Sam's Plan Step 1: Increase Income

Having debt is like being in jail.

At least it is for me.

Not like the getting raped in the shower part. Just the fact that you aren’t truly free.

When you are in debt, you must go to work to earn money to pay that debt.

I know that building the “Goldilocks Pyramids Homestead” will not be cheap, but I refuse to take on debt. To make this a little harder, I am not a highly-paid professional. My highest education is high school and some certificates from short courses that I don’t use.

Family money is not an option either. There is none.

I do, however, have the business - SF Initiatives. So I figure my best bet is to grow the profits of that business and withdraw the dividends.

After paying for freelancers (including myself), marketing, product development, and all other expenses, the business more or less breaks-even month to month, and then some.

Some months we lose, some months we win. At the end of the year, there is a small profit which I withdraw and split between savings and index funds.

I will not be touching what I have invested, so my starting point is what I have in savings, which is not very much.

I have created a fair amount of IP. Many books and a couple of courses. You can see them all here: www.SFInitiatives.com

The biggest problem is that I am terrible at marketing. The solution, therefore, is to stop creating products and focus on marketing what I do have.

This will eliminate costs involved in product creation. Marketing costs will rise, but hopefully, that marketing will have a positive ROI.

The next biggest issue is my personal finances. I’ve been putting the majority of my savings into index funds which I do not want to touch. I need to figure out how much it will all cost and concentrate on saving that amount.

In order to do that I first need to decide where to live and then research out how much land costs as well as how much it would cost to set up the basic homestead.

One of the places I thought about doing this was in Colombia, and I figured $100,000 would be more than enough to get up and running. Although I am yet to decide where exactly I want to do this, I will use this figure for now.

The main goal here is to increase business profits by improving my marketing skills.

The first book I'm going to read, however, is not specifically about marketing. It is ‘Profit First’ by Mike Michalowicz. I’ve read this before but a long time ago so it is time for a refresh.

I also just finished reading ‘Your Money or Your Life’ which is great for personal finances and helped me come to my decision about what to do with my life.

After that I have these on my list:

• The Art of Seduction
• Ogilvy on Advertising
• Storyworthy
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
• The Storyteller's Secret
• Hey Whipple, Squeeze This
• Cashvertising
• The Copywriter's Handbook
• $100M Leads
• $100M Offers

I will also re-read these classics as they will help me in many areas of life:

• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Think and Grow Rich
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad

And finally, there’s one course I want to take. It’s called CopyThat: https://copythat.com