US woman once earned a six-figure paycheck as an HR director. Today, lives on a five-acre farm, says, 'No high-paying corporate job could lure her.' She now has multiple income sources

A six-figure salary, a senior corporate position, a large home and an expensive car might look like the conventional definition of success. For Laurie Charpentier, however, losing her corporate career eventually forced her to reconsider what success actually meant. Today, she and her husband make a living through several small businesses while living on a five-acre educational micro-farm, a lifestyle she describes as “paradise”. Scroll down to find more details.

From six-figure salary to losing her corporate job

Charpentier's corporate career began in 1998 when she joined a manufacturing company as a part-time assistant to its chief financial officer. Within four years, she had built its human resources department and become HR director. By her eighth year, she says her salary had reached six figures. Things changed after the business was sold to a larger corporation in 2005. Two years later, Charpentier and her husband were among senior employees who lost their jobs. She later returned to HR at another company, only to unexpectedly lose that position as well.

The experience altered her definition of success. “I came to realise that success for me meant freedom,” she writes in her account for Homestead.org. Charpentier and her husband eventually exchanged corporate life for a five-acre educational micro-farm. Their income now comes from several directions rather than one employer. The couple runs a landscaping business from April to November, while Charpentier conducts gardening and personal-development workshops, writes blogs and develops value-added farm products. She has also ventured into pet products.


It isn't a story of becoming richer after leaving corporate America. Charpentier is candid that the transition involved serious financial sacrifices. The couple lost their four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a swimming pool to foreclosure and downsized to a smaller cottage. She also traded her Land Rover for a more economical Volkswagen.

Is leaving a high-paying job really linked to happiness?

Charpentier's experience reflects a broader finding about work and wellbeing: money matters, but it isn't the only factor. A major study published in Nature Human Behaviour found that income is associated with greater life satisfaction, but the relationship becomes more complicated at higher earnings. Separate workplace research has repeatedly linked autonomy having greater control over how and when people work with wellbeing.

That distinction is central to Charpentier's story. She does not recommend simply resigning from a job. Instead, she advises people considering a similar change to reduce debt, learn relevant skills, establish multiple income streams and create an exit plan before walking away.

A different definition of being rich

The couple now grows some of its own food, makes household products and heats its home with wood. Holidays, luxury purchases and expensive restaurant meals have largely disappeared. Yet Charpentier says the trade-off has been worthwhile, describing their farm as a place “no high-income corporate position can lure us away from.” Her journey doesn't suggest everyone should exchange an office for farmland. Instead, it challenges a familiar assumption: a bigger salary can buy a bigger lifestyle, but for some people, having greater control over their time becomes the more valuable form of wealth.