Just one egg in one basket. At first

Well, here it is: the weekend. Not just any weekend either but a Bank Holiday Weekend! Most workers in the UK get to have Monday off as well this weekend. Imagine the possibilities. Now, I don’t know about you but I used to live for the weekends. They were my time. I could almost forget about my job for a bit. Bank holidays were, of course, even more exciting.

So, what are you going to do with your extra day? Shopping? A day out somewhere with the family? Stay at home and watch James Bond again? Well, I’m sorry to report that there is no James Bond on telly this weekend. So, instead, why don’t you spend your extra free time trying to think up an idea for a way to make you enough money to enable you to leave your job and gain your freedom?

Scary eh? Well it might be if you actually take it seriously. So, let’s pretend that you are going to take my suggestion seriously and are actually going – this weekend – to think of something. Even if it turns out to be a rubbish idea it doesn’t matter, what matters is that you have started on a new path. You will have begun to constructively think of a way out of your job and a way to have the life that you actually want instead of the one you have ended up with.

Before we go any further I want you to reign in your expectations of the life that you want. You see we are not aiming for the fantasy celebrity lifestyle of millionaires, we are aiming for a way for you to leave work and not feel financially worse off. Or if you are worse off then to find other benefits of not having a job that more than compensate you for having less money.

One more thing here. If you are convinced that your job is what you want from your life and that you are more than content with it I suggest you stop reading this blog, bugger off and start enjoying your weekend without further ado.

For my other reader I would like to see if I can help you to think of some ideas. and present you with a few tests to help you decide if your ideas are any good.

So, to get started you need to think about what you would prefer to do with your time instead of having a job. How much free time you would like have. Where you want to live might also be a consideration. Your idea will define how you spend your days.

So, if you didn’t have a job but you were making a living how would you spend your days? How would you like to spend your days? Would you like to replace your job with work? Perhaps running a small business would work for you? Maybe a B&B in the countryside. Or you could open a shop, perhaps a cafe? Do you want a lot of free time to do other things instead? Thinking about this now will help you to find an idea. Or at least will prevent you from having a bad one.

Let’s say that your new venture will be your hobby, a thing that you enjoy doing. Or it is a way to help you move to a new location. You are probably thinking of service industry. If you’re creative you could start a photography business. I have a friend who wants to leave work and become a gardener. Starting a B&B or some kind of holiday business is a popular route for people. You will need to do your research with these types of business. Find your costs and be realistic about them. Then be pessimistic about your earnings. If you want a B&B look at some that are for sale in the area where you want to open. The estate agent details will usually tell you the turnover of the business. This will help you to get an idea of how much you are likely to earn. Take a long hard look at the costs involved. Mortgage, supplies needed, insurance etc. Try not to miss anything. There are books on this subject that will help. I’ve put a link to two below. The French one is there because I wanted to do this for a while.


For me though none of these are what I want. I am looking for something that does not require my presence for a set amount of hours, as it is too much like having a job. I want my time to be mine. If you fall in to this category you should look at your ideas against these criteria:
1. Does the idea require my presence?
2. Does the idea require that I live in a certain location?
3. Will the idea take up a lot of my time once it is set-up?
4. Is it scalable? (ie is it possible to expand the business? A B&B doesn’t qualify but a courier business does)
5. Is there a way that I can hand almost all of it over to another party and still make money?
6. Can some or all of the day to day work be outsourced?

If you answer no to all of these then it’s time for another idea. But never mind that for now. I want you to look at them while you think of an idea. Use them to aid your thinking.

What we want to achieve is an idea that can earn enough money to enable you to leave your job, or if you don’t have a job you can divert your energies away from looking for a job and start thinking about what else you could do. At the same time the thing you think of should not be all consuming. It should look after itself a bit.

My ideal is to have the income automated. If not at the start then later on. This is good, and to me at least, better than monetising my hobby because I can still pursue my hobby while the income is taken care of. Another advantage to an automated income is that it gives you time to create another automated income and so on. Perhaps for your second automated income you could write a book? I wouldn’t start here as it is very difficult to make a living from books. Not impossible though. Can you guess what my book is going to be about?

Finally you should aim to create multiple income streams, so that you are not dependent upon any one. Then, if one fails, you can still stay away from having to go back to a job. Simples!