Well, I think I could swing it. What kills me right now is not my meager salary, but rather that it takes so much damn time to acquire it. And most of that is unnecessary time. Working hard and playing hard is more my melody, I dislike the middle ground.
I should also mention: consulting can also require (much!) more flexibility and traveling depending on partners and customers and staying in hotels and flying around all the time can get very old very quickly... most of the time you don't really have any chance to enjoy the place you are staying at anyway - if you are independent and don't have a wife or especially kids to worry about, if you are young and just starting out, it is definitely a great option to see a lot, meet people, get "front experience" and valuable contacts a lot easier and natural than any other way - if you want to have a family and enjoy lots of time with them and provide for them reliably, it might not be the best option.
And I hear you about working and playing hard... I would love to do my week's work in 2-4 days and have the rest of the time off but the overwhelming majority of employers is stuck in Ford's 40-hours-at-the-belt kind of ideology, especially in older, settled industries.
