Comment by gwbas1c
10 hours ago
I once quit a job because it was toxic. At the time, I was saving so I could start a business, but the environment became so toxic that I needed to walk out much earlier than planned.
My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months. By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else, I hadn't taken too much out of savings. I also had straightened out my head quite a bit, so I was able to figure out what kind of salaried jobs made me happy. (And paid enough for me to live a good life and save.)
I really encourage you to see if there's a way to adjust your finances so you can live more cheaply, save, and then live off of your interest for a period of time to get your head straightened out.
> My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months.
I can't think of a period in which markets did that well. (And "interest" is a strange term here.) Were you leveraged, or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
> or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
The market went up much faster than I originally estimated. Basically, I got lucky.
I quit my job in 2009, right when the massive bull market started. I had a bunch of stocks and mutual funds that I planned to sell in order to support myself.
Which I did: What happened was that my stocks and mutual funds appreciated faster than I spent them. (If I hadn't sold them, they would have doubled or tripled in value over the 18 month period.)
For example: The day after the iPad came out, I sold my Apple stock at a nice profit to pay my expenses for a month.
Ironically, if I had stayed at work as long as I planned, I probably would have had even more runway. (But then I wouldn't have landed the awesome job that I got when I went back to a salaried job in 2011.)
>By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else
This took me about two decades and two companies to discover, about myself.
Good timing and luck have also given me a much longer runway than I ever anticipated having. Mostly just need to work for my sanity and health benefits (at this point).