I recently left my job with nothing lined up. The not-quite-truth I told the company is that I was returning to school full time to pursue a change of career. The actual truth is more complicated, but the gist of it is that I was tired of working and wanted to take a break, had the savings to do so, wanted to focus on my art & growing my tiny business, and did want to go back to school and change careers... eventually, when I felt like it.
My coworkers were lovely, supportive people, but some of them were clearly very worried about me. One of them even asked, "but how will you survive??" I'm pretty sure she thought of the both of us as being in similar financial boats (student debt, car loan, paycheck to paycheck, tons of expenses, barely able to make minimum contributions to retirement), and I've never given her any reason to think otherwise. I smiled and told her that I had saved up some money and would take out student loans as needed to cover the rest (I won't be taking out any student loans) and her look of shock was.... I don't know. Not to get up on some snooty MMM high horse, but it just made me feel bad for her.