Must be wonderful to actually have the luxury to step away... I'm living the American dream - to work a non-rewarding job for no other reason other than health insurance. How do people manage these sabbaticals? Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?
You can buy your own insurance policy. You only chose to use your company provided insurance because they pay for half of it and no rational person takes on a large expense for no reason. If you can afford to take six months off and travel to Europe you can afford to pay full rate for insurance for 6 months while you do it and they go back to a half priced company policy when you get back.
They may pay half, or most, or all, or none. OP didn't say explicitly?
But... you may not be able to get your own with any tax benefits if your company offers something and you choose not to take it. That's my understanding anyway. And... health insurance is just totally hosed in the US, with regulations like that on the books.
Take employers out of the equation. Let everyone buy their own, and/or, institute some basic govt policy, and let people buy private on top.
If you're buying for a family, it can be prohibitively expensive. Even a few years back (2016/207), high deductible plans for some of my colleagues were north of $1500/month with $10k deductibles for 2 people in their 50s with an early 20s kid.
For a family yes it gets crazy. But as a self employed mid-thirties person it wasn't too terrible. $300/mo, $1,500 deductible, etc.. Yes expensive, but doable for someone determined enough.
I'm not in my mid thirties any more. Just no longer buy my own insurance and instead am on my wife's employers. I can report though in early 40s rates haven't changed a lot yet. Maybe in my 50s.
> Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?
There's a sliding scale here. Few are wealthy enough that they don't need income forever. But many can save up enough to take a few weeks or a few months off. More like a long unpaid vacation.
I had a friend live like a hermit for a year. He never spent money on anything he didn't absolutely need. To see him, you had to go to his place as he never went out. All of this was leading up to him taking a planned sabbatical and traveling through SE Asia. When he returned, because everthing was so much cheaper for him there, he had way more savings left than he anticipated. That afforded him the freedom to continue the sabbatical visiting as many national parks as he could. Eventually, he returned to the grind.
I take 1/6 of every paycheck¹ and put it in a CD ladder. This enables me (in theory) to take every seventh year off. I would be taking next year off except I ended up taking an unplanned 6-month break last year because of Covid, so I'm going to wait until 2025 for my next sabbatical. One key thing is to live a far below your means as possible.
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1. I also put half of any “extra” income that comes my way and if I slide money that I don’t use into that fund as well.
Most managers don't have the luxury of being Gabe Newell from Valve. They'll just fire you as soon as you sound like your numbers are going down with some cause. Even if in the long run it'll be better, most managers only work at companies for 4 years, under VPs who only work their 6 or 7 years. The long term health of the team isn't a priority for anyone.
I tried to quit 2 months ago due to burnout. My manager told me to rather go on extended sick leave, and contact him in 6 months if I felt like coming back.
I just quit last month for burnout reasons. I’ve had my foot on the gas for…19 years.
My management really wanted me to do the sick leave thing. My therapist would have backed me up if I needed proof.
I chose not to take that offer because I didn’t want a timetable looming, and I wanted to be truly free from any pressure to return. The role was also very customer facing, which put me in a weird spot about what to tell the community.
I think I might have been more open to it if I hadn’t already been there for 8+ years and feeling the itch to do something new.
The door is still open, but I don’t have to walk through it.
I sometimes have to take a minute to reflect on how good we have it in this industry.
Make sure to really take your time, assuming you can afford it. It took me 3 years to get back on my feet after a major case of burn-out and I was done with the business world for a long time after that.
It's helpful to hear anecdotes like this. My minimum time will be 6 months, but I have entertained up to a year depending on how these 6 months go. Thankfully I've saved enough to cover even more time if I really need it.
I hear you on the business burnout. That's the part I could see taking...a good while for myself.
I'm sure it would be but I've never heard of that happening.
I once went to my manager saying I was worried about burning out bc of pushing so hard on a project with a legal deadline. Asked him to consider/look into options for me to take a month off unpaid at the end of it.
He said he'd talk to leadership about it and get back to me. I got fired the next day.
This is where I would have lawyered up. I don't know where this happened to you, but over in Europe I'm pretty sure this is illegal and I'd be gunning for some sweet, sweet money.
Unless they're in a legally protected class or live in Montana, his or her employer can fire them for whatever reason they want (and the employee can leave for whatever reason they want as well).
