My Triond Dreams

Since joining the ranks of the under-employed/unemployed I’ve been trying to find a solution to a problem. Part-time work doesn’t pay the bills. Not enough money is not enough money no matter how you slice it. Plus, I retire in 16 years and have absolutely no retirement savings.

Since joining Triond I’ve had about 100 articles published. Right now those 100 articles are averaging $0.15 per month. Yes, a grand total of 15 cents a month. I figure I need at least $1,500.00 a month at retirement. So I figure if 100 article consistantly gets $0.15 a month, then 10,000 articles should consistantly get $1,500.00. Since advertising is a comodity it should keep up with inflation too.

I only need to write 9,900 more articles. WOW! That’s a lot. It’s only 5,840 days till I retire. That means I have to write 1.7 articles every day for 5,840 consecutive days off.

I really enjoy writing but never had much time for it when I was working 50 or 60 hours a week. Now that work is down to 20 hours a week I’ll have an extra 30 or 40 hours a week. That should be more than enough to average 1.7 articles a day. That’s 11.9 nine a week so I’ll round it up to 12 a week. If I set aside 15 to 20 hours every week for this goal I should be able to do it.

For added encouragement I’ll print off monthly calandars with the number 12. At the end of each day I’ll deduct the number of articles that got published. If I have 0 before the end of the week I’ll move the 12 ahead to the next day. When I get a week ahead by doing this I’m gonna write RETIRE 1 WEEK EARLY across the top of it. I don’t want to lazy by getting too far ahead.

The other thing I’m going to start doing above the calandar is showing what the income is when I’m ahead and what it would have been if I was on shedule. Seeing the extra income should keep me motivated to get it done as soon as possible.

Some people have a five year plan, I have a sixteen year plan. Sixteen years is a long time to commit to anything. Wish I could knock years off it instead of weeks. Maybe I can. Every month I’ll also put up how many extra articles I’ve published. The higher that number gets the closer I am. When I get really close I’ll start a count down instead.

And what do you know, I’m 0.3 ahead of shedule because this is the second article I’ve finished today. I guess there’s hope for an old procrastinator after all.

Pretty optamistic for day1 of 5,840. I just might have to start a blog.

Happy Trails Writers and Readers.