Throwaway account – could use internet's advice.
I am in a weird situation in my life.
Some background info: 48M married to 42F. 2 kids 17 and 16.
Finances: Have $3M in investments. See the breakdown below. Kids 529 plan is funded outside of this.
Regular Investment Account: $985K
Roth IRA: $440K
IRA: $700K
401K: $875K
Have a paid off rental property which generates about $30K/year.
Primary home has an outstanding mortagage of $400K with a monthly payment of about $3700.
I work for a large financial services firm as a Technology middle manager. Joined this firm couple of years ago. Our agreement was that I need to be in the building every other week regardless of wherever I live. I live in a different city about 1000 miles away from the closest base locaiton. Obviously I had to take a flight, stay in a hotel/airbnb for 4 nights, rent a car etc (uber is expensive)., Over the last year, I have been shuttling back and forth. It goes without saying – this impacted my health, as I dont sleep very well if I dont sleep in my bed, eat outside – ended up getting diagonsed with prediabetics etc., While I am away I miss my wife and the boys. Next year my older one will go to college, I dont know how much are we going to spend time with him except the holidays when he comes home.
My work situation: 50% of my compensation is tied in bonus and stocks. I have been at this level for over 10 years and I can do the job with minimal effort. We do quarterly performance reviews and for the first 3 quarters of the year, I was rated as 2 out of 5, meaning exceeding expectations. I was expecting to receive 100% of my target bonus, which is about $200K/year. Given, I could do the job with minimal effort and being a decent performer at work, over the last year, I made a mistake of doing "coffee badging" at work on Mondays and Fridays to maximize time at home. A month ago, my boss informed me that I made it to the naughty list from productivity perspective – I spent less than an hour in the building on Mondays and Fridays 30% of the time – he claimed that HR showed him videos of me doing coffee badging. I took accountability for my mistake. It was recorded in the HR system of this behavior and was given a warning that any future deviation from being in the office will result in termination. I was moved from rating of "2" to "5" and was given zero bonus.
The culture of the organization is "you need to have your ass in the seat" and nothing else matters. As a middle manager, I did compensation numbers for my entire org and everyone who showed up to work consistently got their target bonuses.
The job itself is easy. Given I lost my bonus, i have no motivation to work. Also, the travel every other week makes it even demotiviating to go to work. Job market is such that I am unable to find a role locally in the city i live in or remote opportunity at the same level. My wife works locally and she enjoyes her job and she wants to work until she turns atleast 50 – my kids and I are on my wife's medical insurance.
Given my finances, I was considering to quit my job and take it easy for few months. I can obviously take care of health, reverse prediabetics etc., But my wife is concerned that I would be stressed out. I am not sure which stress is bad – with the current job that includes travel with a standard paycheck where i need to be in the building for 8 hours every day where I work only 2-4 hours and sit on useless meetings all day and deal with flight delays every friday evening OR sitting at home alone when kids and wife are out of the house with nothing to look forward to. My identity is tied to work, so I dont know if I can deal with that either.
Given my finances, I am not sure if I am ready to retire. Current expenses are at $120K/year and will remain same during retirement. My wife's income can help us with running the family until she retires – she wont be able to contribute to 401K or anything like that.
I can use some perspectives from redditors to decide my future.
looking for perspective to retire early
byu/MysteriousBuffalo91 infinancialindependence
Posted by MysteriousBuffalo91
3 Comments
Wife’s income is?
Find a job or consult with more flexibility. You have met most of your goals and it appears you could take a pay cut in lieu of the benefits of flexibility.
This is easier said than done, but there are options out there. I stopped the major grind after hitting a million plus with my wife (just us two). I got a job with a city public works office and generally work from home, have a couple teams meetings periodically and chill most of the week. Precious career/jobs had burnt me out pretty badly, but this one gives me the most time off, best benefits, and flexibility I’ve ever had. Coincidentally, I make the most I’ve ever made in my life now, but that’s harder to do when getting into government.
Benefit shop when looking at jobs and move on. or be a contractor and set your own hours.
Roughly speaking, with $3 million you can spend $120,000 a year using the 4% rule. In reality, things are often more complicated, but we don’t know your full expenses. You have plenty of money to take a sabbatical, but we cannot get more specific than that.