As always, The Motley Fool cannot and does not provide personalized investing or financial advice. This information is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional financial advice. Always seek the guidance of a qualified financial advisor for any questions regarding your personal financial situation. If you'd like to submit your question for feedback, you can do so here.
A Reddit user posted a problem recently. He is 41 years old and has a $10 million nest egg, including a 401(k), around $9 million in liquid cash in low-risk mutual funds, and a home with $1.7 million in equity in it. He's also making between $1.5 million and $3 million per year after overhead.
41(m) $10m NW burnout. What to do.
byu/noob_master8 infatFIRE
Looking at his numbers, it seems like he is living the dream life. But that's where the problem comes in.
The poster is burned out at his job and is very tired of the daily grind. He doesn't want to do it anymore, but he also needs $500,000 per year to maintain his lifestyle, which he wants to continue. He's looking for some advice on options to make his life easier.
Fortunately, there are solutions that he can consider to improve his current situation.
Image source: Getty Images.
What can you do if you have a $10 million net worth, but you're unhappy with your life situation?
Having $10 million in the bank and a huge income seems like a problem most people would love to have, but the poster has made a lot of commitments that lock him into working in a very high-paying job. He has two kids in private school, so he is paying almost $100,000 in annual tuition; he has $165,000 in mortgage payments; and he's spending $250,000 per year on other costs, which he says "goes very fast if you take two vacations a year."
It's fine for someone making over $1 million to have these kinds of spending numbers, but the problem comes when, like this poster, you get burned out with your busy job but can't quit because of the lifestyle you've become accustomed to have.
The poster really can't get out of the rat race now without a drastic downgrade to his living standard because even the $10 million he has saved would not be enough to get him $500,000 per year in annual spending. In fact, with $9 million in investments accessible to him right now, he would fall far short at $360,000 per year, assuming he followed the 4% rule.
This doesn't mean the poster has no options, though. The good news is that he is currently running his own law firm, so he has one great potential solution that could help him fight burnout: He could delegate. In fact, a number of Redditors suggested hiring a law firm manager or associate attorneys to help him run the firm so he could eliminate some of his daily work.
While the poster said he has to be actively involved with his firm, finding someone to take some of the tasks off his hands could alleviate a good amount of his stress. And he may end up being surprised to find that he really doesn't have to do everything on his own, even if it feels that way.
The poster could also look for options to bring in more passive income so he could live partly off the money that his investments earn and partly off his pay. This could allow him to cut back on his work hours while maintaining his standard of living.
A big lifestyle can often require big sacrifices
Although the poster said he was feeling burned out and trapped by his expenses, he also indicated he wanted to make some changes, such as buying a second home or a boat, that would add even more expenses to his bottom line.
He may be in a position to afford that, given his income and savings, but it would also mean he becomes even more committed to staying at his job since he would have more monthly expenses, and the money he spent on the second home or boat would put him further away from being able to afford to retire compared with investng the money instead.
Ultimately, the poster is going to have to decide what's more important to him: reducing his work stress or continuing to live lavishly. While he could cut his workload by hiring someone, he would be giving up some of his money to pay their salary. On the other hand, while he could buy the boat and a second home, he would be giving up more financial freedom. Only he can decide which he values more: the lavish lifestyle or the ability to cut back on work and live at a slower pace.
But he should consciously think through that choice, since his post suggests he's not entirely happy with the decisions he's made so far on that issue.
