But does the “enough money to live” include money to cover your future living expenses as well? As I was saying, I plan for a scenario in which I’ll be “forced into obsolescence” in my late 40s due to ageism, and won’t be able to claim any social security benefits due to the massive deficit in federal budget.

Hence, what I really strive to make now is actually 3-5X my cost of living expenses every year, so I can ensure a decent retirement down the road.

Based on that math, I really can't afford the luxury of taking a job that will just cover my yearly expenses. In my case, I really have to go for jobs where swes make $300-400k/yr, and I live pretty frugally myself (I spend 60k/y post tax in the Bay Area). I don’t think it’s safe to assume software engineering is a career that you can keep up until your 60s, unlike teachers for example, so you have to plan for it.

I’ve seen several people actually employ this logic and justify to themselves a 120k software job at a cool Bay Area startup, because it fully covers their living expenses in the Bay, despite not letting them save even one single dollar for retirement. I think that’s very irresponsible though, and they’re in for a sad surprise when they’ll discover in their late 40s that employers don’t consider them as hireable as they once were, and now they have to drive Uber to not become destitute (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s hardly a great outcome).