Personally, I dropped down to part time while still in debt ~-100K in net worth.
I’m still not quite at $0 net worth (still over 100K in debt, but nearly 100K saved) and I’m already contemplating cutting back my hours even more to get closer to my ideal lifestyle. I’m also in a healthcare field where I can work part time with no damage to my career.
This is reassuring. Some things are the same (started earning money when I was 32-33 (yay school too!!!)), accidentally saved a reasonable stache despite not really caring about expenses, but now that I realized that I can be freed from the grind I am watching said expenses with manic obsession.
My NW is positive, but I have the following debt outstanding:
~60K left on a mortgage on a vacation rental that pays for itself
~130K on a loan that matures in 4.5 years at 0.08%/yr (I know, crazy, but true story due to foibles of HK banking which no longer exist)
My most conservative plan is to save enough this year to have money set aside cover the 130K loan (basically have 130K in liquid savings). It used to be to have that plus to pay off the mortgage, but since the mortgage is on auto pilot, I am not in a hurry to pay it off. Once that happens, I plan to work part of the year to cover my expenses (including loan servicing), and take the rest off.
From there, the plan has variations where I have 75%, 50%, or other percentages of the loan set aside. This looks more and more likely.
Why this? The money set aside for the loan is essentially my emergency stash to ensure that I can cover the financial obligations that I can’t whittle down. I plan on keeping up with this until my stache appreciates to the point where it fully covers my living expenses.
I think that it is less important to have a certain percentage of your stache saved up than to make sure that if you face a work or professional storm, the expenses that you cannot avoid are covered. You can eat a little less, live somewhere cheaper, and fiddle with all else, but when the bankman comes you need to pay (or lose your house and wreck your credit). Cover that, and all you need to worry about how to say afloat.
Does that make sense? I am not so secretly hoping for feedback on this idea (and hoping it helps OP too).