I was not so shocked to hear that Trent from The Simple Dollar has decided to quit his job, hearing how well he’s been doing with his writing projects. But I’m much more surprised about this obvious trend that’s been developing among financial bloggers: many are shedding their day jobs and eschewing a corporate income to pursue full time blogging, other independent work or the enjoyment of early retirement. And many of us are way under 65, have young mouths to feed and mortgages to pay. I find it invigorating to hear about these stories because it just reinforces the fact that taking charge of our own destiny is a possibility…and happens more often than you think.
On that note, guess who else is joining this job-leaving herd THIS WEEK? Along with JD at Get Rich Slowly, Lazy Man, Super Saver at My Wealth Builder, the nice lady from Retirement: A Full Time Job….. you can count me in here as well. I had a midsummer date set for this eventuality but things got ahead of themselves and now, I’m following the lead of all these folks and moving up my “early retirement” date by several months.
I’m typing my resignation letter this weekend and will be out the door by Friday.
I’ll be providing more details later! In the meantime, here are more inspiring reads for you!
Personal Finance Reads
- Lazy Man and Money: Here’s a hefty series on taxing the unhealthy. My gut feeling is that I’d be against it because I don’t feel comfortable about already penalizing someone when they’re down.
- Money Smart Life: There’s a lot here on energy reduction, energy saving and efficient usage.
- Gen X Finance: We’ve got a volatile market whipsawing our fortunes, but perhaps these option strategies may help soften the blow.
- The Sun’s Financial Diary: Under certain circumstances, it seems that you can now take it out on your 401K administrator if your 401K account goes bad.
- Free Money Finance: Now that the real estate bust is underway, you may be interested in getting in on the ground floor. Here are some tips for finding deals on foreclosed homes.
- Mighty Bargain Hunter: There’s no excuse not to get what you want. It’s all about priorities!
- No Credit Needed: NCN has opened a SEP-IRA, which reminds me that I need to do the same as well. If you’re looking to reduce your taxes, one way is to open and fund retirement accounts that you are eligible for.
- Five Cent Nickel: Nickel covers some tips on how to prepare your house for sale. We did a few things on this list when we sold our house 8 years ago. But make sure you don’t overdo it because some buyers don’t care much about improvements you make especially when they have plans of remodeling the house themselves.
- All Financial Matters: If you have the cash to pay for something in full, and decide instead to take advantage of 0% financing options, do you consider this move as taking on debt? I actually don’t think so, since I’m not really financing anything — just taking an offer that I think will better serve me financially.
Additional Readings
- How to get a great deal on a new car – Part III @ Gather Little By Little
- How to Get Your Dream Job pt. 2 – The Resume @ Credit Withdrawal
- Talking to Mom About Money @ Debt Free Revolution
- Myths of Garage Sale Shopping @ Frugal For Life
Announcements
Free Money Finance has announced the Money March Madness Tournament Participants as he gets ready to launch this annual pf blogosphere “contest”! Who will get bragging rights for MVP (“Most Valuable Post”)? We’ll have to wait and see as this tournament unfolds but for now, please note that I’ve chosen my most popular post of last year: 8 Lessons I Learned From The Cheapest Family In The Nation as my entry to this event. Voting hasn’t started yet but will happen soon, so don’t forget to vote with your comments!
Recent Carnivals
- Hot Finance Carnivals!
- Carnival of Money Stories #47
- Festival of Stocks #76
- Carnival of Financial Planning – February 21 2008 Edition
- All Women Blogging Carnival
- Small Actions to Change the World #9 (Blog Carnival)
Image Credit: eRequester
- Stock trades: Free stock trades from Zecco, Cheap stock trades from TradeKing, Stock news and Investment info at INO TV Free, No cost Trend Analysis for stocks
- Earn top returns: FNBO Direct [1.90%], HSBC Direct [1.65%], WTDirect [1.76%], E*Trade Bank [0.95%], ING Direct [.25% to 1.65%]
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Thanks for the include. I hope the transition goes well. Scary or not, it should be quite a life change.
Randall
Good for you! I hope the transition goes well. It’s inspiring to hear about so many bloggers following their dreams instead of their paychecks.
That is great!
So happy for you SVB. You are a great inspiration, and I look forward to reading along on this new adventure!
Congratulations!
Good thing I found an extra part time job to restore balance in the force and bring peace to the galaxy!!
If my current employer allows it, I have a weekend job as a copy editor for a math journal. Hope it will be fun.
I think one reason is the many pf bloggers are rather well off. Thus quitting is no biggie and once the “I quit” meme starts spreading, more will be quitting.
Wow, now I have to eat my words on my blog about men being boring and not really wanting to retire–most of our fellow young retirees this week are men! I stand corrected!
Congratulations to all of us! (Only 125 more hours–I’ve switched the count down from days to hours now . . .)
Sydney (the not-so-nice lady at Retirement: A Full Time Job!)
Thanks for all the kind comments and link backs! I noticed that some are wondering about me going “pro-blogger” now that I’m hanging my IT hat. Well actually, that is part of it yes, but I’d love to come clean about the money behind blogging. At this time, I’m making a small amount from blogging, certainly, but it’s far, far short of what’s needed to feed our family of 5
. But yes, I’m planning to try out additional business ideas to see if this can conceivably replace my salary in several years’ time (make that at least 3 years from now!). In the meantime, we’ll be tightening our belts and spending much much less!
And Sydney, congratulations! What’s in the water this week?! Bloggers walking out in droves…
Cheers! (that was the captcha word, very appropriate). I’m always happy to see people escaping the rat race.
So have you secured yourself or you are just jumping in the unknown?
Rock ON! That is awesome. I wish you all the best –
Couple of questions, similar to the ones I asked Trent -
What about health insurance?
Retirement plans?
NCN
@The Shark Investor,
We’re getting a startup business up and running with hopes to fund it later this year, so for now, we’re running on savings and the little income we’re receiving from doing freelance work and yeah, blogging
. I’ll be covering more on how we’re making this plan work in a detailed post coming up this week!
@NCN,
Thanks so much! Let me try to cover your questions.
Health insurance: we’re getting a family plan for now and have our small business pay for it, since the business is our main source of income. It covers the income for various sites/blogs and consulting services that both my husband and I do as the opportunities arise. They’re mostly technology related “jobs”, though some are advisory in nature and definitely stuff we *prefer* to do.
Retirement plans: We’re using a SEP-IRA through the small business for now but may look into a Simple 401K as well. I have to see which works out better for us.
All in all, it’s really a matter of cobbling together various ways to make up for lost income from our regular jobs (if you haven’t heard, my husband is working on a separate startup that currently has no income either). But because our confidence level is rising somewhat based on the startup’s progress, we’re thinking we can handle a few months of lost income and living off of savings, before expected startup funding later this year bridges our expense gap and covers our spending deficits!
The key is that this whole thing is a highly coordinated family affair. The spouse and I have to work together closely and agree on many things to make it work!
like always great carnival
Congratulations and good luck! I really look forward to reading about your transition
Congrats SVB! That’s really a huge step. Good luck to whatever now you decide to do in your “spare” time
Good luck with your new projects. It’s great to see people going for it!
Congrats! Sure hope to be one of you one day!
Thanks for the inclusion!
Congratulations!
All the best in your new life!
Best regards
Congrats on making the decision! Go get ‘em!!!!
Curly Tree,
Good for you. I’m so happy for you. You were one the first bloggers I networked with when I started in sept 2006. It’s great to see it turn into this. Best of luck to you and I’ll keep reading here.
Congrats man! Thats awesome. Really not much else you can say to that except, gotta love the land(s) of opportunity America and the internet
Digi,
I am very happy for your PF blogging success! I am amazed at the number of bloggers who have been able to start their own blogging business and end up financial stable and able to perform their hobby full time. What a dream to aspire for! I hope to follow your great progress.
-Raymond
Thank you friends! I have found that I’ve enjoyed the online community tremendously. I started running a site as a fluke, but it’s turning out more promising than I expected. Still *very* far from making it be a main source of income but I think that with more time devoted to this endeavor (whether through this site or additional ones I’d love to work on), it can turn out to be a new career. All this is quite premature of course, but it’s been very fun and rewarding.
Beats all the time I used to spend online…elsewhere.
PS. I also like how you all know me by different aliases. Lol.
SVB,
Enjoy. The “next phase” is a great adventure.
Congratulations on this move! I wish you and your family the best of success in all your endeavors!
Congratulations SVB. I hope to be joining you and the others in the next couple of years!
Congratulations! I am so happy to see you move forward. As a daily reader, your blog has been my stimuli while juggling the daily job, family and entrepreneur mind.
Keep moving! My role model!!
Hooray! It’s a wonderful feeling to write a resignation letter and have that feeling of freedom between jobs, in my experience – so I can only imagine what it would feel like to finally cast free of work altogether and sit on the beach sipping mai tais all day!
Ooops, wait, you’re not quite THAT far along the path to retirement
Congratulations, it’s always nice to see likable people have success in their lives 
Steve
congratulations! you have a great blog and I hope the plans to work at home all turn out for the best.
@Silvia,
I’m really glad I have this forum to connect with readers like you. This kind of thing spurs me into even bigger action!
@Brip Blap,
.
Maitais aren’t in the picture yet though my retirement plans at the moment involve freelancing work. It’s a much better fit for my current mommy lifestyle
@Everyone,
Your wishes mean a lot, I’m grateful for your support!
Congratulations are in order…
May writing about debt and finances keep yours in check
Very happy for you!
I know this is late, but congrats! That’s pure inspiration for the rest of us.
That’s fantastic. Congrats on your early retirement!