This is one of the points that prevents many people from taking action.
And that's normal, because often the desire for a professional life change comes when you already have a family to support and/or loans to repay.
Job&Sense can help you gain clarity and enable you to make a decision more calmly.
Taking stock of your expenses per month/per year
Step number 1 is to analyze your household's current expenses, per month and per year.
This is admittedly a tedious exercise, but an enlightening one. Indeed, knowing more or less what you spend by type of expense gives you an interesting overview. It also allows you to see if you have opportunities to make savings or sacrifices on certain expenses; during the time you reorient yourself, get training, find a new job...
To carry out this exercise conscientiously, you can ask your bank (option available on your online banking) to export your bank statements from recent months to Excel. You can then categorize each bank statement.
You can also use the summary table below.
Next, you can complete the second column by indicating what your monthly expenses would be if you decided to take the time to embark on your change project.
This is the period during which you would:
- Resume your studies
- Be on time credit
- Search for a new job
- Before launching as a self-employed person
- …
During this period: would you seek help from a coach, would you participate in paid training, would you need to find a new means of transportation...?
Taking stock of your monthly income
Once you've taken stock of your expenses, it's time to look more closely at your monthly income and how it will be impacted by your change project.
Job&Sense distinguishes between the income you will have during your transition that is, unemployment benefits, time credit, no income... and the income you will earn at the beginning of your new activity.
If you're starting a new profession, you need to take into account that your past experiences won't necessarily count and that you'll probably have to go through a junior status before returning to your usual level.
What is your margin?
If you look at your expenses and the income you'll have during your change period, do you arrive at a positive margin?
Yes, does that reassure you? Your margin is undoubtedly less than what you currently have. It's important to ask yourself how many months you could sustain this situation? Knowing also that it's good to have a small cushion to deal with life's unexpected events.
The answer is no, we're sorry, but don't get discouraged too quickly; there may be solutions.
Here are some food for thought:
- Are there expenses you could reduce for a few months?
- Do you have some savings you could allocate to your life change period? How many months could you sustain this situation?
- Could you replace the chosen studies with free training?
- Could you work as a self-employed person on the side before leaving your job? This way you could save some money for when you want to launch.
- A credit or loan from your family or a financial institution.
There are certainly others.
