How much is enough for you?

How much money is considered enough for you?

Im not talking about retirement, but what total comp would you be comfortable with assuming 35-45hrs/wk at work. Like a lot of us, I’m targeting high finance (IB/PE) and would love to make fck you money but theres an obvious trade off with time (health too tbh)

Ive talked to numerous people in both industries and it seems the majority of them are much happier after leaving to something more lax with some even taking a sizable pay cut.

I want to say ~$200k take home is enough for me to reach my goals and maintain the lifestyle I want, which makes me question why sacrifice the years grinding towards IB when I can get to that level doing something less intense such as corporate or even commercial banking.

Curious to hear everyone’s opinions and your own personal number.

11 Comments
 

Loads to consider on this, from where you live or want to live, to your educational background (target/non-target), to what you want out of your role bar money (i.e. exit opps). 

Life is a road... and I love creating potholes
 

Midwestern non-target, though some would call it a target if you're on a specific IB path, Goal is to live somewhere in Chicago/Texas/LA, not really interested in NYC. I think for me IB is still something I'm going to shoot for, I feel like its something that I have try before I completely write it off. Even if I don't get a seat at the table I want to make sure I exhaust every option I have to break in

 

It’s good that you’re already considering these things early on. But I would still consider doing IB for a few years, because IB prepare you to be on the higher earning side of fields that have good WLB, including CorpDev and FP&A. However I’m also only a student so take what I say w a grain of salt

 

I've settled into ~$300K total comp for roughly 40 hours of work, which feels pretty good to me. I don't intend to make much more than this for the rest of my career. Right now it is enabling me to save at least 6 figures annually while never thinking about budgeting and being able to take as many vacations as I want.

Will say, with all this inflation bullshit, I am feeling that that number may need to come up a bit...

 

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