I haven’t even traveled yet – am I allowed to do this? I’m creating an income report to show my progress on achieving the digital nomad lifestyle.
I’ve made some progress in terms of my freelancing income. Passive income is still a bit in the air, but I’ve taken some large strides towards it so hopefully I’ll start seeing some results in this area. I would say overall that September 2015 has been a pretty strong month.
September 2015 Income Report
For September, I should be getting:
$1060 for freelance consulting
$1000 for graphic design work
The normal income from my full time position
I normally get paid out the month after, so I will be receiving September’s earnings in October, and I’ve actually received August’s earnings this month. I may be picking up another graphic design gig since it won’t be TOO much to handle.
Now this is all ACTIVE income. This is to prepare me for my travels abroad so that I will be okay by the time I quit my job and leave.
In terms of passive income…
Passive Income:
I’ve been breaking it down like this:
-Authority Sites
-Niche Sites
-Kindle Books
These are the starting points I envision as part of my bigger dream to live the life I choose, create things I want to create, and make a positive impact on the world.
Authority Sites
I’m very consistent about writing content and growing one of my authority sites, the travel blog, and I think I’ve been doing very well with it. I’ve also been writing a kindle book, with my co-founder, related to the niche. I also figure that when I’m nomadic, I can try to contact hotels to sponsor me for travel abroad so I don’t have to pay as much for living expenses.
Niche Sites
I spent the month reading about niche sites and studying resources. I’ve learned a lot about how it works – and quite frankly, it’s a lot of work. I can outsource the content, but I still wouldn’t know if all of my efforts would actually work out in the end. It’s a bit of risk, so I decided to go with kindle books!
Kindle Books
Now, my initial plan was to write a book on how to start a profitable blog. But I haven’t even made money from blogging yet. So now I’ve reached out to a bunch of cheap writers who will write my content for me. I chose a few topics, wrote out 2 outlines, and sent each to two different writers.
I’ve had a moral battle with outsourcing content for kindle books. Though many writers have ghost writers, it just feels wrong to have someone write book content then slap my own name on the product. But I realize I can just put books under a pen name. I won’t have to put my name on anything that isn’t written by me. I also figured that with the writing they give me, I can create niche sites with them as well. (UPDATE as of March: I don’t know if I want to outsource at all anymore…I’ve ended up writing everything regardless because the content isn’t good enough.)
Whatever path will lead me to passive income, I need to take action and try it out so I can see if it works. Execution is key, so I might as well go for it. Now that I’m taking side jobs, I feel like I can use the money to hire people to do stuff for me.
That’s it for my progress. Hope you enjoyed my post and let me know what you think in the comments!
