As an IR Mgr, I'd say threat hunting has better work/life balance. I say that because hunters typically hunt during business hours only but IR Managers have to respond/react to alerts whenever they are escalated OR to emails related to potential threats, which you can receive any time of day or night.
@@VS-yk3gu sponsored training is never cheap, ever, even the crappy courses. If you want to save money, watch a LOT of the certified ethical hacking videos on RU-vid and look for practice tests online prior to taking the real exam.