The lifestyle design community tends to think about lifestyle design as something that involves working online. I personally am working towards supporting myself by working online, as are all the bloggers I know.
In “real life” however, I rarely meet people who actually earn a living online. For example, in Mexico we’ve met dozens of people who aren’t rich or retired and who live down here for 3-6 months each year. None of those people earn a living online. I’ve written about many of them and their unconventional lifestyles before.
I would love to find out from all of you whether your lifestyle design is funded (or will be funded) by online or offline income. If you have a second, please answer the poll below. If you have details you’d like to share in addition to your answer, you can also leave a comment.
Please answer twice, once for how you CURRENTLY earn a living, and once for how you PLAN TO earn a living.
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20 comments add your own
Currently funded offline but will be graduating in May so hopefully I can be funded online by end of May. Definitely do not want to go into the grind it out 9 to 5 and am chronicling this journey on my blog.
If I am not funded fully online by end of May then I will resort to hopefully my own offline work instead of working for others. We’ll see.
Thanks for sharing, Tanner. It sounds like an interesting journey. Good luck!
I’m graduating soon too.. so hopefully not my entire income will be only online, like it is now.
I’d love to have both.
What makes you want to have both income sources?
Aren’t two streams of income better than 1?
I’d love to have something passive, while working on something I’m passionate about during the day.
We’re fairly new to the scene and are a bit different in our approach, which is a hybrid between lifestyle design and practical personal finance. We’re both 24 and each worked stereotypically “good” corporate jobs for a couple of years, saving up to fund a few years of lifestyle design. During those years (which started last week!) we will be traveling, trying out new experiences, and diving head-first into the start-up world.
Sounds like you have it all figured out, Jay! I really like the “practical personal finance” aspect of what you’re doing. I’m a big fan myself. Congrats on being able to save up enough to fund a few years. That’s a big accomplishment.
Prior to going full time nomadic, I already had a small software development business. It’s partly online, partly offline. My nomadic travels are still funded by a combination of both. I like the variety of working online/remotely and diving in deep onsite for short term.
I think it’s nice to get things going online before becoming a full time nomad. There are fewer distractions that way. Although living the lifestyle you want to for a little while is a great incentive.
Currently, I’m funded offline through teaching English part time here in China.
In July when I move back to New Zealand, I will start an online business serving the city I’ll live in. However, that will require me also going out and meeting customers face to face.
Sounds like a nice mix, Gordie. Hopefully it will also allow you sufficient time to travel.
We have saved up over the last few years from offline work to start our travels in October, and since we’re selling our house and everything else we’ll have a pretty good incentive to earn our living online.
We recently started a small Wordpress website development business and I’m doing some small biz consulting and writing, and based on our projections it will supplement our savings enough to stay gone long-term.
Sounds awesome, Betsy! Congrats on your upcoming travels. Where is your first stop?
I earn 100% of my income totally online. I made about $33,000 in 2009 from 2 wordpress-powered websites. I was able to travel the world (Argentina for 8.5 months, Uruguay for a bit, Rome for a bit), etc.. It was great. Hopefully this year I’ll make around $50,000+. I’m looking forward to getting back into South America — this time, Uruguay — really soon! To continue improving my Castellano. I love this way of life, SO MUCH, that I recently began sharing my life with people via youtube videos. Thanks for providing such an awesome website and please continue to live as happily and freely as you currently are. Good stuff!
Blessings,
David Askaripour
Mind Petals
That’s fantastic, David. Care to share any more details about your sites and how you generate income?
Here’s the thing.. I don’t have much traffic at all on any of my sites. On my environmental / Nature site… there’s about 100 (at most) unique visitors per day. On my health site, there’s, on average 500 or so unique visitors per day (which isn’t that bad, actually…
).
Here’s the secret: RELATIONSHIPS. You need to build relationships with companies that can offer you Direct Sponsorship on your site. Which means, they pay you X amount of dollars per month because you have certain content (pages, really), that are specific to their product — I’m sure you know all this, already. But, my friend, this is exactly how I made the 30k. Through building relationships. Sure, I made about 2k from Google and another 2K from other little “sponsored link” services… but the bulk came from the relationships I formed.
And, of course, I used various forms of social media to help market each new piece of content… that’s a MUST for long term success on the Net.
For me, it had a lot to do with leveraging the current content on my sites by building strategic relationships with “people.” Once that happens, then those “people” who also have websites, pay you for sponsorship. Most people tend to rely too much on forming relationships with “websites” and “programs” and “services” …. all the while, forgetting about what TRULY matters — connecting with real people.
Hope this helped,
Dave
Wow, sounds awesome Dave! Good luck hitting to 50k mark this year!
Thanks a lot — I KNOW that I will
I wish you all the success and happiness in the world, Jay.
I currently make all my money offline – but am working on earning extra income online. The major way I am currently making passive income is through rental properties (offline). I am planning on that being where I get most of my passive income.
I am a hybrid. I have a offline job. I have spent the past year teaching/coaching my management that I can do remotely (online), from wherever an internet connection exists. Since we use IP phones at work I have even configured my laptop to ring when my desk phone rings. Half the time at work, I use my laptop headset to communicate on the phone. I do this to coach all those who swing by my desk, how efficiently I can be location independent.
Although I am pursuing traditional (odd use of this word within the context of lifestyle design) online incomes in my spare time (blogs, ebooks, etc), I have spent 14 weeks out of the office in the past year ‘working’ my offline job online from various places I wanted to be (other than the city I work and live in Toronto); New York, Seattle, Hawaii, Calgary, Vancouver. I have not spent more than two weeks out of the offline office at any one go yet, but I plan to take a month somewhere in the fall. My personal goal is to eventually spend 1 month in 4 travelling/learning/experimenting. Between now and my one month trip in the fall I plan to ditch the office for 3 two week tours in the next 5 months. I also work from home at least one day a week when I am in town.
Life style design is about living life on your own terms, not anyone else’s. In my current version of lifestyle design I have an offline job that I do online. I think there is a great fear that 9-5 is nothing but sole crushing, but trust me when I say this; working a 9-5 gig from a laptop on a beach in Hawaii is not so bad.
I like having an address, I like having a home where I have my stuff. I lived 8 months on the road working another offline job online; effectively being the highest paid homeless person I have ever herd off. I liked it for a while but in the end when the economy tuned south and that job evaporated I was happy to sprout some roots and get an address again and stop living out of a duffel bag. My point is that lifestyle design does not have to be all about the eventual success of an online business. Successful lifestyle design is when your living your life on your terms, no mater what those terms are.