Graphic by carlijayne at Brains, Heart, Courage
I guess this topic is hot now a days, the post Extra Income, Passive Income, or Side Hustle I posted on June 23 got quite a few views. I even received a few encouraging comments as well, thank you for that. So, I wanted to touch on what I have been thinking in regards to possible passive income or ways to make a little extra money, and maybe one day it will replace what I earn today at my 9-5 job. I have been an Amazon affiliate associate for some time now. If you recall I mentioned on one of my post that I had a blog about 10+ years ago and was consistently running banner ads and things like that on my blog. It was nothing to write home about, but it made a little here and there. Unfortunately, I stopped blogging, due to whatever reasons life might have thrown at me at the time. Anyhow, since this pandemic and of course thanks to all the social media outlets, I have been seeing a lot about multiple ways to earn income while you sleep – sort of speaking. As my post header states, we have all seeing or are possible doing one or multiple things that is out there, for example, Drop shipping business, eCommerce sites, affiliate marketing, an of course crypto currency investing, among other things. I was looking into Shopify, and they currently offer a free 14-day free trial to open your own website to sell things, they also offer video training that walks you through all the steps to setup your site. So, I gave it a shot and I watch the video. I signed up for the free 14-day trial, got my domain name and started to watch the videos they had and did all the steps, up to the point where you have to research the products. The training was pretty good, but let me be honest, the product research takes time and they do recommend starting with 10 or 20 products at first, but even trying to determine the right products is time consuming, but not impossible. Of course, then you must set up your supplier accounts, and determine which supplier(s) you will work with, which they also explained. What happen was after getting to almost the end, I dropped the ball, I am not making any excuses, I simply did not finish. So, of course the trial ended and that was that.
Well, of course after doing that I started to see a whole lot of ads on drop shipping companies wanting to offer me their services. One example is AliDropShip, a company that offers the consumer an exact copy of a successful store that will generate $523,000 a month, and of course there are others that range from $6,000 to $49,000 a month in revenue as well. Now, I ask myself how and why would they do this, if that business makes that much, why sell it for $300. After further reading, I will be responsible in getting the site out in front of the masses (marketing), of course for an additional fee they provide you with winning marketing ideas such as a marketing guide, banners and videos used for original campaigns, recommended target audience, etc. that will get you rolling. So that is one of the things I have been contemplating about, is it real, will the store really make $523,000 a month if I put the necessary effort in, and how much will marketing cost me to generate $523,000 – that is my question. I am not saying it is not possible, but is it.
Another thing I have been looking at for quite some time is Crypto currency. I know for example that Bitcoin hit big and people made a lot of money when that happen. Lately there has been talk about Shiba Inu coin, Dogecoin, and of course others. My son recently decided to buy Shibu Inu coin, he said he did it as a joke, and purchased $20 dollars through the Crypto.com app. Now, I have been thinking of maybe investing in one or two of these crypto currency, small investment that I won’t mind losing. I am on the fence about it, I did download the app, but I have not opened an account, because I am still contemplating if I should or not.
Another thing which I have done for a while, but not really put in 100%, is affiliate marketing. As I mentioned I have an Amazon Associate account. Amazon is great, easy to work with, lots of tools, but of course you do need to put in the work. I still need to buckle down and do it. I did try it on this blog, but after a while I felt it wasn’t right – that may sound strange, but I felt I was missing something so I took it off from my blog.
Like I said, like millions of people out there, I am also looking for a better way to make money. I grew up believing that if you put in the hard work you will succeed. Every day when I show up to work I give it my all. I have a great and positive attitude, I never say no to new projects, I take ownership, I teach others what I know, and yet there are some years where I would not get a raise – even after winning company awards several times. As I said in another post, I had a vending machine route, I bought at garage sales and sold the swap meets – nice money but lots of work. I flipped notes, sold music records and CDs on eBay, and a few other opportunities before computers came into existence. Yah I made money, and there are few still in existence that are making me money, not a whole not, not enough to where I can quit my day job, but ok. So it brings me to the Wizard of Oz with the Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my; “Crypto, Affiliate Marketing, Drop Shipping, Oh My”. Is there one, is there really and truly one, where a person can put in the work and reap the rewards of there labor?
I thank you for reading and I leave you with this thought, “You will come across hundreds if not thousands of money making opportunities, make sure you do your research carefully, make sure you know what you will need to do, make sure you know the cost of what you will be doing, make sure you have the time to dedicate in order to make it successful, and it is ok to doubt, but I think there comes a time when you have to take the leap. If you don’t succeed, that is ok to, just get up and try again”.
It takes courage, heart, and brains which I know you have.