Please keep in mind that my statement that you can start earning money right away should not be inferred as it’s easy money. It’s certainly not and I work far in excess of 40 hours a week even with an assistant. My point was simply that someone should not be deterred from being self-employed for fear of not having some sort of income in the first year. Unless you are the worst salesperson in the world, you will have some sales. The key there then is to do something with low overhead so that revenue is already bringing in profit.

Then you look for clients. Who would need your services? How do you advertise to them? Figure out what you want to earn per hour and how long a job will take and set your prices there.

You might have zero out-of-pocket expenses to start with. I recommend Entrepreneur magazine for a great education on self-employment.

I’m interested in your experience on this topic. What are some of the other industries out there that you feel fall into that category?

I was at the World Domination Summit this weekend and was very impressed with a talk given by Cal Newport.

He presented the concept that “following your passion” is bad career advice. Instead, you should get good at something rare and valuable and then leverage that skill to do what you’re passionate about.

I think Bill Gates was passionate about computers at the time but now he’s using the money and skills he gained from building Microsoft as leverage to work on his passion, helping people around the world.

With Gates’ net worth, he’s really not having to leverage anything. He can pretty much do what he wants, but I’m just using him as an example.

Money is not evil, but it can make you lose sight of what you’re passionate about. If you spend so much time and energy focusing on money, eventually, when you’re able to leverage your assets, you have no idea what you’re passionate about. Sadly, money has become the passion.

More emphasis needs to be put on education through life experiences. I love reading and book learning, but there is nothing like getting out there and experiencing the world first hand.

I built up an emergency fund as well as a pool to draw money from while building ThirstTees.

The pool is there to cover living expenses as well as health insurance premiums. There are great programs out there for short term health insurance (6 mon – 1 yr) with a modestly high deductible and low premium. I made sure that the deductible wasn’t higher than my emergency fund. This way I’m covered for any catastrophic event.

I also had travel insurance while abroad.

Healthy insurance is a must in my mind.

I built up an emergency fund as well as a pool to draw money from while building ThirstTees.

The pool is there to cover living expenses as well as health insurance premiums. There are great programs out there for short term health insurance (6 mon – 1 yr) with a modestly high deductible and low premium. I made sure that the deductible wasn’t higher than my emergency fund. This way I’m covered for any catastrophic event.

I also had travel insurance while abroad.

Personally, healthy insurance is a must in my mind.

Along with some new graphics, we’re also thinking of releasing some new shirts that are void of any graphics.

Simple colors with a small patch on the hem or sleeve with a water drop.

A vagabond is essentially a drifter. Someone who just wanders wherever on a whim.

I did take plenty of money but definitely not enough to stay in hotels. The hostel system in New Zealand is fantastic but can be a bit expensive (roughly $25 a night.) The workaround is that most are always looking for helpers. Stay in one place for at least a week or two, work for two hours each day cleaning bathrooms and making beds and your night is covered. I did that pretty much the entire time I was there which greatly reduced expenses.

Another option is called WWOOFing. A lot of great opportunities volunteering on anything from farms to breweries. In return for volunteering, the host will usually cover your both your room and food.

Although you could go the standard route and get a regular job down there. You may qualify to get what’s called a Working Holiday Visa which allows you to get a social security number to earn paychecks.

The Philippines is just so cheap to begin with you could go there with very little money and travel for quite a while for very cheap.

Traveling the globe for 8 months on $1000 USD would be difficult but not impossible. WWOOFing is all over the globe and, if you were strategic, you could travel for quite a while on a small budget. Couch Surfing is another great way to stay places on the cheap. I’d recommend saving some more though.

Without the cost of flights, I’d say I spent around $400~$500 USD a month in New Zealand. You could greatly reduce that amount, but I bought a car and was driving to various hikes almost every day and petrol is not cheep down there (neither is beer).

Send me a tweet @morrowni or get in contact through my personal website (www.nicholasmorrow.info) if you’ve got any other questions.

Cheers

As an aside, I don’t mind getting a t-shirt for a good cause (I recently read a Dan Savage column and bought a cool t-rex t-shirt from Point 5cc TShirt Company for transexual top surgeries). So I checked out your t-shirts. My recommendation, as a likely potential customer, is that you make a few more designs, preferably at least one that isn’t so “preachy”, and more fun/funky/cool. I would be uncomfortable being that holier-than-thou person in a group… if you had a fun and funky design that involved water drops or well something fun, I’d be in. Maybe hold an Etsy designer competition? I know that might cut down on the amount of free advertising (unless you had a cool design on front and a short/pithy sentence on the back?) but might up sales.

I don’t want to rain on your parade (heh), just giving feedback as a potential customer.

I’m tracking comments on this thread, so please post if you add new designs and I’ll go back and check them out. Good luck!

I enjoyed the post. It was well-written and lively. I realize that you aren’t auditioning, but thanks for writing! I hope we get an update.

@JD – notice how the comment section is starting to flame up? Please, take the hint – we have been overloaded by audition pieces of mediocre value and are now pouncing on good quality reader articles because of this burnout. Please, please either give us a break from the auditions or screen/edit some of them out.