Joelsuf's Location Independent Income Adventures

[joelsuf]

So on the other Alpha 2 board, I decided to post a thread detailing my methods of accumulating location independent income. I will start this anew here, but anybody who is coming here from the other Alpha 2 board will know what this is about. So if you just want the gory details you can skip this post, although you may still want to check it out because I'll be inserting things about my background in the workforce and what I currently do. That's what this first post is gonna be.

My employment background

Pretty much from 18 until 35, I have not worked any jobs of value. My first job was at a supermarket at 18 and the last job I held was for UPS at the end of 2017. In between this, I worked for retail joints, call centers, and when I was in college I did dorm security for a couple years. The longest job I held was at a Circle K that I was able to walk to. I worked there for close to a decade while floundering in college, not really caring about how good I did or what kind of skills I learned. I only got a promotion at that job because my boss needed help with inventory audits. I didn't care about getting the promotion, really. But I still felt like it was an accomplishment. I got said promotion at 31, five years after starting that job at 26.

I wrote about this kind of thing in my blog a few months ago if you want even more information.

Despite going to college and taking out ridiculous amounts of money in student loans, I still didn't think it was possible to get a job that paid any more than $25k per year at all. My gas station job was self supervised so I still wanted a job like that, and I didn't think I was qualified for any other kind of job. I also didn't want a job that completely took my soul away. So for me location independent income is my only way out of all this.

My concept of location independent income

To me, location independent income has the following criteria:

-You sell stuff from anywhere in the world
-You don't go somewhere and punch a time clock
-You get assignments with due dates and set your own hours
-You don't fill out a W-2 form before starting a job

In these examples I'm still trading out time for money but at least I don't have to go somewhere and stay there for 9 hours to do it. If I want to work only 20 hours I can but if I want to work 80 hours I can also do that. To me that's what location independent income is.

My forms of location independent income

I didn't really take my livelihood seriously until 2016 or so when I first discovered Alpha 2 stuff. I also made my blog that year, then another one the year after that, in 2017. And right before 2019 I wrote my first e-book and began selling it. I have written a lot more e-books since then but I don't have sales pages for them and I haven't put them up for sale yet but I will soon. I learned how to self-publish e-books from reading this article about it from Bold and Determined. It's not too difficult, really. All you need is to host a website (with bluehost, hostgator, whatever), know a little bit about WordPress (or just pay someone on fiverr or upwork to make the website for you), make an e-junkie account, and boom.

So that's one of my location independent income sources, although it is the worst performing since nobody knows about the e-books cuz I don't have money for adversising lol. It's pretty much about overcoming hypersensitivity that one could possibly develop from nasty game changing life events or forces telling you to go Beta or Alpha 1 and instead getting on the path to being Alpha 2.

While the Unchained Man is about going from Alpha 1/Beta to Alpha 2, Why so Butthurt is about going from a directionless broken Omega dealing with depression, low self esteem, and suicidal ideation like I was straight to Alpha 2 which was a decade or so long process for me. I feel like there aren't a lot of genuine resources for omega males (or omega chicks) out there so I decided to write about it from all angles. Most of my e-books are designed for people who are looking for a way out of their self hatred and who want to make sense of all the bullshit around them which I think will be in high demand going into the 2020s for pretty much everyone; man, woman, trans, whatever. But mostly dudes.

My other source of location independent income is freelance writing. About 2 years ago, I came home from grave shift at my gas station job and decided to day drink with the guy I was living with. I made an upwork account out of drunken curiosity and the rest as they say is history. Two years later and I have made almost $8000 from freelance writing. You can check out my upwork profile here if any of you want to hire me as a writer hehe. I usually charge $.17 a word but if you know me from this community I'll only charge $.07

I had a couple of slip ups in my freelance writing as of recent but nearly all of my reviews have been really good. I will probably stop using upwork so much because they will soon charge freelancers to hunt for gigs which isn't cool. So I'm probably gonna fry out all my "connects" and just hope. Then I'll make other "work" social media accounts (like LinkedIn and Indeed) and post my portfolio there. Freelance writing is one of my main sources of location independent income at the moment.

My third source of location independent income is driving for Uber and Lyft. I started doing this when 2019 began and I really wish I had done it earlier because holy crap is it lucrative and fun. Since late March, I've been delivering for Uber eats and I can easily make at least $50 in about 4-6 hours across 10 or so deliveries. The deliveries themselves don't take that long, that's just how long my app is on during the day. You could make the argument that this is location dependent because I need to be driving places in order to make money, but at least I can do that on my own dime.

Profitable hobbies

I also have profitable hobbies, which as of now is only bowling related stuff. Something I might do in the future is become a certified bowling coach and start coaching people. I'm joining a league in May, so if I get certification I can probably coach people in the league if they see me bust out 220+ games constantly lol (I average about 210ish in bowling...without practicing to give some perspective).

When I lived in South Florida, I was able to play blackjack as a profitable hobby. And if I made the money I make now back then, it would have actually been pretty good. I learned how to be an advantage player and it does make a difference. But there are no casinos here in Tallahassee so no blackjack at the moment.

Video game streamers make good money and I was going to do that as well, but I don't think I have the following to stream myself playing video games. Although now that I have a decent apartment I might actually get back into doing this, and stream video games every night or something. I do speedrunning (beating a game as fast as possible) and it's becoming very popular these days. If I have a decent following and am entertaining enough I'm sure video game streaming can be a profitable hobby. But the jury's out on that.

So to recap, here are my three sources of location independent income:

1. Selling e-books (and other stuff eventually) on my website.
2. Freelance writing (mainly on upwork, but I'm looking for other platforms)
3. Uber and Lyft driving

And here are three profitable hobbies:

1. Bowling: Competing and possibly coaching
2. Blackjack: Can't do this at the moment cuz I'm not around any casinos
3. Video game streaming: This is up in the air for now

My location independent income goals

When I first started tracking location independent income last year, I wanted to be able to make $1000 a month across my one form of location independent income (freelance writing) and my hobbies. After I picked up Uber/Lyft driving I was able to decisively make $1000 a month. Currently my goal is $50-$100 per day, or about $2000 per month. This is across all forms of income and profitable hobbies.


Sorry about this novel of a first post but I felt like it was necessary. I'll be tracking my numbers and news surrounding my numbers in every post from now on. I'll begin with the month of April.

 

[joelsuf]

Month of April:

Freelance Writing = 28 assignments, $774 earned
Uber eats deliveries = 117 deliveries, $743 earned
Bowling competition = 2 tournaments bowled in, $29 earned

April Total = $1546
2019 total = $3793

I lost one of my most lucrative freelance writing clients about a week ago. I had it coming, since I was assigned to do some edits on the client's website, got a little too creative, and they didn't like it. Then they got a new editor who didn't like the articles I was writing so then I got canned for that too. But they were replaced with a much more lucrative client who is paying me $25 an hour to write articles. Sure it's only 2 articles a month and I can only max out at 5 hours to write both articles, but that's a guaranteed $100+ a month which is nice.

Uber eats deliveries are where the REAL money is at. As you can see I made about $750 from 120 deliveries. I averaged about 25 deliveries a week, and that was with extended breaks to finish up writing assignments. If I do 50 deliveries a week, I can hit that 120 number pretty quickly. However, college break is coming up so there might not be too many opportunities for Uber eats.

I don't have too many incoming writing assignments either, so what I might do for the first week of May is go hard on the Uber eats deliveries (It's finals week for the college students where I'm at, so I can probably get a lot of deliveries in) and in between deliveries I will work on my own blog and website. I need to start putting the rest of my e-books on e-junkie, make sales pages, and other stuff. That will all start Wednesday. Today is my day off of life as a taco joint that I enjoy going to has some pretty awesome Taco Tuesday specials.

If I go hard on Uber Eats, keep up good work with my freelance clients, and acquire some new ones, I should be able to hit $2000 by June, which I certainly want to do.

 

[Lazy Blitz]

Month of April:

Freelance Writing = 28 assignments, $774 earned
Uber eats deliveries = 117 deliveries, $743 earned
Bowling competition = 2 tournaments bowled in, $29 earned

It would be really interesting to track and know how much time in total, including preparation time, were required for each categories.

college break is coming up so there might not be too many opportunities for Uber eats.

Moreover, full self driving is coming, so this source of income probably won't last and will have to be replaced by another income source in the next 2 to 5 years.

 

[aceva]

Quite frankly, the only one of these I'd consider anything like "location independent" is your freelance writing. If I were you, I'd lean into that hard and take the pricing structure from a per-volume (whether that volume is words, pages, or time) to a project fee structure. Want me to write your autobiography for you? That's $15,000. Quick-n-dirty non-fiction book to establish your expert credentials? If I can just look up the information on the internet it's $15,000, if I have to have you talk me through stuff, it's 20. College term paper? $500. Or whatever pricing works for you. But your numbers tell me you need to raise your prices or be way better at writing.

 

[joelsuf]

It would be really interesting to track and know how much time in total, including preparation time, were required for each categories.

I've considered it. But I measure my time in days not hours. Keeps things simple. Might still do this. There are complications with this, tho. For example, with Uber eats, I leave on the app and wait for requests for a pretty long time, but this differs from the time I actually spend doing deliveries.

Moreover, full self driving is coming, so this source of income probably won't last and will have to be replaced by another income source in the next 2 to 5 years.

Oh I'm aware of that. tbh, I want my writing related stuff to blow up to where going into 2020 I won't need to do ridesharing stuff. I don't even want to own a car going into the 2020s. I will have owned my car for 15 years by 2022, I think that's a good time to "retire" it.

Quite frankly, the only one of these I'd consider anything like "location independent" is your freelance writing.

Oh I agree with that, but the point is that with all these things I can set my own hours and I don't need to go somewhere to punch a time clock and do what a supervisor tells me which to me is the most important. I'm taking baby steps with this, it's difficult enough to take a plunge like this without knowing much about it.

your numbers tell me you need to raise your prices or be way better at writing.

It's probably both lol. I agree. I'm slowly raising my prices as my writing improves more and more. Again, I've only been doing location independent stuff for a little over 2 years so I still have a lot to learn.

If I were you, I'd lean into that hard and take the pricing structure from a per-volume (whether that volume is words, pages, or time) to a project fee structure

I agree with the first part and that's the plan: Get paid tons from freelance writing so that I don't need to do rideshare stuff. The problem with project fee structures is that it can scare off potential clients. The good thing about per-volume structures is that they appear less intimidating to clients.

 

[TonyOutOfNowhere]

Joelsuf, do you have any tips on writing e-books? Like how to structure it, how long should it be, how much should you investigate about your desired field?
Any tips would be helpful.
Thanks!

 

[joelsuf]

Joelsuf, do you have any tips on writing e-books? Like how to structure it, how long should it be, how much should you investigate about your desired field?
Any tips would be helpful.

Honestly, what I've been doing is just writing the damn things then worrying about that stuff. When I went to Grant Cardone's 10x conference, a lot of the authors were preaching that if you worry about how "perfect" e-books are, you'll never finish them. So taking their advice, I just wrote my face off lol.

But NOW is when I need to do the editing and stuff.

Structuring and length really depend on the subject. For example, my guide for incels is like 10000 words because there is a lot of stuff that needs to be covered. That's how it is for the last one I wrote as well which is about collectivism and external solutions. But for the one I have on how to get the most out of mental health counseling is about 3000-4000 since it isn't really a lot of content.

As far as investigating the field, that also depends on a lot of stuff. Most of my "facts" just come from my experiences and stuff, so when it comes to that there isn't much investigating necessary. I also find that useless facts can be pretty boring so I'm trying to resist inserting a whole bunch of factoids that are nothing if not common knowledge.

 

[joelsuf]

Here's the month of May:

Freelance writing = 15 assignments, 407 earned
Uber/Lyft = 150 deliveries, 968 earned
Bowling competition = 2 league sessions, 15 earned (from brackets)

May Total = 1383
2019 total = 5176
Freelance writing was pretty slow this month. I didn't get a ton of assignments in the month until the very end, and now I have a few that I need to work on.

Someone mentioned that I should include how much time I spend on all this stuff, and to be honest, that would be pretty complicated, especially with the Uber driving. Although I leave the app just sitting and waiting for a ride request for right around 10 hours a day, it doesn't mean I'm physically driving for 10 hours a day, for example.

I could chart how long each delivery takes, but that would just be way too complicated. But if I find a system of doing it, like updating every week or so I guess I could do something like that. But looking at each specific delivery and seeing how long it took just isn't practical for me. I suppose I will give an example: Today I did 9 deliveries and made about $75. I spent right around five cumulative hours doing the deliveries. Or something like that.

As far as the writing goes, some articles take me like a half hour and some others take as long as 4 or 5 cumulative hours for me to write.

All in all, I spend about 6 or so hours a day, 6 days a week doing "work," whether that is driving or writing.

The next step here is to make more money doing freelance writing than driving. That was the goal all along, and I know that it is possible. Once I start legitimately making $100 a day doing freelance writing (or $2000 or so a month), that's when I'll start branching out into doing other stuff.

As far as driving goes, I want to be able to be completely car-less by 2020, meaning I will need to have hit the above goal sooner than later.

 

[Lazy Blitz]

Tell me if this is not correct: as far I understand your working time is roughly 80~90% dealing with uber/lyft and 10~20% dealing with writing, isn't it?
6 hours a day 6 days a week is roughly 150~160hours a month. Let's say 160h. So that would be:
128~144h uber/lyft
16~32h writing

Also, which activity feels more fun to you? Regardless of the income and big picture goals.

 

[joelsuf]

as far I understand your working time is roughly 80~90% dealing with uber/lyft and 10~20% dealing with writing, isn't it?

Not quite. It's very much 50/50. Because in between waiting for ride and delivery requests I'm writing. Only thing is that May was pretty dry when it came to me physically doing writing assignments, but I was doing a lot of work on my own blogs and stuff.

Here's how it really breaks down:

I use my driver app as an alarm of sorts. I usually get up too early for me to be alert and rested, so I'll turn my driver app on then go back to sleep. Then when I get a request, I leap out of bed, change clothes and stuff, then do the ride/delivery. Then when I get to the house, I do writing assignments until I get my next request and so on. I don't do ANY driving after the sun goes down at 9. That's when I spend the rest of the night doing writing. My day typically ends at 1 in the morning.

Just because I made more money doing driving doesn't mean I took more time doing it. Just means I made that much less writing. If I had lots of writing assignments in May, I simply would have made a little more money writing. The driving related stuff probably wouldn't have changed too much.

Also, which activity feels more fun to you?

Driving, but its way more risky/dangerous/costly. I want to be able to make enough money doing other stuff to the point where I won't need a car AT ALL by 2020. I want to get to a point where I'm making $100-$200 daily, making it much more convenient to just take Uber/Lyft myself. But that's up in the air. I still might want my car to drive to dates etc. But definitely DO NOT want to make money doing Uber/Lyft going into 2020, no way.

 

[Lenox J]

This is always a fun read.

I'm gonna start a thread: https://alpha20community.com/index.php?threads/lets-make-money.46/

You can share what you're doing and others will too. I will do the same later this summer.

Let's make money.

 

[joelsuf]

This is always a fun read.

Glad to see that you're entertained! Its nice to be around others who are serious about Alpha 2 businesses/income streams. I'm getting more value here than the alpha 1s and betas who I know personally, sadly.

Really SUCKS to be surrounded by people who are like "well I'll be alright! I'll just work at my job and retire!"

 

[Lenox J]

Yes the status quo is our number one challenge. Fuck Society.

 

[joelsuf]

Yes the status quo is our number one challenge. Fuck Society.

It only bothers me because they are close buddies of mine. But they're still decent people so its whatever. I don't view the status quo as a "challenge" more as just something I need to deal with. When I say that it sucks, I mean to say that it sucks that I can't get good Alpha 2 business advice from people who are NOT on the internet.

 

[Lenox J]

Yeah it's a foreign concept not taught to the masses.

That's why you have us brother, as well as other outlets.

Ever look into your local community to find business leaders worth networking with as a mentor. THey may not be A2.0, but many are at least Alpha, and you can always sift what suits you and your A2.0 progression.

 

[Mad Pirate Carl]

MJ DeMarco has a very good point in his book Millionaire Fastlane: As long as you trade time for money, you'll never arrive at your goals quickly, because you only have so much time. Instead, consider things that you do once and can sell repeatedly. Music, software, books, videos, patterns, widgets, etc. You don't necessarily have to be the one who creates the original, just find the market and sell to it.

 

[joelsuf]

MJ DeMarco has a very good point in his book Millionaire Fastlane: As long as you trade time for money, you'll never arrive at your goals quickly, because you only have so much time.

That's the plan lol. But I need money to start that kind of stuff, and this is why I am currently doing what I am doing. I need to get DeMarco's book, as well as a few others.

 

[joelsuf]

Month of June 2019:

Freelance writing = 8 assignments, 348 earned.
Uber/Lyft driving = 65 rides/deliveries, 456 earned.
Bowling competition = 395 spent in brackets/tournament entry fees, 915 earned, net gain of 520

June totals = 1324
2019 totals = 6500

This month marked a legitimate return to form when it came to competitive bowling being a profitable hobby.

I bowled in three tournaments this month. One of my clients (who I also bowl with) sponsored me for one of them. I won nearly $750 for winning the title and side stuff (high game pots, brackets etc), but I had to pay him back so at the end of the day I wound up winning $600.

Because I won so much money, I backed off a little bit on my driving and writing. I bowled in two more tournaments with the same client/bowling buddy but was not as successful. In one of them, I missed advancing by 6 pins.

Had I not won so much money in the tournament I would have done more writing and driving. I'm also backing off driving for a bit because I need to replace one of my tires. The treads are almost completely worn out so I need to buy a new one.

Going into August, I should be able to make at least $1000 with freelance writing. One of my clients wants me to write 100k words worth of articles and is willing to pay up to $1200 for it. I want to get that finished as soon as I can this way I can find similar projects for much higher paying clients. I'm going to need to find better paying clients: I just renewed the lease on my apartment and my rent went up from around $450 to around $550. So the sooner I get these assignments finished, the sooner I'll be able to spend the rest of July looking for better clients (or getting work from my other better paying clients).

As far as driving goes, I've made a decision. I am only going to drive if I have NO assignments due. If I have stuff do, I need to stay in the house/coffee shop/whatever I'm at and by god finish those damn assignments.

I'm thinking of using the bookstore next to my gym as a place to do writing, this way I'm not distracted by keeping YouTube on in the background while I write. I'll experiment with it this month. If I want to take a break I can read a business book or something. Then I can go to the gym when I need to go to the gym.

The problem with this is going back home to eat. It takes about 15 minutes to get from my apartment to the gym/bookstore and I really don't want to waste the time/gas on doing this every day. But we'll see. If it gets stuff done faster, then it'll be worth it.

 

[Mad Pirate Carl]

With respect to finding higher paying clients, I'll tell you a true story:

An old friend of mine used to own a hotel. One day he was looking at his occupancy and noticed his Executive Suite was almost never used. He decided to call the other hotels in town and find out how much their executive suite was. He found out he was the cheapest by quite a bit. He raised his price to be above the others and did not change anything in the room at all. His Executive Suite went to 90% occupied.

"You get what you pay for" is thoroughly embedded in our psyches. People believe if the price is low, the quality is low.

The corollary is, you better be able to prove you're worth the money. That means build a high quality portfolio and let potential customers see it.

 

[Lenox J]

Funny how people work ain't it.

Study behavioral psychology and you'll be able to solve any problem that involves people.