Recently, my son, still in primary school, had to check out a potential secondary school. My wife wasn't able to take him there, so I left early. Cost me €240 in revenue. That's a lot of money, but then again, I made more than that in the rest of the day, and I don't want to deny myself the opportunity to do these things with my son.
There's more in life than money. Sure, it's important, but only as a way to an end. Money itself is not the goal, life is. Don't sacrifice your life or happiness for mere money.
(Of course it's easy to say that when you can afford to. Not everybody can.)
Recently I've been shoveling it into a long term project that will hopefully pay dividends in the longer term, but the jury's presently out on whether that will actually come to fruition. Time will tell.
I agree, not everyone can afford to live as frivolous a lifestyle. I've been very fortunate to have had the choices and opportunities I have to be able to make headway. I try never to take that for granted, because it doesn't take too many wrong moves and you're the one trying to scrape your way to get above the poverty line again.
My professional expertise and where I've spent the majority of my career is in software engineering, systems architecture, devops and test automation. In what little spare time I have I'm co-founder and instructor for an educational organic farm which means I'm often playing carpenter, mechanic and vet as well as being a full time Dad.
Thankfully though, I'm no longer in this position. I was rather more pointing out a toxic mindset that you need to overcome not just in yourself but potentially in your spouse and the rest of your families.
This is an incredibly helpful reminder that people should not be reduced to their flaws and relationships are not the mere sum of their drawbacks.
Because people are risk-averse, it's easy to focus on what's bad and take for granted what's good. So when a relationship becomes challenging, people can reflexively give up (or throw away) rather than work with and get through.
Relationships are worth maintaining and building, even when they become difficult. In some cases, relationships are worth maintaining especially when they become difficult because the relationship becomes stronger and promotes greater well-being to the degree that it has survived hardship.
I had a very comfortable childhood and watched moderately successful parents in a place which has little entrepreneurship fall apart over time. I was protected by good skills and work performance, but in combination with the financial crisis this pushed me to a toxic place as I looked to protect me and my family.
First, my father got so ill that my mom and brother had to be his caregiver. For a while the family business continued to some success, but my brother was never invested in it. I realize now that I worked my ass off to escape and do my own thing and my brother didn't have direction. Over time with the failed economy and then my Dad's death they ended up closing down the business. My brother has drifted and my mom gets by, but it's not the life they expected.
Communicating frequently and financially planning together is a key part of a relationship. If this is lacking that does not make the spouse shitty.
The difficulty in achieving this over a long period of time is one of the things that makes the founder's over sized equity stake make a lot more sense. You're literally putting your relationships on the line to make your company work.
Entrepreneurship takes a heavy toll on relationships, and I think honestly, her lack of ability to cope with the stress had a heavy influence on my ability to cope with the stress. If it had been just me with my own thoughts, my resolve and resilience would've been far stronger. Having to balance the needs of your partner makes tough and potentially risky choices ten times harder.
Like, I am programming in professional fashion for around 10 years, and there are hours, where I make more progress than previous days. I don't want to be fighting for billable hours.
From everything others have said, the jump from "programmer" to "consultant" is the hardest leap and one I've had considerable difficulty hurdling. My existing clients are often actively working against me to make this leap because they look at me as someone who can solve their problems in minutes and want them fixed now. It's on me to help change their mindset to one of allowing me to teach them to solve these problems for themselves.
My greatest value is in teaching them to be self sufficient. It's helping them to become more than the sum of their parts so that when they call me, they're calling me to show them what they're doing wrong and show them how to fix it, I'm not fixing it for them.
Of course, if the underlying issue is that they want you to increase your income target, then that requires a different solution.
That's not naivete, that's considering that I'm part of something greater than myself.
These days I skip off work at every possible opportunity and to hell with anyone who can't comprehend my lack of will to bill every waking hour, partners and family included. I may not get paid as much, but there's so much more to life than work. Sure, I'm not billing when I could be and sure there's plenty enough work that I could bill 24 hours a day if I had enough energy and will power to do that, but I don't care. My mental health and my other passions need playtime or I'm going to flame out and never come back to this.
If you don't have a spouse that's supportive and encouraging of your need for downtime away from work, then you're caught in a double trap.