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5 Work From Home Jobs That Pay $100/Day or More

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Want to work from home? In this episode, I give you some work from home ideas that could earn you at least $100/day. 

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Let’s talk about five work-from-home jobs that pay at least $100 or more. Some of these are things that you’re going to be able to get started on right away and start earning immediately, and other ones you’re going to have to maybe apply or look for the work, but nonetheless, once you start getting the work, it’s very easy to earn that amount of money every single day that you’re willing to put in the work.

Before we jump right in, I want to share the sponsor of this episode, which is WP Engine. If you need a website, WordPress is definitely going to be the option to go. WordPress powers over 30% of the internet and WP Engine is one of the leaders in hosting provider for WordPress websites. They specialize in WordPress, which means you set up an account, you instantly have a WordPress website that has the best in class hosting, the best in class support, lots of available themes so that you can easily customize your website and get it set up.

They’ve got tons of training. They’ve got tons of features and stuff, of course, built on top of it that make it one of the best solutions in hosting, so make sure to check out the link in the show notes or the description below, or you can just go to jerad.link/wpengine and check out what they have to offer.

Let’s jump into it. Five work-from-home jobs that pay at least $100 a day.

1. Transcribe Video/Audio on Rev.Com

The first one is going to be transcribing videos on Rev.com. Now, for me, I tend to produce a lot of video content, and it can be very time-consuming for me to do a video, and then do a blog, and use content in different ways. It’s much easier for me to take my video and have it transcribed by somebody, and so I pay Rev.com to transcribe the videos for me.

You can actually take that job on and transcribe the video. Essentially, you’re just watching a video and transcribing what’s said into their system, and then that is provided to the purchaser, and then of course, that purchaser can use that content for a blog or for close captioning for their video. There’s a lot of different things that they can use that content for. In fact, the text you are reading right now was transcribed by some fine person who freelances for Rev.Com.

For me, I use Rev for my blog a lot of times. Sometimes, I go in the reverse order where I actually write a blog and then do a video using the content from that blog, but most of the time, especially in some of my longer form content, those like tutorial videos that I do over on State of Tech and Ditch Auto. Those are longer form like 20, 30-minute long videos with a lot of steps, and it’s so much easier for me to have it transcribed, and then I go in, and add images, and make it look like a blog using the transcription from the video that I had already produced.

You can sign up and be working in the next hour easily. You’re just waiting for jobs to come in. You’re taking that job. Their whole system in the backend makes it very easy for you to see what jobs are available. You can transcribe them. You have a certain amount of time you need to finish it in, and then of course, that’s it, and then they pay you right there on the spot.

The rate of pay is pretty decent. You can easily make $100 a day. I think you could probably make a little bit more than that and not even have to work a full work day because they charge about a dollar a minute is what they charge those of us that are having videos transcribed, and then of course, you get a good chunk of that, so if you think about that… I don’t know what the exact dollar amount is, and I know it varies depending on how frequently you work with them. I mean, there’s tiers and all that stuff, so the more you work with them, the better your rate of pay is going to be, and of course, the better you do, the better quality of your transcriptions, there are perks and all that stuff, so you’ll definitely want to go over their website and check it out.

Visit Rev’s Website

2. Live Chat Representative

All websites these days are integrating live chat. It is a great way for a business to capture a viewer’s attention and be able to answer those questions. A lot of times, people just don’t have the attention span to click around a website, and look, and try to find the correct information. It’s easier just to go to a live chat rep and just start chatting right there.

There’s a couple of different ways that you could find live chat representative jobs. Of course, there are companies out there that just hire people to work from home and handle all the live chat for different customers, and you may be a live chat rep for a variety of different small businesses, or you might end up being a live chat rep just for one larger business, but there’s also the option of finding local businesses in your area.

For example, if maybe there was an insurance agent company in your town and they want to have live chat on their website, you could be their chat representative and work from home essentially. You would probably be… being hired by them, but you would work from home. You can do that from the comfort of your own home using your laptop, or iPad, or whatnot, but I think probably the easiest route would be just to simply go online and find a live chat rep job. I’ve got a couple of links down below to companies that hire live chat reps that can work from home. Very easy.

Live Chat Representative Jobs:

Apple: https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/aha.html
Concentrix: https://careers.concentrix.com/careers
LiveWorld: https://www.liveworld.com/about-us/#careers
ModSquad: https://modsquad.com/join-the-mods/
Arise Work From Home: https://www.ariseworkfromhome.com
Needle: https://www.needle.com/
SiteStaff: https://sitestaff.com/chathost
The Chat Shop: https://www.thechatshop.com/jobs/live-chat-agent
Upwork: https://upwork.com
Indeed: https://indeed.com

3. Do Jobs on Fiverr.Com

On Fiverr.com, people post jobs that they need done for cheap. It used to be everything was $5. That’s where they got their name, Fiverr. For $5, somebody will transcribe a video for you. Somebody will write a blog for you. Somebody will write a review for your product online for you, will comment on your social media accounts or whatever. Like there’s lots of different things that people would do, but it’s expanded not only to be like little $5 jobs. It’s everything from a dollar to jobs that are over $100, and you can use your expertise.

If you have an area of expertise, for example, maybe you studied some graphic design in college or something like that, you can post jobs that you’re comfortable doing, and people can pay you to do those jobs, and so depending on your range of work, for example, maybe you have a good voice and you can do voiceover. You have a computer. You have a microphone. You can do voiceover, and so you offer your voiceover services.

There are so many things that you could do on Fiverr.com to earn money. You can just go to Fiverr.com, and start searching, and see what other people are offering, and of course, you can offer the same or similar services, or even add your own twist to it. There is no limit. There are no limits really on Fiverr.com. There are so many different things that you can go there and check out. Just check out all the categories that they have available, and look and see what some of the featured users on Fiverr are doing, and build your profile, and start doing some jobs, and see what happens.

The best people to reach out, so after you set up a Fiverr account, and you’re ready to go, and you have a couple of jobs, the best thing that you can do is actually reach out to people that you already know and say, “Hey, I’m trying to build a little bit of a following on Fiverr. If anybody needs… like if anybody needs a little bit of graphic design work or if anybody needs some photography done or a voiceover, or whatever it is that you think that you can offer on the website, reach out to your network of people that you already have. You’d be surprised how many people might need that service.

If you do voiceovers, you could do a cool voiceover for somebody for their birthday. I mean, there are so many things that you can do that are just interesting. I mean, I saw a guy who… You pay him on Fiverr, and he’ll go and make a video like a happy birthday video like shooting off guns. I mean, it’s just totally weird. There are so many interesting things that people do on Fiverr, and they make a small living at it, which is pretty awesome.

Depending on what it is that you offer and how much of a need there is for it, Fiverr might be the one that varies a little bit to where it’s going to take a little bit of time for you to build up to that $100, but depending on the job, I mean, if you provide a service that is a little bit more or if you can provide a service that is a little bit more pricier, you’re going to get to that $100 mark much easier than somebody who might be providing a smaller service for around $5.

Of course, the smaller priced services, you’re going to have to do more of those jobs to reach that $100 mark, whereas if you could position yourself on the higher end, producing a higher end service on Fiverr.com, it’s going to be a lot less work for you to find more customers because one customer might actually reach that $100 a day mark for you.

Visit Fiverr.Com

4. Virtual Assistant

A lot of times, there are business owners, entrepreneurs that need an assistant to handle some tasks for them, but they can’t really afford to hire a full-time assistant nor do they really want to. They don’t have enough stuff to keep a full-time assistant busy.

I know for myself, I wouldn’t have enough things for an assistant to do full-time. We don’t have phones ringing all the time. I don’t have tons of emails and stuff coming in with questions to where maybe the assistant can handle them. I don’t have people scheduling with me all the time. It’s like a little bit here and there, and so a virtual assistant can handle that because I could pay a virtual assistant just for the time that I need them, and then of course, they can be a virtual assistant for other people as well.

Here, there’s a couple different ways that this works. There are websites that hire virtual assistants and get the jobs of them, so that’s definitely a way you can go, and I’ve linked to one of those down below for you. You can sign up. Put in all the things that you’re good at. Maybe you’re a good writer. You know Excel. You know how to do a PowerPoint. There’s like different things that you know how to do. You fill all those out so that they know what kind of jobs to send your way, and then you’re getting… You’re being a micro virtual assistant for a lot of different people on a per-need basis.

Moving down a little bit more, you may be an actual virtual assistant for a specific person where you’re handling some of their scheduling. You’re doing maybe a little bit of research for them. I know that I have used virtual assistants to research for a blog for me. I knew what I wanted to write the blog topic on, but I wanted some compelling research to include in the blog, so I had a virtual assistant do that legwork for me, and they got it done in a day’s time, got it over to me, and I finished off my blog with much more information than I would have been able to get if I had to use my own time.

A virtual assistant can really end up earning a pretty decent wage because one person might not be able to hire you full-time as an assistant, but if you could virtual assist for like maybe five to eight people, that could easily become a $100-a-day job right there. As you start to build that up and you get a couple of people that you’re working for, of course, you can keep building on that until you don’t have any time left available, but I think it wouldn’t be too hard to get to that $100 mark.

Virtual Assistant Jobs:

ZipRecruiter: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Jobs/Virtual-Assistant
Indeed: https://www.indeed.com/q-Virtual-Assistant-jobs.html
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/virtual-assistant-jobs/
Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/o/jobs/browse/c/admin-support/sc/personal-virtual-assistant/?sort=relevance%2Bdesc
Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/virtual-assistant-jobs-SRCH_KO0,17.htm

5. Social Media Manager

Now, a social media manager can mean a lot of different things. It’s very easy for people to think, “Well, I have an Instagram or a Facebook account so I know how to use social media,” but to use social media on behalf of a business, or an entrepreneur, or something like that, you need to be able to produce content that speaks to their audience, and they may actually even produce that content for you. They’re just looking for you to communicate and maintain those comments, and responding, and stuff like that on their different social media platforms. That can become a very busy job for a person if they have a decent size following.

I know that for me on YouTube, it’s challenging for me to keep up with all of the comments that come in on State of Tech and Ditch Auto because some videos will end up having hundreds of comments coming in, and that becomes a little bit of a challenge to keep up on all those and maintain all of those conversations, which of course I want to do, but it definitely gets a little hard, so you as a social media manager can step in and keep those conversations going.

Of course, that may almost look like a virtual assistant position because you may have to go to the person that you’re working for and ask questions to be able to properly respond to some of the questions that are being asked or some of the comments that are being left on social media, but nonetheless, you become that person that gathers the information needed and produces the response on social media or even helps with producing the content that goes on their social media.

Some of these jobs you probably already have the skills for. For example, if you know how to type, you can do transcription on Rev, and you can also be a live chat representative. Those are pretty simple there. Where on Fiverr, you may have to have a little bit of a certain skill so that you can provide a service. Being a virtual assistant means that you have to utilize some sort of skills.

Of course, maybe as a virtual assistant, you’re only writing or maybe just utilizing simple software that most of us grew up using on our computers. But then, there are more advanced aspects of being a virtual assistant where you may have to use or understand how to use specific tools, but going online and figuring out how to use those are pretty simple. There’s so much information available online right now.

I’ve linked down below to a couple of the courses that I’ve done. A virtual assistant or a social media manager may include setting up a Facebook profile or setting up a Facebook page for a business. I have a course on how to do that, and it’s a free course. You can watch it, and then you’ll instantly know how to set this up and even manage a Facebook page for a business.

Introduction to Facebook Pages for Business

Understanding Hashtags in Social Media

I’m working on more content for you so that you can understand some of these other platforms better like YouTube, like Instagram, and LinkedIn, and all that stuff, so you want to make sure to check out the links down below and put in your email address or at least sign up for one so that you can be notified when I produce new ones because I want to make sure that I am giving as much information as I can to help people on this process.

That’s going to do it. I hope that maybe one of these will change your life. I know for me that an extra $100 a day would be life-changing, and I think that that’s the case for pretty much everybody. If you agree with me, just say yes or no down in the comments section below. Of course, if you have any questions or want a little bit further explanation, or maybe you are confused about anything I said, please ask down in the comments section below. I will do my best to respond and of course, provide as much information as I can based on the knowledge that I have.

Get out there and make some money from home!

How to Make Time to Be Creative While Still Being Productive

Posted on by Jerad Hill

There are a lot of misconceptions about the creative process that people have. Those who appear to be more creative are seen as just being more creative than others. I believe that someone is more creative because have the ability to separate creativity from getting things done. Most people know that constraints such as time and business stifle creativity. How can you be creative if you are worried about deadlines? I decided to put a video together discussing how I try to make time for the creative process but also assure that I am still getting things done. My process is not perfect. Let me talk a bit here about what seems to work for me.

1. Schedule Your Tasks

If you are able to, schedule the tasks, meetings, and other items you need to get done so there is a clearly defined time that these things will be dealt with. If you do not schedule a time to do them, all you will think about is the deadline. Deadlines stifle creativity unless you take away their power by scheduling the tasks to be completed before that deadline. Take the power away from the deadline so you don’t have so much anxiety over it.

2. Schedule Time to be Creative

Remember those scenes in the tv show Mad Men where Don Draper seems to be up against a wall with a deadline and no idea so he just decides to take a nap? This happens in the first episode of the first season. Don seems overwhelmed with what is going on around him, so he just takes a nap instead. He wakes up, has an idea, and knocks it out of the park.

Don Draper Takes A Nap

Now I don’t think that naps will solve all of your problems with being creative, but I am sure that taking some time to recharge and clear your mind will. It’s hard to be creative when all you can think about is the deadlines and work tasks that need to be done.

I try to schedule some uninterrupted time that I can spend thinking and writing with the sole purpose of exploring ideas. This has to be a time where no deadlines or tasks can be done and no promises are made to anybody. You also need to disconnect to prevent distractions from coming up. I recommend not checking email for at least a few hours before you start this creative time because you do not need fresh reminders of upcoming things that are required of you. You need to have a fresh mind that is as clear as possible.

For me, being creative seems to come easier in the morning. I typically have more energy and nothing has happened yet that day to fill my mind with the needs of others. I have more mental bandwidth in the mornings.

3. Journal and Take Notes

How many times have you had an idea right before bed, not write it down, and it’s gone in the morning? This used to happen to me all the time until I started journaling and taking notes throughout the day. I use a combination of things such as Evernote, Trello, and a physical journal to keep track of my thoughts, ideas, tasks, and goals.

Evernote is great because you can use it like a notebook to take down ideas, make lists, and track goals. Since it’s an app you can put on all of your devices, you can load photos, audio, and sketch into it as well. I often take a picture of something I read that I want to remember later. You can use the search feature in Evernote to search text in images as well so the next time you see something cool in a magazine, instead of tearing out the page, take a picture of it in Evernote and store your thoughts along with it. I do this when I read as well. The image above I took with my smartphone and in Evernote, I highlighted the text I wanted to remember.

Check out “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”

Trello Board for YouTube Video Production

I use Trello to put my ideas into action. In Trello, I set up boards for different ideas. Those ideas are put on cards and those cards can be moved throughout the board. For videos I want to entertain making, I have a Videos board. On the videos board are different lists. Video ideas start off on the left-hand side in an Ideas list. This is where I dump any and all video ideas I come up with. Some of these ideas will never see the light of day. Other ideas will move down the board through other lists as they make their way to the last list on the right which is for Live Videos.

There are many tools out there to help with your creative process. For me, it’s getting the ideas out of my head so I can clear up mental bandwidth for other things. This is how we are able to push out multiple videos each week while still getting a ton of work done for our clients.

4. Get Active

This is the area I need the most help in. I used to have no problem getting to the gym, being active throughout the day, and maintaining some sort of activity at home. I recognize that when I am more active, I am more creative. I have read the research on how being active affects the brain, it’s just tough to actually make it happen. This is the area in my life I am most challenged. When I wake up, I just want to get to work. When I get home, I just want to chill and hang out with my family. I need to work more activity into my life because when I do, I am more alert and my mind is more pliable.

5. Give Yourself Some Downtime

One thing we don’t do much of these days in the United States is allow for some downtime. We are always in production mode and never go into R&D mode. R&D typically stands for Research and Development, but I like to look at it as Relax and Dream time. When I give my body and mind time to not worry about the needs of my clients or the mountain of tasks I wanted to complete, I come back from that recharged. Not only am I able to be more creative but I am able to get tasks done quicker and more effectively as well.

Being Creative and Getting Things Done

If you don’t plan to succeed you plan to fail. ~Benjamin Franklin

Flying by the seat of our pants doesn’t work. Not in today’s world. If you want to be more creative while at the same time expanding your ability to be more productive, you need to plan for it. I can’t say I have found that perfect plan or combination of things that result in the highest level of productivity, but I am working towards it. This process will never be complete. It’s something you constantly refine and work at. Eventually, something becomes too routine and is no longer effective so you have to change it up.

Work towards finding something that works for you. Try a few of the things I am doing to see if they help you be more creative while still having plenty of time to get things done.

If you have an idea or something that works for you that I did not mention, let me know in the comments section below.

February 2018 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

February was definitely a reality check that came quick. I knew that January was a Unicorn Month and stated that in last months side income report. I just don’t like seeing red. I am still turning a profit and am up compared to last year, but there is a lot of red in this months report.

I spent most of February concentrating on content. I also played around with Live Streaming quite a bit. One of my plans over the next few months is to start doing some live streaming. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do in that space. My studio is now set up to live stream.

I burned out on buying and selling Cryptocurrency Mining equipment. It was a lot to keep up with and I did not want it occupying so much of my mental bandwidth. By the end of the month, I had sold off the remaining inventory I had. I still have my small mining farm and have been trying to decide what to do with that. It’s earning an income but when the days start to warm up I will need to figure out a solution for cooling the warehouse.

This has also been kind of a tough month for my investments. The stock market corrected quite harshly this month. I was not hit too hard because in December I sold off most of my stocks that had not seen at least 10% growth in the previous quarter so I got lucky there. The stocks I still hold did not get hit too hard and by the end of February, they had completely recovered.

Cryptocurrency continues to get hammered as well. I am still showing an increase in my holdings because I continue to mine Ethereum and ZCash, but I did lose quite a bit. I hope that the coming months bring some recovery to that market.

March will bring a new challenges as I continue to work on content for these projects in an attempt to grow them. I recognize where most of the opportunity for growth is, I just need the time to put in the work.

I am still thrilled with how things are going so far in 2018. The year started off kind of crazy but I can now start to dig into some of my longer-term plans for side income growth. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to follow along as I continue to explore new ways to grow my personal income.

February 2018 Side Income Total – $5,409.45 (-35.09%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $879.27 (-2.51%) Subscribers: 28471 (+7.28%) Watch Time: 1,110,876 Minutes (-20.63%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos. I added a few videos in February, but nothing that saw much traction. A few other videos have started to see some growth. I hope to get more content up in March.
  • Ditch Auto – $333.63 (-6.96%) Subscribers: 23536 (+6.72) Watch Time: 703,892 Minutes (-20.26%)
    My photography channel continues to lack content. I have not had time to put anything together for Ditch Auto. I will be starting a monthly photo challenge in March so I hope to be able to produce some content around the monthly challenges.
  • Jerad Hill – $33.83 (+30.87%) Subscribers: 5208 (+9.96%) Watch Time: 33,665 Minutes (+1.04%)
    This is my personal channel. I started uploading a few videos here and there with plans to get more serious in March.
  • AltCast – $0 (0%) Subscribers: 1170 (+166.51%) Watch Time: 52,661 Minutes (+201.41%)
    AltCast is a new channel started January 2018 with a focus on Cryptocurrency Mining. I have seen a lot of growth here due to a give-a-way that was pretty successful. I still need to reach 250,000 watch minutes in order to monetize this channel. I am currently at around 120,000.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $855.23 (-49.83%)
    The Cryptocurrency buzz is slowing so this income channel cooled off a bit. I also have not spent much time creating new content for State of Tech or Ditch Auto which are two of the bigger driving forces behind Amazon Affiliate purchases for my account.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $49.65 (-46.94%)
    Google made a pretty sizeable algorithm change in January which put the hurt on one of my sites. State of Tech’s organic traffic basically cut in half. The algorithm change favors sites that have frequent updates and State of Tech has not had much fresh content lately. I plan to change that over the next few months to regain some ground.
    Sites with Adsense Integration: StateOfTech.Net, DitchAuto.Com

Jerad’s Courses

  • Paid courses on Jerad.Courses – $784.00 (-21.99%)
    The Mining Rig course still continues to provide some income. It has started to taper off likely due to the interest in mining starting to slow.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $623.84 (-35.58%)
    Just like with my personal course site, the revenue has dropped a bit on Udemy. I have been learning how Udemy showcases courses that decide to use their own pricing rather than allowing Udemy to run sales. I hope to discuss this later in a blog post on my experiences with using Udemy for my online courses.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $1850.00 (-43.53%)
    As I mentioned earlier in this report, I have just about sold off the rest of my mining equipment that I purchased to resell. I still have my mining rigs, but that is about it. It was a lot of work to find mining hardware and to resell it. This category is going to drop off a lot in the next month as I don’t have any current plans to add any additional side income channels for now.

Investments

This is a new category that I am not including in my side income revenue because these are investments. In my opinion, these investments will not become income until I cash them out. In the future, I may break this out on its own as I have more content for this area. I have been investing on my own for a few years but I have not really taken it very seriously until late last year.

  • Stocks (Robinhood) – Holdings: $7,625.02 (+16.40%)
    In December I sold off all stocks that were not performing outstanding to fund the purchase of mining equipment for resale. This ended up working out to my benefit as there was a decent market correction in February. I would have lost close to 20%. Instead, I lost about 5% and then quickly regained that and more by the end of the month.
  • Cryptocurrency – Holdings: 5,497.37 (+36.09%)
    Crypto has been hit hard this month and continues to take hits into March. I am still mining which contributes to growth in my holdings but I have lost a good portion of value from when it was at an all-time high in early January. I will likely buy in during March as the prices are too low not to. If you want to get started investing in Cryptocurrency, I suggest joining Coinbase. You can buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin currently.

February was a good month. Though it was quite a bit lower than January, I didn’t let my expectations get in the way of remaining grounded. I was able to get a lot accomplished in February, but I did have a few setbacks. The emotional high I was riding from things going so well in December and January wore off and I started to feel it. I try hard not to be, but I can easily be affected by a loss of momentum. I am trying to figure out how to course correct when I do lose momentum.

March will be interesting because a lot of Hill Media Group projects will be coming to a close. That will free up a lot of time to work on side projects. I need to continue to work on growing Hill Media Group, but the extra time will be nice to test out a few things.

Thanks for coming along. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.

Chasing “There”

Posted on by Jerad Hill

I started writing this blog two years ago and never finished it. I just read it and it’s never more relevant than when I started writing it so I decided to finally finish it instead of making another video.

As I kid, I don’t remember having much to worry about. That is how it is supposed to be. I remember desiring things, like toys and whatnot, but I didn’t worry about things like where I would be sleeping or what I would be eating. I was very fortunate. It was not long into my later childhood that I began wanting things and worrying about whether or not I would get them. At age 10, I got a paper route job so I could earn money to get the things I wanted. That embedded in me a mindset that I have been stuck with ever since but at the very same time fully aware of the need to change from. Before I get too far down this thought let me stop to mention that there is nothing wrong with wanting more. Our country was founded on the desire for more. More is what made this country what it is today. I’m not trying to argue that the desire for more is bad, it’s just that when we allow that desire to lead us, we lose our ability to enjoy what we already have.

Since I got my first paycheck and fell short of the funds needed to buy what I wanted I wanted more. I was not satisfied making the money I was making because it did not get me to where I wanted to go. I remember wanting a new part for my bike and not having enough money to get it. I thought to myself, “If I only had a second paper route, I could afford to get it now.” My brothers and I grew up racing. We loved building motors and working on things. We would dream of having the money to build our own motor the way we wanted to build it, with all new parts. We had catalogs of parts that we would go through meticulously making sure each part was compatible and changing our minds often on the final configuration. Later in my teen years, I did this with computer parts as I wanted to build a powerful computer. Throughout my younger years leading into my teen years, I would do a variety of jobs to make money, including starting a small lawn mowing service. Later on, I would build that awesome computer and build the motor from my childhood desires.

Through some program with the school district, I got a summer job when I was 14. This was the first job I attended daily and received a paycheck for. To me, this was real freedom. I had a paycheck every two weeks and could afford more. I remember one of my first major purchases being a new complete skateboard. Summer came to an end and so did that summer job. I was used to that income and now I didn’t have it. The one constant throughout my younger years is that I had often desired more and never felt like I had it.

In school, we are encouraged to make a life plan. They say that you have to have a five-year-plan or something along those lines. I always found that hard to do because I was chasing tomorrow to make sure it happened. I could not imagine thinking out five years in advance. When you are young, the concept of five years seems like an eternity. As I have aged, the gap seems to have closed a bit. Five years seems to go by in the blink of an eye. My oldest child almost eight years old. Where did that time go? Perhaps if I had created a solid plan for my life I would have reached it by now and would no longer be chasing after something. I highly doubt that. We always find something more to long after.

Over the last few years, my goal has been to become debt free. We are close. We paid off our cars and carry very little revolving debt. I have been chasing the idea of purchasing a home for a long time. As a self-employed person, it is very hard to purchase a home without telling the IRS that I made more money than I actually did, which in turn would require me to pay more taxes, or saving the money and purchasing a home with cash. Since I believe the government does not deserve any more of my money than they already take, my goal was to save up. We were well on our way, but had some setbacks with medical expenses we decided to pay in full and for some living expenses that I did not want to make payments on. I have allowed myself to get stressed out, even depressed over the idea of not having achieved these goals. I wanted to own the home my wife and I would grow old in by the time my kids were old enough to remember their first home. Since having kids, we have moved twice and are currently renting. Sometimes I have to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with that. The alternative would be being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to a bank, which is not freedom or something that would make it easy for me to sleep at night. I know people that are upside down on the homes owing more than it is worth and others who have had to short sale a home or even foreclose on one. Life happens, but I am glad I avoided those mistakes.

People are so quick to go into debt to buy a home, get an education, or purchase other things. I try to be a more cautious with how far I stretch myself, especially now that I have kids. I believe that any money owed to anyone for any reason is a debt. Somehow people seem to think certain debts are actually investments. You don’t have an investment if the bank is who owns it. An investment is an asset. You don’t have an asset until you have equity.

Regardless, I still have ambitions and things I want to achieve. The problem is that I always feel like I have a level I need to get to before I can even get started. That results in me not getting started until it’s too late. I often fail to remember that some of the best and most profitable things that I have done in my lifetime I started the moment I had the idea.

The frustrating thing is that I know that I am getting in my own way. I get caught up in the things that I feel need to get done at the moment and neglect the ideas that I know could be great. I tell myself that I just need to get that done first and check off a few other tasks before I could get started. I tell myself that I have responsibilities and I need to make sure that they are all taken care of before I can work on what I want to work on. I get those tasks done but I lose the feeling that I had when I first had the idea. It becomes hard to start working on that idea again because the passion was extinguished by the busy work.

I have been full-time self-employed since I was 20 years old. You would think that by now I would not have moments where I felt like I was near the end of my self-employed journey. Having generated my own income for the last 18 years of my life, you would think I would have nothing but confidence in myself. That is not always the case. I know that many entrepreneurs deal with these feelings. Being responsible for it all and making all of the decisions even when you are not sure if they are the right decisions to make can leave you feeling like a fraud at times, even after 18 years.

Back to chasing “there.” “There” is always somewhere just out of reach. It’s the pursuit of more, and not always just more stuff. The problem with it is that it’s a destination. But life can’t just be a series of destinations. We make everything about the destination rather than part of the journey. If you live your life trying to get to the next destination all you are going to want is a new destination once you get there.

Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like I have put in the time to have made it to some of those destinations. I see others reach greater heights having put in a fraction of the work, or at least that is how it seems. This is another dead end. The end result is what’s publicized but that is all we see, not the hustle that it took to get there. I know this fact, but moments of weakness, remember? It’s one of the ways I allow myself to get demotivated.

What our world really needs is to understand that the pursuit of “there” is not healthy. It’s too easy to fall into the trap that enough is not enough. If we can’t appreciate what we have in the moment, we’ll never enjoy anything.

I need to give myself the freedom to think and to work on ideas when I have them. I used to be good at this and that is why I have had success in some of my endeavors. Anytime I feel atrophy it’s a direct result of spending too much time trying to focus on what I think needs to be done rather than doing what should be done.

Over the past few years, I have been cutting away elements of my work that are contributing to an unhealthy desire for more. I have been trying to simplify, but it’s hard to do. When you worked hard to build something, you don’t want to let it go, even when you know the time has come. I need to focus less on the destinations I keep looking toward so I have more time for the journey.

As a parent, I think about what mindset I want my kids to grow into adults with when it comes to achieving. I want them to have a healthy understanding of what achievement is. I know that I can not program my kids to do anything or be any certain way. All I can do is let them observe as I live my life as their dad. Some people grow up not able to handle the fact that they are not reaching the destinations they built up for themselves so they push those emotions down with alcohol or drugs. What’s worse is that some of those destinations were put on them by others such as society or their parents.

What are your thoughts on chasing “there?” What is that destination you find yourself fixating over because you never seem to reach it? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

5 Tips for Managing an Attention Deficit + 1 Game Changer

Posted on by Jerad Hill

As far back as I can remember, I have had a problem focusing. As a kid growing up in the 80’s, people often equated a kid with lack of attention to someone who wouldn’t amount to much later on in life. If you can’t focus in school you won’t get into college and you won’t get a good job. That was beaten into me by teachers throughout my years as a student. I carried that baggage with me into my adult years which included shame because I didn’t measure up to what society deemed as normal.

It was not until the last few years that I realized I have developed somewhat of a method to deal with an active attention deficit so I could accomplish tasks. I am not sure if I would end up being diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) or not, it would probably depend on what I told the doctor. I just think that the medical field is too quick to diagnose someone as having a disorder when they simply need a framework for accomplishing tasks.

This was originally a video I produced for my YouTube channel but after some restructuring, it ended up getting removed. In the original video, I discussed the following five topics and the game-changer. I plan to revisit these topics more specifically in the future, so please consider subscribing to my email newsletter.

  1. Focus on the problem.
  2. Visualization/Notes
  3. Remove visual clutter
  4. Self-Encouragement
  5. Milestones/Organization

Game Changer: Find something you truly enjoy.

This book was eye-opening for me: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
This book helped me become more self-aware: Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life
This book gave me some tips on how to get un-stuck: Why You’re Stuck: Your Guide To Finding Freedom From Any Of Life’s Challenges

January 2018 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

The winds are a-changin’. This January was what I will call a Unicorn Month. A Unicorn Month is a month where things were definitely out of the ordinary. I am always watching for opportunities and sometimes what I thought was the opportunity actually turned out to be something else.

In December, I started mining cryptocurrency. There has been a lot of people getting into mining and that has put real strains on the supply of mining hardware. This was already happening when I started buying my initial equipment. I had a lot of people come out of the woodworks wanting information about mining. I produced a video course titled “How to Build an Ethereum Mining Rig” which performed well during the month of January. I also started looking for alternative suppliers of Graphics Cards for Mining Computers. I was fortunate enough to get a large order of them, so I sold them on Amazon and eBay for a profit. I was able to sell so many of them that I paid for all of my mining equipment and am up about $2500 at the time of writing this.

I also started producing a lot of content on the topic of Crypto Mining on YouTube. I enjoy teaching and learning so it just made sense to start producing videos. I am also using these videos to market the course I mentioned earlier.

My YouTube channels continued to grow and saw consistent traffic as the holiday season came to a close. I saw a dip toward the end of January. Revenue was down since the holidays were over so from here on out the monetization revenue will reflect more realistic numbers. A major goal is to get that back up with content that is not so seasonal.

The growth I saw in December and the Unicorn month of January will offer me some additional freedom going into February so I can focus a bit more on my side income streams in between taking care of my existing clients with Hill Media Group. Not having to worry so much about bringing in new clients for a couple of months will give me that extra focus I need to keep things moving forward.

With that said, here is my Side Income Report for January of 2018. This year is off to a great start. In February I have started filming videos on a variety of topics that I post to this website as well as my personal YouTube Channel. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to follow along as I continue to explore new ways to grow my personal income.

January 2018 Side Income Total – $8,334.72 (+76.9%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $901.99 (-39.89%) Subscribers: 26537 (+9.35%) Watch Time: 1,399,652 Minutes (+2.49%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos. There were a few videos added to the channel this month but my focus was on other channels.
  • Ditch Auto – $358.61 (-49.65%) Subscribers: 22053 (+6.37) Watch Time: 882,775 Minutes (-15.49%)
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials. Not a lot of content has been added to Ditch Auto this month.
  • Jerad Hill – $25.85 (-33.01%) Subscribers: 4736 (+2.35%) Watch Time: 33,316 Minutes (-8.68%)
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. In February I plan to start producing a daily video. I am not sure what this is going to look like yet but I am sure it will eventually add to growth.
  • AltCast – $0 (0%) Subscribers: 439 (+100%) Watch Time: 17,471 Minutes (+100%)
    AltCast is a new channel started January 2018 with a focus on alternative forms of investing and cryptocurrency mining. This channel will not be monetizable through YouTube until I reach 1,000 subscribers and hit 4,000 watch hours for the year.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $1,704 .69 (+67.91%)
    I saw a huge boost in Amazon Affiliate sales this month due to the success of my Cryptocurrency Mining videos and the Mining Course. People were using my links to purchase parts to build their mining rigs. On top of that, I think that a lot of people received Amazon gift cards for Christmas and were spending them on items they found through my content.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $93.58 (-49.62%)
    I cut some of the fat on a couple of my websites which will initially produce a decrease in traffic. I deleted a lot of content that I did not feel was relevant anymore. Many of these pages would generate a click or two here and there from organic search, but I deleted it all so that the search engines could focus on crawling quality content.

Jerad’s Courses

  • Paid courses on Jerad.Courses – $1,005.00 (+172.57%)
    The “How to Build an Ethereum Mining” course drove the growth this month. Cryptocurrency has received a lot of attention which has driven a lot of traffic to my videos which market my course. I have not done any marketing of this course yet other than linking to it from my YouTube videos.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $968.48 (+196.93%)
    I decided to add my Ethereum Mining course to Udemy as well. Udemy organic drove most of the traffic to this course which means I received a much smaller portion of the sales than I would on my own website It took 3x the signups to Udemy to make this amount compared to what it takes on my own course website.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $3,276.52 (+134.21%)
    My buying and selling mining hardware paid off as this month. I was able to make some solid side income from Amazon and eBay. I even made my employee James $2,500 as he had me sell the hardware he had purchased to start mining. I made a video explaining how I bet on Mining Hardware in January over Cryptocurrency, and it paid! I put this under other income because this is not a sustainable side income that will continue on. I am only able to sell mining hardware so long as there is a huge supply and demand issue. This revenue does not include what paid off my mining hardware. I was able to pay off all of my mining hardware with the profits and have money left over, which is what I have reported here, otherwise, this number would have been much larger. I will explain this more in the side income report video I will post to my YouTube Channel.

Investments

This is a new category that I am not including in my side income revenue because these are investments. In my opinion, these investments will not become income until I cash them out. In the future, I may break this out on its own as I have more content for this area. I have been investing on my own for a few years but I have not really taken it very seriously until late last year.

  • Stocks (Robinhood) – Holdings: $6,550.43 (-68.62%)
    In December I sold off all stocks that were not performing outstanding to fund the purchase of mining equipment for resale. My original holdings before the selloff were at $22,000 as of December 1st. I will talk about it more, but I am glad that I did. I would not have seen the huge drop in the Stock Market that happened in February. I invest in the Stock Market using the Robinhood App. I will be talking more about how I use this app on my personal YouTube channel and the AltCast YouTube Channel.
  • Cryptocurrency – Holdings: 4,039.42 (0.0%)
    Up until 2/8/2018 I held my crypto in various wallets with no simple way to get metrics on the performance of my holdings as the market fluctuates and new payouts from the mining operations are deposited. I have since started a spreadsheet to keep track of my holdings. I should be able to better report on the performance going forward. If you want to get started investing in Cryptocurrency, I suggest joining Coinbase. You can buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin currently.

What a way to start off 2018! I am excited to see where things go. I have prepared myself for a much lower February but I do not plan on letting grass grow under my feet. With all of my mining equipment paid off, I can focus on sharing revenues from my mining operations as well. I am still working out how I am going to add that into this report as what I earn from mining I see more as an investment than I do actual revenue.

Thanks for coming along. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.

December 2017 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Things are starting to get interesting as a lot changed this month. It is December, so most of my product affiliate links saw more action than normal but I also dove in head first into Cryptocurrency Mining. As I write this I am thinking back on what I was thinking when I decided to start investing in Crypto Coins and in Mining. I was a little scared, but I knew that I would miss the boat if I didn’t start right away.

In December I made a lot of changes to my investments. I don’t typically include investments as side income because I look at my investments as a long-term growth strategy. My strategy for buying and selling stocks is to continue to grow that portfolio into something I can use for retirement. The stock market has been good to me in 2017 but the growth is nothing compared to what has happened in Cryptocurrency in the last month.

I talked a lot about my mindset in a video I filmed on Building My First Ethereum Mining Rig, but I saw Cryptocurrency Mining as a less risky way to get into Cryptocurrency. If I was wrong, I could at least sell the mining rig or its components. Currently, I am posting weekly update videos to a new YouTube channel where I focus more on Cryptocurrency and Mining. It’s called AltCast. My goal is to talk about alternative forms of investing as well. Right now my topics are mostly Cryptocurrency and Crypto Mining.

I want to talk about the crazy things that have been happening in January so far but this blog is about December so I am going to try to stay on topic. You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I will try to share as much as I can there as it happens.

Towards the end of the month, I filmed a course titled How to Build an Ethereum Mining Rig. I had built a few at this point and had been answering a lot of questions online. The course went live a few days before the new year so it only sold a few copies. I’m excited to see how the course performs through January.

Traffic to the YouTube channels continues to grow. State of Tech and the new AltCast got most of the attention in December even though I wanted to give Ditch Auto more time. State of Tech has seen some growth due to the mining specific videos I posted. I thought about doing more mining content for State of Tech but I didn’t want to get too far off topic so I created AltCast to discuss investing and Cryptocurrency.

With that said, here is my Side Income Report for December of 2017. I am looking forward to seeing where things go in 2018 as I continue to explore new ways to grow my personal income.

December 2017 side income total – $3705.40 (+16.98%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $1351.56 (+21.33%) Subscribers: 24167 (+6.48%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos. There were a few videos added to the channel this month but we did add a bunch of videos right at the end of October that was specific to the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Those videos tend to take off a few months after they go live.
  • Ditch Auto – $595.45 (+36.25%) Subscribers: 20692 (+7.28)
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials. Not a lot of content has been added to Ditch Auto this month.
  • Jerad Hill – $36.07 (-0%) Subscribers: 4626 (+0.37%)
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. I do plan to do a lot more on my personal channel in the near future. I am just trying to decide what I want my focus to be there.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $840.51 (+45.15%)
    With August being back to school, it makes sense that these numbers would be higher. The majority of the product links I have out there are for technology and camera equipment. We have not put out much content that includes product links so I don’t expect much growth here until Christmas shopping begins.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $155.33 (+31.99%)
    I cut some of the fat on a couple of my websites which will initially produce a decrease in traffic. I deleted a lot of content that I did not feel was relevant anymore. Many of these pages would generate a click or two here and there from organic search, but I deleted it all so that the search engines could focus on crawling quality content.

Jerad’s Courses

  • Paid courses on Jerad.Courses – $74.00 (+100%)
    This is a new side income category. I have had this website live for a few years now but there has not been any paid courses on it until now. I expect a lot of growth here as I continue to produce content.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $7.49 (-111.91%)
    I only have one paid course currently and that course is getting old. It needs to be refreshed. I have plans later this month to get new courses out that will be paid and to revise a couple of my existing courses to drive some return traffic to my instructor page.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $645 (-34.62%)
    I turned off a couple of sources of this other income that I did not plan to maintain any longer. These sources really only brought in $20-75 per source and took an average of 3 hours per source. Not a good return on invested time, so they are gone.

I am excited about what 2018 will bring. I have a renewed vigor for improving my side income and a new goal I will announce with the January Side Income Report. I also plan to start filming some videos for my personal YouTube channel to discuss more on how I produce content that leads to the side income I am reporting in these blogs.

Thanks for coming along. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.

November 2017 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

As predicted, November was a bit better than prior months. This happens often during the holidays. The biggest boost I saw in my side-income during the holidays was when the Hoverboard got popular. There was a couple of months where I was getting $2,500 to $4,000 just from Amazon Affiliate links alone. That died off of course as does any fad. Going into this holiday season I do not have any content that is somewhat going viral to help generate revenue. I have a few ideas that just are not going to make it in time unless I end up with spare time in December.

One area that saw decent growth was the Google Adsense links. Due to my recent hire, a lot of content was created for two of my websites that I have brought new traffic to those sites. Though there was only a small amount of growth in regards to the cost of producing that content, that new content will live on for months and hopefully will return on the investment.

This month I started looking into Cryptocurrency mining. I am very interested in mining Ethereum (ETH). I will be building a mining rig early December so there will be a new category in my side-income report. I plan to track what I have mined, it’s growth and the fluctuation in the market. Should be interesting to follow.

So let’s take a look at the report for the month of November 2017.

November 2017 side income total – $3124.74 (+32.44%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $1091.08 (+32.59%) Subscribers: 21135 (+4.86%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos. There were a few videos added to the channel this month but we did add a bunch of videos right at the end of October that was specific to the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Those videos tend to take off a few months after they go live.
  • Ditch Auto – $412.74 (+21.94) Subscribers: 19238 (+5.71)
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials. Not a lot of content has been added to Ditch Auto this month.
  • Jerad Hill – $36.02 (-6.15) Subscribers: 4592 (+0.20%)
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. I do plan to do a lot more on my personal channel in the near future. I am just trying to decide what I want my focus to be there.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $530.89 (+57.02%)
    With August being back to school, it makes sense that these numbers would be higher. The majority of the product links I have out there are for technology and camera equipment. We have not put out much content that includes product links so I don’t expect much growth here until Christmas shopping begins.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $112.49 (+48.73%)
    I cut some of the fat on a couple of my websites which will initially produce a decrease in traffic. I deleted a lot of content that I did not feel was relevant anymore. Many of these pages would generate a click or two here and there from organic search, but I deleted it all so that the search engines could focus on crawling quality content.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $26.52 (+124.18%)
    I only have one paid course currently and that course is getting old. It needs to be refreshed. I have plans later this month to get new courses out that will be paid and to revise a couple of my existing courses to drive some return traffic to my instructor page.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $915 (+33.0%)
    I turned off a couple of sources of this other income that I did not plan to maintain any longer. These sources really only brought in $20-75 per source and took an average of 3 hours per source. Not a good return on invested time, so they are gone.

Overall I am pretty impressed with this month considering the low effort. As I mentioned before, the holidays often boost these numbers. It is much more challenging to maintain these numbers during the rest of the year. I am sure December will be good and will probably be a decent month assuming the mining of Ethereum (ETH) goes well.

I plan to do some filming early in the month to try and get a few videos that would make sense for the holidays done, but I am not sure if I will have time. Hill Media Group is keeping me pretty busy going into December. Unless that lets up a bit, the December income report will just be true passive income.

October 2017 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

I did mention last month that October was going to see a decrease in side income revenue. To recap, this is due to my inability to put much time into the below-listed channels. In August and early September, Hill Media Group saw an influx in new business, which left me with little time to work on my side-income channels. With that said, it is cool to see that I can take my eye off of these channels and still have some income from them. I recognize that I can not ignore them forever, but a month here or there is not going to kill them off.

Next month will show some growth due to the holidays approaching. Much of my content revolves around technology and photography gear so people often look for content to help make purchase decisions. I don’t see having much time in November to work on content but I am going to try to get a few things out at least.

October 2017 side income total – $2359.31 (-3.56%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $822.89 (-9.53%) Subscribers: 20156 (+4.35%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos.
  • Ditch Auto – $338.48 (-3.15%) Subscribers: 18199 (+5.64)
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials.
  • Jerad Hill – $38.38 (+17.66%) Subscribers: 4583 (+0.31%)
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. I do plan to do a lot more on my personal channel in the near future. I am just trying to decide what I want my focus to be there.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $388.10 (-26.46%)
    We have not put out much content that includes product links so I don’t expect much growth here until Christmas shopping begins.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $75.63 (-30.6%)
    I cut some of the fat on a couple of my websites which will initially produce a decrease in traffic. I deleted a lot of content that I did not feel was relevant anymore. Many of these pages would generate a click or two here and there from organic search, but I deleted it all so that the search engines could focus on crawling quality content.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $11.83 (+100%)
    I only have one paid course currently and that course is getting old. It needs to be refreshed. I have plans later this month to get new courses out that will be paid and to revise a couple of my existing courses to drive some return traffic to my instructor page.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $688 (+32.82%)
    I turned off a couple of sources of this other income that I did not plan to maintain any longer. These sources really only brought in $20-75 per source and took an average of 3 hours per source. Not a good return on invested time, so they are gone.

Going into the holidays, things tend to slow down a bit. I hope that as the end of the year approaches that I will have extra time to work on content. Another area I plan to spend time in research is cryptocurrency. I have been watching Bitcoin since it’s inception and have had a lot of interest in mining. Perhaps mining will become another side-income channel in the future.

Check out the September 2017 financials.

Making Time For Experiences

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Growing into an adult I realized that it was the experiences I remembered from my childhood. I remember some of the material aspects of my childhood, but the experiences outweigh that by far. I remember racing go-karts, going to the park with my brothers and Mom, I remember going on trips with my grandparents. These were some of the experiences that I can vividly recall.

What I don’t remember is the specific brand of clothing I wore when I was in kindergarten. I don’t remember the kind of shoes I had on. I don’t remember what kind of car my Mom drove at that time, though I do remember a few of our cars from childhood, and it was the experiences in those cars that I remember. I don’t remember what was considered cool at the time for my Mom to wear. I didn’t know what fashion was. I don’t remember if the restaurants we ate at were the popular spots or not. I don’t even remember too many of the toys I had, though I do remember some of them and they were the toys that I could be creative with.

As a parent, I have found that it is all too easy to bury my kids in toys and stuff to keep them busy. Sports are no longer leisure activities, they consume lives. People are all too ready to commit themselves and their kids to all the things. While there is nothing wrong with toys and sports, it has never been easier to take it to a level that could be considered an unhealthy obsession. That obsession is usually more about the parent than it is the child.

With that said, it was obvious to me that the experiences I have had in life were more important to me than the things. I know that there is nothing wrong with acquiring things. I have more things than I need. I could do with fewer things. However, I have always wanted to make sure that things don’t get in the way of making time for experiences.

Through observation, I have found that many people do not share my take. They seem to be working extremely hard during the childhood years of their children where experiences matter most. They are focused on the future while at the same time wasting the now. The now is most important to me because if I focus on the now, the future will work itself out.

I will not trade a few extra dollars for the childhood of my children. There is no value in that. I can make extra dollars later. At the same time, I do recognize that I want to have some level of achievement of my own during the younger years of my children. I look at every opportunity and say no to what would not fit into the lifestyle I am trying to have for my family.

Hill Family Color Factory

We recently visited The Color Factory in San Francisco. This popup museum featured color specific rooms with different experiences in each room. It was a lot of fun and my kids loved it. We spent about almost two hours going through each color room playing, laughing, and taking a few photos. It was an experience my kids will remember. After that, we had dinner and stayed at a hotel in Sausalito, which is just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. My wife and I had stayed there before so we knew it would be a fun experience for the kids as well.

It was a challenge to get tickets to The Color Factory. It was very popular and only sold a certain amount of tickets to assure it was not overcrowded. It was like trying to get an iPhone on launch day. I was waiting on my computer with the order page open just waiting for the moment. I almost missed it they sold so fast.

Confetti Party Color Factory

In 2015, we took a road trip up the coast of the US stopping off at different destinations every day. It took us a little over a week to make it up to Seattle Washington. We stayed in hotels each night at a different location and visited interesting spots along the way. Some of the highlights included Fern Canyon off the coast of Northern California, a Dinosaur Attraction in Oregon, and several other roadside attractions that will forever be fun memories to remember with my kids. I also filmed our experiences which we revisit to keep those memories fresh.

I don’t do everything right and sometimes can’t. I have had to miss a few of my kids’ school things, though I have made the majority of them. I occasionally have to travel for work. I often leave for work before they leave for school. I recognize that we can’t be perfect and attend everything, but we can try.

The purpose of this post is to remind parents that the childhood their children experience is important. We all want to provide our children with a better life than we had but please don’t put it off. I often hear people say that once they make a certain amount of money that they will be able to vacation more and spend more time with their kids. The problem is the pursuit never ends and before you know it, your kids are grown up and don’t want to spend time with you. Your kids will grow up recognizing that you traded time with them for money, or something else. I want a healthy balance there. I want my kids to see that I work hard but that I also build into my work-life enough time to spend experiencing life with them whether that be playing in the front yard or taking them to The Color Factory. My kids need to know that I prioritized them in my life. People complain about the selfishness of the Millennial Generation, but those kids had to learn from someone.

Prioritize time with your children. Give them your attention, especially if both parents in the household work. Give them experiences over toys. Rather than new iPads for Christmas, take the family on a trip. Invest in your children, rather than investing in distractions so you can keep your kids busy.

I know I have written before on spending time with kids, but it’s so important. There is enough time in the day for our kids and a healthy level of personal achievement. If you are not able to find that, I would suggest you take a look at what is in your life and how you could revise it.

My September 2017 Side Income Report

Posted on by Jerad Hill

I have certainly let time get away from me this year. I mean, I meet all of my deadlines and don’t miss anything at work, but the goals I make for myself often get put off. My goal of reporting my monthly side income finances is one of those goals that quickly got put on the back burner.

I know we are supposed to be talking about September but October was a crazy month for me. I had two jobs out of state which took up just about two full weeks of the month. Both jobs were on the east coast. I felt it in my productivity and my ability to create content that would assist in my goal of increasing my side income.

With that said, a few things took place in September that was notable.

Toward the end of the month, I hired someone to assist with editing video. This part-time position was created to help us catch up on all of the video content we had filmed but had not yet edited. We had about 30 or so videos in the backlog. I will talk more about the progress here in Octobers post.

I am approaching some major milestones on Youtube. From here on out I will include subscriber counts to the YouTube channels and the increasing percentage as well. Though this report is about income and income is usually referred to in dollars, I also will be paying attention to reach. At this phase, I would prefer an increase in reach over income.

September 2017 side income total – $2446.50 (-17.56%)

YouTube

  • StateOfTech – $909.62 (+17.42%) Subscribers: 19314 (+5%)
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos.
  • Ditch Auto – $349.52 (+1.77%) Subscribers: 17227 (+6.04)
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials.
  • Jerad Hill – $32.62 (-2.51%) Subscribers: 4569 (+0.41%)
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. I do plan to do a lot more on my personal channel in the near future. I am just trying to decide what I want my focus to be there.

Amazon Affiliate

  • Amazon Product Links – $527.77 (-47.31%)
    With August being back to school, it makes sense that these numbers would be higher. The majority of the product links I have out there are for technology and camera equipment. We have not put out much content that includes product links so I don’t expect much growth here until Christmas shopping begins.

Google Adsense

  • Google Adsense links/display – $108.97 (-7.41%)
    I cut some of the fat on a couple of my websites which will initially produce a decrease in traffic. I deleted a lot of content that I did not feel was relevant anymore. Many of these pages would generate a click or two here and there from organic search, but I deleted it all so that the search engines could focus on crawling quality content.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $0 (-100%)
    I only have one paid course currently and that course is getting old. It needs to be refreshed. I have plans later this month to get new courses out that will be paid and to revise a couple of my existing courses to drive some return traffic to my instructor page.

Other Income

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $518 (-23.28%)
    I turned off a couple of sources of this other income that I did not plan to maintain any longer. These sources really only brought in $20-75 per source and took an average of 3 hours per source. Not a good return on invested time, so they are gone.

I like the color red on a car, not on income statements. I have not looked at the numbers for October yet but I am sure they won’t look much better. Unfortunately, I just have not had the time to spend on much. Unless I cut back somewhere, there is no room left for growth. This is why I have started removing some of the items that consumed a small bit of my time. Removing, even more, will allow for more time on my side projects.

October is going to tell a similar story as to September. I battled with not posting September or October at all, but that would not paint a very fair picture of reality. The reality is that sometimes I start things and don’t have the time I thought I would have. I often get into trouble in this way. I am learning that it has to do with some fear that I carry that stems from a need for security. It’s not completely unhealthy, but there have been times I have missed opportunities because I chose security over risk.

One last thing of note: Both of my brothers have now entered the realms of the self-employed. My middle brother bought a truck and started his own mobile diesel repair business. My youngest brother was doing some sales for a solar company and saw a need for solar panel cleaning. One of them is full-time self-employed and the other is on his way there. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Stay tuned for October’s numbers. I know I didn’t provide much hype, but I will be posting them soon.

Thanks for reading. If you want to connect, shoot me an email or contact me through social media. I enjoy connecting with others on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Check out August 2017 financials.

Going Public With My Financials

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Over my years as a self-employed, I have always had some kind of work on the side that I have maintained. When I started in Photography, that was my side business. I started earning a few hundred extra dollars each month from side photography jobs and that continued to grow fast. When I started designing websites, it was a side business but in 2005 I made it my full-time business.

In 2007 when the first iPhone was launched, I started another side business reviewing apps. Years later that turned into a technology review YouTube channel which I still run (very much on the side) today. I mostly review and produce tips/tricks videos for technology that I use or purchase for work.

In 2014 I filmed a photography course which I put online for free. A year later I started a YouTube channel and started producing content around photography as well. The photography course took off and at the time I am writing this, has over 240,000 students that have taken the course. Unfortunately, I did not provide much follow up to that course to generate any revenue, but I have attempted to gather emails and engage with some of the students through a Facebook group.

I always have to be working on something. I spend the majority of my day focusing on creating for my clients. I pour a lot of thought and effort into their projects, but I still desire to work on something of my own, which is why I keep a couple of things going at all times.

In an attempt to be more accountable to my side projects I am going to start challenging myself to give some extra time to those projects. As my side projects produce more income, I can afford to work on them more. At this point, I am only able to work on them once I have completed all of my client work. That leaves enough time to work on them, but not really create on the level I really want to be at with these projects. That might require adding someone to my team who’s job is to help with the creation of the content I want to be producing. This will take more revenue.

I’m going public with my financials

Ok, so I am kind of going public with my financials. I am going to be sharing a monthly post that breaks down where all of my side income is coming from and how it’s growing. I am doing this because if it is not growing, change needs to happen, and this will help me visualize it. This will also keep the fire lit under my butt because who wants to read financial reports on something that is not growing. This will start out very rudimentary, but I hope to evolve it into something fun to look at and read. This has been something I have wanted to do for quite some time, but have not due to not having time to make it look awesome. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO LOOK AWESOME JERAD! Ok, so it would be nice if it did, but for now, it’s just going to be a list.

I am not posting this information to show off or come across like I am bragging about success in any way. I am posting this information to be accountable and to show that you can earn enough money on the side to afford to take your family on vacation or put money into savings. The goal is not to be rich, the goal is to be comfortable and to have the freedom to choose my work.

To get started, I am going to post what August of 2017 looked like. I will explain what each of these items is in short and will post about them more in length at a later time. I plan to have revenue goals and reach goals as well. Reach goals will be around subscriber count, new students, and sign-ups.

My side income comes from a few different locations online. I am going to list everything that I plan to grow. Know that there are some small side income streams that I do not care to grow anymore so I will bunch those together into an “other” category which is where old side income revenue streams will go to die. The numbers below are gross revenue. In future months I will try to list expenses associated to having earned that income. Currently, I have some overhead that is shared between Hill Media Group and these side projects so some of the income reported below also has to pay for a portion of the overhead.

Current side income total – $2,967.69

YouTube:

  • StateOfTech – $774.62
    This YouTube channel is part mobile technology review videos and part tech tutorial videos.
  • Ditch Auto – $347.75
    This YouTube channel is similar to StateOfTech but for Photography. The videos that perform well are reviews and tutorials.
  • Jerad Hill – $33.46
    This is my personal channel which I do not post too often. I do plan to do a lot more on my personal channel in the near future. I am just trying to decide what I want my focus to be there.

Amazon Affiliate:

  • Amazon Product Links – $1,001.61
    These are a bit hard to track because I have one Affiliate account that has links spread across a couple of websites and YouTube channels. Typically, if I am not making new videos, I see a major dip in revenue from Amazon Affiliate links.

Google Adsense:

  • Google Adsense links/display – $117.69
    Adsense links are also a little hard to track because I am using one account to manage ads placed on a few different sites and I have not yet segmented out those ads so I can see which are performing well and which are not. This is an area for growth for sure.

Udemy.Com

  • Paid courses on Udemy – $17.36
    Most of my courses are free. My goal was to produce free courses and then have a paid course as the next step. The problem is that I never produced any of those paid courses. I have one course that gets one or two new sign ups each month producing a tiny revenue but I list it here because I plan to grow this.

Other

  • Other monthly revenue streams from side work – $675.20
    I will elaborate more on this “other” category in the future. This amount is nothing to be upset about and some of you will wonder why I am not trying to grow it. This section represents income from about 8 different locations and it will take a lot of work to continue to grow it.

I do have other monthly revenue streams such as the income earned from Hill Media Group and my Photography work. My main work is what pays the bills. The goal here is to increase my monthly revenue from my side projects and eventually try to narrow my focus. As I mentioned before, the purpose of this post is to be public about my side work financials for accountability and to keep me motivated. I do hope that this information motivates others as well. This is very much side work for me. Some months I put 20 or so hours into this, other months it’s less. If I devoted a bit more time and focus to these projects, I would see substantial growth, and that is the goal here.

In sharing this information, what is something you are currently doing on the side? Are you earning any income from it and would you want to if you could? I would love to hear your thoughts or comments below.