Leaving Your Day Job to Work Online

Posted on August 20, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Working Online  

Many people know that in October of 2006 I left my day job (Electrical Engineer) to work online full time, and i get asked all the time how i did it. Well today i am going to go over some things i did to prepare for that day but also how i came to the conclusion that it was worth the risk. ***

First thing I suggest to anyone is that if you are currently doing it as a hobby don’t use the extra money to just have fun, use it to pay off debt. When i turned in my resignation at my day job the only debt i had was my mortgage, no car notes, no credit card bills. I was able to do this because i planned ahead and used the extra money i was making online to pay off those debts. I would highly suggest this to anyone that is considering leaving, that is if you have debt at all.  (If you don’t already have one, build up a nest egg that you culd support your family for atleast 6 months, i recomend a year but 6 months will do.)

Second can i handle working from home or do i need an office. This is a tough call for many but was easy for me. I don’t have kids yet only my wife, so i know the distractions would be minimal. I chose to work at home and so far it has been great. If i had kids i would probably have to rent out an office or build a seperate building or something so that they would know Dad is going away to work.

Thirdly and most important can you handle the ups and downs that come with working online. Talk to any person making money online and they will tell you about the ups and downs. Server crashes, boots from google, hackers, Clients not paying, a fad dies off, the list goes on. With that you want to diversify your revenue streams and make plans of how you handle server outtages etc.. (if 100% critical there are companies that guarantee 100% up time but you will pay for it. ) Depending on how you plan to make your living online will vary your ups and downs greatly. For me i mainly do affiliate marketing, IF an offer gets pulled or cancelled that could mean hundreds or thousands of profit i won’t be getting anymore. Do i panic…. well maybe a little but then i gain composer and move on to the next thing. But with that i also have a baseline of normal websites earning revenue for me thru various revenue streams. so even when i “panic” my earnings online will still more than cover my bills its more of man that sucks that i am not making that anymore.

How did i decide it was worth the risk??? Well it came down to a conversation with my wife as i was basically working two jobs and i enjoyed both of them. One working as electrical engineer from 8 to 5, and from 6 to 10 as webprenuer. As you can see doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for family. So after much thought and discussion. I concluded i didn’t want to look back on my like 5 or 10 years from now still working as an engineer saying i wonder what would have happened had i gone full time working online. That is what sold it for me as i never want to live life with regrets… plus what was the worst case… my wife would have to find a job and i would have to find a job. Not so bad of a failing outcome as most families both husband and wife work 8 to 5 jobs.  So from there i took the plunge into full time online work.

I do have one regret after doing this for over 9 months, I wish I had done it SOONER!

*** Please note that these are my thoughts an opinions and I am not a financial advisor. You have to make your own decision on how you want to live your life and what you want to do with your money.



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Comments

15 Responses to “Leaving Your Day Job to Work Online”

  1. Phil on August 20th, 2007 10:18 am

    interesting, while i am not where i would consider leaving my day job. those are some good thoughts to go over

  2. Mustekasetti on August 20th, 2007 12:17 pm

    Great reading, just last week I resigned and in three weeks I’ll be working full time online. :)

  3. CPA Affiliates on August 20th, 2007 12:19 pm

    CONGRATS! i wish you best fo success.

  4. Webmoney on August 21st, 2007 2:14 am

    Nice. I choosed to go directly from business school to work full time as an affiliate marketer/seo and have been doing it for almost 2 years. It was the best choice i have ever made.

  5. Daniel - Faultless Men on August 21st, 2007 6:35 am

    Good articles…very aspiring…

    Mustekasetti :> Congratz bro, i’ll join you soon..

  6. Jocko on August 21st, 2007 10:53 am

    Inspiring post, It’s all too true about the debt. I currently make enough online to quit my day job - but I wont quit until all those debt are gone.
    I don’t regret running up debts when I was younger but I do regret not starting to make money online earlier. I have worked in online marketing now for 3 years and only been making money for myself the last 9 months. Why did I waste so much time?

  7. CPA Affiliates on August 21st, 2007 11:13 am

    Jocko just be glad that you have started to take steps now instead of realizing it even a year from now. The biggest step is taking that first step of freedom from “the man”

  8. Paul Porter on August 21st, 2007 9:11 pm

    Good information, but can you please tell us what you did to cover medical insurance for yourself as well as your wife?

  9. CPA Affiliates on August 22nd, 2007 7:01 am

    At first i just used my old companies insurance by applying for COBRA. But after doing searching I can find comparable insurance to what i had for a reasonable price is it more than i was paying at my company slightly but not that much more. It would be harder if we had some major pre existing condition but we don’t so it is fairly simple to find new insurance.

  10. Lindi Lodewyks on August 23rd, 2007 7:36 am

    I would like to know what you did, and how i can do this

  11. Mike on August 28th, 2007 9:17 am

    My last day of work at my day job (engineering research) was August 1st, after doing affiliate marketing part time for about 10 months. I’ve been a CPA affiliate full time for about a month, and so far I’m absolutely enjoying it. Take heed to the advice in this article! I currently have very little debt (no credit card or car debt) and that was key in making the decision to go full time. Also, there are going to be bad days. I’ve been slapped by Google pretty hard and wasn’t sure that I’d recover. Also, some days things just don’t work out and my commissions will be a lot lower than other days. You can’t be discouraged by this, as everything online is transitional. Work at it every day and over the long term the commissions come rolling in. This really has been one of the best decisions I’ve made and I would definitely have regrets if I had decided not to take the risk.

  12. Harrison on August 29th, 2007 8:09 am

    This is a cool article that really motivate me. I knew that we can make money from affiliate program. But I never take any serious action until last June. I choose an affiliate program that i have confidence, take some small action and guess what, I make my first sales last month! Yes within I make my first sale within 1 month. I don’t know this is good or not, but definitely it motivates me to take more action.

    Anyway, I hope I can achieve whatever you guys have achieved - working at home after 6 months. Good luck to me. :)

  13. David Boyd on September 5th, 2007 8:27 pm

    Thanks for the advice. I’m doing the same and have been for slightly longer. However, I think that you’re earning more than I am! You should do another post on working from home - would like to hear your thoughts.

  14. Blogging Sponsorships on September 19th, 2007 2:26 am

    Great post. I am sitting at work reading this. I basically consider my work my office, and my full time job an internet marketer. My job pays for my office, phones, supplies, etc… If they only knew.

  15. George Kim on October 4th, 2007 9:17 pm

    This is very great post. What about motivation? discipline to work at home? and managing hours?

    Starbucks is my new office now ;)

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