For context, I’m not referring to SV software engineer salary just normal big city America.
I know a guy who probably now makes a little more than I do on his main job, is my age, but has been saving and investing much more consistently.
He’s always doing side gigs for $50 - $70/hour. Which is really nothing for a software engineer even in my city and much less than he would be making as a full time contractor.
When an opportunity like that comes up for me to “make extra money”. I always turn them down even at much higher rates. Anything we can’t get with my relatively average salary and my wife working we don’t need. I enjoy my time way too much. I don’t think I would work a contract that paid the equivalent of twice my salary as a side job.
When you’re young and able, life is merely a race to turn time into money fast enough to allow you to survive long after you can no longer turn time into money.
Every day I waste now may translate into a week of eating dog food after I can no longer work. Therefore, I generally want to maximize the dollar utility of my time, while I can. If I could guarantee that I’d drop dead as soon as I retired, maybe I’d stop and live a little now. But since I can’t (an don’t want to commit suicide when I run out of savings), well, an extra dollar is an extra dollar!
“Money isn’t everything” -says someone with a lot of it.