passivestreamsofincome

I spend all day in front of a computer screen at work. To be honest with you, when I come home I do not want to waste time doing things that will not contribute to my passive income streams. There was a time when I would spend hours simply reading blogs, posting comments and doing work that did not add to my profitability. Lately I have been wondering how to increase my efficiency, and hopefully my effectiveness, when it comes to my online work.

At my day job, I plan every detail of my day. I have lists that tell me when I have meetings, when I am free for lunch, what has to get done today…this week….this month. The main thing is that I have a system that I use that helps me stay focused and get more work done. When it comes to my online work, I do not really have anything that keeps me focused. As a result, I tend to waste more time that I would like.

As such, starting in January, I will be creating daily, weekly and monthly goals. I will post these weekly and monthly goals at the start of every week, so that hopefully you can hold me accountable. I will go on record today as saying that I want to make $500 per month online. I think this is a realistic goal, since I am currently at a lot lower amount. $1,000 may be a tad out of my reach this year, but by 2010, even that should be achievable.

Wouldn’t it be exciting to watch someone learn how to make money online… step-by-step? I have always wondered how people make money online. There are literally thousands of ways to do so, but how do you make money? How do you promote your affiliate products?How do you find ideas for eHow articles (or Bukisa)? Do you do the whole pay-for-post thing? Drop me a comment. I will take a few of the best ideas and see if I can make any money from it from scratch.

I did not do much in the way of internet marketing today. In fact, I did nothing to increase my passive income streams. No…Today was spent going to church, hanging with my family, watching the Bucs crush my playoff dreams and messing around with my wife’s Wii Fit. I did spend around 10 minutes dropping my entrecard off on the people who had dropped on me over the past few days. That should continue to send a few new visitors here over the course of the next week.

I am basically recharging my batteries so that I can hit the new year running. I have outlined numerous ideas that have been floating through my head. Additionally, I have created the skeleton for about 25 new eHow articles that I plan on completing during the first few weeks of 2009. I have let Bukisa fall to side for the time being, as I plan on utilizing the time I would have spent on it, creating posts for passive streams of income. I have found 3 products that I plan on basing my bum marketing experiment around. These 3 product are in completely different niches and have completely different price points. I want to analyze as many different variables as possible to determine what works and was does not. I will be using one “pen name” for all three projects, as I already have too many user names and passwords to comfortably remember.

Creating passive income streams takes plenty of hard work and effort. What most people fail to recognize is that it also takes a fair amount of planning. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Have you plannedyour plan of attack for 2009? If not, it is time to get cracking!

I have many older oak and pine trees in my yard. During the summer, they provide a tremendous amount of shade. During the winter, they cause me a tremendous amount of work.

Today I spent over four hours blowing and raking the leafs off my grass. As the mind-numbing hours slowly ticked away, I could not help but wonder if I should have just paid someone to do it for me. Could I have created a new passive income stream in the four hours I wasted outside? Could I have written 10 articles on eHow or Bukisa? Could I have written a few articles to submit to ezinearticles or goarticles?

What should I have done?

My wife always tells me that I need some balance in my life. I work really hard Monday through Friday at my day job. I spend a few hours chasing my son around the sofa and playing with Thomas the Tank Engine, then I hang out with my best friend for a few hours before bed. So maybe spending a few hours outside wasn’t such a bad thing.

As this blog is only 5 days old, I have decided to add the Entrecard widget to generate some traffic. I realize that most people will simply “drop-and-run”, but perhaps a few people will stick around. Additionally, I have begun posting comments on “do-follow” blogs to help build my page-rank. I do not anticipate seeing a difference in my traffic levels for a few more months. Do not worry though, I am not going anywhere!

In 2009, I plan on performing a few article marketing experiments, creating additional articles for eHow and Bukisa and writing for passive streams everyday. I am extremely excited about what my passive streams of income will look like next December.

I have, however, been so focused on my “writing” streams that I have basically ignored any of form of passive income. I will correct this going forward. The goal is to generate income without putting in any additional effort, which does not define writing. I need to set up a few streams that continue to make money for me while I sleep.

I wanted to take a few minutes and send a special Merry Christmas shout-out to some of my new friends, and their really good sites. I have been spending a tremendous amount of time reading, and learning, from these brilliant writers. If you are looking for quality articles on generating passive income streams, saving money, or learning to invest you really should check out these sites.

Passive Family Income - This site is the direction I want for my family of blogs. When you read PFI, you feel as though you are part of their world. The articles are of extremely high quality and relevant to my interests. If you are looking at some alternative methods of generating passive income, check out passive family income.

Smart Passive Income - This guy is brilliant. Smart, funny, thought provoking… Additionally, this dude lives the dream. He has figured out a way to do what most of us just talk about. If you are looking for inspiration and quality advise, check out SPI.

Experimental Blogging - Of course, I had to plug one of my own blogs. Here you can find some of the numerous methods I am using to generate passive income. My overall goal is to make $1,000 per month from the internet. Go check it out and watch my progress as I make money writing articles. You can find some of the secrets I use HERE .

Article marketing is not a new method. It is not some sexy technique that is guaranteed to make you massive amounts of cash within 30 days. It can take hours of hard work and effort to complete one simple campaign. Even after all of your work, you may not even make a dime. So why bother?

The main reason to try article marketing is because it has been proven to work. Even more importantly, it is FREE. The only thing you have to invest is your time; which may or may not be valuable to you. I treat this as more of a hobby than a job, and I really enjoy writing articles. If you hate writing, or place a high value on your free time, article marketing may not be for you. In order to clarify the benefits that I see in article marketing, I have created the following list of the top reasons to try an article marketing experiment.

1. No out-of-pocket expenses are required - If you do not make any money, all you are out is your time.

2. No inventory is required - Head over to clickbank or paydotcom and you will find hundreds of thousands of products available for you to sell. You never have to worry about inventory levels, obsolescence issues, or shrinkage. Simply pick a product you believe in and start writing articles.

3. No time limit - If you have a limited amount of free time to work on your promotion, you can create articles on a part-time basis. If you have a few minutes each week to devote to writing new articles, then you can create a successful campaign. You do not need 40 hours a week. Just write when you can.

4. Various methods are available - There are so many different methods you can use when creating your article marketing experiment. Over the next few days, I will be discussing one method that I have been using with pretty decent results. If you are consistent, with whatever approach you take, you can make money writing articles.

5. Making sales - I have to be honest with you. The first time I opened up my clickbank account and saw that I had made a sale, I danced around the room like an idiot. Who would have thought I would be so happy after one sale? Let me warn you, article marketing can be addicting.

When I first began learning the art of article marketing, I ran across this “Bum” named Travis. This guy really has it figured out. While many people were utilizing article marketing to promote their affiliate products, Travis put the practice down on paper and shared it with the world. Basically, he called it bum marketing because he figured that this method was so simple that he could teach a bum off the street, who had no money and no computer, how to effectively create his own passive income stream within 30 days.

I must admit I was extremely interested in learning how to use article marketing but I never really put any effort into it. Per Travis’ advice, I created a few ads on USFreeads and forgot about it. I upgraded to the premium membership. I figured would be well worth the effort if I made any sales and because it allowed me to publish an unlimited number of ads at once. To determine if bum marketing would work on USFreeads, I only submitted ads for this particular affiliate product only. I did not want to create numerous clickbank accounts (that is too difficult to keep up with).

About three weeks later, I logged into my clickbank account and found, much to my surprise, that I had actually made a sale. The commission was around $30, which basically paid for 3 months on USFreeads. Amazing! I guess article marketing can actually work with a little effort.

Over the past few weeks, I have been writing at least five articles a day. Most of them were submitted to eHow, as I am trying to reach my goal of 100 articles by the end of December. I submitted four articles to Bukisa and I submitted two articles to Ezinearticles. Unlike eHow and Bukisa, it usually takes around seven days to get an article approved on EZA.

Today I took the day off from writing articles and finished what I had left for my CPA exam. I actually passed the exam last July but I have been putting off taking the ethics portion since it is so long (and boring). It is not difficult, just extremely technical. I find it humerous that the ethics portion of a major professional exam only has about 10 questions that deal directly with ethics. The remaining 80 questions deal with independence issues with respects to public companies. I am so glad that this is over with.

I cannot wait to hang my CPA license on my office wall. Of all of the professional accomplishments that I have achieved over the past few years, I am most proud of this one.

I am constantly amazed at the creativity of some people in this world. Where some people may see something as a waste of time and effort, others see it as an opportunity. Until recently, I was one of those individuals who did not truly understand the power of passive income.

I am limited to the number of hours I can work in a day. Basically the formula is pretty simple:

Hours Worked x Wages = Possible Income

Since I absolutely refuse to reduce the amount of time I spend with my family, I need a way of generating income, even when I am not working. As such, I have begun to explore various ways to earn extra money online. In addition to starting this blog on Today dot com, I am also writing for eHow and Bukisa. It is my intention to publish at least one article on each site every day (with the focus being on Today dot com). Each article published should continue to generate residual income month after month after month. This will allow me to expland my income formula as such:

(Hours Worked x Wages) + (Articles Written x Residual Earnings) = More Income Than I have Now

This should be an interesting journey. Check back with me tomorrow as we dive into more passive streams of income .