Going full time- Part II

If you read Part I, you now know what I think the most important things to make the move to full time artist are. The first thing you need to do to start preparing for this is to get all your financial ducks in a row. For those of us who have a tendency to stick our heads in the sand when it comes to money, this can be a painful and eye opening experience. If you are serious in your goals though, it is a necessity.

First, find out where you stand. What is the bare MINIMUM you need to get by a month, how much debt are you carrying, and do you have any residual income (investment payments, child support, trust)? Next, make a plan to start paying on that debt. You want very little debt when you jump to self employment. We are lucky in that we have very little debt, just an $80 student loan payment that has a few years left on it. If you carry a lot of debt, and especially if you are having trouble making payments, get yourself to credit counseling ASAP, unless you really want to work that day job for the next twenty years... By doing this step right away, you can set a realistic goal of when you can expect to quit your day job. It is a lot easier to part with a paycheck to old debt if you have a goal to work towards.

Now you should have a tentative quit date. I made a point of writing minimum in caps up there. Often I hear people say they won't quit their day job until they are making the same or more working for themselves. Unless you are one of the lucky few, that just isn't going to happen until you are able to pour all your energy into your business for at least a year, probably more. If you are lucky enough to have a supportive partner who has an income, get them on board with your plan to quit now! If not, start living the frugal life and socking away every cent you can. Ideally, you should have enough saved to last you 6 months to a year, but rarely is anything ideal. Save what you can, know what you need to sell to make your minimum expenses, and make a plan to to sell that much. Also, put in place a back up plan.

Your back up plan is your get out of jail free card. It can be a partners income, selling off aunt Matilda's heirloom china, a hefty savings account, or taking a job. What, you say? Quit your soul sucking job just to take another one, I thought you were going to tell me how to quit! No, when I say take a job I mean take a job like the one you had as a teenager. You know, something that a poorly trained monkey can do and the only hiring requirement is a pulse, the one where you will never be emotionally invested enough in to try and climb the ladder and where you don't really have to think. A paper route is a good example, and is in fact our back-up plan. We know that a paper route only takes a couple of hours a day, there is always openings, and it pays enough to cover our minimum monthly requirements.

Realize some expenses will go up while others go down once you quit. You probably won't need day care, to commute, or to eat lunch out every day once you quit. On the other hand, you may need to find and pay for your own insurances now. The best advice I have here is to shop around. Research professional organizations in your field and check out their membership dues and if they have group insurance rates. Insurance goes into the minimum needed a month category because if you ain't healthy, you ain't working or earning at your maximum.

Finally, remember that money is the number one reason for divorce, and that worrying about it can lead to depression and health problems. If you are not someone that is comfortable taking risks, it does not mean you can't start your own business. All it means is you need to save more and cut down your expenses more. You can never eliminate all the risks, but you can minimize them quite a bit. Just make sure you keep the plan realistic. Don't try and save up ten years of expenses or over plan for highly unlikely emergencies (do you really need to worry about tsunami's is you live in Arizona?). On the other hand, don't convince yourself that your family won't mind eating ramen noodles for months on end either while you blissfully create away. Keep it realistic, and you'll be fine.

*Part III in the series, Plan It, will cover writing a business plan and ways to get money to start your business.