Writing as the main job?

I have been reading about and directly from some well known authors in the past few months, how they do what they do full time. So their main job is writer.

I know a couple technical writers myself, but they all have a full time job to pay the bills and write on the side. Then again their books are technical and expensive, while only aimed at a small group of people. A novel could be for pretty much anyone.

So if you could just stop doing whatever it is you do now, this instant, and start just writing all day long, as much as you want, would you do it? I think if I did it, I would get some more sleep. That always sounds nice and strangely gets nicer the older I get. In short, I’m old. If I made roughly the same money, I wouldn’t have a problem. So if it comes down to the money, where would you make the jump from “secure job that pays the bills every month” to “job where you never know how much you make the next month and probably less than now”. Also if you make 3000 now, would you do it if you only made 2500? How about 2000? Less?

If I could do it, I probably would, but the pay cut could not be over 20% the way I’m living at the moment. I also would probably first scale back time on my usual day job, easing into the whole thing, slowly, over time. But then again, my writing’s will never be good enough or popular enough to generate an income that would allow me to live reasonably comfortable here. So it’s a nice idea, but wont work in reality.