FEBRUARY 2017 Report

February 2017 Progress Report

Sharon Tseung My Progress Reports 2 Comments

I’m now in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! Unfortunately I’ve been sick since I got here last week, and much of the time spent has been in bed at my AirBnB. Boo.

At least I’m getting some bomb pho out here:

Vietnam Pho

I didn’t end up crossing January’s passive income milestone which sucks, but passive income isn’t always going to come steadily. There will be fluctuations in income, and that’s okay!

Why I Don’t Reveal My Income Breakdown

I recently received a comment asking why I don’t breakdown my income reports, so I thought I’d address this point. To be honest, I did in the beginning, but my parents were giving me crap about it saying not to reveal so much information. Initially I was frustrated because I wanted full transparency with my readers. But I started to see their point.



I decided to just mention whenever I hit a new passive income milestone for myself. And if people don’t believe me…I can’t really do anything, but I don’t mind anyway. This blog is merely to keep me accountable as well as inspire and help others, and if I accomplish that, then I’m happy. I don’t think it requires me to reveal specifics on how much money I’m earning.

Travel

Nomad Summit in Chiang Mai, Thailand

In early February I attended the Nomad Summit, which was a great way to connect with other nomads and see what was going on in the community. I paid $100 for a ticket, and picked up a few pieces of knowledge from the speakers.


I thought it was a great conference but I probably won’t go again. I guess I went with the hope of picking up more actionable learnings, but a lot of it seemed to be geared towards newer nomads with the message of “just do it”! Regardless, I got to network and learned a little bit, so I’m happy.

Back to Hong Kong

I spent 2 weeks in Hong Kong before setting off to Vietnam. I find it too comfortable there with family, so it always makes me want to leave for my next journey.

With some friends in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Disneyland cause I bought an annual pass…

Currently: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

This is my first time in Vietnam (country 28/100 for me)! A lot of my time here I’ve spent sick in bed, though. I’ll keep y’all posted on how it is going when I’m better. Initial thoughts include: hot and humid, extremely scary crossing the street, cheap food, but can be fun.

Feelings

Something I’ve realized lately is that without any real “deadlines” or part-time work, it’s easy for me to slack off, especially when I don’t feel imminent pressure to make money. And travel seems to make money feel less important, in a weird way. I guess it’s cause I’ve experienced the minimal lifestyle and understand it doesn’t take much for me or other people to be happy.

digital nomad quest

To keep myself in check, I think taking little custom orders on Etsy or doing Fiverr gigs actually helps. Those deadlines give me more of an “oh shit I need to really be productive” feeling, so I try to welcome some active income type work now as long as it isn’t too heavy.

The other thing that keeps me in check is reminding myself of the goal I made with my boyfriend (oh yeah that happened btw!) of $10k/month by October. We put down a few rewards for ourselves if we hit this goal, a few pricey rewards, so it gives me some pressure to work harder.

Fiverr

I’ve currently received a total of 16 orders and 9 ratings. It’s not like I’m making much, but again 1) it keeps me balanced working on stuff with deadlines 2) I can grow this into a passive income channel if I figure out how I can outsource. I just need to grow my number of orders and sales so I can price up my gigs.

Fiverr

I’ve also reached Level 1 Seller status so I’m able to add new gigs (which I haven’t yet). The max amount of gigs you can create as a new seller is 7, so with this upgrade I can add more for more chance of getting seen.



Outsourcing

This month was a buttload of outsourcing. I made some moves! I hired: 3 writers for kindle books and 1 VA for social media work. The Kindle book move was basically inspired by Adrian after our interview. I’m proud of these two actions because I consider them more “next-level” moves over the somewhat repetitive work that I’ve been doing.

Etsy

I’m taking my Etsy digital downloads business more seriously now. I am considering opening my own website for it and directing Facebook ads to the website. I feel like I didn’t think about how useful my products were until recently, and it could be worthwhile to expand the business as it’s already doing quite well. This was the reason for hiring a VA. I’m having the VA grow my social channels to see if I can really grow a brand, and organic traffic is probably the most scrappy, low-cost way I can start doing this.

Etsy platform

If you’d like to open your own Etsy shop, you can use my link here which gives you a free 40 listings (and provides me with 40 free listings as well).

Conclusion

After recapping with this post, I’ve realized I made quite a bit of moves, especially with the outsourcing. So I guess I’m proud of myself in that way. I’ve also visited a new country, which is another one off my list – heading towards my 30 countries by end of year goal! If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. 🙂

February 2017 progress report

 

february 2017 progress report digital nomad

About the Author

Sharon Tseung

Hi, I’m Sharon Tseung! I’m the owner of DigitalNomadQuest. I quit my job in 2016, traveled the world for 2 years, came back to the Bay Area, and ended up saving more money and building over 10 passive income streams on my digital nomad journey. I want to show you how you can do the same! Through this blog, learn how to build passive income and create financial and location independence.

Comments 2

  1. Congrats on another successful month! Curious – what were your parents reasons for not sharing the income breakdown? I currently share my breakdown and I’m wondering if I’m not thinking of some potential security risk.

    1. Post
      Author

      Hey thank you! I saw your blog post – SO amazing! My parents were just worried about internet crime and security, for example Jay was telling me about how this reader of this blogger found out the blogger’s personal address or something like that. I don’t think you need to worry too much cause I don’t have like a specific reason fro not reporting my income breakdown. I’m just doing it just in case I guess.

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