I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
I stopped working and then I ran out of money. For me, a toxic job is better than not having a place to live. You can learn to cope with toxic (whatever that even means), and you can't manifest yourself a place to live.
Well yeah that’s the only downside, running out of money. Everything else is paradise. I took a year and a half off now and it was probably the best time of my life. I travelled extensively, hiked a lot, built a lot of high end furniture, spent quality time with my wife and kid, took on construction projects (barn, chicken coop, running path etc.) around my property, ate delicious home cooked meals leisurely, lifted weights, went to interesting conferences, concert and shows. Life was amazing and it wasn’t all that expensive. I can’t wait to FIRE which should be possible over the next 5 years.
>Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to ... meetings.
It's with the wisdom of age that I now understand why HR discriminates against gaps in employment history... mostly because I don't know how I could ever be employable, again.
Monk-mode is such a cheap way to exist. Highly recommend it.
I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.
I did that once: I was planning to quit to start a business, but when I realized the environment at my day job was toxic, I quit about 6 months sooner than planned.
I once quit a job because it was toxic. At the time, I was saving so I could start a business, but the environment became so toxic that I needed to walk out much earlier than planned.
My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months. By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else, I hadn't taken too much out of savings. I also had straightened out my head quite a bit, so I was able to figure out what kind of salaried jobs made me happy. (And paid enough for me to live a good life and save.)
I really encourage you to see if there's a way to adjust your finances so you can live more cheaply, save, and then live off of your interest for a period of time to get your head straightened out.
> My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months.
I can't think of a period in which markets did that well. (And "interest" is a strange term here.) Were you leveraged, or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
> or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
The market went up much faster than I originally estimated. Basically, I got lucky.
I quit my job in 2009, right when the massive bull market started. I had a bunch of stocks and mutual funds that I planned to sell in order to support myself.
Which I did: What happened was that my stocks and mutual funds appreciated faster than I spent them. (If I hadn't sold them, they would have doubled or tripled in value over the 18 month period.)
For example: The day after the iPad came out, I sold my Apple stock at a nice profit to pay my expenses for a month.
Ironically, if I had stayed at work as long as I planned, I probably would have had even more runway. (But then I wouldn't have landed the awesome job that I got when I went back to a salaried job in 2011.)
>By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else
This took me about two decades and two companies to discover, about myself.
Good timing and luck have also given me a much longer runway than I ever anticipated having. Mostly just need to work for my sanity and health benefits (at this point).
I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.
Cutting medical insurance, for example, is a good way to end up medically bankrupt and lose anything you’ve ever saved if anything goes wrong. And by the time someone hits 40, chances are something has gone wrong.
$1000/mo? Pff, that is luxury. Live on the streets, dumpster dive, forage and hunt for food, eat every other day, and you can get that down to $0. If you really need income you can take up sex work. $1000/mo, imagine!
Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.
With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.
