[twiceaday]

This seems to be a sensitive topic for you. Too much vitriol and straw-men. 'Only financial' is naive. Your life is heavily structured by the need to earn a living. You focus on how awful life is in SF and how nice it could be elsewhere yet you will only get to enjoy this life on evenings and weekends because you are working full time. A lot of people I know don't have time / energy for hobbies or friends outside of chores, family stuff, and decompressing from work. Most people are forced to play this game but if you have enough money you can start changing the rules. With enough money you can regularly take years off work to do... anything you want. Travel, meet people, write a book, deeply pursue hobbies, etc. With enough money you can work part time for the rest of your life and actually have the time and energy to enjoy it. And with enough money you can retire early, as early as in your 30s, to get unlimited freedom. It's not 'only financial,' it's paradigm shifting. It's 'only financial' if you are resigned to working until you are 65 or whatever and assume everybody else is too.