I wanna be financial independent

I am 53 years old. My goal is to reach financial independence by January 2021.

I define financial independence by having enough passive income to cover my regular expenses.

In order to achieve financial independence, I live a frugal lifestyle and I am diligent putting money into my retirement account every month.

The formula to calculate how much money is needed for retirement is quite easy. I multiply my annual expenses by 25. This is the amount I need to retire.

Then, from this amount, I withdraw 4% every year. This should be enough to live for the rest of my life.

Stock Market return for June and for the year

We are living in times of great uncertainty, with Covid-19 is ravaging through the U.S. No one knows when will we go back to normal. Of course, this affects all the retail sector and practically any sector where there is a lot of physical human interaction.

My main three investments are always the same 1/3 Canada, 1/3 US, and 1/3 international. These are the symbols of my investments: VCN, VFV, and VIU.

For the month of June, my returns were 0.78%
For the year so far -5.63%

This negative return is acceptable, considering that last year I had a return of 20.30%.

In the stock market, we have to expect ups and downs. It is unrealistic to expect that the stock market will always go up.

In a search of a digital life

In addition to wanting to retire early, I also want to make money digitally. I want to work a few hours per day, from anywhere in the world without having to be attached to any particular location.

A list of my revenues revenues

Here are the activities which allowed me to earn some money digitally:

SEO consulting	$100
Web design	$200
Sponsored posts	$400
Affiliate sales	$200
Dividends	$401
Rental Income	$150
Photography	$127
Other side hustles	$185
Total	$1,763

This is no bad. Considering that my cost of living is about $1,500 per month. I see my goal to be geographical independent within reach by next year.

SEO consulting

Since Covid-19 started, I knew that I had to switch into other fields of expertise. I have been taking a lot of classes via YouTube. I created a new website, Website Developer Expert, where I speak about how to create a website and how to optimize a page for SEO. My consulting fee, for the moment, is $20/hour. Experts in the field of SEO can charge up to $175/hour.

Website development

I earned $200 for creating a WordPress website for a friend. My price is very low because I am still learning. Maybe, in a few more months, when I know what I am doing, I will start charging a bit more.

Sponsored posts

I am charging $20 US for sponsored posts. The concept is simple. Other businesses pay me to post articles on my website.

Affiliate Sales

My main affiliate is Bluehost. I get paid $65 US for each new sale. This is my favorite affiliate relationship. They come from the advertisement on the sides of my websites or from me begging my friends to use my advertising links.

My other affiliate is Vital signs of my website and/or social reach

• Website visits: 1,405
• Podcast downloads: 688
• LinkedIn followers: 3,953
• Twitter followers: 356
• Instagram followers: 154

I really don’t care about all the social media stuff. In fact, I wish could spend LESS time on twitter. The main purpose is to always bring people back to my website.

A new philosophy in life and in business

Since my new field of expertise is website building and SEO, I decided to give free tips on how to improve the effectiveness of a website or the SEO rankings. If anyone has a question, feel free to send me a message. I found out that whenever I help out someone, it comes back tenfold from somewhere else.

Related Posts

1. I borrowed $10,000 to invest in the stock market
2. Financial update for April and May 2020
3. My Stock market return for 2019; 20.30%. Here is what I will do in 2020

Support this blog

You can support this blog by:

• using our Bluehost.

.