There was a big "living below your means" message I was getting from folks when I was graduating 25 years ago, and I think it has really paid off. Finding a comfortable, satisfying lifestyle that can be funded with mid-level comp has been such advantage for my family.

I say that because whereas I work where I want, there are a number of folks I interact with who drag themselves to jobs they hate because they "can't" leave the comp. Sometimes they really have ratcheted up their COL quite high, and other times it is just too much of blow to imagine their salary cut in half. I'll share my experience of a series of paycuts for ever more interesting work, and the satisfaction that resulted, but it usually doesn't seem to resonate.