Personal Finance Update: Freelance Writing for USD, Blogging for Steem --- Income Everywhere!!!

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After a month of fucking off with my finances, I am back on top.

In my previous finance post I showed you the two finance strategies that I’m focusing on for quarter 2. The goal is to radically improve my finances and so far its working great.

As a reminder here are the two financial tactics:

• (1) “Pay Myself” $400 per Week from my Steem account + USD “business” account — no more, no less. Let the extra stack up in savings.
• (2) Work 10 Hours Per Week on Constant Content, a USD-based Freelance Writing Platform

The idea is that the $400 per week strategy will help me to spend less each week, especially when my income goes up. Rather than being feast-and-famine with my income, I get into the right habits for spending and am unlikely to panic or over-extend myself.

In the long term, I can increase my own “paycheck.” For example whenever I have 10x my weekly income saved up, I can boost it by $100.

The second strategy, working 10 hours per week outside of Steem, is a simple diversification strategy. So far so good - after my first two hours yesterday, I sold two articles and earned $40! The work I did last year as a freelance writer is paying off now.

Abundance vs. Scarcity - It Really Feels Like It

As cheesy as the whole “Abundance mindset” idea is, it does feel that way when you begin to succeed financially.

Prior to the “success,” finance is stressful. Every expense is one too many, there’s always a few more bills to pay than there are dollars in the bank. Fees stack up, you end up making poor financial decisions out of desperation, and it is a bad time.

After “success” occurs it’s the opposite. Desperation fades away. You start purchasing gigantic 50-packs of toilet paper and 10 pound boxes of bacon, reaping the benefit of bulk, watching savings stack up more and more as the weeks pass on.

The only leverage we have in the short term is to force ourselves over the chasm. When we sit in the grey area, it’s easiest to go “scarcity” - but best to go “abundance.”

Ironically the best way to feel the abundance is to spend less. To be patient, to not go out, tonot buy any fun games or toys or even books, just sit and wait. With less spending and adequate income, abundance emerges…

But it’s a weird topic for sure. It’s a deep life philosophy - being happy with less in order to feel more. But I gotta say, it feels amazing whenever I can shift to the abundance mindset.

Personal Finance Numbers Update

I'm going to keep this very simple today since most of my money is consolidated into a few accounts.

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ASSETS:

Liquid Assets (USD liquid holdings + liquid Steem on hand): $320

Steem Power: 1,536.775 STEEM or $3,427.55

Total Assets: $3,747

DEBTS:

Short Term Steem Loan -- 275 Steem due in a week

PayPal Debt - $5,570
Dad Debt - $9,880

NET WORTH: $-12,253
CHANGE FROM LAST UPDATE: $-5,529 (mostly due to steem price fluctuation)

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Notes on Financial Numbers:

Liquid holdings are low, but debt is actually low as well. I mean I'm $5,000 or more down from when I started in the second half of 2017... that's pretty great for my income level!

My only goal the next two months is to increase my safety net and pay off debt, in that order. In the shortest term I MUST get $1,000 put aside into an emergency fund.

Since I'm working an extra 10 hours per week on freelance writing starting this week (so far so good), that will help me to earn the money faster.

Final Thoughts

TL;DR: My income streams are strong as I keep earning plenty of money and am able to survive. My liquid holdings are too low all the time though which exposes me to unnecessary financial risk and emotional stress. The goal for the next two months is to simply increase my liquid holdings and not spend much, while maintaining or improving earnings.

And I'll try to give more frequent, and better, updates. I'll bring the graphs back with next week's update...

How are you doing? Making any progress on your own financial goals?