Project Mojave Blog - Latest Comments in The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Greg Gardner — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:32:29 -0000

I listened to the podcast on PC and have been reading your blog for a while. I've been a student of personal development for 20+ years. What a refreshing and liberating perspective!

My wife and I have been baselining and taking small steps to decrease our "stuffprint" -- (I just made that up!!)

I work for a Fortune 500 company but I have to tell you that the Life Design idea has not gone unnoticed by them. It seems that allowing employees to create their own reality makes sense for them as well. I now work from home and have almost total control over my schedule.

Because of that transition I've had the space to share my own voice on certain issues. Sufficed to say that I appreciate your voice. You've helped me and my family.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Jake @ Silver Coins — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:35:30 -0000

great post. everyone should have various sources of income

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Blake@YoungDough — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:11:54 -0000

Oops, sorry about the last comment! Had several posts of yours open at once and wrote in the wrong tab!

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Blake@YoungDough — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:04:50 -0000

This was a much-needed jolt to get me back on track! Have you heard of the song 'Real World' by Matchbox 20? It reminds me of this so much, since the real world seems to put up a good fight as we try to escape, but it's completely worth it.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

resonanteye — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:34:12 -0000

had to subscribe; this was helpful as f^ck. Nice to finally have a name for what I've been doing all these years.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Chris Kirk — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:17:00 -0000

Thanks for the post, man. My wife and I just walked through your post here as a framework for discussing an impending life change. Very helpful.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Lila — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:56:04 -0000

In 2000 I had a baby at the age of about 30. I had a pretty solid career in a very specialized IT related field. Luckily my boss let me go to very part time, but about 3 1/2 years later (and a couple of years into a second baby) we suddenly parted ways. I panicked for about a month, but amazingly work just started coming to me. 5 years later, it still just comes to me (knock on wood). I've been able to stay at home the entire time and keep the outsourcing of motherhood to a bare minimum (an average of less than 18 hours a week since their birth) Although they do go to school now, I'm able to pick them up and help them with their homework before they run outside to play with their friends.

Just about the time I start panicking that a current consulting job is about over, someone else calls. I have a dozen projects I'd love to do (including advertising my consulting "shingle" and blogging) but haven't been able to swing it yet.

When people ask me what I do for a living I can never really say because I do so many different things so I've made up some line about computer consulting.

If it hadn't been for the sudden change in employment I don't think I would've had the nerve to jump off of that bridge, but I'm very glad I did. Now if I can just figure out a way to make the money come in automatically so I can do more traveling... I'll have to read part two!!!

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

The Financial Philosopher — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:24:25 -0000

I'll provide testimony that starting your own business or a new career with children is quite possible. I started my own business two years ago with two young children and a stay-at-home wife...

The only financial advantage I had was equity in my home (but not a large amount) to finance the business.

For me, the ability to make the change came from a combination of frustration with constantly hitting dead-ends and glass ceilings working for "the man" and an attitude that money is abundant. In my first year of business, I gave money to charity even though I was not profitable; my wife and I never changed our lifestyle; I continued my masters program; I started a blog; and the newfound freedom opened new doors as my creativity exploded.

Now I see that the possibilities are only limited by my imagination...

My advice to others is that "being responsible" can actually be counter-productive and the quest for discovery is limited without adding adventure to our responsibility...

"We have to recognise accident, i.e., the fact that there is no formula, no 'principle', which covers all things; that there is no totality or system of things. And this recognition at once supports a life of 'responsibility and adventure' and leads to scientific discovery." ~ John Anderson

Great post...

Kent (The Financial Philosopher)

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Clay Collins — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:34:04 -0000

@Kenny: Thank you so much for this very thoughtful comment. I'll go ahead and email you offline.

--Clay

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Kenny — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:39:27 -0000

I've tried to consistently read productivity blogs for over a year now and just can't seem to do it. And though it's difficult for me to do anything consistently, I've found myself coming back The Growing Life and listening to the Precision Change Podcast in my car on the way to work (on a burnt CD, because I'm too poor to buy and iPod).

So, now that that unrelated to the post part of the comment is over, I really enjoyed this post though there is one theme I find that always places me outside the scope of the productivity circles... it always seems that everyone is employed, and makes a decent income at an office type job and they're trying to get out of that. However, I have a shitty job, working at a security monitoring company (I don't get a flashlight) making barely enough to get by (my fault entirely).

I do, however, have a plan, and I've been studying and implementing many ways to make money online and I believe I've come to a point where I can make enough to quit my job (which would make me freaking amazingly happy in just that).

So, I'm just going to lay it all out there. I'm in moderate debt, make about 23k a year and I have very few expenses (the biggest one is my debt). I hate my job and feel like I work and sit around and work and sit around... etc. I'm very inconsistent but I've seen results from very small amount of work online. I know if I worked online (which I love) I could make enough money to support myself.

This is probably a stupid question that only I can answer, but hey, it's good to hear what other people have to say.

Should I quit my job and just work my ass off on my online business...

Or, should I keep my job and try to work my ass off simultaneously to make enough money to quit (which I've been trying to do for years).

This comment is way longer than I expected. Sorry. And thanks for the post.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Clay Collins — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:42:47 -0000

@Jared and @Adam

I agree about tangential careers, but I believe that one can build an income snowball while doing a number of things that are clustered around your ideal career path.

My long-term goals are very tied up with the internet, so I'm not building websites, doing social media and SEO consulting, and writing ebooks just to make an income.

It's also worth nothing that you can create business relationships that don't demand 2+ years of commitment. Unless they hire me, I don't think ANY of my clients would feel mislead if I can't continue my services on a consistent basis for the next two years.

So, in summary, I think it's possible to (1) create an income snowball that's clustered around a core of relates talents and passions, and (2) manage the expectations of your clients so that no one misunderstands what you are offering.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Jared Goralnick — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:16:13 -0000

Interesting post, Clay. We all need a little kick in the butt to pursue things that will allow really help us to develop perspective and make the most of life.

Let me be the contrarian and just point out that the debt snowball is a very personal and passive endeavor--regardless of what you pay off, it just affects your own financial situation and nothing else. On the other hand, the "income snowball" is actually a pretty big deal in that taking on new lines of work really affects those around you, people's perceptions of you, the amount of commitments you have, your existing financials, etc etc.

I like your approach of suggesting "start with the easy stuff and hang a shingle," but there's a greater commitment to taking on a tangential career path than choosing which debts you pay off first. Some streams of income are no-big-deal and others may become beasts of a job. I just want to offer the caveat that when figuring out which new jobs are most accessible that one should also consider what the long term implications are. (I know long term is anathema to "quitting things and flakiness" but I also recognize your readers don't want to leave their new customers hanging.) Sometimes that might lead to choosing a number slightly higher up the list...or a different path entirely.

There I go being the traditional boring guy. Just food for thought : ).

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Laurie — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:45:18 -0000

My new business is a part of my dreamlining. Hopefully it will pay the bills once we get it kicked off!

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Louise Pool — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:20:36 -0000

Another great article. Love the idea of dreamlining. I've been doing it intuitively for many years now, but I think I'll actually make a list and see what more comes up.

And yes, it's definitely possible to live a free life with kids. I have two and, without having a great income, even managed to get the "required" game console, cellphones, etc. This whilst moving countries on a "whim", etc. We're a very loving, if unconventional, family and my kids are now happy teenagers, drug and addiction free.

I'm really looking forward to Project Liberation. Sounds right up my street.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Daniel Richard | WE — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:06:16 -0000

Guess what... This is a very do-able goal. Loved how you come up with interesting concepts and terms used such as the "entrepreneurial rabbit hole", to "project liberation" and now "income snowball (to making trillions on the Internet)"!

Let's start with the snowballing effect first shall we. :)

Daniel
http://winningeveryone.com

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

chris — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:33:07 -0000

This is why I like you. One day you are into very philosophical stuff the next day you hit it with something very tangible and pragmatic.

I love the income snowball stuff and I'm very anxious to hear about the top secret stuff.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Duff McDuffee — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:26:33 -0000

I love the baselining and income snowball concepts, especially put together.

I actually just ran the minimum numbers in a sloppy way that I need and it's far less than what my "goal" has been. In fact it seems very, very doable, and very soon. Cool!

Keep on rockin' the excellent posts.

~Duff

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

J. David Fox — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:04:23 -0000

Good article, Clay! I think the income snowball concept is exactly what I've been trying to figure out, it really helped to hear it articulated this way. Over the past year I keep coming up with business ideas, but they're usually BIG ideas that are designed to equal the income of my current job (and it's taken me about 7 years to get to this income level). As a result, I keep getting overwhelmed by the sheer SIZE of my plans, and guess what...I never launch anything.

I'm currently trying to strip it down to the basics, and start focusing on stuff I can do easily now, and most importantly, stuff that I feel passionate about. I've got over a page of topics written down for the blog I'm getting ready to launch, and several articles already through the first draft phase. I'm heading out for a camping trip all next week; I plan to seriously de-stress and re-focus, read a few books, and draft out more articles in a notebook. When I get back, I'm gonna launch that puppy whether or not all the details are ironed out.

I think once I finally take a first step, no mater how small, I'll get rolling...

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Katie — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:57:54 -0000

I love the idea of dreamlining. Only recently have I started to take up the challenge of widening my perspective to include what I would love to do, along with what I'm told I can do. Part of this has been paying attention to opportunities for win/win situations, like creating certain things for gifts that other people show interest in buying. I've also been working on creating a clear plan for myself to get up to Maine and build my own home and grow my own food. Exciting stuff, and the baselining idea helps to get things distilled to a point where I can decide what I need versus what I feel attached to from habit. Thanks again for a great post. Nice work with the Thoreau quote to start off with, I've been reading Walden lately, which is inspiring in many ways. One of my current favorite quotes from him:

"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour."

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

vered — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:24:21 -0000

Dying to know what the top-secret stuff is.

I think your plan makes a lot of sense.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Maria - Never the Same River T — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:37:36 -0000

Great concepts, Clay. I recently worked out a baseline "survival" income for myself - just enough to keep me fed, housed and healthy. It is a *lot* less than I expected and an amount I could easily make steaming milk at Starbucks for 20 hours a week. That's pretty liberating to know. It takes away a lot of the fear that I was feeling about moving on from my current position.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Laurie | Your Ill-fitting Over — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:44:18 -0000

As for the kid argument, my parents raised two kids on a combined income of less than $40k a year. The time period was 1982-current (my brother and I are eight years apart).

My brother and I are both awesome (if I do say so myself), well-adjusted, and have a great relationship with our parents. We both had happy childhoods filled with family vacations (fishing trips to the beach near home and yearly road trips to our grandparents' home in North Carolina), parties (low-budget affairs in our living room), and lots of love.

I think parents should worry less about lavishing their kids with game consoles and more about being around for dance recitals and homework help.
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Response:
Awesome story. (In case anyone's wondering, Laurie really is awesome).

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Charlie Gilkey | Productive Fl — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:24:33 -0000

It's been awhile since I commented - but I had to write to say that I liked this post a lot. My gut lies sometimes with the "that's great...but how" camp, but I've more or less got over that since I'm doing the "how" now.

What kills me about us two is that we're doing similar things independently - kind of like Newton and Liebniz. I started my income snowball a few months ago, and I know have a legal business shell that's covering my streams. The name of the shell: Creative Liberations, LLC. So when you wrote about Project Liberation - I thought, huh, that's interesting.

Too much Tim for us, I guess.
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Response:
Wow. That's some insane synchronicity. Must be in the zeitgeist. :-)
Great post, Clay.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

Clay Collins — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:49:53 -0000

@Jarrod: Cool. I wish that I did this stuff intuitively like you. Alas, I don't.

Re: The Income Snowball & Funding Your Freedom: A Four-Part Guide

@Stephen Productivity in Cont — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:41:26 -0000

Clay, we *really* need to get back to those weekly phone calls.