As a friend, I highly recommend you read and understand this post.
"Previously":http://alexpooley.com/articles/2005/12/06/cash-cows I discussed how most people have a cash cow through their day jobs. These jobs produce "reliable" income which we use to pay our way through life. For a while now I have been unhappy working the daily grind and have been looking for something better - I've wanted to start my own venture. This has lead me to think that I could make it simply by leaving my day job. I have come to the conclusion that this would just make it harder.
Essentially the problem is this:
* If you don't work, you have plenty of time but no money.
* If you work, you have money but no time.
That's simply stating the obvious, but it's also illustrating a major dilemma I face every day. I want one, but then I want to the other - until now!
The answer, is to take the day job. *But*, buy back some of your time by paying someone to work on your venture for the time you were working your day job!
Compare the two scenarios:
# You quit your job and work 40 hours a week from home trying to start some world changing venture that's not going to make money for the next year. Each week, you get 40 hours of work done on this project.
# You stay at your job and receive $1,000 a week. But then *you pay someone* $1,000 a week to code your venture while you work at your day to day job.
If you ignore the overhead introduced by trying to organise and manage the outsourced work, each scenario produces the same outcome - 40 hours actually worked, 40 hours of work done on your venture, and $0 net income. But of course you don't need to throw all your day job income in to your venture, so lets say:
* You stay at your job and receive $1,000 a week. You pay $500 a week to a programmer to do some work for you, and you live off the $500 left over.
Cool! This produces 40 hours worked, 20 hours spent at your day job, 20 hours effectively spent working on your project (even though it was the person you paid to do the work and not actually you), and $500 in your pocket to buy some fillet steak.
Fascinating!
I don't think many people come to this conclusion. Most people take the job because they just want a carefree life - and there's nothing wrong with that.
If you're looking for a path to financial freedom I recommend this one. A day job will buy you flexibility, and warm meals. Quitting your job leaves you with no option.
This conclusion opens up all sorts of other interesting avenues of investigation:
* Buying services off others allows you to leverage more efficiently. You can use your highly skilled income to purchase lots of lesser skilled work. Or, you can use your income to purchase work from other countries where labour is cheaper.
* You can take advantage of specialisation and pay someone to do work you simply couldn't do, or couldn't do as efficiently. For me, this means dedicated servers, graphic designers, etc.
In conclusion, if you're after financial freedom - *buy back your time*.