Is Having a Career a Bad Investment?

I finally got around to reading the May NYT article on the FIRE movement. Its title is a clickbaity, pseudo-shaming question: “Your Neighbors Are Retiring in Their 30s. Why Can’t You?”. (Note: if you can’t get past the paywall, open an incognito window and Google “retiring in 30s”. You can then read the article in full after clicking on the NYT link as of the time of this writing.) It’s another interesting writeup on the financial independence (FIRE) movement that I am also a part of. Early on in the article you’ll find the following sentence:

The overarching credo of FIRE is that in today’s unpredictable financial landscape, 9-to-5s and decades-long careers have become bad investments: Old-school benefits like pensions and job security are a thing of the past, and wages aren’t even keeping up with the galloping pace of inflation.

That wording caught my attention immediately. Naysayers looooove to look down their nose at stressed, underemployed people and crow how it’s because they chose a bad career, or a bad major, or just somehow acted like a bad person and therefore deserved all of their misfortune. While, yes, some majors lend themselves to better career opportunities than others, I disagree that it’s the only obstacle from having a good career. What’s interesting here is that the quote isn’t splitting hairs here. It’s not making the claim that specific career paths are bad investments. It’s saying career paths, period, are bad investments.

Analyzing My Own Career’s Investment Returns

My career path in marketing has been an excellent choice. Particularly adaptable to most industries, with a wide range of niche skillsets available, and can be particularly recession-resistant. I also like that it’s one of the few corporate positions that allows for some creativity as part of your work responsibilities.

Professionally, I have seen excellent investment returns via my financial compensation, job benefits, and miscellaneous enrichment experiences. I have now been earning six figures for the last four years; those earnings put me in the top 10% salary percentile for my age group. My job benefits include, among other things:

• Health insurance (still ridiculous this isn’t guaranteed in this country)
• 401(k) access, along with a match (always appreciate extra money!)
• Commuter subsidies (helpful when I was still commuting to an office)

The enrichment includes travel offerings (including tickets to attractions and meals at swanky restaurants) when attending conferences or representing my company at exhibitions. Thanks to volunteering for these things I’ve gotten to see more of the country than I otherwise would have. That’s a priceless ROI for my career, personally.

For me, so far, it’s been a good investment.

That hasn’t been the case for everyone in this economy. That hasn’t even been the case for everyone in my company: in the last ten days alone, three high-ranking individuals are departing from the organization. I’m still not concerned about this, in large part because my bosses are wonderful at mitigating nerves. Between you and me, I’m also not worried because I think these are signs the company is about to get acquired. Which could mean great news for me, given I have equity compensation, but a payout from that is not guaranteed.

The best ROI I’ve gotten from my career has been the ability to reach LeanFI. I have officially hit that number earlier this year and have rocketed past that number since; I’m currently hovering at a net worth of juuuuust under $500k, which gives me a safe withdrawal rate of $1,600 a month.

My favorite thing to do this year is go on The Earth Awaits and see how many stellar cities worldwide I can live in on that much; this includes many places I’ve visited and get excited about like Rome, Prague, and Sevilla! Thanks to this ROI on my career, I am now at the point where work can truly be optional for me. I will survive just fine should I choose to walk away from everything tomorrow.

The ROI of an Average Career

However, my story is very much the exception to the rule. That rule is: you work for forty years, maybe more, for a retirement that is never actually guaranteed. For that matter, work is not guaranteed either, depending on layoffs and recessions and whether you become too disabled to work. This is what constitutes a career for the average person. That makes it as much of an investment as is learning to read or putting nutritious food in your mouth. It’s more of a way to ensure survival in the modern world than anything else. Yes, it will obviously help your future self as well. But how far along into the future this helps, varies.

And that variance depends on a wild variety of factors. What generation do you belong to? Are you a blue collar worker or white collar? What is the financial status of your parents? How much debt do you have? Where do you live? Do you have expensive health conditions? I can keep going but you get the picture. Almost no one has the exact same career path, so it’s hard for me to make a generalization with specific numbers. Instead, I’ll make a generalization with an observation. That is: the average person my age or younger will only see an acceptable career ROI with serious planning and at least a little good luck.

The Alternative to Investing in a Career

What’s really funny about career ROI is knowing that there’s not really an alternative. You need money to live a good life in the world today; that is a surefire truth, much like stating “fire is hot” or “Darcy writes stuff”. That means money is a requirement for providing you with food, water, and a roof over your head.

What matters here is what you do with that career. Again, a load of factors affect how much time you can pour into working or how much money you can earn. In this line of thinking, one of the most important factors is having an answer to “What is the goal of your career?” You should be able to answer whether that goal is simply to pay your bills, or pay for much more. If you want more – as I think you should – then how much is “more” until you’re satisfied? What would you rather invest in, if not a career?

Hint: you’ll find the answer in understanding your personal goals and dreams.

In my life, that answer for me has changed throughout my 20s until I settled on three major life goals. One is about writing, one is about helping others, and one is about finding the best place to call “home”. All three, to me, are much more worthy of investment than my career. I would wholeheartedly invest much more in a future significant other, future foster children, and a future community in the same vein. My career has done wonders for giving me self-sufficiency and the ability to invest in any alternative at all. But it’s inevitable that a career must come first, in order to reach any alternative.

Careers Should Be Tools, Not Goals

I’ve used the tool metaphor in my articles before and I’m using it here once again. Say your career is part of the toolbox you use to craft your ideal life, be that a birdhouse or a shed or an intricately-detailed armoire. Your hammer and saw are absolutely necessary to the construction process, but you’re not going around telling people “my goal is to have a hammer and a saw”. That is because the hammer and saw are the tools you use in the process of building your masterpiece. Your masterpiece is the goal, with the understanding that the tools are what help you reach that goal.

Your career should be treated the same way. It is a tool for you to reach what you genuinely want out of life. It’s perfectly fine to invest in your career, as long as you properly analyze that investment and the total rewards/risks. But in the doing, you should also decide what else you want to invest in. Should you decide that your career is the most important aspect of your life, then that should get the most investment. Should you decide otherwise? That’s where FIRE comes in. 😉

Cover image credit: Romain V. via Unsplash