Create Your Own Job

As the economy grows at a slow pace and jobs are scarce, a certain group of people have discovered the secret of previous recessions when applying for a job. These job opportunities are offered to anyone that applies. Unlike the past, fewer people are taking advantage of these jobs. These "create your own job" offers are called "starting your own business."

I have been in the tax business since the early 1980s and see business creation accelerate as a recession ends every time, until now. For some reason (maybe government interference and lack of a clear policy) people are creating jobs at a slower pace this time. When current employers refuse to hire, smart people find an unfilled demand and fill it.

Several of my clients have started a new business. Business ownership has its risks, but the rewards are really good, too. Starting a business as the economy leaves a recession has fewer risks as demand is increasing and there are ample opportunities to fill space vacated by businesses that closed during the recession.

Owning a business is not for everyone and has unique issues related to it. Still, nothing beats business ownership. Yes, the hours are long and risks abound. But losing one client does not break the company where losing the one and only job you have is a severe body blow.

The people that started businesses over the last year in my office have done well. It seems to me there is significant unfilled demand waiting to be filled. Some of these businesses may fail in the future, but for now things look all roses.

You can beat the odds when starting a business by following a few simple rules:

1. Use little or no debt.
2. Hire professionals to help you start and run the business (accountant, attorney).
3. Start small, if possible, and build from there.
4. Plan each step of the way. Have a business plan.

No debt and professional help go a long way in assuring the success of the business. The challenges of business can be overcome with hard work, perseverance, and planning. It is a great pleasure to see clients starting and growing their own business. It is good for my business, good for the economy, and good for the community.

Get a Pay Raise By the Minute

It is possible to determine the class a person comes from by their attitude toward money. You can spot a spendthrift a mile away before they spend a single penny. The same is true of frugal folks. You should also note that wealthy people are more frugal than middle class families. There are exceptions to the rules, but they are rare. Frugal people gather a million dollar plus liquid net worth in a relatively short time and no one knows it by the way they act. Poor folks spend what they can to look richer and the middle class spendthrift lives beyond his means on borrowed money ( and borrowed time) exuding the illusion of wealth.

I know people that carry a card in their shirt pocket that lists what they earn at their job by the year, month, week, day, hour, minute, and second. Tell said person to buy a soda from a vending machine and you will get a quick answer that they need to work just over two minutes for that one soda.

Here is what the card looks like:

$60,000/yr
5,000/mo
1153.85/wk
230.77/day
28.85/hr
0.48/min
.008/sec

The example is a hypothetical person, not a real person or client. However, a lot of people make $60,000 per year. Adjust the numbers to fit your personal situation.

These experiences pushed front and center as I started reading Jeff Yeager's latest book, The Cheapskate Next Door. When he states in chapter one that he knows people that carry an income card in their pocket a few clients came to mind. Every one of these clients is well off or wealthy with a liquid net worth of seven figures or higher.

My dad always said, "Son, it is not what you make; it is what you do with what you make." It took me forty years to figure it out. It is easier deciding if you want to spend money when you can equate it with how much time you will spend at work earning it. Spend $50 and you need to work another two hours.

The slow economic recovery has people thinking about money in ways not done for decades. It is survival mode for many. When unemployment is about to run out it takes desperate measures. Why wait. Take the necessary steps now so desperation is averted later.

It is always a good idea to wait before making a purchase. Think through what it will really cost you in life spent at work paying for it. And heaven forbid you pay interest to pay for a toy. Many folks pay a third or more of their income on their home. That means you spend nearly three hours at work every day just to pay the loan. Is it worth considering a smaller home and taking those extra hours with family? The choice is yours.

Try this for a week only. I do not want a lawsuit if someone goes into septic shock on my advice. Write down your income by year, month, week, day, hour, minute, and second. Keep it with you at all times. Before every purchase anything, check your chart to see how long you need to work to pay for the purchase. I bet you will put several items back on the shelf. Then you can cut your hours at work or retire years or decades early. Like I said, the choice is yours.

The 3 Hour Workday

My first exposure to the concept of the three hour workday comes from the book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I have read similar articles on the subject over the years and it makes total sense to me.

From the beginning of mankind (ladies included) the amount of work required to secure the necessities of life (food, clothing, and shelter) takes about three hours a day. This has held true from Stone Age to modern man. Before the modern era, man would hunt for a few days and then cure the meats acquired. Gardening complimented gathering. The time needed to build shelter, hunt, garden, process and cook foods, and produce clothes took about twenty hours a week per adult. Some days and weeks required longer hours of labor, but over a year, the work required to survive averaged about three hours a day. The remaining time was spent with friends and family playing games, talking, sharing and other pleasurable passtimes.

Then we got civilized. Then we decided that anyone that worked less than 10-12 hours a day is lazy. Now we admire those that work 14-18 hour days. All this insanity started around the beginning of the 20th Century. Only the task of nonstop labor was appreciated.

Working longer than 50 hours a week in unhealthy and leads to all kinds of nasty diseases. Lack of sleep has brought humanity some of our greatest disasters. Is it really comforting to know your surgeon hasn't slept in eighteen hours as you go under for bypass surgery? Do you feel safe knowing your airline pilot only slept four of the last 30 hours? Are you a better driver when sleep-deprived and high on coffee?

Where did we go wrong? Can we get sanity back into our lives? I believe we can.

The basic necessities of life took three hours of labor a day on average in the past. Today, with machines and other time saving technologies, we can support our needs on 10-15 hours per week. "Needs" need to be defined to understand how we can live comfortably working only 15 hours a week.

"Needs" include food, clothing, shelter, and in our modern world, transportation. Food costs very little if prepared at home. In 1970, food consumed about 12-15% of our income, depending which study you read. Today we spend 6-7% of our income on food and that includes meals out. Preparing food at home easily reduces the expense to 2-3% of the average household income.

Clothing is also inexpensive unless you need a closet choked full of trendy threads you only wear a few times if at all. Transportation costs will depend on your location. If you live in a large city, public transportation is available and the cheapest route. If you live rural, you will need a car. You do not need a $30,000 gas-guzzler. You need a reliable vehicle that gets you from point A to point B economically.

I saved shelter for last. Housing costs have risen significantly in the last 40 years; some argue even faster than inflation. However, when comparing apples to apples, housing costs are affordable. You see, in 1970, our society (I am talking the United States here) lived in homes of around 1100 square feet. Today we live in homes over 3000 square feet and fewer people live in each home. The price of an 1100 square foot home today is the same as it was in 1970 adjusted for inflation, maybe less than inflation with the housing market problems of the last several years.

Now we come full circle. How can we live a decent life without working ourselves to death? I am not asking anyone to try living on three hours of works a day. You could, but if you want other things, you will work more. The questions is: How much of your life do you want to sell in the form of employment to someone else to get more stuff? Understand there is nothing wrong with wanting and/or having stuff. I am asking you to consider balancing your wants with the selling of your life energy, as Dominguez and Robin call it, and the real pleasures of living your own life your way, with friends and family.

We work 40 years in the workforce because we want to, not because we have to. Most of the stuff we buy ends up in a landfill in less than a year. We work countless hours to satisfy these fleeting desires. If we balanced our real needs with modest desires, we could all easily retire by age 50 or earlier. We choose to work ourselves to death.

Is it really worth it?