Start living on the smaller salary now - see how it feels to cut the luxuries, squirrel away the rest into savings. I’ve been to a colleague’s ‘demotion party’

Start living on the smaller salary now - see how it feels to cut the luxuries, squirrel away the rest into savings. I’ve been to a colleague’s ‘demotion party’ from team lead to IC in another office - they had no regrets. Be prepared for employers to be nervous about employing you - some will be worried about you being too big a flight risk because you might still have an open door to senior PM roles. So plan to manage that fear on their side.