The other day my internet buddy Lis wrote a post on her blog called Online Income: One Simple Secret to Success and mentioned me in it. The one simple step? Treating your online income making efforts like a business. She mentioned me in the post because in June she made more than me and I’m someone who has been at this for a lot longer than her. Her point was that I’m not treating this like a business and she’s right.

One of my problems is that I’ve never been motivated by money, certainly not just for the sake of having it and definitely not if it comes at the expense of my time. What motivates me most is having the time and the means to to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Obviously this takes money but since I left my job and started travelling in January 2008 there hasn’t been anything I have wanted to do that I didn’t because I didn’t have the money. Because I’ve been travelling in cheap countries and doing long stints of volunteer work in exchange for accommodation and food along the way, earning $1000-$1500 a month with the occasional $2000 month has been plenty. So while I would obviously like to, I haven’t really gone out of my way too much to try to earn more.

Each earnings update post I’ve written for the past two years nearly I almost always say I’m happy with the amount I’ve earned but still list off a bunch of other things I should be doing or plan to do to increase that amount. I haven’t done most of those things though, party due to not being completely motivated, partly due to bad net connections for long periods of time, partly due to laziness and mostly due to being happy with the status quo.

Well now,for the first time, I am in a situation when I’m not able to do what I want to do because I haven’t got the money for it and I don’t like it one bit. I would love to spend a month or so living in New York and, while I could pull it off, it would leave me in a really bad place financially. So without being able to count on much more than $1000 in income, it would be a risky move. Plus I have a bunch of annoying expenses this month like driver’s license and passport renewals, jabs for Africa and I need to get my camera repaired so I’m thinking that renting a place in NYC and living it up for a month would be a bad move at this stage. So now, finally, I’m starting to get motivated.

In a comment response Nomadic Matt says something along the lines of needing to reassess where I am after six months and I think I’m at that point now. I need to reassess, see what’s working and what’s not and, most importantly I think, put into action all of those plans and ideas I’ve been putting off for the past year. Actually, that’s not true, I don’t need to but this time I want to.

Lis is right that you need to treat your internet stuff as a business in order to earn an income that will replace what you might have earned offline. Am I willing to give the travelling a rest for the next six months to concentrate on my business? Well… no, not just yet. But I am going to put in a hell of an effort for the next two or three months and see where that gets me.

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I was thinking today about what to do next. I don’t mean anytime soon since I’m pretty happy here on the farm for now. I mean more what I want to do between when I leave this place (maybe in a month or two) and the World Cup in June 2010 in South Africa. That gives me about a year to play with and up until just now I hadn’t given it much thought at all.

I have had a lot of time to think about this sort of this lately and I’ve come up with a couple of grand plans that may or may not end up working out. My main idea right now is to spend two or three months living in NYC, maybe taking a painting or photography course or maybe just being a bum. I love NYC  and spending some time living there is definitely something I want to do at some point. Now seems as good a time as any, especially since I have a few friends living there and it’s so close to home so I can pop in and see my family a few times before heading further afield.

After doing a bit of research I confirmed the obvious – NYC is expensive. Given the unhealthy condition of my bank account a few months ago, I wouldn’t have even considered a move to New York, no matter how short. But now, having spent a couple months living super cheaply and with at least another month ahead of more of the same, I will be a bit more set up for spending some time in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

This new set of sort of plans has sort of got me thinking about how I approach my travel splurges. I spent a couple of months spending next to nothing in Bangladesh and then lived it up in Beijing in a great apartment and spent money like a crazy person at the Olympics. I hung around Thailand and Burma spending very little and then gave up a deposit on a course and bought an expensive plane ticket to Haiti. I lived cheaply in Haiti for three months and then flew to Australia for two weeks for a wedding. Now, after a few months of cheap living in Nicaragua, I’m ready for a life of painting courses, good food, baseball games and generally living it up in the Big Apple.

If I wanted to (or if I were smart…) I could stick with the cheap living which I enjoy just as much, pad the bank account and give myself more options in the future but I things always tend to balance out in this way where I will spend nothing and then spend loads. I’m not sure it’s on purpose but it seems like it’s becoming a pattern.

So as of right now my super rough plan is to hang around Nicaragua and maybe Costa Rica for another couple of months of farm work and Spanish lessons before heading to New York City for no reason in particular. Afterwards… well I’m not sure but you can bet whatever I end up doing it will be cheap!

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