Creating your Plan B

- There's a saying in the financial industry that money is like a bar of soap, the more you touch it, use it, the smaller it gets. So my motto has always been, then we need to collect more soap. What this means for you during a career transition is to get creative, think different, and look for opportunities to bring in additional income. Recently, I met someone, let's call her Sandy, who was laid off from her employer after 15-plus years working there. It was a cost-cutting measure from her employer. She is only in her 40s, so still way too young to collect social security or penalty-free withdrawals from her retirement savings like 401k and IRAs. She had a very niche job and unique skill set. She was concerned that she wouldn't be able to find work quickly. How was she going to make her ends meet? She completed a budget worksheet for three months. Remember, I provided this worksheet in the exercise files. And that gave us an average of her expenses, but it also gave us a tool to identify the areas of her spending to reduce. Her company severance plus her extra vacation pay would not get her to a full year of expenses, which is the buffer time frame that she wanted to find another job. We calculate the shortfall, she applied for unemployment, and we put together a plan B. To make ends meet, she took on freelancing projects, sold things around the house she no longer needed, and reached out to her network to see who might need a consultant. We then put together the most tax and penalty-efficient plan of withdrawing distributions from her retirement plan in case we needed to pull from those. It wasn't what she wanted, but she had a plan to get her through her transition. This time for you is an opportunity to leverage your skills and abilities. Start that side hustle you've always wanted to try. Maybe sell unneeded items on eBay. Or maybe for you, it's creating a new craft, personalized item, and selling it on Facebook Marketplace or Etsy. Or perhaps, like for a friend of mine, it means temporarily working for DoorDash or recording voiceover for a company, or even editing writing on Fiverr. Get out there, join a social media community of others who are looking to work. Chat with people who know you and see if they have any ideas of income-generating projects you can start. There are a lot of options for you to consider, and often, they don't mimic exactly what you've been doing, but it doesn't mean you can't earn extra income in the meantime. It doesn't need to be the perfect job. It just needs to be a job that temporarily can bring in income to support you. Just remember, this isn't forever. It just buys you time and let you have time to wait for the full-time position. Some of the best business ideas came from the most challenging times. Once you earn a little, your motivation and confidence will grow. Just take that first step. Trust me, it's very empowering. After all, it takes intense pressure to create diamonds.