks) to take a higher position at a much smaller private company. Makes less money, but is far happier without the corporate drama, ineptitude, and a couple of terrible managers higher up the org chart.
In essense, still in banking, but in a different environment with more control. Perhaps you can find a similar path.
Good luck to you.
Yeah man. Geo, you’ve been writing every 2 days for like 3 years about how you want to quit because your job sucks. But somehow, you’re still doing it. At the back of your head, you realize that there isn’t some dream job out there that will solve your problem. The solution to your unhappiness and insecurity comes from inside your mind. If you quit, chances are you will not find any purpose, and you will not even have your $200k salary to brag about (which I imagine in Canada is like being Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein). You want to convince yourself you’re quitting at the top, so you keep saying how “successful” you are in fulfilling your material needs. We get it - you’re 40 years old, don’t like working with “lesser” people (for all we know, they feel the same about you, btw), you are bored of doing the same thing, etc. Everyone is like that, but the optimal choice is still to continue working. People talk about goals of “early retirement” all the time. No one says, yeah, I want to keep healthy so I can be in corporate finance until I’m 80.
What I am saying is that every single office worker approaching middle age has the same feeling as you. However, it’s hard to change your leopard stripes. I bet you’re going to be here next year telling us the same story. But if you do manage to find something new to do, like Turd, who I believe 100% is not exaggerating how great his life is, I think that will be great. We will just have to see. Good luck, and if you do keep working, I don’t think it’s that bad either.
Stay where you are. Keep saving, investing – and look towards a goal of early retirement.
I sometimes have thoughts like that. Then I just take a vacation to recharge and keep going.
But it’s hard for me not to be appreciative of what I have given my background…
I’m in a corporate. My billion portfolio is boring money market. I work 50-55 hours a week, nothing gruelling.
what is this $200K CAD salary in NYC terms?
I agree with much of your post. I’ll just clarify what I meant by the lesser minds concept: I don’t think I’m some special genius that is above all others. What I was getting at is the frustration of incompetent folks moving up because they play the political game, while some truly competent people getting crushed by their direction with some good ideas. Not just me. I see it throughout the few firms I’ve worked at. I don’t want to play the political game, I am looking for career direction to where results and ideas carry the day, not the fact that I didn’t sit on some volunteer committee this year. You know what I mean? I also don’t think I’d be quitting at the top. I could do more. I am fully admiting that I’d be quitting far from the top just for a slice of sanity. I’m not trying to convince myself of anything in that regard. What I am saying is that I got to where I wanted to be, and realised that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Perhaps I’m trying to provide a word of warning to those bailing on good jobs in IT or elsewhere that we see here all the time. It might not always been greener in finance. And I’m struggling with whether it will be greener in another field as well.
you gotta play politics to get to the top Geo. Maybe an ivory tower is more fitting for you where you can do research and teach.
I’m increasingly realising that this is one of the things that is driving my dissatisfaction with corporate life. I’m a not very active financial partner in a landscape biz on the side and I respect the realities of that biz. You hustle, you get the deal and you do the work (or preferably hire others to do the work and use economies of scale). No one gives a crap about your commitment to the volunteer committee or any of that. It’s just pure business. Maybe this is a reality at smaller businesses and this is something I need to explore further. I did a research focused public policy job for a year a bit ago and the (slow) pace drove me nuts. But less politics? Yes, absolutely. Trade offs I guess.