Hello, Just really looking for some wisdom from the monkeys & beyond.
Hi, I studied finance and graduated a while back. I've struggled with indecision and executing on a legit plan during/since then.
I've bounced around between PWM and a retail IR role at a small-ish fintech company. I'm now back in PWM as a financial planner.
I live in NY, so my $105k salary is meager. I moved back home to NJ recently to try and slow down, get some clarity, and progress, but haven't made much progress.
I took some time last year while unemployed to learn to code, and really enjoyed it. Then I needed a job again, and then felt pressured to continue my finance path, along with the tech market sinking.
So, I have a CFA Level 1; I'm studying for CFA Level 2 to keep my finance dream alive and feel some sense of security in this market, even if I pursue tech. I would try to pursue ER if I went the finance route.
I'm terrified of the hours of ER, and afraid that I can't read as much as I would need to on a consistent basis. I might have ADHD, and I don't find all aspects of finance interesting/understand them like the macro side, but I do think that learning a lot about a particular sector is really interesting, and I do like learning about the world and consumer behavior. I also value work/life balance long-term, and I don't know if I'll ever get that in Finance.
Tech seems nice, but it's so hard to "cut my losses," especially with the job market the way it is. And I feel like I might feel a sense of "giving up" in finance. I like coding itself, but learning about all the hairy parts of servers, and computers as a whole, also sounds kind of murky.
Sometimes I feel like I wish I did FP&A, and just grew slowly, but there was a lot of pressure on me to "super-achieve." Another option I am considering is to be overemployed, and just cut all my losses and start from scratch in FP&A along my current job.
The pros are that I have a stable income, remote job, and I have now amassed about $150k total in NW.
Now, I feel a pressure to help my family, start a stable career, (and as soon as possible) and see what happens.
Any wisdom, anything?.. I'd be happy to provide any additional information that I can and answer any questions.
I feel genuinely lost and have no idea how to start/move forward.
From this post, it seems your mind is all over the place.
I would sit down and write down where you want to be in 10 years.
That's helpful - It would be in tech. Just a lot of short-term friction getting in the way
I think you have to decide on what kind of work you like to do and let that drive your decision. If you living at home, you probably do not have to worry so much about compensation.
I think finance is what I want to do, but predicting the market seems futile, especially with ETF wave
Try this as a mental exercise - figure out which two aspects below are the most important for you:
If your job or career path only features one of the above, you’ll probably end up unhappy eventually. If it features three, you’re pretty much a unicorn. Most are content with 2/3.
I have almost always gone for jobs that fulfill 1 & 2. I have to care about what I’m doing to bother to do it every day and I want to be well compensated to do it. I don’t really care about 3 all that much.
My wife’s job is 2 & 3. She doesn’t care about the business she’s in at all but it pays very well and they treat her like a rock star.
If you figure out what you actually care about, it becomes far easier to eliminate paths and may focus your search in ways you don’t expect
This is an extremely helpful comment, and sadly something I still don't know how to answer. Some days I want to do finance, feel like I could be extremely passionate about it, and want to prioritize 1.
Other days, I say hey let me just code and do 2 and 3, even though I'm not that passionate about coding.
If there was a way to have a tech lifestyle with a finance role, that would probably be most interesting to me, but like you said, that might be a unicorn.
Interesting food for thought
Seems like you're struggling vs. the gravitational pull of tech
Meaning, you think it's partly just the cultural influence?
Where in NJ? Lets get drinks on the company dime and contemplate life
Edison, wbu?
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