Paying the bills
Like it or lump it, paying the bills is fundamental. If you want to build a new life, it is one of the first things to address.
In my last post, I promised to give an insight into the decision-making process that led to us choosing to emigrate, at least for a while. The first thing that we looked at was paying the bills.
Since selling a business in the summer of 2014, I have looked at a number of projects. None of them is lucrative enough on its own to pay the bills. Mags was working part-time at UK retailer Marks and Spencer.
Projects
I do some work as an anti money laundering consultant, I write here and at Nero’s Notes and I record a weekly podcast. Most of what I do can be done remotely, or with some travel. My priority is to grow these projects so that individually, or together, they make enough to fund the life that I want.
On the other hand, Mag’s position was different. She really enjoyed her work, and by its nature, she needed to show up in a specific place. However, her employer provides for a ‘career break’. Essentially, Mags could take up to nine months off to go do something different, and then come back to her job.
This created a timeframe for us. We could look at a suck it and see approach, moving to Cyprus for up to nine months. Nine months is doable. It’s a decent period of time, without being forever. Emotionally, it was easier to commit to. Additionally, a determined period provides parameters for the finance. I was looking at paying the bills for nine months.
My first assumption was, no income. If neither Mags or I made any income for nine months, was paying the bills from savings going to be possible? Now, we both hope to be generating revenue, but worst-case, could we survive without any?
We have some savings, so that was going to work, but to answer the question fully – we needed to do some research. How much did we need?
It was time to do a budget…
