Medium articles and getting on with life

 

Life is often easier in theory.

There were grand plans to write regularly in this blog. I was going to muse about life. Insights were going to overflow.

And then life happened. Nothing messy, per se. Just your standard day-in, week-out grind of life.

So things haven't quite gone to plan over the last six months.

But I'm back. At least for now.

One thing I have been doing is developing my writing on Medium. It's not exploding. But it is gradually gaining traction.

So I'll share some of my most recent pieces that can hopefully help you in your life, career and personal finances. 

And stay tuned for the launch of my newsletter. If life doesn't get too in the way...

In the meantime:

Job Hunting? Let ChatGPT and AI Give You a Hand 

Get Real About Your Employer. If You Want Loyalty, Get a Dog

A New Phrase That Showed How Detached I've Become

And an important one in this challenging economic environment:

Why You Must Spend Your Vouchers and Giftcards - Now

Enjoy!

Medium: Inspiration is the name of the game

It's been a while since I posted my Medium pieces. So as we end out the year, it's time to revisit some of the writing. And the theme is: Inspiration

Here are three recent ones:

One about trying to inspire my godson.

https://medium.com/illumination/inspirational-words-for-a-struggling-teenager-747fcee39a90

One that talks about the highs and very lows I experienced during the pandemic.

https://medium.com/illumination/i-miss-the-pandemic-c4234229201e

And then there are words of inspiration from the late great Charlie Munger.

https://medium.com/illumination/the-life-times-and-brilliance-of-the-late-charlie-munger-0d903369ec70

Medium: Ever Thought About Freelance Writing as a Side Hustle?

As we prepare ourselves to enter into a recession, we should all consider ways in which to improve our financial situation. Freelance writing is one area to consider.

Medium is a great platform if you've ever thought about trying out freelance writing. At the very least, you can get good practice with plenty of eyeballs on your work

Here are two pieces that talk about freelance writing in general:

• My Best and Worst Freelance Writing Side Hustles

• How to Start as a Freelance Writer

Read, write and join

If you'd like to write on Medium, one of the best ways to build a following would be to become a member. This gives you unlimited access to high-quality writers and tips on how to monetize. 

You can join through this membership link: 

• Medium Membership

The same link also lets you unlock thousands of excellent articles. Click here for more details.

As a taster of what's on offer, below is a recent Medium article by none other than Barack Obama:

• My 2022 End of Year List

Enjoy.

Income Report: June

Well, the slow walk to freedom continues.

Because I'm less keen on trading my time for money I've turned down few writing gigs. I'm not sure whether this is the way to go (maybe I should be keeping my eye in) but it's allowed me to work on my blog.

The trouble with my blog is that it's currently on Godaddy and I've decided that I need to transition it to WordPress. Better SEO, themes, plugins and so on.

But at least I got Finance Job Hunter up and running. Even if I have to transfer the hosting, I still have the content and the ideas to work with. I also signed up to Infolinks as a monetizing tool.

All of these ideas are all part of my goal of futureproofing my world, or at the very least being more prepared for what the external world throws at me.

So, how was the month?

Resume Writing: $0. Completely side-stepped my most consistent earner. I'll do one or two this month, and I need to keep the skills fresh for my bigger consulting business goal. But the trading time for money situation isn't ideal at the moment.

Additional Writing: $0.  Nothing here for me.

Dividends: $203. Still a fave approach for me and I continue to buy dividend-yielding exchange-traded funds to grow this passive income stream. If you want to better understand the principles, I recommend The Snowball Effect: Using Dividend & Interest Reinvestment To Help You Retire On Time. It's one of the lower risk ways in which to build passive income.

eBooks: $8.  Things have ticked up slightly, though some marketing would clearly be good for my portfolio (Beginner's Guide to Online Side Hustles, Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies, The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume).

Interest: $17. This is consistent, though if I worked my funds a bit better I'm sure I could improve this figure.

Vouchers: $127. This isn't something I've thought about counting in the past. However, I realized that I've effectively been converting credit card points into cash. The points are turned into supermarket vouchers with a cash value. So every time I convert some, I'll record them in this monthly data. It's money after all.

Other: $2. It's hardly going to change the trajectory of my finances, but I've signed up for doing surveys on UserCrowd. The company occasionally sends invites to my email inbox while I'm watching a bit of mindless TV. They only take a minute and are about $0.20 a time (so far), so it's no big deal either way.

Total: $357. We're not talking big numbers here. It's lower than most of my months. But it does make me conscious about the importance of finding ways to generate income and how I can add a few dollars here and there when I try.

Income Report: January

The new year has started slowly for me. I think I'm stuck in some form of winter-driven apathy.

My one big success is that I've finally got around to starting a blog. It's still a work-in-progress so I won't push it here right now. But it's part of my strategy for income generation this year. Now I need to work out how to monetize. And if it becomes clear that it isn't going to work then I'll pivot onto the next idea. Ultimately, I'm going to continue to push on.

This month I've also got quite heavily into my word for the year: "investing". There are the obvious connotations, of course. But I'm really talking about it from the angle of investing in myself. Because at the end of the day, the more you invest in yourself, the more recession-proof you can become.

And at the moment, it's not about uplifting my skills (although that's something I want to do). It's been about working on the internal dynamics. I could have all the strategies, tips, tricks and techniques lined up for my side hustles, but if I don't have the right self-worth, the right focus, the right grasp about what makes me tick, then all I'll do is self-sabotage. And I'm good at that. Very good.

So I've been working with a hypnotherapist to work on my deepest darkest limiting beliefs. I also had a session with a trainee coach who needed a guinea pig. It's not going to be an overnight thing. I've been carrying my baggage for a few years now and I can't expect everything to change after a couple of sessions. But I genuinely feel that this is one of the missing parts in my journey. It's about getting to know myself better and to properly understand my "Why".

We often know exactly what we need to do. But we've all got to  ask ourselves what's holding us back from committing and executing.

Resume Writing: $280. I've finally done a bit of the resume writing again. However, I want to diversify my writing income streams. Still, cash is cash is cash.

Additional Writing: $0.  Having a full-time job can be a bit of a drag when it comes to managing my side hustles. I had the chance to earn $520 on a writing gig. Unfortunately, for that I would have to have been available to do a client call during my work day. That simply wasn't an option. Still, it's nice to know there are options still out there.

Stock Dividends: $0.  My goal is to keep building up my dividend income. The one thing I haven't noted down is the dividend payment schedule. In December I got $576 in dividends. Last month, not a penny. Go figure. It's not that hard to get the information. I simply hadn't thought about it. Either way, I haven't got this cash element to add.

Interest: $17. It doesn't look like interest rates will be rising fast anywhere soon so I can't expect this to kick on. But it's there.

Ebooks: $5. I made a bit on my collection of books. But I must focus on marketing them in 2019. They aren't going to be found on Amazon by themselves. (Beginner's Guide to Online Side Hustles, Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies, The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume).

Coaching: $0. No sessions over the month.

Other: $165. I re-added some designs on Amazon Merch but no takers just yet. But my main random "money making" angle during the month was to take my box of loose coins that I have been collecting over the last year to a coin bank and convert them into notes. Strictly speaking, I always had the cash. But the fact that I'm using what I already have is exactly the point of being smart and efficient with your money. I'm going to try to apply this same principle in less obvious contexts to see what other cash I can bring in.

Total: $467. The only way is up! This was my lowest income level for a very long time. But that's fine. I'm investing in myself for the longer term at the moment and I can expect bigger and better numbers as my world evolves

Income Report: November

I think a lot of people think that the push for financial freedom, "FIRE", or any version of the story, is something that can be achieved overnight. Clearly, that's not the case. It's a tough old grind, where you start in one direction before being shoved in another.

I might not have been focused all the time but I have tried to move in a positive direction. And I'm still a long way from where I want to be. Now that I have a full-time job, I don't have to chase short-term income to help pay the bills. I can build stuff. And that's really my focus now. This includes a new website and a new ebook. It's about playing the long game.

So while it wasn't a great month income-wise, I'm moving in a direction.

So how was November?

Resume Writing: $60. This is the lowest month I've had in a long time. Essentially, I wasn't able to make time for more work, even though there was plenty there. I did one LinkedIn gig and that was about it. I don't

Additional Writing: $116. I did a few of my consistent gig and that's great. I've also woken up to the fact that there's a hell of a lot of work out there that pays pretty well if I go out and look for it. It's not something I'm planning to do now but it's good to know.

Stock Dividends: $1297. This was my biggest earner this month. The long-term strategy remains in place - keep buying dividend yielding stocks and reinvest the dividends when I can. The payouts aren't going to be like this every month but it's nice when it does happen.

Interest: $20. I hadn't thought about adding this into the mix in a low-interest rate world. But now that rates are rising I'm making a few dollars on my cash holdings.

Ebooks: $2. I'm not sure what's happening with the algorithms on Amazon but my books haven't been seeing the traffic this month at all. In fact, had I not sold a book on the last day of the month it would have been my first month without a sale in over a year. My three books (Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies, The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume) are there and I'll be spending a bit of money in marketing them in the new year. In the meantime, I aim to finish writing another ebook before the end of year.

Coaching: $128. I did one session this week and so it's good to have that ticking over.

Other: $0. Nothing on the Amazon Merch and Amazon Affiliate Income front.

Total: $1623. A very good month, ultimately because of the dividend income. Without it, I would have made $326, which is a lot less than my normal underlying income. But money is money and it all counts.

December's going to be a low month and I'll be prepping for 2019. I need to think and act bigger.

Income Report: June

So, I'm properly back in the groove of the daily grind of the corporate world.

Re-establishing a form of daily discipline that's relevant to this world has been tough. I've been so used to working when I want, waking when I want. So going back into a full-time role has reflected trade-offs we all make in life.

My work plus commute hours are reasonably long (well, a lot longer than when I was working for myself...). There's also less flexibility for me to do my own stuff while at work.

But it's all about the bigger picture. I can't be distracted from my long-term goal: financial freedom based on multiple streams of income.

Because of my new-found distractions, I've got to be sensible with how I  manage my side hustles. I've had to get approval from the compliance department in my company in order to continue with them so I have to make sure I don't raise any red flags.

The truth is, the hoops I've had to jump through and the layers of bureaucracy I've cut through has taught me a lot. Simply put, it has shown me that the corporate world isn't for me long term anymore and that I really have to work harder on my online efforts!

It's not about earning money, per se. It's about building a business with structures and processes that allow me to step away from the daily grind. It's about building a lifestyle for myself and my family that allows us to live a life that gives us options. Because that's all this is about. Options

It's a dream. It may not happen in the manner I intend. It's something to shoot for.

In terms of June's income:

Resume Writing: $139. This was a big income element for me. But for now at least it's going to have to slip into the background. My world has changed and I can't commit as much time. I have told the company that I did a lot of work for that I would still do the occasional bit of work but at the moment I'm not quite ready for it.

Article Writing: $42. I only wrote one article during the month. Admittedly, this was a very short piece so it was never going to be paying very well. But there's more to come on this front...

Dividend: $170. It's going to be tough to build my dividend income at the moment because I'm limited by what I can buy in terms of shares. Working for a bank can be awkward like that. Regulations and all that. Still, dividend income remains a key part of my strategy so I'm still going to pursue this route.

Coaching: $0. This is the new addition to my monthly breakdowns. I never used to record them here. But given as this now counts as one of my many side hustles, it's time to start monitoring and measuring. That said, I didn't actually do any coaching over the month. I have one long-term client that still wants to meet and one guy that has gone quiet. That's the crux of my coaching practice at the moment and I'm not planning on expanding much beyond three or four clients at any one time.

eBooks: $2. Another quiet month. I keep saying that I'll do some marketing. When I have time, I'll be pushing harder with my three books (Cryptocurrency Job Hunting for Non-Techies) to add to (The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume).

Amazon Merch: $0. The dream of being able to retire on passive income from selling t-shirts hasn't quite happened as yet...I haven't invested that much time in it all to be fair. But I know if I do commit to the venture, there's money to be made. It's about making the time.

Total: $353

All in all, it wasn't so bad all things considered. This is me starting from scratch again so it could take time. But if I can make over $500/month consistently by early next year (or even closer to $1,000 if it's possible) I know I'll be on a good path.  There are a few decent income opportunities for me in coming weeks:

• Resume writing project for a university. I did work for a local university about a year ago, writing resume profiles for MBA students. They asked me to put in a proposal for this year's cohort. In hindsight, I think I might have priced myself out. That's ok if that is the case. Last time it took many more hours than I thought it would and my time is more precious now than it was a year ago. 
• Career site writing. I've been asked whether I can up my writing quota from the occasional one or two a month to two or three a week for the next fortnight. It's pretty easy writing this stuff so I'm taking on the task.
• Coaching client. I met a prospect a couple of days ago. I sent him a proposal and I'll just have to see whether he wants to follow through. 
• Websites. It's way too early to say this is a decent income opportunity but I'm finally going to try to monetize a couple of domain names that I bought a while back. This will be a slow burner but it's all part of the process.

I have no idea how this journey is going to play out. I may love work so much that I simply decide to give up on all these hustles...Nah, that's never going to happen. One read of Nick Loper's Buy Buttons book has shown me that. 

It may not be as spectacular a journey as some blogs you find online, with spectacular numbers and fantastic opportunities in surrounding passive income and financial independence. No, mine's different. 

It's sometimes slow. It's sometimes boring. It's sometimes unfocused. That's fine. Most importantly, it's real. Watch this space.

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: March

One of the positives of working for yourself is that you don't have someone standing over you hurrying you along.

But one of the negatives of working for yourself is that you don't have someone standing over you hurrying you along...

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. I realized he didn't actually appreciate the ins and outs of my portfolio career approach to life, aside from the observation, "you must have a lot of time on your hands". The fact that I work every day in one shape or form is almost irrelevant. My world isn't as easily translatable to his corporate world.

That said, he did say something that really struck me. "If you had done ABC (fill in with whatever action) during all that time you've been away from your corporate role, you could have been XYZ (fill in with whatever blue sky result)."

Obviously, the world doesn't operate in such linear terms and 20/20 hindsight is beautiful. But I must admit he did have a point. Because I was operating in my easy-going, "let's see what happens world", I haven't actually pushed on where obstacles and pain were there in front of me. It's very easy to hide when you're working for yourself. In other words, the lack of accountability has hurt.

My goal for this next quarter is to really smack a few things into place. I'm a massive fan of the Side Hustle Nation podcast hosted by Nick Loper and I bought his recent book Buy Buttons. It was a revelation! I've been dipping my toe into side hustles and the gig economy for some time but I honestly had no clue about how many ways you could make money. It's inspired me to have a look at what else I can build. I'd recommend having a read of his book if you're looking at developing side income streams.

One thing that most definitely will define my world in the near term is the possibility of a corporate role. Just because I have this portfolio career approach, it doesn't mean I won't dip in and out of the corporate world. If I get the role, things will have to change. If I don't get the role, I'll push on with several initiatives I've been holding back on and things will have to change...

Resume Writing: $1,318. Steady as she goes. But my goal is to become far less reliant on contracting via one firm so I'm not too disappointed as this figure starts to dip.

Additional Writing: $468: Not bad. I managed to do follow-up work for two recent gigs, plus I've also done some resume work separate to the contracted work I do. The reason I group it here is because it's from a separate source and the overall goal is to diversify my sources of income.

Amazon Merch: $0.09. Yes, I'm off the mark! Ok, I only sold one but it's a start. I've got some pretty cool, professionally designed T-shirts ready for purchase (Dog T-Shirt; Cool Dog; Pitbull). Time to push on more.

eBook: $6.50. This is still ticking over and I made a similar amount to last month, split between a sale on Kobo and the rest on Amazon. I don't really do any marketing but it's good that it's still working (The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume). I've also now signed up to E-Junkie as well. My next book will launch in April (I had hoped for March but life happened and that has changed) and I have high hopes that it is a topical angle on the job-hunting space.

Total: $1,792.59

This is ok, and it's not my only income stream thankfully, but it's a bit below what I now want to be the minimum here ($1,800 - $2,000) and below three of the last four months.

Looking ahead

The corporate job dynamic has been hanging around for a long time and it should be resolved within weeks. That will shape my next moves.

In the meantime, I've got to get my book out, start writing my course and see what I can get out of Buy Buttons. There are so many ways to make money out there.

Income Report: December

As 2017 draws to an end, I guess it's time to have a little review of where I am now.

It took me a while to start getting a bit serious about all of this online income / passive income / enterprise thinking, and I'm nowhere near where I want to be. But I've worked a lot on my mindset in recent months and I'm convinced that 2018 will build upon the momentum I've been seeing in recent months.

I'm gradually building up structures and disciplines that should put me in better stead for the next 12 months. One of the reasons why I struggled at times this year was that I didn't have clear enough goals to target and didn't have any metrics to measure how well or not I was doing. That's going to change.

I'm also going to keep my main focus on two areas: career and finance. Those are going to be the core of all my income streams. That way I won't be too distracted by shiny objects that cross my path. It will also allow me to repurpose content and work done in different areas. I have a few random connected domains that I hope to monetize, while I also need to build on my relationships and ideas in different ways. Go where the money is and use what you know what works - that's my plan.

December was an incredibly short month for me as I effectively took off the last two weeks. As a result, there's very little to speak about in relation to my income streams:

Resume Writing: About $400. Did very little but that was to be expected. I'm angling at $1,200/month for this. That's a lot less than most of my months but that's because I want to re-direct my efforts elsewhere with a passive and online income bias.

Ebooks: $16. Pleasantly surprised that I sold eight over the month (not amazing but one of my best months, and reflective of both books being purchased - The Simple Guide to a Winning LinkedIn Profile and Craft a Winning Resume). In keeping with my idea of repurposing and going where the money is, I'm starting to write a new book talking about cryptocurrency. My goal is to get $20/week via my ebooks in 2018. That's a stretch at the moment but that's exactly what I need.

Writing: $0. This was a disappointing area for me this year. I had a few bites but didn't have the consistency. In 2018, my writing is going to be heavily focused on finance writing. By focusing on this niche I won't waste time on areas that I can't build as part of my brand.

Projects: $0. I had two good projects this year and the goal is to find similar types of deals. I realize that working with organizations, while more hassle, are far more profitable and better for my development. It means that I need to tighten up my propositions but I'm excited about what I might be able to bring to the market.

Total: $416. A non-month but directionally I'm heading in the right direction. Slowly but surely...

Income Report: October

You can only fool yourself so much.

Over the last month or so I've been detoxing. It's an exercise I started about 10 years ago - twice a year, three to four weeks at a time. Initially, it was all about the food, the drink, the cigarettes, the really not very lifestyle I was living. It was about cutting out dairy, meat, alcohol, certain sugars and so on. It was about getting in tune with fruit and veg. Every time I've done it, my body has felt better for it.

In more recent years, I've expanded my interpretation of detox to include cutting back on Facebook, doing more meditation and focusing on my mental/emotional/spiritual health. It's never meant to be perfect or about living a life as a monk. I probably could have done a bit more exercise this time as well. But one thing's certain, it sure as hell gave me a bit more clarity this time around.

You see, I'm very good at "playing" at stuff. It's all about tinkering at the edges rather than getting stuck in. The trouble with that is, I've kind of been fooling myself. I haven't pushed on with much of what I've talked about in previous blog posts and have kept on spinning the plates, hoping that some great masterplan would fall into place.

Well, this month has given me more headspace to observe what I've been doing. And some of it needs to change - and some of it has already started to change.

Firstly, I've been talking about finishing an ebook since August. Well, not only did I finish it, I got it edited, formatted and got myself a brand spanking cover (check out my ebook on how to write a LinkedIn profile). I realised that I've talked about passive income for a long time and yet I haven't committed time to building the assets. My goal is to make sure that changes. 

For one thing, I am now juggling the creation of two more ebooks, one of which I want to convert into an Udemy course by the beginning of next year.  I also noticed that my Zazzle account hasn't brought me any joy but I'm going to promote my wares in the run up to Christmas, simply using designs that I didn't market last year. 

I also thought it was time to have a look at my Google Adsense account. I've got a few websites but I never found the time or energy to see whether I could make any money out of them. I finally sorted out linking an account this week and earned a grand total of about $0.15 in a week. That may not sound like much but given that the account had been close to dormant for a couple of years, that's progress!

And I've also pitched for two writing gigs - one would be great for branding, the other pretty good on the cash flow front. We'll see what happens but it's time to focus (again) on diversifying my writing income.

On a separate tact, I also accepted an offer for at least one speaking engagement, maybe two. It's unpaid but it will get me great exposure. I keep telling myself how much I hate public speaking (though probably don't) but it's exactly the thing I need to do to get me out of my inertia and stupor.

Completely detached from this, but still in the passive income space, is something that has been lingering for a while - "scrip dividends". These are essentially where you reinvest the proceeds of a dividend back into the stock that you are holding. The rationale behind this is that research has shown that your returns based on dividends being reinvested tend to far outstrip the returns you make when you take the dividend in cash. Even though I've known this principle for years, it was always "too much hassle" or "I don't know where to go to find out" type of thinking by me. But with the clarity that a financial freedom goal should inspire, I got it sorted. 

Will this momentum last? Probably not. But a ball in motion stays in motion. So my hope is that I keep genuinely and honestly chipping away in a way that I can actually see tangible advancement when I  look back in six months time.

Resume Writing: $2,080. Not a bad month in terms of the numbers. I also switched from PayPal to request getting paid into my international bank account. I had thought that my original approach made sense, but having done the sums I noticed that PayPal really does take a fair bite out of my income. That and the currency conversion. The new approach will hopefully save me a little bit here and there.

eBooks: $4. A fairly quiet month and probably reflective of the fact that I haven't marketed my earlier book on resume writing or my new book on LinkedIn profiles. I want to put the marketing on autopilot, but for now the books are out there and time to write some more.

Dividends: $103. Even though I've signed up for the dividend reinvestment process for one stock, a couple of dividends slipped through the net and went straight into my account. That's fine by me, and a sure sign that my passive income strategy actually exists.

Google Adsense: $0.15. Yes, it's as good as nothing but it's the first money I've earned this way so I'm going to shout it from the rooftop!

Prolific Academic: $0. I haven't touched it for a while but no doubt there are still a few dollars here or there to take advantage of.

Total: $2,187.15

Not bad. One of my best months for these hustles I think. December is definitely going to suck so I better get my head down and make November look good!

Income Report: September

September didn't quite go as planned. But working for yourself doesn't really do linear performance.

The one thing I'm most disappointed with is the fact I haven't completed my second eBook. It's not as if I actually have much to write. It's simply that I haven't closed out my own proofing process, prior to sending it onto a professional to do a better job on it.

That said, I was inspired to start writing my third eBook (yep, I do have a habit of jumping from one shiny object to the next). So I'm about a quarter of my way through book #3. I' m still keep to build momentum in this area, though sales in September were pretty poor again. Time to find more ways to do free marketing.

My standard resume writing gig kicked back in and was probably back to average levels, after last month's lull. But I'm also looking to build opportunities with organisations rather than individual resume writing opportunities. I realised this when a private client and myself decided to part ways - he wanted a lot of changes to the work I had done, and I couldn't see the economic rationale for spending all this time on one individual. I learned that the decent sized one-off contract from during the summer was exactly what I should be seeking more of.

I'm now in my "detox" period. What started out as a nutritional overhaul twice a year, has now turned into a more holistic purge across my life. That includes a massive re-evaluation of my online/offline income streams - what I'm working on, what my ROI looks like for everything I'm doing, how to squeeze more time and money out of my current situation. As I've suggested before, I need to tighten up my measuring capabilities. I would like to think that when I do this review next month I would have at least moved the needle a little bit. But I seem to say that most months....

In the meantime, I need to work on Christmas income opportunities online (I think I may struggle to get much done from a Halloween perspective), and simply keep refining my business model and number of viable income streams.

A snapshot for the month:

Resume Writing: $1,360
Dividends: $0
eBook sales: $4 - Well, it's still selling (Craft a Winning Resume ) but now is time to really step up, look at online courses and all other kinds of opportunities.

Prolific Academic: $0

Total: $1,364 - Nothing major to write home about, but it's still ticking along. 

Income Report: March

I've finally managed to make a few inroads into the world of passive income. Ok, we're talking extreme baby steps. But there have been steps nonetheless!

I've finally completed my ebook and have sold a few on Amazon! I probably haven't been that sophisticated in how I put it together and have promoted it. But it's all part of the learning experience.

The important thing is my book is basically all about what I do on a daily basis: resume writing. It's not a book based on conceptual thinking or things that people have Googled. The tips, tricks and techniques are ones the company I work for applies.

So it works.

As for elsewhere, I've continued to do a lot of resume writing work - everyone from graduates all the way up to Executive Directors. So that's very steady. I've also been working slowly on other ebooks related to career hunting and finance.

So I've got a bit of momentum. Little by little though.

I"m still working on reviving my Fiverr account and waiting to get my Amazon Merch account authorized.

Monthly income in a nutshell:-

Resume Writing: $1,800 (vs. $1,525 the previous month and $1,094 the month before that)
Prolific Academic: $2
Ebook: $4

Total: $ 1,806

I'm excited that I have my first passive income product out there. Now time to build more opportunities.

And if you're looking to improve your resume, check out my ebook, Craft a Winning Resume 2017. 

It give proper, workable tips on how to master the art and science of writing a powerful, impactful resume. 

Income Report: January

New year, new dawn...blah, blah, blah

It's been a good start to the year. Not in terms of money made, as that's still a slow and steady thing, but in terms of investment for the future.

As much as I'm hoping to show an obvious improvement in income month on month, as important is to make sure I invest in skills and products that will pay off in the future.

Had I shown the discipline a year ago, who knows what may have happened.

Anyway, this month has seen me invest in two spaces:

• Financial modelling
• An ebook on resume writing

Yes, they are very different areas but I figured that I could use the modelling across a range of opportunities: business consulting, investment analysis, project management and so on.

The ebook is more naturally aligned with my passive income goal. Hopefully, by the end of February, I'll have it listed on Amazon and I'll be counting the pennies roll in...

As for January, it was a relatively unspectacular month for income and a slight dip on December's number.

Monthly income:-

Resume Writing: $1,094
Prolific Academic: $3

Total: $ 1,097

Slow and steady...

Hopefully, next month I'll be able to provide more input on my projects and more progress overall.

Income Report: October

Another day, another dollar...

I may not be diversifying as fast as I would like but I'm certainly being more consistent with my main income driver. But more on that later.

The difficult bit with the way I approach all of this is that I have so many incredible ideas. But I have no time to put in place any of my end of year ideas. Again, step by step.

My offline income still sucks. But that's another story.

So let's take another look at things.

Writing
Resume Writing: This figures continues to increase month by month. Last month my revised figure was $1,852 (vs. my initial $1,700 estimate). For October it came to $1,925. That's about 4% up and heading in the right direction.

Again, it was a nice combination of resume writing plus coaching.

It's still taking up more time than I had planned but it's working out okay at the moment.

Article Writing: $0. Must do better. As things stand, there's not anything on the horizon for this month so I'm slacking here.

Surveys
Prolific Academic: $8.50. A bit rubbish really....

Other
Postloop: $0. Death to Postloop and the fact that it took $12.50 of my earnings. Yep, it closed and didn't give me a chance to cash out. Boo, hiss!


Outcome
So there you have it: $1,860 for October. Not great about either of the last couple of months but it's pretty consistent enough.

I'll give myself a score of B this time. I didn't increase my income (again) but I have been working on my website.

I'm still working on a few different initiatives. One of them is to support finance people in their job hunting goals. It's taking a little time to gain traction but I'm confident that I can use what I've earned elsewhere to build my own busiess.

It's about the long game, isn't it?

53 Work At Home Online Opportunities...And other Fiverr Gigs

I'll get to the 53 Work At Home Online Opportunities element in a second.

But the thing about 'living' online is that there is so much out there that you didn't realize existed (or even realized that you ever needed!). That in itself is a charm and a curse. Is it useful? Is it relevant? Am I killing brain cells and time or am I genuinely adding value to myself?

That's the world I'm still learning to navigate as I look at earning more online income. There are a lot of good strategies out there which may have value for me in the future; there are plenty that make absolutely no sense to me at all. In the meantime, I'm having fun learning and falling at every turn.

And in my endeavors to build more in the way of income streams online, I've spent quite a bit of time on Fiverr, pitching my wares there and learning how other people are making money there. There are people pitching all kinds of services there. You need a logo? It's yours for $5 (well, $5 plus a bit of Fiverr commission). You need an article written for you? This is the place to go for the cheap and cheerful.

Make money online by being smart

The problem with the approach in many cases, though, is the extent to which you are trading time for money. If it's a gig that takes five minutes to create, then brilliant -- you've earned your $5 (minus commissions) in five minutes flat. But if you've got a gig that doesn't allow you to upsell any other service, and it's not taking just a few minutes to do, then you could be working an hour or two for $5. And that doesn't work out well in my head -- I realized that after a bit of trial and error.

It's true that different parts of the world have different costs of living and some people are actually able to make a decent living by being ultra efficient. But for someone like me with a lower work ethic than a lot of people I've got to work out whether I'm really making the most of my time online.

And then there are gigs like this 53 Work At Home Online one that fits perfectly into the model. It's created once and can be sold multiple times. You are, in reality treating Fiverr as your retail outlet. Your Amazon, if you will. Ok, you don't get the traffic in the same way, and you will have to promote and manually send out your work by yourself, but it's a great way of using the Fiverr system without spending hours upon hours in creating a service. It's an approach that I'm adopting.

At the end of the day, making money online is very much about having the right systems in place that will allow you to leverage other people's time, money, energy and platforms. It's about working smarter as well as harder. Time for me to practice what I preach.

Slow Inroads Into Online Money Making

The good thing about keeping a blog on this type of topic is that it keeps you "honest". That is, you can state one week that you focus for the coming week is X and realize that you have to justify the reason why you took the Y route.

We all have ideas and intentions but unless there's a bit of energy and action to back them, they simply remain as ideas and intentions. So I find myself writing this having not touched the information marketing product space at all. That's potentially one week of passive income I've thrown away. Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic but that's the principle.

To be fair, I did intend to work on the information marketing side but I was a bit under the weather for a few days so was sidelined. I also had a few distractions.

One of which was writing for Scripted - editing a previously offered piece, in addition to creating one fresh "How To" article. So that's a few extra dollars ($28), which is nice.

The other distraction was working on an Elance test I had received. I've been put on a three-person short list for a specific job. The job itself is a long-term freelance gig that involves compiling a weekly report. So in order to get the gig, I needed to work hard on my test report.

The trouble with all that is that the test also showed that I really hate reading instructions! Spell them out in person, put them in video form, give me pretty pictures. All fine. But physically having to read them and work through them simply shows up the learning style that works least for me.

And to add to that, having to reconcile numbers and words in a coherent format is also not my strong suit. Suffice to say, the task took a hell of a lot longer than it really should have.

Maybe if I get the gig I'll be able to sail through it all, now that I've worked through the basics. And the money being offered isn't crazy bad ($15/hour). But that's time taken away from me investing in my business, it's time doing something that I may intrinsically struggle with, and it's time doing something that I really don't find interesting.

Let's see how this plays out.

Progress in Online Earnings

Another week goes by and still not an online millionaire...

Actually, this week has given me a few interesting insights into the world of online earnings. There's just so much information out there pitching variations on the same themes it's sometimes hard to work out what's relevant and what's not.

I'm yet to launch my information marketing product, and maybe there has been a bit of procrastination, but I think I've got a framework to work with now. My goal by the end of the year is to (hopefully) have two or three sites running that allow me to monetize information products, whether products I create myself or those of affiliates. It sounds like a good idea anyway!

Slow inroads into writing online

But I've also found myself with a few added online writing distractions this week. The thing about a lot of these marketplace sites like PeoplePerHour and Elance is that sometimes you put your profile online and leave it there, barely marketing yourself. You kind of hope to be found because either you don't know how to, don't want to or are too lazy to market yourself to your target audience.

It's not really the most reliable way of getting business unless you get lucky. Well, I got lucky. Initially I was offered a one-off content job on PeoplePerHour, playing on my finance background. I completed the task and left it at that. However, the company subsequently came back to offer a daily writing gig.

It's not crazy amounts of money, and I really should have been more disciplined in my negotiations, but once it starts it should provide me with more structure to my online income. It will give me a base level to guide my negotiations from now on. I looked far and wide online and couldn't gauge how much I should be paid. I guess it's all about what the market (or client) will take.

This new gig will also give me something else to leverage for additional clients. I need to build up my portfolio and this will help with that. The daily task shouldn't take me too long either and a few hundred dollars extra per month will be gratefully received.

It will also still give me the opportunity to continue to bid for jobs on the marketplace sites, as well as dipping into Fiverr, Zazzle and Postloop, with the latter very indirectly putting me on the path to a lot of my online earnings. A lot of this is very much down to trial and error. But as is becoming very apparent, at the same time, it's about getting yourself out there.

So I guess it's been a successful week for me online, at least in terms of future business. Maybe more by chance than design, but progress nonetheless. Now I just need to get a handle on the information marketing world and I'll be flying...

Setting Online Challenges

One of the big issues with working online is that a lot of the time you'll find yourself working by yourself, with no boss hovering over you with a carrot or a stick.

The problem with that, of course, is that there are plenty of times you have to be motivated/focused/disciplined and so on. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to do. It's not easy unless you have in place a system or process that makes you accountable, allows you to measure how well (or not) you're doing and challenges you to be more motivated/focused/disciplined and so on.

And so to my challenge for October. I've decided that the path of least resistance is all too easy for me and some of the microjobs I've been investing in, while reasonably enjoyable (e.g. Postloop), aren't moving the dial much in terms of challenging myself or incrementally changing my financial situation.

So my goal for the month is to pause on some of my easier, lower-value opportunities and invest that time in some of the tougher to monetize but more rewarding options. Although I'm not guaranteed to see the fruits of labor manifest in October, I've decided to set myself a financial target of $500 for the month.

Bearing in mind I have other ventures on the go and I've only ever got close to $100 in a week once before, it's going to be a stretch. But unless I push myself (and publicly) I'm going to default back to the false economy of some of the easier options.

As Tony Robbins likes to say: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

So I'm excited to see what I can learn about the online space over the month. And what I can learn about myself. 

Online Progress Report

So my journey into the online earnings space continues.

This week has been fairly mixed in terms of successes. Having signed up for the writing site Scripted a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to have been accepted for a couple of writing streams there. I’ll review the site here in due course, but essentially if you have a ‘specialist’ skill or knowledge you can sign up for work streams aligned with those talents.

The interesting thing about earning money online is that there’s plenty of trial and error involved. You can plant the seeds weeks, months or maybe even years earlier and only now start to see the fruits of your labor. Such is life.

And that’s how it’s been with some of my Fiverr gigs. A couple of them that have been on the site for much of the year and have barely attracted any interest, and yet one gig (unsurprisingly connected with ways in which to make money) has attracted a disproportionate amount of interest. The lesson here is to find what works and what people are interested in, and invest the time in those areas.

I’ve also learned that you’ve got to be quick. That doesn’t mean putting together a haphazard, sub-standard offering, but you’ve got to appreciate that other people may work along different time horizons to yourself.

This reared its head this week when I bid for a job on PeoplePerHour. Essentially, it was for reviewing and re-writing a CV and the accompanying cover letters. Two days after putting my bid in I received a request from the buyer requesting a bit more information on me. 

Foolishly I decided to sleep on it and respond in the morning. It wasn’t as if I was rushed off my feet or anything, it was simply that I didn’t prioritize things correctly. I woke up this morning to find out that the job had been given to someone else even before I had responded. You snooze, you lose.

So for now I’m going to work on the various existing online opportunities I have, plus see what traction I can get from Scripted. And I’ll also apply a bit more urgency to situations as well…