A little over a year ago I switched careers, but unfortunately I was let go from that employer in July. Since then, I’ve been trying to find a new role within that same field, but that has proved to be difficult. After 40+ interviews for ~10 positions, not one resulted in an offer. I feel exhausted from the interviewing process and emotionally drained.
In the past few weeks, I have started doing some consulting work for a friend who owns a small consulting business. This will pay my bills in the short term, but it’s not very fulfilling work, hence why I transitioned away from this type of work.
One of the options that I am considering for the long term is starting a business. I just don’t know what kind of business to start. I have $150k liquid, and could come up with another $50k if I sold my car. If I pulled equity out of my house, I could generate another $300k. I have $4k a month worth of bills to pay, but more if I go the HEL route.
Some ideas that interest me:
- Flipping houses - seems very high risk to me. I would feel much more comfortable doing something like this while having a full-time job, just to shoulder some of the risk. I have some experience with this. With the real estate being crazy, and everyone having access to cheap capital, this doesn’t seem to be a very good option
- Airbnb/VRBO - there would be good vacation rental possibilities within a 1-3 hour drive of where I live. I’m thinking something like a hunting cabin, etc. For the reasons mentioned above, it may not be the right time to start something like this. Even leveraged to the till, it would seem difficult to generate $6k of income, even with a $500k investment.
- Boat/ATV rental - seems highly seasonal and would require significant capital investment. Liability could be huge.
- Some sort of franchise? - I have 0 interest in running a McDonalds, Subway etc though. Could there be other opportunities though?
- Storage unit rental - would it make sense to buy something or start from scratch?
Any other ideas? Should I just take a month off from job hunting and start fresh? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.