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Laura Nicole: 00:02

Welcome to Your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020 after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

Laura Nicole: 00:33

If your ultimate goal with virtual assistant work is to leave your nine to five, there is something really smart and strategic that you can do while you're still getting your nine to five paycheck. All right. And I might sound a little crazy when I say this, but I want you to pretend like your VA income doesn't exist. Okay. Instead of immediately absorbing that extra money into your monthly budget and spending, use this season where you have both income streams to build yourself a little nest egg, a little financial cushion for when you're feeling ready to take that jump and actually quit your nine to five and go full time with virtual assistants. One of the biggest benefits of virtual assistant work is that you are in control of how many hours you work and when you work them, which means that it's perfect for supplemental income, which means that you can start building your client roster and bringing in actual payments while still employed, while still working your nine to five. You can work a bit before you go to work. If you have some extra time on your lunch break, if you find yourself twiddling your thumbs at your desk for 20 minutes while you're sitting at your kids' practice after they've gone to bed, literally whenever it fits into those pockets of 15, 20, 30 minutes throughout your day. And so you're able to really get this off the ground and create some income before ever even really having to think about leaving your nine to five. We are not going from having a W-2 to burning all of the boats and going all in and having no paycheck and then finding yourself desperately trying to find clients and create some income because you jumped off a cliff without a safety net. 

Laura Nicole: 02:26

The beauty of this structure is that you can build the bridge before you have to walk across it. And that is what I want you to do. But while we're crossing that bridge, we're going to be stashing the cash, all right, not spending the cash. So let's say you're in your nine to five, you sign a client or two, you're bringing in $500 a month and then $1,000 a month and then $1,500 a month. Instead of immediately adding that money into your monthly budget and increasing your lifestyle, consider putting that money toward your eventual exit from your nine to five. Obviously, you need to still be putting the 30 to 33% of your VA income aside for taxes. Okay, but I want to give you a couple examples of what creating this nest egg could actually look like. So let's say you're making $1,000 a month working with VA clients while still in your nine to five and having your full-time pay. That means that you have over the course of six months, you have $6,000 getting deposited into your bank account. After you transfer 30%, you're left with $4,200. Or let's say you're making $1,500 a month and you save it for six months. That's nine grand that's come into your account and $6,300 that you're netting after you've set aside for taxes. And I'm not saying that you can't use or shouldn't use any of that $4,200 or $60 or $6,300 or whatever that number is for anything in life right now. 

Laura Nicole: 03:59

Obviously, I know a lot of y'all who are doing this also do have some immediate needs. And that is fine. But I would set a goal for yourself to make sure that a certain percentage of this net income that you're creating is automatically set aside into a high-yield savings account where it is going to sit and accrue interest and increase your level of safety when the time comes to leave the nine to five. Because now leaving your job isn't going to feel like stepping off of a financial cliff. You're going to know that you have coverage. But you also need to build your exit number because there's no universal amount that you need to make before leaving your nine to five. But knowing your exit number, your exit number being the number that you have to be making every month to survive, knowing that number is going to help you assess how much you want to build up this cushion cash account to before you even consider leaving your job. So to build your exit number, I want you to think about your family's monthly expenses, how much of your current income needs to be replaced. Because the reality of this is that there's a good chance you're not going to have all of your nine to five income replaced before you leave your nine to five. Because there's just not really enough hours in the day to work that many VA hours in your full-time job and be a mom and have a life and not go crazy. 

Laura Nicole: 05:34

So by looking at your monthly expenses, how much of your current income is absolutely required, then we know the exit number, right? Let's say you're like, I want, I really want to make five grand a month. It would fully replace my income. But my exit number is $3,500 a month. I have to be bringing in $3,500 a month. Because once you know that exit number as well, you can look at your cushion cash account and assess how far it'll get you, right? If you are making that $3,500 a month that you have to be as a VA, but you really want to get to $5,000 a month, and you've saved $6,300 in your cushion cash account over the past six months. You have four months sitting in that account of that additional $1,500 you want to close the gap from 3.5 to 5. Hopefully that makes sense just hearing it out loud. I know sometimes numbers are so much better visually, but hopefully we're grasping the concept of like that cushion cash account that we've been putting our VA income to over time will help us be able to kind of close the gap between our exit number and our ideal number for the first couple of months after leaving a nine to five. So in this example scenario, you've now bought yourself four months of runway. And I can almost guarantee that you're gonna sign another client with the time that you now have since you left your full-time job during that four-month window so that you're not needing to pull from the cushion cash anymore. You just have another client that's 1,500 plus a month. But approaching it this way means that you get to decide what makes you feel comfortable. You get to know what that must-have number is, you get to set what that goal number is, and you get to decide how many months worth of cushion in that account you want to have in order to cover the gap when you first leave your nine to five and then go out and sign another client to close that gap moving forward. 

Laura Nicole: 07:40

In doing this, y'all, you're building yourself a safety net, right? When you leave that nine to five and you're right at that 3,500 a month, you've hit it consistently for a couple of months, you feel confident that your exit number is solid, it's still gonna be nerve-wracking. We're human, it's a big change. You're gonna feel nervous, but being able to look at that cushion cash account and say, okay, but I have four full months of cushion in there. Like I can absolutely do this. I can find a client to close the gap, etc., knowing you have that safety net really helps you actually pull the trigger on leaving your nine to five. I know a lot of women, myself included, I stayed at my job much longer than I needed to because it was scary to give it up. And I didn't have a safety net at all at the time. And so, yes, it's scary, but this is a way that you can set yourself up for it to be less scary and feel less risky because you already have cushion built up for yourself. And yes, this season is going to be busy. This season of life, being realistic about it for this period of time, you're going to be busy. You're going to be mom and employee and partner and virtual assistant and friend and daughter, right? All the things. And that's a lot. But this is not your forever schedule. This is a transition season. This is a season of hustle. But we're not hustling for nothing, right? We are hustling to get to the goal of being home and having more time with our kids and having control of our schedule. And so hopefully you're willing to grind harder for these six months because of what you're building toward. And the ROI on what you're building is going to pay off for years and years. 

Laura Nicole: 09:27

So if you're listening to these episodes because you're like, I really want to leave my nine to five, I just have to find a way to make actual, legit, good money to replace that. Please do not feel like you have to make a giant leap. Start building your VA income while you still have your paycheck. Let that income build your nest egg. Let your client roster grow. Let yourself see proof that this works and that you know you're good at this work. And then when you decide it is time to leave your nine to five, you're not a brand new VA. You're not at day one. You've already built your business. You're just finally giving yourself more room to grow in it and be only in that full time. To get started as a virtual assistant and sign your first couple of clients and create consistent income toward that goal of replacing your nine to five, I want you to join me inside of the VA Income Lab. It's my monthly membership where we have literally everything you need to do just that for just $19 a month. The link to check out the details is in the show notes. 

Laura Nicole: 10:32

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you love this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister, or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.