Personal Finance

I'm 46 and recently lost my $200k job. I have $3 million saved - can I afford to be picky about my new job?

Christy Bieber

Published: February 25, 2025 10:02 am

Losing a job is never fun, but if you have $3 million in the bank, at least you have a financial cushion. This is the situation one Reddit user has found himself in. He’s 45 years old and he earned $200,000 at his last job, plus had the potential to earn a $60,000 bonus. He was let go from that position, leaving the family with his wife’s $55,000 income to live on.

While he has a substantial investment account balance, he’s not ready to retire yet and he wants to keep earning and saving so he can leave work in a decade with a huge nest egg.  The big issue he is grappling with now is that he can’t find a job he’s excited about.

He’s been offered some jobs with income similar to his last position but he isn’t thrilled about any of them, so he’s not sure if he should accept one or keep looking and wait for the right one — even though there’s a risk that his job search could drag on for a long time, making it impossible to invest and causing him to lose out on the compound interest he could have earned.

So, what’s the best course of action? Should he accept a job he isn’t passionate about, or can he afford to be more picky given his high net worth?

Is finding a job you love more important than retiring early?

The Redditor is the only one who can decide whether to accept an OK job so he can invest more for the future, or whether to delay or even derail his goals of early retirement by waiting to find the perfect job. 

Ultimately, the answer to this question will come down to what’s most important to him. If he truly wants to get rich in the next decade so he can retire at 55 with a ton of money, he doesn’t have time to waste. A $3 million nest egg is a good amount of money and is more than most people have, but if he adopts a 3.7% withdrawal rate, that nest egg is only going to produce $111K a year to live on. That’s not exactly the lavish lifestyle the Redditor seems to be dreaming about. 

Taking the job he’s not thrilled with, investing aggressively, and focusing on the future could be the way to go if he decides that he’s OK with his career being kind of boring for a while. On the other hand, if he wants to love and be excited about his last decade of work — and he’s willing to potentially put off early retirement for a little extra time if necessary — he should not accept an imperfect job and instead should take time to explore options.

With the $3 million providing him a safety net, he isn’t at risk of going hungry, losing his home, or facing other dire consequences of being unemployed. Having to retire rich at 56 or 57 instead of at 55 isn’t the worst fate in the world — especially if he does manage to find a job he loves. 

Accepting a boring job while continuing to job hunt

The other potential option that’s on the table for the Redditor is to accept one of the jobs he isn’t that excited about but continue to look for better work. That way, he’d have income coming in right away but wouldn’t have to give up his chances at his dream job.

The downside of this, of course, is that it can be harder to job search when you are already working. Companies who interview you and who see you just got hired elsewhere could be wary of your plan to jump ship so fast. You might also burn your bridges with the company you use as a stop-gap until you find the better work. 

Still, there are ways to do this responsibly such as looking for part-time, freelance, or consulting work to keep earning without making a big long-term commitment. The Reddit user should look into these options to see if any of them could work for him as that would allow him to both retire early and hopefully find meaningful work to do until then.