On today’s episode of the Consumerism Commentary Podcast, Tom Dziubek speaks with Consumerism Commentary founder Flexo about his recent decision to leave his day job and become fully self-employed. Flexo discusses his decision to quit as well as many of the challenges that face self-employed people, such as choosing the right retirement and health insurance plans.
Flexo, Life After Salary: S04E11 / 111
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Table of contents
[00:00] Introduction from Tom Dziubek
[00:40] Interview with Flexo
– [00:53] Flexo quits his day job
– [02:46] Advertising revenue
– [05:05] Other revenue streams
– [07:24] Earning money with the website
– [10:16] Flexo reveals his true identity
– [11:26] Flexo’s time management skills
– [15:43] Shopping for health insurance
– [19:37] Retirement plan options
– [23:36] IRA options
– [24:09] Working without co-workers
– [28:02] Shared work environments & off-site offices
[31:57] End
We always welcome feedback from listeners. If you have any comments for this episode or for any other, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, please leave us comments here or email us at podcast at this domain name.
Theme music by Mindcube.
Updated January 5, 2011 and originally published January 2, 2011. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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Luke Landes founded Consumerism Commentary in 2003 and has been building online communities since 1990. Luke, also known as Flexo, has contributed to PC World Magazine, US News, Forbes, and other publications. 
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Great podcast! LOVED the new theme too!
Hi Guys,
New jingle! Nice.
Can you guys elaborate more on the SEP IRA? So it’s 20% of your NET PROFITS up to $49,000… which means you pay taxes on this contributions, although they grow tax free?
Another way to think about it is that depending on your margin structure, you can maximize the $49,000 by making about $250,000 up to ~$500,000/year given taxes and operating costs. Does that sound right?
Thnx, Sam
According to the IRS rules, a corporation can contribute 25% of an employee’s salary to the SEP-IRA, or for sole props or for the corporation owner, the limit is 20% of net business profits. Since Consumerism Commentary has no employees beside myself, my limit is 20% of profits. That contribution is not included as income in my personal income taxes. So if your business earns $245,000, the business can contribute the full $49,000 to your SEP IRA. As an employee, you can still contribute to a Traditional IRA up to the usual limit. I’d suggest finding a tax accountant who can help with the details.
I’m sharing this podcast with a few people who took the dive to self employment. I’m sure it’ll help… thanks!
Thanks for sharing all of this, Luke. Very interesting to hear all of this from your perspective. I still fear the big G as well. But I’m confident that they would be doing their users a disservice by not showing them your articles. Good luck in 2011!
I always wanted to be self-employed. Unfortunately, I never put any serious effort into making it a reality. I will continue to read and listen to podcasts and articles on the theme and will attempt to push myself into realizing that dream someday.
I used to do a fair amount of blogging at coffee shops but eventually got sketched out by the fact that I was sending passwords to my website over an unsecured network. Not a big deal when you’re making $100 per month, but once I started making serious money I decided to cut that out.
Good luck – being from the financial world maxing out retirement is always something I encourage.