
Ask HN: Should I cash out my 401K and try to get my dream job? - notarockstar
I&#x27;m a professional and conscientious engineer who loves developing software. I&#x27;ve been doing this for 13 years.
I&#x27;ve worked for a few small software companies, working on commercial software. I know I&#x27;m a great developer, but I think the fact that:<p>* I don&#x27;t have a GitHub profile,
* have not contributed to any OSS projects,
* don&#x27;t answer a ton of question on StackOverflow,
* cannot share any of the code I&#x27;ve worked on
* and so forth,<p>...are not helping in the search for my dream job. These are the things that seem to get people to show interest in a developer these days.<p>I have no time, (or I&#x27;m not allowed), to do any of these things while working full-time for an old-school software company. I&#x27;m considering cashing out my 401K to live on for the next 6 months and spending all of my time working on these types of things to make myself a more attractive candidate. This would really make me happy, but is quite a gamble given that I have a family.<p>Thoughts? Has anyone here done something like this?
======
patio11
Many of the world's best engineers don't have a Github / OSS contributions /
Stack overflow / etc. They're still quite hireable. It is highly likely you
are also hireable, even without a portfolio that you can conveniently point
to, although that would be an asset.

Do not cash out your retirement account. [Edit: Generic personal finance
advice for everyone: Unless your children will starve in the snow otherwise,
it is never a good time to cash out your retirement account. It will be very
tempting to tap it to pay for your wedding, your first home, a medical
emergency, your kids' college, etc etc, but if you do this, you will not have
it at retirement. This is far and away the largest risk associated with self-
directed retirement accounts.] It is not required to buy coffee for people
with the ability to hire engineers. Coffee is cheap and jobs are plentiful in
the current environment.

~~~
vkjv
Have all of my up votes. This. A thousand times this. The short answer is,
"no, do not cash out your 401k."

The long is answer, is that there is probably another way. Make it a goal and
put savings away for specifically that purpose. Find another job that may not
be your dream job is friendlier to out of the office work. Maybe consulting?

------
kirpekar
Absolutely not. You will have to pay taxes on withdrawals and a 10% early
withdrawal penalty. Depending on the size of the withdrawal, this will
immediately set you back 6-7 years of the 13 you contributed. If you have ~30
years to retire, even a small withdrawal will set you back by 10 years at
retirement. Run some basic compound interest calculations if you don't agree.

There are many other options: moonlighting, going part-time, reducing your
responsibilities at work, taking an unpaid sabbatical, etc.

~~~
ronaldx
> Run some basic compound interest calculations if you don't agree.

Make sure to include basic compound inflation because the figures given here
seem to be hyperbolic.

~~~
kirpekar
OK

100k principal, add 1k every month for 30 years. Compound at 7% --> 2M

50k principal, add 1k every month for 30 years. Compound at 7% --> 1.6M

Withdrawing 50k today costs you 400k in retirement

400k = 20% of 2M = 8 years of your 40 year career

~~~
ronaldx
Yes, you've failed to consider the time value of money.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money)

50k today is worth _more_ than 50k in the future.

(Consistent compounding at 7% is extremely optimistic, even before considering
inflation at 3%+).

------
eplanit
Listen to those here saying to NOT cash it out. I speak from experience. I
kept my startup afloat for almost a year by using up all my 401K savings. I
was in my mid-30s, and in that moment the worry of losing momentum on the
startup was so strong that I calculated the risk with a strong bias. To make a
long story short, the startup fizzled and I found myself in my late 30s with
no retirement whatsoever. That was a while ago, and the short-term issues
(being broke and with wind gone from the sails) cleared in about 2 years, and
my income is again quite fine, and the spirit lives on. However, I will likely
have to work until I die as a result of having no retirement savings. What has
been built back since the fallout will not be sufficient for a long-term
retirement. So now I work new strategies to transfer what I earn to safer
investments (real estate) in order to have some assets to liquidate later in
order to fund a retirement. All this said, it's not pathetic to me -- I made
my decision, and I'm living with it. I expect nobody to provide me any "safety
net" (that just wouldn't be genuine living). However, I would strongly
discourage anyone from following this same path.

------
rhizome
No, don't.

Wait...what? You want to cash out so you can create a GitHub profile and
answer SO questions? Just no.

On first pass I thought you were going to take the money and time to build
something. But not this. Here's my advice: don't get a dream job, get one that
makes you _happier_. Not "happy," not "happiest," not "dream job," just a bit
better, so you can have a _little_ more time to put stuff on GitHub and answer
questions on SO and spend time with your family. It's not just "dream job" and
"old-school software company."

------
nimblegorilla
Don't cash out your 401K.

I think you would be better off finding a sub-par non-dream job that lets you
work on things that bring you closer to achieving your real dream job. For
instance, if you are interested in javascript technologies you could try to
find a contract involving node or angular and become more active in the online
communities around those tools. After 3-6 months scope out the market with
your new skills/network and see what else is available.

------
seanmccann
If you are indeed a good engineer you could do all those things on a single
weekend:

1.) Sign up for GitHub, fork a project, and improve it

3.) Answer 2-5 hard questions on StackOverflow

4.) Profit

They just want to see your skill. You shouldn't answer "a ton of questions" on
StackOverflow. Just answer a couple hard ones. Somehow prove that you've
actually got stuff done over the last 13 years. There are programmers that
just started to learned the skill a few weeks ago, with tiny, but active
projects in their GitHub.

ps. I hate when people say that they don't have something (GitHub account)
that takes 30 seconds to signup for, is free, and is very important to solving
their current issue. There's usually a deeper issue at that point.

~~~
techwatching
This. Work before work, after work, on the weekends, once the kids are in bed,
whatever. If you have a dream, stretch for it.

------
gdulli
Github and OSS contributions only seem like they're important because of
disproportionate mentions among the monoculture of bloggers, HN commenters,
etc. They're not. A good company will hire you if you can demonstrate one way
or another that you're worth hiring. A bad company will value mediocre code
coming in from those venues and discount other types of substantive
achievements.

------
smileysteve
1) Do not cash out of your 401k. The penalty and taxes make this never worth
it. Along with you not getting the long term compounded interest it is started
as. Instead, work for a few more months to have an "emergency fund" that
allows you to live life without an income for a few months.

~~~
smileysteve
2) If you're willing to quit your job to make contributions to GitHub, you
might not care if the company

\--A) makes the unlikely discovery that you are putting non work related
projects on GitHub

\--B) cares that you are coding and posting online in your spare time

\--C) decides to terminate you for this.

\--If your IP is questionable, you may not want to contribute to large open
source projects - or you could ask your HR for an exemption for specific
projects.

3) If you don't have time (and especially if you are in a job that you want to
quit), make the time. Segment your life as much as possible while your work /
hourly expectations are met to a reasonable standard to which you want to work
(at any company)

4) This is additional, but if you want to work at a company with a great
culture, remote work, and reasonable expectations, it's important that you
understand how to do the numbers above in a forward and friendly way.

\--A) If you are familiar with working too long, you especially need to learn
to segment yourself when working remotely.

\--B) If you are familiar with working too long, you especially need to ensure
that you don't try to encourage others to not segment their lives. (There are
always things to be done, but everybody should be able to go home and spend
the evening / weekend with their family)

\--C) You will be much happier in your life / job if you have the ability to
not have to use your 401k to work a few months.

------
notarockstar
Thank you all for the great advice. I think the cash out of the 401K idea is
really a reaction to how miserable my current position is. The culture is
terrible and I want out, now. So I'm going to use my vacation time to send out
a ton of resumes, practice some coding puzzles, and hack away on some code
that I can provide as polished, well thought out work.

I did apply for a job at Twitter months back, but failed miserably at the two
45 minute online "coding to solve a puzzle" interviews. I was nervous, and
also was opposed to that style of interviewing, and it did not do well.

I realize I need to get over it, and just accept that some shops may interview
that way. It may let me know that it may not be the place for me, or open a
door to a good opportunity.

The number one thing for me is culture. That the culture works for me. For any
company that I am seriously considering, I will request working on a small
project with the team before I accept any offer. If I had done that for my
current position, I would have never come on board.

------
pdq
What part of the US or world are you located? Are you wanting to build your
own startup, work for a startup, or something else? Are you looking to learn
new languages or technologies?

The reason I ask is because if you already have a decent skillset, you may be
able to get a new job at a startup and learn new skills at the same time (and
thus not need to cash out your retirement fund). Simply contributing to open
source projects IMO is not that valuable unless you want to prove experience
in a languages you've never used professionally.

------
notarockstar
For clarity: my dream job is one that has a great culture, interesting work,
is making money, and is remote friendly.

~~~
johnatwork
I'm in the exact same situation. I have a kid and a wife that take up the
Lion's share of my time. As well as working at a PCI compliant company that
forbids me from showing my best work to anyone else. It's a struggle and a
challenge, but I've explained my situation and my frustrations to my wife and
we try to carve out a few hours here and there and a few more over the
weekends for me to build something that I'm able to show. We thought about
quitting and dipping into our savings but for now it works and we can sustain
this for a bit longer.

Good luck to you, and I hope that you will reach a resolution soon.

~~~
notarockstar
I knew I was not alone, but it's good to hear it just the same.

~~~
icefox
Same here, I have three hours during the weekend that are mine to hack on
projects. But beyond that I have a notebook I constantly am writing down ideas
and thoughts in. During lunch time you can spend it working on problems. And
then there is vacation days. How about taking a day here or there to
concentrate on the projects you want to invest yourself into?

------
columbo
Do you have a company in mind that you would love to work for? Have you
contacted them and did they reject you for any particular reason?

Start with the end in mind. "I want to have X job" is a decent start but you
should narrow that down to "I want to have X job, in Y industry and here are N
example companies I would love to work for."

Investigate these companies and look at the developers they hire. Do they all
have github accounts? Chances are you'll see a lot of blank profiles and the
occasional blog last updated in 2008.

If you do see many people with very impressive online personas then start
working _with these people_. Start working on the same OSS projects they are
working on. You might find you don't like these people as much as you think
you do. On the other hand after a few months they might say "Hey this
notarockstar guy is pretty good, maybe we should hire him".

Oh and don't cash out your 401k

------
eshvk
Please don't go by the echo chamber that is the Bay Area based Hacker News. A
Github profile is nice, contributing to OSS projects is nice, yet those aren't
the only things that matter to acquiring a job. Unless you are targeting
specific companies which are so overwhelmingly biased towards hiring people
who only fit a certain demographic. There are loads of people, for example who
work in Finance, who don't have all these things. They make the transition to
tech just fine.

Source: I worked for two years in SF. I am currently working in NYC. A bunch
of my co-workers are incredibly smart ex-finance folks who are good at Math
and C.S. I am willing to bet that most of them didn't start a github profile
until they joined us.

------
officialjunk
Just a point if clarification: by "cash out" do you mean all/majority of your
401k? If so it's not a good idea. Some small percentage could be considered,
by in general you should only do so in an emergency. There are penalties for
early withdrawals.

Can you dedicate an hour a day to OSS? Or perhaps spearhead an project at work
to be open sourced?

Have you tried applying for positions that qualify as your dream job? If you
haven't, you may want to start and see if those open source contributions are
as key as you think.

~~~
crisnoble
>Can you dedicate an hour a day to OSS? Or perhaps spearhead an project at
work to be open sourced?

He mentioned that he is not allowed to do these types of things while employed
at his current employer. I always find that kind of clause crazy. If I want to
spend my evenings playing video games the company would be fine with that, if
I want to spend it creating video games no dice?

I imagine it is going to be harder and harder for companies to create anti-
moonlighting clauses as time progresses.

------
Iftheshoefits
1) I don't have a GitHub (or Bitbucket, or other "profile" on similar
repository hosts), or anything else in your list--at least not that I
advertise or share with people. Yet I'm in SV earning in the mid $100k. The
kinds of companies who put a lot of weight on the things you list are
disproportionately likely to be social media sweatshops with a dogmatic view
of development (if it's not <latest fad JS framework>+RoR+Cloud developed on a
Macbook Pro, it's not "development"). If you want to work for them, you need
those things; otherwise you don't.

I have a full-time job, as I noted, and a toddler at home. Over the last six
months I've found a half-hour here, an hour there to do side-projects. One of
which (and my only, to-date) I just released to the Google Play store. There
is absolutely no reason you can't do this.

What does "I'm not allowed" mean? I can't think of any employment contract
that would restrict you from doing _any_ other development work on your own
time. Just pick projects that a "reasonable observer" would not think overlap
with your "day job" work.

2) You should not cash out your 401k to live on. It is not that kind of
savings account (i.e. an "emergency" fund). However, if you have a solid
investment opportunity in something (relatively) stable for the long-term,
such as real estate, it may be worth it. I've cashed out my 401k three times,
two for the wrong reasons (to fund relocations), and one to purchase a home
that I now rent out and derive significantly more income (net of taxes and
other payments) from than had that money been in my 401k fund.

~~~
notarockstar
The "not allowed" refers to sharing some of the best code I've written. I find
it hard to reproduce that quality of code in a 45 minute code puzzle, like the
time I interview for Twitter.

------
Edmond
My 2 cents: No don't do it.

Six months is a very short period in time, you'll be surprised how quickly it
flies by without you haven't accomplished much, at which stage you'll be out
of a job and money and little to show for it.

Is there a reason you can't do these projects on weekends and in your spare
time?

Even if you manage to finish some projects, what makes you think these would
automatically make you a very attractive engineering candidate?

------
icedchai
Do this stuff on your own time. Can you spare a couple hours a week?

And how can you "not be allowed"? Just ignore that and do it anyway. Worse
case, you are fired and have to live off your 401k, right? Best case, nobody
notices.

The probable case is somewhere in the middle. You get a warning: a talking to
by an "authority figure." Just tell them you "forgot" you were "not allowed."

------
onedev
Don't do it, it will not end up being worth it. Instead make some time on the
weekends to learn and build what you want. Maybe wake up earlier and spend an
hour each morning on something you want to do. Experiment with your
productivity outside of work and try to get things done that way instead of
cashing out your 401k and setting your finances back several years.

------
Thrymr
You are working as a full-time software engineer and you think 6 months of
answering StackOverflow questions and working on your GitHub profile are going
to be better for your resume than continuing in your job?

Get a new job. If not your dream job (yet), some job that is incrementally
better. Apply for jobs. Interview for jobs. That will teach you a lot more
than hanging out on SO.

------
127001brewer
Your definition of a "dream job" sounds like it could be _any new job_.[1] Why
not look for a new job instead (since you _should be_ relatively marketable
with thirteen (13) years of software development experience)?

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7532138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7532138)

------
imsofuture
I would disagree that any of those things you think are hurting you are that
important. They're certainly all nice-to-haves, but if I were looking at your
resume I wouldn't think for a second of discounting it just because you didn't
have those on there.

------
jcizzle
I cashed out my 401k to start a company. I was in a unique situation where I
started contributing to my 401k at the very bottom of the recession (luck).
The returns on my 401k contributions were greater than 100% by the time I
cashed out because the market had fully recovered. The company I previously
worked for had 100% matching up to 15k. So, I looked at the penalty and
figured since I had quadrupled my money, 10% didn't seem like a concern next
to the possibility of creating a successful business.

Ended up working out. Was able to make that money back 5x in 6 months. It was
a risky move and I could see it not panning out more often than not. But, to
go against the grain here: there is no such thing as 'never'.

------
masters3d
Thank you for asking this question. I think it crosses everybody's mind at
some point. I've learned a lot reading this. Im in my early 30's. I think the
best thing to do try to grow within your current company. I think of the story
of oscar mayer when he walked into a meat packing company make his company.
people wonder what if he would have walked into an icecream shop or a clothing
chain. Perhaps now oscar mayer's would be a huge icecream company or clothing
chain. Curiosity and a little creativity can go long way but nothing replaces
hard work when talking about dream jobs.

------
steven2012
I'm in my 40s. I got a job at a YC startup without a Github, Twitter, any OSS
contributions, Stackoverflow activity, and without even knowing the primary
language that they develop here.

If you live in an area outside of SV where programming jobs aren't as
prevalent, I would be a bit more careful.

Instead of using your 401k which is a terrible idea, you really should have a
savings account that you should dip into. Therefore I would continue working
for the next year or 2, keep working but save every dime you can so that in 2
years you can take 3-6 months off. In the meanwhile, apply to every single job
you can.

------
colin_mccabe
The really big open source projects such as the Linux kernel or Hadoop
generally are mostly done by paid developers. The interests of the companies
and the interests of the developers generally align, and it works out well.

Smaller, personal open source projects may or may not help you get a job. To
be honest, I've never been at a company where looking at Github pages was a
big part of the hiring process. Maybe it's something recruiters look at? I
don't really know. I have a bunch of stuff up on Github myself, but I don't
know who looks at it, and I certainly don't rely on it to get me a job.

Similarly, I've never been at a place where the topic of answering questions
on Stack Overflow came up. It's like contributing to Wikipedia-- something you
do on your own time for the public good. Stack Overflow is a useful resource,
but you also need to keep in mind that some of the answers there are kind of
misleading or wrong.

Really, what any well-run company is going to try to figure out is whether you
are a good fit at the company. If you have done some things in the areas
they're interested in, that's going to be a positive. If it's just random
stuff, then they are probably not going to have the time or inclination to
look at it. I've done a lot of stuff that nobody has ever asked me about in a
job interview. And that's ok.

If you are having trouble finding a job, the #1 reason is probably location.
There just aren't a lot of jobs in some parts of the country, and most
companies don't want remote workers unless they're rockstars. I wish I could
give you an easy solution for this, but I really can't. You are probably going
to have to choose between your career and your home town, like generations
before you.

If you are somewhere in California, you can do open source work in your free
time as long as it meets three criteria: 1. own time, 2. own equipment, 3. no
use of employer trade secrets. It doesn't matter what they tell you... the
worst they can do in California if they don't like your personal project is
fire you. In other U.S. states (such as Washington), it's often pretty easy
for them to claim your personal work as their own (a lot of employment
contracts have this in it).

------
crisnoble
Can you clarify on your statement "I'm not allowed". Are you barred from
moonlighting on OSS or creating software of your own? Or are you not allowed
to do these things while at work?

~~~
ibmthrowaway218
My employer (IBM) allows people to do things in their spare time with the
following kinds of exceptions (off the top of my head, sure there are more):-

a) Do not use company time or equipment. Pretty obvious that one.

b) No doing something that competes directly with IBM. This has to be more
specific than "working with computers". It means I can still get beer money
for helping friends/family fix their computers/servers, but I can't start a
small consultancy that aims to take possible business away from IBM. I can
start a social sports related side project website because IBM aren't in that
space. But if I worked on Websphere Application Server (I don't!) I couldn't
contribute to, for example, Apache Tomcat/Geronimo or JBoss AS. I could write
my own game Apps and sell them through the App Store. Etc.

c) Contributing to OSS in your spare time needs to be cleared with IBM, just
in case. The main reason is that everyone loves to sue IBM and OSS is fertile
ground given the various OSS licenses and implications. If I do some work on
some OSS package in my spare time it means I'm tainted in that area. If I then
do any work on a commercial application in the same area then it opens the
door for people to claim that the commercial work I've done has some work that
could have been influenced by the OSS code and part of the commercial
application is therefore derivative of the OSS work. With some OSS licenses
this could mean that the entire commercial application is considered a
derivative work and, depending on the license, the source code would need to
be released or IBM could not charge for the software, etc.

It's not all doom and gloom. I work with some people that have got clearance
to work on OSS software, they just have to make sure they avoid working with
anything related to it on the commercial side (to the point of not having
access to the source code to provide plausible deniability). You also need to
think in advance and not work on anything that we could reasonably be working
on in the future.

We are also regularly warned to avoid even looking at any OSS related to the
commercial code we work on, for fear of tainting. Same for Googling for
answers to technical questions and copy-and-pasting code from SO or elsewhere.
You've generally got no idea of the copyright/licensing aspects of any code
you see in the results.

IBM does use OSS in some of its commercial applications. Its use is always
cleared with the lawyers first though. Certain licenses must be avoided simply
because they are incompatible with selling commercial software. Where the
license is permissive we always make sure we follow the rules and I've
personally contributed many bug fixes in the OSS code back to the community as
required (or even if not required!); these have often been found as the result
of formal code inspections (which IBM is effectively funding by paying
employees to perform it), peer review, static analysis tools, or general SQA
testing.

------
skittles
This question shows a lack of self confidence. Be confident in your skills
when networking and interviewing. Seems like you are latching onto _one_ way
of getting a more interesting job. It is a reckless plan and totally
unnecessary. Finding a job is like finding a mate. There's a small overlap
between what you want and what potential partners want. Willingness to fail,
repeatedly, is a big help in these situations. Just keep interviewing. If you
are good at what you do, someone will give you a chance.

------
CaptainMath
No.

You are going to fail.

You'll end up broke, pissed off, and unemployable (because you tasted freedom,
and you don't want back in).

Sorry, statistics, history, and personal empirical evidence is on my side.

------
artmageddon
The other comments in this thread explain it much better than I could, but I
will also throw in my 2 cents and add that you should absolutely _not_ cash
out your 401K. You're better off finding a better job. Once you do, you won't
have to think about dipping into retirement savings for this.

------
ww520
Don't cash out your 401K. You will get hit early withdrawal penalty.

To get to where you want, live way under your means and save up your fuck-you
fund. When that can last for 12 months, then you can spend 4 to 5 months to do
whatever you want.

------
AznHisoka
Quitting your current job to hack on a side project that gets you a better job
seems completely backward.

I can understand quitting a job to pursue a business that might cash out for
millions.

------
isuraed
You should look into
[https://www.hackerschool.com/](https://www.hackerschool.com/)

Seems perfect for your situation.

------
jedanbik
What are the tax implications? Can you work part-time? Do you attend meetups
in your area? Have you been applying for jobs?

------
matchagaucho
Spend 2 hours per night. Don't spend your 401K.

This is basically the equivalent of going back to school and retraining.

------
tectonic
Please send me an email; let's talk!

------
sjg007
What is your dream job?

------
orware
First off, don't cash out your 401K for all of the reasons already mentioned
(in your mind, it shouldn't even exist...that money is for future you).

I started right away with putting money into retirement accounts(partly due to
this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Wealth-Grads-Anyone-
Starting...](http://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Wealth-Grads-Anyone-
Starting/dp/0471786764/)).

While it hurts a bit each month to put money away, in the end I know it'll be
good for "Future Me". I currently have 3 different ones: a Roth IRA (I used to
put in $400/mo, but now only do $200/mo if I can...the next accounts are all
automatic though and I don't skip those), the 2nd is a 403b (similar to a
401k, but available for people in the public sector) which I put $1000 into
pre-tax, and the 3rd is my life insurance/savings account which I put $400
into each month (this is a bit extra on top of the regular premium so it'll
build value as an additional income source I can tap into down the road). Both
1 and 3 are after taxes and #2 is my only pre-tax one. My savings account
right now isn't too great partly because so much goes into the future
retirement accounts, but I try and put another $300/mo into that if I can, but
some months I end up tapping into that due to extra expenses that come up.
(Sounds like maybe we should have a separate thread on how much people put
away each month and their reasons for doing so :-).

I think some of the others are correct though, you can definitely start now in
your free time with at least creating some accounts and started to do a little
bit (the key thing would be being consistent with those actions...as an
example, I've always been an HN consumer, but I hardly ever commented...now
I'm making an effort to add my own thoughts to posts and share what I have to
say because I'd like to build up my karma :-).

I agree with your comments though that it's hard to demonstrate your skills
and capabilities to employers when all you have is your resume and not these
ancillary profiles and public information spots that seem to be used a lot in
determining whether someone's skills are adequate.

Since I work in a college IT department I feel like I'm automatically ruled
out because of my background even though I always include a list of the
various projects I've worked on over the past 6 years and the increasing
levels of responsibility I've acquired.

The other negative I have is I'm probably my own worst critic and don't always
see my own accomplishments in their best light (I'll think to myself, "Self,
well you don't really have any Ruby on Rails experience so that automatically
disqualifies you from all of these jobs, let's see what else is available...".
That's kind of a self-imposed problem where I need to do a better job of
selling myself.

Actually right now, even though I enjoy my job quite a bit, all I'd really
want is the ability to tap into some of the knowledge of Silicon Valley to
learn new things (by working part-time remotely and maybe sometimes in person
with a company) that I just can't learn here so I can bring those into my
current job and apply them, but there don't seem to be too many employers
looking for that (though if you know of any, please point me too them :-).

Since I'm way out in stix of SoCal, next to the border, in the desert, in the
middle of a mainly agricultural community to have access to all of the good
employers/jobs I'd have to move up to the Bay, which isn't too bad (but it's
SOOO expensive). I don't mind where I live so much...I just mind that the
learning opportunities I have are so limited (so I end up having to find my
own ways to teach myself, but that process is a lot slower than having a
teacher, aka a willing co-worker, help guide you).

Key takeway though from this thread so far: Don't cash out your 401K and
possibly put your family in a precarious position. Having a Happy Dad is
important, but so is providing for your family. I would start small and be
consistent with the activities you mentioned and treat them like projects.
While I tend to forget (until I remember)...if you're consistent with your
actions over a period of time you'll be amazed at how much you'll accomplish
(of course this is compounded by family time, which takes away from the time
you could use, but even if there's just one day a week that you can have some
"Daddy Alone Time" that everyone is aware of, and the wife can be your buffer,
then that'd be a good start :-).

Good luck buddy (it's tough I know!)

~~~
AjithAntony
> and the 3rd is my life insurance/savings account

I'm interested in learning more about life insurance. Did the book you
recommend advise storing value in life insurance? Most resources I've studied
suggest that any life insurance product other than "term" is not worthwhile,
and that it's not worth getting until some stakeholder in your life depends on
your lifetime earning potential.

------
justinzollars
no

------
whatevsbro
I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest that if you can invest your
401k wisely, you might as well cash it out.

The reason for this is that you're not going to get that pension anyway,
because the Western world's economies are barely holding together even as we
speak. No one knows what will happen, but some of us know that _something_ bad
is going to happen.

It's fundamentally quite simple. Dozens of _trillions_ of unpaid liabilities
are just not going to get paid, and most Western governments are getting even
more indebted each year. Using money you don't actually have _will_ have
consequences even for governments.

Whether your current plan is a wise investment for that 401k is another
matter. I'd consider other plans too.

