By Stacy Williams
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How many “jobs” are in your home? One? Two? Three (at most)? Are those jobs your only source of income each month? What if I told you that by the end of2016, my family will have 10streams of income each month? Yes, you read that correctly. Ten.Now what if I told you thatyou need to have more than the income streams you currently have too and that your financial future actually could depend on it?
Ask any millionaire and very likely, you’ll be told that theybuild their wealth with multiple streams of income. They didn’t rely on only having one job or only one way to invest, they diversified and earned from many different ways and methods. They recognized early on that sitting idle and waiting for their wealth to come to them was only going to cause one thing. They would never be a millionaire and they would never achieve the dreams that they had for themselves.
Enter my own family budget and income. I have this crazy plan for my life. I want to die a millionaire. It isn’t for the reasons you think though. I don’t care about the money. I care about leaving something behind physically for my daughter. I care about being able to provide her a comfortable childhood. I want to make sure she’s okay after I’m gone, no matter when I go and to do that? Money is seriously involved.
So why should you have multiple streams of income? It boils down to this; if you have additional income, you won’t take a hit if you lose one and you’ll (eventually) have more money than you need to live on. Having more money than you need will allow you to build your savings account, invest to help your net worth grow and more. It gives you the ability to build acushion of security for yourself and your family.
So how do you add multiple streams of income? You get creative and think a bit outside of the box. Here’s how ours will look by the end of 2016:
This blog – Six Dollar Family is our primary source of income, but ask anyone who has started a full-time blog and they will tell you that the income can fluctuate pretty severely from month to month. We earn around $13,000 on average each month, but that could easily change. Want to start a blog like this for yourself? You can start your own blog for less than $4.00! It’s easy and I have a tutorial that will walk you through the process of how to start a blog with Bluehostif you need help getting started.
Books – In addition to this blog, I am also the author of the book, Six Dollar Family: From Six Dollars to Six Figures. On top of that, we have our Garage Sale Pro e-book,and haveseveral others planned as well as updates for the ones that are currently published. Currently both books bring in several hundred dollars in extra income each month.
Ghostwriting– Six Dollar Family’s parent company is Six Dollar Media which covers our ghostwriting services. As far as income, this one generates as much as I put into it and it isn’t one that I do full-time. We have a second ghost-writer on staff who handles most of that for us and I hop in when I am feeling the need to earn a few extra bucks.
Social Media Management – In addition to ghost-writing, Six Dollar Media also manages social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) for our clients. This income is quite significant but is only billed quarterly so I can’t count on it as a monthly income source. I do have expenses for this one (unlike ghost-writing) for the tools I use:BoardBooster, Tailwind, and CoSchedule, but those expenses barely touch the profit.
Etsy – This one is in the process of being set up and will happen later this year. Because I already create so many homemade products for myself, I may as well try to make a few bucks on it. I will be opening up an Etsy store for both homemade items and vintage items that I find. Right now I’m working on building my stock of vintage items and creating prototype items for the Etsy store (so that I don’t have a ton of product sitting around in case one doesn’t sell).
Reselling – Not to be confused with the Etsy store and vintage items, I use my thrift store habit to generate income for myself on Ebay and other resale sites. I resell everything from books to Blu-rays to clothing and more. If you’re not great at getting a good thrift store deal, you may want to take a look at my thrift store shopping tips before you go shopping next. I never fail to walk out of them without a killer item for a great price! (Check out my Instagram since I usually post my favorite finds when I get them!)
Amazon FBA – If you’re not selling on Amazon, you could be missing out on some serious income. This is our next income venture and will be happening within the next 2 months. I want to make sure that I’ve got enough inventory in hand to really start with a bang!
Tom’s Job – Even though Tom is only working part-time (our choice), his income isn’t needed to run the family. Because of this, it’s all extra money that we move into our savings account for the moment.
Thrive (Le-Vel) –I’m not one to be huge on direct sale MLM companies because for the most part, I find them to be hard to earn from and full of forced autoships that will make you broke quicker than you’ll earn. With that said, I am a promoter for Thrive and LOVE IT! First off, it’s totally FREE to become a promoter. Secondly, you can still earn your paycheck without spending a single dime! You don’t have to try the products (although I really, really recommend that you do because they really are amazing!). I’ve done direct sales before and with those, I never earned a dime. With Thrive? I earned my very first month and it has only gotten better since! If you’re interested, join my Thrive team for FREE! You’ll get to work directly with me and we can grow our wealth together!
Investments – We invest in a couple of different ways right now but it is our goal to expand on them later on. Investing doesn’t have to be a super complicated venture and despite what seems to be a pretty common belief, there are easy ways to invest your money. Investments are last in this post because they will be the very last thing that we delve deeper into. Once the others are set up and/or earning steady, we’ll expand our investment portfolio to really build the wealth we want and plan for our retirement.
While I don’t count it as a stream of income, I also have my system that adds $225/mo to my income every single month. I suppose I could think of it as income, but the truth is, I look at it as a way to save money versus make money since I use most of the gift cards or cash that I earn to save money on groceries or my bills.
Do you understand now? By having multiple streams of income, we’re setting ourselves up for a life (eventually) where we don’t really have to work, where we can retire well, where we can leave behind something to give our daughter a start in her adult life and more.
The only question left to answer? Is why haven’t you set up multiple streams of income for yourself and your family?
