Hi everyone! I need to decide on whether changing or not jobs.. Sorry for being so long.. I dont have any mustachian friends to talk about this.. I am sure you will understand better than most people I talk to normally.
Im 28 and have around USD90k in savings and Id be happy to reach FI with 500,000 by 45 (scenario without babies). Ive studied business and finance in Brazil and have worked with consulting, investment banking advisory... I never liked it but it pays the bills and gives me safety. Im living now in Panama, but who knows where I will end up wanting to live.
I work as an analyst to the shareholders of a family-owned, veery laid back, company. I work around 35 hours/week and I have my own closed office room, so I can take care of my personal finance, read, plan trips, help friends etc during office hours. and I make an annual net salary of 46k. This is a good manager salary for Panama. My bosses are very friendly and dont expect much of me, which is good and boring at the same time. I DO learn new things because I can work well with very different topics and projects. for instance energy, or real estate, or retail.. If theres a nice trip it would probably always be OK to take a half day off.. its very flexible and i already have their trust.
Now I got offered a job in an international structured finance bank/fund for the same net salary, but this fund can give me a pension fund contribution and an additional bonus up to 70% the net salary. No idea how much I can expect this to be in the end. They are more competitive and just transferred their office from Washington DC to Panama, so I understand they will be expecting muuuch more of my availability because 1. they have the US fast paced stressful expectations and 2. they have no family nor friends in Panama, so they ALWAYS hang out, have together expensive lunches and dinners etc (pls kill me). I would for sure work MINIMUM 45 hours/week but after a year I could get an additional +$20k or more. After a year I would get a raise and eventually -if i bear it- i could be promoted and earn much much more.
My boyfriend is a sailing captain and we would love to take some maybe 3 to 6 months off and go traveling in the end of 2017. For instance he could easily get paid USD2000/month for working on a sailboat while I can travel with all expenses paid in the same boat. If I enjoy this life, I could rethink doing finance and business as a full time job, and that would mean getting less paid, but having already a nicer life and probably lowering my everyday costs.
If I stay on this current job, I perhaps can get back to it after the trip, if that's what i want...
If i move to the bank, Im not so sure if i can get back to it after the trip - but not sure if I would want that either. The good part is that in the bank I can get experience and a ~brand~ in my curriculum that should help me get better jobs afterwards, and I can already cash some good money before the trip. Besides, working on a bank is always a good thing on the CV since there are banks EVERYWHERE so wherever I live in the future, this could open some doors..
I will love to hear some independent opinions coming from this community. What do you think about it? Should I change jobs?
