going independent from day job with chronic health problems

Got good health insurance at work, have no plans to leave in the short-run. I'm just curious if any of you have left your day job with high health cost overhead to trade independently. How should I incorporate those costs into my business plan, and should I allocate maybe 2-3 years of savings before I go solo if I have severe health problems? Or should I get married and count on wife's health plan or something?

Is this workable? (FYI, I'm in the US, not Canada.) Or should I give up the idea of going solo and just try to make myself valuable as an employee?

 

that would be foolish. there are ways to trade longer term and still keep your job.

 

try to apply for health insurance and see if you even can get it.

If you have any chronic conditions you'll most likely find it hard, if not impossible, to buy private insurance.

 

Have you tried?

I will actually do what you're saying, just to get some quotes.

 

Your best bet is with a high deductible ($10,000) and a high co-pay and even then it might depend on your state regulations. Some states require coverage for a pre-existing after a waiting period.

 

In my state, it turns out there is a plan for people who are uninsurable. The monthly premium is $750/month. So, if I continue to live in this state, I should be budgeting in about a thousand dollars a month for 3 years or so. So, say, 48k set aside for healthcare.

Am thinking I should allocate about 50k to health care, 150k for trading capital, and buy a cheap home somewhere within 2011 to 2012. And I'm thinking about shooting for independence by 2015-2016. The only problem I have here is that I have no real retirement savings, kind of betting on learning about the markets over the next twenty years to offset lack of a substantial 401k.

 

You are making one very big assumption that after 3 years or so you will be a profitable trader.

I hate to break it to you but it's not that easy, on average it takes even longer.

No Heat

 

It is not wise to quit unless you are already very profitable and sitting on a thick bank accounts.

 

I am already profitable. That's not my problem. It's just that my salary is higher than what I would make independently, but also that my job conflicts with my ability to scale. I cannot manage more risk than I am taking on now because of other obligations.

My approach has been to quietly grow my side trading, but work towards having a work-independent source of income that can keep me immune from a layoff, recession, or work displeasure.

Of course, I'm not tooting my own horn here. It's just that I can't live on 36k-48k a year from trading. I'd like to scale, but the scaling process is non-trivial and not just a function of increasing size.

 

You could consider a passive investor assuming you got the necessary documents to prove the profitability without a shadow of a doubt.

No Heat