Would you rather make $200k doing nothing or take a job that pays $500k

[RR1997]

Inspired by a thread I saw on IGN a loooong time ago.

My choice:

Option 2 of course.

I would hate doing nothing for the rest of my life. I'd need a job so that I can feel more productive. Not having a job for the rest of my life would be fun for a couple of weeks, but after that I'd feel incredibly bored and useless. Plus making $500k a year would be a huge plus

I can't believe how many people I know chose "$200k a year not working" when I asked them this question. Now I want to see what the Atlas Forum thinks.

[memphis]

I can easily do everything important to me on $200k/year. Why hassle with employment?

[Adam Griffin]

I would take the $200k/year and then use my free time to volunteer full-time with politics and other charitable deeds as I saw fit.

Years 1-5: Live somewhat well with a lifestyle of $100,000 per year and saving $100,000 per year in order to invest it via a medium risk/yield stock portfolio

Years 6-15: The interest from the investment (7% annualized; $35,000 per year) by itself would finance a middle class lifestyle on its own in perpetuity, but I'd instead use that to live modestly for the next ten years, saving the entirety of my original $200k annual income

Year 16: With the annual income of $200k being invested in safer investments from Year 6 onward, it will have kept up with inflation and be worth approximately $2.5-3 mil in 2015 dollars, making me a multi-millionaire without any significant responsibilities. Perhaps at this point I'd be bored enough with what I was doing to take on more serious responsibilities (from the perspective of business) and buy/operate  a business to enhance my income and live more lavishly from then on out

[Grumpier Than Thou]

If option 2 is a teaching job, then easily that one. If not, option 1.

[ElectionsGuy]

The second option.

[Bacon King]

Option 1 unless the $500k job was something I love doing

[Mr. Smith]

Option 1 unless the $500k job was something I love doing

This, and frankly it's not like I'd do nothing. I'd be free to take up more hobbies, go to more places, and fewer nasty co-workers and bosses to deal with.

Hell, I'm frugal enough that I'd be okay with just 20k and the same deal.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It depends on the job and what the source of the $200 K would be.  The difference between $200 K and $500 K is relatively less important. It can be socially awkward having money and not having a job, but that's not worth a soul sucking career.
Can I work part time at the $500 K job and make half as much?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Option 1 (sane)

[they don't love you like i love you]

$200k is enough to easily retire all my student loan debts and all that, so even if I got bored I could just take a much lower paying but more rewarding job a year later. No contest.

[Foucaulf]

Option 2, without a doubt. If you read between the lines of what Richard Feynman wrote about teaching, you'll see why I feel that way.

[traininthedistance]

I'd be willing to "do nothing [for pay]" for as little as $25k per year in 2015 dollars, and probably even for slightly less than that. You could raise the alternative payoff to $5 million and I wouldn't change my mind. (I'm assuming that taking the job for several years and then living off of savings defeats the point of the hypothetical.)

The freedom to do whatever I want with my time - art, volunteering, personal projects, travel, learning, meditation, etc. - rather than committing most of my natural life to drudgery would be worth quite a lot to me. Not knowing what you'd do without someone telling you what to do every day is the mark of a dullard.

My threshold might be something more like $35K, given NYC cost of living and my stupidly expensive student loans, but besides that exactly this.  "Doing nothing at work" is most emphatically not the same as "doing nothing" in total.

To say nothing of the fact that I wouldn't even know what to do with $200K a year, let alone $500K.

[DS0816]

Part of the answer to this question is determined by one's age and whether one has health issues.

If you don't have health problems, then you may be thinking negatively about not working—when you could—and would go for the 500k.

If you are, say, old enough ... and you have some health issues ... that 500k isn't so tempting.



Fun question.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

I'd like to make $365,000 a year doing nothing. That's why I waste so much money playing the Cash4Life game from the New York Lottery. $1000 a day for life would be my ideal lottery win.

(As opposed to Mega Millions/PowerBall where all of a sudden you have $200 million and you don't know what to do with it, not that I would complain if I won either of those games. )

[BaconBacon96]

Option 1 unless the $500k job was something I love doing

[Goldwater]

Option 1 unless the $500k job was something I love doing

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Depends on what the job that pays that extra $300K a year is.  It wouldn't necessarily have to be something I would love doing, but there are some things that wouldn't be worth $300k a year if I were already getting $200k a year.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Option 1, of course!  I could get a flat in Manhattan and NY Rangers season tix at 200K.  My days could be spent exercising in Central Park and hitting up all the great little coffee joints NYC features.  Wonderful!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Option 1 (sane)

[politicus]

Option 1 (sane)

[TDAS04]

Depends on the job, but I voted option 2 because I'd rather do something. 

[Flake]

Option 1 (sane)

[DemPGH]

$200 K a year would go a long way in western Pennsylvania. There's so much I could do and pursue while living comfortably that that would be the more fulfilling way to go. The thing is, if you enjoy some kind of work, you could make it a hobby in most parts of the country and live on $200 K.

[King]

#RepublicanProblems

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Option 2 because I get bored too easily.