It has been more than a year (1 year and 3 months to be exact) since I last held a full-time job after resigning from the Police Force and spending a brief time at local financial literacy website, Beansprout.
And I would say that this unemployment/funemployment phase has been both introspective and anxiety-inducing at the same time.
So, to commemorate this one-year anniversary of sorts, let me share my takeaways and thoughts from my experience thus far and also the income sources that currently sustain my lifestyle.
If you are thinking of taking a sabbatical from full-time employment, this might just be the article you need to assess if that leap of faith is worth it.
Unrivalled freedom with my time
Let’s start off with the most obvious, not having a full-time job practically means I’m able to do anything with my time.
Feel like waking up at 11am? Sure why not? It’s not like I needed to squeeze with the peak hour crowd to get somewhere. Want to hit the gym at 1pm for a quick workout? No one is stopping me from doing that too.
Basically, I’m able to wrestle back some control of time and plan the day to my own desire. And not sure if it’s just me…but there is a rather serene feeling going about my daily activities during non-peak hours.
Of course having some control over my time also means that the onus is on me to be disciplined with it. While there is nothing wrong with spending some days doing ‘unproductive’ stuff like gaming or scrolling through social media, sooner or later there was a need to come up with my own routine and structure to ensure that I was continually working towards my goals and aspirations in life.
Afterall unlike having a full-time job, there is no third party to ensure that I was meeting my expected deadlines or targets. It is very much down to myself and my own accountability.
A slower pace of life
With the autonomy and freedom over my time, I realised that it has allowed me to live life at a slower pace.
I think much of it is down to not having to deal with issues not of my making. When working a full-time job, we are often at the behest of our superiors when it comes to resolving issues or advancing the business/interest of the company. This can result in us being in a constant state of ‘firefighting’ or busyness which negatively impact our physical and mental health.
However when you live life on your own terms, you can better prioritise things that matter the most and cut out the unnecessary ‘noise’. I was also able to take a step back and re-assess what really matters the most in allowing me to live the life that I wanted. This therefore provided me a clearer headspace as I went about my daily routine and activities.
It’s pretty much like running a marathon at a challenging but sustainable pace.
Financial anxiety is never far away
Despite the relative freedom with my time, I will be first to admit that there were worries over finances, especially during the initial few months. This was despite me having enough savings to account for more than a year of expenses.
As opposed to being an employee where you still receive your expected salary at the end of the month despite not putting in 100% effort on some days, I do not currently have that income stability or luxury.
In my current situation, should I choose to take a break on any given day, it would likely mean I would be earning $0 for that day. In that sense, there is no income safety net for me to fall back on every month. To add on, my current main income source is also wildly volatile (even being negative in some weeks/months), which further contributes to this financial anxiety.
Thus, in the initial few months, I constantly had self doubts over whether I made the right decision or not. There were even times when I left like giving up and just return to having a regular full-time job. While I’m more at peace with my financial situation now, this anxiety can still creep in from time to time.
Burnout is inevitable at some point
To deal with the financial anxiety, I remembered spending at least 60 hours each week in the initial few months working to build up current and future income streams. This included trading the US stock market (while dealing with the losses) and building up the YouTube channel from scratch.
Unsurprisingly, I burnt out after a few months. I think much of it was due to spending alot of time and effort scripting, filming and editing my YouTube videos, without seeing much results in terms of viewership or becoming monetised.
Furthermore, I also realised that trading full-time is both emotionally and fundamentally different as compared to trading part-time when I still had a full-time job. I had to learn how to deal with the mental pressure of deriving most of my current monthly income from trading in the US market.
Thankfully, I have now learnt how to focus most of my effort on the activities that provide the best possible returns for my time. Thus, I now spend around 48 to 56 hours at most per week working as compared to the more than 60 hours previously.
My current income sources
With the takeaways from my funemployed journey thus far covered, let’s move on to my current income sources. Currently, I only have four income streams per month and ranking them from the least to the most income, they would be as such:
- Content creation income
- Interest
- Dividends
- Trading income
Content creation income
Any income I received thus far from creating content on social media are from adhoc donations and affiliate links. This income currently stands at a meagre $51.56 for the entire year of 2024 thus far, or about $4.30 per month. So hardly anything to shout about.
Nevertheless, I’m still very grateful that my viewers are willing to support me through affiliate links or one-off donations. Rest assured that I will continue providing my honest opinions about investment products/instruments in the market.
Interest
Moving on to interest income next, this consist of returns from high-interest savings account, money market funds and interest from short positions in the stock market.
As of end October 2024, my interest income amounted to $2466.98 or about $246.70 per month. Moving into 2025, I fully expect this amount to decrease due to lower returns from money market funds as a result of lower interest rates.
Dividends
When it comes to my dividend income, all of it is derived from dividend stocks and REITs.
As of November 2024, my total dividends received was $6127.90 or about $557.08 per month. This figure would likely decrease moving forth as I’m currently making allocation changes to my investment portfolio. But maybe more on that in a future post.
Trading income
Wrapping up my income sources and also the highest income contributor, would be my trading income.
Currently, a main bulk of my trading income is derived from trading stock options. I do not really keep track of my capital gains from trading stock positions as I find it too tedious. Thus, if that was to be included my trading income would likely be higher.
While my trading income fluctuates each month, I get around $3000 USD or roughly about $4000 SGD per month purely from trading options. Despite this seemingly considerable amount, it should be highlighted that I was only able to hit this amount over the past four months.
Additionally, I am also still currently not profitable yet on a cumulative basis. Nevertheless, should everything go according to plan, coupled with me not doing any stupid mistakes, I should become profitable by the end of 2025.
After accounting for all my current income sources, I am earning about $4800 per month. The amount isn’t really a lot but at least it allows me to comfortably sustain my lifestyle.
Is it worth it?
So after doing this for slightly more than a year, do I regret my decision to leave full-time employment? I can comfortably say that the answer is a definite no!
While I am not currently earning a lot, I see clear paths to consistently increase my income annually. For instance, I foresee that my income would likely be at least $5000 per month in 2025 and $5500 per month in 2026.
The best part is that any future increase in income would likely be down to my individual proficiency and not dependent on external factors, such as getting clients or depending on affiliate income. Of course, should my content creation gain traction, that could possibly provide additional income too.
Now I will be first to admit that it is definitely not easy, especially when entering each month without any assurances over the income earned for that month. Nevertheless, I think there is something special about not having anyone to dictate your current or future earning potential.