Mathias interviews Tim Lai who was raised in the UK, worked in the Netherlands and is currently living in Porto in Portugal. Tim has a pretty interesting story to tell how he escaped from his 9to5 and how he build two businesses on the side that generated enough money for him to sustain his life.  In this episode we talk about how to automate your day job, scaling a side hustle and what he is currently doing in Portugal. Along the way you’ll find a lot of wisdom from a mind that celebrates logical reasoning and independent thinking.

We talk about

• living the 9to5 life
• Knowing when to quit
• Taxation of salaries and contracted work
• automating your day job
• where to place yourself in your business

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Time as an employee

Tim joined joined Shell Royal Dutch when he had to take a job. At this time he already had the idea for his side business in his head. That’s why he asked his employer if they would tolerate that side business. As it was not conflicting with his main job they accepted.

After 3 month Tim got bored with his job and automated a lot of his work e.g. by scripting python. So he had a lot of time in the office. After three years he quit to fully focus on his two side projects which are a blog about airfares and rewards and a educational website to help people pass the civil engineering exams.

How salaries and work is taxed in Europe

Most people don’t realize how much of their corporate salary is taken away by taxation. That’s why Tim was kind enough to create a spreadsheet and the following video with explanations. A real eye opener for many of us.

Open the spreadsheet here: 090 Contractor take home payment calculator

His Business

In Business Tim started as a solopreneur and build everything by hand himself. For his civil engineering exam website. Recently he managed to find to people that are a perfect fit to free up time to focus on new ideas like real estate, coaching and more.

The affiliate links at points to be made are managed in a simple manner:

“I just use a private Google Sheets. Nearly every major affiliate network agency has a “Deep Link” tool which you can bookmark and when you want to link to specific pages of advertisers, then you drop the link into the Deep Link Tool and it gives you the necessary affiliate link.“

We also discuss in the interview how you could copy his business model leveraging your unique skillmix and combining digital with knowledge of an old knowledge domain.

Current life

Tim currently lives in Porto Portugal and funnels his money into real estate to increase and stabilize his cashflow even further for the future.

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Links

• Tims website on Airfares: Pointstobemade
• Tims 2nd business: The Structural Exam
• Tim on twitter: @ptbmade 
• Two Violinists
• If you have no idea what to do, or searching for side hustle ideas: Look here!
• And for those who want a different perspective of “Financial Independence” outside the context of FIRE: “10 Secrets to Achieve Financial Success”

• And the follow-up presentation, “5 Principles Behind the 10 Secrets“