Money Blue Book

These days I’ve been working from home and enjoying time off from my full time contract legal gig. On some level I miss the daily human interactions and the regular social associations offered by traditional lines of work, but I don’t miss the early morning mandatory work schedules or the need to kiss a supervisor’s butt cheeks for the sake of getting on his or her good graces for promotion purposes or to ensure a steady stream of future work opportunities. The inevitable downside of working as someone else’s employee has always been that you are funneling your own efforts and personal abilities to help someone else grow their business and make them wealthier. In exchange for your services, you are usually offered a set salary or in my case, an unpredictable but very decent wage rate, as well as the occasional health benefit package and transportation related fringe benefits. However, the fact remains that as long as you continue to work for someone else, you never truly own the fruits of your own labor – and I think it’s important to own your own fruits.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned to incorporate blogging and online websites such as my personal finance and frugality blog and a few other attorney based blogs (I prefer not to reveal them here) into my tentative business goal of one day truly working for myself and ending the cycle of exchanging hours for money. While my online sites are certainly growing rapidly and exceeding my own expectations, since none of my non-traditional income streams have yet to fully develop and mature, I still have to rely on traditional employment means to support myself. Thus as much as I’d like to, I still cannot abandon my day job entirely. However, that doesn’t mean I must walk the age-old career oriented path that most people resort to following. With my college and law school degree already in hand, rather than working the law firm path, I’ve chosen to tap into my entrepreneurial spirit and work temporary positions to fund the growth of my home based businesses.

Unless Your Day Time Job Is Working As A Full Time Computer Guy Or Computer Gal, Finding Extra Time To Work On Your Online Side Ventures Is Difficult

While some personal finance and online commentators seem able to juggle their personal full time jobs with their blogging business duties, I’ve found that certain jobs are particularly difficult to juggle, particularly if you are walking the career oriented path. In my case, working as a full time practicing attorney would leave little time left for business blogging projects on the side. The hourly and work pressures (of office hours and take home assignments) would simply be too demanding. It’s certainly not a coincidence that the vast majority of online bloggers, and particularly personal finance bloggers tend to be predominantly computer network administrators, software engineers, or computer programmers – individuals with continuous access to computers and ample blogging time throughout the day while on the job. Unfortunately, most employees of other professions don’t have this same flexibility and luxury of ready-access to the computer that the computer techies have. That’s why for those individuals working in the legal, education, or even health care field, working full time jobs on a contractual, short term basis may be the only manageable way to generate livable income, but still have the vacant time to develop a side business that stands a chance to grow into a viable income replacement project one day.

Working A Temp Job Makes Devoting Time To Developing Home Based Businesses Possible

Since working as a full time temp worker in the contract attorney field, I’ve noticed that the working lifestyle, the flexible hours, and the non-stressful schedule of the temping profession absolutely compliments and suits individuals like me who want the ample time after work to devote to side projects. The fact of the matter is that blogging and working as a contract employee on a temporary, non permanent basis actually go quite well together. Trying to build several online and real life businesses takes substantial amounts of extra curricular time – the type of extra time outside of one’s job that those not in the computer field are usually unable to set aside. At the same time, it is not that I want to end up temping for the rest of my life, but I see it as a currently necessary and convenient way to support myself temporarily while building up the core of my side businesses while I am still relatively young in the grand scheme of things.

For those looking to build passive income streams through creating an online website business or running a self employment operation, you may want to give short term and long term temping some serious consideration. I know many would argue that that there is no future in performing temporary work, but personally, I see the same bleakness in permanent jobs that purport to offer job stability, and professional growth prospects. I have seen too many of my friends and acquaintances get badly burned in their professional careers and family life due to complete and over-reliance on their employer’s good graces and whims.

Plus, with self employment and having your own home business, there are a wealth of self employment tax deductions and tax deferred investment options at your disposal – not available to full time employees working for someone else. A few of them include the option to deduct the home office part of your home rental used in the regular course of your trade or business, as well as the ability to capitalize and reduce your taxable income of the portion pertaining to business assets, such as the cost of a business laptop notebook computer. I will discuss the wide variety of self employment tax deductions and financial benefits in a future post.

As I may have mentioned before, I’m a recovering attorney – and a fairly young one at that (I’m in my late 20’s). Right now I’m in the process of working at home on my online blog and business ventures for a few months before returning back to my full time work as a contract attorney.

So how did I end up doing this type of work instead of using my law degree to pursue a so-called real legal career? Sometimes I ponder about what my dream job might have been had I not gone to law school, since it wasn’t my passion in life to begin with. My decision to attend graduate school was more due to process of elimination. I started out college on the pre-med track to become a doctor, did well in my studies, got bored with chemistry and biology, and eventually shifted gears into computer science. I loved taking programming theory and practice courses and did very well, but after a few semesters, I decided that I couldn’t see myself stuck as a computer programming nerd – so I moved on (how ironic, now that I’ve come full circle again). So then I decided to go the business route and major in finance. After a few more semesters during which I did pretty well, I pondered what else was out there. However, by then I had enough college credits to graduate and my parents were beginning to wave the tuition baton, “encouraging” me to move onto bigger and better things. After looking around, I decided I wasn’t ready to financially support myself just yet. So I took the LSAT exam and sent in my application to a few top tier law schools. Before I knew it, I was attending the state law school and working my way through civil procedure, contracts, and criminal law classes.

Going The Law School Route – But Still Not Sure Where I Wanted To Go Professionally

One thing that I noticed during law school was how incredibly math-adverse law students are. I suppose that’s why they all chose to attend law school to begin with – to avoid having to deal with mathematics or anything related to numbers. However, it just so happened most of my law school friends were of the opposite persuasion – they were mostly into tax law, a legal field riddled with numbers and statistics. I wasn’t particularly fond of all the math involved, but I went with the herd and ended up taking most of the tax law courses available – everything from individual tax planning and corporate tax, to the most difficult law school course I ever took – partnership tax.

After law school I worked for a trial judge and later when on to work for the federal government as an associate attorney for a year or two. After another very short stint working for a crazy female cougar attorney (I’ll share that story one day, as it was a very eye opening experience, but for all the wrong reasons), I ended up choosing to work for myself. After starting up a few profitable blogs such as the personal finance blog you are reading right now and another law related one, I now work as a contract attorney on the side when I’m not working from home. I receive most of my contract attorney assignments from staffing agencies that place me on legal projects that last anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The job description usually entails very simple duties such as legal document review and mindless legal tag coding. Many dread performing contract lawyer work, but the work provides very lucrative pay without the heavy responsibilities (I often refer to it as my “stripper pay”). It’s perfect for my lifestyle at the moment since I don’t want my full time job to hinder the time and effort I devote to my personal small business operations.

The great thing about contract attorney work is that it is extremely stress-free and unlike a traditional lawyer job, my responsibilities and duties end at the end of the day. I never have to run into the office after work or cut a weekend short to file a legal brief or prepare a memo. However there are long term drawbacks to this line of short term work. The biggest downside is that the work is only temporary and isn’t career track oriented. With temping, while meals and transportation are frequently reimbursed, you usually don’t receive any health benefits or job security. But then again, in this day and age as well as economy, do any of us truly have solid job security anymore, or even guaranteed health benefits? The other downside with legal temping is the lack of professional development. However, I simply cannot see myself pursuing the traditional attorney path anyway. Lawyers notoriously burn out fast and work tremendous hours that ultimately take a terrible toll on their health, family wellbeing, and lifespan. Plus, legal employment prospects for attorneys isn’t what it used to be as the market has become extremely saturated. Almost anyone with half a functioning brain can go to law school these days as there are no significant barriers to entry or pre-requisites that need to be overcome to apply. Especially in a major city like Washington DC, you can’t walk in any direction without bumping into a lawyer. It’s utter and complete saturation.

Looking To the Future – Sacrificing Some Income Now To Build Up My Online Blog Businesses and Incubate My Other Real World Ventures

Thus, I’ve come to realize that the key to building wealth and reaching financial prosperity is to build up multiple streams of alternative and passive income, apart from your primary full time employment. Otherwise, you simply run the risk of living your entire life trading hours for dollars. Passive income generation through methods such as blog income or stock market investing help to get around the finite time problem by allowing you to generate income even when you are not actively sitting and working at your office desk.

However, I don’t regret going to law school at all. I was prudent to have attended a state school with relatively lower in-state tuition, and I was very fortunate to have been able to consolidate my student loans at a very low fixed interest rate. My college loans are all paid up and my graduate school loan payments are thankfully quite manageable. Other than tuition issues, law school prepared me for the future by teaching me how to more aggressively and confidently combat conflicts in the legal and business world. Overall my finance, tax, and legal background has helped me to better improve my personal finance blogging tasks, as well as enhance my non traditional legal pursuits. I knew after law school that I didn’t want to pursue the traditional law firm job path since I had a passion for entrepreneurship and running my own business. When I discovered how to make money blogging and developed the ability to tap into the limitless potential of online business income, I knew I had found my calling. It’s a key component part of my solution to end the 9-5 workweek cycle, and the reason why I’m currently sitting at home right now tinkering on the computer instead of collecting a steady paycheck at a stressful full time lawyer position or even at a contract attorney gig.

For now, I plan to only take a short time off to work on my ventures full time as I currently am not yet able to live off of my online income alone. Perhaps that day will someday come, but for now, I plan to return to my legal contracting job after a month or two off. Obviously I don’t see contract attorney work as the future for me since the profession is inherently unstable, unpredictable, and projects do tend to dry up during recessions and slow economic periods. I merely see it as a necessary means to an end for now. Meanwhile, I also realize that by taking a few months off I am forfeiting a substantial amount of contract attorney pay to spend time building my passive income businesses, but I think in the long run and even in a few years from now, the short term financial sacrifice will pay off. The amount of money I am losing by not working full time is quite substantial however. Contract attorneys in my area get top wage rates of $35 an hour with time and a half of $52.50 per overtime hour worked past 40 hours. My contract projects usually require that I bill around 50 or so hours, which comes to a weekly income of $1925.00. I’ve worked at least one extremely time demanding project before in the recent past, during which I worked and billed 96 hours a week for a span of one month. The work was a simple breeze, but the hours were brutal. Of course during that time, I earned $4,340.00 per week before tax. I guess it speaks highly of how much potential I see in online and passive income businesses that I would forsake that wage income now.

Sorry folks, but due to some pressing and personal events that clammered for my attention, I was not able to post for the last few days – and it happened on a weekday too (most people do their blog reading on weekdays). Sometimes you want life events to be stable and everything to go according to plan, but then something occurs out of the ordinary, requiring you to shift course momentarily. But it’s okay – these things happen and we just have to be prepared and deal with them as they come.

Blogging Is Hard Work But Rewarding

When I first started out this blogging adventure, I was inspired by those who wanted to make money by blogging. I planned to treat it like a true part time job, and dedicate sufficient time to keep it running smoothly by posting new entries everyday. Some online writers post every few days, but I was determined to make it a daily goal.

Blogging has truly been a labor of love since I’ve come to discover that writing on a regular basis can be quite time consuming with little immediate financial rewards. It’s true what those in the industry say – to run a successful blog site, you have to be truly passionate about the subject matter you write about. If you are not truly inspired or have a genuine desire to explore the subject matter to its full potential, it will be very difficult to sustain your efforts long term. Thankfully, lack of passion or interest has not been my problem. But life likes to throw little monkey wrenches at my plans sometimes. I’ve tried my best to write diligently and keep my personal life events separate from the continuation of my pet projects, but occasionally they will bump into each other. When that happens, it’s inevitable that I might need to take a momentary breather, to step away from blogging for a day or two before returning to start anew.

It’s All Too Easy To Develop Procrastinating Blogging Habits

Unlike working at a regular full time job, blogging on the side requires a good sense of self motivation. Since all of the content writing and operations are performed online, there is not the same strict requirement to make a daily appearance as would be required at a regular full time job. Since I write on my blogs part time, it is very easy to get sidetracked by home and work events. Unlike a regular brick and mortar business where there is an actual physical store front, I have no customers or visitors that walk up to my store daily to demand service – so I have to depend on self motivation.

Although the online world is not physical and it’s easy to brush it aside as not real, it is still largely a social network based on maintaining good long term relationships. Like any budding business, if you don’t attend to it properly, it will sputter out of gas and fail in the long term.

Blogging can be extra difficult, particularly if you blog about a subject or topic that requires extensive research first. I have two types of posts. One type is substantive and the other is primarily opinion based. The substantive post requires significantly more time since I have to research and organize statistics to support my claim. For example if I’m talking about credit cards or a particular investment, I have to research the terms carefully to make sure my numbers are correct. But on the flip side, opinion based posts are relatively easy and quick to crank out since they are based entirely on my own opinions and views. I am essentially writing from memory and typing extemporaneously. To strike a good balance between content and efficiency, I usually incorporate both substantive and opinion type writing into my everyday posts. This helps to make the time consumption less draining.

Although I was strapped for time and wasn’t able to sit down at my PC for the last few days, things have calmed down again. Trying to blog daily and do it part time can be like working a burdensome second job, but overall it’s been quite an enjoyable hobby. I really like the social interaction and information exchange I get out of it. So it’s back to writing I go!

I love looking at numbers. I also love looking at charts, graphs, and balance sheets that organize numerical data into quantifiable displays. I think I spend way too much time looking at my numbers, but a glance at what my other fellow personal finance bloggers frequently write about and discuss, I get the feeling I’m not alone on this.

I Like Having Access to My Numbers At All Times

Seriously, it doesn’t matter where I am – I could be sitting at my desk at work or relaxing in front of the television set at home, but at some point, I’m going to want to take a look at my numbers. I use the term numbers loosely, but it’s an all encompassing term to include everything related to statistics – from my blog’s Sitemeter traffic counter to my investment brokerage account’s numerical fluctuations. I don’t want to say I’m addicted to statistical trends, but I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. It’s hard to point my finger on exactly what is it that I find so fascinating about statistics, but I’ve found that many personal finance bloggers also seem to share the same type of mathematical obsession.

Statistic Bloggers Like To Have Things Numerically Organized

Having talked to other fellow bloggers and read their articles over the years, I’ve come to realize that many of us are quite similar. We all seem to enjoy watching the numbers go up and down as it gives us a sense of where we stand in the financial world. We like things to be organized in numerical fashion. Many, if not most of us have set personal finance goals that are frequently met when a certain number or percentage is met.

I personally enjoy working with numbers because it’s a form of self assessment and comparison that is not only objective, but can be applied towards different individuals in different life situations. Numbers like salary, wage rate, interest rate, expense ratio, and rate of return are universally applicable and translatable to everyone.

Frugality Bloggers Are a Bit Different

Unlike the number freaks who are usually equally obsessed as I am about hard quantifiable data, some personal finance bloggers write mostly about frugal living and bargain hunting. These writers on a whole tend to stay away from numbers and statistical scrutiny. Frugality bloggers tend to be less interested in statistics and focus more attention on the accomplishment and satisfaction they get from discovering bargains and finding ways to spend their money more wisely and efficiently.

Maybe it’s just me but I’ve noticed that there seems to be more male bloggers who fall into the hard statistics category. There tends to be more more female bloggers who write content that fall into the frugality one. I can’t recall having read an article recently written by a female blogger discussing financial investments that went into a numerical analysis. Anyone else notice this? Perhaps I’m just generalizing too much.