I started this blog in April 2008.  I started my journey for side income (in my case, online income) a few months after that.  After playing around with some other ideas and projects, I got serious about it in August 2009.  Since then, I’ve built up my online income nicely.  In fact, my total online income with includes the income that comes indirectly from this project such as freelance writing income is currently about 15% of my main income (on average).

Basically, in six months, I’ve created another income stream that is already replacing 15% of my main income.  In order to put this in perspective, let’s compare this with investment income.

For this exercise, let’s assume an 8% return which is a pretty nice return.  In order to earn 15% of your income each year through an investment earning 8%, you would need almost twice your income in capital (or savings).  Do you currently have twice your annual income saved up and invested?  If you do, I’m sure that it took longer than six months to accumulate.

The point is that most of you can develop a business that generates income replacing cash flow much faster than you can save up enough money to generate enough cash flow from its returns to replace the same amount of income.  Does this mean you shouldn’t save up money and invest?  Of course not.  It means you should be doing both at the same time.  The beautiful thing is that while you continue to work your job and build your secondary income, your secondary income can fuel your investment income!  My salary pays my bills and lifestyle with a little left over for savings, my online income stream also fuels my savings.  My savings continue to grow through my investments.

I’m very happy with 15% income replacement in six months.  I will continue to document my progress as I march towards 100% income replacement.