[pcglue]

2.8M nut, about 50/50 in regular/retirement accounts. I'm mid 40's, married with two pre-teen kids, annual expenses of $80K, live in HCOL area (Southern California). Would you FIRE in this situation? Would you take a year long hiatus? As much as I would like to FIRE, I can't/won't, even though the "numbers" say I probably could. But seriously considering a months to year long career break/sabbatical/hiatus, because I'm extremely extremely burnt out. Has anyone here taken a gap year in their 40's/50's? Was it difficult to find another job?

[PragmaticPulp]

> because I'm extremely extremely burnt out

How often do you take real vacations?

Your scenario comes up a lot in FIRE forums: People lead unsustainably stressful work lives and think the only antidote is to quit. Then they decide they're not ready to quit, so they continue working the unsustainably demanding job.

The real solution is to work on refactoring your career. You need to teach yourself how to work sustainably, manage stress, and take vacations. Job won't allow it? Time to start looking for another job. Other jobs pay less? Doesn't matter, it's still more than you'd be paid if you burn out and have to quit to get relief.

Re: Gap years: You can find stories of people taking gap years and then diving right back into the workforce, but many of them are either from young people or people who have a network that can get them back into a job. If you're making a clean break and re-entering the workforce without job connections, it's going to be difficult in your 40s and 50s unless you have some very niche skills that are in demand. Hiring managers might be concerned that you're looking for a cushy semi-retirement job to keep you busy, and that you might simply retire again if the going gets tough. They'd rather hire someone whose career interests are more aligned with staying with the company. Keep this in mind with how you frame your gap year.

[pcglue]

Pre-pandemic, I'd take 3-4 weeks a year. I've only taken a 2 weeks off this past year, mainly because there's no where to go, so I've taken the 2 weeks just for mental health.

Everything you say makes sense and I am considering all of it, especially taking a lower paying, lower stress job.

[ghaff]

This is the first time in my rather long career when I haven't taken effectively every day I was owed. Couldn't go anywhere--or at least didn't feel comfortable doing so--and odd days here and there often ended as at least partial work days.

In a prior life, I took a few month-long trips to Nepal. No one ever complained although a few were a bit surprised I could do so.

[kelnos]

Agreed.

When I was earlier in my career and was fed up at my then-current job, an older, wiser coworker of mine took me aside and advised me to leave for the right reasons. Be sure that I was running toward something new that excited me, and not just running away from something that made me unhappy. He wanted to make sure I wasn't going to just accept whatever first job came my way, or quit without any plan for the future at all.

The antidote to unsustainably stressful work is only quitting if you've thoroughly looked at what quitting really means and have decided that will truly make you happy.

Quitting might be an intentionally-short-term fix with a plan to find a better job with a healthier work/life balance. Quitting and retiring could be a long-term fix, too, but it's such a huge lifestyle change that it shouldn't be seen as simply a solution to the problem.

[ben7799]

It's a good question for your financial advisor assuming you have one.

One of their jobs is crunching the numbers to answer the exact question you're asking.

We recently went through this with our financial advisor. We're the same age, only have one kid, east coast HCOL area, live well below our means, very similar savings as you.

Rough answer was we could do a normal retirement in our early 50s if we could get closer to $6M nest egg with an assumption of spending a bit higher than your current expenses in retirement.

FI/RE seems to be financial advising minus the personalized advice and the regulations and plus the silly social media influencer/huckster side of things with a side dose of "retire well below your normal standard of living" to retire early.

One of the tricks for me to balance things is realizing the startup game is too rigged.. it's way easier to make solid/reliable returns working at high performing public companies that award equity. I've been through quite a few exits, but as time has gone on each exit was worse and worse because the founders and investors get more and more of the pie. And working at the public companies tends to be way more life/work balance.

[neogodless]

> we could do a normal retirement in our early 50s if we could get closer to $6M nest egg

Assuming you're going to live from 50 until 80, that's $200k/year spending assuming your investments/retirement funds just keep up with inflation. Maybe I'm missing something?

[pcglue]

No, don't have a financial advisor, but considering one now. Before I burnt out, I was also planning to early retire around 50, when my nest egg should be at least $5M. Thanks for your insights. What kind of financial advisor did you use? Fee-only CFP/CFA?

[kelnos]

As others have pointed out, try to get a financial advisor who can look at your situation and give you some objective advice.

But also understand that you're probably not going to make the best decisions about this from the perspective of extreme burnout.

First step might be to talk to your boss about your workload and see if there are some changes that can be made to make you happy again. If that doesn't pan out, maybe think about finding a new job. Even if you choose not to, just going through the process of seeing what's out there will give you some valuable perspective.

I don't have much idea as to how difficult it'd be to find another job in your 40s/50s if you take an extended break from work for a while, but my intuition is that it'd be harder than simply switching jobs now. An alternative might be to find a new job now, but negotiate a start date that is a month or two out from your planned last day at your current job. This won't work at some employers, but many will be fine with it.

On the other hand, consider that $2.8M at $80k/yr is 35 years of expenses. Your expenses will almost certainly grow over time, but even if they triple, that's still over 10 years of runway. If you wanted to take a year off, but then had trouble finding a job right away, you'd have no problem (financially) taking 6 months (or 12 or more) finding your next job. Hell, you could train for an entirely new field and work your way up from an entry level position to something mid-range in that time.

[pcglue]

Thanks for your reply. It really encapsulates all the best advice I've gotten from all places.

> But also understand that you're probably not going to make the best decisions about this from the perspective of extreme burnout.

I'm (overly) aware that my burnt out state may not lead to the best decisions. That's why I'm stepping cautiously and not making any rash changes.

> First step might be to talk to your boss about your workload and see if there are some changes that can be made to make you happy again.

I'm currently in talks with management to see what can be done. It's not really the workload, but the type of work I'm doing that's been the problem. But because I'm burnt out and diminished, the normal workload which is not normally a problem is becoming one. But I also fear I'm just too burnt out to remain working here in any capacity.

I'm gearing myself up to find another job, to avoid having to job hunt while unemployed in my 40s, and hopefully be able to take a month or two before starting. Job hunting/interviewing is hard in the best of circumstances; it's doubly so in my current burnt out state.

> [Long runway, can retrain in another field]

Also under consideration. Front-runner is GIS. Always had an interest doing geo-analysis/maps.

[kelnos]

> But I also fear I'm just too burnt out to remain working here in any capacity.

That's a key (unfortunate) insight. Sometimes the only way to fix burnout is to step back and just not do what you were doing for a while, sometimes a long while. Employers usually won't be ok with that, though :(

And yeah, totally get that interviewing while being burned out is really hard too.

Best of luck to you. I really hope you manage to figure things out. The important thing is that you know there's a problem, and you're taking steps to try to fix it. Even if that process is not easy, things will get better.

[dorkwood]

If you have that much in the bank and you're worried about how a gap year will affect your future, then I'm royally screwed.

I want to take some time off, but I've got significantly less to fall back on. I wish I didn't earn so little for so long. It feels like by the time I catch up I'll be regular retirement age anyway.

[jjav]

Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids.

But you can take a comfortable number of years off though and it is very nice to do that. Decompress, spend tons of time with those pre-teen kids while they still are that age.

I took about 3 years off in my 40s when my child was starting elementary school. Spent all my afternoons playing with the kid and all mornings (school time) working on my personal projects at home. Highly recommended!

With 2.8M while you can't retire forever, you also won't have any urgency to find a new job so you can be picky when you start looking, like I was. Finding a new job can be difficult if you're desperate for it, but with no urgency you can hold out for a great job.

[pcglue]

> Realistically you can't retire, not with two pre-teen kids.

Yeah, I think I realize this deep down, and part of why I don't want to.

> I took about 3 years off in my 40s

How did your job search go when you decided to go back to work? What was your last job before taking a break and what was the new job that you found? Were they similar or completely different? Did you have any trouble with a 3-year gap? You obviously didn't have any major issues, like not finding a job. But were you questioned a lot about the gap? Sorry so many questions, but I'm intensely interested in how it went for you because I might be doing the same.

If I do take a year off, I figure I could explain it partly with the pandemic, and wanting to take care of my kids (not untrue).

I know my savings allow me a long runway and if I take a career break, I'm sure I could figure something out during that time. But still, actually stepping off that cliff is nerve-wracking, for me at least.

[jjav]

I had way less savings (but enough to live comfortably at least 5 years and maybe another 5 penny-pinching if I had to) and it wasn't stressful.

I suggest setting up a solo consulting business up front. I didn't think of doing that, did it in the third year and only after someone contacted me asking for some consulting help. I did then have a couple clients for consulting but I only worked a couple hours a week and not every month so it was minimal-to-none at best. But it did give me a legitimate entry in the resume as consulting business owner. Maybe that helped.

I was very worried about the gap but it was a non-issue. Most places didn't ask at all. The few that did, I told them I wanted to be a stay-at-home-dad for a while and spend time with the kid (true) and everyone was "wow, very cool!"

(I'm in Silicon Valley, culture might be different elsewhere.)

It's hard to say how long it took me to find a new job because I didn't exactly look for one. After setting up the consulting gig I started thinking it would be great to find enough consulting work to fill about 20hrs/wk and just keep doing that. So I started reading my linkedin messages instead of ignoring them. I'd respond to the recruiters saying I'm not looking for a full time role but I'd be open to part-time consulting for their project. No takers, I wish companies were more open to part-time help. One of those recruiters ended up being more persistent and convinced me to go in for interviews even though I didn't want a FT role. Ended up liking the team so took the offer. I was at a principal engineer/architect level before and after.

I obviously don't know your situation but given your high savings and the age of the kids, it's a great opportunity to spend time with them now.

[pcglue]

Thank you, you've given me a lot to be optimistic about.

[ed25519FUUU]

Another approach to FIRE that I think is actually more fulfilling is to gradually reduce working hours until "retired".

For example, explore a position that lets you work 4 days a week and take Mondays or Fridays off. Later, switch to part time or contracting 6 months on 6 months off.

I don't personally think gap years will be very fulfilling unless it's something like a whole family 1 year vacation where you all go and live someplace.

[pcglue]

I would absolutely love to find a software position with 24-32 hour week, but I have not heard of such a thing, short of going out on your own and freelancing. No employer I know of (in software field, I don't want to go work retail) would consider allowing employees to work part time.

I have considered contracting or even freelancing too, but I've been a W2 worker my entire career. I'd have to look into how to do this.

[njwi332]

They exist - I work for Indeed and there's a 4 day week option that started being offered last year in response to covid and has now become an official policy. The problem is that companies that do it don't tend to advertise it I guess.

[mettamage]

For EU citizens, The Netherlands is totally a country where 32 hours per week is possible. The pay is also a lot lower ;-) Though, compared to a 40 hour work week, you only take a 20% pay cut (and probably get passed up on promotions, so there is an opportunity cost).

[pcglue]

Work climate is much different here in the manic U.S. I'd gladly take the 20% pay cut and be passed over for promotions. I actively decline promotion to team lead/management anyway. Whatever extra benefits there are in pay/title is not worth the stress.

[ghaff]

That's assuming your preference is to have shorter/easier weeks as opposed to taking chunks of time off--which is my preference.

[neogodless]

You can spend $80k a year for 35 years and keep your investment in any vehicle that just barely keeps up with inflation. If that nut achieves just 3% annual gain over inflation, you'll still have the same nut in 35 years...

Can you explain the "can't" part of early retirement? The "won't" is of course your decision and no one else's. But why do you say "can't"?

[pcglue]

I fully admit the "can't" is mostly in my head. Need to work up the courage to do so, due to many reasons. Societal (what a bum!), family (what kind of role model would I be for kids?) and just fear of running out of money due to black swan event. I wouldn't say my fear is completely irrational, but it's not all rational either.

[jjav]

80K in California for a family with two kids isn't really that much.

Probably we've all seen the articles on how 100+K income in Silicon Valley falls as "low income": https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44725026

And those pre-teen kids will be college kids later at which point OP will need far more than 80K/yr.