How to Make a Million Dollars
I was on vacation, but my money kept working
So I just got back from a nice vacation back home to Mississippi. I visited family and friends, went to my cousin’s wedding, went fishing, and had myself an all-around great time.
Meanwhile, my passive income projects kept plugging away, unconcerned with my absence. In fact, earnings from Renewable Wealth had a big jump — so big that I almost couldn’t believe the totals when I added them up. I had to re-check the figures two or three times to be sure.
During my month off, my stake more than tripled, to $210.10! It all came from advertising earnings from this site and RenewableWealth.com — 100% passive income. My humble little dime has been multiplied precisely 2100 times, in just a few short months.
My stake is starting to grow to the point where it’s time to consider opening a separate bank account for it, so that I can add interest to my collection of income streams. It will also serve to help keep up the barrier between my stake and all my other finances. I know that as the stake starts to grow, it will be more and more tempting to dip into it for one reason or another. Better to separate it completely, and keep it working toward my goal.
I’ll be posting the latest complete accounting of advertising earnings in the reports section soon, so you can see how revenues have slowly crept up as more people have found my sites.
In the meantime, have you started the game, yet? If not, there’s no better day than today.
New Forums, and Some Resources for Getting Started with Passive Income
Good news: I have just added forums to the site. I’m hoping they will encourage folks to give the game a try themselves, and share their experiences. We can learn a lot more about achieving financial independence together than any of us could alone.
I have kicked things off with a post of some resources for folks who are just getting started with passive income online. These are free or very cheap resources to help you get going on a tiny budget.
I’ve also set up a revenue sharing program for the forums. You might have seen similar programs on sites like Digital Point. In brief, you’ll be able to earn a share of ad revenue from the forums just by posting there. It’s a great way to start your stake for the Million Dollar Dime game — and there’s no need to hunt for change in the street. All you need to do is join the conversation.
I hope to see you all there.
Hobbies that Make You Richer
If you’re like me, your spare time is precious and in short supply. We all know that there are only so many hours in the day, and there’s never enough time to do everything we want to do. So, every day, we must make choices. But even the most insignificant seeming choice can have a major effect on your wealth.
When it Come to Building Wealth, Every Choice Matters
Think over all the various activities and hobbies you love. Chances are that some of those activities make you poorer, while others actually make you richer, whether you know it or not! Here’s a brief sampling of hobbies than can help you grow wealth:
- Gardening - Growing a vegetable patch, an herb garden, or some fruit trees is fun and relaxing, and will also save you money on your grocery bills.
- Exercise - Pick your favorite kind. The health benefits cannot be overstated, and they will save you enormous sums in medical expenses over the course of your lifetime.
- Fishing - Catch a free dinner from time to time. I’ve recently taken up crabbing, myself. There’s nothing like homemade bisque, especially when you caught the crabs yourself!
- Crafts - Make your own furniture, drapes, blankets, quilts, or anything else you enjoy making. You’ll save a bunch of money, and love the stuff you make far more than anything bought in a store.
- Blogging - Most any blog with a decent readership can earn at least a little income from ad placement.
- Hiking - pick up a book on edible plants
and harvest some free food while you’re out in the field.
- Brewing - If you’re a beer lover like I am, make your own.
- Cooking - Cooking is very relaxing, and home-cooked meals are almost always cheaper than prepared foods or restaurant fare.
- Online Poker - It can be very profitable if you’re good.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Chances are you can think of many other fun things to do, that don’t feel “financial” at all, that nevertheless make you wealthier in your pocketbook as well as your soul.
Now here’s a sampling of activities that make you poorer:
- Video games - They cost money and eat up precious time. (This one is a personal weakness of mine. I am working on giving them up.)
- TV - There was a great article published recently called How to Earn a Million Dollars by Not Watching TV. Tell your cable company to shove it, and throw your TV in the trash where it belongs.
- Movie Rentals - They may be cheap, but they’re not free, and take up a lot of time.
- Eating Out - Expensive and unhealthy.
- Online Poker - Very expensive if you don’t have the skills or discipline.
Now I’m not saying you should give up every single activity that you love that also costs money. But it comes down to this — when faced with a choice about how to spend your limited free time, why not give preference to your hobbies that actually make you richer? You’ll still be doing what you love, while taking one more step on your path to personal financial freedom.
How to Create Passive Income Online
As you’ve no doubt noticed, passive income is a major part of my wealth building strategy. Passive income in general is one of the best forms of leverage available, especially for someone with limited resources to start with. Online passive income is where the real magic is, however, as the potential for leverage is all but unlimited.
Creating Passive Income Online
Many people think that to build wealth online, you need strong technical acumen, along with serious marketing skills, and you need to build up a huge site that gets millions of visitors. The truth is that none of these is necessary, and shooting for massive traffic is rarely the right decision, at least at the outset. I prefer a different approach.
The early stages of the game are all about thinking small. That’s a good thing - it’s easier to have confidence in yourself and stick with it when your goals are modest. However, I personally believe that the entire game can be played by thinking small. In fact, that’s precisely what I intend to do.
How to Get Rich Off Pennies
I’m sure you’ve seen about a million ads and sites proclaiming near-instant wealth online. Most any regular Internet denizen has to be pretty jaded at this point. But set aside all that breathless marketing language about making millions overnight. Instead, ask yourself this: Do you think you can make a site that earns $1 per day, on average?
That seems attainable, right? You don’t need a lot of traffic to reach that goal. A few tens of visitors a day will often be sufficient to earn that much from Adsense. If you do affiliate promotion, you may need even less.
The truth is that most anyone can build a site in a day or two that will likely end up bringing in $1 a day in revenue. All that is required is for you learn a few simple techniques and put them into action. (More details on these soon.)
The Magic of the Passive Income Business
So if you can make a single $1-per-day site in a day or two, what’s there to stop you from making a hundred? Answer: Nothing at all. Just repeat the process a hundred times. It may take several months, but so what? If you own a hundred of these sites, you’ll be pulling in $100 a day, which is a passive income of $36,500. Who couldn’t use that?
And of course if you can make one hundred, then why not three hundred? This may take a couple of years, but again, so what? $300 a day equates to over $110,000 a year. Imagine if you earned a six-figure passive income online. Imagine the freedom and independence that would bring.
You may now begin to see the seeds of my plan to earn a million dollars . Build a site, collect the income, and reinvest it in more sites. My first is already up, and I have the funds for at least two more. The snowball is rolling…
So why isn’t your first site up yet?
The Ten-Cent Media Empire
So my stake has grown to a healthy $37.89, which is just itching to be reinvested. What next? As you surely have surmised by now, I’m a fan of passive income . It’s time to create more.
We’re Buying Ourselves Out
As you may have noticed, this site has ads on it. However, I didn’t count any earnings toward my stake before now, because I paid for the domain out of my personal funds. That’s all about to change, though. Now that my stake has grown large enough, I’m going to pay myself back the purchase price of this domain out of my stake. Henceforth, any ad revenues from this site will go straight into the stake to keep it growing.
This will also serve as motivation to give the design of this site a much-needed overhaul. At present, the layout is not at all conducive to producing revenue, and is very poor in terms of search engine optimization. I’ve learned a lot in recent months about both topics, and will be putting these lessons into action here. Once the changes are made, I’ll write about what I did and why.
When Time is the Bottleneck
While running a little niche site is a great way to earn a little extra cash, the fact is that there is only so much I can write myself before I run out of time. If your income is limited by the amount of time you personally spend on your business, you don’t have a real business, you have a job. No one gets rich working at a job. If I am to reach my goal, I need a way to get past this limitation.
Be the One Who Writes the Check, Not the One Who Cashes It
It’s well known that employees don’t get rich, employers do. It’s time to bring in some outside help. Of course, $37.89 won’t pay for too many man-hours, so a different approach is needed. I’ve therefore chosen to look for partners, rather than employees.
The Plan
Here’s the notion: I’ll put up a network of niche content sites and blogs. I’ll work with writers who will produce the content. I will handle all the technical details, pay for domains and any other expenses out of my stake, and help market the sites and build traffic. I’ll split revenues with the writers 50/50.
The remainder of my stake should serve to pay the startup costs for two or three new sites. All I need to do is find writers. I’ve put up an ad on Craig’s List, and gotten a lot of interest, so it looks like it won’t be long before I can put the plan in action.
By the Way
If you like writing and are interested in partnering with me on a project, feel free to contact me at 
. It can be a great way to build a starting stake for the game, as you can start literally from zero. You don’t even have to find a dime in the street! Further, since you’ll be a co-owner of the business, you won’t be violating Rule 8.
Until next time!