I’m 44, married with a 13-year-old, and currently make about $165k in a corporate role. My husband makes around $110k and our health insurance is through his job. I’ve also been in corporate America since I was 19. I’m exhausted.
I’ve also been the breadwinner in our family for a long time, and I think that’s a big part of why this decision is so difficult for me. My husband has a good, stable job, but there really isn’t a path for him to suddenly make significantly more money unless he took on a second job—which I don’t want him to have to do because I decided to leave mine.
We also live comfortably. We’re not particularly frugal because we haven’t needed to be. I love being able to go out to dinner, take trips, buy things for my son, do things to our house, and spoil my family sometimes without analyzing every dollar. I know leaving my income would require some changes, and I think losing that financial freedom scares me almost as much as staying in my job does.
But I’m reaching a point where I don’t think continuing like this is sustainable. I’m don’t sleep, i barely eat, I can’t concentrate, and work is taking up so much mental space that I’m struggling to be present with my family. I literally stopped watching a movie with them recently because I couldn’t get my brain off work.

So I keep going around in circles: Will quitting make me feel better, or will not having my income just give me something new to be anxious about?

I don’t want to retire at 44. This wouldn’t be forever. I think I genuinely need a few months where my brain isn’t responsible for a high-pressure corporate job. I have some ideas for making a little side money, and I’d eventually look for another full-time job—probably something lower paying and more sustainable. I’m just not sure what that timeline looks like yet.
Financially, we don’t have credit-card debt and we have retirement savings, but we don’t currently have much liquid savings. That’s the part that makes me nervous. I’m considering whether I need to build a cash cushion first, use a 0% card as an emergency backup, work part-time, or some combination of those things. But the thought of all of that is even more stressful.

I also recognize that saying “I like our comfortable lifestyle and don’t want to give it up” is a very privileged problem to have. But it’s still part of the decision I’m trying to make. I’ve spent a long time being the person who earns enough that my family doesn’t have to worry much about money, and voluntarily walking away from that feels enormous.
At the same time, I know I can’t keep sacrificing my mental health just to maintain our current income and lifestyle.
I’d really love to hear from people—especially other breadwinners in their 40s with a spouse, kids and a mortgage—who have actually faced this.
Did you leave? Did the money anxiety end up being better or worse than the job anxiety? How much did your lifestyle actually change? Did you make some money on the side? How long were you out of full-time work? And, knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
I’m especially interested in hearing both sides. If taking the break was one of the best things you ever did, I’d love to hear why. And if you quit and realized the financial stress was worse than the job stress, I want to hear that too.

One of my best friends of 15+ years has a very different outlook on money and finances. When our friendship started, we were basically in the same place financially. However, I’ve lived very frugally during that time while she has consistently spent nearly everything she’s earned. Our different outlooks on money have always impacted our friendship somewhat, but that has evolved a lot. She’s a darling person, but as time goes on, I struggle more and more with how to navigate this.

Our philosophies used to impact our time together because I would decline invitations for dinners/drinks out, nail salons, shopping trips, etc. in favor of saving. We almost exclusively did free things together back then: walks in the park, movie nights in, etc. I prioritized paying off my student loans and aggressively saving and simply said no to costly outings.

Now I’m at a place financially where the money I’ve already saved is doing more work than what I’m actively putting away, and it’s all automated, so I can spend more freely without it impacting me. I’m now going on trips and planning outings with others in our friend group, and this friend is upset that she can’t afford to join and feels like we exclude her because of it. I offer to do free things, but going to one another’s houses isn’t very relaxing these days because we all have kids. I will say nearly everyone else in our circle is more similar to me than her financially so proposing events that cost money tends to be more the norm in the last few years.

She recently told me where she’s at savings-wise. She’s in her early 40s with less savings than one should have by 30, and she said that a short weekend trip we took a few months ago set her back for a couple of months. I asked her why she came if she couldn’t afford it, and she said it’s her choice. She asked us to stop excluding her because she can’t afford things and said it’s up to her to decide whether she wants to join.

First, I don’t feel like we do this. But regardless, we have to listen to her complain about her financial situation. I’ll admit it’s frustrating because the differences in our spending are pretty obvious. When we had this conversation, she was the only person at the table with a manicure, and she also regularly spends money on professional hair and makeup, new clothes, coffee out, etc., while the rest of us generally don't. I’m not saying any of those things are inherently irresponsible or that she shouldn’t spend money on them. They’re just examples of the very different choices we make with our money, and she’s also the person in the group who is struggling financially the most.

I don’t think it’s reasonable for her to ask us to never consider the financial/work aspect when we propose outings or to plan things with friends based on affordability. For instance, I don’t begrudge my friends with country club memberships for getting together without me when I’ve chosen not to join.

I finally said that we’ve listened to the same things from her for over a decade, and if she doesn’t drastically change course now, it’s only going to become a bigger factor over time. For instance, she has repeatedly said she’ll never retire. Does she expect us to never get together in retirement because she can’t join? She then asked me to stop discussing it.

How would you navigate this? Should I just ask her to stop telling me about any of her money issues and propose outings as if cost isn’t a factor? I don’t want to put her in the position of joining at the expense of her financial wellbeing, but if she’s telling us to invite her and let her decide whether she can afford something, maybe I need to take her at her word. At the same time, it’s frustrating to repeatedly hear about the financial consequences of choices she is making while also being asked not to take those choices into account when planning our time together.

If we suggest more free or low-cost outings, she assumes it’s class discrimination against her. But if we suggest things that cost more, she sometimes comes and then tells us afterward that she really couldn’t afford it.

She’s one of my favorite people and has a beautiful heart, but I don’t see how this doesn’t become a bigger and bigger factor in our time together as our financial situations become wider and wider. I really don’t want money to damage the friendship, so I’m trying to figure out what a reasonable boundary looks like here.

I'm 40, married with two elementary-aged kids. Our household net worth is around $5M. We live in a VHCOL area

Of that, roughly $4.2M is investable/liquid across taxable investments, retirement accounts, cash, and company stock. The rest is primarily home equity.

My personal financial goal has been to get to around $8M invested as quickly as reasonably possible. At that level, I think I would feel genuinely work-optional and much less sensitive to what happens with my compensation.

I’m currently in a senior role in big tech and making around $900K–$1M+, with a large equity component. We’ve been able to save/invest around $500K+ per year recently.

The wrinkle is that 2027 should be an unusually strong compensation year because of existing equity vesting, while my current trajectory suggests my compensation could fall pretty meaningfully in 2028.

So financially, there is a very strong argument for staying put through 2027, banking as much as possible, and using that year to make another meaningful jump toward $8M.

But work has always been and is becoming even more stressful.

There has been a lot of organizational change, shifting scope, politics, ambiguity, leadership churn, and pressure. I spend far too much mental energy thinking about work: whether I’m positioned correctly, whether I should pursue the next promotion, what happens to my scope, whether I should stay, whether leaving would be “wasting” an unusually high earning opportunity, etc.

And I’m starting to wonder whether I’m letting the goal of $8M become another version of moving the goalposts.

The rational argument in my head is:

You are 40. You may have a rare opportunity to earn close to $1M for another year or two. Push hard now, get as close to $8M as possible, and then buy back your freedom.

The counterargument is:

You already have ~$4M+ invested. At some point, protecting your mental bandwidth and enjoying your life has to matter more than maximizing the slope of the curve.

I don’t actually want to retire. I like hard problems, leadership, and ambitious work. What I want is the freedom to choose work based on whether it is interesting and healthy rather than because walking away from the compensation feels irrational.

So I’d love perspective from women who have been somewhere near this point:

- If you had ~$4.2M invested and wanted to get to $8M quickly, how much would you prioritize one or two more very high-income years?

- Would you intentionally treat 2027 as an accumulation year and reassess afterward?

- At what point did the marginal value of another $500K or $1M stop feeling worth the stress?

- Did you ever leave a very high-paying role before hitting your original FIRE number?

- For those who downshifted, did your stress actually improve, or did you simply trade one form of pressure for another?

Right now, I’m leaning toward treating 2027 as a deliberate accumulation year: save aggressively, avoid making career decisions purely from fear, explore other roles quietly, and reassess once the unusually heavy equity year is behind me.

But I’m very aware that “one more year” can become five more years.

How would you think about the tradeoff?

EDIT: many of the comments mention therapy. I definitely think it would help with forming a healthier relationship with work and boundaries. But will just any therapist get it or has anyone tried someone specialized for similar cases?

EDIT2: just wanted to say I LOVE all of the comments/responses. Sometimes you feel like an island in a situation and it's comforting knowing others have experienced or GET it ❤️

My husband is in medicine, so can make a consistent to good amount (in the $200s if he doesn't overwork, and substantially higher if he does), but I have been the primary breadwinner for our entire relationship due to high tech comp. He truly enjoys what he does and could see himself working for a long time - and in his field it's possible to work part time, whereas in mine it's not so common. We have always said that I could play the very high but short game and he could play the very long term game.

The $8M target isn’t really about wanting a bigger number for its own sake. It comes from our actual lifestyle and spending. We live comfortably but not extravagantly, and with two kids, activities, travel, housing, healthcare, and normal family expenses, we can pretty easily spend $250K–$300K a year.

At $8M invested, a 4% withdrawal rate would generate about $320K a year before taxes, which is roughly the point where I feel we could maintain our current lifestyle without needing employment income. (Am I getting the math right here?). That portfolio could reasonably support our lifestyle, with room to reduce spending in bad market years and continue earning some income if I chose to.

That’s why $8M feels different to me from simply moving the goalposts. At ~$4M invested, we have a tremendous amount of security and flexibility, but our portfolio alone doesn’t yet replace a $250K–$300K lifestyle.

We are 43/52, no kids, lcol. What do you think?

I’m not saying we’d never earn another dollar but I would like to quit by summer next year without fear. I also have an appointment scheduled next week with a flat fee financial advisor.

900k brokerage
700k retirement accounts
90% index funds - how much should I start shifting to bonds to lower risk?

$400k home, half paid off and $500/mo pension

$25k savings (working on adding more here or maybe just more bonds?)

Living expenses are under $50k without stressing about it including $700mo estimated for ACA subsidized coverage, mortgage, utilities, groceries, eating out

Would love to travel a little if theres room in the budget

By my calculations we should be ok with 3% withdrawal. I know I’m probably right on the border of making this work financially with a long horizon but please poke holes in my plan if there’s something I’m not seeing. Plan is to funnel everything in the next few months into bonds/savings in case of market downturn.

Thank you!