The hubby always gets nervous when I take the summer off. I don’t think it has to do with lack of income but more like he then feels 100% responsible for paying the bills (as we don’t wish to dip into our passive income).
So right before I wind up the contract gig, we play the “if we needed cash flow in a hurry game.” We look at everything we have and outline how we could earn cash off of it.
For example:
We have a four bedroom house with a big empty unfinished basement for the two of us. The obvious choices are renting out rooms or renting space in the basement for storage (to friends and family) or running a computer camp with our multitude of computers (the hubby is in Information Technology) or…
We’ll look at almost everything we have and think of its earning or resale potential. Knowing that we could tap into it gives us the confidence and security to take a few more risks.
You might think it is silly but it does have an interesting side effect.
You see, knowing that we’ll do this every year, changes the way we think about purchases. When we were purchasing furniture, we leaned towards antiques because we knew we could always resell those pieces for as much as or more than we paid. When we bought a lawnmower, we didn’t buy the cheapest one out there. Instead, we bought one that could cut multiple lawns (potential business).
This thinking offsets our normally overly frugal attitudes.