Episode 50: All the things to think about when deciding if you’ll quit your day job

For Episode 50, we go through our brainstorming process for all the things you might want to think about when considering whether to quit your day job to write. We’ll be honest: we don’t have answers, just a lot of questions. But that’s because there are no answers, just different paths we all take. We’ll spend the rest of this season talking to experts on writing and these questions, to see if we can get more advice to consider when you’re making this choice.

Some of the questions are about:

Money
- Be honest: what do you have and what do you need?
- What realistic changes can you really make to your lifestyle?
- If you have a partner/family, what is realistic to expect them to do to adjust financially if you quit?
- What will you do if you run out of your savings?
Time
- Related to the previous section, the idea of thinking about time is basically, what part of your time will you give away to get money?
- How will you make money and when will you do that, versus your writing?
- When do you quit? Do you sell your book first or live off your savings with a finite deadline?
- Taxes
Other tasks
Health (including mental health)
Why do you think you should quit?

We think of these as more of a cycle of questions, rather than questions with final answers. You’ll probably be reassessing this most of your career – whether that career is only writing, or writing with something else.

As with all of our research episodes, here are our top 5 articles we found useful on this topic:

Mic article with four tips about practical things to think about re money
Chronicle of Higher Education on quitting your job and starting something new

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Find us on Instagram @marginallypodcast or Facebook. Meghan’s on Twitter @meghanembee, and Olivia’s @roamingolivia.

Theme music is “It’s Time” by Scaricá Ricascá.

Have a question you’d like us to try to answer, or a topic you’d love to have us cover? Interested in being a guest? Contact us here. Thanks for listening, and get to work!

In this episode:

Cutting back on coffee isn’t as effective as Big Wins for saving money

Also the math is bogus

Can you afford to quit your job? – article saying that golden rule is 6 months’ savings

Tom Hodgkinson & The Idler, How to be Idle and Business for Bohemians

Your Money or Your Life

Barry Lyga on quitting his job with 1 year’s savings from the Writing in Real Life podcast

Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living

Episode 48 with Manjula Martin

Emily Gould’s $200,000 advance that ruined her life

Episode 43: Four Key Questions about Writers and Money

Episode 39 with Jean Hannah Edelstein on why she went back to a day job after freelancing