Thursday, February 12, 2009

Quit your day job?

Etsy has been running a "quit your day job" (QYDJ) feature in their blog for a while now, and I've been truly curious as to whether or not it's possible. Don't get me wrong, I love my day job and enjoy the people I work with, but at the same time I wonder if it would truly be possible to make sufficient income without "working for the man" (so to speak). After what I heard on the news yesterday about the California tax increases that sound like they're going to affect every aspect of my existence, I think my opinion of what you can live on in L.A. might be slightly skewed! However, thinking as a statistician on this one, I'll be keeping it real.

So, being the math and Excel nerd that I am, I've started compiling data from the Storque QYDJ features. This isn't meant to be a form of pointing fingers at those Etsy sellers that have been featured, more a statistical analysis of whether it's possible to live off an Etsy based income. My spreadsheet is a work in progress right now and I'm about half way done with the data input for each seller. I hope to have something good to present to you in a week or so!

The interesting thing is that it may have been 12 years or so since I've had to consider what a weighted average is and how to take an outlier into consideration (yes, I know, speak English right?) but it's amazing how quickly it all came back - kind of like riding a bike. It's true, I actually enjoy doing this stuff!!

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