Quitting your day job.

(this article is part of a series)

Update: I've just given notice at my day job!

My day job isn't my passion, and I suspect the same is true for many part-time business owners.

Someday I hope to be professionally working on something robotics related, but I'd be happy if I could just take my spam blocker program full-time for now.

How close am I to leaving my day job? Close enough where I'll put this page up, and not worry about it if anyone at work sees it (if this page vanishes - it's probably because sales dropped).

So here are a few thoughts on quitting your day job from a shareware author who hasn't quite pulled it off yet.

Save up a bunch of money

Put some of that money in the bank. This money should be kept mentally separate from money for retirement or day-to-day expenses.

Think of your cash pile in terms of how many months you could live off it. If your product completely stops selling - how long could you last? More likely - what if sales dropped 50%?

You can get a savings account paying better than 4% on the internet (I use ING Direct). Investing the money in the stock market may seem tempting - but if you do - plan on how you'd handle it if it lost 40%.

I'll also suggest you should pay off any consumer debt (credit cards) and preferably any other non-mortgage debt before making the leap.

If you find you're not able to save up a large chunk of cash (think 3 to 9 months of expenses), that's a strong sign you're not ready to quit your day job yet.

Can you really live off what you're making?

What about if you have to pay your own healthcare and payroll taxes?

Are your sales 90% from Google traffic or other single source? Then be prepared to have your sales cut in half at any moment.

If you're not quite making enough - and are planning to work hard to get sales up after you quit your job, make sure you also plan on burning some of your cash reserve in the process.

Leave on good terms

Make plans for a successful failure

If you find that you need to take money out of savings each month just to get by - start taking action way before your account gets to zero.

Try to pick a "turn-around point" for your bank account ahead of time. For instance, you could decide that you'll start looking for new work when your account hits $15,000.

Since your product is presumably making you some money, and you still have plenty of cash in the bank - you probably have options much more desirable than going back to your old 9-to-5 job.

You could...

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