I am wealthy and living on my own terms.

Terms are specific things. What time you get up. Whether a Wednesday can be taken. Who is allowed to phone at nine at night and expect an answer.

Somebody took eight thousand less a year to cut a commute from ninety minutes to fifteen, and got back six weeks of waking life. On paper it was a step down. In everything that mattered to them, it was a raise.

Money and terms are traded against each other constantly, and everybody's exchange rate differs. The useful question is not how much, but what you are currently paying, and in what.