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My birthday is coming up, it’s actually next Friday on May 23rd and I’ll be turning 20. My long-term goal was to have enough money in the bank to retire by the time I was 25. I’m obviously not going to to retire then because I enjoy what I do, but that’s when I want to have the ultimate safety net.

So to turn this into a post: how do I plan on banking enough money to retire at 25? And first off, how much money are we talking about here?

My number that I want in the bank is a mere $5 million. Taking some very rough estimates, the bare minimum in which I can survive off of is around $40,000/year. It’s most likely higher than that now since I like to live comfortably, but I could easily live off of $40,000/year. If I had $5 million, I’d put 1 away into a savings bank or something like that as my living fund. Assuming the bare minimum, I could live for 25 years off of that money. So where does the other $4 million go? Most of it probably into long-term investments. Things like mutual funds and CD accounts, and then other things like real estate and other business ventures. Hopefully in 10-20 years I could turn that $4 million into $8-10 million (again just guessing here and thinking out loud), and then I could live very comfortably for the rest of my life.

Now how will I get there?

• Keep doin’ what I’m doin’. Affiliate marketing simply makes too much money to put on the back burner right now, even if I do spend a lot of time on it. People make $30/hour at their full time jobs 40 hours a week. Affiliate marketers make $300/hour; the average Joe would have to work 400 hours a week to make that much money. Given only 168 hours in a week, it’s completely impossible for them to make half that much even if they spend all day and night at their job with no sleep :).
• Take some time to expand into other areas and businesses. Like I said, affiliate marketing will continue to be the bulk of my income until it slows down (which I don’t know when it will). But it’s never bad to spread my eggs around, even if it’s only an extra $1,000/week. Money is money, and I can take that money from other projects to pay for living expenses, while banking and/or investing 100% of my affiliate profits.
• Help more people. Karma is real, and the more I help people, the more I end up getting in return. I’ll continue to run this blog, as well as go into some other projects that’ll help you guys make money.
• Relax. I can’t think of making $5 million as a struggle, or else I’ll overload myself with too many projects and get overwhelmed and non-productive. I need to keep things in perspective, take one project at a time, manage multiple projects effectively and relaxed, and take vacations when I need one.
• Engage in offline businesses that I enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with having as many safety nets as possible, and it would actually be fun to do something that I enjoy. In my recent interview at Can’t Get Rich I talked about how I’m becoming a certified personal trainer, and how I want to eventually maybe start up a gym. I also love golfing, so who knows I may take some money and invest it into a golf course. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I want to end up doing more things that I enjoy.

Alright just some usual uber thinking out loud, maybe you’ll take something from the post.

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Internet marketing is one of the best jobs in the world, but sometimes the only thing you want to do is go insane. Here’s a list of things I like to think of and/or do when it seems my job is getting a little too insane.

1) Cool off and realize what you’re doing.

No matter what’s going on, just take a step back and realize what it is you’re doing. You’re making a living and your job attire is a pair of boxers. You sleep in as late as you want. You stay up as late as you want. You get paid to sleep and take vacations. You take 3 hour lunch breaks if you want. Even if you’re not to that point yet, it’s what you’re striving to achieve. You tell anybody you know that’s how your job is, they’ll say “you’re dreaming buddy”…no we’re not.

2) Start a new campaign.

Whenever a campaign is just sucking and I can’t get it to work, I’ll pause that and start a new campaign. There’s something about a new campaign that gets me all excited, most likely the potential for it to work out. I can’t be pissed because it hasn’t flopped yet, so I’m optimistic. Even if I give it a go and it flops, I’m a little more optimistic about going back to that old campaign and giving it another stab.

3) Take a vacation.

Things not working out? The more stressed you get, the less productive you’ll be. Take a step back, pause everything, and just go on a vacation. Even if it’s a small weekend golf trip – go on it. You’ll have some fresh air to rethink what you’re doing, and will come back at it optimistic and productive. If you take this tip, make sure to read my article on affiliate marketing vacationing tips for my advice on taking a proper vacation.

4) Focus on others, not yourself.

If things are getting too frustrating with your campaigns and you can’t get things going, stop focusing on yourself and focus on other people. Read other blogs and see what they’re doing. Search random niches and look at everybody’s landing pages. Search your own niches and see what other people are doing. Just keep…on…browsing. It’ll get your brain going and you may think “Hmm…I wonder if I apply what that person is doing to their landing page/ad text to my niche.” You never know what’s going to happen, so take the pressure off yourself for a minute and see what other people are doing.

5) Organize and attack.

One of the things that drives insanity is disorganization. I’m talking about the way my desk looks right now, and it is in fact creating a little insanity in my workstation. I have papers, receipts, food, CDs, tape…everything just in a massive pile; it’s insane. I can’t find anything and it just pisses me off. It happens with our campaigns as well. I’ll try to start too much at once and not really pay attention to everything. Things get disorganized and I don’t even notice that Campaign C has been losing $100/day for the last 4 days. The answer to both problems is organization. I’ll clean up my desk and try to keep it clean for as long as possible. Things are easier to find, I don’t get mad, and I’m more productive. With campaigns, I don’t start too much at once, and I set up what I’m going to test and when. That way I don’t let things slip out of my hands and forget about them.

Alright just a few tips. Pardon me but I have to go clean my desk (for real).

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Anybody else just think they were born to sell/market things? I was thinking about this the other day after I tried to “sell” something to my girlfriend. I’m constantly trying to pitch products/services that I support to family and friends without even thinking about it.

When my girlfriend was starting to pick colleges to go to, I went to University at Buffalo at the time. I was constantly expressing why UB was the best choice for her, and that it was cheap, a great education, close, and overall the best value for a local college by far.

Another friend was looking into getting a new car. I explained why the Mazda3 (the car I had) was the perfect choice for what he wanted. It was cheap, got great gas mileage, handled really well, and looked like a car that was more expensive than it really was.

Just a couple days ago (this is what made me think to blog about it), my girlfriend was telling me how she was going to open up a checking account. I pitched her why she should join at the same bank I was at, because at her level it didn’t matter where she got a checking account, it was right next to the gym we go to so she’d always be right by it, and it had easy online banking that I could show her.

Any of you subconsciously try and “affiliate market” products and services to people you know? I actually laughed when I thought about it more. I’d be pitching out the few great bullet points about the service, and explaining why my solution was the best one. I guess when you do that without even thinking about it, you know you’re born to market.

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