Freedom Countdown

Archive for June, 2009

Before you take the big plunge and quit your day job, you need to take a very realistic look at how much after-expenses, after-tax money your passion will generate.  Then you need to prove that you can live on that amount.  The best way to do this is to set up a budget based on your passion’s income and live on it for 6 to 12 months as if it were your sole source of income.  Be brutally honest about your spending, don’t just make guesses as to how much you’re spending, or tell yourself you’ll start on this task next month when you don’t need new tires or some other unexpected expense.  You will still have financial surprises after you quit your job and you need to be prepared to handle them.

The easiest way to set up a budget is to utilize the online banking tools that many banks now offer.  Many will automatically group your transactions into categories like groceries and gas based on the vendor’s name.  Also, you can usually download your banking transactions to Quicken, QuickBooks, or the free Quicken Online service.  Once you have your transactions categorized, it’s time to set a budget amount within the online banking tool or Quicken/QuickBooks and begin monitoring your progress against your budget.

Another thing you should do before you quit your job is to begin building your six month cash reserve.  That’s your monthly expenses times 6 and yes, it will seem like a lot of money, so start now.   This is something everyone should do whether they are beginning a new business or not.  This isn’t your 401K, your child’s college fund, or your home equity;  it’s money sitting somewhere that’s easy to get to in case of an emergency like a layoff or illness.  Or in your case, a new business venture that doesn’t work out quite like you projected.

Finally, consider scaling back your lifestyle and getting out of debt.  It’s hard enough to start a new business as it is, without worrying about whether you’re going to lose your house or your life’s savings.  There are some businesses that are instant successes, but most need a year or two (or more) to grow into something that will support you consistently the way your career did.  If you’re lucky (or unlucky) enough to have investors you may be able to pay yourself a sizeable salary, but most small businesses don’t work that way.

I’ve been scaling back my lifestyle and getting out of debt for the last several years, but it’s time to get serious about the budget.

I love Artisteer.  I’ve tried about 5 different tools to make a blog or a website and they’ve all been a lot of work, even though they claimed to be simple.  Artisteer truly is point and click and I’ve been able to do everything that I’ve wanted to do.  Plus for a $50 price tag, I can make as many website or blog templates that I want and none of them look the same.

I received feedback that my site was too blue.  And I agreed.   Plus I didn’t like the stock photo from Artisteer.  So I used Picasa to crop a picture of my grandfather’s windmill in Oklahoma  and I changed up the colors a little.  I like the new, clean, less blue look.

I think about the family farm in Oklahoma a lot and to me it represents a simpler time.  Of course, I was young and carefree when I was there, so no wonder Grandma’s house was so great.  For years, and even now, when I think about escaping or running away, this is where my mind takes me.

I decided to try Twitter and see if I could use it in some way that went beyond “I’m going to eat sushi” or “Just got home”.  I’ve read in several places that if that’s all you do with Twitter that you’re missing out on the power of Twitter.  It may take more imagination than I have, we’ll see.

Sign up was easy, but I quickly ran into a stumbling block.  Should I use my real name or my blog’s name?    I Googled the concept and read opinions that included using your  real name and not using your real name.

I decided to use my business name but found that I was limited to fewer characters than my name contains.  Keep that in mind if you haven’t selected a name yet.  I shaved off the last few letters and was left with a Twitter username of FreedomCount.  Not ideal, but I’m not willing to change my blog name at this point.

I also found that I could post my tweets (twitter posts) on my blog and vice versa with a WordPress plugin called Twitter Tools.

At the end of the first day, I had six followers.  I have no idea who they are or why they would follow me.  I’d like to think that they are interested in what I have to say, but if not, thanks anyway.  I’m just excited to have followers.

Since this blog is supposed to chronicle the journey of building a business, I guess I should include the warts and all.  So here are some random thoughts about the last two weeks of this journey.  I’ve put off mentioning them because I don’t have any pithy answers or solutions for them yet.

1. My personal life, which is my main priority, keeps getting in the way of my day job and my new business.  It’s been a whirlwind of graduation and college enrollment.  All of which have been fantastic, but there’s been a hint of guilt festering in my subconscious that I should be working harder on the business.
2. I’m having a really hard time motivating myself to work at my day job.  Although I’ve disliked it for years, the feelings seem to be intensifying.  I’ve tried a variety of ways to reward myself if I will just buckle down and get it over with.  These techniques aren’t working.  The gnawing in my stomach as I sit down and review my daily To Do List is getting worse and I find myself wasting valuable time.
3. It’s increasingly difficult to shift between thinking about my business and thinking about my day job.  Just as I get into the groove of one, it’s time to think about the other.  Neither really get the attention they deserve.
4. There are parts of my new business that I really don’t like to do and I find myself putting them off, just like I put off unsavory tasks with my day job.  It’s easy to think that a new business will be perfect when you’re dreaming, but reality is that all things have a good side and a bad side.  I know one solution is to hire these tasks out and I’ll probably look into that at some point.
5. Writing in this blog has been uneven.  I’ve had several things I’ve wanted to write about but they didn’t seem substantial enough so I’ve left it idle.  I’ll need to decide whether every entry needs to be filled with advice or go more with the diary approach.  Without a doubt, leaving it idle is the worst blogging sin.

None of these issues is new for me, I’ve been dealing with them for a long time and when I get a little more organized, I’ll probably write about them in more detail.  But for today, I simply feel torn in lots of directions and am accomplishing very little.