The great thing about a blog is that it’s always on. Unlike most of us, who run out of energy after 12 hours of work, a blog can keep working for us 24/7, 365 days of the year if our hosting company doesn’t crash! Good thing the data shows most sites are up 99%+ of the time.
Creating a money making universal soldier is one of the key points from showing income profiles of financially free people over on Financial Samurai. For some reason, there is so much pushback from folks who do not believe it’s possible to make a good living beyond the 9-to-5!
SET AN INCOME HAPPINESS GOAL
Living in expensive San Francisco made me set an income target goal of $200,000 per individual and $250,000 – $400,000 per family of up to four ever since I got here in 2001. If I had stayed in Manhattan, those income figures would probably be at least 25% higher!
To get from $0 online operating profits to $200,000 per individual is a tall task. But who is to say the blog has to do it all on its own? The blog is just one of many multiple income sources we must embrace for the long term for financial freedom. Our day job really is the main source of income for practically all of us starting out.
Given I was earning about $78,000 a year in multiple income streams when I negotiated a severance in 2012, I had a gap of $122,000 to make up to achieve the “ideal SF income.” Making $122,000 online still sounded pretty daunting, but it certainly sounded less daunting than $200,000.
But given that I had been blogging for 2.7 years already when I finally left, the real gap to make up was a much more manageable ~$40,000 a year or so. And if you slice up $40,000 a year by 12 months, then all I had to do was find a way to earn $3,333 a month. Suddenly, the goal of achieving financial freedom with the help of a blog wasn’t so bad!
Below is an example of someone who decided to cut back his work hours by 10 hours so he could spend time building a blog and work on some other side hustles.
WORK DOUBLE DUTY NOW
In order to achieve something good, we must first work really, really hard. I never recommend anybody just quit their jobs to blog or do whatever full-time. Instead, use the coziness of a full-time job, and all your companies benefits to work on your side hustle before or after work. This is the time where you can experiment the most without feeling much downside.
If you work double duty now, chances grow that you’ll be able to work much less in the future, or work on things you much rather prefer doing. The key is to just take methodical steps forward towards financial freedom.
The hope is that one day we’ll all be able to not have to work a day job again because our online income will generate enough to equal our Income Happiness Goal. When that day comes, we’ll be able to do whatever we want with our free time without having to worry about what others think.
Below is an example of someone who is doing what he wants because he is financially free.
The main challenge many of us face now is that there’s been an explosion of content growth over the past several years, while people’s attention limits have stayed constant. In other words, everybody is getting diluted. This is why building your brand, and consistently writing your own content with your own voice is important. Otherwise, what makes your article on retirement any different from the thousands of others written by people who’ve never experienced financial freedom?
The chances of a “lucky break” go up the longer you stick around. Instead of thinking that your blog is going to replace all your income sources and set you free, think about your online platform as a way to extend your income reach.
STARTING A MONEY MAKING BLOG
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, learn how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes like this one.
Leverage the 3+ billion internet users and build your brand online. There are professional bloggers now who make way more than bankers, doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs while having much more fun, much more freedom, and doing less work. Get started. You never know where the journey will take you!
Updated for 2017 and beyond.
I’m working what feels like double duty recently because I’m striking while the iron is hot. I had extra job opportunities arise so I’m taking advantage of them while I still have the energy and capacity to take on more work.
I agree with you about the rise in content growth and everybody getting diluted. We have to stay adaptive and strengthen our own voices as you said. Not everybody will stick with it, but I’m determined to keep going and continue building my brand!
Sam, great way to look at using blogging as a way to take one step closer to freedom.
Everything takes work, but good things can happen over time!
I’ve been working on several different gigs while I’m in between jobs – painting, fixing computers and running around as a courier. Once I get back to work full-time I plan to continue working side gigs as much as I can too. I figure I might as well work extra hours while I’m still young and have the energy without kids.
I couldn’t agree more about working hard now to benefit later on. As they say “do what nobody else will do now, so you can live like nobody else can later on”. Right now I’m turning up to work two hours early every day and spending those two hours on my laptop working on my side hustles. After a few months of doing this it has made a *considerable* difference to my results.
I was ‘lucky’ to jump on my web design business after losing my job. While I am being a bit sarcastic, there’s some truth in it: I’ve done work for my clients since 2004, but never took it seriously enough, since I had a cool job and a good pay. I had to lose it all after 5 years to really push forward. In our case, about 3000 bucks/month is really really cool. It allows us to live well in my country (almost in luxury :D), save money and also re-invest in our businesses. We had months when we crushed this goal, we had some that were not as good, but we’re doing OK. Right now my main focus is caring for my daughter, so I get to work maybe 2 hours/day. But it’s OK, as long as I still earn some money.
It all comes down to having a business plan and treating the blog as a proper business. When I started in 2011 I had business dreams but treated it as a hobby. Only in the last year has a business attitude come out and to be honest, it was too late at that point.
This idea is applicable for freelance work as well, something that I have implemented a business plan for and have even calculated the number of hours spent writing and researching, so that I actually pay myself for my time; something others rarely ever do!
I’ve been reading your financialsamurai blog for years, but when I hit my 30th birthday- things just fell into place and I now have the patience to pay down my mortgage and put every other ‘wants’ on hold. Decided to make a blog to keep myself motivated. Thank you for sharing all these years =)
Yes, hard work!! No pain, no gain. And sticking around longer is a good strategy too.