Income Report: July

July didn't happen. At least not from my business building / financial freedom perspective. Starting a new job has certainly drained a bit of the time / money / energy that I always thought I had in spades. But that's not to say I can't get back on track.

It's all about discipline. It's the kind of thing I've talked about in the past but now it's more important than ever. Focus, application, discipline. 

To be fair, I did take a one week break. Returning to my home city to catch up with friends, family and old work colleagues meant that the push for financial freedom was the last thing on my mind.

Well, that's actually not true. A few short chats with my disgruntled, frustrated and tired crowd simply reinforced the need to take control. To create a life that works for me and my family.

I've thought a lot about "purpose". It's that fuzzy, catchall term that gurus tell us that everyone is meant to have to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life. I thought mine was going to be based purely on financial freedom. That's what this is all about, after all. Isn't it?

As it turns out, I'm finding that for me it's about a broader sense of freedom. Free to make mistakes, free to be happy, free to be sad, free to live a life that works for me at any one time. It's about being comfortable with whatever life throws at me. I've been reading up on spirituality as much as I have on business and finance. So for me, it's about getting more connected with myself. Anyway, I digress.

This financial freedom game is not going to be easy. Hell, I've been playing at this for a few years and am only now finding a bit of direction. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

So what did I learn this month? One thing is that we can't do it all by ourselves. I've been a long-term follower of the Side Hustle Nation podcast hosted by Nick Loper and have got plenty of value in his recent book Buy Buttons. Definitely, worth checking out if you're new to this game.

I've also recently discovered the FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) movement. Ironically, I was already in that space I guess, ever since buying into the Robert Kiyosaki world of Rich Dad, Poor Dad many years ago. Anyway, having joined the "Choose FI" Facebook group I realise there are thousands of like-minded people out there. Joining the group has definitely given me a new spring in my step. I wish I'd been engaged with them earlier.

Not that I actually achieved much financially this month but I still have to note down the situation for consistency:

Resume Writing: $0. I've taken a bit of a break from this but will be kick-starting this later in August. I've already got three jobs lined up. I did pitch for a one-off contract with a university that would have been worth a few thousand dollars but I think I priced myself out - I worked for them last year and they clearly found a cheaper alternative.

Additional Writing: $287. My regular blog writing about careers continues. I've also got three articles lined up for this month.

Stock Dividends: $260. My dividend yield strategy is still working out well. I just need to keep on reinvesting my earnings into investments, preferably high dividend yield stocks to benefit from the cash flow. Because of my background in finance I was always going to play this as a key approach, using scrip dividends and compounding to build income slowly but surely. If you're not familiar with the approach, Amazon is stocked up on decent books that can explain the approach, such as Dividends Still Don't Lie.

Ebooks: $2. So my three books (Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies, The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume) aren't jumping off the shelves. But I was reminded of the power of social media by a 16-year old on the plane last week. Let's see where I can go with this.

Coaching: $0. No coaching during the month. However, an old client wants to do a session soon so that should make me a few dollars in August.

Amazon Merch: $0. No, this is a slow one...

Amazon Affiliate Income: $0. No, this is a slow one as well...

Total: $547. I'm happy enough with that. I now have a full-time job to navigate so I was never going to get the big numbers.

I have a bit of a pipeline and things are looking ok. August's numbers will be better. My near-term goal is to cover my basic living expenses excluding my rent. I think I should be on course for that.

Income Report: May

This is the last month for this income report in its current format. The reason? I've got myself a job. Back to the grindstone and all that.

But it's not the end of my money making ideals. Now my goal is to work towards replacing my full-time income. Or at least create income streams that allow me to have a sustainable portfolio career that gives me choices. Because that's what my version of financial freedom is about. Choices.

So there will be some changes to how my income streams look. Some elements may fall by the wayside to some extent, including my resume writing. Others, such as my coaching work, will from next month get added. I had originally framed this income report exercise as being about online income, which is why the coaching wasn't really mentioned. But now it's really about me growing my portfolio of hustles in general.

I still see plenty of value in this exercise - possibly even more than before. It's all about being able to make money without having to rely on a boss, company, government, etc. So if I ever get the "Thank you for all your efforts, but..." conversation, I'll be suitably in control of my future.

And that's the irony of getting back onto the hamster wheel of work. I'm more focused on using my free time wisely and know it's time to revisit the ton of income-generating resources I have collected.

As I've mentioned before I'm a massive fan of the Side Hustle Nation podcast hosted by Nick Loper and found great value in his recent book Buy Buttons. Definitely, worth checking out if you're new to this game - or even if you're not new but have got a little stale (like me). Going forward, I'm certainly going to be anchoring some of my approach to ideas from here.

Anyway, how have things stacked up?

Resume Writing: $2,346. This has been my best month income-wise for resume writing, which is ironic given that I'm going to have to drop a lot of it. This has been a major income provider for me in recent years, both in terms of directly consulting for one specific firm but also the spin-off work that I've benefited from (see below). It has served me well and I'm keen to keep this as part of my income arsenal.

Conference Project: $3,500. I mentioned before that one-off projects count if they are related to my online businesses. Well, this one related to my resume writing again. It involved working for three-and-a-half days at a finance industry conference and paid pretty well. Actually, very well as far as I'm concerned. Unless it takes place on a weekend, this type of gig will disappear now that I'm going full time. But at least I know my capabilities and can use it in the future.

Additional Writing: $130. My regular blog writing about careers continues. It doesn't especially pay that well ($0.07/word - and I miscalculated on my invoice so undercharged) but it's great branding for me and my career-related services.

Stock Dividends: $108. One strategy I will continue to build upon is my dividend yield strategy. This is about buying high dividend yield stocks to benefit from the cash flow. I'm not being as diligent as I should be. That is, I could be screening the stocks far better than I am. But so far it's worked out fine and I keep reinvesting the cash so as to buy more stocks.

Ebooks: $6. I started the month pretty strongly in that I sold three books in the first week ("pretty strongly" in my world anyway...). It was only the first proper month of my third book (Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies) to add to (The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume). I know that I need to market them but I simply haven't made the time. My hope is that seasonally the summer months are a good time for job hunting books, with all those graduates looking for roles all at the same time.

Amazon Merch: $0. It's not really happening at the moment. I'll still keep plugging away.

Amazon Affiliate Income: $0.04. I've finally made some affiliate income! I know this is an area I must build upon. This is the classic passive income stream. It's not really anything to write home about but I've brought some pennies in. If I can do that then I'm pretty sure I can do a lot more.

Total: $6,090. (my best month and well ahead of my $2,000 monthly target. Even if I stripped out my one-off gig, it still came to $2,590 so I'm happy).

Looking ahead

Before I look ahead, I think I should at least celebrate how far I've come to achieve my best income month. A lot of my efforts came out of necessity as I tried to find my footing "between jobs". But I've always put it in the bigger picture context of financial freedom.

My very first income report was for May 2016. So I've had two years to look at my progress.

I achieved the princely sum of $974.50 that month, of which $800 was resume-related. In May 2017, I made $1,489, with $1,353 from resumes. Yet my resume income alone for May 2018 almost matched my entire income for May 2016 and May 2017 combined.

The bottom line is, I've tried to consistently work towards building income streams. It hasn't been easy or straightforward. But I've seen some progress. And if I can do it, anyway can do it.

And so to now. It may take a week a two to sort out the new rhythm of work, but I'm going to push ahead with my portfolio career efforts.

One of my first tasks is to do a proper inventory of all my hustle interests to see whether they are worth the effort. I need to look at my ROE (return on energy, in this case) and make some hard choices. It also means putting in more efficient processes.

The goal is to still build passive income streams. They tend to require more effort and/or money upfront than the traditional "selling your time for money" approach, with the expectation that they'll pay in the long run and you'll be sipping pina coladas on a beach before you know it...The good thing about having the job in the background is that it gives me the money buffer to help with this, even if it takes away the time.

So I think I'll take a piecemeal approach this month and target a couple of websites I own to see whether I can properly monetize through Google Adsense.  That will probably require some blogging and such. I may also market the ebooks - but I've got to work out whether the effort is worth the return.

Regardless, I'm certainly going to see what I can get out of Buy Buttons - so much to learn from this book.

It's all change but fundamentally it will all stay the same...a portfolio career.

Income Report: June

I almost find myself dreading my monthly check-in here. Over the months and years I read a ton of income reports that are all singing, all dancing, espousing "financial freedom" and a laptop lifestyle. They make it seem so easy. Their efforts so linear in success. Well, it's safe to say I haven't seen that version of the story as yet.

But the important thing is for every one step back I'm seeing one-and-a-half steps forward. It's not the narrative that the online entrepreneurial masters would like to sell, but it's the real world. There's always a need to be intentional.

It's a tough slog. Tough in terms of focus, tough in terms of execution, and of course tough in terms of getting results.

We're in the midst of the quieter July months and I should be taking this time to re-evaluate what I'm currently doing and how I can be more effective, more impactful in coming months. The trouble is the TV and the fridge are such attractive distractions when you working from home...

So, how did my month look?

Although this report is meant to be all about online related income, I did have a big win offline that will keep me busy in August. It's resume writing for students at a local university. It's a decent sized contract as well. So there's been some progress on my consulting side.

But back to my online element. On top of my normal online resume writing, I've sold a few more ebooks, which is great - it's all about momentum. It's not going to help me retire any time soon. Still, I've started on the follow up and I'm hoping to sort out 10+ ebooks over time.

Elsewhere, I've also had another dividend payment from my investments. I keep forgetting this element of passive income, and it's something I'm going to build upon as I invest a bit more in dividend-yielding stocks.

Resume Writing: $1,730 -Better than a lot of months and it's helped me get the university gig, so I'm still happy
Dividends: $40
eBook sales: $6 - Get Craft a Winning Resume to improve your job hunting opportunities.

Prolific Academic: $7

Total: $1,783