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The other advice is rather sensible but I'll go ahead and support this point. I'm at a $22/hr help desk job on the phone for 90% of the day and every morning p

The other advice is rather sensible but I'll go ahead and support this point. I'm at a $22/hr help desk job on the phone for 90% of the day and every morning pray that I don't end up getting killed by a moron on the freeway going to a job I vehemently dislike. I'm only there to buffer my savings while studying and working towards something else but even if it goes to shit I know I have other options (this being in my early 30s and having been unemployed prior). Having money in the bank and real estate gives you MANY MORE options in terms of a worse case scenario. OP honestly might just need a break (I like the sabbatical idea) and/or long periods of time to think about themselves and what they want vs reacting. Don't let anxiety get the best of you, especially in terms of making drastic moves. Off the cuff, it might even be a good idea to check in with a therapist. Even being relatively cash-conscious, I found seeing a therapist on a sliding scale for a couple months while unemployed to be extremely helpful.

DubiousPusher 9y ago
I think if you want to view your life as an economic asset then the advice on offer in most of this thread is pretty good. If you want to view your life as anything more than that it's completely insane. Think about this. The only really good thing about making lots of money is it gives you freedom. And what people in this thread are saying is this person makes too much money to be free to change their life because of "opportunity cost". Then what's the point of getting rich at all!? I love economics. It's totally fascinating to me, the way money can be seen to behave like physics in many ways. But it's not physics and seeing everything in terms of Econ 101 island economies breaks down eventually. Think about it this way. The advice in this thread would say that you could quit your job whenever because of the low opportunity cost of $22/hour. But whose life is going to get more messed up by quitting their job today? Yours or this person with 1.1 in the bank? And if you need any time at all to answer that question you need to burn your PhD in Econ right now, move to a small apartment in a working class neighborhood and live in the real world for a couple years.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  I'm not sure we're disagreeing here. Maybe I read some of the thread wrong - most of them seem to be saying "you have money - you have options. take a break, do something else, etc". Then there are the FIRE people kinda saying 'suck it up and get true independence' and the like. Maybe I was tired and my comment didn't come across as intended. I was intending to say "I'm much poorer than you and still, due to my personal circumstances - white, American, passport, etc, have options so OP, in seemingly far far better circumstances has far, far more options"
  - DubiousPusher 9y ago
    Gotchya.

DubiousPusher 9y ago

I think if you want to view your life as an economic asset then the advice on offer in most of this thread is pretty good. If you want to view your life as anything more than that it's completely insane. Think about this. The only really good thing about making lots of money is it gives you freedom. And what people in this thread are saying is this person makes too much money to be free to change their life because of "opportunity cost". Then what's the point of getting rich at all!? I love economics. It's totally fascinating to me, the way money can be seen to behave like physics in many ways. But it's not physics and seeing everything in terms of Econ 101 island economies breaks down eventually. Think about it this way. The advice in this thread would say that you could quit your job whenever because of the low opportunity cost of $22/hour. But whose life is going to get more messed up by quitting their job today? Yours or this person with 1.1 in the bank? And if you need any time at all to answer that question you need to burn your PhD in Econ right now, move to a small apartment in a working class neighborhood and live in the real world for a couple years.

JBlue42 9y ago
I'm not sure we're disagreeing here. Maybe I read some of the thread wrong - most of them seem to be saying "you have money - you have options. take a break, do something else, etc". Then there are the FIRE people kinda saying 'suck it up and get true independence' and the like. Maybe I was tired and my comment didn't come across as intended. I was intending to say "I'm much poorer than you and still, due to my personal circumstances - white, American, passport, etc, have options so OP, in seemingly far far better circumstances has far, far more options"
- DubiousPusher 9y ago
  Gotchya.