Have you ever fantasized about walking into your boss’s office and telling her to take this job and shove it?  In a recent segment on CNBC’s “the Big Idea with Donny Deutch,” Suze Orman debated Donny about the pros and cons of throwing caution to the wind and “realizing your dreams” by starting your own business. This was one of Donny’s more interesting segments in recent memory.  Usually, he has guests on the show that are ra, ra, ra, I started the business with $40 in the bank, maxed out my credit cards, and lived on wheat germ for three years before selling out to Google for a jillion dollars.  Suze had a bit more practical advice for all us budding entrepreneurs.  I won’t go into it in detail here, but suffice it to say that her bottom line was make a plan and save a bunch of money before you take the proverbial leap off the cliff.  What should you do before quitting your day job to start your own piece of utopia?  Here are my two cents. 

1. While you are still employed, put 12 months of expenses in cold hard cash away in in a boring savings account (no high-flying stocks please).  Consider stashing the cash in a savings account at online banks like INGdirect, which is offering a decent interest rate of 3%.  To save that much case, you probably will have to seriously scale back your standard of living now.  But trust me, you will be grateful for it during those cash-sucking first months, or maybe even years, as you get your business off the ground.  Businesses always need more capital than your best guesstimate.
2. Pay off all of your discretionary debt, before putting in your notice.  This includes credit cards, auto loans, home equity lines of credit, student loans, etc.  You want to wipe out as much debt as possible before you go out on your own because those loans amount to anchors around your neck when you no longer have the steady paycheck to tap.
3. Secure some source of capital, like a home equity line of credit that you can access to fund your business when customers are slow to pay.
4. Have a business plan detailing how you plan to generate revenue for the business and how you are going to make a profit.
5. Live like a pauper in the months before you plan to quit your job.  Even if you have sufficient cash tucked away, you want to get used to the fact that starting a business requires considerable sacrifice to ensure long-term success.

Speaking of living like a pauper, I do feel a little guilt-ridden about splurging this weekend on some books at Barnes and Noble and clothes from Nordstrom Rack (still cheaper than the mother lode).  Oh no!!! False alarm.  I decided that it was OK to treat myself because we have been living quite frugally in recent months and have made significant headway towards our financial goals.  Obviously, you and I are only human, and just like dieting, there are days where we will fall off the wagon.  But, although I struggle sometimes, I’ve found that, over time, it has become easier to defer instant gratification, i.e., buying more stuff.

Here’s a neat trick that works most of the time.  Whenever you feel tempted to spend some serious cash on something like the Wii Fit, recall in your head the day that your boss chewed you out for forgetting to staple your report on the top left side of the page.  Practice makes (almost) perfect.  Yey!

This is the age-old question.  Do you have to love what you do to make money?  Several bloggers weighed in on this issue in the Shifting Careers column at NYTimes.com, writing that it depends on the circumstances.  For instance, Problogger and Grammergirl both question this premise, noting that you can be passionate about something that won’t necessarily translate into a successful business.  J.D. of Getrichslowly also doubts this notion, pointing out that he knows many people who are passionate and poor as well as miserable people who make a ton of money.

I think this premise is a bit more complicated than just “you have to like what you do to make money.”  As a recovering lawyer, I have seen a lot of lawyers make six-figure incomes, but are more miserable than a drowning rat.  But then I also see a lot of entrepreneurs who make a lot of money and absolutely love what they do.  Even Warren Buffet, the richest man on this planet, says that he skips to work everyday and would do what he does now even if he weren’t being paid for it.  So what is the distinction?  Here are my two cents.

• Misery loves company:  It’s a lot easier to be miserable at a job - you show up, your boss overloads you with work, you go home miserable, BUT at the end of the day, you still get a paycheck for your troubles.  After awhile, you show signs of zombie-ism (is that a word?) at work.
• Like a marathon, you crave the pain:  In contrast, if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to create your own workplace - whether it be going door to door hawking electronic encyclopedias or selling organic pizza to corporate clients.  The difference between this and a high-paying job is that there is no guarantee that you will ever get paid any significant sum for your troubles.  When you become an entrepreneur, you get a crash course in Murphy’s law, like a dearth of capital, maxed out credit cards, negative cash flow, lazy employees, skyrocketing health insurance costs, and slow-paying customers.   Given all this, it’s pretty obvious why you need to like some aspect of the work - otherwise, why put up with all of the headaches?  If you like the fundamental business - e.g., brewing tea, teaching yoga, making wine - you’re more likely to put up with all the other stuff to keep at it.

Of course, there are those entrepreneurs who don’t necessarily like their work, but have started the business because they find that it is the only way to make a decent living.  Some of them do become quite wealthy.  However, they eventually become burned out after decades of grueling hours in labor intensive businesses like restaurants or convenience stores. 

So what’s the bottom line here?  If you are content working for the man, make sure it is something that you can tolerate or even like once in a while.  Life is really too short for a job that you end up working at 80 hours a week but keel over before you’ve even had an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your labor.  If you want to become an entrepreneur, try to pick a field that you are passionate about, with the caveat that it will not be all rosy all the time.  But remember the payoff - you are building something for yourself, for the present and the future.

Everywhere you turn, the media has some new story on the R-word and the tough economic times.  I was just reading an article in the Washington Post about how middle class consumers are finding themselves clipping, scrimping, and saving in these high-gasoline and high food prices.  The byline of the article is  “[e]gg prices are up 35 percent, with bread and milk not far behind.  Consumers are scrambling to find ways to cope.”

But as I read the article, I noticed something funny.  The word “scrimp” in the title of the article conjures up images of penny pinching until Lincoln screams.  But these people, who are solidly middle-class (e.g., government civil servant, trainer at a public utility) aren’t cutting up a chicken 10 different ways to stretch their dollar or eating one scrambled egg instead of two for breakfast.  Rather, they are making such ”sacrifices” such as not buying sushi at Whole Foods or foregoing brand name items except when shopping at Costco.  One 29 year old mother programmed messages into her Blackberry to remind herself to pick up the cheap milk on sale days at Kroger.  Am I missing something here?  The article heading suggests some severe economizing.  When did a lack of sushi and organic groceries warrent “coping” as the title of the article says?  Has the consumer culture gone so out of whack that shopping at Whole Foods is a necessity rather than a luxury?

I’m not trying to make light of the truly difficult times that some are going through.  However, I think that some media reports of economic plight are greatly exaggerated.  Here’s my two cents on the issue.

• Shopping at Whole Foods is a luxury, not an entitlement.  By the way, you can get cheaper organic groceries at Trader Joe’s.  Some of same non organic fruit carried by Whole Foods, such as Mandarin oranges, can be bought at an Asian grocery store for a fraction of the cost.
• If you are strapped for cash and you find yourself economizing on groceries, ditch the expensive accessories like the Blackberry:  There is something really perverse about someone who runs out to buy cheap milk to save 50 cents, but is carrying around a costly Blackberry that is saddled with high monthly charges.  (assuming that your office did not give you the Blackberry for work purposes).
• Finally, be appreciative that you have enough food to eat:  I know this sounds a bit corny and preachy, but it definitely puts things in perspective.  In many parts of the developing world, as the Post article did point out, people don’t have enough calories to consume.  They are not worried about whether their foodstuffs is organic or not.  They are concerned whether they will starve to death.