You are torn…
On one hand, you want to quit your job for whatever reason.
On the other hand, you can’t leave yourself incomeless… You need the money.
99.9% of those who want to quit their job, including me, are facing the exact same dilemma.
However, believe it or not, you are not stuck…
No matter how hopeless your situation might feel there is always at least one way out.
Here are 10 tips if you want to quit your job but can’t afford to because you need the money.
1 • Find Out If You Really Need the Money
There is a big difference between “needing” the money and “wanting” the money.
Needing the money means that you cannot survive without it.
Wanting the money means that you don’t really need it to survive but you would like to have it anyway.
Finding out if you really need the money or if you just want it can mean the difference between quitting your job right now or staying put until you find another source of income.
For example, if you are renting a place, you have bills to pay, and you need to buy your own food, and clothing, then you most probably need the money.
In that case, the smart move would be to get a hold of another source of income before quitting your current job.
On the other hand, if someone else, such as your parents, is covering your basic needs (shelter, food, clothes) and your salary is just a means towards having fun, going out for drinks, buying expensive stuff, proving yourself to your peers, etc, then you might want the money to be able to do all that stuff but you don’t really need it.
If this is the case, then you have to ask yourself if keeping your job is worth all that trouble.
Is having money to spend on drinks and food every Saturday night worth slaving for 5 out of 7 days of the week? Is purchasing the most up-to-date gadgets worth wasting HALF of your waking hours working a job that you don’t want to be working?
If the answer is no, then you might as well leave your job first thing tomorrow right after finishing your morning coffee.
Then, you can take your time looking for another more fulfilling job or maybe going after a dream of yours.
2 • Determine Why You Want To Quit
The are many reasons for someone to want to quit a job.
Maybe you are working for a toxic boss or in a very poor environment. Maybe your job is way too stressful or not what you signed up for.
Finding out exactly what the problem is will help you determine how to solve it.
For instance, if you hate your boss but like your job, then you could start looking for a similar job at another firm.
If you want to quit your job because you feel underpaid, you should ask for a raise before doing anything else.
Other times, wanting to quit a job might have nothing to do with the job itself but with your own self.
Maybe you have a dream of becoming a professional tennis player or a business owner which remains unfulfilled because you’ve spent the last 5 years working at a job which couldn’t interest you less, and you just had enough.
In that case, neither another job nor a raise solves your problem. You just have to go after what you dream about.
Finding out why you want to quit your job, will shed some light on how you should proceed.
Just make sure that the reason you want to quit your job is legit otherwise you might grow to regret your decision.
4 Bullshit Reasons to Quit a Job
1 • I am Bored
If you want to quit because you are bored of working in general then I hate to break it to you but money is not going to fall on your lap for sitting on your ass watching TV and scrolling up an down your Facebook news feed all day long.
2 • I Don’t Like Waking Up Early
To tell you the truth, I hate waking up early as well.
However, this is no serious reason to leave a decent job.
Your options are:
- Suck it up and you’ll eventually get used to waking up early
- Find another job which allows you to sleep in (be careful not to end up in an awful job just because its shift starts later on)
- Become your own boss
3 • I Want to Get Back at my Boss
This just in… Your boss doesn’t give a crap about you.
The minute you are gone he will have you already replaced and forgotten that you’ve ever existed.
4 • I Didn’t Get Promoted
Nobody owes you a promotion.
If you didn’t get it, chances are that you didn’t deserve it…
…Or maybe your boss could not recognize all your hard effort because he was too busy having his ass kissed by the person who actually got the promotion.
If you’ve been after this promotion for many years, working yourself to the bone, sacrificing your Friday nights or skipping holidays with your loved ones in order to go for the extra mile, etc, and none of this is finally recognized and rewarded, then, well, fuck them.
There are companies who’d kill to have employees like you.
3 • Find a Way to Substitute Your Income
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you want or need the money. It doesn’t really matter if the reason that you want to quit your job is a legit or shitty one.
Truth is that once the feelings are there, it is impossible for them to go away and you definitely can’t reason yourself out of them.
You want to quit your job, end of story… But you need the money.
The solution?
Find a way to replace your income.
Here are some ways to do that.
1 • Find Another Job
If you ask 10 people “I want to quit my job but I need the money… What should I do?” , 9 of them will advise you to start looking for another job.
Finding another job is the “normal” thing to do.
- Update your resume
- Start sending it over to as many job openings as you can
- Keep going to interviews until you get hired
People tend to think that finding another job is simple and easy. But it’s not… Especially with the economy going to down the pooper.
It could take months and dozens of interviews before coming across a better job and no one can guarantee that you’ll be the one to get it…Hell, no one can even promise you that you’ll like your new job better than the old one.
Maybe it pays better but it is more stressful. Maybe your duties are enjoyable but your immediate supervisor gives you a hard time or maybe it’s just not what you thought it would be.
If this happens, you are back at square one… You’ve spent all this time and energy for nothing, and you’ll most likely have to go through all the trouble of finding another job once more.
And again… No one can possibly know if the next job will be better than the two previous ones.
This means that it might take years until you actually land your “perfect” job. If you asked me, I’d rather invest all that time and energy towards developing a side hustle that could potentially free me from all normal jobs forever.
2 • Start a Side Hustle
More and more people seem to embrace the idea of starting a side hustle as a way to eventually replace their day job. This is exactly what I am doing as well with this very website.
Starting a hustle on the side is an amazing idea for so many reasons such as
- It can be something you love or are passionate about
- You can work on it in your free time so you don’t have to quit your day job right away and leave yourself without an income
- Your earning potential is only limited by the time and effort that you devote
- You can end up being your own boss never having to work for anyone else
For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that you have been practicing Yoga for a while now and you are passionate about it.
How can that become a side hustle?
Okay, first, you get a few people, friends and family, interested in the practice and you start training them for free for a few months during your spare time.
Answer all their questions and gather their valuable feedback. Ask them what is missing from the practice and how you can improve on it.
After a while, you will have become “the Yoga expert”.
You can even get an instructor certification to further increase your reputation as well as your trust. Create a small video or PDF presentation of all the benefits of practicing Yoga to entice other people to join your classes.
You can start charging a small standard fee per lesson or offer personal training services.
You could also open a Youtube channel where you talk about Yoga and show exercises or even run your own blog where you are making money by recommending Yoga related products and earning commissions.
Down the road, you might even be able to create a Yoga training course of your own and sell it online.
All this takes time sure, but if you play things smart, you can end up making your living by doing something you really love so it’s definitely worth the trouble.
3 • Freelancing
Becoming a freelancer is also increasing in popularity nowadays.
The easiest way to do it is by freelancing online. This will also allow you to be free to work from anywhere in the world. In fact, many people get into freelancing in order to become location-independent and make money while traveling around the world.
All you need is
- a skill
- a platform like Fiverr or Freelancer to come in contact with people or companies who are willing to pay for that skill
If you don’t have a skill, you could pick one that interests you, practice it for a few months on your own until you master it and then start offering it.
Some skills which are currently in high demand are
- Photoshop editing
- Video creation – mostly whiteboard videos
- Voiceover artist
- Copywriter
- Translation
- WordPress website creation
- HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP web developing
- SEO consultant
- Content marketer
- etc
I am actually thinking about freelancing for a while to boost my income with the beginning of the new year.
Once I get started I promise that I will update you with my progress.
4 • Establish What You Really Want to Do Next
A lot of people want to quit their job but only just a handful of them knows what they want to do next.
Wanting to quit your job but not knowing what you would like to do next is like wanting to go on a trip but not knowing where…
This makes it harder for you to determine what your next steps should be and start taking action.
Also, not knowing what you really want to do next increases the chances of taking a decision which you grow to regret as well as ending up unhappy for once more.
For instance, if instead of finding out and going after what you really want, you go looking for another job because it is the “normal” thing to do, you’ll most likely end up reading the exact same article in a few months from now.
So, do yourself a favor, find out what you really want to do, and focus all your free time and energy towards doing that.
Quitting your job is a risk and since you’ve decided to take it, at least do it the right way and go for something that makes you happy.
5 • Plan Your Course of Action
Sometimes, depending on the situation, a little extra planning might be required on your part.
For example, if you want to change your career path you might need to attend some classes in order to get a certification or maybe a whole other college degree. To attend those classes you’ll have to pay for them so you will have to start saving up some money. Also, in order to easily combine your current job with your training, you might have to look for a school with afternoon, weekend or online classes.
The plan doesn’t have to be perfect. Just try to figure out your first few steps within the next couple of weeks and start acting on them ASAP.
Devoting more than one month on planning without having taken any kind of action is just procrastination.
6 • Start Saving Up Money
The moment the first “I want to quit my job” though pops right into your head, you need to start setting some money aside.
Having an emergency fund on the side is always a smart move, especially if you want to leave your current job.
According to Forbes, if you are in a high-pressure job you might not have the time or energy to figure out what you want to do next… In that case, you might have to live on your savings for a while until you find out a course of action that fits your needs.
On the other hand, Ryan Stewart suggests that quitting your job without having found another source of income first is not recommended as you might have to make decisions out of necessity… And this is an ugly path to be on.
Then again, toughnickel goes on to say that sometimes you may come to the conclusion that the stress of not having a job is not nearly as draining as the work situation you’re currently in.
Anyway, if you decide to live off your savings, experts recommend having at least 6 months’ worth of expenses before leaving yourself without a source of income. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t do that if I hadn’t gathered at least a whole year’s worth of expenses otherwise it would be too stressful for me.
Cut back unnecessary expenses and find ways to make some extra money… Replace your expensive, gasoline-devouring car with a normal one… Rent a smaller and cheaper apartment without a garage, a pool, and a helicopter pad… Let your company know that you are available for overtime. Start freelancing online just as we talked earlier on or maybe start selling online some of the crap that you don’t need anymore.
Even if you don’t want to quit your job without having an alternate source of income just yet, you could invest some of your savings on stuff that might allow you to quit it sooner such as
- Training
- Better clothes for interviews
- Getting your business up and running
- Purchasing tools that you need for your freelance job
- etc
7 • Write Your Future Resignation Letter
This is a great tip that I picked up on fitzvillafuerte.com.
It goes like that:
- Write a resignation letter to your current boss
- On its top, write a date in the future… This is going to be the date on which you are going to actually hand the resignation letter to your boss
- Don’t write a random future date though… Be realistic
- Try to calculate as accurately as possible when you’ll be ready to quit your job
- Print out the letter, have it framed, and hang it inside your bedroom
- Every morning, look at the letter, then imagine yourself taking it out of the frame, and handing it out to your boss when you arrive in the office
This is a very powerful exercise that will help you stay motivated, and dedicated to quitting your job.
A similar “mind hack” helped Jim Carrey become rich and famous.
In 1985, he was broke and desperate. At that time, he wrote himself a $10 million check for “acting services rendered”, dating it 10 years in the future (Thanksgiving 1995) and kept it in his wallet.
Just before Thanksgiving 1995, he found out he was going to make $10 million for Dumb and Dumber.
Of course, he didn’t sit on his ass waiting for that money. He kept working his ass off but he claims that this fake check that he had written to himself definitely played a large part in his success.
The fake resignation letter is just a motivation agent and will not enable you to quit your job by itself. You have to actually start and keep acting until that happens.
8 • Start Taking Action
Fact is taking action is hard. It requires you to sacrifice your limited time and the little energy that you have left. That’s why most people avoid taking it.
You can’t even imagine how many people I have talked to, who want to quit their job and do nothing about it, even if they have figured everything else out.
They know what they want to do, they know how to do it, and still, they keep sitting tight exactly where they are without doing anything to change their situation.
However, without action, there is no change. At least not for the better.
The sooner you start taking action, the sooner you’ll be able to quit your job.
9 • Slowly Phase Out Your Current Job
If you’ll be out of your current job sooner than later, then it might be time that you start slowly phasing it out.
For instance, when I started developing my online business as a way to quit my job, I immediately stopped going for the extra mile… I stopped working overtime, I stopped saying yes to everything my supervisor asked me, I stopped straining myself to complete my unimaginably numerous daily tasks, and I stopped taking my job too seriously.
After a few months, when I had enough money saved, I even asked to get demoted to a part-time worker in order to have more time to devote towards developing my online business and get out of my job even faster.
However, be careful.
Most companies might not be that flexible and if you play your hand too aggressively you might end up jobless earlier than you’ve planned.
10 • Let Go Of All Excuses
There will never be a right time to quit even the crappiest job. Your mind will always come up with excuses to keep you where you are such as
- This is not going to work
- The plan is incomplete
- You are safe and secure here why leave?
- I am too afraid to move on
- etc
Well, the fact that you believe that this won’t work does not mean that it won’t actually work. You can’t possibly know that if you don’t try.
You don’t have to have a perfect plan to start doing what’s necessary to leave your current job. Just find out what you want to do and keep moving towards there. Sometimes you might have to improvise and improve on your plan on the spot. You don’t have to see the whole road ahead of you, just the next few meters.
Let me assure you that no job is safe. I’ve known people feeling safe and secure at companies for 15+ years before getting laid off in the blink of an eye for no reason at all.
Lastly, staying stagnant is way scarier than going after what you really want. Always remember that if you start playing you might win. If you never start playing you can never win.
The truth is that there will never be an ideal time to say goodbye to your old job and start over. It is almost impossible to create the perfect conditions you think you need in order to start reaching for your career and personal goals. Here’s an analogy: If you believe that every light at every intersection along your journey must be green before you can set out, you’ll be stuck at home forever. The lights are never all green at the same time. That’s just the way life is. But if you venture out to the first intersection and then to the next and then the next, you’ll eventually get to your destination. – toughnickel.com
Final Thoughts
Quitting your job when you need the money is no easy decision to make. I get it… I’ve been there myself.
However, you are not stuck… You are not rooted like a tree. You can choose to move from where you are and go where you want to be.
Since you need the money, it’s going to take some time. Drop all excuses, ask yourself a couple of questions, start saving up some money, determine how you are going to substitute your income and above all, START AND KEEP ACTING until you quit your job.
There’s no other way around.
Do you really need the money or you just want it?
Why do you want to quit your job?
Have you determined your course of action?
Let us know in the comments below.
If you have any questions or need any further help or guidance from me, please email me at harry@dearboss-iquit.com or drop me a PM on my Wealthy Affiliate Profile.
I will be thrilled to help you out.
Harry,
dearboss-iquit.com
