{"id":540,"date":"2020-11-02T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-if-your-dream-job-isnt-lucrative\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:43:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:43:03","slug":"what-if-your-dream-job-isnt-lucrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-if-your-dream-job-isnt-lucrative\/","title":{"rendered":"What if Your Dream Job isn\u2019t Lucrative?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I spend so much time encouraging people to go out and holler for a dollar, Honey Boo Boo <\/em>that I forget this very simple fact sometimes.<\/p>\n

To me, \u201cdream job\u201d has always been synonymous with, \u201cmakes me very wealthy.\u201d Go figure. For whatever reason, when I fantasize, I imagine myself writing leisurely from a cabana somewhere in Bora Bora wearing an all-white swimsuit and picking plump grapes off a charcuterie board. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not lost on me that this just sounds like an expensive vacation. But the operative word here is \u201cdream,\u201d and I\u2019m not about to manifest anything short of ludicrous.<\/p>\n

So when a reader DM\u2019ed me on Instagram and asked me my thoughts about what to make of it when your dream job isn\u2019t<\/em> lucrative (she wanted to be a teacher), the first thing I thought was:<\/p>\n

Oh my God, you are at least a 400% better person than I am.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the second thought was, That\u2019s an outstanding question.<\/em><\/p>\n

It never occurred to me that someone\u2019s dream job might be low-paying. But now that it has, I think there are two major aspects of this question.<\/p>\n

While this site may suggest otherwise, money isn\u2019t technically the endgame<\/h4>\n

I\u2019ve always equated money with freedom because my personal finance education underpinnings come from the financial independence community (an intense and common sense-driven approach to money management that says if you save like your house is on fire, pun intended re: fire and the \u201cfinancial independence, retire early\u201d acronym, you can retire decades ahead of schedule and essentially buy the rest of your life back from #TheMan).<\/p>\n

The implicit suggestion here is that your job is not something you want<\/em> to be doing \u2013 in this philosophy and mindset, you\u2019re most interested in getting on with your life in a post-work era before you receive your AARP card in the mail. <\/p>\n

The FIRE icons (like a guy named Mr. Money Mustache) have the most hilariously pure hobbies \u2013 wood-working, biking, creating podcasts helping other people do the same. In order to achieve FIRE status, you have to have 25x your annual expenditures saved. The math works out such that you\u2019re assuming an average rate of return in your investments of 8% and you\u2019re using 4% per year, that way the interest always replaces what you use and the total account balance never goes down. My head exploded when I first heard the concept.<\/p>\n

Imagine you spend $30,000 per year (this is actually almost exactly my annual spend) \u2013 this would mean that once I have 25x that amount saved, or $750,000, I could live on that money in perpetuity, assuming I only used $30,000 of it per year (4%). If the market grows by 8% annually, the money I use will always be replenished. Of course, this is a mathematical vacuum, because you\u2019ll always have the odd year where things tank and your money isn\u2019t replaced by compound interest. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a great community \u2013 but there\u2019s a parallel path that\u2019s equally desirable, and that is having a job you\u2019re obsessed with.<\/p>\n

If you have a job that you\u2019d do anyway for free, then does it really matter if you\u2019re saving thousands of dollars a month and going on expensive vacations to Bora Bora every week? Probably not \u2013 because even if you were retired, you\u2019d still want to be doing it. <\/p>\n

Work is just an exchange of your time for someone else\u2019s money. If you\u2019re enjoying what you\u2019re investing that time in, then the money is gravy. You need it to live, but you don\u2019t need a supercharged path to wealth and financial independence because you don\u2019t actually want to be independent from your work.<\/p>\n

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The trap that so many of us fall into is believing that money is the end goal \u2013 it\u2019s not. The end goal is freedom and happiness, and it just so happens that usually money is the means by which we can achieve those things. But if your dream job is the means by which you achieve them, you don\u2019t need 25x your annual spend in a brokerage account to be contented.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Your passion doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to be your job, if your current job is otherwise great<\/h4>\n

The job that pays the bills in my life is a UX writing role that I am comically fortunate to have \u2013 I work for one of the best companies in the country that consistently makes top 10 lists for best employers, and I am compensated fairly in exchange for working with great people on interesting, challenging work.<\/p>\n

In short, I got really, really lucky. (I also worked hard, but I\u2019d be remiss not to credit the luck that contributed to my situation.)<\/p>\n

That said, is optimizing copy and user experience through A\/B iterative testing my most fiery passion in this lifetime? No. No, it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Do I enjoy it? Yes. Am I good at it? Yes. Hell, do I feel some<\/em> level of passion about it? Of course I do. I think we all feel some<\/em> passion about the things at which we excel. <\/p>\n

But do I believe I was put on this planet to create incremental revenue through UX optimization? My hunch is no. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the very liberating truth I\u2019d love for you to walk away with today: If your job is enjoyable, challenging, and pays you well, it doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to be your passion. Sure, if you can swing it, incredible \u2013 but don\u2019t give up a great thing because somewhere along the line you read in your Millennial Guidebook that if your creativity and passion isn\u2019t paying the bills that you\u2019re a failure. <\/p>\n

Sometimes when our favorite thing becomes a job, it starts to feel like a job. I genuinely have a hard time just attending exercise classes now and enjoying them because I can only think like an instructor. I\u2019m either in learning mode or critiquing mode, and it\u2019s increasingly difficult to just find a release (which was the sole outcome prior to my fitness instructor career). It\u2019s not that I\u2019d have it any other way, but merely proof that sometimes the magic of a side hustle or hobby is that it\u2019s NOT responsible for covering rent and car insurance.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of pressure to put on something you do for fun.<\/p>\n

Marry a realistic understanding of math with the magic of your expectations<\/h4>\n

You need money to live. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s just the truth.<\/p>\n

But how much<\/em> you need varies by the type of lifestyle you want to live. My monthly expenditures are usually somewhere around $2,600, and my take-home pay outpaces that by more than double. This tells me that if I found the dream job of my life and it paid $3,000\/mo., I\u2019d still be OK. That\u2019s a freeing thought in and of itself.<\/p>\n

However, I know myself, and I know that having extra (and the ability to save quickly) makes me happy. The knowledge that I always have an escape chute enables me to breathe easier. If something ever went wrong \u2013 if I ever had a change of heart \u2013 I know I could pick up the metaphoric phone and pull a, \u201cMom, will you come pick me up?\u201d as my emergency fund and low cost of living whisk me away to Never Never Land.<\/p>\n

For that reason, I\u2019ll still probably continue my income strategies and schemes. The best thing about your financial strategy is the ability to change your mind. Maybe someday I\u2019ll become a person as wholesome as the one who DM\u2019ed me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spend so much time encouraging people to go out and holler for a dollar, Honey Boo Boo that I forget this very simple fact sometimes. To me, \u201cdream job\u201d has always been synonymous with, \u201cmakes me very wealthy.\u201d Go figure. For whatever reason, when I fantasize, I imagine myself writing leisurely from a cabana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178814,"featured_media":2431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"si-template-single-post-income.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,36],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-productivity-and-time","category-spending-and-saving","tag-income"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat if Your Dream Job isn\u2019t Lucrative? - Money with Katie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-if-your-dream-job-isnt-lucrative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What if Your Dream Job isn\u2019t Lucrative? - Money with Katie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I spend so much time encouraging people to go out and holler for a dollar, Honey Boo Boo that I forget this very simple fact sometimes. 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