20k USD and living costs of 400 USD per month. Also, very marketable skills: Teaching English in China can get you that 400 USD rather quickly. Also, if you ca

20k USD and living costs of 400 USD per month. Also, very marketable skills: Teaching English in China can get you that 400 USD rather quickly. Also, if you can do basic web development, you're pretty marketable (this pays relatively better than English, but English jobs are possibly easier to find than software consulting). Unlike a lot of people starting a business, I had almost no fear of starving on the streets. When it comes to ensuring that I both have food and own as much of my time as possible, I try to eradicate risk as thoroughly as possible. Having a minimal financial footprint and redundant contingency plans allows me to do that. Thankfully, these days, I don't need the side-jobs, I mostly just focus on growing my business's profit. When I want something unusual (new monitor, new advertising campaign), I just sleep a little less and pull in the extra money with some software consulting. You can call it the lazy loading approach to finance.