My wife and I are both 32 and have been considering early retirement for a few years now - my wife because she seems to hate any job, and myself because I just love the idea of not HAVING to work even if there are plenty of careers that I find very appealing.
We currently live in Illinois and really dislike it, but we stay mainly because of my job. I work for a small financial firm that in any given year could go out of business or could pay a 500%+ bonus. It seems kind of hyperbolic but it's a very accurate description of the firm.
We spend about 45k-60k a year (without counting health insurance/expenses) and have accumulated about $1.5mm in total net worth including our inexpensive (150k) house. Obviously that's not quite enough to be financially independent, but the frustration and uncertainty, and dislike of Illinois, is just building more and more as we stay here. We are torn between several options:
1. Stay in our current house/job until we are financially independent, which is numerically the best course and what we've been doing for the last several years, but is incredibly frustrating because our house is kind of lame and Illinois is incredibly lame and my company is comprised of an incredibly frustrating group of people.
2. Stay in our current jobs, but move to a nicer/more expensive house to try and make us a bit happier now without making too drastic a change.
3. Quit our jobs, buy a property in Las Vegas (a location we both like), spend several years travelling/try playing poker as a full time endeavor (not a ridiculous idea - I am quite good at poker and my background is engineering and finance so it's not a weird pipe dream). This is kind of scary for me because it really brings the possibility of failure into the forefront of possible outcomes, which I logically thing is unlikely but is still kind of terrifying on a gut feeling level.
4. Quit our jobs, move to northern California/Portland/Washington (my wife loves northern California), get software developer jobs to replace our current jobs and work for the next 5-10 years until we are clearly FI and able to be done working.
My primary instinct is that option 3 will make us the most happy/best outcome choice, but it is a big risk to give up our incomes/jobs at this point. We had been waiting for the affordable care act to make getting health insurance a non-issue, and pretty much as of now (for 2014) it's possible to take any of these possible routes and still have quality healthcare, which was a major concern (or at least excuse) to postpone the decision until now.
In my situation, what would you all do? I feel like I'm wasting my life and potential in my current gig, but obviously it's scary to give up what I have - I make 150k + health insurance + random expenses like internet and health club, wife makes 85k. I have an office and good hours/flexibility but no real personal fulfillment.
We currently live in Illinois and really dislike it, but we stay mainly because of my job. I work for a small financial firm that in any given year could go out of business or could pay a 500%+ bonus. It seems kind of hyperbolic but it's a very accurate description of the firm.
We spend about 45k-60k a year (without counting health insurance/expenses) and have accumulated about $1.5mm in total net worth including our inexpensive (150k) house. Obviously that's not quite enough to be financially independent, but the frustration and uncertainty, and dislike of Illinois, is just building more and more as we stay here. We are torn between several options:
1. Stay in our current house/job until we are financially independent, which is numerically the best course and what we've been doing for the last several years, but is incredibly frustrating because our house is kind of lame and Illinois is incredibly lame and my company is comprised of an incredibly frustrating group of people.
2. Stay in our current jobs, but move to a nicer/more expensive house to try and make us a bit happier now without making too drastic a change.
3. Quit our jobs, buy a property in Las Vegas (a location we both like), spend several years travelling/try playing poker as a full time endeavor (not a ridiculous idea - I am quite good at poker and my background is engineering and finance so it's not a weird pipe dream). This is kind of scary for me because it really brings the possibility of failure into the forefront of possible outcomes, which I logically thing is unlikely but is still kind of terrifying on a gut feeling level.
4. Quit our jobs, move to northern California/Portland/Washington (my wife loves northern California), get software developer jobs to replace our current jobs and work for the next 5-10 years until we are clearly FI and able to be done working.
My primary instinct is that option 3 will make us the most happy/best outcome choice, but it is a big risk to give up our incomes/jobs at this point. We had been waiting for the affordable care act to make getting health insurance a non-issue, and pretty much as of now (for 2014) it's possible to take any of these possible routes and still have quality healthcare, which was a major concern (or at least excuse) to postpone the decision until now.
In my situation, what would you all do? I feel like I'm wasting my life and potential in my current gig, but obviously it's scary to give up what I have - I make 150k + health insurance + random expenses like internet and health club, wife makes 85k. I have an office and good hours/flexibility but no real personal fulfillment.