Recently, several personal finance bloggers I read have taken the plunge and quit their jobs. They include The Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life, Trent at The Simple Dollar, and my fellow peninsula resident Lazy Man. Today my friend asked me how much income I need from blogging to quit my job, and I told him I’d probably be willing to take a gross pay cut of $30000 per year. He then said, “you are willing to take that big of a paycut?” I then sort of explained that it isn’t as a big of a cut as it seems. Here are my reasons why.
1.Taxes take a big bite out of things – An extra $30000 ends up being only $15000 after the various taxes I have to pay. (Federal rate 28%, State rate 9.3%, plus social security, sdi, medicare) So really I’m really only taking a pay cut of $15000 take home.
2. I can save money on my vehicle when I stay at home – I really don’t drive very much. My commute is 9 miles each way and I have a pretty gas efficient Honda Accord that needs to be filled up every two to three weeks. Nevertheless, it costs me over $100 a month to get the fill ups. If I stay home and drive less I can save over $2000 a year on gas and maintenance. So that $15000 I am losing now becomes $13000.
3. I will be able to cook more and save more - Out of convenience we still go out to eat a lot these days. We come home between 7 to 8pm and just don’t have the time or will to cook. Sometimes we cook some simple salads and pasta, but the other times we go out to eat. If I do stay home I will be able to cook more and save a lot of money on food. I will have time to coupon clip and be even cheaper. The savings there could add up to another $2000 to $3000 a year. (We spend around $200 to $400 a month eating out right now)
4. I can write a lot more - These days I blog on my lunch hour or when I get home. It takes a lot of time to write anything coherent and informative. If I could concentrate on writing more I could grow my income stream better. Then the paycut would become smaller every day.
Unfortunately, I am nowhere near the income I would get if I took a $30000 paycut and if I quit my job now it would be pretty devastating. Another thing is that I would probably have to pay some money for health insurance if I were to get on my husband’s plan. The good news is that February is the best month year in terms of income and exposure for my blogging. I have already gotten $250 through various sources and I hope March is just as good or even better. Write on bloggers! Maybe one day you can quit your job like these brave souls I mentioned at the beginning of the post!
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11 comments ↓
good news and do what you love to do and you may be succeed in the future.
That would be nice.
I hope you make it.
Would you quit to blog full time right now if you could make the same blogging as you do at your regular job?
Hi Trent! Yeah, I probably would quit right now to blog if I made as much as my regular job. It will take me a while to get there, though. I’d be willing to quit with a $30k paycut, so of course I’d be willing to quit with a 0 paycut.
Good to see this written up. Being a full time blogger would be kind of awesome.
What if you could make $30k more as a blogger than your regular job, would you quit then??
Mike
It is inconceivable to me how bloggers can make that much money! I’d like to try but it seems that only a few really make it, is that right?
I didn’t exactly quit because I make enough with my blog. I got coerced to resign and decided that I made enough to give it a shot for a bit.
yeah I know Lazy Man. But you’re doing fairly well!
I quit not because I wanted to blog (as my primary reason). I quit because I needed a lifestyle change because my old life was quite literally about to kill me. I was getting pretty stressed out with long commutes from the Peninsula (yes we are all neighbors!) to the city and back and beginning to focus much more on my kids. True, I made a choice between the blog and my job, and the blog invigorated me while the job was taking a toll on me. But things work themselves out in the end and I’ve found that this choice was truly the right one.
great breakdown of what it really takes to quit your real job. i’m sure many people overlook the simple things you can save by working at home.
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