a day in my life without a job | quitting corporate, how much I saved, dealing w/ self doubt

good morning so six months ago I quit my job as a program manager at Amazon so I thought it's about time to give you an update on what life is like without a job if you're new here my name is Evelyn I finished grad school in 2018 started my career as a tech consultant at Big Four Deloitte I worked as a project manager at Tick Tock before Amazon we live on the eighth floor so I had to add water pressure six months ago I quit because all of these seemingly promising jobs that I had worked so hard to get or not what I want to do today I just wanted to show you a day in my life and chat about my honest experience quitting without much of a plan I hope this gives you guys some ideas of what life after quitting might look like if that's something you're also considering it's a good it's a bad it's worth it well you guys are gonna have to tell me I got this linen dress off of taobao it's really casual and comfy for home I also added this pearl necklace to feel a bit more dressed up let's make some coffee is it too early to talk about money okay let's talk about money I'm a very risk averse person I overthink absolutely every single decision I'm 29 and I'm worried as hell about retirement a lot of my college friends are making six figures and have bought houses and it's given me a lot of anxiety but I think I'm lucky enough to have been working in technology for the past five years and more fortunately I come from a very frugal family also when I came back from the US to work in China I took a massive pay cut I kind of achieved the reverse of Lifestyle inflation for me also the cost of living and Guangzhou being ridiculously low my rent is a couple hundred dollars I have saved enough to last for two or three years if I continue my current lifestyle which is a very very very fortunate and privileged position to be be in I get to Save A Lot on things like making coffee at home and cooking at home I really go out to drink all that often I also don't ever buy any luxury products which definitely helps [Music] I'm using coconut milk I have this Honda and extract from when I was filming a short for making pandan pancakes from yellow face I just use it for coffee now swamp pump it's like not much of a color to it but it's very very yummy pandan and coconut I may have accidentally burned this coffee [Music] okay now let's get the day started I usually aspire to read a book while I'm drinking my coffee in the morning I'm currently rating the idiot it's the calming of age of a girl who is discovering herself as a writer I'm about two-thirds of the way through this book I've gotten quite into it it's been recommended everywhere lately as one of Greta gerwig's favorite books I've Just Seen Barbie absolutely love the movie so I just picked up this book afterwards so I usually start working around 10 a.m oh well I set up this ergonomic workstation so that when I sit down my elbow is exactly resting at 90 degrees on the desk and the top of the screen is exactly at eye level I got this screen online for 50 bucks second hand because I didn't actually end up finding one at the electronics Market in my last Vlog so what do we have to do today this planner that I set up with you guys at the beginning of the year it's basically my lifeline now because I don't really have a schedule I usually write down my tasks for this week and then Cascade them down to each day of the week today my biggest priority is to film this video and hang out with you guys I really don't get it and sometimes YouTubers are like I want to take this day to relax and take care of myself and then film a video I feel like this is going to come back and bite me when I decide to make a self-care day in my life Vlog one day but this video is where the truth lies I also need to plan a Shanghai Vlog I actually just book tickets to go to Shanghai this weekend because there's a book fair there that I really want to check out and I want to take you guys along and explore Shanghai together I also want to clutch the footage from today in the evening I feel like that's already very ambitious it's 11 51 pm and I'm still editing I have this posted wall to help me plan projects I used to be really bad at posting on time which I still am but breaking a project down into different steps and then physically moving future item helps me plan ahead and stick to the schedule a little bit better [Music] so yeah like this is my job now I guess I want to catch up with you guys on what I've been up to but I want to take you someplace nice [Music] oh my gosh it's so hot in here so if you remember when I quit my job at Tick Tock over a year ago did you quit your job to do YouTube full time well the answer now is yes I am trying to make a living as a content creator because this is the only thing I've ever done that I've never been tired of to be honest this isn't how I thought it would go I've been vlogging on and off for the past three years and I had always thought that one day I'd hit a hundred thousand followers and that would allow me to quit my job but now here I am already without a job and I have 8 000 of you guys which honestly is crazy and I'm so grateful for you because all I share here is like my personal life and it blows my mind that 8 000 people are interested in that you guys are crazy but I love you and I'm very very grateful for you now I make about 30 dollars a month from YouTube AdSense to be honest it's a bit scary to think about that because I have no idea if or when this number will ever go up to a level that can support a living so yes at times and this is by no means infrequent I would fall into debilitating self-doubt I think when you take time off from corporate this is a pretty common mindset to fall into and for me like even when I'm working a lot of times I feel like things will never work out so I mentally prepared myself for this before I quit so these are the things that I do to cope in case you find any of that helpful the first thing is friends I didn't realize until quite late into my 20s how important friendships are and that's on top of having a very loving and supportive romantic relationship I think it's important to have a network of people around you to help you see things you cannot see yourself and to be foreign Network because having one person be your entire Lifeline is not enough and it's not fair for that person so I'm very very grateful for my friends who have always been there for me another mental strategy I use is I have thought through since a very long time ago what is the worst thing that's going to happen if things don't go well I think even if two or three years later I still can't make enough of a living off of making content I can always buy myself more time by working part-time working as a barista I could decide at that point that content is just not going to work out for me and I would go back to corporate and find a job that I like a little bit more My Hope Is I would never have to go back to corporate but if I do at least I have given what I really want to do a real chance I know it's a huge amount of privilege to even be able to say that I'm very grateful for my like sheer dumb luck to have fallen into the circumstances that I'm in and I want to use that privilege responsibly and lastly as I mentioned in the very first quitting my job Diaries when in doubt take action so you don't have time to continue doubting yourself and also every action is an opportunity to improve the situation or to learn something about how to improve the situation later on so yes I have been planning how to build different sources of revenue but before I bore you with that I'm hungry so let's go to a Michelin star restaurant I love the 7-Elevens in Guangzhou they have the best deli unsurprisingly most of the things here are not vegetarian but I have measured this [Music] just to see it [Music] I could buy 12 of this exact meal for my YouTube monthly Revenue so thank you guys [Music] I'm gonna regret that [Music] [Music] uh [Music] oh my matcha arrived it was so hot outside okay so how am I going to make a living from making content so there are four streams of Revenue I've been thinking of the most intuitive way creators make money is from AdSense which comes from the as you see at the beginning and middle and end of the Vlog I probably get a fraction of a cent from every single time you watch an ad so thank you very much for that the second and usually the biggest source of revenue for creators is brand sponsorships so far I have done zero I've had friends reach out to me but either it was not a good fit or it just didn't go anywhere so I'm hoping with time I will get some sponsored content which will really make me feel a lot better about livelihood so if you see a sponsor one day you'll know that your girl's dream is coming true but this relationship we share is the most important thing in the world and it's the reason why I want to do YouTube for a living so I can promise you that I will never recommend products that I don't personally love the third source of Revenue I can think of is like patreon or coffee you guys might have seen a link where you can buy me a coffee from the descriptions I honestly don't expect anything from there but some of you guys have been really incredibly supportive very very grateful of that over the past two and a half years I've received around 450 dollars from Kofi coffee and that's before pay politics portion as transaction fee I am currently in the process of setting up a patreon I'm still brainstorming what I can offer on patreon that's actually meaningful to you guys so far I'm thinking maybe monthly Hangouts on Google or book clubs yeah if you guys have any other ideas things you would want to do with me over on patreon please leave a comment and then the fourth way for creators to make revenue is to launch your own products and services which is something that's been disgusting like every Creator Community because of the economic downturn brands have a smaller advertising budget so that means less funds being allocated to influencer marketing so I do want to in the long term develop some products that would be useful for you either courses like Ali Abdel does or I really like the stationary line from Amanda richly some of you guys might know I have a cookie company called small Bachelor but it's based in China so I'm thinking if there's a way to share cookies with you guys who are not in China but I think this is quite long term okay so I got this matcha and matcha brush very excited to try these the living room is so messy right now we gotta do some cleaning foreign [Music] why can't you do them while you are working plenty of creators build up their careers while they still have a full-time job and there are a couple of reasons for that when I have to work on something that I don't enjoy for eight hours a day I feel so mentally and physically drained you know that feeling when you go home from work and you have no energy to do anything but watch TV and then the cycle repeats so that's how I often ended up feeling and I just needed to break out of that cycle because the thought of life just repeating in that way until it ends is hopeless and despairing I think Sally Kim talks about burnout very well in her quitting her big four accounting job Vlog so if you guys are interested check out Sally's Vlog as well I will link that Vlog in the description I also feel like having a job feels like something that I can fall back to which is not a great situation to be in if I ever want to make it as a YouTuber one day because that means it's okay if I miss an upload for a week or a month or three months last year I felt really burnt out and just didn't post a single video for three months that's when my channel stopped growing and I about really demotivated from posting after that I think that's how having a fallback manifests itself into a Creator career not working out so I just want to go all in and give it a real shot I feel like I've rambled on a lot today so I think I'm gonna end this Vlog here hopefully this was a realistic look into what life is like without a job and hopefully it helps you come to a decision on what's the best career move for you please give this video a like if you find it helpful or relatable it really helps me get discovered by the algorithm and yeah subscribe if you want to follow along On my journey I'll see you next time take care bye [Music]

Channel: tapiocapress

Views: 331,649

Keywords: day in the life, day in my life, 9-5 job, quitting corporate, quitting my job, unemployment vlog, i quit my job, quitting 9-5, laid off, tech layoff, day in the life with no job, quitting my job vlog, quitting 9-5 vlog, quitting corporate vlog, should I quit my job, life without a job, day in the life unemployed, should I quit corporate, should I quit my 9-5, quitting without a plan, I don't dream of labor, full time creator, work day in my life, work day in my life vlog

Id: WHXX1dTHo9s

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023