[esoterica]

That's a pretty silly line to draw in the sand. No amount of compensation to work 45 hours, really? Even if someone offered you enough money to retire 20 years early, you'd rather spend an extra 20 years doing the 9-5 just to avoid spending 1 extra hour a day at work?

If you made enough money you could easily save 10+ hours a week by moving closer to work, paying people to run errands for you etc. You could easily have more free time working 50 hours a week than someone with less money would working 40.

[alkonaut]

Anything has a price of course, but realistically there is no position that would let me retire earlier (nor do I want to).

My 40h is also already 100% remote, so very hard to improve on in terms of commutes etc. In fact, if I were to switch to non-remote I’d never accept a 40h ass-in-seat position either.

[esoterica]

Even a 20% pay raise would let you retire several years earlier, assuming you don't spend any of the extra pay.

[alkonaut]

A 20% pay rise is 10% after taxes here and wouldn’t make a huge difference. Also, I hope and intend to work well into my 70s. For that I need to not burn out in my 40s. I’m happy with what I do. I don’t need more money or more years retired. I need a job I’m happy with, money for bills and time with my family now. I pick up kids from school every day at 4 and make them dinner at 5. All this must sound pretty foreign to Americans...

[paganel]

> Also, I hope and intend to work well into my 70s. For that I need to not burn out in my 40s.

Glad I’m not the only one having this exact line of thought about my future career. If it matters I live in Eastern Europe and I’m approaching 40.

[airbreather]

Aussie?

[alkonaut]

Close. Swede

[herbst]

I would never work more in the hopes to retire earlier. I've worked different time models between essentially do whatever I want and 42 hour weeks. All of them paid for my living standard (which I would say is rather simple).

Everything above 35 hours feels like I have no time for myself anymore.

I think the main reason why I don't get the 'FIRE' mentality is because in my country we have a healthy pension system I can look forward to.