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Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

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Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#41

Post by duskdozer »

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #38

Can anyone share their experience with such 1+ month "vacations", while having a family with wife and 2+ kids? It's cool to read about author's experiences with travelling and making new friends abroad, but that's only possible if you live alone with no dependent people. I know if I took such vacation today, all the 8h of time gained daily would be just sucked out by my kids and everyone around.

I guess the hope would be that you want to spend more time with your family and not see it as time being "sucked out"

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#43

Post by PaulRobinson »

I'm currently weighing up a sabbatical (3 months), for a bunch of reasons.

A vacation (or holiday, or PTO, or whatever you call it locally), is great, but normally too short to properly reset. I often come back thinking "I could do with another couple of those right now". The main purpose for those for me is to travel and get away from home for a week or two and experience new things.

What I'm more excited about is taking a few months to basically do very little. Read, walk, no alarms in the morning, no Sunday night anxiety, no wishing it was Friday. Just wake up, do what feels right, don't work, don't do anything.

I'm in my late 40s, I have chronic health issues, and have symptoms of burn out, so even this might feel "too short", but I think it's such a valuable experiment to try, it's got to be done.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#44

Post by ryanschneider »

jawns wrote: post #26

Here in the U.S., the idea of taking even a few weeks off between jobs as a way to refresh oneself is a real luxury because of the way health insurance is tied to employment. I have wanted to do this each time I've left a job, but a lapse in health insurance would have been too risky for my family, and COBRA is too expensive to be anything other than an option of last resort. So, the most time I've had between jobs o…

The trick I learned from a kind manager is to make your last day something early in the month and your first day on the new job the last week of the same month. In short if your time off doesn’t actually cross a month boundary your old insurance will still be in effect.

Just make sure when doing so you don’t work at the sort of place that’ll let you go as soon as you put in your notice.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#46

Post by derf_ »

ryanschneider wrote: post #44
jawns wrote: post #26

Here in the U.S., the idea of taking even a few weeks off between jobs as a way to refresh oneself is a real luxury because of the way health insurance is tied to employment. I have wanted to do this each time I've left a job, but a lapse in health insurance would have been too risky for my family, and COBRA is too expensive to be anything other than an option of last resort. So, the most time I've had between jobs o…

The trick I learned from a kind manager is to make your last day something early in the month and your first day on the new job the last week of the same month. In short if your time off doesn’t actually cross a month boundary your old insurance will still be in effect. Just make sure when doing so you don’t work at the sort of place that’ll let you go as soon as you put in your notice.

You also have 60 days from when your coverage ends to elect to enroll in COBRA, and for many plans coverage is retroactive to when your original coverage ended (although you have to pay premiums retroactively, too). That gives you close to 3 months between intentional job changes where there is health insurance available if you need it, but you do not have to pay for it if you do not need it.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#47

Post by sbinnee »

I am involuntarily in a mini retirement. The very previous job turned out to be a disaster. I have been enjoying this opportunity by traveling a lot with my partner, exercising a lot more, meeting old friends, visiting family, playing unfinished games, and reading novels a lot. It’s been great. But there is always a certain pressure back in my mind for my career forward. I wonder if it’s become more or less common to hop between jobs every two to three years. I cannot see myself staying in a company for a decade long. Maybe it’s just because I was always working for startups, rather intense environments.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#48

Post by nocoolnametom »

jawns wrote: post #26

Here in the U.S., the idea of taking even a few weeks off between jobs as a way to refresh oneself is a real luxury because of the way health insurance is tied to employment. I have wanted to do this each time I've left a job, but a lapse in health insurance would have been too risky for my family, and COBRA is too expensive to be anything other than an option of last resort. So, the most time I've had between jobs o…

For many years I often wondered why wealthy American capitalists (except for the ones in insurance, obviously) didn't actively promote socialized medicine that would free their companies from having to provide health insurance to their employees: it'd be better for their bottom line, wouldn't it? Healthier workforce, lower expenses per headcount, etc. I figured it must just be a generational thing from those who grew up during the Red Scare to distrust anything "socialized."

It's been in recent years, though, that I have come to see that it's still _very_ much in their interest to have employees who already have a job to feel _scared_ to leave it. I don't think this is an organized operation, there's no annual meeting of US company HR departments who scheme about it, I doubt it's something actively thought about by many people very often, but all the same the loss of corporate-provided insurance would do _so much_ to loosen the fears that keep people working for jobs that it would no doubt have a _large_ effect on the economy and every company. The biggest effect would be that it'd be extremely simple to leave a low-paying job to seek a higher wage if you have just enough saved up to cover rent and living expenses for the interim.

As such, it finally makes sense to me why so many of the wealthy choose not to lobby for socialized medicine or even to actively fund lobbying against it even if they're not involved in the insanely-powerful for-profit health industry themselves or to lobby in other countries to weaken/dismantle/destroy their existing systems (yes, I know that with an aging population costs of care are getting higher everywhere, but a lot of the funding issues with UK NHS and Canada Medicare are also political in origin): it weakens labor and wages more than they ever have to spend on insurance.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#49

Post by KptMarchewa »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #24
herbst wrote: post #12

Anyone NOT doing this between jobs?

In-between jobs you are stressed to find the next job, that's not a good background for vacation.

It's not in-between, it's unemployment.

What the OP likely meant, is leaving a gap between leaving a job and starting next one. It's usually easier to push employment date by a month than getting a month-long vacation after starting the job.

Re: Mini retirements: like a sabbatical, but much smaller

#50

Post by KptMarchewa »

aintnoprophet wrote: post #35
jawns wrote: post #26

Here in the U.S., the idea of taking even a few weeks off between jobs as a way to refresh oneself is a real luxury because of the way health insurance is tied to employment. I have wanted to do this each time I've left a job, but a lapse in health insurance would have been too risky for my family, and COBRA is too expensive to be anything other than an option of last resort. So, the most time I've had between jobs o…

I have a hard time seeing the ability to change jobs every 3-5 years effectively. Last year I got laid off and it took me >6 months to find a new job. Yes, that time off was amazing (like a vacation) but in IT the market is hard right now at best.

It's easier to find a new job when you already have one.
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