I started publishing articles on Medium this month. Once I repost it, this will be my seventh article on Medium. (Wanna check it out?)
Yesterday I opened my stats and found that I'd earned nearly $4 on a single article that day. (It also marked my first article that earned over $5 total.)
I get that four bucks in one day, in the grand scheme, isn't much. It's a Starbucks.
A quick calculation, though, made this $4 a lot more exciting.
Money goes out All. The. Time.
We all have expenses. Most of us have jobs that pay the bills.
On average, American households spend just north of $6,000 per month.
Members of Generation X currently spend the most on average, followed by Millennials, each over $7,000 per month.
I can vouch for my Gen X expenses
The money does go out the door quickly. Scarily quickly.
We have our banks alert us for charges over $0, so we get emails every time a charge hits our accounts. This lets us catch suspect charges more quickly — and it also reminds us just how much money is going out the door.
The combination of regular charges and irregular charges (like shopping trips, gas, and so forth) makes for hefty expense levels.
Back to that $4 in one day …
Here's why that $4 in one day was so exciting.
Four bucks in a day from writing was now possible. It had come to pass.
So it stands to reason that if I'm consistent — (emphasis mine so I do it!) — then I can earn not just $4 in one day, but I can go a whole month averaging that.
Four bucks a day for thirty days is $120 in a month. (Thanks, multiplication!)
With a quick calculation, I've gone from getting a Starbucks on one day to covering my Internet bill for the month.
That would make my Internet bill covered by my side income from writing.
More in daily earnings -> Bigger expenses are covered
Four bucks a day would get me most of the way toward my Internet bill.
But another quickie calculation (multiplying by 10) tells me that $40 per day would cover my mortgage.
And multiplying that again by 6, which is $240/day, would get me to $7,200/month, which covers most of everything I would spend as a typical Gen Xer.
Having expenses paid for relieves stress
I have a six-figure salary for my day job and have a side job as a church music director that contributes high four figures.
Despite these blessings, I'm still dependent on this income for my monthly expenses.
At my age, peace of mind is invaluable. And one thing that chips away at peace of mind is having everything dependent on basically one source of income.
Seeing my gray hairs, feeling my aches, losing my hearing, and forgetting names, remind me of my age and get me wondering how much longer I could work if I still had a mortgage.
That's why the prospect of eventually earning enough to pay for my mortgage from writing online just like this is so exciting.
What is $4 in one day now is a step toward $40 a day in the future. And that would be all I'd need to cover my mortgage payment.
Just knowing I'm headed in that direction relieves stress.
