If you're going to live well you must consider, before you do anything else, where you are in relation to where you'd like to be. Forget about the economy at large. Are you happy with your job? Is your spouse or partner happy, career-wise? Can you afford to pursue your dreams? We believe in having dreams, and in realizing them.

We know plenty of people who have walked away from jobs in the middle of a recession because they've realized life is too short to be stuck in a job that is just a daily grind and they've bravely gone forth to reinvent themselves.

We have a close friend who was a big muckety-muck in the retail business, with a high six-figure income. She specialized in reviving faltering retail companies for resale - a tough job, a real pressure cooker. In return for her fat paycheck, she became accustomed to sleepless nights and no time for a personal life—all in the name of fixing someone else's mistakes, as she began to see it.

So what did our friend do, just when she was at the top and companies were tripping over themselves clamoring for her services? She saved her money until she could comfortably say, "Sayonara, corporate America!" and moved on to a new career as a sculptor!

She had enough savings to get her through about five years if she cut back fairly drastically on her lifestyle. Who knows, had she stayed with the job, she might have eventually found herself out of work in spite of the demand, because many corporate directors don't know the meaning of loyalty—and she might have been caught unawares without a financial cushion.

Follow Your Dreams

We have another story of a couple who walked away from financial security together, a couple named Ken and Daria Dolan. The time was 1984. Ken was a managing director of an international brokerage firm, and Daria was happily raising their daughter, Meredith, and taking an occasional acting job. The whole country had become infatuated with Wall Street as people who'd never invested before caught their piece of the new bull market, and life was good for many Americans—including the Dolans.

But Ken had a dream. . . .

He wanted to host a radio program using all he'd learned about personal finance to help people in a very public way, instead of just working with private clients. His dream came true in October of that year, when he was offered an on-air job at WOR Radio in New York City, beginning in early 1985. He accepted, though it meant taking a pay cut of 70%!

When Ken told Daria about the new job, she was in shock.

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