How to Quit Your Job in 2026 Without Going Broke

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Okay, so pretty much everyone wants to quit their job, or at least 80% of people do. But you can't just pack it up and quit one day. There's one thing that determines if you can quit your job.

[00:00:09]It's a nine-letter word. Money. I believe most men want a life of freedom and options, and you need money for that. And money doesn't just fall from the sky. But if you plan your exit and execute correctly, I believe many people can quit their jobs, even if they don't have much money yet. 18 months ago, I quit my full-time job to do YouTube and software full-time, and I made a decent living. So far, it's not been perfect by any means. I I did leave a really good job, but I needed more freedom and more passion in my day-to-day life. So, today, I'm going to break down the step-by-step guide to quitting your job in 2026 and making that transition to being self-employed. If you're watching this and you want to do something more fulfilling with your life, here's your playbook. And even if you like your job, like there's many people that do, although sadly it's not many, it's still not a bad thing to follow this to have more options in the future and be smarter with money. because that's half the battle with having freedom in your life is how you can earn money, preserve that money, and then finally grow that money. So, if you're seriously thinking about quitting your job in 2026, here's the step-by-step process that I would follow. And again, I'm someone who did this myself and have had some success so far. The good news is quitting your job is different and easier than ever before with the tools that we have available to us. So, if you're getting tired of the LinkedIn humble bragging corporate culture or just have an exhausting, grueling job that you'd like to get away from, let's lock in. And as always, if you enjoy this type of content, it would mean a lot to me if you leave a like, comment, and subscribe. I'm closing in on my dream of 100K subscribers. So, I'm hoping we can get there. It would mean a lot, fellas. Let's get into it. So, the step one, before you start anything else, you need to do this before quitting your job. Ask yourself, is this actually what you want? So, lots of people don't like their jobs, and I completely get it. I worked in corporate America most of my adult life so far.

[00:01:48]But, it's hard to see the problems with self-employment. Like you have to know what you're getting into. You know, they always say the grass is always greener.

[00:01:54]And sometimes running from a job will fix your problems. Sometimes it won't.

[00:01:58]Like a lot of people say they want to quit their job in 2026 when what they actually mean is they want to escape the stress or the boredom or the pointless meetings or the feeling of their life just getting traded away for a paycheck.

[00:02:09]I completely get it, guys. I was there, too. But quitting your job is not something you do because you watched a few follow your dreams videos and you got fired up in the last 48 hours. It has to be calculated. It's got to fit your life. For me, it took me 8 months of planning and years of saving to be in a position where I could comfortably leave my job. And if you do it wrong, you could create a world of stress for yourself that makes your old job look peaceful by comparison. There's plenty of drawbacks for quitting your job.

[00:02:35]Like, you can say goodbye to your stability. You have to deal with a lot of rejection. It's just a tough life.

[00:02:40]It's gotten to me a few times. There's clear pros and cons. When I had a job, one of the best things was that I could just turn my laptop off after work, close it, be done with it, not thinking about it. Now it's different. I just I feel, you know, stressed all the time about it. In many ways, I have a lot more freedom, but in some ways less freedom. Like, you really can't flip the switch off. You feel like you should always be working. Now, I might make a video on this in the future, but it's not that I miss having a job yet, but the reality of self-employment is kind of a tough one. Like, this is not for everyone. You need to ask yourself, is this what you want to do? And know what you're getting into. That's step one.

[00:03:14]All right. Step two to quitting your job. Evaluate your personal risk tolerance. So, you know, I've mentioned this before with when you're about to start investing. Well, before you do a lot of major life decisions, you should evaluate your risk tolerance. So, this is where people go wrong. Like a lot of people just get online and they say, "Just, oh, just bet on yourself, bro.

[00:03:31]Just quit your job. You got this." Not everyone can just do that, right? We got to be realistic. You got to ask yourself a few questions. Do you have debt? Do you have a family? Do you have kids? Do you have family members depending on you? Uh do you want to buy a house soon?

[00:03:44]Do you have health problems? Do you value stability more than freedom right now? These things you have to ask yourself. And there's no universal right or wrong answer here. Some people are in a season of life where taking that big swing for the fences makes complete sense. And other people are in a season where doing that would be reckless and you shouldn't do that. So you have to be brutally honest with yourself about this. Like quitting your job is not just a financial decision. It's an emotional one. You know, there's some days where I feel strong and on top of the world. And then there's other days I just feel like getting upset and crying like a little.

[00:04:14]This is really an emotional decision.

[00:04:16]It's a lifestyle decision. For me, when I left my job, my risk tolerance was fairly high. Like I didn't have kids. I didn't have a mortgage. I didn't have big expenses. I had a good portfolio. I was healthy. In many ways, it lined up perfectly for me. But that's not always the case for a lot of people. Some people have the ability to just literally go put in their two week notice next week and others don't have that luxury. For me, the freedom and the things that come along with working on what I want to outweigh the benefits of me staying in that job. So, you have to ask yourself that, how much of this risk can you handle? Because income is not guaranteed when you're self-employed and it's going to go up and down a lot. So, keep that in mind, fellas. All right.

[00:04:52]Step three to follow before quitting your job. Calculate your monthly expenses. So, this is, you know, the boring one. And you got to dig into the spreadsheets, but this is extremely extremely important. You need the actual number of your rent, your food, your utilities, subscriptions you have, any debt you have, and just anything spending. Like what I would do is I would take the last 6 months of my life and just calculate every month how much money I spent on everything. For me, it was about $4,000 a month at the time that I quit. That's probably pretty consistent with what I'm spending now.

[00:05:23]But you need to ask yourself, how much does it cost to keep your life running?

[00:05:26]And that'll give you an idea of how long you can survive without a paycheck until you get your other income streams set up. If you don't know your monthly burn rate, you're making one of the biggest decisions of your life with incomplete information, and that's stupid. So, you need to know what it actually costs to keep yourself alive and functioning each month. So, do that calculation. All right, step 3B. So, this is extremely similar to step three, so I kind of lump them in here. Is cut back really hard on expenses. So, after you calculated all your monthly expenses, there's going to be places where you can cut back. Like for me, I cut back on my rent payment. I cut back on a couple subscriptions.

[00:06:00]Anything to just free up some income for you. If you can reduce your spending, simplify your life, and get to your required monthly number down. You buy yourself a little bit more time to work with. A lot of people want the freedom of quitting their job, but they're not the type of person who can live with less. So, you really need to figure out how you can minimize your life. Now, I'm not saying to just cut everything out to where you're living in a terrible place now, but cut stuff that's not necessary or stuff that's going to distract you from what you're trying to achieve. All right, step number four to quitting your job, maybe the biggest one. Build income on the side while you still have a job.

[00:06:32]So, the best part of entrepreneurship is you can test drive it. This is huge. You don't have to make the lifealtering decision of quitting your job. You can try something on the side and it basically has zero pressure because if you keep your job and you're able to find that free time to work on something on the side and it fails, well, oh well, now you have your job. If you quit your job before that, you wouldn't have that option. So, use your job as a safety net while you test drive entrepreneurship.

[00:06:57]You can go and find a client on the side. You can start making content on the side or building a product, whatever makes sense for you. You don't have to have the pressure to replace your full-time income immediately. I'm never the type of person who says, "Oh, you have to have your side businesses generate at least your salary before you quit." That's not true. In my opinion, they should get to the point where they can cover your living expenses because then you have the proof that you can succeed in entrepreneurship. I probably took the leap before I was ready. You have to decide if that's something you're willing to do. But a lot of people have success building something on the side, proving it out that it's that it can succeed, and then eventually once it succeeds, you can quit and you have money already. This is kind of the point where you stop seeing entrepreneurship as this abstract fantasy land and you start seeing it as something real. I did this when I quit my job. I started making YouTube videos on the side. I started, you know, looking for clients and setting up my own personal websites. And that's some definitely something you got to be doing, fellas. So, try out entrepreneurship on the side and you might be surprised. Maybe you find out you won't like it. Something to keep in mind. All right. Step five to quitting your job. Save and invest aggressively.

[00:07:58]So, your job is not just your paycheck.

[00:08:00]It's really your launchpad. It's your chance to build those investments, stack some cash, put yourself in a position where you're not desperate when you leave. Like one of the reason I always tell people that if you're going to quit, you got to do it from a position of strength. So use that stable income while you have it. Invest in assets.

[00:08:15]Build up an emergency fund. Make sure you have at least 6 plus months of expenses before you take any form of leap like this. The more financial strength you build before leaving, the less likely you're going to be to panic and then run run back and give up after your first month of entrepreneurship.

[00:08:29]So, make sure you're stacking that cashway. All right, step number six to quitting your job, calculate your runway. So, this is the one question you have to ask yourself right now. If your income stopped coming in tomorrow, how long could you survive? And in my opinion, you should not leave unless you have at least 6 months of living expenses at least. Honestly, more is better, especially if your new income streams are very uncertain because Runway gives you a decision-making power. Without this, every setback's going to be a life ordeath emergency and you don't want to be there. With runway, you're going to have time to adapt and think things through clearly. When I left my job, my runway was years. I knew that if I left my job, I'd have years where I'd be fine, even if I made zero dollars. That's going to be the difference between you having peace of mind as you start your new life or be panicking about everything as you start.

[00:09:14]I don't know which one sounds better to you guys. If you have other people depending on you, I would be even more conservative here cuz you don't get extra points here for being reckless.

[00:09:22]Calculate your runway and make sure you have a lot of time that you can plan for these worst case scenarios. All right, step number seven to quitting your job.

[00:09:28]And this might be more of an American one. Have an insurance plan. So, this is one of those boring adult things that's easy to ignore until it punches you square in the mouth. When you leave a job, your benefit situation changes.

[00:09:40]Like, at least in America, health insurance is absurdly expensive, and your company likely helps pay for most of it. Now, you got to do it on your own. For me, I pay several hundred per month in health insurance now that I'm self-employed, and that's a big cost.

[00:09:53]You got to look into these things because if you're not worried about your insurance, suddenly that little doctor's appointment can be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars at least in the US. If you're one of my guys from Canada or Europe, uh this might not apply to you. An unexpected medical issue can really nuke your finances. So, be sure to be careful with that. Have an insurance plan, fellas.

[00:10:13]All right, step number eight. Before quitting your job, talk this over with the important people in your life. So, you should not be quitting your job in a silo. Now, some of you can if you have nobody around you that you're close to, you know, be my guest. But if especially if you're in a serious relationship, you you really do have to talk to others, especially if they're people that would be affected by this. Like, if you're dating someone seriously, you're engaged, you're married, you have family involved, this is not something you can just go do casually. You need to establish your support network, and some of these people might be willing to help you. Sometimes a plan sounds amazing in your own head and then way less convincing when you're talking about it out loud. I was lucky to have supportive people in my corner. My wife fully supported me taking this leap. My family did. They said they had my back. And on these hard days, cuz entrepreneurship's hard, support can keep you, you know, sane. And if you're having days when you're being delusional, they can call you out and straighten you out. So both perspectives are valuable. I would absolutely talk this over with people in your life to number one, see if you're being realistic, and number two, see if they can help support you along the way.

[00:11:12]All right, step number nine. Know what you're actually going to be doing after you quit. This is a big one. A lot of people fantasize about quitting because they're picturing freedom, no boss, sleeping in, no schedule, no stress.

[00:11:24]That's not how this works at all. You got to ask yourself, what the hell am I going to be doing all day? What's my routine going to be? What uh are my priorities? What type of business do I want to build? What skills do I need for this? How am I going to avoid procrastination and drifting? Because guess what? Once you quit, there's no accountability. You get a ton of free time, and you have to wield this wisely.

[00:11:42]It's dangerous if you're not disciplined. So before you quit, you have to make sure you have a real plan for what your days are going to look like and the exact things you're going to be working on. Hopefully you've been working on it while you had a job. But if not, but if your job's just making your life too busy, you have to have a plan for what you're going to spend your free time doing. A lot of people I know who quit their jobs had to go back because they just couldn't motivate themselves to work. Everybody's different. I just want to let it be known that you're going to have free time and you're going to have to figure out how to use it. All right, step number 10 to quitting your job. Pick a date and commit to it. So, a lot of people say they're going to quit their job and, oh, I'm going to quit it in, you know, the first quarter of next year or I'll quit over the summer. I'll quit after the holidays. You have to pick a date and commit to it. It's going to give you a mental, you know, point of reference to build around. Now, it shouldn't be just any date. Like, you shouldn't just throw a dart at a calendar and hope that it's a good date.

[00:12:32]You got to look at certain things like vesting periods. I know for me, if I stayed at my company for 3 years, I' I'd get a big payout. So, I made sure to at least stay for 3 years. If you're about to have a kid, make sure to time it out as well. Don't accidentally leave one week before you get a bunch of stock options or something. Make sure you're leaving on a good time, but that's beside the point. Pick a date, commit to it, make sure it's a good date, one of the best dates. A lot of people tell me, "I have the best dates, and it'll work out well for you." All right, step number 11, and the scariest one of all, just take the leap. Once you've picked a date, and the date arrives, you're going to have to get on the phone with the boss, make the phone call, and that's going to be a tough one. I've never been more scared in my life for some reason than when I quit my jobs. Like even on my wedding day, I wasn't as scared. Like I I remember being like shaking sending the email saying, "Oh, we need to talk."

[00:13:19]Just knowing that he would know something is up. At some point, you just have to go. You can prepare forever and optimize forever and crunch the numbers forever. But eventually, if the opportunity is there, where you have runway, you have side income, you have a plan, you have to move. There is no perfect time. There's always going to be uncertainty and reasons to keep waiting.

[00:13:37]It's going to be a voice in your head telling you to just just delay it one more quarter. Sometimes that voice is an idiot. Sometimes it's good, but sometimes it's just an idiot. And if everything's in place, there's going to come a point where you're just going to need that courage to take that leap.

[00:13:49]Leap into the unknown with ferocity. And I think you're underestimating how fast you can figure it out. All right, step 12. And this is, you know, maybe a bonus one cuz this comes after quitting.

[00:13:59]Utilize technology and adapt with the times. So this is more true now more than ever. One person can do the work of like eight people nowadays. I mean this is crazy. You can met you can get cheap software. You can use AI to do research for you. You can build sales tools, you know, coding tools, editing tools, outreach tools. The excuse that you need some giant team or giant company to build something is completely just out the window. Now, this does not mean it's going to be easy, but it means that you have access to way more now. So, if you quit your job and you're not aggressively learning how to use this technology to move faster, create more, sell more, and reduce the work on yourself, you're wasting one of the biggest advantages we have right now.

[00:14:36]So, beyond that, beyond using the technology, expect some ups and downs, and make sure you're working your ass off. Quitting your job is really only the beginning. It's really a different kind of pressure. Some months are going to feel amazing. You're going to feel on top of the world. Other months, you're going to be questioning your entire life. Income's going to swing.

[00:14:53]Motivation's going to skyrocket and then tank. Your confidence is going to be all over the place. You're going to have days when you feel unstoppable and days when you wonder if your entire life is completely screwed. That's part of it.

[00:15:03]And no matter what happens, you got to just work your ass off. This is what I tell people. It's not, you know, let's not romanticize this path. Yes, it can be worth it. Yes, it can give you freedom. It can change your life, but it's going to demand more from you. This is not going to be an easy thing on your mental health. It's a tough one, but it's totally worth it if you set yourself up. So, to wrap this one up, no, I don't think everybody should quit their jobs in 2026, but I do think more people should seriously consider whether the path they're on is actually leading them where they want to go. And if it's not, then maybe your job's not your destination. Maybe it's just the tool that's going to help you find your exit.

[00:15:35]If you want help with this journey, I'd be happy to help you out. I can work one-on-one with you to help build some income. If you made it this far, I appreciate you. Keep building. I'll see you in the next