Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

I Quit My Job: Overcoming the Fear

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One question I’ve been asked over and over when talking about quitting my job is how I overcame the fear of not being able to find a new job, or not being able to pay my bills.  Obviously, both of those questions played a part in the decision.  My answer might surprise some.  I didn’t.  At least not to the point that they’ve completely left my mind.

At the moment, I’m not looking for another job.  I took on a part-time job, working for a local computer repair shop, and I’m not even looking for a new full-time job.  The part-time job doesn’t pay anything even close to what I was making at my full-time job.  And, the truth is, I don’t care.  So far, using the income from my wife’s full-time job, and the income from my part-time job, along with some of the income I make from this site and others, we’ve been able to pay the bills.  We haven’t been able to keep up with our debt repayments on the same aggressive schedule that we had been on before, but we can pay the bills.

Even so, making the decision to quit my job meant overcoming the fear of both of those things.  And, I did it.

Almost a year before I quit my job, I wrote a post on another site of mine, entitled Overcoming Fear.  In it, I wrote about facing fear with rationality.  Looking at fear with a rational eye, and truly, asking “What’s the worst that could happen?”  I knew, during the decision making process, that the part-time job was available, and that it would likely be mine for the asking.  The worst that could happen there was for that particular job to become unavailable.  But, there are other part time jobs available here, and I could take one of those.  The hours at another one of them might be worse, and the pay might even be worse, but jobs were available.  The worst that could happen was that I could end up having to take a different part-time job that I wouldn’t like as much.  The worst that could happen with our bills would be if we couldn’t make ends meet.  The absolute worst case scenario would be if we were pushed to a point, financially, where we would have to declare bankruptcy.   Even that is was a pretty remote possibility, because I could always take on a second part-time job to help bring more money in.

I found the worst case scenarios, understood what the ramifications would be for each, and took a leap.  And, in the end, I’m very happy that I did.  My stress levels have gone way down.  I enjoy what I’m doing again.  And, I’m in control of what happens with my life, now.

if it makes you fly...

Overcoming fear can be about the best case scenario too.  With any decision, there is always something that is a positive.  For me, the positives of getting out of a situation that I was suffering in, regaining control of my life, and stopping the trade of my time for money, made it well worth my while.

Do you fear?  I encourage to read my post on Overcoming Fear, look at your fears with a rational eye, and ask yourself what the worst case scenario is.  Some fears aren’t worth fearing.

Share with us.  What are some fears that you’ve overcome?  What are some fears that you want to overcome?
photo credit: notsogoodphotography

I Quit My Job: Recovering

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When I finally put in that two-weeks notice, I was floating on this nice little cloud, high above the world, happy with my decision and feeling like I could do no wrong.  Like Andrea of So Over Debt put it, it was the first good nights sleep I’d gotten in quite a while.  And, of course, for the two weeks that I was still working, I stayed on that cloud, anticipating that last day, and the end to my tenure at that employer.

As those two weeks went by, I went from anticipating the day, to downright demanding it came faster.  As more and more of my tasks were transferred to temporary replacements, and I packed more and more of the stuff off of my desk, I began to think about all the things I could be doing at home, at my computer, with this site, and my other sites.  It was torture!

Balloon LaunchAt the end of those two weeks, I nearly ran for the door!  I was already filled with ideas of what I would write the next day, the things I would do, and the changes I could make.  Little did I know that I had a bit of a different path planned.  You see, I woke up early the next morning, with the flu.  Yep.  I spent my entire first day of self employment with the flu.  The following day, I was well enough to at least sit at my desk, but being productive was almost certainly out of the question.

One of the things that I decided, early on in this adventure, was that the income from this and other sites wasn’t going to be enough to make up the difference, or even to make a dent in it.  I would have to get a part-time job in order to help pay the bills, while I built the sites up to a reasonable income level.  I already had a lead on one, so the first full week of self-employment, I went and met with the owner and we worked out some details, and I started last Thursday.  The part-time income from that should help with the bills.  I’ll get a bit less done on my sites, as I’ll be working three days a week, but it was something that I felt/feel was necessary in order to keep some constant money coming in while I work on building other things.

Now, a full week and a half after I quit, and the holidays rushing in on us, somethings are coming back into focus.  I’ve always gotten a bit worked up about finances.  That’s why I created this site, after all.  So, knowing that we lost over half of our income and will only be able to constantly replace about 1/3 of that income immediately, has me a bit stressed.  My wife want’s to do some holiday shopping, and my natural instinct is to shut off all of that, and “give hugs” this Christmas.  It’s caused a bit of friction, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

I’m recovering.  From the high of quitting my job.  From the flu.  From stressing entirely too much over money.  From a lot of things.  Such a major life change is bound to require some recovery period, and I am confident that I’ll come out the other side.  There’s just a few bumps in the road.  What an adventure!

photo credit: alibree

I Quit My Job

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I did something a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure that, based on the title of this article, you can guess what that something is.  In fact, today is my last day.  Starting at 5, I’m a free agent!

resignation

Why I Quit my Job.

Over the last several months and weeks, several things had happened at work, and while each would have likely been bearable on their own, the whole was completely unbearable. I don’t want to get into any real details, as I prefer to take the high-road and just leave what’s done, done. Unreasonable demands on me, and and my time had made my work a true chore, and I wasn’t willing to deal with it anymore. And so, I attempted to make my argument as to why the demands were unreasonable, but those arguments fell on deaf ears, and I submitted my resignation and two weeks notice. And, boy, did it feel good.

What about that House?

If you’ve been reading the last few weeks of articles, you’ve noticed that I’ve been writing alot about the house we were planning on buying, and the process that we and other prospective home owners have to go through. As you can likely imagine, the loss of one of our incomes has made it impossible for us to be able to afford the new mortgage payment that the new house would have brought with it. As a result of that, we’ve since cancelled the purchase and will remain in our current house.

The upside of not buying the house, and having to pull our current house off of the market is that we’ve done quite a bit of work on it in the last month or so to make it more appealing to prospective buyers. A new deck, some new flooring in the hall, and paint touch ups, among other things have made the house look pretty nice. It still remains rather small for our growing family, but it’s in really good condition now, and we’ll just have to make do.

Plans for the future.

With my resignation, I got something that I hadn’t really expected. Some freedom. I declared my free agency, and I’ll be attempting to make the most of it. I’ll be spending a lot more time writing for Beating Broke, as well as my other online properties. I’ll be writing some guest posts for other personal finance sites, and am hoping to have another ebook ready for you all sometime around the end of the year. (If you’ve got topics you’d like to see an ebook on, please let me know in the comments!)

I’ll likely have to take on a part time job, but have resolved to make it part time so that I have the time to do the extra work on this and other sites. It’ll help supplement the income I make online until such time as the online income grows enough to support me doing it full time.

How can you help?

The biggest way that you can help me, right now, is to continue reading my articles, here. It’s why I write them. It’d be pretty boring if you didn’t stop in to read, leave comments, and add to the discussion. If you’ve got topics you’d love to see covered here, please let me know in the comments or by using the contact us link at the top of the site. I’ll do my best to cover them as quickly and as fully as I can. Finally, share the site with your friends! Let them know how much you enjoy the articles!

photo credit: timsnell