How to quit your job and do nothing

How to quit your job and do nothing or to pursue your passion?

Quit your job to do nothing by evaluating your finances, creating a budget, and make a plan for living without a job. Save enough money to quit or take advantage of investments, side hustle income, and location arbitrage. Quit your job, but don’t neglect investing for retirement.

Imagine, quitting your job to do nothing all day or pursue your passion. Maybe you want to start a business or take a career break to travel.

Taking extended time off from work is common and provides many benefits.

Luckily for you, I’ll show you how to quit your job to do nothing. I’ll show you the things you need to consider and help you come up with a plan to quit your job. You’ll be able to pursue your passion in no time!

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How to quit your job and do nothing

Quit your job by evaluating your current financial situation and creating a budget. You will need a plan to live without a job, which can involve living on a lump sum, investments, side hustle income, or location arbitrage. Tell your boss you’d like to quit and give your two weeks notice. Don’t neglect your retirement savings for taking a career break.

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Evaluate your financial situation

You’ll need to take account of your financial situation before you quit your job if you’re not getting another job immediately. Look through your budget to estimate your monthly expenses and see how much money you have saved up. Your savings and monthly expenses will determine how long you can take off of work.

Ideally, you’ll have at least 3-6 months worth of expenses saved up. This will give you some time to live while you find work you’re more passionate about.

Obviously, the more money you have saved up, the easier it will be to take a career break.

Hopefully, you have a budget in place so you can easily look up your monthly expenses. A budget will also help you identify areas you can cut back on after you quit your job. 

For example, you might be spending $400 per month on restaurants. This $400 can be saved after quitting your job by foregoing eating out.

You can also look through your monthly bank transactions via online banking if you don’t have a budget. Look at your transactions for the last 12 months and average them out. This will give you an idea of how much money you spend every month.

After looking at your budget or bank statements, you determine you need $3,200 to maintain your current lifestyle. You currently have $19,200 saved up for a career break or 6 months of expenses. To make the same $19,200 stretch for 8 months, you need a monthly spending goal of $2,400.

Can you find a way to cut $800 per month from your current lifestyle? You may need to create a budget to live on while you are not working.

Make a plan for living without a job

How do you plan on living without a job? Some individuals live on their investments and others create a side hustle income. You can also take advantage of location arbitrage to find a lower cost of living area.

The most basic way to quit your job without another one lined up is to live on your savings. You take a temporary career break until your savings run dry. Hopefully, you’ll have enough time to relax and figure out what you want next in life.

Some individuals have enough in investments where they can cover their expenses. They sell off just enough to maintain a career break or have a frugal retirement. Basically, their investments are growing at a faster rate than they need to withdraw.

For example, the S&P 500 typically increases in value by about 10% on average. You estimate that you need $20k for your career break. A portfolio value of $200k would increase by $20k with a 10% return on investment, which could fund your time off.

Others may supplement their time off with side hustle income. You could have a side hustle bringing in $3,000 per month. This income, combined with your savings, could be enough to quit your job and do nothing for a while.

You can also take advantage of location arbitrage, where you move to a lower cost of living area. Some people move to countries where you can easily live on $1,000 to $2,000 per month. Other people might move from expensive city living to low cost small city life.

Simply put, location arbitrage means moving somewhere where your dollar goes further.

Just make sure all of your expenses are covered. You may lose your medical coverage if you leave your employer, so plan accordingly.

Save enough money

After having an idea of what your career break looks like, it’s time to save enough money if you don’t have it already. Creating a budget can help you save money faster to fund your jobless lifestyle. You should try to save extra money to use for emergencies or unexpected expenses.

You might be anxious to have a career break, but you need to save $15,000 before you can do so. Currently, you have $8,000 in savings and need to find a way to save another $7k.

Start by creating a budget if you don’t already have one. Your budget is going to provide you with the math behind your savings rate. For example, your budget will show that you earn $3,500 per month and can live on $2,800, saving $700 per month.

Saving $700 per month, you know you can take your career break in 10 months to save another $7k.

You can pick up a second job if you’re in a hurry to take time off of work. For example, picking up a temporary pizza route might net you an extra $800 per month in tips and salary. Now you’d be saving $1,500 per month, which cuts down your time to quitting to 4.5 months.

Provide two weeks notice

Give your boss two weeks notice when you have enough money to quit your job and do nothing. Technically, you are not required to give a two weeks notice, but it is considered the polite thing to do.

Politely quit your job

The best time to quit your job is on a Friday, right before the weekend. Mondays are often too stressful and quitting on Monday gives your boss one more thing to worry about. Do your best to quit politely, because you may work with your boss later or need the job again in the future.

Keep in mind, you might be able to negotiate time off instead of quitting. You can ask your boss how they would feel about letting you take a leave of absence. Then, you can take your job back when you are ready to return to work.

Don’t neglect your future

Quitting your job to do nothing sounds like a lot of fun and can be beneficial for mental health. However, the longer you take off without an income, the less money you can save for retirement. The less money you save for retirement, the harder it might be to actually retire.

It is much easier to front load your investments in your 20s and take a career break in your 40s than taking a career break in your 20s. Having a large portfolio balance early in life allows you to take advantage of compounding interest, letting your money grow.

For example, a 25 year old with $100k invested could never contribute to investments again and have $1.6 million in retirement. Reaching $100k at 35 instead would let you retire with $734k at age 60.

When investing, time is one of your greatest assets. Just make sure you keep your future in mind before you quit your job.

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Summary: How to quit your job and do nothing

As you can see, it is possible to quit your job and do nothing. You just need enough money to take a career break or the investments for an early or mini-retirement. Evaluate your finances, make a plan, save money, and provide your two weeks notice to quit.

Quitting your job is just a numbers game. You need to know your expenses and how much money you have saved or from other income sources. The amount of time you can take off depends on how much money you’ll have versus spending.

Some people live on a lump sum of savings, while others strategically use their investments to quit. You might also have a side hustle income to supplement losing your job. One of the biggest hacks to quitting your job is moving to a low cost of living area.