[lovemetender]

I've found that working 8 or 9 months during the year then taking 3 or 4 months to look for the next contract or FT job helps me to re-sync and avoid burn-out (at least, I don't think I'm burned out - that's a good sign right!).

[oakhaven]

way to go! I try the same, but when I stop working and chill for a while, I start to feel guilty for not making more money despite I could.

Maybe a personal year-income-threshold would be a good idea. Once that's earned, just relax. Makes more sense in countries with progressive income tax rate.

[throwaway7767]

> Maybe a personal year-income-threshold would be a good idea. Once that's earned, just relax. Makes more sense in countries with progressive income tax rate.

Isn't a progressive income tax usually applied monthly? In that case, not working for some calendar months is hurting your income.

At least where I am, we have progressive income tax, and if I did this I would end up paying more in taxes for the same amount of work, as for 3 months I would not use any of my lower-tier income tax, and the rest of the year I would be paying more to the higher tiers than if I balanced things evenly over the year.

I guess you could make a deal with your employer to split your payments across the inactive months, not sure if there are some legal issues with that.

One of the many ways tax systems can create weird incentives, as this actually sounds like a pretty nice arrangement.

[maxerickson]

The US withholds taxes based on the amounts in the paycheck, but the actual tax is figured on annual income, so you either get the money back or given a predictable annual income, adjust the withholding (there is some risk of getting penalized for owing too much, so the predictable part matters).

[lovemetender]

Correct, this is in the US and in fact to the parent, we found we end up not with much less in our account making 80K instead of 120K. I suppose maybe if you go above 150K it might be better, not sure about that though.

[marincounty]

I like your style.