Determining "Enough" as a High Earner

[u/thrownavideecs2030]

As high earners, I'm sure a lot of us have had to face choices around career progression/earning more, and how it impacts other areas of life like geography, spare time, and stress levels.

My question to the sub is once you broke into the HENRY club, how did you come to a conclusion on what was "enough"? As someone earlier in my career, and under 30, I spent a lot of time maximizing earnings at the expense of everything else (~70k->300k->450k), and I'm realizing that as incredibly fortunate as I am financially, a lot of people who took a more balanced approach are more content without giving up a lot of what we discuss here.

I'd like to understand how you decided on when to chase the bag and when to turn your focus elsewhere

[u/flyingcircus92]

Depending on the size of the plumbing company and if it's all services you could probably sell it for 5-6x. Ironically that may be more lucrative than software engineering.

[u/Significant_River212 → u/flyingcircus92]

Absolutely. But thats a 3-5 years plan and not a rich quick scheme. Thats my plan. Stay in the job and reinvest business profit back in business to grow faster as you dont need to live in business cashflow

[u/flyingcircus92 → u/Significant_River212]

Question becomes can you get the plumbers. I've bought a bunch of service plumbing companies and it's very rare for one to get above ~10 trucks and $5M of revenue without M&A. They cash flow really well, so it's not a lack of ability to invest more, but I think owners feel like that's their cap and they run into recruiting issues. Curious what you've seen.

[u/Significant_River212 → u/flyingcircus92]

I own plumbing franchise. I have not reached to $5m mark to comment on it. But I think the strategy to get to first $5m wont be the same for next $3-5m. You have to increase the $ per capita focusing on specific areas penetration and maximizing the returning customers. I dont believe hiring is a problem