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Home > Do I want to be a quitter?

Do I want to be a quitter?

March 16th, 2008 at 02:57 am

My husband and I have been having an ongoing discussion about whether I should quit the "office" job. (He wants me to quit....) We can easily meet our monthly income requirements between his job and my booming side business, and all our "benefits" are through his job, so the "office" job isn't a necessity.

Emotionally, I'm ready to quit, but mentally I keep putting it off because I like having that extra money each month guaranteed -- as opposed to having to go out and pimp myself to more clients for the booming side business.

If/when I do quit, a number of our expenses will go down. For instance, I won't have before- and after-school child care expenses (which is only averaging about $60 a month, so it's not huge but still a savings.) I also won't be paying for as much dry cleaning since the booming side business doesn't require even getting dressed if I don't want to. I'll be driving slightly less, so that means slightly less gas costs. And, Hazel the Housekeeper most likely will be let go since I'll need something to break up the days working at home, so pushing a vaccuum again might be in my future.

Not working at the "office" will allow me to have a life again. The booming side business has kind of consumed everything, so without the "office" job I can start working more regular hours at home instead of piecing together work hours here and there. I also can go back to being an anti-social/agoraphobic curmudgeon who rarely leaves the house, which is when I'm at my best.

I am now telling myself that I will give my 6 week notice on May 1. I'll be gone for about two of those weeks, so that's really 4 weeks notice. I could give them less notice, but I did tell someone I would help them out the last week of June so I figure I should stick to my word there.

Of course, I could come up with a thousand excuses not to quit between now and May, so this may all not come to pass but a girl can dream....

8 Responses to “Do I want to be a quitter?”

  1. homebody Says:
    1205639908

    "anti-social/agoraphobic curmudgeon who rarely leaves the house"

    I guess this pretty much describes me since I work at home in my jammies from about 6:00 a.m. until about 8:30 a.m. when I stop to eat breakfast, shower and dress. I love being at home, sitting my own schedule. I usually try to work for 30 minutes, then get up and do a chore (like vacuuming) and then back at it for another 30 minutes, etc throughout the day until I stop to take the dogs for a walk. Unless you LOVE your office job... I would be giving notice.

  2. compulsive debtor Says:
    1205641421

    That's pretty much my work-at-home routine as well. I do 30-minute spurts of work, interrupted by various activities ranging from running and swimming to picking up dog poo....

  3. Broken Arrow Says:
    1205649191

    I don't know what the answer is, but it sure is a good problem to have.

  4. Ima saver Says:
    1205673088

    Could I ask, what is your booming side business??

  5. compulsive debtor Says:
    1205677793

    You can ask, Julie. But I won't tell you. It's a secret.....

  6. thriftorama Says:
    1205692984

    I felt the same way before I put in my notice. I was terrified of losing the extra cash. But, I took the plunge and I'm happier for it. We haven't missed the money nearly as much as we thought. Well, mostly not at all. I've been able to take on more interesting freelance projects as a result, because my free time isn't just nights and weekends. It was a good decision for us.

  7. CRAZYLIBLADY Says:
    1205696405

    I think that working at home would be especially attractive if you can afford to do it. Since you say you are a compulsive debtor in recovery, ask yourself if you can meet your debt payments without the income. Will you be tempted to sit at your computer and do internet shopping? You can set your own hours and take a vacation whenever you want. If I had the ability to do that, I would like to do it. I am not entirely certain my husband would like it, though, because I might drive him nuts being home all day. Either way, my profession demands that I work at my employer's location. I also have good health insurance and retirement (which my employer matches) and I would not want to give that up without being able to afford to do it on my own. Good luck with whatever you decide to do and let us know how it all turns out. We will have a virtual party.

  8. boomeyers Says:
    1205701874

    I think in this economy, it would be scary to quit a sure thing job, because ANY jobs at all are hard to come by. You may want to wait until the economy settles a bit before making such a big step. I'm not sure what your booming business is, but if it relys on peoples discrentionary income being spent, it may take a hit. If not, and your business relies on something else and is very secure, then maybe go for it.

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