Gave up a day job Now what? - Income report #1

My goal was just to be able to cool off for a few months having worked too hard imo for 8 years or so, and spending the time researching and building my own prospects. I left my job with £5k in the bank and a few people who respected my dev skills.

In the end I went with it for 3 years. Each year, all in, I probably worked (don't have my old time records to hand) 4 months out of the year total never working more than 4 days in a week and never working for more than 2 weeks in a row.

Only once did I need help covering my rent (even then that was only to stop me dropping into my overdraft and not actually to stop me being completely broke).

The structure of how I lived killed my motivation to work on anything to benefit myself, and any project I started always ended up being canned 50% through when I lost the starting up movitation. Lack of other people to bounce off and perpetuate the interest and excitement with really showed after the first few months.

In the end the total killer to the scheme was the isolation from people every day. Starting with £5k in the bank I came out with £10k in the bank. I would say the only real casualty of all of it was my career path, I've basically been forced back down to developer, but perhaps that in itself isn't such a bad thing for now.

The lessons I took out of it were that I'm the kind of person that needs people to bounce ideas and enthusiasm off, so next time I go out to start something up I know I need to find a suitable partner to team with. I also found that I felt a lot less inclined to spend money when I knew how it was earned. In realised that I was spending my salary money basically to prove to myself that it was worth sitting in an office every day; when it was my money I earned it felt good just to know it was there and not turned into an LCD TV or PS3.

You seriously need to find a cheaper source of coffee, at least until your income ramps up!

Good luck in your endeavors!

I think it would be good to clarify.