Hey all,
Just trying to gather some ideas on what the next thing is I should be doing in anticipation of job loss potentially as soon as sometime this year (I frankly have no idea and feel burnt out).
We have enough to straight out FIRE (but it would likely need to be lean or barista FIRE) if I wanted to but I think I want or need to do *something* otherwise I'll be bored out of my mind in retirement.
The problem is figuring out what that could be...
The other factor with all this is the bigger decision about where we intend to live - currently we're in South OC in SoCal. Housing is insane down here with no signs of reprieve. We moved to this area originally to get our kids into a Mandarin immersion program. We would love to buy a house here but the market is insane. I'm afraid that if I lose my job before this happens we won't be able to buy and will be renting in a HCOL. Other option is to pick-up and move to another area that's MCOL or LCOL that still offers a Mandarin immersion program (I've been keeping an eye on Vancouver, WA for these reasons).
Regardless, with the goal of buying a home, I'm thinking we'll definitely want to be considering barista or lean FIRE (or a combination of both) at a minimum, if I'm not working a full time job. And I'm thinking this would mean having a number of side-hustles or some form of supplemental income.
Anyway, enough of the background of our situation.
My professional/working background is in QA Engineering (around 12 years and mostly manual/functional testing with some automation experience) and Information Security Engineering (around 5 years at a more junior/intermediate level). The current and last positions I've been in, I have been doing QA manual testing but with an emphasis or context of infosec (security related products or components of an app), so it's kind of a blend of both worlds. The past 5 years more QA and less infosec though. I don't know if I want to keep doing any of this stuff though and interviewing for new positions is grueling and just not enjoyable for me, nor am I really motivated. With my current job I'm full time WFH (since end of 2015) and have been loving every moment of it and being able to watch the kids grow up. Salary has been above average but my company has been in hot water soon after starting and I think the culmination of all that is now trickling down in the form of targeted layoffs as well as them promoting attrition.
Some things I've considered alternatively but just haven't jumped into:
- real estate investing
- starting a blog, Youtube, website etc with a focus on fishing (probably my main hobby right now)
- drop-shipping
- becoming an Ebay/Amazon reseller (I've sold/resold a number of things on both platforms but very low scale and haven't done it lately)
A couple very minor side-hustles I just picked up or am pursuing or trying to get into:
- UserTesting.com - I do find myself mostly 'enjoying' providing this kind of feedback
- Selling Tradelines (everything's closed off right now so I can't quite do this yet but will jump on it when the time comes)
What I enjoy:
- I like working with my hands (have done several very minor DIY at home repairs and improvement at our old place and also minor DIY repairs on our cars)
- Being outside - fishing but I love hiking and camping even though I don't regularly do either.
I think I'm just trying to come up with a 'contingency plan' for that day I get laid off, but if it turns into something I actually really enjoy doing I could always quit before that. I would just want to avoid getting into a position where I get laid off and have no plan and am panicked about what the next thing is I need to do.
We have two kids (5 and 3) and my wife is SAHM but has been contemplating similarly going back to part-time work until both kids are full time in school. I started a thread for her here:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/entrepreneurship/part-timeflex-virtual-work-virtual-assistant-tutor-accounting-etc/Any suggestions on figuring out what I ought to consider next?