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Comment by popotamonga | Hacker News Reader

I quit just last week. Saved up 10 years worth of salaries. Currently on the doing nothing stage. Doing more sports, running/cycling everyday, taking my time to cook, more time for kids, so far so good, i have no plans for the future, whatever happens happens. Previously i was working 15 hours a day, i did like my job but was impacting my health severely.

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> I quit just last week. Saved up 10 years worth of salaries.

"Having 10 years worth of salaries" is almost on the opposite side of spectrum than "without anything planned".

Money isn't the same thing as a plan. If anything, it's the exact opposite: You have the freedom to do many things, so there's more uncertainty than someone with less money.

Such differences can be called "academic", useful if you don't have a plan, not really useful for people without money. If you have money, you don't really need a plan, so whole discussion is then moot.

Tell it to yahoo.

Money is obviously a great help, and saving money aside is a great hedge against future risks (so you can call it a plan).

I think that the OP had no “career” plan in mind. You can burn through all the money in the world if you are not careful.

But again, having money helps immensely whether you have a plan or not. If possible do put some aside for future emergencies or crises.

That comes across to me as being thoughtlessly dismissive.

Money helps, but there are a huge number of other factors that are just as important. That is demonstrated by the number of answers here by people that quit without having money, and the variety of stories and outcomes.

I quit my job a few years back, and I believe I have the financial runway to do so, but I am still unsure if it was a good idea.

Not working is weird because most of my peer group works. I have found there are social costs to not working. I find that not working has other significant issues, even though I have had plenty of chance to learn mitigations (I have had multiple job sabbaticals in my life e.g. travelling when I had little money).

I would be happy to work again, if it were a job that invigorated me rather than slowly killing me. Our time is our most valuable asset, and every second our remaining balance diminishes.

There is a certain amount of mystical or wishful thinking while working, about quitting work and relaxing or refocusing for a while. I have found reality turns out to be more mundane.

It is still my ongoing choice not to work, but the consequences of that decision are not quite so clear cut.

Also, only 10 years of salary means you'll eventually have to start working again... so no plan means that you don't know what you'll do after 10 years

If the money is sensibly invested an adjustment in lifestyle might allow you to live on it a considerable time, or even indefinitely.

No necessarily. It depends on a person's yearly expenses. If, for example, she was able to save 10 years salery in 20 years, it would mean that she consumes only 5 % of the total savings per year. This sounds quite sustainable, because you need only to achieve a 5 % return on investment (after inflation) on the savings to live just from these returns not touching the savings at all.

The runway length is dependent on their expenses. If they earned 100k and spent 50k, it would last 20 years assuming no investment returns. If they spend around 4% of their 10 years salary annually, they're very likely to be fine for 30+ years as long as it's invested reasonably.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

Left out my wife is still working and its enough for 70% of living expenses.

Now you follow The Way of the House Husband

That much money means you don't need a plan.

Money is worse than a plan, because until you run out of money you do not need a plan.

Practical question: if you're in the US, how do you deal with health insurance?

I'm not OP but when I quit my job earlier this year I went with a plan from the healthcare marketplace. It's not cheap, but that's the reality of US health care.

COBRA is also an option for a limited amount of time after leaving.

Not on US, top top insurance here costs 100€ month

Where is that?

The cost of healthcare in the U.S. is the only reason that I don't take (often higher per hour paying) contract roles. Also, i'm a great wingman for sales but not great as sales lead or generating sales, else I'd have gone into business for myself. (And, no, skipping health insurance is not an option at all for me.)

I understood that mentality, somewhat, in the past, but what is preventing you from purchasing a plan under ACA?

That's what I did when I took a couple years off. If you think of health insurance as disaster coverage, the "cheap" ACA coverage has a better worse case than the premo platinum offerings.

Under https://www.coveredca.com/health/coverage-levels/bronze/hdhp... coverage for an individual 40 year old making $150K/year will cost you $6k/year with an out-of-pocket max of $7K/year. Not great on either end. But, not disaster either.

But, if your income is $30K/year, the cost drops to $0.0 to $1200 per year.

Move abroad and get an international health insurance plan. Price of 1 months premium covers the annual premium for an international gold plated plan.

If I didn't have a child in school I'd be on a plane to the Caribbean so fast.

Do they have good schools in the Caribbean?

I'm looking into crowdhealth or a health share. I'm young(ish) and healthy; ymmv.

In my situation, I used COBRA.

Same here. Too bad it only lasts 6 months.

In my case, COBRA was available for 18 months after resignation. It is certainly expensive comparatively.

ACA (ObamaCare) is available. Your monthly cost for top tier coverage can be as low as ~$5 a month for a family of 4.

The qualifying income cap is based on you anticipated "Modified Adjusted Gross Income". They don't count assets. This means that if you may have losses that bring your income for the year down to the income limits, then you can honestly say that and get subsidies. If you currently don't have any income, but you can imagine yourself earning the minimum income in the calendar year, then you can claim that. (If you are lower than the minimum for ACA, you will get MediCal for free)

For example, in California, for a family of 4, if you can honestly estimate that after potential losses and potential earnings, your modified adjusted gross income would be between $39,750 - $53,000, you can get top tier coverage for ~ $5 a month, no co-pay, very low prescription costs.

If your situation changes (you start working again) you just notify the state and either pay a higher rate or cancel and use your new company's plan.

Search for "2022 ACA Income limits [your state]"

Here is the 2022 chart for California: https://www.coveredca.com/pdfs/FPL-chart.pdf

Thanks for the very informative answer!

What job do you like doing 15 hours a day? Genuinely curious...

Maybe some sort of artist? I’m sure there’s someone out there who likes to live like that.

Surely there's a balance between working 15 hours a day to save 10 years of salary versus doing nothing?

Perhaps it was for a startup that had a substantial exit? You could save up 10 years of salary in just a few. But the demands for those few years could be really steep.

May I suggest that if there is a book you've always wanted to read now might be a time you could really enjoy it!

I think that's called retirement?

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