Dear Quentin,
I’ve spent six years at a mostly miserable job where I have dealt with poor management and with a slacker, lying co-worker being promoted even after egregious behavior. All of this has led me to want to quit! It’s obviously a bit more complicated, but there’s too much to go into now.
I just turned 58. I have $1 million in a 401(k) and Roth IRA, but I feel like it’s not enough to retire, as I’ll need healthcare and I can’t collect Social Security until I’m at least 62, but I would prefer to wait until I’m 67.
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Please be kind in your response. The work situation has become unbearable and is especially sad because I love my work. It’s so unfair! I’ve been looking for a new job! But I am fed up and want to quit my current job.
Currently, I live comfortably on $5,000 a month, but I could probably live on $3,500 a month. I’m including expenses, rent and $800 a month that I’ll need to pay for my healthcare. Can I quit and be free? Or would it be a foolish move?
Halfway out the Door
Dear Halfway,
Quitting won’t bring you freedom — not financial freedom, at least.
Your original letter contained many words in all-caps and lots of exclamation points. That suggests to me that you are allowing your emotions to rule your world. It’s much easier to feel hard done by and frustrated with your current job and triggered by unfairness wherever you look when you have a monthly salary than when you no longer have one. If you pull the plug on your job, you will have disempowered yourself.
You could possibly retire on $1 million, but there’s no guarantee that it will last you for the rest of your life. Using the 4% rule — withdrawing 4% of your nest egg every year — you would take out $40,000, but you would still have to pay income tax on your 401(k) withdrawals, given that those contributions were made with pretax dollars. Contributions made to a Roth IRA, as you are no doubt aware, are after-tax.
Expectations are relative, but U.S. adults, on average, say they’ll need $1.46 million to retire comfortably, up 15% over the $1.27 million reported last year, according to a recent study by Northwestern Mutual. That increase far outpaces the current inflation rate of between 2% and 3%. People’s “magic number” for retirement savings has risen 53% from the $951,000 target Americans reported in 2020.
I’m telling you this as a reality check. You need to give yourself some breathing room. Hopefully, thinking about something other than who was given a promotion, why your job stinks and who does or doesn’t appreciate you will help you to put things in perspective. It’s a job. It’s also a golden ticket, even if it’s one that might stink from time to time, to get you where you want to go: the Retirement Land of the Financially Free.
Your life as an umbrella
Visualize your job as the handle of an umbrella and your life as the canopy. The handle is the stable part that holds all of that up. Your resentments about unfair management practices may be valid, but if you can exercise control over your feelings, they can change. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on our emotional relationship to work and made millions of people question how they spend their time.
The words of a boss often carry a power greater than those of most other people in our lives. Indeed, the quality of workplace leadership has a real impact on people’s mental health, according to a study released last year by the Workforce Institute at UKG, which provides research and education on workplace issues. The researchers interviewed 2,200 employees in 10 countries, in addition to 600 C-suite leaders and 600 human-resources executives in the U.S.
The day-to-day stress associated with office politics should be given the same attention as workplace burnout. Some 69% of workers said that the words and actions of their manager affected their mental health — the same percentage who said the same thing about their spouse or partner, and an even higher percentage than those who said their doctors (51%) or their therapists (41%) had an effect on their mental health.
The strong labor market is not rolling out the red carpet for everyone, particularly people over 50. Age discrimination is alive and well. And while the Labor Department recently reported an increase of 254,000 jobs in September, don’t expect that to last. MarketWatch reporter Jeffry Bartash wrote that the U.S. has produced an average of 169,000 jobs a month. Going forward, he wrote, “that’s probably closer to the mark.”
Your work situation may feel untenable, but unemployment could feel a heck of a lot worse.
More columns from Quentin Fottrell:
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