Walk away from $1 million a year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. It sounds like a lot of posters believe there is no such thing as "good debt." I hear that a lot on bogleheads. I'm not sure I agree. With the Trump (ugh) tax stuff there's less of an incentive as before to keep a mortgage, but it still seems to me that, over the long term, you will do better in the market than what you'd save in interest by paying off a mortgage with a low interest rate (in my case, 3.25 percent). I realize that not having a mortgage is a comfort thing for many, though.

You can keep the mortgage, people are suggesting you pay it off because 1) you haven't answered the question about how much you spend, just said you have a $2k/month mortgage and no other debt, and 2) without more information that's all we can advise you on.

If your total annual outlay is less than $200k you can retire today. If you don't know what it is you need to figure that out first. If it's more than $200k then you need to reduce it, and paying off the mortgage is the only clue anyone has to go on for a way to do that because it's the only information you've provided.

I hear you. The bottom line is that I obviously can retire on 200k a year, my question is how crazy is it to walk away from a guaranteed $1 million a year to do that? Would you do it? I'm doing a sanity check.

New poster -- our income was not quite that high, but we did do it. We live on about $250,000 in income. We could easily live on $200,000 (houses is paid off), but we like to travel and we have a kid still in high school. I'd suggest cutting your expenses back to $200,000 and work one more year and pay off the house. Then do it and don't look back.

[Anonymous]

If I were in your shoes, OP, I would leave. $5.8 is plenty. I'm a big law partner with young kids and likely won't have that option, but I've seen too many colleagues in their 50s die of heart attacks, have breakdowns, or become alcoholics or pill addicts. It isn't worth it if you have the option to leave. If you get bored you could always do volunteer work. Personally, I'd downsize and travel. You never know when health issues will make travel difficult or impossible. We have friends who are on their second sailing trip around the world - seems like a better way to spend one's 50s than answering client emails 12 hours a day.

[Anonymous]

I would keep workings I could leave my kids a bigger inheritance. Likely, the kids won’t be able to make a million a year. So, I would consider my job very valuable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would keep workings I could leave my kids a bigger inheritance. Likely, the kids won’t be able to make a million a year. So, I would consider my job very valuable.

Frankly of the kids can't make a million a year on their own, I don't see how it could help them to just give them a million

[Anonymous]

I would leave. You have enough $$$ to last you. Walk. Bring more enjoyment back into your life. Making money is what we do until we don’t have to anymore. Time on this planet is finite.

[Anonymous]

“Hell is other people," wrote Jean Paul Sartre. Hell is not a special place some people imagine. Nietzsche thought hell is something else entirely different. Imagine time on this planet is eternal - not finite. It's a simple thought experiment Nietzsche thought provides answers to many of our existential questions. It is a concept that whatever happens to your daily life has happened up to now and will happen for eternity in the future. Nietzsche says more eloquently: “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”

The philosopher Robert Solomon once was a medical student listening to a miserble medical lecture when his professor told students of Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence. Solomon could not imagine a world in which he must repeat for eternity the life of an MD. This was his answer to his question whether to stay or to walk away from a life of an medical doctor.

OP - imagine you must repeat your daily work with nothing new in it, except repeating the minute details in exact same sequence - forever. If you can thank God for a job you can look forward to every morning, go ahead and stay the course. If, on the other hand, you are thinking, "Just take me out to the backyard and shoot me," make plans to put things behind you.

[Anonymous]

Leave. Enjoy the rest of your life while you have it.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I'm leaving. Thanks to everyone who backed me up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm leaving. Thanks to everyone who backed me up.

Good for you. I'm the poster above who did leave myself, and life is wonderful.

I suggested that you stay another year -- one thing I wanted to add to that is that it wouldn't be a full year of working as hard as you do now, because, if you're a partner making $1 million a year, it's going to take some time to extricate yourself, even after you announce you're leaving. I told my firm I was leaving 9 months ago, and I'm still not completely out. But it's fine -- just knowing that you can completely quit at any moment makes it so much more pleasant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'm leaving. Thanks to everyone who backed me up.

Good for you, OP—enjoy your freedom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were in your shoes, OP, I would leave. $5.8 is plenty. I'm a big law partner with young kids and likely won't have that option, but I've seen too many colleagues in their 50s die of heart attacks, have breakdowns, or become alcoholics or pill addicts. It isn't worth it if you have the option to leave. If you get bored you could always do volunteer work. Personally, I'd downsize and travel. You never know when health issues will make travel difficult or impossible. We have friends who are on their second sailing trip around the world - seems like a better way to spend one's 50s than answering client emails 12 hours a day.

So true- so many big earners are too macho to admit the very real risks of health issues, mental health, stupid divorce etc.

Big salary looks great when you can get it; but it doesn’t come cheap.

[Anonymous]

I would quit. You could have some silent cancer already slowly attacking you. No one knows how many years they have left. You have plenty of money to live well even assuming the market takes a dive.

[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.

The best legacy you give your kids is raising them well, not money. You should not slave away to afford them a life of indolence. It isn’t good for their soul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would keep workings I could leave my kids a bigger inheritance. Likely, the kids won’t be able to make a million a year. So, I would consider my job very valuable.

Frankly of the kids can't make a million a year on their own, I don't see how it could help them to just give them a million

Good for you for recognizing this. I assume your kids were raised well based on the statements you’ve made about money and wealth.

[Anonymous]

I am not going to read through everything because my computer is acting up and it is too slow going, so forgive me if I am repeating what others have said.

Spend the next year acting as though you only have $200k a year (minus taxes). Set your budget for $144k ($12k a month) for everything (allocating the increased amount you will have to spend in insurance to a separate savings fund and any addition travel spending you plan on when you retire). Then, try to see if you and your partner can live on it reasonably.

If you find that you can and it is easy, then you can retire (and have a little larger nest egg from the saving of the previous year). If you find that you can't. Then you can see what your true level is and set your savings goal based on that.

I would pay off the house for the mental health benefits it would bring me, it would also get you closer to the $200k ($144) spending ceiling.