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A12 BUSINESS
Tuesday 22 November 2022

Liz Weston: How to take a career break

By LIZ WESTON of Nerd
Wallet
Back in 2016, Jamie Clark
of Seattle was a software
engineer who planned to
take a year off of work to
finish a master’s degree in
computational linguistics.
One year turned into three
and a career change into
financial planning.
Nowadays, Clark, who
uses they/them pronouns,
believes the experience
makes them a better advi-
sor particularly since their
career break didn’t turn
out as originally planned. This undated file photo provided by NerdWallet shows Liz Weston,
a columnist for personal finance website NerdWallet.com.
“Part of our job as finan- Associated Press
cial planners is to help
people be prepared,”
says Clark, now a certified to sustain you. That starts how that might affect your
financial planner who re- with knowing precisely plans to retire, Hoang says.
cently launched their own what you’re spending to- Clark saved enough from
firm, Ruby Pebble Financial day and estimating what a high-paying job to cov-
Planning. “And I want to your expenses will be dur- er living expenses for two
help people build that flex- ing your break. Some costs years, and was able to
ibility.” might decline, such as stretch that to three years
Career breaks are ex- commuting or child care. after getting married. Their
tended and usually unpaid But you also might have spouse paid the bills as
stretches of time off work. new costs, including higher Clark used remaining sav-
Such breaks can be aspi- health insurance premiums ings to pay tuition and oth-
rational giving you time if your current coverage is er costs to get their finan-
to travel, pursue a degree, employer-subsidized. cial planning credential.
change careers or launch Once you calculate how Clark says that careful
a business. Or, they can be much you need to save, tracking of expenses and
prompted by life events, consider adding a fudge thoughtful budgeting not
such as caring for a child, factor equal to two or only helped make their
nursing a family member three months’ worth of savings last, but it also alle-
or dealing with an illness or expenses in case it takes viated some of the stress of
burnout. longer than expected to Clark being without a pay-
Whatever the cause, some land your next job, Hoang check.
planning can help you suggests. One of Hoang’s “There are always surprises,
make the most of your friends didn’t do that, and but it’s good to try and
break. wound up raiding his 401(k) minimize them, or at least
SAVE AND BUDGET DILI- to pay the bills. minimize impact on your
GENTLY And speaking of retire- finances,” Clark says.
CFP Henry Hoang of Irvine, ment: Extended breaks MAKE A PLAN FOR YOUR
California, doesn’t believe could mean you’ll need TIME
most people need de- to work past normal retire- You may feel you need a
tailed budgets, as long as ment age or increase your break from strict schedules,
they’re saving adequately savings rate significantly but having no plan means
for their goals. But career to retire on time. If you’re you could waste this pre-
breaks are an exception, planning to take more than cious time you prepared
he says. When your pay- two years off, use a retire- and saved for.
checks stop, you’ll want ment calculator or consult Hoang has another cau-
to have enough savings a financial planner to see tionary tale from a client
who started his break with
a strong desire to change
careers and spend more
time with his young chil-
dren. His days quickly filled
up with parenting duties,
and he never made time
to explore other jobs, Ho-
ang says. When his sav-
ings ran out, he ended up
going back into his same
field.q