[qqqwerty]

A lot of advice depends on what you want to do and where you are at in life. If you have meager savings, then taking a year off might be a bad idea, but taking a few months might be do-able. If your 401k and bank accounts are flush then you have a lot more wiggle room. Some additional thoughts:

- It goes by fast. If you have a long list of things you want to do during that time, I would make sure to prioritize. If you just want to relax, that is fine too.

- Unless you are really in a bad spot in terms of finances, it is unlikely that you will regret taking the time off.

- Don't worry about the gap in your resume. Anyone who cares about that is likely not someone you want to work for.

- Optional, but think about ways to make the break work in your favor. I used some of the time to learn a new programming language, and the subsequent pay bump that I got after returning to work more than paid for the time off. As another hypothetical example, If you were hoping to cut loose and travel during your time off, and if you are currently working remote due to COVID. You could move out of your apartment now and get a jump start on the traveling, while still collecting a few more paychecks.

[qqqwerty]

And as a quick follow up to my last point. It might make sense to think about how taxes can work in your favor. If you take a year off, and you split the year across two calendar years (i.e. June 2021 to June 2022), you will get a nice refund from the IRS come tax day both years. Whereas you would get no refund if you do Jan 2022-Dec2022.

Alternatively, if you have a bunch of capital gains in stocks you could cash some of that out tax free if you have no income for the year (i.e. the Jan 2022-Dec2022 scenario).

Some other considerations in terms of timing are bonuses and PTO payouts. For example, I had a ton of PTO saved up (this was before everyone was doing unlimited PTO, which makes this issue irrelevant). My last day was in late December and they gave me a check for all of the unused PTO. Had I waited until January, that money would have been mostly tax free.

Probably not something you want to stress too much about. But if it works out you can put an extra $5-10k in your pocket which will take some of the sting off of losing the paycheck.