I hear what you're saying, Jeff.

I had a job for a couple of years with a small auto parts store. Did lots of different stuff from inventory to delivery driver to mixing paint. There were only a half dozen of us at that store and we were like family... well, most of us.

Of course, there was one... the manager... that was the "turd in the punch bowl".

If not for him, I might still be there, not because of the money (it paid horribly), but because I really liked what I was doing and who I got to interact with.

The amount of money one has does not necessarily correspond to how happy a person is, and I think that's a good thing. Granted, people tend to become accustomed to whatever they make.

My own goals at the present time are to reduce the necessity for a six figure income to just keep up with society, and I'm making headway. I'm a little over half way through a three year plan to totally eliminate ALL debt. That might not sound like a big deal to some, but for us, the credit card here and credit card there and the car loan here and car loan there and mortgage here and second mortgage there and the home equity line of credit over yonder... well, let's just say that by eliminating all of that, we are reducing the amount of income needed just to maintain our current lifestyle by a little less than $50,000 a year. To us, it matters.

I'll admit that's probably a little more dramatic than it would be for some people but to us, it's extremely important that we deal with this monster.

And in case you all wonder what in the world that has to do with trading, I think it's a lot less pressure knowing that one can live comfortably by earning (for example) $35k a year at trading than needing $85k and worrying about all those monthly payments... and what happens when a single payment is one day late. From my experience, those creditors can't wait to jack up that interest rate to about 29%... forget about that little "3.9% till it's paid" that you agreed to, that's gone forever! Hah!

(And for what it's worth, I know of a lot of people who live on less than half of $35k a year and do just fine. There's no room for paying a bunch of interest to the credit card loan sharks, though, or money to throw around. But it can be done. How much it takes to make you happy might be quite different than for me, and that's ok. The older I get, the less it seems to take. Hurricane Katrina helped me to realize that I'm actually happier with LESS stuff. Less to worry about, less to figure out where to put, less to take care of, less to pay for... As I age, I'm finding "less" to be a very liberating word.)

Just an opinion. Others might disagree.

:-)

Good trades,

Brian T.