Except it's not that realistic. I have more than that generating passive income and I still can't yet quit my job even though I live in moderate cost of living

Except it's not that realistic. I have more than that generating passive income and I still can't yet quit my job even though I live in moderate cost of living state. That COL is rising, especially insurance and upcoming education costs. I've been trying to work it out, but mostly I just need to add to the pile until the passive numbers work out better an do so reliably in good and bad years. $40K on $1M means you have to be 100% in risk assets (stocks). Technically, if you had your whole million in say, an S&P 500 index fund, you could probably safely withdraw 4%, e.g. $40K/year and still grow your principal "most years." You couldn't last year, though. I earned somewhere around $55K last year without lifting a finger except to judiciously manage the accounts (which takes around 1hr a day), file taxes (10-20hrs once a year), and manage few other things like the odd 401K rollover and what not. It takes the edge off of my main career, but I'm not ready to depend on just that side yet. Inflation is a cruel bitch, always moving the goalposts further away. My main "plan" is to ditch the coding job if I can find some $40-50K role someplace not in tech, but that would probably still have to be a 40hr/FTE deal so that doesn't give me any additional free time although it probably would be a hell of a lot less stressful. I'm weary of the stress and outsized corporate nonsense, but I still love tech. I'm open to any ideas.