I'm about 6.5 years from fire at my current save/spend rate and I hate my job. The crazy thing is that it's actually the best job I've ever had or am likely to have, I am just absolutely dying of boredom and the cognitive dissonance of day-in-day-out doing something I hate for money is driving me actually nutty. I've started spontaneously blurting, "I hate this" at the top of my lungs in the shower while getting ready for work, which is a little worrisome.
Anyway, current job is:
$125k/year
loads of paid time off
great boss
nice coworkers
job I could do in my sleep
20m car commute (by freeway)
Potentialjob1 is:
$102k/year
less paid time off
nice boss
unknown coworkers and people I'd be supervising
huge promotion with much stress but lots of novelty and the certain opportunity to leverage into much higher pay after 1-2 years, as in def $150k, possibly $180k. That said, the second step would also involve more stress and either a move or a long commute.
5m bike commute and opportunity to work in my current community and see my kiddies at lunchtime
Potentialjob2 is:
$65k/year
lots of paid time off
unknown boss and coworkers
lateral move but with novelty for at least 2-3 years
opportunity to move to our desired FI community in Oregon where job opportunities are few and far between.
On paper, it's clear that I should either stay where I am and meditate/medicate to try to not go insane or take the promotion and leverage it into more money and faster time to FI down the line. Complicating the paper calcs though is that I'm in the public sector and so the defined benefit pension calculations are a little trickier. Potentialjob2 would buy me into the oregon pension system with a good payout at 65 with 5-10 years of service, and I'm currently vested in California with enough now for subsistence-level living at 55. Between the CA pension, a potenial OR pension, and SS, we would be (mustachian-style) rolling in it by 65.
We have about $140k invested, and could easily put down 25% for a house in Oregon and have a paid-off place to live within ~10 years. I could work low-paid, low-stress jobs and still end up with enough. We rent here in the SF Bay Area, and though my salary sounds high, we're currently paying $2100/month rent which is at least $1k under market. We knew going in that our landlords were planning to move in at some point, and if that happened say next month, it would be very difficult to even find something to rent in our school district, much less something affordable. So, that 5m bike commute could turn into a 25 minute freeway commute.
So, I guess it's probably a quality of life question or even maybe a omy question. Do we downshift now to get to the geographical place we want to be? Do I pursue the promotional career path that I wanted for so long? I'm about 10y and a master's degree into my career that I used to love. Or, do I stick it out with the status quo and hope that we don't get evicted for another couple of years? For reference, we're saving about $50k per year and spending about $48k/year here. new job1 would keep spending static and drop saving to about $35-40k/year. New job2 would drop saving to about $30k/year including housing principal pay off and drop spending to about $38k/year until house paid off, then $28k/year after that.
Opinions? I'd really appreciate any thoughts you have. My husband says that it's up to me, that he really wants to leave the Bay Area, but is willing to stay put for another 1-3 years if it makes sense and is important to me. DD1 is in Kinder now, and we like her school. DD2 is in parks & rec preschool now and we like that. Neither have irreplaceable friendships established.
