I can imagine it would be extremely stressful to lose an income stream with high expenses, but we have gone to great lengths to reduce (financial) risk. We live in an apartment on the lower level of our house and AirBnB the upstairs, which more than covers the mortgage. By contracting part-time at higher rates, I have more free time to devote to spending time with my son, which I think lowers other kinds of more meaningful, less quantifiable risk. If the contracts dry up, it's no big deal - we're saving heavily while the getting's good and I use the dry spells for professional development and to go do the things we enjoy.