Over-employed: Man who earned over S$300K/year via 2 remote jobs says it wasn’t worth it

SINGAPORE: Instead of staying on track to amassing more wealth, one millennial decided to swim against the tide by choosing not to be “over-employed,” saying it wasn’t worth it. The 37-year-old man who only identified himself as “Luke” recently told his story to Business Insider.

He began by saying that, at one point, he already had a six-figure salary working remotely as an e-commerce professional. He then decided to take on another remote job, which ended up being full-time. This job also meant that he took home around US$225,000 a year (S$305,900).

While Luke kept adding to his savings with the extra money he earned, he also made a downpayment on a truck and started an Airbnb.

However, a year and a month into secretly working with two remote jobs, he gave the second one up for the following reasons: higher taxes, his first child had been born, he was up for a promotion for the first job, the boss at his second job was very difficult to work for, and his employer was calling workers to return to their office, at least part-time.

For a while, the hustle had been manageable since the total number of working hours he had per week juggling the two jobs had only been between 40 and 50, and he’d been able to keep his schedule straight.

However, when parenthood caused him to change priorities and his second job pushed him into a higher tax bracket, the additional income of US$80,000 (S$109,000) no longer held the same appeal.

“Of the money I made from the second job, a third of it, I had to basically hold back just for taxes,” Business Insider quotes Luke as saying.

And when work began the shift from remote to hybrid as the Covid-19 pandemic waned, which meant he needed to show up in person a few days per week, juggling two jobs got a lot harder for Luke, who was concerned that his boss in his first job would find out about his second job.

That being the icing on the cake, he realized that his second job had to go.

“The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze,” he was quoted as saying, “I’m not going to try and juggle both jobs. I thought about it, but with the new baby and a promotion coming, it’s just too much.” /TISG

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