I’ll Do It My Way: Once Money Is Plentiful, Who Do You Want to Become?
Yesterday, I did a thought experiment.
I wanted to compare five types of career fields that might appeal to someone who is FIRE or working toward Barista FIRE.
Four of these are jobs I have considered, have done, or am currently doing.
The real issue I am trying to decide for myself is the difference between living in two places during the year (or more) versus staying put in one location. This exercise was a bit of an aside to that question, but it proved helpful nonetheless.
One important point: I wanted to compare apples to apples.
So I looked only at pay for time worked, allowing me to estimate an hourly rate that could be compared across all five career fields.
I’ll come back to why that matters after we look at the results.
Another assumption I built into the analysis was that the person stops at 20 hours per week.
The idea is that if you are FIRE or Barista FIRE, you probably want to leave a significant portion of your life open to pursue interests beyond simply working for pay.
There is nothing wrong with working for pay.
It’s just that, once you reach FIRE, you will likely want a much bigger why for doing it.
After all, many people pursue FIRE because they want to step off what has often been called the “rat race.”
I’ll come back to that, too.
A third part of the analysis was comparing three levels of experience:
Entry level
Mid-level
Upper tier
I also wanted to estimate what percentage of people working in each field fall into those three categories.
In other words, what proportion of the total workforce is earning the average hourly wage at each level?
Also, Please Put away your calculators and critiques of the accuracy of the numbers. These are rough estimates Google provided. The pattern that emerges is directionally correct, based on my own experience working in 3 of these types of jobs.
Here are the five career fields I looked at:
Singer-Songwriter Performer — Someone who primarily writes and performs their own songs in live venues.
Comedian — Someone performing stand-up comedy in live venues.
Coach/Workshop Facilitator — Someone who works one-on-one with clients while also leading group workshops.
Barista — Someone working in a coffee shop preparing drinks, taking orders, and handling the other duties of the job.
Bartender — Someone preparing drinks, serving customers, and often handling food service responsibilities as well.
Here is what Google suggests are the approximate hourly rates at each level.
1. Touring Singer-Songwriter
Level 1 — $8/hour ($160/week); approximately 75%
Level 2 — $12/hour ($240/week); approximately 20%
Level 3 — $40/hour ($800/week); approximately 5%
2. Touring Comedian
Level 1 — $4/hour ($80/week); approximately 80%
Level 2 — $20/hour ($400/week); approximately 18%
Level 3 — $100/hour ($2,000/week); approximately 2%
3. Coach/Workshop Facilitator
Level 1 — $100/hour ($2,000/week); approximately 70%
Level 2 — $200/hour ($4,000/week); approximately 25%
Level 3 — $400/hour ($8,000/week); approximately 5%
4. Barista
Level 1 — $15/hour ($300/week); approximately 60%
Level 2 — $20/hour ($400/week); approximately 30%
Level 3 — $25/hour ($500/week); approximately 10%
5. Bartender
Level 1 — $20/hour ($400/week); approximately 35%
Level 2 — $30/hour ($600/week); approximately 45%
Level 3 — $45/hour ($900/week); approximately 20%
Very interesting, I thought.
An Hourly Rate
First, there is a big difference between being a barista or bartender—where you typically work for a company that pays an hourly wage and you receive tips—and being a singer-songwriter, comedian, or coach, where you have to market yourself and sell your services.
As a singer-songwriter or comedian, you may receive tips at the entry and mid-levels, but those generally disappear as you move into higher-paying professional work.
Other Sources of Income
Singer-songwriters, comedians, and coaches can also release albums or write books to generate additional revenue.
However, these are often more like loss leaders or another form of marketing than significant income sources.
Very few albums or books become million-selling successes.
For the singer-songwriter and comedian, there is always merchandise.
Uh… yeah… unless you’re a minimalist like me and don’t really enjoy the idea of putting a bunch of extra “stuff” out into the world.
I suppose songwriters and comedians can also sell songs or jokes, but I didn’t explore that angle.
A coach or facilitator has additional opportunities to generate income through group coaching, mastermind groups, public speaking, workshops, and similar offerings.
You don’t have quite these same opportunities as a barista or bartender.
But look at the distribution of earnings across the different levels.
You can always move to a better employer.
I worked my way through college as a bartender.
I worked at a couple of good restaurants.
Adjusted into today’s dollars, I was probably making something close to the top-tier hourly wage—and I was basically a self-taught hack.
I showed up.
Did my job.
Went home and counted my tips.
Sweet deal.
Google also provided estimates for top-tier annual incomes in these three professions.
Singer-Songwriters: $80,000–$150,000
Comedians: $120,000+
Coach/Facilitators: $150,000–$300,000
Again, It’s the Pattern that matters, as I think these averages are probably on the low end.
But…
Here’s the other thing.
It is highly unlikely that you reach those income levels without giving the work your all.
Forty hours per week is probably the minimum.
More likely, considerably more.
And you know what?
If you are FAT FIRE, your investment portfolio may already be producing income in that same general range.
For example, a portfolio of around $2.8 million might reasonably average approximately $300,000 per year in market returns over the long term.
Or let’s take the lower end of these professional income ranges.
Roughly $115,000 per year, averaged across the three careers.
A portfolio of around $1.05 million might reasonably generate returns in that neighborhood over time.
Of course, you can’t safely spend all of those investment returns.
Remember the familiar 3–5% withdrawal guideline.
But you also have something incredibly valuable:
Complete time freedom.
That is not to say these careers are not worthy pursuits.
Heck, I am probably Going to continue to lose money as an entry-level singer-songwriter.
And I’m loving it.
What I think this exercise suggests is:
Don’t do it for the money.
Do it because you love doing it.
Do it for the purpose and meaning it might bring into your life.
Do it for the adventure.
Do it for the human connections it can foster.
And, as Frank Sinatra once sang…
It’s important to do it your way.