Real-Life Math
You knew when you decided to become a feng shui consultant that you had two options -- open your own feng shui practice or work with a major design firm until you were more financially comfortable. You chose to work with an established practice until you were sure you were ready.
Now there is a huge project that you know will be available for bidding in about 6 months. It's something you would like to do on your own, without the design firm for which you have been working. But in order to bid, you'll have to quit working for the design firm.
When you defined your goals before going to work, you outlined everything and wrote all your goals down. Working at the rate you had planned, you estimate that you're about $6,000 away from having the total amount of money you planned to have. In salary terms, that is about 9 more months of working for the design firm.
Currently, you're making $5,000 a month working for the design firm and saving 15 percent of that for the new business. You plan to bid $140,000 for the large job that you want to land. While that seems like a lot of money, you're underbidding other companies by about $30,000.
From that $140,000, you'll need to take the cost of completing the job, which you estimate will be around $78,000. Plus you'll need to take your $5,000 monthly salary for the 9 months that you'll be working on the job. You'll also want to keep taking out the 15 percent (of your salary) each month to cover your savings.
If you land the $140,000 bid, will you be able to support yourself and still have the amount of money that you planned to have to start your business at the end of 9 months?