It's not just the pay...Killer benefits make a world of difference. Your 401k/IRA can be used for trading, but I would be very careful...Blood money. I wanted to retire in my late 40's. My wife would have nothing of it. The main thing that was holding me back was healthcare. But since the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), you can handle millions of dollars worth of bills from medical issues. Sheeee...Quit little secret people don't talk about. Doctors try to not take Obamacare people. In CA they have like up to 30 days to pay their bills...They don't. You'll get put on a list a year out, for specialist. Each state is different concerning medical...Know what you face first. Network with people (in your state) who are on their own with medical...Talk to a health insurance agent where you are, or where you want to be. A reduction in pay, less hours and keeping most of the benefits, would be the way to go if you could... I have money OK. But I became a union security guard for about 10 years. The pay was bad. But I had medical, dental, eye, 401k just my working an average of 24 hours per week. They wanted to pile on more...While I tried to work as little as possible and keep those benefits. Just saying...Look hard at benefits if/when you make the move.
Hello Jdesey, Trade and keep your job until you have +$2 million dollars cash in your broker account and all debt paid off. Then the answer or advice you are looking for will be EASY and you can answer it yourself. You must continue working your job, until you have $2 million cash in the bank. Keep it simple. Keep on clicking and keep your job and get rich, quickly.
Why don´t you create or buy just other asset that make you an income? If that income succeed your active income, then quit your job.
8 months more or less correlates with the recent epic surge in equities. To be ultra-cautious I'd wait for two full years of consistent profitability. The worst case scenario is you work another year and a bit and grow that 4 years of savings to 5-6; you also get closer to being able to draw Social Security and get on Medicare. What you don't want is to quit your job at 57, lose health benefits, and immediately get rugged into a nasty drawdown. On the other hand, if you have a spouse that works and gets health insurance then that reduces your risk by quite a bit.
You may want to watch the Steve Jobs video if you haven't. Time once passed, will never come back. You are 57, sounds like you never enjoyed your sales job. It is a terrible waste to spend more than half of your life doing something you don't enjoy. Life expectancy is about 77 years, every year you spend going forward is equivalent to a 5 % drawdown. I cannot predict if you can make it but I am confident you won't starve even if you fail. But it would be terrible when you are at the end of your life and regret you should have, could have..