Cruising is great, you live where your boat is and don’t have to go to work in the morning. The problem with this plan is that money is a thing you need if you want to eat, and not going to work means you won’t have any money.
Well, you don’t necessarily “go to” work, but instead, you “bring” work with you.
Cruising means that you are going to have a mobile lifestyle and it would be best if your work was also mobile. We fund our journey through a variety of sources, and each one is rather small, but collectively, they add up to be enough that we can buy food and sail on.
First, there is the blog that you are reading right now. I started this blog back in 2015 and have posted a new blog post daily since then. This is a lot of work and it takes a lot of time, but it is a labor of love that pays me thanks to the ads that are displayed on the web page. The money comes from Google AdSense, and I get paid monthly.
Second, there is the YouTube Channel Rigging Doctor which also pays from ad revenue generated by ads that play on the videos we make. Filming requires equipment, and equipment is expensive. Editing the footage takes software, which is an additional cost, but the end result is a wonderful video diary of our adventure. The channel started out as something my wife and I were doing for ourselves to document our voyage, but it grew in popularity and has actually begun to pay us a comfortable amount.
Third, Patreon. This is a system where Patrons can donate to your adventure, which helps give you a steady income and lets you know you are going to be able to buy food this month! Now, Patrons don’t want to just give random people money, they want something in return, and that something is usually content that you create for them in the form of YouTube videos. The moral of the story is: if you make videos, make them good videos that people will want to watch!
Fourth, T-Shirts. We design shirts and then sell them. This is far from a guaranteed income source, as some months we don’t sell any shirts, while other months we sell a bunch! Teespring has a great setup where it costs you nothing to submit a design and attempt to sell, so anything you earn is pure profit as there doesn’t have to be any initial investment on your part.
Fifth, Amazon Associates. Basically, you are paid a finders fee if someone buys something from your link. These links look like this: