Apologies for taking so long to reply. Everything is more difficult with burn-out.
Thanks again for all of the awesome responses.
Three months later…
I’m still working in Big Law. I’ve saved an additional $18k, so my finances now are:
Retirement
401k: $44,000
Roth IRA: $4,500
Liquid Assets
$80,000: Brokerage Account
$6,000: High Interest Checking
Vehicles
$8,200
Current Net Worth: $142,700
Liabilities: $0
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Moving Forward:
I’ve re-structured my rent situation to save an additional $6,000 through the rest of the year. I should be around $171,300 by January 1, 2020.
After that, it’s a question of how much $$ I want to make in the first few months of 2020 while my income remains in a low tax bracket.
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I’ve essentially decided that I’m going to take a career break whenever I do finally quit. I’ve started to think about where I want to travel and what I adventures I should pursue in order to re-capture my passion for life. This is what’s getting me through today. I’m never going to make as much money as I do now, so if the prospect of taking time off allows me to stick around… then I might as well work a few more months now and take a break. After watching the career trajectories of my colleagues (who were legit fired), I’m not super worried about explaining a 6 month break to a prospective employer. I feel like an employer that doesn’t understand taking some time off after 4 years of big law probably isn’t someplace that I want to work.
Also, I'm probably going to settle down and buy a house, get married, and maybe have children at some point. I don’t want to do any of these things where I live and work now. I want to go climb some mountains and find a slower pace of life first. If finishing up my big law job and taking a career break stand between me and settling down, then my biggest concern is making sure that future commitments don’t catch up to me too quickly (and potentially lock me into this lifestyle). But I cannot put off my future indefinitely either.
Thus, at this point, my questions are:
(1) How much longer do I want to continue in big law.
(2) What I’m going to do on my career break.
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@mucstache: I don’t work as hard as you did, but I’m absolutely with you. It’s a balance between saving as much $$ as possible and making sure to cut and run before it’s too late. I’ve been standing up for myself a lot recently and it’s been working so far. It’s not going to work forever, but at least I’m saving $6-7k per month in the meantime.
@pumpkinlantern: I absolutely agree. At no point would I consider leaving in a bad way. I’m thinking about it like a retirement from Big Law because I’ve accomplished everything I set out to accomplish, not because something is wrong. However, I don’t necessarily think that taking time off will be a bad mark on my resume. Even my colleagues who straight up got fired are getting interviews at prestigious firms. In fact, the perspective of taking some time off to re-discover my passion for life is what’s getting me through right now.
If feel like I have two options for future employment. I can either:
(1) Accept a new job while still employed. Tell my employer that I need to take some time off before I start. And know that my work performance will continue to suffer at the new job until I’m fully recovered. Possibly me to cycle back out again.
(2) Quit. Take all of the time that I need to recover. Then simply explain that I had accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish in my previous job and I wanted to take some time offer before settling into a long term career.
After watching the career trajectories of my colleagues who quit/got fired, I do not think that option 1 is superior to option 2.