It's all a numbers game really. But chances are the savings and spending you made while working a high paying job will greatly work in your favor when shifting to a much lower paying job. 5 years of 12% 401k savings (6% plus employer matching) while working at 100k will save equivalent to 10-15 years at 50k thanks to compound interest. Nice furniture, clothing and electronics you bought while working a high paying job will still be there while you work a lower paying job. Ultimately if you can downshift your spending, you can downshift your income, and cost of living is going to be a massive factor. If you can move from a HCOL area to a LCOL area you can kinda become a big fish in a small pond. I know a person who works remotely for a bay area tech company while living in rural Wisconsin. They have the biggest house in the town they live in because they make 4-6x what a local middle class household would want to make to live comfortably.

But for such a shift you have to be prepared to make changes to your spending, to how you view values of money, etc.

One side note: if you do move to a rural area, you have to plan on spending more on your vehicle. When you live in a rural area you might easily find yourself with a 40 mile daily commute, or going to a town 50 miles away for a specific store or service regularly. When you look at a rural area vs a city the age of folks' vehicles drops dramatically because of the sheer number of miles people are putting on their vehicles