One of the areas in financial freedom that I encourage you to try is to grow your means or to develop alternate streams of income.

Some people may laugh at the small amount of $1,700ish I made in 2008 since most people can find part-time or tuition stuff that makes more than that in a year.

I’d like to see my glass as half-full instead of half-empty. My experiments into blog monetisation saw me having about half-a-dozen blogs before I developed a niche that ranks well enough on Google and the subject matter appeals to quite a number of people. That site is Singapore Fixed Deposits.

The Start of Blog Monetisation

This blog was not the first blog that I developed. I had ventured into using blogger as a platform to start a personal blog. Initially, it was kind of strange to be writing a form of online journal but I kept at it and starting to learn more about publishing content on the internet.

The more I experimented with blogger, the more I got into the whole idea of Web 2.0 technologies and how one could really make (a little) money from blogging through advertising. There are other ways such as affiliate sales and ebooks but advertising through AdSense was the new thing as Google started to dominate the marketplace.

After having my personal blog for a year or two, I began starting this idea of blog monetisation in earnest. I wanted to see if I could literally squeeze money out of the internet. I came up with a number of ideas that reflected my interests in life:

• Public speaking/toastmasters
• Personal finance
• National service experiences
• Investment related (Treasury Bills and Fixed Deposits)

Looking back, I’m glad I tried out different areas or “niches” to see if the topics were able to generate any income for me. After doing this for two years, I realised that many like me were frustrated at trying to get information about fixed deposits and a simple aggregator would be useful. In addition, I partner with someone who himself searches for the best fixed deposits rates and promotions here and he updates me in return for revenue sharing from AdSense. Thus, I do not do much maintenance for Singapore Fixed Deposits which accounts for about 70% of blogging income.

Learning from Experiments

As I am not a full-time blogger or internet entrepreneur, my income is mainly from my day job working as an internal auditor. This career is relatively stable, pays enough for me to own my own home before I hit 40 years of age and is able to support my spouse (who works part-time) and daughter.

However, whilst I continue to work at my career to its fullest potential, I realise I must take some responsibility for my own financial freedom by growing alternate streams of income however modest. It is to help me develop entrepreneurial skills that may not be practiced in my career as a Certified Public Accountant or Certified Internal Auditor.

The main gain besides the modest $1,700 I’ve made in 2008 from blog monetisation is the understanding of how Web 2.0 and how the ecosystems works. Whilst I can read up on how it works, nothing beats having participated in the business of trying to make money from the internet to appreciate the good, the bad and the ugly side of trying to create something using your ideas, experience and energy with technology.

My experience taught me that you won’t know which is the winning formula until you try them out. Discard or put aside those strategies that don’t work too well. I’ve decided to take a break from some of my other blogs as I don’t have time to develop all of them fully. I concentrate mostly on this blog because it serves to instil in me the principles of financial freedom I need to follow: living within my means, saving and investing, growing and protecting my means. I also concentrate on Singapore Fixed Deposits because it makes the most blogging income for me now.

New Frontiers

I wrote Guide to Financial Freedom as a way to establish credibility and readership for Five Cents Ten Cents. I wrote Road Map to Financial Freedom to share specific techniques and tools for those who are in tune with the principles provided in Guide to Financial Freedom to help themselves grow in their journey towards financial freedom.

You are the most important asset in your life.

What will you do with this asset?

Will you choose to experiment and learn about personal finance, healthy living, professional development or will you choose to watch television every evening at home and go shopping during the weekends?

Be well and prosper.

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