I am soon to be 30 and have only recently begun my adult life in the sense of having full time employment and managing my own finances. My entire life has always been working toward that next thing, do good in school to get into college, do good in college to get into a doctorate program, do good in that to get a good residency, etc.
Well, I am finally done, and I am now enjoying the result of that path. I am glad to have a job where I am paid well and set my own hours. I have always been a lazy person, despite doing well academically, always looking for the path of least resistance. I never cared about maximizing finances or anything besides making sure I had ample free time for my personal hobbies and interests.
I am now of course dealing more with finances, being fully employed. Due to my position, I choose to only work 3.5 days per week, with just enough hours to receive my full time employment benefits. Typically this is between 32-35 hours per week. Even with these lower hours, due to my personal nature I still feel quite 'busy' overall and would always prefer more free time.
However, I am paid hourly in my role and I was confronted recently by some family members that I am not taking advantage of my position. I make enough with my current schedule where I can max out my 403b (23k) and also personally invest about ~75k per year in my personal ETrade account after all my expenses. I think this is just fine. I feel like I am saving a lot and I never 'want' for anything financially. I just want my free time.
But, I understand I am leaving a large amount of money on the table, to the amount of 50-75k extra per year ballpark if I choose to work one other day per week. I even have coworkers that stretch their hours by arriving 15-30 mins early to prepare, or staying 30 minutes late to finish chart notes, or just browse their phone. I understand that over the course of a year this can add up to thousands of dollars or more in pay. But I just feel like I have no desire to do that. I arrive exactly on time, and I clock out the minute my last patient leaves the office. I've even tried to visualize the money I am missing out on by acting this way but can't get myself to care. I just value my time that much more and I continue to behave in a way that maximizes my free time outside of work.
I understand the community I am posting this to will bias the responses, but I need to know if I am objectively making a mistake by choosing to finally enjoy a good work life balance. I know colleagues that work 6 days a week and make bank but I feel like if I did that I would hate my life. Like what's even the point to making all that money if your life sucks, so you can enjoy it when you're too old to care or be mobile enough to do anything with it?