TLDR at the bottom.
A little context first.
I'm 37 and have been working either retail or manufacturing for my whole working life. Most recently I had a job soldering for a factory that I'd been at for 8 1/2 years. It was alright but I had to get up at 4am and work for 10 hours a day. Then I was laid off with 8 weeks of severance. It sucked but I wasn't freaking out because I had 2 months to find something else.
5 weeks in with no prospects and I'm starting to get concerned. I have a wife and 2 kids to support and mortgage to pay.
Now, my wife, my gorgeous amazing wife, was extremely supportive. Didn't freak out and encouraged me to take a break and take my time. For the past 6 years she's been running her own business out of the house and it's grown year over year. She's worked her ass off with late nights and sneaking down to the basement office when she has a spare moment. She's an inspiration. And I've always been a little jealous that she had the gumption to go for it and work for herself.
Anyway, a few weeks into my severance as I'm coming back from an errand, I run into her using her bandsaw in the garage. She hates cutting wood but it's a huge part of her business. She catches me before I head and casually asked “What if I hire you?”
I was a little taken aback but she'd been doing research. She found a few options online and apparently it's not uncommon. I told her I'd love to help her but money was still the issue. We've been slowly paying off debts and we weren't exactly close to paying them off. So we discussed options back and forth and decided I'd still look for a job but could maybe go part time and still help her out.
As I'm lying in bed that night I randomly remembered my 401K. Well that might help out a bit. I didn't pay it too much attention but maybe that could be an option. I checked in the morning and after withholding the appropriate taxes we'd have enough to pay off the debt plus extra.
My wife was hesitant but I could tell she was excited. She spent the next day crunching numbers and found that her business, as it currently runs, can pay all our expenses plus have spending money as long as we aren't paying the debt.
So that's the plan. I withdraw my 401K, and work for my wife as we slowly expand her business. She handles all the business stuff and I mostly do the labor and maintenance. I'm working a couple hours a day and spending all of my time at home with my family. Her stress has dropped and now she's looking into advertising and additional products.
We just started but hopefully, just hopefully, this works out.
TLDR: Got laid off and now I'm working for my wife after using my 401K to get rid of our debt.