Building Something from Nothing- part 2

So how did I earn the first batch of money? Well, luck.

I started a blog (not this one), and wrote on it regularly, and no one read it. I read other blogs, ones that interested me. On one of them I added a comment and instead of leaving the "website" field blank like shy, unconfident, self-conscious me would normally do, I put the addy of my blog. The (very nice) lady who runs that blog added something in her next post about what I was doing, someone with *lots* of readers saw it, and I had crazy time for a couple days.

So really, I posted one comment with my blog's web address. Oh, and I put adsense on everything.

Luck, really. Well, and crazy ideas.

I'm a great believer in the whole "cheap, good, quick- pick two" deal. In a blog, though, it has to be interesting too, or no one is going to even look at it. This is where I like crazy ideas. Or maybe I like crazy ideas because I have a lot of them. I'm sure informative and interesting works great too, I just don't have that kinda attention span.

So I use crazy ideas. Sometimes they're other people's crazy ideas made crazier ($1/ day for food), sometimes they're other people's normal ideas made crazy (vet school on the other side of the world, with no concentration, no money, and no experience living outside the US). You might not need crazy ideas to get things to work, but normal doesn't keep me interested right now.

Luck, crazy ideas, and no way to lose.

At this point, anything I make or build online is like gambling with found money- it doesn't cost me anything but time. Eventually I'd like to be able to depend on income from this internet thing, but for now I'm really just playing. I think that's the biggest bonus to starting this way. Well, and I can afford it.

Luck, crazy ideas, no way to lose, and funny hats- yep, that's how I'll make my way.

Building Something from Nothing- part 1

I want (to some degree) to provide transparency here. More specifically, I've been building something online. I want to provide transparency with that. All sorts of people make and sell e books about how they make money online. I'm not ever intending to do that- I doubt I'll ever make enough to not feel like a total impostor.

But I've got something actually bringing in some money- not much, mind, but some. I intend (hope?) to turn that "some" into more. I guess you could say I'm slowly fashioning time into money. It isn't the end of the month yet, so these aren't the actual numbers. They should be pretty close, though.

Incomes-

• Adsense- $117
• Amazon- $0.10
• Associated Content- $5

Expenses-

• Photobucket Pro- $4

Adsense is actually about 2 years worth, with all but 50 cents coming in the last month and a half. Associated Content is upfront payment for an article. I'll have to do more of those- it off-set the cost of having to increase bandwidth on my photo hosting.

So, what am I doing with $118.10? Ideally some would go to savings now, for taxes later. I don't have the luxury of doing that just yet, so it's going to have to wait a bit.

What I'm really going to do with it is pick up some cheap hosting for a year or so (I should be able to manage this) and build an informative site that has lots of advertising possibilities, and plenty of affiliate tie-ins. Hosting alone should take up most of my "income", and any left over will probably be used to upgrade my photo hosting. If there's anything left after that, I'm thinking of adding a book review blog- I read anyway, might as well review and post as well, right?

In the mean time, I've got a couple articles claimed and needing to be written for a couple different sites, and I'm looking into the whole "article marketing" thing. I don't know that it's for me, but I might as well check it out. Worst that could happen is I get blocked from a couple places, right?

As far as longer term goals are concerned- This all works with my "don't live someplace longer than you have to" goals. Paper books might be tough to come by in some countries, but electronic copies are often easier to find. An informational website shouldn't be too tough to keep updated from elsewhere- while there are changes, my target topic only really has a few seasonal peaks in activity, and it'd be easy enough to either be close by, or always online around those times.

Motivational Career Books

Let's be honest. Job hunting doesn't take *all* day. It probably takes less of my day then it should, actually. But even if I applied to *every single* job, the second it was available, rewriting my resume and cover letter from scratch (even for fast food), it still wouldn't take 12 hours a day. That's really just a lot of time to fill.

And Hulu only has *so* many shows.

So when I'm not applying or watching TV on my computer, or playing on my (soon to be cancelled) WoW account, what is there to do?

Well, I'm a reader, so I read. It gives me ideas, and then I work on those- like freelance writing, or things to put on a website, or just general life-improvement stuff.

I'm a bit of a free spirit, I admit. And being a reader, I tend to go to books and written information when I'm trying to figure something out. So in addition to the usual pile of romance novels stacked on my bed I've also got a bag full of "escape your crap job and see the world/ start a company/ become a petty dictator"-type books.

And they're great books- don't get me wrong, they're totally amazing books. For people who already have jobs, or still have their savings, or have a boat-load of available credit to float on until they're up and running with their dream/ company/ country. Nowhere out there (at least that I've found yet) is a book for people in *really* crap jobs. No books for retail underlings, or fast food cooks, or hotel housekeepers.

They're all written for people trying to escape *real* jobs- you know, the ones your parents aren't embarrassed to admit to having a kid working. So while I'm reading Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim, and reading the blog and stuff that goes with it... Well, I've only been forced into a cube for about 2 weeks total, temping. The closest I've been to "Corporate America" is my father. Well, and working for Walmart.

Same with How To Succeed as a Lifestyle Entrepreneur, which seems to have a lot of "so you already have a business and/ or income". Tim Ferriss isn't quite so focused on people with snazzy crap jobs, though that seems to be where he comes from. The problem with the version of The 4-Hour Workweek that I read is that his "method" is pretty money heavy. He picked the perfect product, maxed out his credit cards (or not) and away he went.

I'm not saying there isn't something in these books for everyone. I'm saying I have to pick and choose to figure out what's even vaguely applicable to me. Following my dreams, sure. Finding the intestinal fortitude to ask my boss for time off? Well, I don't have a boss, but even when I did, that was never a problem. Heck, I asked if I could count the money from home one day- they said no.

But these books are all about jumping. There's very little about "get a job that makes you just enough to sleep inside and eat, and build slowly", probably because it doesn't sell. All the "how to start with nothing" type-books come off as spammy, or get rich quick scams. Where's the "I got a just-for-now day job while I built my dream, and here's how you can too" book? The one that tells people who never were interested in taking a dull job with high pay just because it paid well how to live their dreams? Am I just missing it?

And more importantly, how do I keep my "must find job" motivation up when everything I'm reading shouts "quit your job, build your business now!"

I know people are doing it- building a business or other income just big enough to cover the very basics while keeping a (seriously crappy) job. They're tough to find, and most of them seem to be off in the world now, rather than at home still grinding the day job. So there is hope. I have it clogging up my iGoogle homepage, and dribbling down my bookmark list.

The ones I'm following for now-

Location 180

Experiments in Passive Income

The Professional Hobo

NuNomad

I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones I'm finding most useful for this starting from nothing deal. I've accepted that dog walking is a bit too settled. For some reason, whenever I think about spending more than a year someplace I break out in hives. starting, running, dealing with a dog walking business would take at least a year to be really worth it. And then I'm chained to it, or have to take another year to sell it to someone else or train up a manager. Pleh.

internet is unusually slow here today

I'm working on something to put up here, but I need to wander the interwebs a bit to get all the stuff right, and check that I'm getting names and links and stuff right. So real post will go up sometime later today- after roommates 1 and 2 are done with whatever they're doing that's eating our speed.

Deposit on my Last House is Gone

or: why do landlords feel a need to keep the deposit when you're moving out of state.

Previous landlord finally sent a letter with a list of what he took out of the deposit to my former roommate- I still haven't heard from him. Given that we moved out at the end of january, and it was the 22 of april before she got the letter, I'm not sure what he was up to.

Honestly, a bunch of his "charges" are BS, and a lot of what he's calling damage was normal wear and tear- much of it left by the people before us. Realistically, though, it would cost more to go back out there and fight him over the money than either of us is likely to see from it.

i don't know that i'll get the deposit back from the place I'm in now, either, and it's not even in an habitable state. The kitchen floor is just about ready to fall in, the table is on the spongiest part, and the pier holding the house off the ground is the high point in the floor. If I wanted to i could probably get out of the lease, but I don't know what I'd do instead right now.

In other news, I did not win the lottery and still don't have a job. On a more positive note, If I can get my loans in deferral, and simply kill my credit by not paying my credit cards for a while, I only need to make about 500 a month to stay indoors, fed, and with car insurance and all the comforts of rat shack- I mean home.

I'm slightly disturbed that that's my positive news, but well, sometimes ya just gotta take what you can get.

No more obnoxious self pity

It's boring, I don't like to write it, I don't think anyone likes to read it.

So, positives-

• I have some money in my checking account
• I'm moving in my mind again
• It's hiring season
• I have plenty of food
• I have a (paid for) car, with insurance taken care of until September
• I'm literate
• I'm (usually) coherent

Stuff I did this past week to move toward some goal-

• I wrote, submitted, and was paid $5 for an article
• I outlined three things I can do with no cash to make money
• I made a list of "If I won the lottery" dreams- 28 and growing
• I read a pile of great, motivating books and blogs
• I made 2l of soda last more than 24 hours

Stuff I need to do to keep working on those goals-

• Write, submit, and get paid for more articles- the first is done, it's not that scary
• Make the first moves on my "free" money making ideas
• Grow my dream list to 100 at least
• Organize my dreams according to timeline/cost- can do now/free, can do soon/low cost, can do next year/more cost, need more money/expensive
• Find three things across the blogs and books that I can do, write them down and post them on the wall next to my bed
• Replace the "missing" litre+ of soda each day with water.
• Cut back another half litre, replace it with tea.

So yeah. Goals. And I should be getting my first ever payout from google- I think it's been about 5 years. I have plans for that money, and a goal list that goes with it.

taking a day off money-woe-blogging

be back wednesday

Deadlines swooshing past

They're approaching, and one has already passed. I'm kinda light headed with terror at the moment. I don't like debt, and somewhere in my little hindbrain is the idea that people will come and break my legs if I don't pay all my bills exactly when they're due.

Which of course, they won't- Cc companies and student loan types are much more reasonable than that. They'll just make life very unpleasant for me.

So I need to make sure I get the deferment/ forbearance paperwork out, and that will get one angry monkey out of the room.

Pleh.

Broke

I am broke. Not broken, not really. Just broke. Playing with numbers, I've no idea how I'm going to make my bills this month. Great. No idea when I'm going to get a job. No idea what I'll be making, or how short it will leave me.

In interesting news, my father offered to "invest" in an online venture with me- one where I do all the work and he provides the (seriously minimal) startup funds. And all he wants in exchange? 40% of gross.

Now, 40% of nothing isn't much. But this is a *good* subject, with enough interest that with even sad traffic he'd make back his "investment" in a year to a year and a half.

I don't know. I wouldn't want to do business with anyone without some kind of binding contract, written with real live paper, signed with ink (blood's icky). Business with family has a lot more opportunities to go bad. From his POV, of course, it's great- less than 3 hours income in exchange for either 40% before expenses, or the opportunity to say "I told you so". Win all around.

For me, not so much. I could come up with the money myself, and wait to put up a better designed site later. I could sell plasma until I had enough to do the site right from the start. I could (and need to, actually) subcontract through the 3 hotels in town that allow pets to do dogwalking, and have the money in a week or so. Then I do all the work, get to keep all the money, and avoid potential icky family drama.

I just don't know.

My Problem with Dave Ramsey

Just to be clear from the beginning- I have no personal problems with Dave Ramsey the person. not even with the business, strategy, whatever.

I figured out what's wrong with it for me.

The Dave Ramsey plan is all about taking care of stuff now so you can enjoy... something... eventually... later. And it's a plan.

I think I've covered my propensity for jumping already, right? I am a singularly contrary person. If you tell me that retirement happens at the end of life when I'm old and weak, I say "ha ha, no!" and take off doing something else. Even though I'm doing a "deprivation experiment", I'm not into deferred gratification. Much like the song in Willy Wonka- I want what I want, and I want it NOW!

So the Dave plan doesn't work for me- too much plan, too much wait, too much "later". Why on earth would you want to put off stuff until sometime that probably will never come? That doesn't work with my brain.

I'm working with a couple ideas I've had. Things I've actually been thinking about starting, but was putting off. I'm moving them up, starting them sooner. I think I've shown myself that I can stick with something (even if half-assedly) enough to get it out there. Now I need to start.

So my finances are still crap. I have a couple short term ways i'm working on to take care of that, plans to build something to deal with them mid-term, and a whole life to plan with them off in the hazy future.

I do know, though, that my life is out there, in the world. Not in an office, or store, or this room I type from. It's on a cheap golf course in Peru, or a trail in Pennsylvania, or a blue water sailboat in the middle of the Pacific. Maybe on a cheap sailboat going to a trail in Peru- I'm really not sure. but it's sure as hell not *here*.

What can I say, I'm strange.

Skating The Edge

Sometimes I think I'm focused on the wrong things. I can think and write and talk all I want about making things better, but I'm not doing much.

A couple years ago (ok, I'll be honest- like 5) I had almost no debt. I had one smallish student loan, and that was it. I didn't work more than I had to, took time off when I wanted, could quit and move whenever I liked.

I was the Grand Canyon tourist, safe behind the fence. Then I got a crazy idea. I went away for school, something I could only pay for with student loans and credit cards.

Within 8 months of deciding to go overseas--months before I even left the US--that fence was gone. I became the curious kid on the wrong side of the rope, the cartoon character who just had to get a better angle. I was a drunk giraffe ice skating figure 8's 2 feet from the edge of the world.

I didn't like it very much. I'm standing at the edge now and my balance isn't very good.

Right now, this minute, I'm at the very edge. I'm blindfolded, and my toes are hanging off- I know because I can feel the wind whipping along under them. I have two weeks, maybe, to figure out where I am. Two weeks to crawl back a little, or when I take the blindfold off I'll be Wile E Coyote standing in the middle of a canyon with nowhere to go but down.

I want to be responsible. I *need* to be responsible, pay these bills, pay off the debts I incurred. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that some small part of me wonders- would the world really end if, instead of trying to drag myself back from the edge, I just took a huge step forward and let myself fall?

image by mondi

Running numbers

Starting a business and working only for myself sounds great. I'm sure it sounds great to just about anyone. I mean, who wouldn't want to decide when they work, or for whom? And who doesn't want the freedom to build something the way they want it, then sell or dissolve it when they're ready to move on.

I have just enough accounting coursework under my belt to make the numbers come out. I made a list of projected expenses, and ongoing expenses, and the price of gas, and drew a 15 and a 20 mile radius around my house. Then did the same for a more central, desirable location. I come up with some scary numbers.

I'll be burning almost (at least?) 100 dollars of gas a month, just to get back and forth from the area I want to work in. Everything is so spread out here that I could easily spend as much time going from house to house as walking dogs. And while it might be high, I'm assuming $3 in gas per location, just to get there and away.

And don't even get me started on playing with tax numbers. It's scary.

So if I'm going to do dog walking as a business, and feed myself and live inside, and meet all my financial obligations, I need to walk a whole boatload of dogs.

In order to make more money (or walk more dogs), i need to have them closer together. Cutting out travel time is the single biggest savings I can manage. If I go from needing 10 minutes between each of 8 houses, to needing only 5 minutes to get from one to the next, that's one whole extra walk I have time for, every single day.

I'm also running the calorie numbers. There's a lot of energy burned by walking 10 to 20 miles a day. I'm not sure I could actually manage to find and eat that much. the thought of trying makes my stomach hurt. But I'd rather work for myself than for anyone else.

So that's where I am. I know how much I'd have to make to break even (it's one customer for 1/2 hour walks, 5 days a week, all month). I know how far I live from the people I want to get hired by. I know how fast I walk. Now I just need to get the website up, the name registered, and find a couple customers.

Why is the hard part always next? Some days I really wish I was that girl who was willing (and able) to marry some rich guy and get him to pay off everything I owe. Drat my desire to be in charge of my own life.

Drat, I say.

In which I earn a (very small) bit of money

My father travels for work. He has done this probably most of my life now. For the last year or so, my sister has picked him up and dropped him off at the airport for about $30 a trip. This morning, I got to be the driver.

So I earned $15 in cash, and he knocked $15 off what I owe him. All because my sister wanted to do something else at 4 this morning. And no, she wasn't sleeping, she went on a short road trip.

So yay, I have gas money. And Yay, I now owe my father $15 less. But it really feels like a lame handout.

Super Single Girl Money Saver Number 2- Prepay Cell

I admit, I am not leashed to my phone. I've been known to misplace it for weeks as a time. The only thing I really use it for most of the time is the alarm clock function. But I have one, because, well, everyone does.

It's a cheap phone. It came free with two months' minimum service. The whole deal cost me $30 plus tax. It texts, calls, and alarms. It doesn't surf the web, I can't connect it to my computer, it does not have bluetooth. I don't need any of that. I've never yet had an emergency requiring internet access.

So for $15 a month, I get 150 minutes (incoming and outgoing both charged) or 300 texts (both directions, again), or some combination of the two. Wait, let me say that again, 'cause I don't think it really makes as much of an impact here...

$15 is my monthly cell bill.

I pay another $60 a year for a Skype number, voicemail, and all the stuff that goes with that, plus another $3-5 a month in talk time. Most calls I use Skype for, actually- they only charge for calls I make and the price is pretty reasonable.

So my total monthly phone bill is $25. At least one phone number travels with me everywhere in the world, and I can pick up voicemail from anywhere with internet and a computer.

This wouldn't work as well with a snazzy phone. It wouldn't work as well for my dad, who uses more data transfer in a day than I have in my entire life. The crackberry users would need a different service, but even they might save. There are prepay options that are $45 or so for unlimited use. There are ones for $30 that are close to unlimited. There's one that offers fewer minutes than my service does, for much less a month, but more per minute. And that's just in the US!

Best part is, when my minutes get low, or my "service end" date gets close, I can just not refill. I have a month or two after I run out of "service" to refill before I lose my number. So if I don't have $30, I can just let it slide for a couple days. I'm good right now until the end of May, as long as I can keep my family trained to call my (local) Skype number.

Note- Google wants me to change crackberry to BlackBerry, and actually offers it as a fix- down to capitalization.