Is this noob?

[SnowyMiami]

I am a sophomore level mustachian. My punch out number is $600k and I am currently at $200k. I save $25k per year.

I am nearing the peak of my career which means my next job will probably net $40k in savings per year. However, I am extremely sick of office work after ten straight years. I was thinking about teaching English in China for a year or two which would net $12k in savings per year (I think).

Would you recommend smashing through to $600k in American office work or the China idea?

[Ocinfo]

There have been several similar questions regarding career change or downshifting, usually more along the lines of a lawyer($200k salary) wanting to become a teacher ($50k). Yours isn't as extreme of a cut but is likely 2-3 years premature. I would suggest getting to 50% of FIRE number before downshifting. I'll also throw out the obligatory concern over your $600k number being a bit low since it sounds like you're around 30.


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[kayvent]

After reading this and the Rationally discussing the "stay at home parent" option thread I have to say I am baffled with some people. So 40K savings per year in a few years. From your punchout number, I guess you're spending is 23K. So lower-end for gross income is what, 75k in a few years? That would probably entail a post-secondary degree (so seventeeen or more years of education) plus ten years of experience in the job. Let's not forget the potential for parttime jobs during those formative years.

So with all those opportunities, you decided to have a job you hate. Never could figure out how to pivot the career into something you like either. And despite working in it for ten years, you haven't found a way to teach yourself to like it? This type of destructive behaviour seems like something you need to correct far more than anything else. This is literally years of your waking life you have squandered.

[maizefolk]

One critical question: how much will your employability/earning potential be impacted by taking a couple of years off? In some fields the answer is not at all, in others, the entire value of your experience/degree disappears once you've been out of work in the field for more than a year or two.

Also what appeals to you the most about the idea of teaching english in China? Just anything that gets you out off your current office life? The chance to learn a whole new language? Something about the culture? The chance to have you 15 minutes of fame just for looking non-Chinese? (Although you now have to go outside the major cities, this still does happen.) There may be other options besides the two you've thought of so far, but I don't think anyone here would suggest ten more years of misery is the correct choice.

Also, don't forget that if you're saving $12k/year teaching english in China, your stash is also continuing to grow every year. There are folks on the boards who plan to get reasonably close to their number and then find a part time or overseas job that just pays their expenses for anywhere from 1-10 years while they wait for natural stock market growth to push their net worth to the point where they completely FIRE.

And don't let the people who will try to worry you about whether your target number is too low get to you. If you were over on the ERE boards, they'd be wondering if you don't already have enough to retire on with $200k. If we were over at bogleheads, basically everyone on this board would be accused of not saving enough and not understanding what the true "necessities" of life cost.

[SnowyMiami]

After reading this and the Rationally discussing the "stay at home parent" option thread I have to say I am baffled with some people. So 40K savings per year in a few years. From your punchout number, I guess you're spending is 23K. So lower-end for gross income is what, 75k in a few years? That would probably entail a post-secondary degree (so seventeeen or more years of education) plus ten years of experience in the job. Let's not forget the potential for parttime jobs during those formative years.

So with all those opportunities, you decided to have a job you hate. Never could figure out how to pivot the career into something you like either. And despite working in it for ten years, you haven't found a way to teach yourself to like it? This type of destructive behaviour seems like something you need to correct far more than anything else. This is literally years of your waking life you have squandered.

The whole idea of this website is to be free to dispense with your time as you please. No full time job will ever allow that.  "Teach yourself to like it" is also known as stockholm syndrome. If you find your career your so fulfilling its puzzling why you are here at all.

[SnowyMiami]

One critical question: how much will your employability/earning potential be impacted by taking a couple of years off? In some fields the answer is not at all, in others, the entire value of your experience/degree disappears once you've been out of work in the field for more than a year or two.

Also what appeals to you the most about the idea of teaching english in China? Just anything that gets you out off your current office life? The chance to learn a whole new language? Something about the culture? The chance to have you 15 minutes of fame just for looking non-Chinese? (Although you now have to go outside the major cities, this still does happen.) There may be other options besides the two you've thought of so far, but I don't think anyone here would suggest ten more years of misery is the correct choice.

Also, don't forget that if you're saving $12k/year teaching english in China, your stash is also continuing to grow every year. There are folks on the boards who plan to get reasonably close to their number and then find a part time or overseas job that just pays their expenses for anywhere from 1-10 years while they wait for natural stock market growth to push their net worth to the point where they completely FIRE.

And don't let the people who will try to worry you about whether your target number is too low get to you. If you were over on the ERE boards, they'd be wondering if you don't already have enough to retire on with $200k. If we were over at bogleheads, basically everyone on this board would be accused of not saving enough and not understanding what the true "necessities" of life cost.

I love language and it would be an interesting change of pace for a year or two. I work with China currently and could transition into a trade related job as well.

As for my target,  I have noticed the same thing. ERE is being displaced by the traditional retirement crowd. No amount will ever be enough because deep down retirement is an abstraction that has kept them going all these years. 

[maizefolk]

Well if it doesn't impair your future earning prospects, why not try the teaching english in china route for a year and see how you like it? Effectively a year long sabbatical that only costs you $13k (difference between your current savings rate and the savings rate you project in China). Maybe you love it and hitting FIRE becomes less urgent. Maybe you find some other opportunity while you're in China that pays a lot more than teaching english but is still more fun than your office job. Maybe you're so miserable that afterwards you'll be thrilled and grateful to come back to office job a lot like the one you have today.

In any of those three scenarios your long term happiness goes up.

[FINate]

After reading this and the Rationally discussing the "stay at home parent" option thread I have to say I am baffled with some people. So 40K savings per year in a few years. From your punchout number, I guess you're spending is 23K. So lower-end for gross income is what, 75k in a few years? That would probably entail a post-secondary degree (so seventeeen or more years of education) plus ten years of experience in the job. Let's not forget the potential for parttime jobs during those formative years.

So with all those opportunities, you decided to have a job you hate. Never could figure out how to pivot the career into something you like either. And despite working in it for ten years, you haven't found a way to teach yourself to like it? This type of destructive behaviour seems like something you need to correct far more than anything else. This is literally years of your waking life you have squandered.

The whole idea of this website is to be free to dispense with your time as you please. No full time job will ever allow that.  "Teach yourself to like it" is also known as stockholm syndrome. If you find your career your so fulfilling its puzzling why you are here at all.

That's nowhere close to stockholm syndrome. You work in an office of your own accord, were not kidnapped and forced to work. Voluntarily pushing through something unpleasant to achieve a longer term goal is known as "delayed gratification."

I don't have an opinion either way as to which you choose but will point out that you've set up a false dilemma: Either stay in the office job I hate or I teach English in China. There are many other options not on the table. Role change at current company? Job change? Career change (in US)? ... you get the idea.

If you really want to teach English in China then do that, even if it puts you behind FI(RE) by a few years. This may mean you end up working a few extra years in an office job once you return. But make that decision being at peace with the trade-offs involved.

If, on the other hand, FI(RE) is really your highest priority then perhaps tough it out for a few more years in your current gig and travel after achieving this goal.

It's always better to run to something rather than from something.

[mcneally]

If you left, how easy would it be to get a similar position back? If relatively easy, then do whatever you want. If not, I wouldn't make the dramatic shift to teaching ESL, which you may equally dislike and may not be as financially beneficial as you're lead to believe. Possible exception if you're going to the exact same school as a friend of yours who had a positive experience. I don't know why the Youtube algorithm recommended this to me but it did and I watched the first half of this today (I'd skip the first 6 min or so if you decide to take the time to watch it). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Z2O9Nwt6c&t=957s

[Dee18]

Aside from teaching English, there are many other opportunities to teach in China. I went to teach for a semester on a Fulbright.  While most who do that are academics, it is not a requirement and the compensation/ benefits are generous. While there I met American nearing the end of his business career.  He wanted to live in China so he contacted business departments at several universities.  One university offered him housing and a small salary to teach 8 hours a week.  Working in your area of expertise allows you to make connections and living on a large university campus is convenient and fun.

[Hargrove]

Why are people giving the OP crap about the predicament OP posted asking for help over?

"Don't you dare ask for help! You don't deserve help! If you deserved help, you wouldn't have needed help in the first place!"

Congrats OP on 600k punchout number. I think my number is probably close to that. I also like exotic travel-option job ideas like teaching in China (and enjoy teaching generally, but wouldn't want to downshift to the pay yet).

I didn't take up the ESL bit because I didn't have a reasonable expectation of the savings making it a plan instead of an excursion, but that all changes when you have compounding working in your favor. The last 2 years, I have chosen to remain on my higher-octane savings rate so I can really get the generator going. For you, I would say wait 2 years as well. Your mind will probably appreciate having a concrete exit period, even if you're not leaving right this moment. 2 years would put you close enough to half your date that if you taught for just 1 year, you'd be just about half, and you could make whatever adventure of the next 10 years you wanted doing anything that paid the bills.

One piece of advice mentioned is the "running to something rather than from something" idea. If you can take any vacation at all from this current job and use all of it to interview people from other jobs, or even job shadow a teaching mentor or two, do that. Make your entire vacation figuring out what you want to do for the next 10 years, and then fully embrace it - whether it's teaching or whatever else - and you'll be much happier than if you're simply trapped in a new, lower-paying gig that loses its new-job-luster after the first year.

[kayvent]

After reading this and the Rationally discussing the "stay at home parent" option thread I have to say I am baffled with some people. So 40K savings per year in a few years. From your punchout number, I guess you're spending is 23K. So lower-end for gross income is what, 75k in a few years? That would probably entail a post-secondary degree (so seventeeen or more years of education) plus ten years of experience in the job. Let's not forget the potential for parttime jobs during those formative years.

So with all those opportunities, you decided to have a job you hate. Never could figure out how to pivot the career into something you like either. And despite working in it for ten years, you haven't found a way to teach yourself to like it? This type of destructive behaviour seems like something you need to correct far more than anything else. This is literally years of your waking life you have squandered.

The whole idea of this website is to be free to dispense with your time as you please. No full time job will ever allow that.  "Teach yourself to like it" is also known as stockholm syndrome. If you find your career your so fulfilling its puzzling why you are here at all.

Is the point of this site to teach people to go to school for seventeen years then work for sixteen years at a job you get sick of then finally, at age 47, to start doing something you like doing? That seems horribly inefficient. There is a 10% chance that a man will die between the age of 20 and 40. Is it really worth risking selecting a job one hates if there is a 10% chance they'll die before they RE?

I would posit, since people who will go through seventeen or more years of schooling can choose any number of hundreds of fields working in any number of thousands of companies that offer a multitude of different positions, that people should select a vocation they like. Doesn't that seem reasonable? And you can always grow to like a job for certain aspects, or pivot.

Why are people giving the OP crap about the predicament OP posted asking for help over?

"Don't you dare ask for help! You don't deserve help! If you deserved help, you wouldn't have needed help in the first place!"

Should you tell a four year-old before their first day of school "Look, you're going to go to school for the next two decades. This is all to teach you how to do a job. You'll want to be trained in a job that makes lots of money but you'll hate that job. You'll work for a few years and then when it is all over, you can do what you like. If you're not dead yet. There is a non-negligible change you will be."

I'd rather tell my kid to study something they like, do something they find challenging yet fulfilling, be fiscally restrained and responsible, and enjoy life and all of creation.

[Hargrove]

Should you tell a four year-old before their first day of school...

I don't even want to respond to this except to suggest that (most) of the community won't chase away newbies with advice to their past selves that can no longer be acted upon.

[maizefolk]

Is the point of this site to teach people to go to school for seventeen years then work for sixteen years at a job you get sick of then finally, at age 47, to start doing something you like doing? That seems horribly inefficient. There is a 10% chance that a man will die between the age of 20 and 40. Is it really worth risking selecting a job one hates if there is a 10% chance they'll die before they RE?

The statistic you quote above is incorrect (at least for the USA). Based on the latest mortality data from the Social Security Administration, 97.1% of 20 year old men will still be alive at 40. Thus, the risk of death in that 20 year period is only 2.9%.*

*Source: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html (It's surprising how often actuarial tables come in handle in discussions on this forum.)

I would posit, since people who will go through seventeen or more years of schooling can choose any number of hundreds of fields working in any number of thousands of companies that offer a multitude of different positions, that people should select a vocation they like. Doesn't that seem reasonable? And you can always grow to like a job for certain aspects, or pivot.

No. That does not seem reasonable.

Depending on ones major there may be only a handful of types of jobs a person is directly qualified for out of college. People choose their majors at a time in their life when they are awash in hormones, getting lots of really bad advice, and statistically have trouble accurately weighing long term consequences and costs because those parts of the brain are continuing to develop into their mid twenties. And honestly, even later in life, human being just suck and predicting what will and won't make us happy and by how much. People's interests and desires change over time.

Shifting careers later on can often slow down progress towards FIRE by years through reduced earnings and/or having to go back to school. In particular, people who thought they were choosing a career they'd love, only to find out a few years later that it made them miserable, may be reluctant to gamble with delaying their FIRE for additional years by trying to switch to a different career they think they'd enjoy. After all, they've already demonstrated their inability to accurately judge how pleasant or unpleasant a job is from the outside once before.

[Bicycle_B]

Maizeman's comment above is one of the wisest I've seen on this board.

SnowyMiami, your question is not noob at all.  It's tricky.  I don't claim to have an answer.  Like everyone, to me the question of how easy or difficult returning to your current career is seems like a big one.  I will assume that it's not easy, hence you have shown up here instead of just trying China.

To me, point of this movement is to maximize happiness through strengthening your skills, and along the way to make the world a better place.  I suspect that for you, going to China a move forward that will strengthen your skills and immediately increase your sense of joyous living.  There is no guarantee that you will like teaching there for long enough to reach FI, and it is possible that after a couple of years, you will be looking for a third job, bemoaning how far from FI you still are.  To do this is an adventure, with all the possibilities that entails - victory, failure, the unexpected.  I don't think there is a definite financial answer to your question, so your decision will be personal.

A friend of this forum named Jim Collins would say you have FU money, though.  My guess is that you should use it.
http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/

For additional personal perspective, here's a site with ideas you can use whether you go or stay.  Maybe a new perspective will improve even your current situation.  You don't have to sign in to read some of the articles.

https://www.riskology.co/27-simple-tactics-you-can-use-today-to-become-an-intrepid-risk-taker/

[FIREby35]

Should you tell a four year-old before their first day of school...

I don't even want to respond to this except to suggest that (most) of the community won't chase away newbies with advice to their past selves that can no longer be acted upon.

Good answer.

I think the advice that was given could be directed toward OP's current self. That is, do something you like NOW. China? Great. Do it. You will still be cash flow positive and you have significant savings and low costs. Go have an adventure.

[SnowyMiami]

Thanks for all the productive replies. I think I am going to just push through and save the teaching idea for a point when I will never have to return to the office.  My job is tolerable so I am going to stick with it. I think many people go through thoughts of bailing when they are in the boring middle of the process.

[FIREby35]

If you aren't going to China then you should still look for opportunities to add joy to your life along the way. Never forget the power of now. It doesn't have to be a big dramatic thing, but enjoy your life while pursuing FIRE.