[whoatethedonut]

>> less day-to-day stress

Going from a full-time position to freelance can be quite the opposite of this. There are different kinds of stress. Right now you seem to mean day-to-day stress with the work (or maybe the coworkers), but if you go cold turkey and 100% freelance you'll have a lot of new stress to make sure you can pay the bills and provide for your family for an extended time without the steady pay check coming.

I recommend keeping the full-time job for now and looking for freelance work on the side. If you've been there for years, you probably have a good bank of PTO built up. You could take a few days off to focus on a freelance project, basically being double paid for your time.

Eventually, as you get more used to freelance work, how to navigate and negotiate it, you may feel more comfortable with what you're able to do as a freelancer and have a target date of when you would be able to quit the full-time job. Or, you may learn freelance work isn't for you, and you still have the full-time job to fall back on while you work on your resume and get psyched up to start the "interview gauntlet."

Either way you go, GOOD LUCK!!!