$_gone_amok:
Culturally I think we would enjoy living on the West coast since we are a multicultural/bilingual household; our largest annual expense is a family visit to Japan and being on the West coast would help with that a bit. The cost of living is certainly scary, though some good friends recently moved from the midwest to Silicon Valley and view the downsides (living in a small apartment, paying more for food, etc.) worth it. I guess a large part of it depends on salary and job. If I landed a 150k job with Google (not necessarily likely in the short run) I would jump on it. A 120k job in the SF financial district, probably not. A 180k job in the financial district, probably would.
As for my old job, it is basically a dead end. The school doesn't have any graduate programs in my area and in general we don't have research resources available. I suppose one idea would be to find a full-time consulting gig, then once I'm established and/or have approached my FI goals I can cut back to part-time and/or pick up some teaching. The thing that sucks is that I am really great as a teacher, but the pay sucks compared to my qualifications. There's also always the option of pursuing additional soft money for my current position to keep things rolling, but that has its own risks.
arebelspy:
Ballpark I earned 60-70k as an assistant professor, so yes your numbers are correct, but the 100k job is only for the next two years. I have gone through all sorts of scenarios on networthify and have a pretty good idea where I stand. I guess I have two areas of uncertainty for the future: salary and cost of living. If I stay put cost of living will remain relatively low, but after two years my salary will revert back to something that still won't keep up with inflation. If we move I have the potential to increase my earnings, but with a potentially large increase in cost of living.
Jamesqf:
Yes, since I started out at that same salary six years ago and new hires are now paid considerably more I considered my pay to be sub-par; when I started it was probably right about the median household income for our area, but given my qualifications I expect to be worth more. Going back to that job will likely mean a gradual erosion of my real pay, so I see increasing my salary (in order to accelerate savings) as important. You're right, though, I probably deserve a little face-punching (perhaps some mild slaps) for referring to that amount of salary "low-pay," but for a single-earner four-person household in our area, it's nothing to write home about.
What do I like to do? I like sitting in front of the computer writing code that allows me to play with complex data, I like interacting with others, I like demonstrating things I've discovered, I love traveling. I guess part of what I'm trying to do is find my answers to your questions about whether or not it's worth relocating/retooling. On the one hand, if the salary/cost-of-living ratio is high enough, I could make great gains toward FI. On the other hand, as you point out, I might be miserable. Going back to a low-paying (go ahead, give me a mini-face-punch) university lecturing job wouldn't necessarily be difficult, but I might not have a lot of choice about geographic location.
Thanks all for sharing ideas/thoughts. Any advice on getting into quantitative finance? I've looked at graduate certificate programs (e.g., Stanford Center for Professional Development) but I'm not sure they're worth it.