Follow your Passion

I know I usually write about the best way to make money passively online, but while making money is great and all, one should also remember that money doesn't make you happy. Everyone I know complains about their job for one big reason: how much of their time it eats up, not allowing them to do other things. Yes, there's also the big "my boss sucks" and "I'm just sick of being there," but beyond all that, people miss their time.

Some people wait until they're retired to finally chase their dreams, be it building a boat and sailing the seas, or writing that autobiography they've always been planning. I don't think that's right - I think it's great they're chasing what they want, as it seems a lot of people forget their original dreams, but I think they're doing it too late in life. Life is not meant to be working 9-5 until you're too tired to go on anymore, THEN have a bit of enjoyment in your life. No, not one bit.

I believe that everyone has a passion for a reason - and that forgetting it to follow the world's common belief that you need a job from ages 18-67 is denying yourself the happiness you deserve.

I'm not saying you should up and quit your job and live life without any income by any means - I'm saying that people need to work to achieve more than just an early retirement - they need to work to free their time. I thoroughly believe that anyone can set up enough passive income sources to be able to quit within 5 years if they're tight with their budget, and that's without becoming a "15 megabytes of fame" internet hit.

What's more, I believe that the vast majority, if not all, of peoples desires can be profitable. An artist can sell their work, a videographer can post things online on sites that will pay him to, such as Revver.com, which pays you a percent of the advertisements profit. Someone who enjoys photoshopping things can create images and put them on websites that allow people to pay to use your work. There are so many options out there for everyone, and while it may not be easiest, anyone and everyone can start doing what they love *today* and eventually make profit from it.

It may not make you rich quick, but it can make you rich eventually. So please, follow your passion and be happy. Be proud of what you do, and work to finally free yourself from the daily chore of going to work.

Zazzle and Cafepress

I'm writing today about another way of making money online that I actually like. While this has not been the most profitable online venture of mine, it does create a good amount of passive income without me having to do much, and I'm always a fan of that.

Zazzle and Cafepress are two websites that allow you to create upload designs and sell them on T-shirts. You get a percent of the total price whenever your design sells. Usually this is only about 10%, but on Zazzle you're able to increase that amount; this also increases the price, however, so I don't really suggest going much higher. I'm not sure if Cafepress let's you do the same, as I am not a member of Cafepress at the moment. I have, however, been a member of Zazzle for quite some time.

Both of these websites work with no inventory. Every time someone orders a shirt, it gets printed on the spot, and shipped automatically. You don't have to do a thing, and there's no giant warehouse somewhere that you have to empty of your products.

Creating content is incredibly easy as well, as both sites walk you through it rather nicely, and you basically just pick and image or type some text, center it how you want, and hit OK.
Your designs do have to be original though - for instance, you can't put Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin on a shirt without it getting removed.

If you're not the best at creating content, you can also do associate advertising - when people go to Zazzle with your associate advertising link, anything they buy within the next 45 days gets you a small portion of money for bringing them there. Again, I'm uncertain if CafePress has a similar system in place, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do. Some day I'll join there and update the information in this post.

Are they going to make you rich overnight? Probably not.
Are they worth it? Definitely. It's nice to put a few designs up there every now and then, leave it, and come back a month or two later and see you can withdraw money.
Unfortunately, Zazzle will only let you withdraw when you reach $25, but if you get enough good looking designs up, this wont take too long to hit.

Good luck out there everyone, hope you make some profit.
-Bill