I Guess You Could Call This My Introductory Post!

For a long time I've thought about putting together a site focused on financial independence, blogging, online marketing, and the relationship between finances, (anti)consumerism, and self-improvement, and basically living a FREE life where you don't have to slave away for someone else to earn a living.

And now, finally, I decided to take the plunge & put my ideas and experience out there! So far, it's fun. :)

I love thinking about money, planning finances and playing with financial figures, studying financial independence and how to get there... and I love to write about all these things, so it's only natural to extend this to the blogging world.

And hopefully along the way you and me both get to learn a few things or two. ;)

I started blogging online over a year ago. Shortly after that, I decided to monetize that first blog with ads related to the content. At first the results were extremely promising - over $100 in the second month from my one and only affiliate partner - but then, after that, the site didn't earn any more than this figure in any single month (until now), and the results were all over the map every month after. (Average income was about $40 a month from May 2007 to April 2008.)

I've learned a lot since then but one thing I haven't learned (yet) is still how to predict how much money will be generated month to month. It's pretty tricky!

But the most important thing I've learned is to diversify - for the last year all my online income has been generated from a single blog.

I've taken much time and work to change that, and currently, including this site, I now have 5 different websites that can all generate streams of income. (Which isn't that many - I see other bloggers making money online who state they have over 50 websites, all pimped out with Google Adsense, making them hundreds or thousands a month. Nice.)

Just last month I launched 3 additional sites (this one would be the 4rth site.) I have 1 additional site I am working on with a launch date of August 27, 2008. (I leave for a 2 week trip out west that day, so I figure it's a good deadline, eh? :) )

With these new sites, I'm changing my focus from content intensive blogs that must be updated continually to niche websites that target a specific topic related to my blog, and which lend themselves to targeted affiliate partner advertising. My belief is that having several "resource sites" versus blogs will be a better way to make money online for the following reasons:

1) These sites target a specific need in a niche topic or community. The information present on them has not been presented in this form before. Therefore, it's fulfilling a need that's not been met.

2) Once these resource sites are set up, they require infrequent updates. Whereas blogging, on the other hand, requires constant attention. Since time is a finite resource, this is a biggie for me.

3) I believe that if you put high quality content out there for a niche subject in which people want the information for, for a subject that lends itself to affiliate partner advertising, then you will make money. I guess that is the bottom line to all this and this is what I'm hedging my bets on.

Time will tell.

In the meantime, I am feeling more dedicated than ever to figuring out how to make a living without a "normal job", and by that, I mean a job where you have a boss, co-workers, cubicles, a commute, and a 40 hour work week.

Fuck that! I want my life to be mine, ya know?