Quit Fulltime Work in Your 30s (work part-time for yourself)

^{Read time - 4 minutes / Disclaimer}

Today let's review how to quit fulltime work in your 30s and work part-time for yourself.

Going from fulltime to part-time work gives you:

• Time to sleep in.

• Time to be with family.

• Time to do work you enjoy.

Unfortunately, working fulltime into your 60s is the norm.

Society Expects You To Work

Governments assume you'll work fulltime for 40 years.

Most benefit programs aren't helpful until your late 50s or mid 60s like:

• Social security.

• Retirement accounts.

• Government insurance.

But what if you don't want to work fulltime 40 years?

Planning and patience can help you leave fulltime work early.

The goal isn't to NOT work.

The goal is to have control of your time and work on things you enjoy.

Here's 3 steps that allowed me to quit my fulltime job and work part-time for myself (you can too):

Step 1: Payoff Debt

It's been 4 years since I quit my fulltime job.

I couldn't have without controlling my debts.

Debt can trap you in a job.

The more you have, the less freedom you have.

A $400 credit card payment.

A $700 car payment.

These things keep you stuck.

They keep you in the rat race.

So what do you do?

You take care of it.

As quickly as possible.

I know...

It's painful.

But, your freedom is worth it.

The fastest way to do this:

Increase Your Income

The most common ways:

• ​Job hop​ or get a promotion

Track and Payoff Debt

How to do this:

• ​Track your money​ 

• ​Have a payoff strategy​ 

Paying off credit cards and a car loan is ideal.

The lower your monthly payments, the sooner you can leave fulltime work.

It can take months.

Or years.

Everyone's situation is unique.

Step 2: Save & Invest

Saving and investing is easier without credit card or car payments.

The average credit card payment is $400.

And the average new car payment is $700.

Without credit card and car payments, it's easier to put extra money to work by:

Saving

Putting 3 to 6 months of income in a savings account for emergencies.

Investing

After an emergency fund is set, focus on investing.

This may help:

• ​First 3 Steps to Start Investing​ 

Savings and investments add up quickly when you have little to no debt.

How much should you save & invest before quitting?

It's a personal decision.

I focused on it for many years before quitting.

Leaving a fulltime job can take years of planning. But it's time well spent.

Step 3: Start a Side Hustle

Start a side business before quitting your job.

Make a list of things you're good at.

Things you know a lot about.

A good question to ask yourself...

How do your friends see you?

My friends saw me as:

• The guy who knows about home loans.

AND

• The guy who knows about personal finance.

We all know a lot about something.

We're all specialists in 1 or 2 things after years of working.

Figuring out how to make money from your knowledge and skills on your own is the goal.

I worked at a bank a long time.

So, I decided to get my license to do home loans through a mortgage broker instead of a bank.

It sounds more complicated then it is.

Having that license allowed me to do loans part-time as a self employed person.

A few years after quitting my bank job, I decided to start talking about personal finance online.

I started 3 social media accounts and set up a website.

It sounds difficult.

But, it really wasn't.

It just took time to figure out.

Now:

• 5,000 people get this newsletter

• 40,000 people follow these social media accounts

The goal is to generate income from these efforts too.

Think through skills and knowledge you have.

Consider how you can use them to make money outside of your job.

It takes time to figure out.

Look around online to see what other people are doing to make money with your same skills and knowledge.

Conclusion

Doing hard things often comes with great rewards.

Hard things like:

• Paying off debt.

• Learning to save & invest.

• Making income on your own.

It's not easy.

It takes time.

But the rewards are worth the effort:

• To have control of your time.

• To do work you enjoy.

• To quit the 9-5 early.

That's all for today.

See you next week.