I chased the money for almost 20 years (in social services so relatively speaking), I accepted more and more responsibility, worked more and more hours (on-call 24/7 the last seven years of it)...then one day I realized they had "bought" me. I had a crappy quality of life, my beloved and I were on very thin ice, I never slept, and I was miserable. We looked at our budget to see what we could do and realized we could get by on a lot less.

Long story short, I bailed and couldn't be happier. Life is too damn short to spend 80+ hours a week at work.