11. How Long Before I Earn My Current Salary

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If you are a lawyer or in some professional field that yields lots of money, it may be unrealistic to expect you are going to ever be netting the same kind of annual salary you have grown accustomed. However, given your skill set, it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility that within five years you might open your own garden center or start your own landscaping business. It just depends on how dedicated you are to your ambitions and if making money continues to be one of your priorities.

What is money anyways? Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can certainly buy you creature comforts. But how important is another pair of expensive shoes? Do you still treasure and savor every decadent restaurant meal you have ever had?
The better question to ask your self is how long will it take to make the kind of money I need to be content? How much do I need to make to afford a few luxuries? What do I need to be happy?

When my husband and I discussed me hanging up my requisite tailored blue suit and trade it in for a pair of gardening gloves, my husband’s only request was that we have enough money to keep aggressively paying our mortgage. He was willing to give up the occasional shopping trek, cleaning lady and restaurant tabs.

The funny thing is that we missed little of our former lifestyle. When his suit became frayed, he would speak wistfully about wishing for a designer suit. But for the most part, we have never gone without any luxuries. We owned a shiny red convertible, have an IPOD, laptop computers and extra money to indulge our love our books. What we gained was more time together. I was probably more pleasant to be around because I was less stressed out. We definitely traded in our chips for greater life satisfaction.

Happiness is measured by changing your definition of success in terms of financial rewards to other gains. It has been nice to wake up every day and have the time to have a cup of coffee and read the morning paper with my husband, to come home at the end of the day to enjoy dinner together. Simple pleasures like hanging out in the evening unencumbered by work concerns is a true testament to choosing a life worth living.

Excerpt from the forthcoming book Getting Dirty. If you would like me to let you know when the book becomes available, just send your e-mail to adriennejenkins@verizon.net.

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