As someone in a similar age bracket as you (mid 20s vs 31) and making the money you want to be making, I have a few recommendations: 1. The scattered complaint

As someone in a similar age bracket as you (mid 20s vs 31) and making the money you want to be making, I have a few recommendations: 1. The scattered complaints you express seem to speak to a deep seated dissatisfaction with your life, your accomplishments and your personal identity. Without going so far as to make an armchair psychoanalysis on the internet, I'd suggest you learn what it is about the money that you think will make you happy. Does it evoke power for you? Control? Social success, or particularly success with the opposite sex? If you resolve your personal unhappiness now, you'll be happy regardless of your salary. If you don't, the money will not solve your problems. Whatever feels out of control in your life now, it is likely a personal hardship, not a financial one. 2. You don't need a master's degree. Unless you want to do something in research, or branch into an industry you're not already in, more education will not generally be a net win for increasing your salary. 3. You need to be willing to either learn a lucrative skill or get very close to revenue generation for a business. If you do that, you can make a convincing case for making the money you want. I understand that you feel burnt out, but realistically you have to be motivated to learn something new and invest in yourself in some way. 4. This might sound tone deaf, but once you make $300k in a year, it will cease to be "big bucks." Realize that you're making a significant amount of money already when compared with the median income of the United States. Pursuing money for its own sake when you are already doing well enough to live comfortably is not a sound plan for increasing your happiness. $300k is an arbitrary number. Think about what you want to do with that money.