r0dman.com

I’ve been reading “The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” by Tim Ferriss lately. It’s the first time that I have read a book that always says “you’re not going to believe this” or “you’re going to think I’m crazy for saying this”, and never actually thinking it. It’s as though my views and goals in life fall in line with everything that he is preaching. Ok so maybe not all of it – I do still have my own opinions and don’t agree with some here and there, but essentially I have the same goals:

• Don’t get tied to a physical location
• Work as little as you can
• Actually do what you want to do in life

This is all good and well, but you really need to financially support the lifestyle that you want. If you have read any of my other posts on this site, it’s probably obvious by now that I’m not a very materialistic person. I’m no Amish, but I’m not very driven to have a lot of “stuff” either.

By not having the need to own a lot of posessions, I personally have a huge advantage – I can get away with earning less in order to have the lifestyle that I want. Of course if you do have a lot of needs by way of posessions, it’s all possible, you just need to raise more income.

How do I plan on doing this? There are plenty of ways, but essentially I am working on projects that require little to no work from myself after the initial setup. I’m not quite at the “outsource everything” stage, so I’m doing a lot of work myself (since I actually enjoy it), but maybe one day.

For instance, I run a website called “Eco Update“. The idea of the site is to aggregate content – basically it pulls the relevant content from other sites and then displays it on mine. The aim is to collect content on a few related topics, making it a “hub” of eco friendly/green living news and information. From the income generating point of view, the site also features Google Adsense advertising, and generates a minor income stream for me which requires little to no effort after the initial setup.

It goes to show that while you can make smart investments to generate passive income, there are also other little projects that can do the same for next to no cost. Some people like me create websites and use affiliate programs and advertising banners to generate income while others will start a dropshipping business. There are plenty of options and you are only limited by your imagination.

Think about it, then do some planning, and make it happen. Start small if need be and aim for the stars.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a passive income has to be the best way to live – set yourself up now, and reap the rewards later!

For instance, I run a few websites at the moment, this one included. The goal is to see (it’s just a test) how much money you can actually make from having a few Google AdSense advertisements around the place. In around two months I have made a whopping US$13.01. I tell my friends about it and they just laugh at me, “It’s not worth the hassle” they say.

For $13.01, sure, it’s not. But what about after a year? That $13.01 becomes around $80. Now quite obviously I’m not going to be able to survive on $80 a year any time soon, but I think this is where most people give up. This is residual income – from time to time I need to add some content or do some maintenance, but essentially when I’m not directly working on making money, the content is still working for me.

Share dividends, interest on your savings and so on – there are plenty of ways to generate small amounts of income that can one day build up to a considerable amount. For some people, it’s all about investing money and supplementing their current income, whereas for others it’s about investing a small amount of money and time, to just earn enough to get by.

It’s typical of people nowadays to discount the little things. They discount the small amounts that they spend as nothing. $5 a day is easy to spend, but after a year that is $1825! Smokers for instance, have a real financial benefit from quitting, if nothing else. Turn it around, and imagine running 5 websites making $5 per day – that is over $9000 a year! I could invest that money into shares and use the dividends to generate more income too. It’s ongoing, but there is real potential in it.

What I need is an idea. The world is full of them, but unfortunately my head isn’t. I need to make more websites, I just can’t think what I should make them on and how I can make them different from everyone elses.

This blog is pretty much the exception to the rule. While I do have an ad on the page, it will never really generate much, if anything. Everything I am reading now is about Search Engine Optimization, page rankings, and so on. You really need to push the content towards the viewers, then almost manipulate them into clicking your ads. My blog has too much random content to actually get a high page ranking, and as a result it will never really receive the hits. This is “my place” on the internet, and what is say here is as biased or unbiased as I want it to be – it is just my honest thoughts, and there is nothing more to it.

Do some reading up on it some time – passive income is great, but it’s probably the hardest income to earn!