The Psychology of Walking Away from a High Paying Job
I'm in my early 40s and I'm an attorney. Married with two young children. I live in a VHOL city.
It's a stressful job, but I generally find it sufferable. I don't love it, but that's what the money's for. I'm at a position of extreme growth to my compensation, but I've already hit my FIRE number.
For reference, my approximate compensation for the last few years are:
- 2020: $500k
- 2021: $615K
- 2022: $750k
- 2023: $885k
- 2024: $750k
- 2025: $1.1mm
- 2026: $1.3mm (est.)
I grew up lower income--I had free subsidized lunches growing up--so I feel particularly grateful/blessed to have a position that makes life changing money for most people on an annual basis.
I set my FIRE number in 2020 (pre-COVID shutdown) and I had assumed that I would not make partner and my income would actually decrease from my 2020. Instead, partially due to the post-COVID boom, I was actually promoted to partner and my comp has substantially increased.
I hit my number about a year ago ($5mm liquid) although, again, that number was assuming that my compensation would be going down from 2020 and assumed that we would be moving out of our VHOL area.
Has anyone knocked it out of the park and then revised their FIRE number upward? Or, more interesting, has anyone knocked it out of the park and managed to stick to their FIRE number?
I'm find it very hard to hold myself to my FIRE number when my compensation keeps going up like this.