Rules and Goals of Finance Notebook

In the summer of 2019, I decided to retire from my main occupation. I have worked in banking for the past 30 years, mostly in audit and compliance roles.

I am not close to retirement age, but my wife and I have accumulated sufficient assets to retire without working. But instead of just retired, I decided to come out with a personal challenge. Supposed that I have to earn a certain amount of money every year, but I can only do it as an entrepreneur. Can I achieve the income goals listed below while respecting the Rules of Finance Notebook?

I have started to gear up Finance Notebook in November 2019, but the challenge will officially begin January 1, 2020. There will be some money earned in November and December 2019. For simplicity, I will consider as if that money was earned in 2020.

You may also want to see how much money I have made from the beginning. And may also want to take a look at the quarterly income reports.

These are the rules:

This is a new and interesting adventure for me. I have a degree in accounting and my prior experience is in Corporate America, specifically banking compliance and audit. In this new chapter of my life, I will be an entrepreneur, which includes gig economy jobs, also known as side hustles.

  • I can not be hired by a company as an employee. That means, whatever I do, I have to be treated as an independent contractor, not an employee. It would be very easy for me to be hired by a bank and make money remotely. That is not allowed.
  • I can not use personal income for business purposes. I have opened a Chase business account with $4,500 as a start-up. These funds will help with the initial expenses. Any other business expenses will have to be funded with business income. That is, if I need a new computer to be more efficient, for example, I canโ€™t buy it with personal funds.ย 

Gross Income Goals:

These are the annual gross income goals. I have decided not to disclose net income because I donโ€™t want to complicate this too much. However, if I sell a product I have purchased, I will only count the net profit for that product as income.

YearGross Income
2020$5,000
2021$10,000
2022$20,000
2023$30,000
2024$50,000
2025$70,000
Total (6-year goal)$185,000
2020 Strategy: The main goal for the year 2020 is to test and write about 50 side hustles. That is, I will signup and work on these side hustles and write a blog post for each one of them. The challenge of the first year is to work enough with those side hustles to make sure I generate $5,000. On the other hand, I need to make sure I write at least 50 blog posts so that the blog itself starts generating some income with affiliates and advertisements in 2021 and beyond. I will also complete Wealthy Affiliate’s Online Entrepreneur Certification, which I recommend. The Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training is a 5 phase (50 lessons) series of courses walking you through the process of creating and growing a business within any niche.

Update: In addition to the above, I started a new site to strengthen the strategy. You can read more about Site #2 here.

I will write blog posts about every activity I attempt and disclose the income I make with each activity. As the blog grows, income generated with the blog itself will also be included.

Good luck to me! ๐Ÿ™‚

๐Ÿ“– Please include your comments or questions below.

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