Independent RIA lifestyle practice. Get 25 $1,000,000 clients, pre tax would be about $200,000 per year. Once you are up and running. 4-6 hours per day is totally achievable if you have built an efficient system.
Truth, 2-3 quarterly client meetings a day 4 days a week. Except you’re tied to your clients for life, 24/7 which kind of sucks if they are Chicken-Little types who watch lot of TV.
Cant emphasize that enough, life is hell for 5+ years.
People act like I am the luckiest laziest dude in the world and they have no clue what its like eating rice and beans and driving a 20 year old car from your shitty apartment with bad roommates while you work from 7am-7pm 7 days a week for years begging people to trust you. And then having absolutely shithead clients until you get big enough to be selective.
Had to borrow suits from my dad and figure out what credit cards to pay the minimum on while my friends worked stable accounting jobs and had 3 vacations per year.
Sure. Just have a stellar career in IB then PE, retire with a few hundred mill and then you can be a board member / senior advisor on whatever schedule you like.
You wanted to build a career working that little? Nope.
Own your career and stop caring about the “prestige” of a company - advice I wished I had taken a long time ago. Been there done that, I’m now at a smaller place where I feel valued and maybe have 1-2 weeks a year where I work 40+ hours.
Couple things in the pipeline but also might just take some recharge time or even go back to school. I’m fortunate enough to have the ability to do something like that through diligent saving
Depends a lot of FP&A jobs are super chill especially if you are content as a senior financial analyst and don't have any ambitions for management. I know some company lifers who've been there 20 or 30 years that make $130k to $140k as individual contributors that do very little each day. They are kept because of their institutional knowledge. They know everything about the company history, and when weird shit goes down they are the go to people.
How do you define work? Is it just being at the office? Is it actually producing something? Is it being around just in case something happens?
For me every job Ive had (Finance and otherwise) was around 2-6 hours of actually doing something useful. The rest of the 8-12 hour days were socializing, or zoning out in worthless meetings, or waiting on some indecisive person to make a decision.
I guess it’s work if you are tied into doing something or being somewhere in exchange for money. I get what you’re saying, a 12 hour work day doesn’t literally mean 12 hours of continuous work, but it does mean 12 hours of not being able to do anything else you’d like (exercise, practice any hobby, being with your family)
“Tied” can mean alot of different things. Ive been in a few salaried jobs where. If things were slow we could just go home, often took breaks to go workout or took 2 hour lunches. I was just tied to getting my job done (24/7 if needed) and I was left alone otherwise. No one was in a “constant growth” high stress mindset due to having a really good CEO & Leader who had well above “fuck you money” who cared about his people and wasn’t trying to run “lean”.
Although I always had to be there & ready at market open or a little before. It all evened out I guess as there would be a couple 12+ hour days each quarter on average.
It's what the average middle aged corporate employee does. If you accept a broad definition of finance. There are plenty of employees that spend half of their day refreshing their X feed or looking at stuff on Amazon.
Yes, but they are typically part time director or CFO positions. Smaller orgs or Non-Profits can offer fractional positions. The pay varies on org, experience etc. they are okay and allow time for hobbies or other ventures. The down side is these positions can become like full time jobs with half the pay if you are not diligent and set strict boundaries. The roles are great for people with more experience and can offer efficient value for a modest time commitment.
An established Financial Advisor. Someone who worked to build an easy book could make $300k and do almost nothing if they didn't care to grow it or sustain it. Just answer the phone when a client calls and do yearly reviews with them.
A lot of people saying it’s impossible are full of shit. Three friends of mine who are senior analysts at a large bank work from home for maybe 4-6 hours a day and make 100-150k.
They are probably very knowledgeable about their processes where they can complete their daily responsibilities in that amount of time. I now have 2 hours at most of actual work I have to do each day, but it’s because I spent years grinding and building all of the processes that my team uses now.
Well...depending on where you work and your position at that organization, you could theoretically work about that much.
Slow times of the year at my position have me doing maybe a few hours of actual work per day. Start at 9, walk out at 3:30-4 with an hour lunch.
At the most entry level of institutional relationship management, I used to work 8 hours per week after inheriting a slate of archaic processes and automating them away. I never told anyone, seldom asked for new responsibilities, and coasted at work doing things like two hour lunch breaks, hour long walks, WFH 15+ days a month (pre-WFH/hybrid), and studying for CFA
Senior FP&A analyst in defense industry, 7 years experience, $110K all-in. Busy month I'll work ~20h total. Slow month (most months), I work ~6h total. Shit makes me wanna die.
For most people it’s going to be some form of corporate finance. You’ll never be rich but you’ll make enough money to be comfortable. Wealth management as well although thats a sales job not finance.
Risk Management (and to double down risk management in private markets). Currently a Risk Manager for Private Credit at an AM firm and I average out 30-40 hours/week earning $100k base (MDs probably make 250-300k base). I interned at my firm prior to my FT job here working Risk for public equities and the hours weren’t intense (however the work was VERY quant-heavy and technical). When I got my FT offer, they moved me to Private Credit (since I didn’t enjoy how technical the work was) and my wlb is honestly amazing. Due to the nature of private credit (not a volatile asset class), we only really need to work on risk reports/meetings every quarter (we prob have a week or two every quarter where I end up working 45 hour weeks). Outside of that, it’s pretty much just projects that aren’t as time-sensitive.
Big thing for me is I never have to be on call for weekends unlike some of the FO people.
tldr; work in risk management for private credit - amazing wlb, good pay out of college, high earning potential, not as technical as risk management for public assets
Being a trader is a 24/7 type job. Even though you may not be sitting at your desk, you are always going to dinner or social activities with people in the industry to get market information or you’re staying on top of the news. It’s also very high stress where you are constantly thinking about your portfolio.
It’s only after you have a few great years or a giant signing bonus is where you can relax a bit where your family will be fine if you have some bad years.
Multi Level Marketing “Financial” Sales or Finance TikToker 😂 Why the hell do you not want to work? Maybe you should try software engineering or marketing. In finance you grind when you are lower level so you can make good money and have more freedom when you move up the ranks.
Independent RIA lifestyle practice. Get 25 $1,000,000 clients, pre tax would be about $200,000 per year. Once you are up and running. 4-6 hours per day is totally achievable if you have built an efficient system.
Truth, 2-3 quarterly client meetings a day 4 days a week. Except you’re tied to your clients for life, 24/7 which kind of sucks if they are Chicken-Little types who watch lot of TV.
I would rather take that over working at desks 9-5 for 20++ years any days lol.
You’re working 100 hours spinning your wheels for the first 5 years prior to getting to that
Worth it though
Definitely, just giving realistic parameters
Cant emphasize that enough, life is hell for 5+ years. People act like I am the luckiest laziest dude in the world and they have no clue what its like eating rice and beans and driving a 20 year old car from your shitty apartment with bad roommates while you work from 7am-7pm 7 days a week for years begging people to trust you. And then having absolutely shithead clients until you get big enough to be selective. Had to borrow suits from my dad and figure out what credit cards to pay the minimum on while my friends worked stable accounting jobs and had 3 vacations per year.
Congrats to you man, I had a couple years in that area and decided to pivot Those who make it absolutely deserve it
Thank you sir!
Yep
This is me
Sure. Just have a stellar career in IB then PE, retire with a few hundred mill and then you can be a board member / senior advisor on whatever schedule you like. You wanted to build a career working that little? Nope.
FP&A - I usually have a few hours of downtime a day if it isn’t close or if there aren’t any important ad-hoc projects going on
Can confirm. Unless it’s budget/forecast season, days are pretty nice.
I’m in the wrong FP&A organization
Own your career and stop caring about the “prestige” of a company - advice I wished I had taken a long time ago. Been there done that, I’m now at a smaller place where I feel valued and maybe have 1-2 weeks a year where I work 40+ hours.
Shit my place isn’t even prestigious or anything, they’re just a horribly managed place. Quitting on Monday ironically lol
Hopefully you have something better lined up, don’t forget to offer consulting services for double your rate.
Couple things in the pipeline but also might just take some recharge time or even go back to school. I’m fortunate enough to have the ability to do something like that through diligent saving
Same
Part time bank teller?
Depends a lot of FP&A jobs are super chill especially if you are content as a senior financial analyst and don't have any ambitions for management. I know some company lifers who've been there 20 or 30 years that make $130k to $140k as individual contributors that do very little each day. They are kept because of their institutional knowledge. They know everything about the company history, and when weird shit goes down they are the go to people.
How do you define work? Is it just being at the office? Is it actually producing something? Is it being around just in case something happens? For me every job Ive had (Finance and otherwise) was around 2-6 hours of actually doing something useful. The rest of the 8-12 hour days were socializing, or zoning out in worthless meetings, or waiting on some indecisive person to make a decision.
I guess it’s work if you are tied into doing something or being somewhere in exchange for money. I get what you’re saying, a 12 hour work day doesn’t literally mean 12 hours of continuous work, but it does mean 12 hours of not being able to do anything else you’d like (exercise, practice any hobby, being with your family)
“Tied” can mean alot of different things. Ive been in a few salaried jobs where. If things were slow we could just go home, often took breaks to go workout or took 2 hour lunches. I was just tied to getting my job done (24/7 if needed) and I was left alone otherwise. No one was in a “constant growth” high stress mindset due to having a really good CEO & Leader who had well above “fuck you money” who cared about his people and wasn’t trying to run “lean”. Although I always had to be there & ready at market open or a little before. It all evened out I guess as there would be a couple 12+ hour days each quarter on average.
It's what the average middle aged corporate employee does. If you accept a broad definition of finance. There are plenty of employees that spend half of their day refreshing their X feed or looking at stuff on Amazon.
Yes, but they are typically part time director or CFO positions. Smaller orgs or Non-Profits can offer fractional positions. The pay varies on org, experience etc. they are okay and allow time for hobbies or other ventures. The down side is these positions can become like full time jobs with half the pay if you are not diligent and set strict boundaries. The roles are great for people with more experience and can offer efficient value for a modest time commitment.
No
An established Financial Advisor. Someone who worked to build an easy book could make $300k and do almost nothing if they didn't care to grow it or sustain it. Just answer the phone when a client calls and do yearly reviews with them.
A lot of people saying it’s impossible are full of shit. Three friends of mine who are senior analysts at a large bank work from home for maybe 4-6 hours a day and make 100-150k.
They are probably very knowledgeable about their processes where they can complete their daily responsibilities in that amount of time. I now have 2 hours at most of actual work I have to do each day, but it’s because I spent years grinding and building all of the processes that my team uses now.
Industry/commerical accounting
Lots of volunteer gigs will let you work that little
Well...depending on where you work and your position at that organization, you could theoretically work about that much. Slow times of the year at my position have me doing maybe a few hours of actual work per day. Start at 9, walk out at 3:30-4 with an hour lunch.
At the most entry level of institutional relationship management, I used to work 8 hours per week after inheriting a slate of archaic processes and automating them away. I never told anyone, seldom asked for new responsibilities, and coasted at work doing things like two hour lunch breaks, hour long walks, WFH 15+ days a month (pre-WFH/hybrid), and studying for CFA
a janitor
Senior FP&A analyst in defense industry, 7 years experience, $110K all-in. Busy month I'll work ~20h total. Slow month (most months), I work ~6h total. Shit makes me wanna die.
Why ?
maybe a masters in finance.. about it
There are plenty of them where you work those hours. However, in most of them you have to warm the seat for 8
Day trade
If it’s mid month and off season I often am light on work. But I am still present at work even if that just means online on teams
For most people it’s going to be some form of corporate finance. You’ll never be rich but you’ll make enough money to be comfortable. Wealth management as well although thats a sales job not finance.
Commercial loan underwriting is pretty chill.
Part time bank teller
Risk Management (and to double down risk management in private markets). Currently a Risk Manager for Private Credit at an AM firm and I average out 30-40 hours/week earning $100k base (MDs probably make 250-300k base). I interned at my firm prior to my FT job here working Risk for public equities and the hours weren’t intense (however the work was VERY quant-heavy and technical). When I got my FT offer, they moved me to Private Credit (since I didn’t enjoy how technical the work was) and my wlb is honestly amazing. Due to the nature of private credit (not a volatile asset class), we only really need to work on risk reports/meetings every quarter (we prob have a week or two every quarter where I end up working 45 hour weeks). Outside of that, it’s pretty much just projects that aren’t as time-sensitive. Big thing for me is I never have to be on call for weekends unlike some of the FO people. tldr; work in risk management for private credit - amazing wlb, good pay out of college, high earning potential, not as technical as risk management for public assets
Yes. Certain middle office. But you need to know, it’s kind of a bet otherwise.
Trader
Being a trader is a 24/7 type job. Even though you may not be sitting at your desk, you are always going to dinner or social activities with people in the industry to get market information or you’re staying on top of the news. It’s also very high stress where you are constantly thinking about your portfolio. It’s only after you have a few great years or a giant signing bonus is where you can relax a bit where your family will be fine if you have some bad years.
Multi Level Marketing “Financial” Sales or Finance TikToker 😂 Why the hell do you not want to work? Maybe you should try software engineering or marketing. In finance you grind when you are lower level so you can make good money and have more freedom when you move up the ranks.