Walk away from $1 million a year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But what about the poster who says she'd keep working until she paid for all her grandkids college and grad school and bought all her kids a house? Am I a bad person for thinking that that's overkill? My kids certainly don't expect or want that.

That person's crazy, but you spent $250k last year and are on track to spend nearly $200k this year -- and the market is due for a correction. You don't need to work until no one in your family ever has to have a job again, but I'd personally want more cushion than you're planning on. Either spend less or work a little longer.

Unless your spouse works? Would you be living on $200k or $200k plus an income you haven't mentioned yet?

[Anonymous]

I would quit and become a consultant to just one organization/firm- would charge them 10-15K a month for very part time work. But depends on your field and whether you could do part time consulting and still keep your health insurance deal with your firm. I think 200K is a little low for this area but it's doable if you are willing to take moderate vacations etc. But you'll have a lot of free time and will spend more money so need to account for that. If you really don't want another job, then I would live on 150K for two more years while you amass more money and then quit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But what about the poster who says she'd keep working until she paid for all her grandkids college and grad school and bought all her kids a house? Am I a bad person for thinking that that's overkill? My kids certainly don't expect or want that.

That person's crazy, but you spent $250k last year and are on track to spend nearly $200k this year -- and the market is due for a correction. You don't need to work until no one in your family ever has to have a job again, but I'd personally want more cushion than you're planning on. Either spend less or work a little longer.

Unless your spouse works? Would you be living on $200k or $200k plus an income you haven't mentioned yet?

Spouse does not work. We do pull in about $25k from a rental. I really do think last year was an aberration -- as I said, yes, we spent $250k, but $70k was on a wedding, the last one we are throwing. And this year we are on track to spend about $180k, about 3 percent of our net worth. We're certainly not wanting for anything, and probably could cut back if we wanted. I also will eventually have social security coming in someday (current estimate is $41k a year), assuming it's still around!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But what about the poster who says she'd keep working until she paid for all her grandkids college and grad school and bought all her kids a house? Am I a bad person for thinking that that's overkill? My kids certainly don't expect or want that.

That person's crazy, but you spent $250k last year and are on track to spend nearly $200k this year -- and the market is due for a correction. You don't need to work until no one in your family ever has to have a job again, but I'd personally want more cushion than you're planning on. Either spend less or work a little longer.

Unless your spouse works? Would you be living on $200k or $200k plus an income you haven't mentioned yet?

Spouse does not work. We do pull in about $25k from a rental. I really do think last year was an aberration -- as I said, yes, we spent $250k, but $70k was on a wedding, the last one we are throwing. And this year we are on track to spend about $180k, about 3 percent of our net worth. We're certainly not wanting for anything, and probably could cut back if we wanted. I also will eventually have social security coming in someday (current estimate is $41k a year), assuming it's still around!

3% is extremely safe for a 30-40 year retirement. Add in SS and you are fine. Your nest egg will likely continue to grow even as you pull from it. Just leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would quit and become a consultant to just one organization/firm- would charge them 10-15K a month for very part time work. But depends on your field and whether you could do part time consulting and still keep your health insurance deal with your firm. I think 200K is a little low for this area but it's doable if you are willing to take moderate vacations etc. But you'll have a lot of free time and will spend more money so need to account for that. If you really don't want another job, then I would live on 150K for two more years while you amass more money and then quit

I strongly disagree with this. High earners are still spending a large portion of their incomes on savings, tuition, childcare, mortgage etc. If you take all of that away it leaves a lot of cash.

OP said he spent 200k last year and 80k of that was a wedding. And that’s with a mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that all the kids are out of college and married. We have a mortgage of about 2k a month and no other debt.

What’s your current net worth?

$5.8 million as of today

Live on $100k for the next 6 months. If it's easy; quit. If it's a struggle: make changes so you can quit.

This is really good advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But what about the poster who says she'd keep working until she paid for all her grandkids college and grad school and bought all her kids a house? Am I a bad person for thinking that that's overkill? My kids certainly don't expect or want that.

That person's crazy, but you spent $250k last year and are on track to spend nearly $200k this year -- and the market is due for a correction. You don't need to work until no one in your family ever has to have a job again, but I'd personally want more cushion than you're planning on. Either spend less or work a little longer.

Unless your spouse works? Would you be living on $200k or $200k plus an income you haven't mentioned yet?

Spouse does not work. We do pull in about $25k from a rental. I really do think last year was an aberration -- as I said, yes, we spent $250k, but $70k was on a wedding, the last one we are throwing. And this year we are on track to spend about $180k, about 3 percent of our net worth. We're certainly not wanting for anything, and probably could cut back if we wanted. I also will eventually have social security coming in someday (current estimate is $41k a year), assuming it's still around!

Call your financial planner to set up a meeting (an "exit interview" of sorts) and quit as soon as you get the all-clear. Just to make sure your allocations are where they should be for a retired person, not a 51 year old who your planner expects to work another 15 years.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm. I hope to be in your situation in 5-10 years. I keep setting short term goal for myself, so I can see the benefit of working and supersaving.

Can you take a sabbatical or a month long vacation to destress? Then maybe set short-term goals.
Tell yourself "I can work another 6 months and fund all my grandkids 529 accounts"
Then say "I can work another 6 months and buy a vacation condo somewhere warm"
Then say" I can work another 6 months to save for any emergencies."

Then we you can't find anymore motivation to keep working, then retire.

[Anonymous]

But what are you going to do if you retire? You'll have a lot of time on your hands. IME, people used to working high level careers do not adjust easily to retirement even if they say they want it and really thought they wanted it. If you say, "easy, I want to travel and try brewing my own beer....", you're going to have to build that into your budget. Travel can get expensive.

[Anonymous]

OP, for most people, this is a "can I afford it" discussion. You can, and you know you can, afford to never work another day, as long as you live. That isn't the issue. You've raised a more existential question - is it "crazy" to decide to continue doing something you hate when you absolutely, positively don't have to.

Of course it isn't. There's no inherent virtue in making money. Yes, you could increase your kid's inheritance, or buy everyone in your family a house, or continue working and donate all your earnings to charity - but that's an extreme position, that no rational person will advocate you take.

Retire. Tomorrow. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Quit. A lot of people die in their fifties. Of course they don't expect to but they do...

[Anonymous]

If the question was more like - "I only kind of sort of like my job or I don't HATE it anyway but I don't LOVE it either"

I'd say keep working.

But you HATE it. So quit. Life is too short to live in misery when you don't have to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But what are you going to do if you retire? You'll have a lot of time on your hands. IME, people used to working high level careers do not adjust easily to retirement even if they say they want it and really thought they wanted it. If you say, "easy, I want to travel and try brewing my own beer....", you're going to have to build that into your budget. Travel can get expensive.

An income of $200,000, even with a $24,000 annual mortgage obligation, and no need to save anything, provides for a lot of travel. As an example, our monthly gross is about 24,000; OP's will be about $16,500. But a good $6500 of our withholdings/savings are items that aren't applicable to OP in retirement. Assuming a modicum of reasonableness on his part, His budget is just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that all the kids are out of college and married. We have a mortgage of about 2k a month and no other debt.

You can afford to do it but why not find a job you'd like even if it pays a lot less. This will enable your nest egg to grow for another 5 years. If you are making a million a year you obviously have some type of skill. When I retired at 60 after making more than $1M a year, I set a five year goal of making enough money to cover our overhead so we didn't have to live off our investments. During the five years our investment portfolio almost doubled in value because I didn't have to touch it. Now I'm winding down this work and having a lot of fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I should add that all the kids are out of college and married. We have a mortgage of about 2k a month and no other debt.

What’s your current net worth?

$5.8 million as of today

What does OPs net worth have to do with anything? It is OPs friend who has the dilemma.