Archives for March 2023

Whenever you voluntarily quit your job, you should have some sort of plan or idea for what you have in mind next. You don’t want to quit your job without anything on the back burner ready to fire up immediately afterward.

It’s okay to take a few weeks to get your head straight and relax. But this should only be to ease the transition to your next job. Start looking on sites like Indeed or LinkedIn while you are still working at your old job. Think about why you’re switching to a different job. Are you staying in the same field or making a career change altogether?

The second choice is going to require a lot more careful planning. You might need extra schooling or training. Or you may have to relocate your family if you’re making a drastic change.

Maybe you like your job, but you just want to work remotely instead of on location. Ask your employer whether they will let you do this. If your employer seems resistant, propose to them a hybrid model of working before you quit your current job.

There are plenty of ways to work from home and do different things with the company you’re currently working for. Maybe they need someone to create YouTube videos for their next marketing campaign. Perhaps you can write blog posts for their advertising affiliates.

Often when we get the feeling we want to quit our current job, it’s good to exhaust all of the options for changing things up at your company before walking away entirely.

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When we are working to provide for our families, our children’s well-being is at the top of our list of priorities. This means every career move when you have kids has something to do with how they are going to be affected. This is a multifaceted issue, from having money for their essential needs to being home when they need your help with school.

If you have been working remotely and decide to switch to a job that’s in person, you have to figure out how you are going to fill this void at home. You won’t be there when kids get home from school, or when they don’t go in due to being sick. Arranging for child care or babysitting is a huge thing on your to-do list.

Decide what is right for you financially. If you have extended family members with free time, like grandparents, aunts, or uncles, ask them if they will help out with some of these things. Often family members are flattered to get involved if they have the opportunity.

If everyone in your life is busy, you need to figure out what is the best option for day care. Compare prices and make sure that the facility you choose is taking safety precautions due to the pandemic.

Another thing connected to taking care of your kids is whether you will have insurance when you quit your job. Many people choose to stay employed with a certain company just because of good medical insurance, but there are ways to overcome losing this privilege.

See if you want to pay for COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). This allows you to stay on your former employee’s medical insurance for up to 18 months after you have quit your job. It can still cost quite a bit of money to stay on COBRA, though, so make sure you can afford it.

You may need to go on the government health insurance marketplace for medical insurance before you get your new job. These plans are usually limited by the amount of money you make per month. People with higher incomes receive less help from the federal government.

You should examine some of these insurance issues before you decide to quit your job. Like everything else we’ve talked about with quitting, you should not just do it on a whim. You need to carefully plan out how it will affect your life in the present and the future.

You need to identify what your main emotions are behind quitting your current job. Do you feel unfulfilled? Are you not getting paid enough money, and you know you can find a more lucrative offer somewhere else?

People don’t usually consider whether they are happy when they are working. They are so concerned with getting up and repeating the same things for their job each day they forget to live a little bit.

Create your own thriving business if you believe you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. If you want to help people in your community, perhaps become a teacher or a politician. If you want to start working more with your hands, go to a trade school and become a plumber.

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Plan Carefully for Any Job Change

Do whatever it takes to succeed and have a happy life. This usually means bearing with the bad parts of your current job until you can make this big change. Consider the people you are affecting by quitting, and think about whether you will make their life better with a different job. As long as you plan carefully, you should be successful.

About the Author

Shawn Laib writes and researches for the insurance comparison site Clearsurance.com. He wants to help people figure out how to make effective career changes and decisions.

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A virtual mailbox is a service that receives, scans, encrypts, and uploads your mail to a secure, private portal. You instantly receive your mail as a digital PDF, and then your mail is stored indefinitely in the cloud for you to access whenever you’d like. Many services will even remove your junk mail so you only receive relevant correspondence.

While this type of service provides you with a physical address, which is necessary for business functions, you cannot visit your mailbox in person. Therefore, you can’t receive packages. However, many virtual mailbox services offer package forwarding. This allows you to maintain the anonymity of your personal address.

Key Benefits of a Virtual Mailbox for Business Owners

There are several key perks of having a virtual mailbox:

Rather than taking time out of your day to travel to a PO box, you can quickly check your mail from anywhere you have access to a computer or phone. Your mail is always accessible, so you can pull up a document whenever and wherever you need it, eliminating the need for a paper filing system.

Virtual addresses are great for entrepreneurs who want to share important mail documents with other business partners or employees. They allow you to integrate with services like Dropbox or Google Drive for direct file sharing.

With a virtual address, you don’t need to associate your home address with your business, even if you run your business out of your home. A virtual address offers privacy and, thanks to its many layers of data encryption, superior security.

If you consider yourself a digital nomad, or if your business’s physical location is constantly changing, it’s a hassle to constantly update your new address. To do so, you need to notify your client base or other business partners and update your official business records with the state. With a virtual address, your business operations can stay mobile with a consistent mailing address.

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A post office box, or PO box, is a designated mailbox located at a post office near you. They are typically numbered and only accessible with a key or lock combination. You pick up your mail from your PO box rather than having a postal carrier deliver it to your home or business. You can choose different sizes from extra small to extra-large and rental lengths in increments of three, six, or twelve months.

There are several perks of having a PO box:

PO boxes start at just $4.50 per month for the smallest size and go up to $22.50 for the largest size. Given that virtual mailboxes can range from $9.95–$35 per month, PO boxes are generally a more budget-friendly option.

Package reception is a key benefit you don’t get with virtual mailboxes. According to the USPS, the largest box option (XL) measures 12” by 22.5” and has the capacity for multiple packages at once.

If your business is deadline-driven and you consistently need timely correspondence, you may be surprised to learn that the USPS reports PO boxes typically receive mail faster than residential or business addresses.

Similarly to virtual addresses, PO boxes offer privacy by allowing entrepreneurs to hide their personal addresses from the public. They also offer the same security benefits, although they come in a different form. Rather than encryption and secured portals, PO boxes are under heavy surveillance. They require a lock and key or security code for access.

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Virtual Mailbox vs. PO Box: Which Is Better?

Generally, virtual mailboxes are a good fit for business owners who:

• Are constantly changing their location.
• Need digital access to mail to share to a team.
• Need to access mail instantly anytime, anywhere.
• Are willing to pay for the convenience of a service.

Whereas PO boxes may be a better fit for business owners who:

• Generally operate from one fixed location.
• Receive business packages frequently.
• Are on a budget.

Ultimately, the decision to use a virtual mailbox or a PO box comes down to what’s best for your business. But if convenience and privacy are your main concerns, you’ll enjoy the benefits of having a separate business address no matter what.

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