This is not financial advise nor can I claim everyone is in the same position to make the sacrifices that I did.
It's a long read, but I hope it inspires someone.
I worked minimum wage most of my work career.
I slowly maxed out my credit cards with expenses that were unavoidable and made bad car decisions so I was drowning. Just COL and transportation alone cost over 80% of my income.
I had accumulated a lot of debt and I was screwed. I had to make the very difficult decision of going back to school as an adult and take on even more debt. Between work and school I was out of the house 80+ hours a week for 9 months in an expedited program. I was a zombie and I was also supporting my then-girlfriend while she was going to school full time.
I got a job straight out of school making ok money (just over 60k), but only if I worked all of overtime available (10 hours a day and saturdays). I did this for 3 years. Worked through the entire pandemic. I slowly built a safety net in the bank and It was nice to see the money, but the debt was a HUGE weight on my shoulders… I knew that new expenses would come up sooner or later and then I'd have even more debt (or an empty savings) and I'd have to rely on the overtime indefinitely. I made the heart- breaking decision to write checks, virtually emptying my savings. I paid off all of my credit cards, sold my new car and bought a used one. I started saving again and 6 months later wrote more checks paying off my student loans.
For the first time as an adult I could proudly say I was broke, but I had zero debt. With only my COL (and I adapted to live on very little) I felt free.
Fast forward a year later and I got sick of working 6 days a week and so was my now-wife. Financially I was doing good, but I was completely burnt out and falling deeper into a depression. I've been working every hour I could get my hands on for 13 years and at this point… I didn't even need the extra money. I built a safety net and became very fiscally responsible and financially educated. To the dismay of my Boomer and Gen-X bosses and co-workers I started rejecting the overtime and leaving work on-time. Then I cut out Saturdays completely.
When my company signed a new union contract offering 4-10 hour days to those who want it-I contemplated it for a few months and as of last week I'm officially the only person in the company to work that schedule. The bosses hate it and I get endless crap from my co-workers, but guess what? I'm insanely happy. They can call me lazy, privileged…whatever they want and it doesn't change anything. They have created high costs of living in their lives with their new Caddilacs, over-the-top home upgrades etc so they have to depend on every minute of OT. They don't even get to enjoy the things they bought because they're so busy working to pay for them so I don't see how it's worth it. I'm very content with what I have. I happily walk away from $400+ worth of overtime every single week and I imagine that my coworkers and bosses only hate me for it because they're jealous….they wish they could.
Although we're already financially comfortable, my wife just graduated school and now the household income has doubled and we don't even need her salary. So we split everything down the middle and the rest goes into retirement and savings.
For everyone out there reading this. If it's possible for you to do so. Please find out where your priorities are and make as much as you Need+ a little bit more. This BS about 100k cars and million dollar mansions is nonsense. That money doesn't come from hourly wages anyway and no amount of OT will make you rich. Now I have the spare time to find new and interesting ways to make money without making my employer rich.