Quote Originally Posted by li10up
I took the suggestion I saw here and borrowed the book, Your Money or Your Life, from the library. This is a VERY good book. It still doesn't answer my questions though. Even though there is a chapter on How Much Is Enough it takes a lot of record keeping to come to that conclusion. I'm looking for answers - now. That's probably my problem. Plus no answer fits everyone, of course.

So let me revise my original question. How can I quite the rat race for just one year? I really don't want to stay in the I.T. field even though the money is good. I just don't enjoy it. So, I'd like to take a year off. I want to spend 6 months of it thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and the other 6 months just riding my bike, decompressing and "finding myself." I still don't know what I want to do with my life. Anyone else out there in their 40s and still not know what they want to do for a living? It's embarrassing and frustrating!


Check out www.cheapskatemonthly.com there is a fee to join (minimal) but they have great discussion forums and lots of people and advise and great stories about many different financial situations etc.