[The following is another post from Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.]
When I started blogging back in February 2010, I didn’t know that I was taking the first step towards a new life. My blog, connections, and experience grew by leaps and bounds over the next year. In April 2011, I started running the blog advertising for others. By early July 2011, I had a gigantic decision to make. I could handle a few fears, take a risk, and jump into self-employment, or I needed to take a step back and continue with my small-salaried position and use my online work as a hobby job. I chose to take the leap.
Fear about the Loss of Benefits
I’ll be honest – I was not a girl who liked change. I was also a worry-wart about trying something completely new to me. I spent my nights thinking about being self-employed and what it would entail. How would I find health insurance? How would I save for retirement? Could I stay self-motivated?
Deep down, I knew I was ready and could handle whatever came my way. But those little nagging questions needed to be wrapped up. Mostly, I kept thinking about losing the benefits that I’d grown accustomed to. I’d be giving up an easy health insurance policy, life insurance policy, and a 401k.
For health insurance, I asked several online blogging buddies for ideas and was pointed towards online sites like Esurance to find myself a new policy. I ended up joining my husband’s plan for about 6 months before he quit too. Then we did find an affordable policy for the both of us and signed up. We didn’t get any extra deals, but if you’re interested in private health insurance rebates, click here. We also found affordable term life insurance and jumped on it too.
For the loss of my 401k, I decided to concentrate even more on fully funding my Roth IRA each year. My husband and I also moved and now use our first home for rental income. We are currently looking even closer at other options like a SEP IRA. In short, we lost contributions to a 401k, but there are many other ways to save for our future.
Personal Inadequacy Fears
The rest of my issues were about my own abilities. Those were plowed through with my mantra – “Put on your big girl panties and just do it!” I still repeat those words to this day when I feel that I have procrastinated too much or need to push myself more. You can succeed by just forcing yourself to accomplish what needs to be done. Don’t take no for an answer, especially not from yourself.
I did end up tackling self-employment in July 2011 and am still working in my same business 2.5 years later. I hope to be doing this for years to come. No matter what, I did learn not to let the fear of the unknown determine my future.
Have you ever mowed down your own fears to accomplish a goal of your own?