[ChicagoFire]

General sentiment is get out of current state.

* Met up with local MAGA supporters and like I said before, I need to leave within 1-2 years. Taxes will almost certainly be raised. Not too much of a stretch that crime will rise too. I heard a range of opinions from the supporters about the Congressional elections.
* Filled out some job applications for slightly more money than I'm making now. Next week I will keep filling out more, I'm looking into doing work on yachts and cruise ships. This is immediate relief. I have time since my job cut my hours for next week. I might travel in the next 2 months since I apparently have downtime.
* Found some farmwork for accomodation "experiences" that I may veer into to get a feel for other states to leave. Once the time is right I'll move out.
* Kept working on my business which is doing okay, hit a new mile this week.

[ChicagoFire]

Not end of the week but will post up:

* I've said I want to focus on the medical side but will transition more into combat. Initially I wanted to go more into emergency off the grid care but somebody tried to mug me this week so this gave me a kick in the ass. I found a martial arts place about an hour away from where I live and it's pretty cool. I'll sign up for classes and devote a year to it. Plus is I will network with like minded people.
* Meeting up with someone off the forum so will be getting a heads up on how and when I should leave my current state. I have another networking event next month that I may attend, contingent on whether or not I get a new job.
* Had 2 job opportunities pop up. One smelled like a scam so I declined at the last minute. Another one is one that can pay 100K+ so once I'm done with this post I have to ace the phone interview.
* Still working on my side business which is doing fairly well.
* Did not stick to my budget (been eating out a bit too much this week) so have to get back on track with that.
* Ordered more gardening supplies so will help offset my food costs.

Overall theme if people don't follow my posts:
Learn essential life skills that can be useful in a grid down scenario.
Look for higher paying jobs and develop income streams that can ween me off a job and be transferable to another state.
Cut costs so I don't have to keep standing in line at the grocery store and waste valuable time.
Network with high level people. Most people in real life don't know what will potentially happen if America keeps devolving. Side note is internet is not real life so it isn't time to fret we still have time to prepare.

[ChicagoFire]

I just have four things I've been doing that have put me in a better position to fleeing Illinois.

1) Keep learning martial arts.
2) Keep working on my side business.
3) Fasted for 12 hours today. Just had dinner and got lots of time to do work today.
4) Applied to about 30 sales jobs so far. Only got 2 phone interviews. 1 rejected me and the other I will have to wait for a couple days. I'll admit I was kind of pissed but the way I see it is I will fill out 1,000 applications. If I just get 1 job offer that's all I need to cut back on my hours at my current dead end job. Medium/Long term goal for this career is to either transition into higher paying sales jobs or find a great company to climb the ladder. Nothing unfortunately is ever guaranteed so while I'll give it 110% for my side business I'm not willing to risk living on the street and having thugs chase me for debt.

[Praetor Lupus]

- Made around 8 bids on freelancer.com. My first bid was awarded but so far, over a week on, I still haven't gotten any brief from the person who set the job, and their English really isn't good. I smell either bullshit or they don't know what the fuck they're doing. But I need to get more bids out there regardless, so that's what I've done.
- Applied to four user testing sites. I've got to take the tests yet to finalise my applications.
- Applied to two affiliate programs that aren't on networks. These are for recurring commissions, which is what I want to build my affiliate business on.
- After a slow start to the week due to Thanksgiving, I finished strongly on the freelance captioning. I've been doing this for Rev.com for a couple of months now, and I'll post my experiences if anyone is interested. Today, the first day of earnings in the Rev.com week, I hit three solid projects, so a good start if the work is there for the rest of the week.
- I worked on expanding my Pinterest account further, which is what I'm going to be promoting a lot of my affiliate offers on.
- I started posting on my Instagram again, and I'm also going to run affiliate offers through this channel too.

[Subtext]

I have an idea for a night club. I'm thinking somewhere in the coastal area of LA County. I came up with the idea, and wrote down how I visualized it. But I don't know. Pursuing anything other than wageing is scary as fuck

[ChicagoFire]

Ugh I've done user testing sites before, not worth the effort IMO. If I remember correctly you have to wait for slots to open up and there's so much competition and repeat visiting the user testing sites which is why it's a waste of time.

What you outlined is cool and I do a variation to it. Obviously my efforts are still in the development phase but if you give nearly anything a year it will eventually bear fruit. Bottom line is you can make money online and not have a boss or commute to deal with. To paraphrase Charlie Munger even if you work a 9-5 as a law clerk if you spend 20 minutes on a side business eventually it will grow. You just have to apply yourself and not quit. Good luck!

(12-02-2018 09:53 PM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:  

- Made around 8 bids on freelancer.com. My first bid was awarded but so far, over a week on, I still haven't gotten any brief from the person who set the job, and their English really isn't good. I smell either bullshit or they don't know what the fuck they're doing. But I need to get more bids out there regardless, so that's what I've done.
- Applied to four user testing sites. I've got to take the tests yet to finalise my applications.
- Applied to two affiliate programs that aren't on networks. These are for recurring commissions, which is what I want to build my affiliate business on.
- After a slow start to the week due to Thanksgiving, I finished strongly on the freelance captioning. I've been doing this for Rev.com for a couple of months now, and I'll post my experiences if anyone is interested. Today, the first day of earnings in the Rev.com week, I hit three solid projects, so a good start if the work is there for the rest of the week.
- I worked on expanding my Pinterest account further, which is what I'm going to be promoting a lot of my affiliate offers on.
- I started posting on my Instagram again, and I'm also going to run affiliate offers through this channel too.

[sterlingarcher]

Watch the news/walk outside...

Jesus...fuck this I'm out.

[MongolianAbroad]

(12-04-2018 12:24 PM)sterlingarcher Wrote:  

Watch the news/walk outside...

Jesus...fuck this I'm out.

?

[Praetor Lupus]

(12-04-2018 12:21 PM)ChicagoFire Wrote:  

Ugh I've done user testing sites before, not worth the effort IMO. If I remember correctly you have to wait for slots to open up and there's so much competition and repeat visiting the user testing sites which is why it's a waste of time.

What you outlined is cool and I do a variation to it. Obviously my efforts are still in the development phase but if you give nearly anything a year it will eventually bear fruit. Bottom line is you can make money online and not have a boss or commute to deal with. To paraphrase Charlie Munger even if you work a 9-5 as a law clerk if you spend 20 minutes on a side business eventually it will grow. You just have to apply yourself and not quit. Good luck!

Yeah, I've read before that work can be sporadic on the testing sites. That's why I applied to four and only consider them as supplemental to my captioning work, despite the fucks on YT claiming you can earn $30 an hour from doing it. Yes, perhaps if you have one after the other to test, which from what I've isn't going to happen.

If the money from captioning wasn't so low, I wouldn't even bother with user testing.

Still, I currently work about 50-60 hours per week for less money, and I still prefer it and find it less stressful than a 9-5. Who woulda thought?

[ChicagoFire]

It's a slow period at my job and they cut my hours so I had time to do a project that I'm not discussing on here. Aside from that:
* Met up with another forum member this week and had a great talk.
* Learned about refining my job search more. This includes learning about how to use social connections to get jobs. Based on my many failures at getting a high paying job I think I have it figured out now. This isn't an end goal but it does give me wiggle room to move around if things get bad.
* I researched another business idea but odds of me making money off of it isn't too high.

[ChicagoFire]

I try to do these on Sundays so here's my update:

* Just completed a networking/career online course to get a higher pay for my career. I just figured out how to use LinkedIn to make my job hunting more effective. At my current pace I can double my pay within 2 months so I just have to keep marching through hell.
* Reached out to a couple more people on the forums to meetup.
* Visited another state to get a feel of where I want to relocate so I can move out of crappy Illinois. Our new governor supposedly just raised the ammo tax to 5c per round.
* Kept going to martial arts classes to prepare for that day that hopefully never comes.

[MongolianAbroad]

I'm already living abroad, and now my mind keeps going back and forth between whether I should focus on working on a website/business, studying more technologies, teaching English online, teaching English onsite, other ideas, or just devote more energy to the dating aspect of things.

Still, happy to be living abroad.

Just, so many possible roads to take.

The forum helps a bit with having some social interaction, in general, as well as having some people in similar mind-spaces to bounce ideas off of.

[bigolteddies]

Haven't done much with my business this week, but I started to pursue freelance copywriting. I've previously read some books on it and wrote all the copy for my site, as well as did a friends kickstarter page copy for free. So this week I made an upwork, created a portfolio, and started applying to jobs. Got one bite, a guy wanted a sales funnel for a supplement page, but he missed the phone call meeting time, and instead just wanted to message through upwork. It was going well until I said I would charge a $100 flat fee for it, which seems reasonable. But since I don't have any upwork reviews yet, it makes sense he'd go cold. I'm going to charge a lot lower to get my first few jobs then raise it from there. Will also experiment with a new landing page and facebook ad for my business.

[ChicagoFire]

I'm very excited with how my life is playing out now so I'm not waiting until Sunday to post up:

* By the end of next month at the latest I will be out of the food industry. I'm balls to the walls aggressive and throwing everything at this. My current job cut my hours drastically but rather than bitch about it I'm better off hightailing it. Once I get my foot into the door it will only be a matter of time before I'm out of Illinois if I choose to leave. I've talked about how my pay has already increased in this thread but it will increase even more.
* Even though it's the holidays I made every effort to continue going to martial arts classes. If it comes down to it at least this puts me in a better position to survive in an isolated location in a post Trump world. We got at least 2 more years, I personally think at least 6 more years.

[arnoldfan]

(12-23-2018 04:45 PM)bigolteddies Wrote:  

Haven't done much with my business this week, but I started to pursue freelance copywriting. I've previously read some books on it and wrote all the copy for my site, as well as did a friends kickstarter page copy for free. So this week I made an upwork, created a portfolio, and started applying to jobs. Got one bite, a guy wanted a sales funnel for a supplement page, but he missed the phone call meeting time, and instead just wanted to message through upwork. It was going well until I said I would charge a $100 flat fee for it, which seems reasonable. But since I don't have any upwork reviews yet, it makes sense he'd go cold. I'm going to charge a lot lower to get my first few jobs then raise it from there. Will also experiment with a new landing page and facebook ad for my business.

Reviews and proven results are absolutely key. It's okay to start for cheap or free for a few projects to get some reputation established, but don't consistently undervalue yourself or mistake action for progress. Ask for video reviews from a handful of clients that they give you full rights to. Then, you can use those for FB ads to start.

Don't get romantic about FB ads though. It's easy to piss away money into the abyss and the competitive threshold for content quality keeps going up. Average videos from unestablished people/brands usually fall flat (and video is the most powerful style of content on FB).

Continue to hone your craft and document your wins in detail.

One thing that might help you establish yourself independently of Upwork and as you continue to refine your craft is giving value through longer videos (webinars), PDF's, or articles that you can share out in different communities online. People respond well to giving knowledge away for free but charging for your time/service.

Hope you find this helpful!

[Borges]

I'm fully location independent. Overall I have a great job. But somehow... I'm sick of it. Not the circumstances, the job itself. I should enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with it, but I'm just tired of it. I wish I could turn this feeling off and just be happy with my current situation.

The only alternative for me is having my own business, I think. Ultimately that's the real problem, I'm tired of working for other people. I want to be my own master. So I'm considering using my free time work on an app, or maybe some kind of subscription-based online service. Still just an idea, but I want to start on this sooner rather than later, otherwise I'll end up quitting my job for no real reason other than burnout.

[pk9090]

(12-28-2018 02:04 PM)Super Average Man Wrote:  

I'm fully location independent. Overall I have a great job. But somehow... I'm sick of it. Not the circumstances, the job itself. I should enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with it, but I'm just tired of it. I wish I could turn this feeling off and just be happy with my current situation.

The only alternative for me is having my own business, I think. Ultimately that's the real problem, I'm tired of working for other people. I want to be my own master. So I'm considering using my free time work on an app, or maybe some kind of subscription-based online service. Still just an idea, but I want to start on this sooner rather than later, otherwise I'll end up quitting my job for no real reason other than burnout.

How old are you, I am also on that path!

Pm me for what kind of things you are thinking.

[Subtext]

I got my passport photo taken today. It's a step.

[GT777733]

@chicagofire - I was in your position about 3 years ago. You sound like you are very consistent and persistent with your effort (you remind me of me with how manic I was with my thinking - always focussing on the next little step or solution). Keep it up and it will be a matter of when, not if, you'll improve your financial and career situation. One thing I would say is try not to worry about this political stuff as much - it's very much out of your control and it could drive you to get a bit loopy. Focus on what you can control for now - your actions and your situation. Keep going dude - you're on the right path.

@Praetor Lupus - congratulations on making that first step to go self employed. Most people never have the courage to get that far. My advice would be to be aware of fear and panic, and understand that they are bullshit feelings. Have a long term view of the self employed life, look to improve or learn a bit more everyday (and expect to make mistakes), make sure you have your bank account topped up with about 1.5 to 2 years living expenses (and enough to cover a small emergency), and you'll be fine.
If you need to go back to work at any stage to top up your bank account for another run at this - then so be it.

@superaverageman - some people are meant for self employed life and some aren't. One tip I would have to get more joy out of your current job is to focus on the money you are making. Start saving it and look at that money as money that is going into your bank account to build a buffer between you and having to work in the future. The more money you get, the less years you are going to have to work into the future, and if you do decide to go and try being self employed in the future, having savings to fall back on is such a luxury.

[Rorogue]

I am an artist.
I have been interested in fiction for over 2 years now. Have done some writing but not published anything.

Have an idea for a crime fiction novel set in Thailand. Have recently started writing it.

I have a vision of writing novels (likely crime fiction) set in interesting places all around the world, travelling to those places to write it, and living off the money from writing.

[MongolianAbroad]

(12-29-2018 07:11 PM)Subtext Wrote:  

I got my passport photo taken today. It's a step.

It absolutely is.

I remember when I got my passport photo taken and received my passport...in like 2014 or so.

[tomtud]

Started watching options trading videos again. Want to learn the craft tbetter to become financially sound and live off of this craft.

[Borges]

(12-28-2018 04:45 PM)pk9090 Wrote:  

How old are you, I am also on that path!

Pm me for what kind of things you are thinking.

Still very exploratory... I'll PM you when I have something more concrete in mind. Good to know I'm not alone.

(12-29-2018 07:58 PM)GT777733 Wrote:  

@superaverageman - some people are meant for self employed life and some aren't. One tip I would have to get more joy out of your current job is to focus on the money you are making. Start saving it and look at that money as money that is going into your bank account to build a buffer between you and having to work in the future. The more money you get, the less years you are going to have to work into the future, and if you do decide to go and try being self employed in the future, having savings to fall back on is such a luxury.

Thank you for the advice. It is indeed the money that keeps me going. I actually have a fair amount saved up. Enough to survive for a couple of years without employment, but not nearly enough to retire. While I have a good job, I do have some concerns: ageism is rampant in my line of work, and I'm not getting any younger; and career options for a remote worker are limited. From my client's perspective, I'm somewhere between a freelancer and a regular employee. This comes with both benefits and setbacks.

Your thread on building an online business was fascinating. I work in a different field (software engineering) but I imagine I'd go through very similar challenges if I were to launch my own product.

[Praetor Lupus]

I opened a second income stream working for a site as a 'freelance consultant'. Max 1 hour work a day, at least 5 days a week but hopefully potentially 7. I hope this will add around £300 extra to my income a month.

So far, I haven't been able to take a single test on UserTesting as I haven't qualified for any of the ones I've been sent.

I continue to do the freelance captioning work.

[SlutMaker]

- Created a new email to my small list of subscribers to my dropshipping store wishing them a happy new year.
- Found a freelancer to create mock-up products for me to test. If all goods good, look to get them manfactured.
- Listened to "Proposition" audiobook