When I start to think of life again as a pure entrepreneur with no income to fall back upon I quickly fall into financial panic mode. Not having a normal job conjures fears of frightening things like the dreaded COBRA. Why did the federal government choose to name a health insurance continuation system after a deadly poisonous snake? Aren’t unemployed people scared enough that they might crack their uninsured skulls on the pavement in the winter? I think they wanted people to fear using this beast of a system to keep citizens held firmly to their jobs to leave becoming an entrepreneur to the crazies like me.

The health insurance scare is not the only area where I panic. I also start to think of what I might need to do to save money. Since dining out is a major expense I will need to change my diet so that I can eat in order to survive as a starving entrepreneur. I may need to focus on the key low cost food items like canned tuna fish, pasta, peanut butter, potatoes, bread, and ramen noodles. Each of these foods holds some place in my memory as a cheap and necessary survival food. Canned tuna and peanut butter go back to my days as a child. I think my parents fed me tuna and peanut butter when we lived in Watertown because it is expensive to feed a young child and my parents didn’t have much money until I was ten. I almost prefer to eat these low cost products since I grew up on them. They are familiar. In college when I wouldn’t have food to eat in the summer I would eat spaghetti or ramen noodles. Just add water products taste great and give the illusion of cooking.

I also should be monitoring all my expenses and cut-off the ones that I don’t need to spend on. I can take a look at my credit card statement to see where the money is going. I’ll have to cancel my subscription to Internet karaoke. That’s $50 every three months that I just shouldn’t be spending. I’ll have to cancel the cleaning service that comes every two weeks – That’s $150 a month that I shouldn’t be spending either. I’ll need to make sure that if I buy clothing that it comes from outlet malls or thrift shops. I can borrow clothing from friends and never return it. I can switch my gasoline down to Regular from Super. My car won’t notice. Maybe I can save some money on power by turning lights off during the day and not air conditioning in the summer. I could use someone else’s Internet connection in my building by connecting to their wireless network. I could charge rent to a boarder living in the third room. Maybe I should rent the apartment completely and then move back in with my parents and sell possessions that I don’t need like my car in order to raise money. They have plenty of space and would probably pay me an allowance to walk the dogs.

I may even need to get a real job that requires an interview? (Gasp).

So I worry about all these things but it is worth it in order to follow a dream to build a company, make a film, or create many companies that will most likely take 10 years to build with lots of blood, sweat, and tears and then topple under unforeseen circumstances leaving me back where I am today, worried about what will happen if I jump without a net. I should consider myself lucky because next time it might be trickier because I’ll probably have kids worried about their college education, a wife worried about the kids college education, and a nasty 30 year mortgage on a house to put the kids in until they get a college education.