I dont think it is immoral. What about the taxes you've paid yet?
The following is being presented for the sake of argument even though I know the OP is supposed to be from Europe. I am unsure of the exact policies and procedures that the unemployment safety net is put in place by there, but many people on these boards are from the United States, so it's important to provide the perspective on this issue for US citizens who do consider this to be an immoral act.
Unemployment Insurance in the United States isn't paid for by taxes from the employees, it's paid for through collective taxes from the
employers within the state. UI claims can also potentially raise that specific tax rate for the business in question that the employee is filing against, especially if OP were to bait his employer into firing him and successfully file a fraudulent claim with no intention of actually finding another job.
So there you go, UI isn't designed for
quitters in this country (and many others from what I understand of the system elsewhere). UI is for people laid off and unjustly terminated to provide a safety net until another job can be located.
Ask yourself, if these are the conditions that unemployment is provided in this country, and someone like the OP were to game the system to actually get on the roles by baiting his employer into unjustly terminating him instead of quitting, and then files a claim that would most likely result in a review board hearing where he convincingly lies through his teeth enough while the employer was sufficiently unprepared to defend their case, which would raise his former employer's tax rate just so he gets an extra year's worth of retirement costs covered, while he then proceeds to continuously lie to the government for the next 26 weeks or so about looking for another job to keep the checks coming in, which then puts an additional strain on the system due to the general unemployment rates outstripping the taxes coming in from employers in most states, which in turn has been putting enough strains on the system to lower benefits amount and length for all people who have successfully filed a claim for UI the past few years... do these sound like the actions and consequences to those actions chosen by a
moral man?
Cap_Scarlet, you claim to be from Germany. I won't pretend to know the unemployment system in your country. However, if $30k matters that much to your long term game plan that you're seriously considering this path instead of just putting in the extra time to get that money with your current employer or another where you supposedly already that close to FI, that just shows a crappy and irresponsible work ethic. I won't pass judgment on you specifically, but I will leave you with this question to answer for yourself: Do these actions sound like anything but Scrooge-like miserliness when admitted to be actions taken by someone who has professed that they don't actually
need the money in the first place?
You either need the money or you don't. You've gone 30 years at this point. Either put in the time necessary to cover this extra bit of cash you're wanting to have, or step up and just retire already if the money doesn't actually matter. Don't go on the dole just because you can or because you never have in the past. Leave that money for the people who actually
need it.