The math on your exit

Break-even at Month 9 — alt income covers all expenses from here

Your position is genuinely strong — stronger than most people who reach this decision point. With $108K in total buffer between savings and severance, you have 21 months before the math gets uncomfortable, and that assumes zero alternative income the entire time. In reality, your freelance pipeline starts generating within 90 days. The real risk here is not financial — it is psychological. Product managers are trained to de-risk everything, to build consensus before moving, to document before deciding. That instinct will cost you months in this transition. Your first client will not come from a perfect pitch deck. It will come from one of the three contacts you already have. The window you need to protect is not financial — it is momentum. Start before you feel ready.

Week one: call all three warm contacts. Not email — call. The goal is not to pitch; it is to understand what they are wrestling with right now. One conversation will surface a real problem you can solve for money. Within 30 days you need clarity on whether one of them represents a genuine paid engagement at $3,000–5,000 per month. In parallel, start publishing: one 1,000-word article per week on a specific fintech product problem you have solved. These become your content library, your proof of expertise, and the foundation of your digital product. By month 3, the targets are non-negotiable: one anchor freelance client locked in, 12 pieces of content published, and a validated idea for your first digital product. Miss any of these and you are behind the model. Hit all three and you are ahead of it.

At $7,200 per month in expenses, you need $86,400 per year in alternative income to fully replace your W-2. The model builds that across three streams at roughly 4% of target per stream per month. That means $864 per month by month 3, $2,592 by month 6, and $5,760 by month 12. Break-even — the month alt income covers all expenses — hits at month 14 in the base case. Here is what most people miss: your investment income is not zero on day one. Your $65K savings at a 4.8% HYSA yield generates approximately $260 per month right now, passively, without doing anything. That is already 3.6% of your monthly target before your first freelance call. On the downside scenario, if freelance takes 6 months longer than modeled, your 21-month runway absorbs it with 3 months to spare. You have more margin than you think.

You will know the model is working when freelance income hits $4,000 per month for two consecutive months — that is the early signal, not the exit trigger. The real pivot point comes when freelance consistently clears $5,000 per month for three straight months, roughly month 18–22 in this projection. At that level, you have validated demand, you have real client relationships, and your digital product has had 18 months of content building behind it. That is when you stop actively prospecting for new freelance work and redirect that energy into productizing what you know. Do not make this call on a good month. Make it when the floor has been $5,000 for 90 days straight. At that point your savings are still largely intact, your break-even is proven, and the transition from active to passive income becomes a measured step rather than a leap.