But that’s no fun.

I try to break every income stream into a daily income measurement. If I do X activity for Y hours, I’ll make $Z per day. Add all of those little projects, side jobs, and fun stuff together, and you have my current annual income. There is, as you might expect, a certain amount of volatility to the calculation. Many of my writing gigs come and go, some are project based, and others are simply one-off articles. I have consistent income as a base, but everything else fluctuates.

One easy way to make extra money is to pick up a part time job, but from what I’ve seen, most part time gigs are unskilled, menial work. I should note that there’s nothing wrong with such work, as money is money, and I’m never one to turn that down when the opportunity presents itself. My wife and I have been dreaming of doing some more traveling this year, but we also have some repairs queued up for the house that we are saving for. That got me to thinking that maybe we could pick up some side work to fund those travel plans and have a more enjoyable year.

This is a bit of a tradeoff. I already have full-time employment through my “hydra” of income sources, so this would keep me extra busy. If I stayed with it too long, I’d simply get burnt out, so the work would have to be temporary. So we looked around and sure enough, there are a number of places hiring for the holiday season, This would mean an extra 15 or so hours a week of work for each of us, but only for a few short months. The pay isn’t great, but we are hoping to get to work together, and even a small hourly wage will still end up being a couple thousand dollars well all is said and done.

That means we get to travel, the house gets fixed, and we aren’t bogged down to something we’d hate doing for a long time. Sounds like a win-win to me.

In that vein, I have been working towards a few one-man operations and a few collaborations with my older brother, a long time web developer who has long made his way towards breaking the shackles of the traditional nine to five in lieu of a more interesting portfolio of careers. He’s a professional beekeeper, for example, along with our current revenue from the portfolio of niche sites.

Which begs the question: Where to expand from here? Finding new business ideas that are small, nimble, and scalable may sound like they are easy to find based on motivational blog posts like the Art of Nonconformity, but I have found that isn’t the case.

The biggest obstacle, surprisingly enough, is finding something fun that makes money. I have heard plenty of friends that tell me that they just love logistical analysis, but you know what? That sounds pretty damn boring. Right now I can pay the bills, but expansion is going to be needed if I want to get where I want to be.

Stick to What You Know

Personally, I hate the cliche that you should make money from what you’re passionate about, since in many cases, passion does not equate to income. Yet if you are looking to make money on the side, hobbies are a great place to start. My recent foray into Fiverr has taught me that while certain hobbies may not be able to replace your full time job, they can act as a useful supplement. Even Craigslist Arbitrage can be a valuable asset if you are buying and selling items that you can discern the value of.

Get Creative

One of the biggest issues people (myself included) seem to have is that they’re not willing to go outside of the box when it comes to earning more money. Generally, people that need more than they bring in look for a new job or look for a part time job to fill up the rest of their waking hours with. Instead, try to find activities that you can do each and every day for a small amount of money. Many tiny business ideas can be started for as little as $100.

Be Consistent

If you find yourself a source of income, you need to be able to harness that opportunity and, if possible, scale it. It can be an adjustment to learn to motivate yourself to get things done if you are used to an office environment where it is always someone’s job to keep you doing what you are supposed to. If you find an idea you are willing to move forward with, hit it and hit it hard.

As time went on, I realized that I didn’t want to wait 15-20 years to retire at the “young” age of 45. This didn’t mean I was getting away from saving for retirement at all, just that I wanted to do work I found fun everyday while saving rather than just aiming straight for the paycheck. So my priorities changed, and I worked toward building up income from a variety of sources. As such, each day would be different, the variety and fun would be rewarding, and I could retire like a normal person at 65+. If you really enjoy what you do, this isn’t such a daunting prospect.

Note also that I’m really not there yet. There are still a lot of things I want to accomplish even as I check off previous goals like purchasing a home. I want to travel more, and to do that I would like to bring my wife along, too. She is still stuck at her local office job, which she enjoys as far as jobs go but restricts her ability to move around for more than a week or two at a time. I’m going to have to work smarter and harder if I want to see this through.

Resources for Extreme Early Retirement

If you don’t mind putting the time in for 5-15 years before pulling the trigger on your retirement but you want to get out of the workforce and doing what you want as soon as possible, I have two recommendations:

Early Retirement Extreme: Jacob is an extremely capable and bright person who had decided he wanted out of his current career and onto something more fulfilling on a personal level. It wasn’t easy, but if you have it in your head that you want to retire in your 30s, this is the guy to show you the way. He lays out what you’ll need to do and how you should go about doing it in short order.

Retire Early Lifestyle: From high-powered entrepreneurs and corporate drones to living on the sunny beaches of Mexico, Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are a monument to what is possible if you put your mind and financial resources to an important goal. They often write about their travels and experiences, and if you are curious about retiring early, this is a great starting point.

Resources for Working Happily

The Art of Nonconformity: As far as I can tell, Chris is a robotic cyborg programmed to show us that we’re not locked into a particular lifestyle. He is currently visiting every country in the world, writing a sequel to his book, running a successful business via his blog, and teaching us all how we can do the same. He works. A lot. But he enjoys it as far as I can tell, and provides a lot of inspiration for those looking to capture that spirit.

Nerdy Nomad: Kirsty from Nerdy Nomad is a free spirit, traveling the world while building up her online portfolio. I’ve never seen such a transparent blogger, as she is happy to provide a breakdown if income each month and talk about strategies inbetween her various global adventures.

So I compromised.

I picked up a regular gig with a firm based out of San Francisco doing some technical writing for about 20-25 hours a week. That covers the basics like my mortgage, bills, etc. On top of that, I have three sites that I write for on a regular basis. I submit my posts, check is in the mail, and everyone goes home happy. Writing is unquestionably fun, and doing a review of the latest gadgetry on a bad day doesn’t even come close to the agony of waking up Monday morning trying to wish away your commute.  Yet as with most things, despite my generally laidback attitude, I’m still working on striving for more. My hydra of income needs to continue to grow, after all, and I want to ensure that my next sources of income will be unquestionably fun. It sounds simple on the surface, of course, considering every motivational blogger worth his or her salt tells us to follow our passion. Yet often times, your passion isn’t going to pay the bills. I really enjoy skiing, for example, but last I checked working as a ski patrol person doesn’t pay very well. Since I have my important financial bases covered, however, that leaves me with plenty of options in terms of how I want to make money going forward.

So far, there’s been a lot of brainstorming. My brother and I have been working together on a lot of collaborative efforts in the past, with a few hitting  moderate successes. I would love to have another side business that isn’t really about the money but really about the fun (money is always a nice plus). I’ll be sure to put up an update once we get closer to launching a new project, as right now my ideas look more akin to a dartboard, but just having the possibility to fuse together fun and work even farther than what i have setup so far sounds very promising.