I Quit My $72K Job… Now What? | Not Financial Advice

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Welcome back to another episode of Not Financial Advice, where you guys send me your situations and I tell you exactly what I would do. Now, as the title of this series implies, this is not professional financial advice. This is just my opinion on what I would do in your situation. So, if you want professional advice, go to a professional advisor. If you want free advice or just my perspective, leave a voicemail. And the phone number for the voicemail is in the description as well as the pinned comment. Now, let's get into the first caller. Hey JP, I'm a 21-year-old male making around 5,000 a month and I was recently diagnosed with blood cancer around 6 months ago and I was able to build 20K in my high-yield savings and I no longer have a car payment. During this time, I moved back with family to do my treatment, but in the in the next few months, I'm moving back into an apartment in California, which is roughly going to be around 1,500 a month. My job matches my 5% in my 401K and I have auto investments set up in my Roth IRA um around 700 a month into VOO, so I can max it out for the year. My question is, do I have too too much in my emergency fund? And if so, what should I be doing with the extra money in my savings so it's not just sitting there, such as individual stocks or bumping it more into my Roth IRA.

[00:01:04]Thank you so much for the time, JP.

[00:01:05]You're the man. Well, let me just start out by saying this, dude, being 21 years old and dealing with a blood cancer diagnosis, going through treatment, and you still somehow managed to save $20,000, that's insane. Like, that's very impressive, especially just given the amount of stuff that life was throwing at you during that time. I know for a fact if I was in that position, I would not have been saving any money at all. So, the fact that you were able to stay on top of things financially just speaks volumes. And I really hope you're done with treatment and hopefully can have a very healthy life, you know, moving forward. But I do want to actually talk about your question because this is a very common thing that people ask. They ask it to me in the Discord. I have a lot of voicemails that have asked this. So, let's start out by addressing the emergency fund side of things. So, for example, you're saying that you're moving into an apartment, $1,500 in rent. You're in California, so definitely a higher cost of living area.

[00:01:51]I would assume after your other expenses, I'm talking groceries, utilities, transportation, like gas, things like that, it's probably going to be an extra like five to $700. So, I would assume that your monthly expenses, at least like your monthly expenses just to stay alive are probably going to be somewhere around $2,200, if I had to guess. So, if your monthly expenses are let's say $2,200 and you already have $20,000 saved up, that is pretty much nine months of expenses saved up, which is a really solid emergency fund. Now, one thing I did want to address because I didn't want to make any assumptions off the voicemail, but because that you do have like an active health condition, at least it sounded like, you know, it's still active. I could be wrong. I know that you mentioned you were going through treatment and then you're going to move. I would like to assume that you're done with treatment, but I also don't know. It makes sense to maybe have a little bit more cushion because of that. So, again, I don't want to make any assumptions, but what I would say here is if you're fully done with treatment, if you're in the clear, and you know, you can relax, take a deep breath there, then you could probably definitely have six months of expenses and those last three months you could probably invest into something like a brokerage account or just maxing out your Roth IRA a lot quicker. But, if you are still in treatment, it does make a little bit more sense to have more cushion, like nine to 12 months. So, the fact that you're already at nine months is great. I think overall you're looking really good there regarding the emergency fund. Now, in regards to any additional savings, we want to put that money to work as soon as possible. So, you're already maxing out your Roth IRA, you're getting your 401K matched, that is perfect. Do not change either of those things. For anything beyond the emergency fund that you already have pretty much saved up, I would put all of that money into a brokerage account, just a normal taxable brokerage. This is what I do, where basically I get my 401K matched, I max my Roth, and then I go back to the brokerage. You could also put money back into your 401K and increase the percentage, but, you know, if you have cash sitting around, you can't just go put that in your 401K.

[00:03:32]But, what you can do is you can invest that into a brokerage. I would not invest into individual stocks. I know you mentioned that. I'm going to make a video probably sometime kind of soon, sometime this month, if not early next month, talking about individual stocks versus ETFs, but I would avoid individual stocks, especially since you're like a lot younger and starting out, and I do not think it is a good move because a lot of people don't know what they're doing when it comes to investing into individual stocks. They don't know how to read financial statements. They don't know how to calculate valuation. And they end up just buying whatever the biggest hype thing is, and a lot of times that can go very wrong very quickly. And I could sit here and tell you, "Yeah, man, go throw a bunch of money into individual stocks." But like, I really do not think that would be a good move, especially just the fact that you're so young.

[00:04:12]You're in a really good position right now where you could build a lot of wealth if you take very smart, calculated risks. And the ETFs are a great way of doing that. I don't really think it's smart to sit here and spend the next one, two, three plus years just betting on individual stocks because, like I said, if you don't know what you're doing, you can get burned very easily from that. lot of times the most boring route is actually the one that tends to win long-term. And it's a very simplified way of investing as well.

[00:04:34]You're not sitting there having to track earnings or look at valuation or should you buy the dip or should you save up cash for the certain company to drop and then once it goes below this valuation, then you buy it. You don't have to do all that. You can just invest super consistently. And so, like I said before, assuming your monthly expenses are going to be around $2,200, if you are done with treatment, I would say a six-month emergency fund is just fine, which would be about $13,200.

[00:04:56]With that remaining $6,800, the 20,000 minus the 13,2, you could just throw that in a brokerage and get that money working for you right away, or you could just max out your Roth even quicker if you wanted to do that as well. That's also a great move. I try to do that. I try to max the Roth as quickly as possible. But, honestly, man, you already have the discipline, you are in a really good financial position, do not blow it. You can definitely make yourself very, very successful over the next five to 10 years if you just stay the course. So, I appreciate the phone call. Now, let's jump into caller number two. Hey, what's up, JP? So, I am 23 and I have a bit of a situation I just wanted to ask about some advice on. I've been lucky enough to be blessed with a pretty large sum that I've been able to invest and keep, I think it's around $100,000 and I have around 20,000 of my own savings saved up. I'm 23 and I have a job that's around 72,000 in salary. Just graduated college, but I've been able to save a good bit from that job and I that 20,000 I'd saved up, I was going to use to buy a car, but now I'm in a situation where I just quit my job actually because very unfulfilling and I'm not where I want to be in life as a person.

[00:06:04]It is great for money-wise and I know this channel you have is all about investing and saving money, but I'm just at the point where the money isn't worth, you know, my life. And uh kind of just going through this period of like changing my job path, which is going to make a significant salary cut if I do that. Or I'm trying to decide if I want to go down the entrepreneurial route to increase my income, but, you know, do something more fulfilling and just wanted to kind of know your thoughts on if you've ever had to deal with anything like that or if you've ever thought about switching careers or if you've always been passionate about what you do or how do you get past it if you're not that passionate about it and it is just a thing you do for money. But yeah, just let me know. Thanks, JP. All righty, well, I appreciate you calling in and I do really like this call because it's a little bit different than my traditional calls. I like the fact that, you know, you're just straight up honest about it and you own the situation you're in.

[00:06:52]Because I know on this channel I talk a ton about money and living within your means and investing consistently, but you don't want to be doing that stuff if you're going to be miserable every single day. And I completely understand this perspective because I went through something kind of similar a couple years ago. I'll talk about that in a second, but I do want to address like, you know, some of the things you're talking about here. So, the first thing, and I think you're already very aware of this, your financial position is really good. I mean, $100,000 invested, 20K in savings, you are straight up just set up to become a millionaire within probably the next 10 to 15 years. Especially depends on how much you invest, but you're at a very good starting point, that's for sure. And I'm honestly pretty jealous of that cuz I don't think my portfolio hit 100K till I was like, I don't know, 25, maybe? Yeah, I think it was 25 or 26, I don't really remember, but sometime in the past two years or so. But, I did want to address kind of the main thing you're talking about here is whether you make a career change or you go down like the entrepreneurial route and you try to start your own business. I did make a video on this, I think sometime in the past couple of months, basically talking about like the nine-to-five versus entrepreneurship. So, feel free to take a look at that. I think that video does like a pretty good analysis on that.

[00:07:53]Both of them definitely have their pros and their cons. You just have to figure out, you know, what area you want to go into because there's so many different types of businesses you can open, as well as there's so many different types of careers you can have, even if you go down the nine-to-five route. So, now one thing that's pretty nice is because you have $20,000 in savings, you do have a little bit of a cushion here. Like, you don't have to like sit here and stress about, you know, when you get the next job and I completely understand leaving a job cuz you hate it, no matter how much it pays. But, one thing I would definitely say is because you don't have a job right now, I would hold off on a car purchase. It doesn't have to be a permanent, you know, hold off, but at least for now, I would not consider buying a car or spending a lot of money on something right now when you don't have any income coming in. Because you're trying to figure out like what path you're going to take and so, spending a lot of money right now is only going to make you it's going to basically going to force you to make that decision quicker and I don't want you to do that. I want you to feel a little bit more stress-free about it.

[00:08:43]Really take your time and think through things. So, I would just keep that $20,000 on the side. Do not go and throw that into a car. That's one of the first things I would say here. And then in regards to you starting your own business versus just like a career pivot, these are two completely different routes to go. You changing your career into something that's more fulfilling, but lower paying, I'm glad you can at least know that and acknowledge that because, you know, if you take a salary cut, you are going to have to adjust your lifestyle. You're basically trading like your income for like the satisfaction you get. And to be honest with you, it's kind of hard to tell you like, "Yeah, man, go pursue this career." Because there's a huge difference between making 72,000 a year versus making like 40,000. Or if the pay cut is 72,000 to 65,000 or 60,000, that's not as big. So, I'm not really sure what that gap looks like for you, but, you know, again, I would definitely just go with your gut and go with what you truly think will make you happiest long-term. And make sure you're adjusting your lifestyle to this. If you're going to make less money, then you're probably going to have to spend less money and that's okay, as long as you enjoy your work and showing up to do what you do every day. Now, when it comes to starting your own business, that is a totally different beast that you're going to have to take on because, as all of us know, the upside is a lot higher because your income, it's not capped. Like, if your business grows and you make more revenue, more profit, that's more money in the bank for you, which is great. But, you're also taking on more risk. You're going to have to put way more money down up front. You may even have to potentially take out a loan to start a business depending on what it is or you just have to throw a lot of cash into it initially. And also, your income can fluctuate a lot. So, it's not like a consistent paycheck that you're getting twice a month or every 2 weeks, which can make it very, very stressful. It kind of depends how you handle risk there. I know some people that have started businesses and have done very well. I know some people that have started businesses and those have fizzled out. I personally have, you know, clearly taken the 9-5 route.

[00:10:23]That's what works for me, but again, it's just what basically makes the most sense for you. Now, one thing I did want to briefly touch on is like changing careers because I did have a small period right after college where this kind of happened to me where I thought after college I wanted to become a financial advisor. Then I realized, "Oh my god, this is like an entirely commission-heavy job. It's very sales-heavy." I actually hated the idea of this. I was like, "I cannot take advantage of people when I know that they could probably just go buy an ETF and outperform the [ __ ] I'm recommending to them." Like, why would I do this? And also, most corporations that people become financial advisors for, even the advisors are getting screwed because that 1% they're charging their clients, they're only getting like 0.2% of that.

[00:10:59]And then the company keeps 0.8%. So, even then it's like kind of a rip-off in the same sense. And so, initially I wanted to become a financial advisor and then I kind of went through this phase where I was like, "Fuck, I do not know what I want to do." At one point I was considering being a teacher cuz I was like, "Oh, that'd be fun to teach finance." Then I was like, "Wait, nobody gives a [ __ ] about finance." Although I'm passionate about it, most high schoolers are not. And I think most high schools don't even offer finance classes anyways. Plus, I'd have to go back and get my teaching credential. And then I realized I'm like, "They don't even make that much money anyways." Like, I could literally make like 60K a year for 3 years in a row, which is fine, but like I wanted my income to go up and really grow over time. So, at one point I was considering being a teacher because I had, you know, family that were teachers. And I do like teaching people.

[00:11:38]I obviously, you know, based on this channel. But, I realized I'm like, "Okay, that doesn't pay enough for me."

[00:11:42]Then I also really like film and photography. So, I was like, "Oh, maybe I start my own photography business." I probably could have done, but I just really did not want to have to put in a ton of the time on that because again, your income's going to fluctuate a lot.

[00:11:53]It can be very stressful. You have to do a lot of free work up front to build up your portfolio. So, I was like, "Shit, okay, I'm not doing that." Basically, what I did was I signed up to be like a client service representative at this one financial advising firm. Did that for a couple months and then I found a financial analyst job, which was way more up my alley. This was analyzing numbers, doing PowerPoints, presenting data, just basically, you know, slowly learning Microsoft Excel and getting really good at that. Being able to analyze data, especially really complex things and trying to simplify it for people, I always found to be just pretty fun. And like, I know to most people that's super boring. I'm very aware of that. But, to me I enjoyed it. And so, then I kind of just went down that path of sticking to that and going from, you know, financial analyst to a senior analyst, then switching to a senior analyst at a different company. But, my point with this entire tangent here is that I have definitely gone through the phase of not knowing what I wanted to do. And what worked for me was trying new things. Try something and if it doesn't work, it's not permanent. You can always go and do something else. It is way easier right now to try new things when you're 20, 23, 25 than when you're 45 with two kids and a wife. I don't think your wife's going to be very happy if all of a sudden you go, "You know what? Hey, babe, I'm quitting my 200K a year job and I'm starting a business." Most wives will not like that. People want stability when they're a lot older, but when you're in your 20s, you can take that risk. So, I would definitely at least consider that. 20s are the time to be trying new things because how are you supposed to know what you love if you don't ever try anything, you know? So, at least try.

[00:13:15]That's the main kind of take I guess I'm giving you here. So, sorry about So, I apologize about that kind of long tangent there. But, overall, you know, the main things you have to do is just keep investing that 100K like you have.

[00:13:24]You're already in a great position. That 20K, just keep that liquid, you know, on the sideline. Give yourself a little bit of cushion. Go for that job. Go for whatever you you think will make you happiest and see what happens. You know, take that risk, take that chance. So, I really appreciated this call and yeah, let's jump into the third caller. Hey, JP. Um, this is Jarvis. Um, I'm 20 years old and feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself. Um, I got my own place. Um, I actually have a own a camper. I have like an half an acre of land. I own that as well. Three vehicles. They're all paid off and um, I have a decent job. I have about $5,000 saved in an emergency fund. I don't have anything invested in stocks or anything like that. I'm trying to look into what to invest in, but I'm kind of confused right now cuz I'm only 20 years old. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, where I want to be with my life and how I want to do my life, like everything with my life. So, I'm still trying to figure that out, but I was just trying to get a little bit of help. I mean, I know you talk a lot about finance, but you don't really talk a lot about life, like how to figure out what to do and how to invest your money and the way to invest it. Like, you have to have money to invest money. So, it's like I mean, I'm pretty doing pretty good for myself, but it's just like I'm trying to figure out where I should be and what career path I should go in and how I should go in it while trying to invest and also trying to live my life and do everything, you know? But, that's all.

[00:14:50]Um, that's all I wanted to ask you. All righty. Well, hey, I appreciate you calling in, you know, at 20 years old.

[00:14:55]The fact that you already have your own place, you got land. That's pretty cool to say you have land at 20 years old. I feel like that's kind of a flex, especially nowadays. Like, owning land is like feel like not as popular with the younger crowd. Everybody wants a house or they want to have a huge portfolio. Owning land is pretty sick, man. I got to admit that. And the fact that you got all your cars paid off, that is great. You're doing phenomenal for 20 years old. And you even acknowledge that. Like, at least you're aware that, you know, you're in a pretty good spot. Now, I did want to kind of touch on a comment you made is that, you know, you have to have money to invest money, which it, you know, that's spot-on. There's no argument there. But, you already have money. You have money coming in. It sounds like you have no debt. Your vehicles are paid off. So, like you already have room in your budget to start investing even if it's not that much. So, you know, what you could start out doing is just open up a Roth IRA. I use M1 Finance. I know Fidelity is great. A lot of people love that. You're basically just putting money in. It's after-tax money that you're putting in, right? So, you've already been taxed on it. You put that money in. You invest it. It'll grow long-term and then you can withdraw it tax-free. So, the Roth IRA is great. You can put $7,500 in for 2026. So, I would definitely start out there. You can just buy an ETF like VOO, which is V O O or VTI. VOO just tracks the 500 largest companies. VTI tracks basically every US stock. So, it's large companies plus medium plus small companies. You don't got to pick individual stocks. You can just keep buying, don't touch it and you'll be good there. Even 100, 200 bucks a month will go a really long way.

[00:16:12]Now, the next thing I would say is that if your job offers a 401K with any sort of match, make sure you are getting that match. And I would even do that before the Roth. I probably should have mentioned that first. But, like at least get that match. If you put 4% in and they match 4%, go get that. That is literally free money and so, you want to just take advantage of that as soon as possible. Now, similar to the last caller, and this is something I do want to kind of switch up maybe a little bit on my channel, sprinkle some more videos in like this, is just talking about life stuff because I get what it's like to be 20, 21, 22 and just be like, "Fuck." You know what I mean? Like, "Fuck, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, where do I go from here?" And it's a very stressful thing because you probably in your mind have this pressure of like, "I need to have it all figured out by this time. It needs to be all figured out. I need to be here by this time and then here by this time." You don't, okay? Take a deep breath. Be patient with yourself. How you figure out what you want is by slowly trying things that you want to try. The things that scare you the most are probably the things you should dive into. Whether that is a certain career or an interest that you've had and you're like, "You know what? I want to do this, but I don't know if I could do it well." Take that chance and do it well. Just like I told the last caller.

[00:17:15]Like, when you're in your early 20s, even mid-20s or late 20s, that is the time to be taking these risks. It's not when you're 45 and you're all settled down. So, the best thing I would say for you is how you actually navigate things in your 20s. The first thing I would say is just be patient with yourself because I remember when I was 22 years old and I was exactly what I was just talking about with the previous caller. I was jumping around jobs. I was like, "I have no clue what I'm doing over here. Here I am with my bachelor's degree in finance.

[00:17:39]I'm not using it at all. I'm not feeling very good about myself at this point.

[00:17:42]How do I get out of this rut?" The first thing I would definitely recommend is be patient with yourself. It's okay if it takes you a couple of years to figure it out. Because the speed at which you're going is really important, but I would actually say the direction is a little bit more important. Don't get me wrong, the speed is important, but you want to be going in the right direction. And it's okay if you make mistakes along the way. It's not some 22 I move up here and then I keep moving up and up. It may not look like that. It may, you know, maybe you switch industries. Maybe you switch companies.

[00:18:13]Hell, maybe even switch roles or careers. Just like the last caller was talking about. That's okay. Life is not going to be some steady path upward.

[00:18:20]You're going to have fallbacks. You're going to have things that, you know, basically kick your ass and set you back a little bit and that's okay. The main mindset you want to have is that you're never going to give up. That is one of the main things I've always told myself is that whether I make a lot of money or whether I make a little bit of money, I'm always going to just live within my means. I'm going to work hard and I'm going to figure out what I need to do to progress. And I think that's important.

[00:18:40]And how you develop that confidence is by trying and doing things and doing things that you might fail at and that's okay. But, also I do want to preface this by saying if you're going to take risk, do not take risk that put you 50, 80, 100,000 dollars in debt. Okay? Do not take really stupid risk. I'm talking about calculated risk. Sit down, analyze things, think about things. Decisions don't need to be made overnight, you know, take your time. But, try to figure out a plan as to what do you like, where do you want to be 5 years from now? What are your values? What do you want to achieve in the next 5 years? And break it down, okay? In the next 5 years I want to have this amount invested. I want to make X amount at my job. I want to buy a house or whatever that looks like for you. Sit down, write that down, figure out what you need to do today, the next week, the next month, the next couple years to get yourself into that position. I personally think that is the best way to go about it is to, you know, give yourself some patience, try new things, work hard, do not give up. That is one of the biggest things I want to reiterate here. And have a goal and then once you achieve that goal, be very happy about it and celebrate it. And then figure out what your next goal is because that's honestly something I try to do. And so, that is my two cents on that and I do really want to talk more about life stuff on this channel because it's not easy being 21 years old, especially when you're a guy. You have all this pressure to do really well financially and you're like, "Shit, even when I'm doing well financially, do I like my job? Do I not like my job? When am I going to find a girl and get married?" And you feel all this pressure to, you know, settle down or, you know, you feel pressure to make a certain amount of money. It's not easy going through life like that and a lot of people don't get that. But already, I'll hop off my soapbox here. Anyways, you're doing great, man. I really appreciate the call and uh yeah, that's is exactly what I would do to try to, you know, figure it out when you're 20 years old is all those things I just said. So, I do really hope that helps. Apologize if I went on another tangent here, but, you know, hopefully, you know, anything I'm saying here is helping you out. And so, that is another video of not financial advice. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, drop a like down below. Hit that subscribe button. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.