Evidence

The income floor test

Published October 2, 2026 4 min read

The income floor test is a check to run before you quit: over the last twelve months, did your worst three months of profit from sales each clear your quit number? If they didn't, your good months aren't the relevant data.

It's tempting to decide after a good month. A good month is drawn from the top of your range, and you're about to live on the whole range. The income floor test turns the question around: not how high your profit has reached, but how low it has gone.

What is the income floor test?

The income floor test: over the last 12 months, did your worst three months of profit from sales each clear your quit number? If not, your floor sits below your obligations.

The income floor test uses twelve months because reselling can run in seasons, and six months that happen to fall in a strong stretch tell you little about your slow one. A rule of thumb: you need a full year to have seen your own low point.

Why test the floor instead of the average?

You test the floor because an average forecasts a year and rent is due every month. A reselling business that averages well above its quit number but drops below it for a quarter will eat runway on schedule every year, while the average keeps looking fine.

Same on a spreadsheet. Very different to live on. Both businesses are examples, not typical cases.

What counts as evidence you can resell full time?

Evidence is twelve months of properly calculated profit from sales, with tax set aside and no one-off windfalls, so you've seen your quiet stretch.

• Twelve months of data, so you've seen a full year including your quiet stretch.
• Profit from sales, calculated properly: after item cost, fees, shipping and supplies, then minus fixed costs. Not gross sales, and not deposits.
• Tax set aside, so the figures are what you could have lived on.
• Earned on part-time hours, which is conservative in your favor, with the caution below.
• No one-off windfalls. One exceptional sale isn't a monthly income.

Will your reselling income double if you go full time?

Don't assume your reselling income doubles when your hours double. There are structural reasons it may not. Ten hours a week making $2,000 a month doesn't mean forty hours makes $8,000.

• Part-time hours can be your best hours, spent on the best work. Full time adds the rest.
• Admin doesn't shrink. Messages, returns, bookkeeping and supply runs still need doing in a full week.
• Sourcing has limits. Twice the time in stores may not put twice the good items on the shelves.
• Listing scales with volume. Twice the sales means about twice the listings, and listing hours grow with them.
• No salary sits underneath the swings. Every slow week is felt.

Is going part time at your job a better test?

Going part time at your job is a strong test where it's on offer. Cutting to four days, or three, shows what extra hours produce while a smaller salary still covers the risk. It turns a decision you can't undo into an experiment you can.

Where that isn't possible, the substitute is a longer runway and a target above the bare quit number. You're buying the same information, at a higher price.

What does passing the income floor test look like?

Passing means twelve months of properly calculated profit, your worst three months each clearing your quit number, a tested view of what full-time hours add and the runway you chose.

1. Twelve months of profit from sales, calculated properly, with tax set aside
2. Your worst three months each clearing your quit number
3. A tested view, not an assumed one, of what full-time hours add
4. The runway you chose, held apart from the business's cash

That's a defensible decision. Anything less is a bet. People make bets, and some win, but it should be called one.

Keep reading

• What changes when you go full time

  No withholding, more admin, less structure, and the habits that replace a payslip.

• Going back to a job is not failure

  Exit criteria set in advance, read honestly, and what to keep running either way.