It’s very difficult giving up your career. In my case, I have worked very hard to get to where I am now. The job is as guaranteed as it can get, comes with health benefits and great people. At my age, if I jump out and start working for myself, I may not get back in so easily so I must have a good sum of money and investments before I decide to go for it. What is a good sum of money? House, cars, children’s education must all be paid for and at least enough money to get by for a few years – or – a few investments to provide some income should nothing pan out, rentals and office buildings perhaps. If I was single or in my 20’s, I would do it, no question! For now, I’ll keep my day job and keep plugging away. It’s a serious topic and one that should be well thought out before moving forward.
I have left my job on August 2005, and now I'm working hard to make my income from internet, well off course after I was sure that I can make it..
Reading all 150 posts was very interesting, thank You all for sharing Your experiences. I've never had a day job and don't plane. I'm 19 and I'm study at Economics University but SEO, web design and C++ programming is what I'm doing for real. I sleep about 3-6h four times in the week and it's fine for me. I've got one Aim in my life, and will do everything what I can and much more to reach that. And what about earnings? Not bad at this moment, av. $3-4k/month. I work, I dream and I'm happy
I have worked the same full time job since I graduated from High School back in 1978. I hated school, and never wanted to go to college or a trade school, in fact I had d's and f's most of the time I went to school. When I finaly graduated in 1978, I put my application in all of the area factories incuding a local Hospital, noting that I would do any type of work possible. I got a call in about 2 days from the Hospital, saying they needed a janitor. My parents were still alive back then, and they were quite happy I got the call from the Hospital, and told me to stay there, work hard, don't call in sick, etc until I retire. Will, I have now been working there as a Janitor sinc 1978, something like 28+ years now. I am now 46 years old and have about 20 more years to I can retire with a decent social security amount at age 67. Right now after working almost 29 years I bring home, or NET around $900.00 a month. I make about $10.12 an hour. I pay $200 a month for child support so I would bring home around $1,100 a month after working 28 years. I do the net stuff to help pay the bills and have some spending money for a cup of coffee or something. I wouldnt even be able to pay my rent and bills with what I made off the internet...........
I'm like bluegill. I have over 20 years in my day job. I make a decent salary, excellent benefits and it gives you a sense of security knowing your paycheck will be in your bank account every week. But if I had to do it over again I would be more like the younger folkss on this site. I always had hobbies and passions that I dreamed of doing fulltime but I never had the guts to quit the day job. When you have kids you think differently. So my advice to you younger people.. go for it, before it's too late. Or at least before it becomes too tough to get out from under the security blanket like my situation. The internet has given the recent generations an advantage people my age didn't have at the time. You all seem so much more talented and knowledgable than the moops I grew up with. While semi-educated, I could barely write a complete sentence when I was 19 and here you guys are creating websites and your own businesses. That is so cool. I hope my son is as ambitiuous when he become a teen. I run two businesses currently outside the day job (1 online) and it is getting out of control. I'm too busy. Something's got to give. I'm not sure I'll last the 15 or 20 years I have until I can retire. I'll keep reading this site gather the great info and ideas and maybe I won't have to wait that long. Good luck!
The money I've made on the net let me quit my day job five years ago. It wasn't from adsense tho. Adsense is a new thing for me, cuz the old stuff was getting old and just not earning as much anymore.Started doing adsense seriously on Nov 1st to see if it was lucrative enough to bother with. After earning $100 in Nov with a site that only gets around a hundred hits a day, I have decided to pursue it more avidly, have just launched six more sites to experiment with, and will just continue to grow things from there.
A really inspiring post. NOwadys we have all of this perfectionism driven down our thoats and childred are molded to either be lawyers, millionaires,and your post is a throwback to a time long ago when a decent hardworking person could atleast have pride in a blue collar job instead of being derided for it as seems to be the trend these days.
He, interesting thread I started trying to earn money online when i was 13... did fine... got a lot of free stuff from video game publishers.... then i got bored and got addicted to a online RPG which stopped my progress for a LOOOONG TIME (embarassing to say) then i stopped it and have improved my online earnings by 200%. Slowly building up If everything goes well maybe I won't have to get a job when im out of college, as of now what my sites give me pays for my college education which is enough
Nice post. Just wondering, where do you live? Because where I am from, 15 year olds earn that much and that would be considered slave labour and unliveable I assume you aren't in Australia/USA/Canada/UK ?