You might be asking why am I writing about retirement with money? What do I mean about that?
Well, to tell you the answer to those questions I need to explain why the idea was born.
How the idea was Born?
I noticed with all siblings and friends that when getting to 50th anniversary (some a bit before, others a bit after) all started to think about the retirement and started to do the math to what kind of money they will have once they got to the retirement age…
And guess what? I just turned 50 a couple months ago and I too started considering those same things!
Since then I’ve been thinking in how much money I had saved for retirement and, frankly, it’s not enough!
So I decided I needed to find some other sources of income other than the salary and the meager interests of the savings accounts.
What did I Find?
Most searches around retirement income point to the classical finance services: Funds, Stocks, Real Estate and so on…
Well the above are not real an option if you don’t have much money saved, so I kept on looking.
Other income sources are getting a side hustle: walking dogs, translation services, freelancing, selling unused stuff, etc. This group of income sources in it’s essence are trading your time for money… or just another job – eventually more pleasant and better paid, but still without the liberty for relaxing in your retirement.
Then I found several references to Passive Income – and, to me, THIS IS THE ANSWER!
What is Passive Income?
We can quickly say that a certain income source is Passive Income, when we don’t need to trade time for money.
As classical examples we have Renting (but we need to have a property to rent), Funds and Stocks are also passive (but we need to invest a lot prior to receive something visible).
Other sources are affiliate marketing, selling digital goods, renting a room in your house, writing a book, peer-to-peer lending, among others.
From all the above, Affilate Marketing is the one that seems to me as being easier to start and that can give a greater reward.
So… What is Affiliate Marketing?
If we go to Wikipedia, this is their current definition:
“Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.”
Or in simpler english, is when someone promotes a company product and as a reward, that company gives the person a share of the sale.
As you see the idea is really simple:
- Choose a company/product to promote
- Promote the product in your website / blog / social media, etc.
- People click your link and purchase the product
- The company makes money and pays you the agreed share
Simple and very effective, and you can find companys that have affiliate partners everywhere.
Conclusion
I found that I don’t have enough money saved to live the life I want once I retire, so I started searching for opportunities to CHANGE that:
- Trading time for money is not the answer
- If you want to enjoy the life, you need to get some sources of Passive Income
- The “ortodox” sources of income don’t give you enough return or need a big investment
- Affiliate Marketing is the answer for me:
- Allows to start with very small initial investment
- As the potential to generate an extra 200$ per month as well as an extra 2000$ a day, depend on own much time you invest
- The results are not guaranteed nor they are immediate – you always need to put some work so that it starts to roll, but once it starts working, it’ll keep on working even if you’re sleeping or take a month off
This is why I started this blog, to show my journey creating this Affilliate income source in order to help my friends so that they also can build their own sources.
See you online!