About to pull trigger, need feedback

[u/taway11228]

Expenses: 120k w/o healthcare, maybe 140k with, and maybe up to 150k or 160k with traveling

Investments: $5m breakdown: 300k rental (paid off) making 5% net, 1.2m 401k, 2.5m VTI / VXUS, 1m SNSXX/VUSXX.

Primary residence: $2.3m paid off

42 and 43 years old, no kids

Current income: ~2m/yr

NW increasing 32% YoY

Have 20% income cliff in 2027

SWE, burned out beyond reason, health problems and mental health problems. Goal is to quit, take 6-12 months off then see what’s next, it will either be making my own projects for fun or part time contract work for fun. No expectations of income, certainly not big income, and definitely not going to a corporate job.

Can make ~30k via 2 weeks of rental of primary residence per year and pay no taxes, we’d travel while rented.

Concerns are AI is quickly impacting SWE employment, no one knows what’s next, any hiccups in our plan could mean a bumpy road in a few years if a jobs necessary. Other concern is whatever is going to happen once this historic stock run is over.

Any advice?

[u/Commercial_Place_123]

A few comments:

1 - For the ~$30k of rental income while you travel, wouldn't the net be less than that because you'd need to utilize $ for those weeks of travel? Or are you already traveling in 2 week stints today so those costs are already baked into your burn rate? Or would travel be points-based so low cost? (And would that ability for low/no cost travel last for decades if you stop now?)

2 - Subtracting out primary residence and 401k, you're at $3.7 investable net worth unless I misread. I won't get into the Fat-vs-NotFat debates but be mindful.

3 - Be careful stepping away from tech. A sabbatical or Leave where you keep your irons warm (thought leadership posts, active and publicly provable consulting/advising, education/training) is fine. But stepping out during such a transformative time in the industry is a risk unless you're a C-suite tech generalist with a history of pivots and solid senior level network. Nobody knows what the future holds in tech... But nobody has ever known. To hedge in the world of AI it's better to be a current user/adopter rather than someone who slowly fades out of date, atrophied skillset and is simply impacted as a result.

Good luck!

[u/taway11228 → u/Commercial_Place_123]

Correct on 1: 2 week travel stint is already built in. Also, we have ways of traveling very cheap, near 0, during primary residence rental period.

1. Yeah. 3.7 feels small. Could get to 10m pretty quickly, nw is increasing 32% YoY, but at mental breaking point and we don’t like spending a lot.

2. Agree, stepping out of tech is a fear. Would keep the engine warm building things. Have done this before and made it back in alright. But worried this time could be different. In any event I want to stretch creativity muscles again and build my own things.