This is the post of I’ve been waiting to write and, after 9 months in the making, it’s now official: I quit my job! It feels like a huge relief to finally be done and to move on from New Haven, too.
Why I Quit
There are a few reasons I decided to leave my job:
1) I was bored and unhappy. While my job wasn’t stressful and my boss was great, I was bored at my job. I felt like I wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t making a difference in the world on a daily basis. I’m sure I could’ve just coasted along for some time, but that’s just not my style or desire.
2) I need to give self-employment a shot. I’ve always been entrepreneurial-minded and I even attended Babson College, the #1 ranked college for entrepreneurial studies, before I decided to transfer out. I’m not sure that I’m born to be an entrepreneur, but I know I need to find out before I’ll ever be content with going back to a desk job. Now is the best chance I’ll ever have in my life to go for it. I’m not scared of failing at this, and even the worst case scenario isn’t bad enough to stop me.
3) I wanted out of New Haven. I moved there with my girlfriend, and she just graduated from Yale. Neither of us planned to stay after she finished school. I had a great time there and enjoyed the people I met, but New Haven just isn’t the place for me right now.
How It Went Down
I’d love to excite you with a dramatic story with how I quit my job, but there isn’t one. This is totally fine since things were’t emotional and there was no animosity whatsoever from my boss or coworkers. I left completely on my own terms. My boss actually knew way in advance that I’d be leaving May 2012, and I gave her official notice of my last day about a month ahead of time.
On May 25th, I walked out the door for the last time and never looked back.
The Money Question
As you may have guessed, how I’ll earn money to continue living is one of my largest concerns, and one that many others ask about, too.
Remember my Quit My Job Fund? I saved $7,000 in that. It’s a little less than I hoped, but I kept blog and freelancing income separate and haven’t cashed any of that out. I also have other savings to fall back on if I need to.
More importantly, I do have part-time income from both writing and SEO. I’m now staff blogger at HatToss.com, where I write 3 posts a weeks for money issues related to college students and recent grads. It’s a dream topic for me, as I can definitely relate to some of the money highs and lows of the younger crowd.
I’m really enjoying writing right now, and I’m confident that I’ll pick up more clients when the time allows. I’m hoping to eventually have 2-3 more consistent clients so that I can earn a real wage that allows me to save some money, too. This is the path I see myself going down right now, but who knows if that’ll change? It’s exciting to think of the possibilities out there for me now, and I certainly don’t want to rule any of them out.
In all honestly, I haven’t been looking around at all yet since I planned to take this time of transition slowly. I currently work about 15 hours a week with a flexible schedule and work that I can do from anywhere with internet. For summer, that makes me happy.
In a couple weeks, I’ll be moving out to Portland, Oregon for the summer. Once there, I’ll attend the World Domination Summit in Portland in July as well as the Financial Bloggers Conference in Denver in September (looking forward to seeing all my friends there!). I’m excited to explore the Pacific Northwest a bit while I’m taking it easy on the money making side.
Shoutouts to My Favorite Quitters
I just want to say “thanks” my favorite Quitters and to those who have supported me and helped me along the way.
First and foremost, I have to thank Sean Ogle for putting this whole idea in my head. A year ago I would’ve had no idea how to make this leap. But through Sean’s Location Rebel course as well as inspiration from Sean’s blog have helped answer some of the questions and overcome just about any fear that I’ve had.
I also want to thank Caleb from Pocket Changed for his support along the way. We had some fun plotting this date months ago.
Tom at Leaving Work Behind has had some awesome advice, and I actually got my first freelance writing job thanks to a link in one of his posts!
I also think back to reading some posts from Tyler at Advanced Riskology and Jenny at Life After College about their journeys.
Of course, everyone at Yakezie has been huge along the way, too.
My family and friends have been fantastic in supporting me. I feel blessed that everyone trusts in what I’m doing and has offered encouragement along the way.
Thanks to everyone else I forgot to mention (you know who you are!). Even if it’s just been a short comment or blog post you’ve written and I’ve read, it’s been a part of this amazing journey for me.
Final Lessons
I’m not writing this to prove a point or rub it in anyone’s face. I don’t think jobs are stupid (and I wouldn’t rule out going back to one myself). Besides, my life problems are far from solved, and I know I have some big challenges ahead.
The one thing I will challenge everyone reading this post to do is to change whatever it is in your life that’s making you unhappy. There are always options out there. They might not be easy at first, but you have to take action.
I look forward to sharing more with you on here as the next few months progress. You can follow me on Twitter to get all the updates not only on Money Spruce but my work in other places, too.
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