Quit Your Job Calculator

How to use the quit your job calculator

1. Savings you can use: cash you could really spend on rent, food and the business. Leave out retirement accounts and anything already promised to someone else.
2. Monthly living costs: everything your salary pays for today. Check three months of bank statements instead of guessing. Add costs your employer covers now and you would pay yourself after leaving, such as health cover or a phone.
3. Monthly business costs: software, ads, stock, contractors. Enter 0 if the business costs nothing to run yet.
4. Monthly business income today: what the business brings in now. If you can estimate tax, enter the amount after tax.
5. Income added each month: how much more you earn each month than the month before. If you earned $400, $650 and $900 in the last three months, that is $250 added each month.
6. Safety buffer: the number of months of living costs you want to keep for emergencies and never plan to spend.

The result updates as you type. The headline is the savings you need before quitting. Below it you see your monthly gap, how long savings would last if income stayed flat, the month the business should cover your costs, and how much you would have left over or be short.

The formula behind the result

The calculator assumes straight-line growth. In month 1 after you quit, the business earns what it earns today. Each month after that it earns a fixed amount more. The gap shrinks every month until it reaches zero, and the calculator adds up every gap along the way. This is the same idea as startup runway, applied to your household instead of a company: your monthly gap is your personal burn rate.

A worked example

Say you have $40,000 in savings. You spend $3,500 a month to live and $500 a month on the business. The business earns $1,000 a month today and has been adding about $250 a month. You want to keep 3 months of living costs as a buffer.

On these numbers you can afford to quit, with $10,000 spare. Now change one input. If income only grows by $150 a month, the business does not cover your costs until month 21, you need $42,000, and you are $2,000 short. You would start eating into your buffer in month 16. A small change in growth moves the answer a lot, which is why the growth figure deserves the most care.

How to read your result and improve it

• Green with room to spare: the money side works on these assumptions. Check that the business itself is proven before you set a date. Paying customers who come back are stronger proof than a savings balance. See how to move from side hustle to startup.
• Short by a small amount: you have three levers. Save for a few more months, cut living costs, or wait until business income is higher. Raising today's income shortens the gap in every later month, so it usually helps the most.
• "Not at this growth rate": income is flat or growing too slowly to ever meet your costs. More savings will not fix this. Work on finding your first 10 customers while you still have a salary.
• No business income yet: enter 0 and treat the result as a ceiling on how long you can search. It is safer to validate the idea first, because you can run interviews and a landing page test in evenings and weekends.

Quitting is not the only option. You can ask for part-time hours, take a leave of absence, or replace your salary with freelance work while the business grows. If you go the freelance route, the freelance rate calculator shows what to charge to cover the same living costs.

If you are still choosing what to build, Fonda is an AI co-founder that takes you from an idea to a go, refine or pivot Verdict after you have talked to real customers. It is designed for people building on the side, and it is free to start. You can also browse side hustle business ideas that you can test without leaving your job.

What the calculator leaves out

• Taxes. Self-employed tax rules differ by country and state. Enter income after tax if you can, and ask an accountant what you will owe in your first year.
• Benefits you lose. Health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave and bonuses often stop when you resign. Add what you would pay for them to your living costs.
• Uneven months. Real income does not rise in a straight line. Some months fall. The calculator has no bad months in it, which is one reason to keep a buffer.
• One-off costs. Company registration, equipment, a deposit on a workspace. The startup cost calculator covers these. Subtract them from your savings before you enter the figure here.
• Other household income. If a partner covers part of the bills, enter only your share of living costs.
• Outside funding. Loans, grants and investment are not included. The result assumes you fund the gap from savings alone.