How Many Days Without a Salary

Dependence on a salary is measured in days, not in the balance on your account. As long as that number is unknown, every decision about work gets made out of fear.

Add up everything you could reach within a week: current account balances, cash, savings, things you could sell in a couple of days. Separately, list your compulsory monthly costs: rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, transport, food, medication, debt payments, childcare. Divide that second figure by 30 to get the cost of one day. Divide the first figure by that to get your number of days. Write the number down and next to it write what you fear at work more than you fear that number. Then run a second version: how many days you get if you strip out everything from the compulsory list that is not actually compulsory.

The number nearly always comes out smaller than you wanted and larger than you feared — which is exactly why it is worth knowing: it turns «I cannot leave» into «I have forty-seven days». What is then decided is not whether to quit, but something concrete: how many days I want this figure to be by the end of the year. If there is nothing to count because the balance is near zero, that result is useful too: your task this month is not your career, it is the first seven days of cushion. Do not show this number to people who will comfort you; show it to someone who will ask what you plan to do with it.