Earn money from your additional income sources while not working
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This is the second part in a series on securing your finances by adding new income streams. If you haven’t yet read the first part, it’s best to start from there.
Yesterday I started this series by telling you that you should consider looking for new income streams in addition to the salary you are getting from your regular 9 to 5 day job. I won’t go into details again, but the main reason is to gain financial freedom so that you won’t have to work under the fear of losing your job anymore.
Today we’ll go one step further and define what kind of income sources we are looking for.
But let’s start with a key premise:
I don’t want you to lose (or quit) your job.
The point here is to add new income streams, not to replace your job.
At some point if your income streams are good enough, it’s up to you to decide if you want to keep your job or not. But for now the plan is to keep working and to earn extra money on the side.
That brings us to a new challenge.
If you are already working 8 hours a day for your boss and I claim that you shouldn’t work too much but rather concentrate in your family, how can you possibly build new ways of earning money?
1. Do something you love
This is the most important part of the equation.
If you add something new to your days, make sure it doesn’t feel like work. You don’t want to work eight hours just to go home and start working on something else. So unless you are a cleaning maniac, no cleaning or household tasks this time.
What you need to do is to find out what you enjoy most and find a way to make money with it.
For me one such thing is writing. I love carving my ideas into words and sentences and submitting them to the outside world to read and comment. That’s why I can blog on a daily basis without getting the feeling of working.
If I would hate writing, it would make no sense for me to use blogging as an income source. It would just make my life miserable. The key is look at what others are doing, not to copy them but to get an idea on how you could turn your interests into income streams.
2. Make the money come to you when you’re not working
If doing something you love is the most important part of the equasion, passive income is the practical part.
This is actually pretty elementary mathematics:
If you do something that pays by the hour all you get paid for is the time you spend doing your work. That leads to working long hours and doing a lot of work.
And that’s something we want to avoid.
Building income never comes without work, but we can do our best to maximize the amount of money we get for a given amount of work. This happens by selling value instead of time.
Let’s think about writing:
- You can write articles for your customers so that they pay you by the time you spent writing. The pay might be okay, but once you’ve sold your time once you won’t get paid for it again.
- Or you can write an article to your blog where people can read it over and over again. And if your blog is well monetized, those visitors will then turn into income. Income that continues to flow even when you are not actively writing.
You get the point: you need to build something that brings you money even when you are spending time with your family or chilling out with your friends. Of course building that something costs you time and effort (maybe even some money) but when it’s up and running, you can keep it alive with a relatively small amount of work.
And that’s when you can move on to adding another stream of income.
This is it for today. We have formulated the criteria for deciding if an income source is what we’re looking for or not. A good income source:
- Doesn’t make you lose your current job
- Doesn’t feel (too much) like work
- Brings you money even when you are not actively working
Tomorrow we will continue the journey by looking for possible income sources that fit this criteria. Feel free to ask questions, suggest your own ideas, or comment on the ideas presented so far. And get ready to take action!
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August 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
So far so good. I hope your list of extra incomes excludes joining to a network marketing organization. Those guys are happy to promote their schemes as a nice passive income etc… :-)
August 14th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Good point, Petteri. But stay reassured, I have no intention whatsoever to promote network marketing. :)
August 14th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Great post. Doing what you love is always important. I mean if its something you have to do every single day, through the good and the bad, it should be something you enjoy doing, not something that is painful and will only give you a check at the end of the month
August 14th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
I would like to have an extra source of income, but… I don’t know if is this the “real” excuse, but I’m trying to invest my time into myself. That means to acquire new knowledge (IT based), certificate myself, finish studies, learn new language etc. And I hope, with enough experience I could request to be heavily paid. Of course, the key is to be best among the best.
But, if Jarkko suggest some really nice jobs, I could think about stretching out myself. :)
August 14th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Great article!
This is exactly what I’m trying to do now with blog and hopefully my other sites (when I take time to develop them and get the ball rolling). I don’t need all the lavish things you see people have nowadays, I just want to live comfortable and if something comes up that I need/want, I can go purchase it without saving and budgeting my money two years to be able to do it.
Doing something you love is the main thing here. If you don’t love it, you won’t do it very long.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Rashid: Well said!
Nedzad: I think you’re doing the right thing.
As I said in this post, I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs or the potential of getting a good income from a normal job. I’m just suggesting that if you have the time and possibility to put some effort into getting another source of income (or maybe a few different sources) without spending too much effort in it, it is something worth trying :)
I just finished collecting the list of income sources for tomorrow and I’m sure some of them are such that you could work on them for just a small amount of time and still be able to get some of the benefit.
So, if you want to earn additional income, it’s up to you to decide how much you want to earn and how much time you want to spend on earning it. Hmm… This sounds like I’m selling you a network marketing plan, but I’m not… As I told to Petteri, it’s not on the list ;)
What I’m saying is that getting a good job is a good way to start, and then at the same time as you work in your job, you can slowly grow your income repertoire by adding new money makers one by one…
August 14th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Deron: It’s good to hear that people have similar thoughts about money as I do. Good luck in getting there, your blog definitely is a step to the right direction!
August 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I like you point - especially noting up front the need to concentrate on family. That said, doing something you love does not in any way make it family time. Lots of families have broken up because someone was too interested in the non-family loves in their life, like making money. So maybe end you post by reiterating…but put family first.
So, I’m trying what you are trying but I do my work after the kids have gone to bed, and my wife is involved. I’m typing this as my daughter is sleeping on the couch beside me. When she wakes up I’m closing the laptop.
Nice work - and thanks to Writer Dad because you left a comment on his blog and that was how I found you.
David Hutchisons last blog post..University of Toronto Schools (UTS)
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 am
@David: Thanks for the great comments! Both this one and the other one on reading/writing/running got me thinking… And that’s always good :)
When I wrote this post, about a year ago, I was blogging daily. Now the number of posts has gone down - all the way to about one per week.
And it has a lot to do with putting family first:
I’m pursuing my side business plans to enable a lifestyle where I can work at home and spend more time with my family. So if this work/business becomes more important than my wife and kid, something is not right.
That’s why (just like you) I have made the decision that when my son is awake, I keep my laptop turned off. My wife is not that much into business, but she helps me with proofreading my articles before I submit them. Usually, however, I try to work on this project in the mornings before everyone else wakes up - I can sacrifice some of my own sleep, as long as I’m not forcing anyone else to make sacrifices…
That’s my thinking right now. Looking back to a year ago, I can see the change - and I’m sure it’s not over yet. But that’s what being alive means: learning new things, growing, understanding life a bit better every day.