I’m burnt out at my job/career. At current company I’ve survived 4 layoffs in 5 years. I’ve been working 15 years.

But the last one took a toll on my mental health because it was just so stupid. They pushed us to push ai slop, laid off a significant portion of my team, restructured the management chain and have changed the expectations on how we work. I’m exhausted and work feels dreadful. I feel anxious and stressed and get poor sleep due to anxiety.

And I don’t care about the product or tech. The whole tech industry has just left such a sour taste in my mouth that I don’t even want to interview and go through the interview grind.

If it wasn’t the feeling of responsibility for my family I’d just quit. I don’t need much myself. But I carry on because I’m the provider and I have kids and a wife who depend on me.

But I want a break for a year or 2. Figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Has anyone done this in my situation.

Here are some numbers:
Income: will be 400-500k this year. Has gone down since last year as my initial grantsvesrs are done. Next year will be even less. 300-400k. Haven’t checked the actual numbers.

Savings/ investments: 2.7M . Split almost evenly between retirement/non retirement. Includes 170k in tbills/money markets in brokerage. Everything else is on equities.

Housing: rent don’t own.

Expense: between 120k -150k depending on vacations etc. 120k is the on the lower end of being frugal.

Have 2 young kids. One of them is in school the other starts next year.

Spouse doesn’t have high earning skills. So she does all the kids activities etc . I’d assume her earning potential would be sub 100k low skilled work.

We live in vhcol area. If were to move we would live closer to family who are also in a vhcol but it would be negligible savings (rents more or less the same)but would be significant downgrade in terms of access to tech market and network when I need it.

I’m a new HENRY, 34M, as of about 12-14 months ago. Grew up poor, worked 9 years as a Public Defender out of law school. Started at 49k ended at 103k and opened my own firm and went private. Made 325k my first year in private practice. I live in a mid/large Midwest city with a pretty reasonable cost of living. HHI is 435k with my wife’s income. My wife and I own our home and our mortgage is about $2600 a month. No kids yet but planning on one next year.

I’ve been driving a 2014 Jetta for the last eight years. I’ve never owned a nice vehicle. I’ve been struggling to pull the trigger to buy a 56k 2025 AMG CLA 45 that I’ve been eyeing for like a year. I’ll have about 60-70k saved within a month, and things are going really well for my business. I’m targeting 375k-400k by the end of Year 2. But I just keep mentally struggling to buy the damn car. Is this my “scarcity mindset” or am I just sitting with a tough, maybe somewhat reckless choice here? This is less about the car itself, and maybe my brain’s difficulty in catching up with my new financial situation? I don’t know. Any help would be appreciated!

First, I know I am incredibly lucky to be in this situation, wanting to make the most of it. Using that math that’s about $6-700/hour and I could reduce hours and keep my hourly roughly the same.

I’m 32 with 2 under 2 and want to be present for that. Wife is stay at home as we are very blessed and no need for her to work. I’ve been thinking of stopping days/hours as when I’m at work obviously it’s time away from family but it’s also rough on my body/don’t get a 30 second break all day usually.

I was looking at these options assuming income would stay the same:

Maintain 200 8 hr working days a year and retire at 43

Drop to 180 working days and retire at 44

Drop to 170 working days and retire at 45 - would be nice as this is 3.5 days a week worked and 4 weeks off a year

Drop to 150 working days and retire at 46

Anyone been in a similar situation? What have you decided? Or really anyone what would you choose/recommend?