Am I crazy for wanting 3x less money?

[me1]

I am about to consciously choose to have about 1/3 of our current income going forward. Am I crazy?

A little background. I have been at my current well paying job for about 5 years. After years of schooling and 2 postdocs, and not being able to live as a family of 3 on one postdoc salary in a HCOL area, I took a job that paid ~3x in a much lower cost of living city and gave up on academia. It was the right choice, I am convinced!.  We basically finally felt like we didn’t have to think about money at all. And without even trying or budgeting or doing anything differently at all, our bank balance kept growing quite a bit. About 2 years into it I discovered MMM and now it’s growing even more and we are about 40% of where we want to be to FIRE.
That’s all great.
The problem is that my job stressed me out. Immensely! It still basically supported our family while SO worked on PHD, then postdoc which was funded at times and unfunded at others. And that made my job even more stressful. I basically felt like I had no time for anything. All my waking hours were spent on working for my job. Trying to keep up with the demands of it. Trying to even do the bare minimum that was required of me. I worked most weekends, I worked most vacations. I basically ate and worked and slept sometimes. In the meantime, SO started applying for academic positions. Some interviews happened. Last year had one offer that was in the middle of nowhere and wouldn’t really allow for continued research in area of interest. We pretty unanimously and easily decided not to take it.
This year there are 2 offers on the table.
1. In a tiny town in the US that would pay between a little over 1/2 to at most 3/4 of my salary. I could most likely keep my current job. The cost of living would be pretty low. I could probably FIRE in
3-4 years, but SO would want to keep working, get tenure etc.
OR
2. A medium size city with similar COL to our current city but in Europe that would pay SO a little less than 1/2 of my current salary. I could also possibly keep doing my current job part time. (This really appeals to me as I feel completely burned out) it’s unclear how much money we could expect to get from my part time work... maybe nothing, maybe equivalent to SO’s full time work. But even one salary should be enough to cover our living expenses. Not sure we’d be able to save much if anything, though.
Am I crazy and irrational for prefering option 2?? And delaying FIRE? Or is it better to think of it as partial FIRE in a cool international location? Having time and freedom to travel is my top motivation for wanting to FIRE anyway...

[SwitchActiveDWG]

No, you're not crazy. If your job is taking up all your waking hours and you don't absolutely love it (or it is the only option to put food on the table), I would find something else.

[Metalcat]

You're not crazy.
I think it's crazy to stay in a job that's burning you out unless you absolutely have to.

The save as much as possible and then quit model works for some, but often isn't that great a fit for people who do a lot of education and actually love their work/research, just not at break neck paces.

If you are 40% there and want to continue working in more pleasant ways, then welcome to CoastFI territory where you save a chunk of money and then leave it alone to grow while you make enough to live on, which if you are frugal and highly educated, can be incredibly easy.

I took a massive "pay cut" as well and you couldn't get me to go back with a gun to my head.

You have money, you both have education, and you want a life of adventure.
I see absolutely NOTHING holding you back from being able to live an amazing life right now.

Don't let the fact that one period of your life involved making a ton of money by working way too hard define anything about what your career *should* look like.

It's not actually a pay cut, it's a trade off. It's only a pay cut if you are working the exact same and making less. A trade off gives you more time and energy, so it can be a huge net gain.

[Freedomin5]

Is there the possibility of negotiating part time for you with option 1? The way it’s written, it sounds like the only way your company would let you move to part time is if you moved to Europe?

The reason I’m asking is because it sounds like option 1 pays your SO more and sets them up more nicely for tenure track in the US. if your SO wants to work for a long time, it might be wise to set them up for the option that maximizes their ability to work for a long time.

[DirtDiva]

I don’t think it’s crazy, I think it is a fabulous opportunity to take #2.   Life is about more than saving money.  You can always move again later (though it may be more difficult with 2  academic jobs).  And as Malkynn pointed out, the $ you have saved so far will grow with time.

How is SO leaning?

[Linea_Norway]

I think you should not keep working FT in your job that is in such an extreme way using up all your waking hours. Therefore option 1 is not good enough as presented. In those 3-4 years you would be saving up for FIRE, you could end up with a heart attack or other issues because of the stress and lack of sleep. It is time to majorly improve your working situation for your (mental) health. Money should not be the highest priority in it.

Moving to another country is an interesting experience and should certainly be considered. Are you sure that if you agree to work PT in your current job, that they don't expect you to put in way more hours than your have agreed on? Just like they do now? Are you sure you don't need to work weird hours to synchronize with American working hours?
I think you could see if you could also find a (less stressful) job in that European city.

[Moonwaves]

You don't want 3x less money, you are just prepared to take 3x less money in order to (probably) improve your quality of life.

If you were prepared to share the city or even the country in Europe, some people might be able to offer advice on costs, etc.

I don't think you'd be mad at all to do it. But then I'm someone who switched to earning 60% of my previous salary just so I could work in an environment I thought would be better for me. And I was right about that. I now have a side gig that pays me almost as much as salary I'm "missing" now but honestly, on average I end up spending less time doing that than I used to on working overtime in previous job.

[undercover]

It would be easy for me to say you're not crazy but then again I've endured some very stressful situations in order to further my goals. I don't know if it was or wasn't worth it because at this point I wouldn't do it again but I'm also much better off for having done it (of course given my limited crystal ball vision - I don't know what other options there were). Work you enjoy is definitely better than work you hate but the option to forego mandatory work at all is obviously the pinnacle.

I definitely had a "FIRE" at all costs mentality for a while. But, hey, I'm single with no plans of settling down anytime soon and value my adventure time more than being stuck in one place so YMMV. I hate feeling tied down to one place so I want to make the most of where I'm at while I'm there.

I can't say I regret anything though because I don't think regret is really possible just as predicting the future isn't. You do what you can with the limited information you have and current you has absolutely no chance of predicting the millions of different variables that are going to come your way.

[Dee18]

You understandably do not describe option 1 in much detail.  If the tiny town involves a large university or highly ranked smaller college that is one thing.  If the tiny town involves a small liberal arts college that isn't well funded (which seems more probable given the info about salary) I would definitely go for the job in Europe.  I am at a university in a mid-sized city.  The demographics for undergraduate students, the student loan bubble that cannot last indefinitely, and the rapid increase in online education do not bode well for smaller colleges and universities without large endowments.  Current students are also increasingly unwilling to live in small towns for higher ed.  One additional bit of information you might want is whether you will be able to get a work visa if your current plan of working remotely doesn't pan out.

[me1]

Thanks for all the replies.
It may not have been clear, but I am NOT in an academic job. I work at a weird niche job that required exactly the kind of training I had, but I didn’t even know existed until I found it. I actually don’t hate my job. I just hate the hours and the amount of work that is expected. If I went part time it would basically be on contract basis and I would chose what projects I could take. So I don’t think they could dictate the hours like they do now where we have hour quotas. I have talked to them about this in principle, and it seems like it’s possible. Whether at option 1 or 2.

I like the concept of CoastFI and I think that’s what I would very much like to transition to. At least for a bit.

I prefer option 2 because it would feel like a vacation to be in a cool foreign city on a different continent. It would also be closer to my family. It would provide more opportunities for our kids to learn how a different country works and just to be in anew environment.  We like to go to the theater once in a while or hear live music, and have some hobbies that would all be possible in a medium sized city like that.

I don’t so much like option 1 because we visited the town and it’s small (and I mean really small, less than 10k people) and rundown and not close to anything. Spending many years of my FI life in a place like that is not what I had in mind.  We lived in a similar but bigger town for SOs Ph.D. I would miss the opportunity to do my hobbies. SO’s life would be filled with a lot more high stress work than in option 2.

As for what SO wants...SO would pick option 2 if still single,but not sure what to pick now. I think options 2 is a known path. Option 1 has a lot of uncertainty. I don’t want to be the sole decider  where we go. It’s SO’s job and future work opportunities that are at stake.
 
Both of the jobs are of the permanent academic job variety, not visiting or anything like that.
   I am still torn...

[Much Fishing to Do]

And that made my job even more stressful. I basically felt like I had no time for anything. All my waking hours were spent on working for my job. Trying to keep up with the demands of it. Trying to even do the bare minimum that was required of me. I worked most weekends, I worked most vacations. I basically ate and worked and slept sometimes.

This is the only part that sounded crazy to me....

[me1]

It’s not a small liberal arts school. That would actually be SO’s dream job and I would probably suck it up and move if one of those was at at stake.  It’s a small tech school.

[me1]

Oh and the European job promised to get work visas for both of us.

[Metalcat]

Oh and the European job promised to get work visas for both of us.

Just go.
If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

[MrThatsDifferent]

What’s wrong with being a little crazy sometimes? If you were being suicidal, that would be a concern, but you’re not. Is it crazy? Yes! So what? Be crazy sometimes. Do the weird, unconventional thing and learn from it. You’ll find work somewhere, you’ll recover. It might delay FIRE but it won’t kill it and you’ll still be years ahead of your peers. Have the adventure and new experiences. Remember, you and your SO have all the gifts to survive anything, so you can’t lose unless you let fear guide you instead of curiosity.

[NorthernMonkey]

Go to Europe as a 1 year adventure.

EvilMegaCorp 70 hour a week high stress jobs are 10 a penny. You'll easily pick up another when you return

[Cassie]

Go to Europe and you should work part time. You are young and can always come back if you guys don’t like it.