Quit high-paying job now to pursue passion?

[moostash]

Hey Mustachians,

I’m looking for advice. Here’s the gist of my situation:

- Wife and I are close-ish to FI, but not quite there. It would probably be 2-3 years more years at my current job before I felt comfortable enough to quit with the goal of a long-term RE situation.
- I’ve been working extremely hard to build a career since graduating college at around age 22. Many hobbies and interests of mine have fallen by the wayside for 10+ years because of this focus on my career.
- I would like to quit to pursue one of those interests of mine, painting, which has fallen by the wayside. Although I’d love to get to a point where I can sell my work, I recognize that it’s extremely unlikely that this interest will ever generate income, and it is likely to just cost money each year. Wife is supportive of me quitting now to pursue painting.
- I consider myself to be at the peak of my career, earning the most money I can ever see myself earning. Quitting now would be mentally very difficult for me, which is why I’m here asking for your advice.

More details:

Us
Ages: 34 (me) + 35 (wife)
Kids: one 5 year old

Expenses and Living
Current spend: ~$90k/yr between my wife and I. ~$35,000 of that is rent. VHCOL city.
Debt: $0
Mortgage: $0 as we are renting. Wife has a unique job situation (multiple locations that she needs to be at each week) that makes it difficult to balance a reasonable commute with geographic location. We believe our current spot optimizes for housing finances and commute, but the price of homes in this neighborhood is too expensive to own.

Net Worth and Salary
Current NW: $1,800,000 combined (down from a high of ~$2.2m due to the markets). This does not include home equity as we rent.
Salary: My salary is roughly $600k/yr. On track to save ~$300k of that this year. Wife makes just shy of $100k.

If I were to quit, my wife would continue working so we would still have an income rolling in that could probably cover all of our expenses if we relied solely on that (vs. withdrawing investments)

(quick note on salary/NW: savings rate has been >50% for the past 10 years, but my NW isn’t higher because I’ve received huge raises the past few years to get me to this current salary)

I do like my job; it’s just that I’ve been focused on it so long I feel like I need to balance it out. I’ve formed a unique role for myself at my company that would likely go away permanently were I to quit. I have transferable skills to map to more typical jobs that I could apply to if I ever needed a new job, but I would not be as excited about it as I am my current role.

I do regularly put in > 40 hours/week, plus spending time with the fam…it doesn’t leave a lot of time for dedicated painting.

This Interest
My passion is painting, and I want to focus more on painting. Maybe one day I could make money on it, but I expect it will primarily be a drain on finances (cost of materials+classes), and it would take many years, if ever, for it to turn a profit.

I’ve been working on improving my skills (slowly) over the past 2 years, and it’s been fun, but I don’t as much time/energy to produce the kind of work I want to be making.

My wife is 100% supportive of me quitting and focusing on painting, but I’m nervous.

Some of my concerns if I quit now

- Recession
- Inflation
- Potential cost of living increases as child gets older (college/hobbies/interests we want to support)
- Difficulty in us buying a home in the future if I’m not bringing in money. I know about asset depletion mortgages but I hear they can be a pain/less desirable than traditional.
- Inability to find as good a job if I were to quit

Some of my concerns if I don’t quit

- Will there ever come a time when it feels right to quit? Or will I keep working forever, and never get a chance to try painting?
- At my current salary/savings rate, I could have enough to feel more comfortable in a few years (at the expense of a few years where I could be improving my painting skills more quickly)

The question for you

Would I be out of my mind to quit my job? Or would it be reasonable for me to quit now? One approach that I had in mind was:

- Quit my job immediately
- Dedicate 1 full year to painting
- After that year, reassess. If I’m sick of painting or nervous about finances, apply for jobs again. If I’m loving painting, continue for another year.

What would you do in my situation? Would you quit, or wait a few more years?

[ATtiny85]

My first thought is to figure out how to dedicate more time to it while keeping your current job. I know time is tight, but I'd want to stash away another million before rolling the dice.

[mozar]

Your wife is supportive and can pay the bills, that makes it less risky. It’s only true that it’s hard to make money from painting because that’s what you tell yourself. You can spend some time thinking about what exactly financial success as a painter would look like. Is it making 400 a painting, 4000 a painting per month? Consider taking a marketing course in addition to painting courses. With 1.8m in investments I don’t understand why you need to make money at all but I’m not a driven person.

[former player]

It's quite clear that you can quit working tomorrow if you want.  You'll have to draw a bit from your investments to add to your wife's earnings in order to cover your expenses (mostly because of taxes, otherwise you would barely need to do that) but not so much that your $1.8m stash wouldn't just keep growing and growing over the long term.

As to your concers -

1. Recession and inflation are both accounted for in the 4% safe withdrawal rate and you will be far below that, so neither of these should be an issue.
2. Cost of living increases and a potential house purchase are valid considerations.  But consider that your $1.8m stash will increase at $72k a year at 4% and will carry on accumulating until your expenditure including taxes reaches $160k a year, at which point it will at least stabilise and will probably still carry on accumulating.  So you won't need many years of living at your current expenditure levels before you have saved enough in the stash for plenty of future cost of living increases and a reasonable house as well.

So the issue on future expenses is not really that you will not be able to cover your current lifestyle into the future, or even a somewhat inflated lifestyle, but that you would not have the lifestyle that you could have had if you had kept on working.  Only you will know if that is something you will regret in the future - but the fact that you are here on the MMM forum suggests that you at least have a logical view that it won't, even if emotions on the subject are not quite so easy to manage.

3.  Inability to get as good a job again.  Maybe, maybe not?  It tends to be the case that once you have broken through to the level you are currently at it's pretty hard to fall far off it.  You are unlikely to ever have to resort to minimum wage shift work to make ends meet, far more likely that if you need to you will easily find a bearable job paying at least six figures.  It might not be your current comfortable niche paying $600k a year but it won't be bad, and it would be made more bearable by the thought that at least you gave your passion for painting a fair chance rather than living with the regret.  (Remember, it's the things we don't do that we are most likely to regret, rather than the things we did do.)

If you do start painting then I think you've got a choice to make as to whether you go the academic painter route: go to an art school with a great reputation and use that to make contacts in the serious art world of agents and galleries, or learn through doing/local classes and market your own works as outsider art.  I do suspect that in the long run (and you potentially have 50 years as a painter ahead of you) that finding a market for your work is going to be more satisfying and lead to your developing your skills over just treating it as something you do for yourself without regular feedback from the outside world.  Unless you are the next Van Gogh, of course.

[Metalcat]

Oof...

Okay, well I spent years in the art world, and I hated every second of it, so I'm going to try and put my bias against professional painting aside and try to give you decent advice that isn't tinged with my own biased bitterness.

I am a BIG supporter of cutting back on work the moment it makes sense to do so. It is very difficult to live a full life, rich with hobbies and relationships while working full time, especially with a spouse who works full time.

Financially, you can obviously do it, it just comes down to the necessary trade offs and whether or not you and your partner feel they're worth trading.

That's really it. There's no right or wrong answer here, there's just the oath forward that makes everyone in your family the happiest and healthiest.

Just remember, there's a huge range of options between working full time and retiring and never working again. You have the rest of your life to find the balance between paid work and unpaid hobbies if it turns out that painting doesn't turn your crank as a full time occupation.

You have nearly endless options of what to do with your time, so take advantage of that. As long as your family benefit as well.

[Dreamer40]

I would not quit under those circumstances. You’re young and like your job. You’re close to your goal. If you were epically miserable, maybe that would be another story. But I would just take a few weeks of vacation a year as time to paint. And then quit a few years later when you reach your financial goal. My view is that you still have some time to put in.

[Blackeagle]

I was in a pretty similar situation to you a couple of months ago (similar NW, but a bit older and not as high an income).  I had a job I liked well enough but when I suddenly found something I was really passionate about I quit to dedicate my time to it: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/found-my-hobby-job-and-fired/

[FLBiker]

I am a BIG supporter of cutting back on work the moment it makes sense to do so. It is very difficult to live a full life, rich with hobbies and relationships while working full time, especially with a spouse who works full time.

...

Just remember, there's a huge range of options between working full time and retiring and never working again. You have the rest of your life to find the balance between paid work and unpaid hobbies if it turns out that painting doesn't turn your crank as a full time occupation.

Crud.  Thanks for this, even though I'm not sure it's what I wanted to hear.  I'm in a similar position to OP, except I'm MUCH older and I make a LOT less money. :)  [I typed a bunch more, but then I deleted it because I don't want to hijack the thread.  I should probably do a case study...]

[Metalcat]

I am a BIG supporter of cutting back on work the moment it makes sense to do so. It is very difficult to live a full life, rich with hobbies and relationships while working full time, especially with a spouse who works full time.

...

Just remember, there's a huge range of options between working full time and retiring and never working again. You have the rest of your life to find the balance between paid work and unpaid hobbies if it turns out that painting doesn't turn your crank as a full time occupation.

Crud.  Thanks for this, even though I'm not sure it's what I wanted to hear.  I'm in a similar position to OP, except I'm MUCH older and I make a LOT less money. :)  [I typed a bunch more, but then I deleted it because I don't want to hijack the thread.  I should probably do a case study...]

Now I'm REALLY curious why the above quoted *wasn't* what you wanted to hear?

I basically just said "you have a lot more options than you think"

[lucenzo11]

I have two thoughts which don't quite align, but hoping to merge them together into an option:

1. I fully support pursuing your passion project. It seems like art and work cannot coexist, if they could, they you should have done it already. So I agree with others that you can totally pursue it especially considering your level of savings and the support of your spouse. There are some scary unknowns, but not so scary that they should stop you and you can figure it out as you go along.
2. You worked really hard to get to your salary now. You accumulated savings along the way, but wouldn't it be nice to keep getting those career returns from your salary, especially being so young. Another year or two can't hurt right?

In an attempt to merge them together, if you want to go be an artist, then I think you should go hard and fully immerse yourself in it. To do this, plan out exactly how you will do it: what classes you will take, where you will paint, what supplies you need, etc. Start planning now, start talking others who already do this and try to learn from their mistakes. Make a plan and set yourself a timeline, like "I will quit in X months/years" whether that's 6 months, a year, two years or more. But whatever time period that is, use any extra time to start planning and have a detailed plan ready to go, so that once you quit, you can take a vacation, and then go into full on artist mode. I think this should help you in building up a little more savings, while helping you focus on how you will pursue this. Setting a date will help establish intent and will take away some of the "what if" thoughts from either option.

[netloc]

Are you tied to the VHCOL location? Many places you could live where that puts you way below 4% withdrawal rate.

Also regarding location, it's worth considering the local art scene and whether or not it is likely to be receptive to the type of work you want to do.

[FLBiker]

I am a BIG supporter of cutting back on work the moment it makes sense to do so. It is very difficult to live a full life, rich with hobbies and relationships while working full time, especially with a spouse who works full time.

...

Just remember, there's a huge range of options between working full time and retiring and never working again. You have the rest of your life to find the balance between paid work and unpaid hobbies if it turns out that painting doesn't turn your crank as a full time occupation.

Crud.  Thanks for this, even though I'm not sure it's what I wanted to hear.  I'm in a similar position to OP, except I'm MUCH older and I make a LOT less money. :)  [I typed a bunch more, but then I deleted it because I don't want to hijack the thread.  I should probably do a case study...]

Now I'm REALLY curious why the above quoted *wasn't* what you wanted to hear?

I basically just said "you have a lot more options than you think"

Ha -- I had reconciled myself to keeping the job for another couple of years.  Given the current state of things (which feels...unstable) I find some comfort in that.  I tend to see things in black and white (e.g. either working or not working) which makes it easier to focus on hitting an admittedly arbitrary milestone before making a change.  Being reminded of the grey, though, helps me to see that this may just be another form of one more year syndrome...

[405programmer]

I’ve formed a unique role for myself at my company that would likely go away permanently were I to quit.

Does this put you in a position of leverage to create a part time opportunity? What would still be agreeable to you? I think you can really push back and negotiate with the business if you're truly unique in your role at the company.

Some people like working part time and others don't but I think that could be a good way to still 1) earn money and 2) use those career skills you seem nervous to let atrophy. Maybe the company could give you some sort of 1 time retention bonus if you bring in a new guy / gal to learn your role. Who knows! I get the feeling there are a lot of opportunities for you to forge your own path beyond just grinding the same job and completely quitting.

[Cassie]

With your huge salary and being so young I would keep working until neither of you ever need to work again. Then move wherever you want and enjoy a very long time not having to worry about work or money.

[We be free if we try]

I agree that many options outlined above are available to you. My personal experience, though, leads me to think that the desire to own vs rent may increase, and the kid costs will certainly increase, and so I’m wondering what you can do to get the best of both worlds for the next 2 or so years. Can you arrange a 3-6 month sabbatical? Go to 4 day weeks for some time? >40 hours weeks are punishing if you’ve got a family, let alone passion projects. Seems like you could lean harder on the job that’s paying you so much to compensate you in different ways, even if it means lessening the pay. Having a job you really like is gold, but having life balance is nonnegotiable.

[Metalcat]

I am a BIG supporter of cutting back on work the moment it makes sense to do so. It is very difficult to live a full life, rich with hobbies and relationships while working full time, especially with a spouse who works full time.

...

Just remember, there's a huge range of options between working full time and retiring and never working again. You have the rest of your life to find the balance between paid work and unpaid hobbies if it turns out that painting doesn't turn your crank as a full time occupation.

Crud.  Thanks for this, even though I'm not sure it's what I wanted to hear.  I'm in a similar position to OP, except I'm MUCH older and I make a LOT less money. :)  [I typed a bunch more, but then I deleted it because I don't want to hijack the thread.  I should probably do a case study...]

Now I'm REALLY curious why the above quoted *wasn't* what you wanted to hear?

I basically just said "you have a lot more options than you think"

Ha -- I had reconciled myself to keeping the job for another couple of years.  Given the current state of things (which feels...unstable) I find some comfort in that.  I tend to see things in black and white (e.g. either working or not working) which makes it easier to focus on hitting an admittedly arbitrary milestone before making a change.  Being reminded of the grey, though, helps me to see that this may just be another form of one more year syndrome...

Lol, this is why I'm happy to be back to full participation on the forums. Y'all know it's my job here to make you look at things a little differently ;)

[LonerMatt]

Hello my friend. I work a day job and pursue art outside of work. For me that's ok as my day jobs are pretty low on the totem pole and I'm generally under-utilised so I have spare mental energy and time. Also no kids.

I wanted to chime in to say that I think you might be surprised at some of the opportunities for art to earn income, though it will take time. For me, I took my first photo in 2012, faffed around for 5-6 years and have recently (in the last year) started seriously pursuing art as a business. The sort of stuff I make won't be regular income, but if I was interesting in adding teaching, commissions, working a bit faster on new artistic work, etc, that'd be a bigger chunk of the pie.

Of course, the hard part is finding opportunities for income that are actually what I want. I don't make art to be compromised or playing any games, I make it because I enjoy it, and I tend to only pursue opportunities that I enjoy which, of course, cuts down what's open. But there's certainly things open.

In a month I'll find out how much I earned because of art for this financial year, it'll be interesting to see where I land!

[LightStache]

I do regularly put in > 40 hours/week, plus spending time with the fam…it doesn’t leave a lot of time for dedicated painting.

This is really core to your conundrum and I want to test it.

First, I'm projecting when I ask, are you sure this isn't just an excuse and that you might not devote all your working hours to art if you quit?

I also wonder if you've seriously considered cutting back your work hours. As a hard charging thoroughbred you might think it's impossible, but many people on this forum have done it and get paid more than ever. You just have to be smart about it and since you make $600K/yr, you're probably smart enough.

What do the rest of your weekly hours look like? What would be an ideal week for you in terms of how you'd spend your time?

Have you outsourced everything to really capture all available time? It's unMustachian to outsource, but if it's a choice between spending an extra $150K and quitting your job, the former is obviously better.

You can probably tell that I'm in the "don't quit" camp, but I hope that we can at least help you take some steps in the right direction!

[moostash]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I really appreciate all of the thoughtful comments. I’ve read them all and it’s given me a lot to think about.

A few notes based on some of the conversation:

- I’ve thought about cutting back my work hours, but with my current role on this current project it’s not possible. I’m a project lead, and there is no other work for me to do right now aside from lead this project. The project will go on for at least the next year before I’m able to move to something else. It’s unlikely I’d be granted a sabbatical until this phase of the project is over in a year (I’ve thought about asking at that time, but that’s at least a year away so it is a longer term solution).
- The goal with painting is to turn it into a profitable career, but I want to be realistic with myself (and my wife) about the prospects of that. I may, in fact, be the world’s worst painter. And I want whatever my plan plan is to stand up on its own if that’s the case, rather than making assumptions that it might be profitable.
- In the past 2 years I’ve taken a couple of long-ish breaks from work (4 weeks at a time) to focus on painting, and I converted the 40 hour work week into ~30 hour painting weeks. I loved those times, and that’s why I’m extremely eager to move to doing it full time all of the time. In short, I have some evidence that I do love doing it that I’d fill my time productively with painting were I to quit.
- Wife and I would love to move to a LCOL area, and talk about how we might make that work somewhat regularly. But due to her work situation it does not seem possible for us to move without her commute becoming extremely long. Also, she is not interested in quitting at this time (one day, though!), so the idea of us both quitting and moving elsewhere (which we’ve also discussed) is not on the table right this moment.

If anyone else has any other thoughts, please share! I’ve loved reading all of the perspectives shared so far. And I’ll be sure to give an update once I make a decision one way or the other!

[FLBiker]

- In the past 2 years I’ve taken a couple of long-ish breaks from work (4 weeks at a time) to focus on painting, and I converted the 40 hour work week into ~30 hour painting weeks. I loved those times, and that’s why I’m extremely eager to move to doing it full time all of the time. In short, I have some evidence that I do love doing it that I’d fill my time productively with painting were I to quit.

This is great!  To me, the fact that you've already tested it in this way and found that 1) you actually do the work (meaning painting) and 2) you really enjoy it is a very good sign.  If I were you, I think it would really come down to my wife.  If she were really OK with it, she makes enough money that you'd be fine.  And if she weren't 100% supportive, working another year and taking a sabbatical (or even just quitting "temporarily") seems totally fine, too.  You've got a few good options, which is a great place to be!

[Askel]

Not sure what level you are looking to pursue your art, but I'm somewhat familiar with the art show circuit.   

If you've got a growing pile of work done, might be worth trying your hand at an art show.  The good ones (those with lots of attendees willing to pay good money for good art) will have a selection committee that decides who gets in, so you have to meet that bar. After that, you'll get a pretty good lesson in whether or not you can hack it as a profitable artist.   

Note that who gets in and what sells well that weekend for you are only partially related to your talent as an artist. There are a lot of other factors in play and commiserating with other artists at the show is a good way to learn the ropes.

[Metalcat]

Not sure what level you are looking to pursue your art, but I'm somewhat familiar with the art show circuit.   

If you've got a growing pile of work done, might be worth trying your hand at an art show.  The good ones (those with lots of attendees willing to pay good money for good art) will have a selection committee that decides who gets in, so you have to meet that bar. After that, you'll get a pretty good lesson in whether or not you can hack it as a profitable artist.   

Note that who gets in and what sells well that weekend for you are only partially related to your talent as an artist. There are a lot of other factors in play and commiserating with other artists at the show is a good way to learn the ropes.

Ugh, so this.

FTR, I was incredibly well connected, sold pieces easily, and had tons of requests for commissions, but I HATED being part of that world. Mostly, I hated the clients. I also just hated painting, so there was that problem, lol.

I instead ended up in a technical field where art skills are highly valuable.

[ixtap]

If you are depicting your role at your company accurately , the y may be willing to work out something part time, if that is if interest to you.