I’m a 26-year-old who’s been working full-time since 19, jumping between jobs. Anyone out there who’s ditched the 9-5, how did you do it? Any advice on how to start breaking free from the rat race? Thanks!
Have multiple income stream.
I’m almost there.Dividends, AdSense, YouTube, POD, Etsy, eBay, Freelancing, and anything that can generate some money.
If not a secret, which of these income streams you mentioned has worked for you, and if they did, how did you do it?
All of them works, but you have to persistent and keep going no matter what.
I get around $100/monthly dividends
Adsense+YouTube $250~
POD - $90
ETSY $150
eBay $300
Freelancing: web design for a friend that owns a web hosting company in UK - $0 ~ $300 depends.I live in Japan, so my cost of life is pretty low if I earn in $$$.
It’s not much, but if I keep going I believe I can quit my 8-19 job soon.
Die.
I’m in the process. Investing about 50% of my money every month. Creating software that generates money monthly. The only real way to break free is to own assets that generate enough money to cover your needs. It will take a lot of work and effort.
Do whatever you can to surround yourself with people who are living that life. There’s a great saying “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”. If your friends aren’t cutting it, then time to be alone and work on yourself.
I think I started seriously thinking about it after I was in my twenties, found my career path although lucrative (commercial electrician) not what I really envisioned after losing my parents in their early 50s, why work 30+ years hoping for retirement and possibly dying early. Around your age I put a 5 year plan in place to have my own business, I really hated working for others lol.
There was a few things I wanted,
- not exchanging my time for a wage
- ability to live anywhere
- profitable enough to support hiring others to do most of the work and all the day to day tasks.
I considered for a long time just starting my own service company, but after talking to a few owners even seasoned 10+ years most executives still worked 50-60+ hours. I found working service jobs for manufactures I saw more of what I wanted and more steady consistent work, it took me 10 years from then to find a niche.
I recommend to just writing down your wants, needs and just explore businesses in everything. See if you find anything interesting, several podcasts on buying a business, this is great to listen to, they talk about the good and bad of different industries. You can also buy instead of building but requires some capital.
Just don’t rush into anything
I love this honest and sincere response. I feel like it’s common to crave independence but not know which path to pursue to achieve it. A lot of people inevitably get stuck here in paralysis analysis. And of course there is a fear that if I start looking, it’s possible you’ll never find anything - like one of those treasure hunters who dies of old age before they can find what they were after. And so, with that fear in mind, it’s easy to think you should just stick to the 9-5 grind because there is some “safety” in that.
Well, it turns out those jobs aren’t safe and there are plenty of people who were laid off that can attest to that. There is NO safe path - scary thought but it’s real.
What kinds of books / people / ideas helped you sort things out? And if you’re still on the quest - that’s great too. Please share your insights.
Commercial HVAC guy here - I have toyed with so many times starting my own biz, always turned off by seeing owners bust their ass for so little return on so many hours and stress.
The funny thing is everyone seems to have this conception they are making bank (and they probably are to an extent) - but for a 24/7 never ending slog, no thanks.
Very encourage to see some one from a similar back ground “make it” in another sector.
Did u start this whilst working FT as an electrician? Also would you care to dive more into your selection thought process? Where you nervous going into something that is not your back ground? Did you try several things until something “stick”?
Yeah I hear you there, one of my last year in the trades I was making around $60hr, worked a lot of overtime and at the end of the year on the W2 it looked impressive but I was downright exhausted physically and mentally and knew I just couldn’t do this another 20+ years.
Moving into something else was scary but I also knew that if I kept at it I would find something that worked. I don’t like to share that exact product or our brand because frankly it wouldn’t be that hard to replicate, now we have a good moat with the product variety and “expertise” I’ll just say it has something that is welded together and powder coated. The first few years was out of my garage and just myself, my first hire was actually my UPS guy who was always curious what I was doing and saw that I was growing, I first had him help out on his free days and a year later he came on full time and we moved into our first industrial space.
I paid him before I paid myself, and yes I was working my regular job at the same time. We sell a lot of B2B -business to business and had a customer reach out from my Craigslist ad, he bought one and then after seeing the quality asked if we could make a hundred or so in different sizes and colors. We did and we’re off to the races, I discovered how to sell on Amazon in 2013 and that’s been our biggest marketplace next to Home Depot and our general b2b sales.
I did try many things, mostly focusing on products as I liked the idea of selling stuff and not relying on my physical input to make money. I flipped items on eBay and even did wholesale for awhile but I quickly realized the real winners were the brand owners so I decided I needed to make my own brand of something. We now have 5 successful brands, with our lowest sales one just pulling in $300K a year, has high margins though of 40% and we literally don’t touch it, we contract out in Taiwan, it gets shipped directly to Amazon 3 times a year.
I’ve also failed at several lol, I tried some kids toy stuff only to get letters by patent owners, also had some electronics that worked well for awhile but found they were a fire hazard and so I just divested myself from them. I was chasing the next big thing instead of focusing on what I already have.
Only way to escape is by making money while you sleep.
Yep. Which pretty much you can only create after going through the normal process of working/saving/investing.
Otherwise the career you’re looking for is “thief” but you know what, turns out being a thief still involves doing some work to get the pay.
It depends where you live. But if you had no kids or other serious responsibilities, then just quit. Easiest way to break this nonsense. Worst case scenario just stay on welfare or with very limited income, still better than stay on bs 9-5 job and destroy your soul.
We are same age! I have escaped 9-5 since April this year already. It definitely was a hard time to me but I was so confident when I had a clearly map and enough saving for 2 years if I don’t have income. Fortunately, last 2 months my business was took off then my dream comes true, no daily meetings, no deadlines, not too much stress as 9-5 side hustle. I have more time for my health, family and fully focusing on business. Just do it so far so good! So there are my advices after all:
- Saving will be your confident and time
- Strong body and mind, you will get stressful through this journey, failed and learn, never give up!
- Good customer service, put your self to your customers always we need them!
- Expand networking with people where you can learn a lot from their mistakes
- Trust your self and good luck!
Yeah work from 4-6.
There are many things you can do. You should start with what you’re good at and what you want to do.
But a lot of people think they want that and then when they see what you have to do, they go running back to the comfort of a paycheck.
I learned in my late 30s that if you don’t do something that makes you money when you’re not actually “working”, you’ll be chasing a paycheck forever. So know I work for myself and have a huge team. I sell a product that I myself own as well many members of my family. I help businesses get access to business lines of credit and loans where the owner of the business doesn’t have to use their SSN and have personal liability. We build the business credit file so it stands on its own.
I still do affiliate marketing and e-commerce too because I enjoy it and it’s lucrative but most of my money comes from business credit builder program. I just talk to business owners all day long and present to them via zoom.
Good luck!
You have no other choice to do it. But you can choose a job where you are happy
I literally just stopped going into work one day.
10 of 10. Highly recommend.
I’ve started breaking free from the 9 to 5 by using the software development knowledge i picked up in HS and college to build a business.
We teach parents how to help their parents and children stay safe online and on the phone. Too many people especially elderly are being scammed out of their life savings.
Still working towards 100 members however I just started this two weeks ago so not bad so far!
You can have a job without being in the rat race. Just quite the race but keep your job.