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I’m a few months into a mid-career break. I’m exercising, playing with kids, writing, studying, and sleeping (8 hours/night!). I’m also depleting savings, but n

I’m a few months into a mid-career break. I’m exercising, playing with kids, writing, studying, and sleeping (8 hours/night!). I’m also depleting savings, but not as quickly as I projected. Now that I have time, I fix broken things rather than replace them. I take time to research things really well before purchasing, so make few mistakes and get good deals. Each dollar I spend is a few minutes sooner that I need to return to employment (if the projects I’m tinkering with aren’t yet revenue-generating), which motivates frugality. We lowered our costs significantly right before I left work. We moved to a small but adequate house in the far suburbs. My mortgage is about one-eight the mortgage of peers in my profession at my level, even when I include the rent I pay now for a tiny personal office nearby. Chen, featured in the article, was one inspiration to take the plunge. I found his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband, Sabbatical, September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life in Boston and lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle.” I liked that. Ideally I emerge from this period with a sustainable business of my own, but even if I return to working for others, as long as I have an interesting, compelling story about what I was up to during my time off, and how it made me better - which I will - I doubt the period will cost me much (if anything) in interview terms, and it may benefit me. Glad to read the experiences of others here who did this and didn’t regret it. If there are people who took time off and did regret it or have advice about how (not) to spend the time, would love to read that too.

varjag 10y ago
> I found his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband, Sabbatical, September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life in Boston and lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle.” Honestly it sounds more along the lines of a usual stay at home dad, the location notwithstanding. The only reason they moved there was wife's origin and offer of employment. If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would call that 'sabbatical'.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would call that 'sabbatical'. Because a sabbatical means that for a limited time you will do something different that you always wanted to do and go back to the job afterwards. Not cultivating a new hobby which will distract you from your job for the next, say, 15 years.
  - varjag 10y ago
    That would be a lot more convincing if his sabbatical wasn't around the in-laws. There's nothing wrong with paternity leave, maybe that's a stigma on resume in the States though?

varjag 10y ago

> I found his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband, Sabbatical, September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life in Boston and lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle.” Honestly it sounds more along the lines of a usual stay at home dad, the location notwithstanding. The only reason they moved there was wife's origin and offer of employment. If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would call that 'sabbatical'.

wolfgke 10y ago
> If you reverse the genders it happens all the time, just that no one would call that 'sabbatical'. Because a sabbatical means that for a limited time you will do something different that you always wanted to do and go back to the job afterwards. Not cultivating a new hobby which will distract you from your job for the next, say, 15 years.
- varjag 10y ago
  That would be a lot more convincing if his sabbatical wasn't around the in-laws. There's nothing wrong with paternity leave, maybe that's a stigma on resume in the States though?