Hi all, I've been reading MMM blog and forum for a little while now. I've never posted before but wanted to pose a question to the mustache hive-mind; should I stay at my relatively low-paying, stable job at a not-for-profit, or should I take the plunge and go back to school/re-tool for a new career?
Some particulars -- the good: I'm in my early 30's, I have no debt, I rent a big apartment with my fiancee and a roommate, we're going to get married in about a year (just me and the fiancee, not the roommate), but haven't actively started planning the wedding (we're aiming for a modest affair in a family friend's barn, hopefully no more than $5k, with generous family people kicking some money in), I bike to work sometimes, own my car, save around 45% of my take home pay, have about $10k in savings, work underwrites almost all of the expense of a great health insurance plan that I never use. The bad; I have no retirement savings or much of a plan, and there's no 401K matching at my current work, while I was too stupid to take advantage of it at previous jobs, I didn't take full advantage of college, got a fairly useless degree, and was/am somewhat lazy (however, I did earn a scholarship to cover a fair amount of my college expenses, had some help from my parents, and paid off all any/all student loans, so I'm not that lazy).
I enjoy helping people, problem solving, creating things, and seeing/having tangible measures of progress. I'm good at schmoozing people and manipulating them into convincing them to donate to a good cause (essentially sales without selling a product), but only when I believe in the mission. I would like to make more money; ideally something in the $65k+ range. I'm maybe most interested in a trade, such as electrical or carpentry/GC, or learning to design/build websites & write code. I'm not completely ignorant in/of these fields, but close to it.
Feedback/advice would be appreciated, here's what I'm thinking:
A.) Stay at the current job: 40k a year, low-risk, low potential for growth, don't especially enjoy the majority of the work I do, feel like I'm wasting what little talent & time I have.
B.) Stay part-time at current job and begin an online learn-to-code course, if I have some aptitude for this and enjoy it, transition out of the part-time work and enroll in an intensive coding academy.
C.) Quit my job entirely and go back to school or to an apprenticeship program for; electrical; masters degree in accounting; computer science/coding.
Thanks in advance for your advice.