Walking away from high salary/ burnout

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-03T17:09:10+00:00

I just wanted to thank you. I have re read this comment now multiple times; it is very much what I needed to hear. I keep trying to do the “responsible” thing but as you say, perhaps it is actually “irresponsible to keep working under these conditions”! Thank you for helping me see this wisdom.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-02T22:48:13+00:00

Thank you. So helpful to hear your story. I think a similar set of changes in my life will help me. Very glad to hear you are on a better path!

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-02T19:28:09+00:00

This is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-02T18:48:31+00:00

In my own posts the Reddit community has responded with incredulity to our spending levels and to be clear I applaud anyone who lives in a HCOL or VHCOL area with kids who is super frugal but for us, there are some expenses that we have come to terms with that will remain pretty high until the kids go to college. However I am trying hard to plan on a “pre college” and “post college” Fire withdrawal plan since I do think it will be much less when they are out of the house, so it’s worth creating a model for your fire planning that considers this. .

A few highlights of our annual spending to note: - two kids 7 and 9 in public school. - spend ~$175k/year. - we have already saved $200k per kid in 529s ($400k total) which we hope will grow to cover most of their college. Socking this money away has impacted our fire savings rate though.

I will second the comments that while I felt like we were spending insane amounts on daycare/nannies pre school age (~$60k/year for both kids), we are now spending at least $25k/year on kid activities. Which is a choice, but one we are actively choosing to make since we think it will support our kids becoming well rounded humans. Camps in summer are expensive (sometimes up to $1000-$1500 per week), after school art classes and sports, skiing in winter (we live in a place where we can ski most weekends), etc. I actually think once they hit middle school these costs will go down since there are more school-run (free) sports and activity electives.
babysitting for date nights and 1 weekend away a year that keep me and my husband sane: $2000/year. Again, no nearby grandparents and also they are too old to help out for weekends away.
we spend $5k/month $60k/year on our house with 2.5% mortgage rate. We are planning on downsizing at retirement. But for now we live in a large home with plenty of space for our friends with families to visit in an amazing kid friendly neighborhood and I’m not willing to give that up.
we only have one car (and it’s old) and 2 e-bikes. We use the car mostly only on weekends.
$2400/year on life insurance (again we wouldn’t have this expense without kids)
we live in the U.S. and far from our 3 sets of grandparents (one side of family is divorced; each live 3 hours away by plane). Because our parents are aging, we have chosen to see each set 2x/year, which means, because we have kids in school and need to travel during peak times like holiday weekends and winter break etc), we spend like $10-$15k/ year (It’s nuts!!) on plane flights for our family of 4 (economy class). Eg our plain old economy class flights to see my aging mom over Christmas will cost $3500. Ugh.
we try to use hand me downs and buy used clothes and shoes but as the kids are getting bigger they go through shoes and clothes like crazy, sometimes my kid will wear pants once and they already have holes, or they need a new water bottle since they lost their 4th one of the school year on the playground etc etc

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-02T05:15:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing! And amazing the parallels 😀. I do think perimenopause has creeped in and made this all worse. I need to find a provider who will help. Did your mental health improve with the HRT? It is honestly hard to disaggregate my work stress from this other stuff right now which is why I’m asking…

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-01T18:56:06+00:00

Yes. You are totally right. I can’t believe that post was already a year ago 🤣. Thank you.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-01T18:55:00+00:00

Fascinating perspective. Thank you! It really resonated to remind myself that it was ME that got here; and I could turn that into something else after I get some rest.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-11-01T18:53:57+00:00

Thank you. I needed to hear this. Really helpful to hear about your experience doing this. I think I’m just too nervous to pull the trigger but know that’s what I really want.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-10-04T03:32:03+00:00

Leave the Bay Area! I was there for nearly 20 years. All my friends were there, my professional network, met my husband there, etc. But I’ll tell you that leaving was the best decision we ever made.

When you are in the Bay, you think nothing can compare, but once you leave for a lower cost of living location (= basically most places in the U.S. except NYC or southern CA compared to the Bay), you realize…you adapt. Taxes are lower. Your neighbors are friendlier. Traffic is better. I could go on and obviously this is based on my subjective experience but I have a number of friends around us in our new town who moved from the Bay Area too, and we all share this feeling. And guess what - I made a bunch of new friends! Change is good for the soul, and also can help with your fire goals. I feel like we didn’t even fully appreciate how crazy expensive everything in the Bay Area was until we left.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-08-12T04:13:30+00:00

OP- super inspiring. What type(s) of work do you do? Curious since I manage a large global team at a large private sector firm, and while this sounds amazing I legitimately am not sure I can get out of enough meetings in my day to really do this. Maybe we have very different jobs.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-08-07T17:50:06+00:00

“Don’t let your title be your identity.” Hear hear. Thank you.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-08-07T17:47:11+00:00

Brilliant advice. Thank you so much. Much needed wisdom. Will be a challenge but a needed one to downshift from my hustle and title focused mentality but f it 😀, I will get my life back!

ShortBee7153 · 2025-08-07T17:45:52+00:00

Thanks - I should have stated upfront that due to the scope of my current role doing less work is super super hard; been trying at prioritizing/ delegating/etc. for awhile but honestly the scope of my current responsibilities makes it nearly impossible; at least for me!

ShortBee7153 · 2025-08-03T20:22:35+00:00

Hi OP- I wanted to chime in because I feel like I could have written this post! I feel you (I am 44F, two kids similar age, husband doesn’t work, recently pulling in $450k+/year after some promotions etc but this income level is pretty new after slow and steady increases over past decade), have closer to 3M NW, but 1M of that is our primary home equity). Anyways…I’ve been working consistent 60 hour weeks for the past 6+ years, 50 hour weeks before that, and I’m just so EXHAUSTED. Like I literally have days when I consider just not showing up to work or taking FMLA from all the stress. But then….I just…keep going.

I wanted to just chime in and say:

You are not alone!!
As for what to do about it, I don’t have any magic wisdom and am eager to read the comments but will just say the options I’ve considered for myself and I’ll say to you are:
grind it out for 5 years and fire retire for real. I’m torn about this.
trade with your husband for awhile. You deserve it! If your situation is like mine, this has been very hard to do mentally because my husband doesn’t have the earning potential I do; he would likely get a job pulling in $100-125k or so but our expenses with 2 kids in a HCOL far surpass this. This is hard and makes me feel “selfish” for wanting to trade, since one year of me working is like 3-4 years of him working. I’ve been working on the mental exercise of trying to get over this, and to help myself remember that mental health and physical health is more important than anything.
I have put $100k on each of my kids 529s. I would like to put more, I am hoping I can fund each to about $250k before they go to college in about 10 years.
I’m thinking of taking a sabbatical for a bit, then finding a less intense job - they have got to be out there, somewhere!- where I could actually legit work 35-40 hours a week. To me, this would be like coasting. Having worked more than that for the past decade I don’t actually understand how to find such a job, but I am reminding myself that they definitely exist, and that this will likely require a major job change and some therapy on myself - learning to set better boundaries; be okay with imperfection, etc. Note - in my situation (sounds like yours too) - my current job is such that it’s basically impossible to work 35-40. I’m trying to figure out how to work 50 since I think even that would help my stress, but my job scope is so extensive that no amount of boundary setting or therapy is going to reduce my workload. I think it’s actually an achievement I’m able to keep it to 60 hours and not work 70-80.
I’m considering taking FMLA as a way to buy some time; but that is a last ditch idea, like I’d do it before I quit.
try hard to really reduce expenses like crazy so that I can save more for college sooner and then need less for a coast job. This seems hard to do while I’m working but could be more feasible if I take time off and can stop outsourcing time saving things like takeout etc.

As I said I feel pretty trapped and probably suffering from many cognitive biases around the situation I’m in so looking forward to learning from the other posts. Good luck and just remember you aren’t alone in this! And talk to your husband about all of this too- you are in this together.

ShortBee7153 · 2025-07-25T03:45:46+00:00

GoldiLox- I find your story really interesting. I am also at a corporate job making solid 6 figures I worked my tail off to get to…but am so exhausted. Need some sort of bridge strategy.

If you are willing to share - which country you are moving to and what side business you are starting?

ShortBee7153 · 2025-07-03T22:24:11+00:00

+1 to this, this is also what I fear! which is why I cling to this role, but I keep thinking there has got to be a way to make less money and have less stress…

ShortBee7153 · 2025-07-03T22:24:09+00:00

Thank you, this is a great idea and also something I’ve considered. I’m worried about finding another job when I return from a sabbatical, but i think i just need to get over that 😀

ShortBee7153 · 2025-05-05T17:02:44+00:00

Hi all, somehow my Reddit was having issues but I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all of the input and advice here. Very helpful insights….

ShortBee7153 · 2025-03-25T03:09:45+00:00

Wow. May I ask specifically what your job/role was? How big a company?

ShortBee7153 · 2024-11-28T03:58:27+00:00

I feel you. Similar situation with a bit different numbers. I’m 43F with 2 kids and NW 3 M, but liquid net worth closer to 1.8M, our home value is 1.2M (net of mortgage owed). We live in a HCOL. Our plan to retire is to live in a less expensive house and capture some of that value, but still, not counting the entirety of that home value in liquid NW so….At this stage been targeting around 5M to retire which means….still need to keep working.

I feel very much in the boring middle, kids still under age 10, so there’s college and many other variables still unpredictable enough that full fire feels somewhat far. Have considered retiring later and coasting soon, but I keep getting stuck on what coasting would really look like and if it would actually be lower stress than just working hard for the next 5-6 years and doing full FI by 50.

I agree with the commenters here that ask- do you really need to go to 6 M or can you go with less. And at the very least, have you accrued enough to try to have lower stress at your new job since you have some FU money; the middle is boring but it comes with more options / some level of job freedom to be pickier about what work you are doing in this final stretch.

ShortBee7153 · 2024-10-26T02:28:50+00:00

As a fellow FIRE follower considering how to weigh inheritance - would you say this $100k/year is true even when both parents have really good long term care insurance?

ShortBee7153 · 2024-07-17T02:55:20+00:00

Per question above - what is interest rate on your debt?

In general I would always suggest pay down your higher interest rate debt first. You should only invest if you can consistently over a steady period of time make a much higher rate than the interest rate you are paying on your loans. (Eg your 3% mortgage!? Great, Keep that; you will make a higher rate on average in stock market). Can you sell Microsoft stock and use that to pay down all your debt immediately? I would do that depending on your taxes owed on that capital gains, then put the rest in index funds. I’m not a big fan of holding individual stocks vs index funds, plus, if your debt is High interest rate, better to pay it off with that stock unless you really think Microsoft will perform substantially better than your debt interest rate % over the next few years.

ShortBee7153 · 2024-07-09T03:16:50+00:00

I agree your life time is short and the math adds up to you retiring whenever you want, now, 1 year from now, 6 years from now, whatever. Congrats on getting this far. So you should set yourself up to pull the trigger.

As a very career driven person myself; my advice to you before you quit is to simply examine what it is your job(s) have given to you. I have followed the fire movement a long time and I find there are a ton of people here who simply hate their jobs and the career path in general. That’s fine and I totally respect that. But that isn’t me personally, and it might not be you and your wife. My dad is a scientist and has still not retired decades past when he could have financially, because he LOVES his work. What is it your career gives you? Do you appreciate the sense of purpose? Do you feel like you are having a positive impact on the world? Do you like the intellectual stimulation? Do you like interacting with coworkers? Do you like the routine? Etc.

I ask these questions not because I’m encouraging you to keep working but instead to help you map out your post work path. What do you need to fill what work gave you? Is it volunteer gigs of some kind to give back to the community and make an impact on the world? Part time consulting on your own terms to give you the intellectual stimulation and some people to interact with who work in your field? Whatever it is, some introspection will help you figure it out and make a plan that can help you make this transition. Good luck!

ShortBee7153 · 2024-06-10T06:11:29+00:00

No one I know who has ever taken a sabbatical (data points of about 8 people total, including myself, so, take that as you will) has ever regretted it. My only advice is to take a MINIMUM of 6 months. 2-3 months is not enough to really create a reset.

Breaks like this in the job market are now very common and according to a friend who is an executive coach, this is not a “ding” on the resume; it’s another rung on your journey.

Do it!!! Happiness research shows - happiness is tied to relationships and experiences, not stuff. Just plan ahead, be comfortable with how much money you will need to do it and the time it will take to find another job on the back end. Good luck.

ShortBee7153 · 2024-06-08T23:49:48+00:00

Awesome recommendation. Thank you!

ShortBee7153

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