Career Change after 50:
Buying Back Your Options

Can I Afford to Quit?

There are two parts to that: what leaving actually costs, and then how much of that you truly need before the number stops looking really scary.

The bummer!

Most advice on this assumes you’re either retiring at 65 with a pension, or you’re 25 and can live on ramen for a year while you figure it out. We’re neither. There’s family/mortgage/tuition still to pay/responsibilities, and a lot less runway than most FIRE blogs assume. (FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early)

Options

This part of the site is where the math lives. Not whether to quit – that’s the harder, earlier question, and it sits a level up at Wealth After 50. This is:

  • What’s the real number once you’ve decided you want out?
  • How do you build toward it on purpose?
    (Rather than waiting for a layoff to make that decision for you)

What’s here?

  • Working out your actual number and the gap to it
  • What “coasting” toward it looks like instead of grinding harder
  • The timing decisions nobody explains well
    (Health insurance before Medicare is one that catches people out)
  • The bridge-income options between employed and financially free
    (because almost nobody jumps straight from one to the other)

I’m not a financial advisor, and none of this is financial advice. Anyone who gives you the exact number that sets you free without asking about your mortgage is guessing. What I can do is show my own math as I work through it, including corrections.

Articles

This is everything I’ve written on career change after 50 so far, newest first, with lots more to come.