Tell me your stories of quitting the rat race

[WaterBottle123]

Basics. Widowed in 2014 with two tiny DDs. Continued working in management consulting, initially on 4 days, went to 5 days when youngest started school a few years ago.

Now DP joined our family in 2020.

I've always been obsessed with protecting my DDs standard of living, which is excellent as I make six figures. But now I'm miserable. Burnt out, not enjoying corporate life, always stressed, not present for my children.

Keep surfing right move and considering moving somewhere near the sea/country, could be mortgage free. And free lancing or doing something entirely different. Or not moving but just embracing less money, more time mentality.

Giving up the security of the corporate world feels very scary, would love to hear from those who have done it.

Going to 4 days or similar won't solve it, it's the headspace work takes up and the lack of purpose the corporate world gives me

Hope someone comes along to give advice. I haven't got any advice as I am not career focused at all so enjoy working as little as possible anyway. We are obviously not wealthy people as a result of my hatred of work 😄

Quit the rat race OP. We are sold a wee bit of a lie regarding work when growing up. This is why former nurses and solicitors now have shops on etsy, as they can be happier with less. It's personal preference.

@Xtraincome

Wish I had any Etsy skills!

As someone who works at an average job, for a very average wage I don’t have any experience of this either. I imagine it must be really hard to think about giving up the standard of living that you have but I do think everyone lives within their means and you can still have an excellent standard of living with a lower wage. There are times when I think about how I wish I had more money, and I should be pushing to progress further in my company but as it stands, I like the fact that I’m not paid enough to worry about work outside of my working hours. If you’re miserable and burnt out, I think you know in your heart what you want to do. I don’t think anyone reaches old age and wishes they spent more time in work. Spend time with your little ones while you can, enjoy your hard work, and think you can always go back to it when your kids are grown if that’s what you want to do.

I haven't ever had loads of money but survive on relatively little as a single parent working part time (freelance) and have done my fair share of overwork and burnout in the past. I have renounced the burnout in favour of less work paid a bit better. Although we don't have heaps of cash to splash it makes you very resourceful and part of me actively enjoys finding ways to make things cheaper / more affordable. And life is quiet / chilled - we live by the sea and our outings are walks, free tennis at the local free court, hillwalks and museums with a few non extravagant holidays thrown in. If you want some inspiration have a watch of Mr Money Mustache on youtube.

You will have more time to save money (cooking from scratch, finding deals, even shopping in charity shops for clothes if it takes your fancy). But I don't feel deprived. I take pride in the fact that I look after my DD on a small budget but that we have time for each other.

I have some time for creativity and am planning launching my creative work soon as new business avenues which could potentially be very lucrative. I wouldn't have been able to do this to build up this body of work without taking the foot off the pedal of all the burnout work that was making me ill and giving me no time.

It would probably be a big adjustment for you, but you might love it. I do love that my life is relatively peaceful, quiet and free even if it is quite humble by most people's standards. You appreciate the treats a lot more when you do have them. As you wouldn't have a mortgage or anything like that I would expect your standard would automatically be a lot higher than mine anyway.

Hi @WaterBottle123 I quit the rat race in 2017. Well I had a breakdown and that forced the issue.
It's scary but liberating. You'll be amazed at how little you really can live on if you want to. I'm frugal to begin with however. You have to give things up but for the peace of mind it's so worth it.
In terms of a new career that's hard. I had some other skills that I now use to make a meagre income. I am hoping to retire soon which will be a welcome relief from the work pressure. I had breast cancer 2019-20 so that put a strain on things but I survived and life is better than it was in the rat race despite everything.
So I'd advise you to maybe see a counsellor or work coach and start the process of escaping.
It's crazy that we put money above our happiness. Once you've seen the reality /through the bullshit you can't unsee it
Good luck with it all

I'd go for it.

How much have you got left on the mortgage?
How secure does your relationship feel?
School fees?
If nothing else you could start to make a plan for a few years down the line?
I didn't have a job as well paying as yours sounds, but I was the main breadwinner and I burnt out, got to the point where the money didn't matter any more, I craved a simpler life.

The lack of money did cause issues of course, but it was definitely worth it, we were all happier on less. My daughters wanted me there with time to listen to them and do things with them and not my mind preoccupied with other stuff. Less outings, activities and general "stuff" worked just fine, I explained it to them just the once when they both wanted to do different fairly expensive days out and were arguing over it, I said we could do both but not in the same week as now mummy didn't work like she used to there wasn't the spare money to do so much and one would have to be next week. They went away and talked about it and came back with their decision about what would happen when. And we were all fine from that point on. They were about 10 at the time. I was amazed at how much money had been frittered away on very little once we started this new way of doing things.

Good luck!

We did it. (Hence username from ages ago now)

Left London and highly paid jobs for rural Worcestershire when our kids were tiny. We knew no one but houses were cheap to rent and found a gorgeous Victorian villa with huge garden, views and near to nice towns with great amenities.

I took unpaid parental leave 6 months and rented our London house out moved into a beautiful rural rental at a fraction of what my tenants were paying (I rented each room separately) as a way of trialling the non-working rural lifestyle then after 6 months my firm was obliged to offer me a comparable position but there weren't any so got made redundant, sold the London house and bought a house in a small rural town where we knew no one but schools were good and through the kids we made great friends.

(I later divorced my kids' dad and got a fairy junior corporate position having had a ten year career gap - worked my way up over a number of years I'm now in a leadership position with older teens who are fairly self sufficient so business travel and long hours don't affect them. We've stayed in the rural county they grew up in but I've downshifted the house to fit my single full time working lifestyle)

We had zero money when our kids were young . One low salary. It was very, very hard. I’ll never not appreciate rebuilding my career, the money and self esteem that gives me and quality of life I can now offer my children as they go through the expensive teenage / university years.

i would say be very sure this is what you actually want before jumping.

I stopped it all very early on in my career, as I knew I wasn't cut out for it. I am self-employed and can control how much I work. I might work hard for a couple of weeks and earn quite a lot of money, enjoy the adrenaline, but also the stress then mounts and I know that I can slow work down the next week, or month. I earn 60+k part time, and can increase it if needed. However there is always guilt in my mind that I could work full time and earn more for the family, as there have been times when we really didn't have enough money and that is obviously very stressful and I wouldn't want to go back to that. It has taken me a long time to learn to turn work down to keep a good balance, and this is an internal battle that I have a lot of the time. It just isn't maintainable for me though, and I know years are passing and I really appreciate being able to have time with my family. You'll never get these years back. We don't have to watch the money at the moment, which is great, but having lived on much less I do agree with a previous poster who said you don't need so much to live on. Things can be adjusted (although I don't mean this to sound the way it does, as I know many people live in poverty and they can't cut back any more- I have been on that line).

If you can be mortgage free it's very liberating to downsize and escape. However, if you are used to having lots of disposable income/holidays/going to theatre etc you might find it really tough. Rural areas can be very isolated, not many opportunities for the kids, rubbish public transport etc. the pandemic seems to have made this worse and the cost of fuel is making things very tricky. Think about your support network/family too - can you still be near them? If you think through worse case scenarios and still want to do it I would say go for it and good luck x

Just doing Sunday jobs but really appreciate responses so far and will reply shortly, thank you

Single mum. Similar situation. You need to plough tons of money behind you in order to not make a change and be miserable after the initial glow has worn off. Mortgage free in a house with low running costs. Money in the bank for new car if necessary. Emergency travel etc. Burn out with little resources is worse than burn out with an income. You need to have an exact ideaof how dp contributes financially in your life.

If you quit the rat race and sold your house now, how much money would be left after your house was sold?

Also don't underestimate the 4 day reprieve.

What level are you? Have you reached partner/ap or you think you would soon? I think if you can stick around for that it makes a lot of difference and your network.

I don't have any personal experience, but from people around me: depending on your industry you can join a small consulting firm part time. A few people I know started a tiny strategy consulting firm and they are all partners working on day rates from a few days a month upwards

Same situation here. I'm probably older though so im focussing on retiring at 60 instead.

I feel that if I step off the treadmill things could go wrong very quickly so I darent do it without building more of a safety net.

It sounds like a good plan, but 'something entirely different' is too vague-decide what you want to do to generate income and research setting-up costs, how much you could expect to earn and how quickly the money would come in.

It's a tough one, having had a parent with the big job I would swap some of the luxuries for spending more time with them.

I deliberately didn't go into that field as I knew it wouldn't be healthy for me nor want I wanted. However I did chose another field & ended up leaving that. Plus it's very common for people in the city to burn out.

Obviously being widowed will impact on how you feel security wise & it's understandably you want to protect your dc.

Is there something else you could do eg that earns less but still well with more control.

I'm taking a sabbatical from work soon to work out 'what next'. Is that an option in your workplace?

Does it have to be all or nothing?

What is it that's actually causing your stress? Is it how your employer treats you? The type of industry you're in? The fact you're working full time? Before you chuck it all in, I think it's worth considering if there's anything else you could change (e.g. changing employer, dropping a day). DP was all ready at one point to completely retrain and change jobs. I suggested he stick with it but move to another company. He did, and never looked back. New employer is a much better fit for his working style and a lot less stress and hours for him even though the pay is similar.

Left Big Job in financial services. Moved to rural south west. Had no money and limited career prospects for 10 years. Just getting back up to where I was before. Not going to say "no regrets", especially when I see the jobs/lifestyles some of my former colleagues have but on balance I made the right choice.

It's easier to work remotely now but rural property is £££. No way I could afford my house now.

@CrotchetyQuaver

Mortgage about 100k left. No school fees. Relationship is secure BUT any period of time with DP picking up the slack would be extremely limited as I must be financially independent, would never rely on a man.

@CormoranStrike

Probably about 550k.

Very fortunate I know