Financial Overview - Destitute and Crying, but eventually Flying

Hello all,

In this I will detail the beginnings of my financial journey.

I decided years ago that I wanted financial independence. I believed the way to go about it was to write a few series of novels. I love writing, I love getting lost in the stories. I ended up buying multiple courses about writing novels and finding financial success through marketing those novels and growing your audience.

I have yet to properly finish a novel in the last two years. I’m honestly unsure why. I stopped writing when COVID-19 first hit because it brought about a rather long depressive episode. Since then, whenever I sit down to write I feel I have very little motivation to write. When I do actually write I feel like the quality is poor and that I should simply give up.

But, I don’t WANT to give up on my dream for financial security. I just realised that I may need to go about a different way of finding it.

Over the last few weeks I have scoured the Internet for different ideas on how to reach financial security. What side hustle to start and how to go about growing it.

First: Youtube. I’ve heard about the success many people find on Youtube, and the absolute Hell Hole it is for most content creators. But, there was something I kept finding. I was trying Brain.FM and Neuty’s Website and just random Youtube videos. However, no matter what I tried, I could never find that *perfect* playlist or song that would help me study or sleep. So, I decided to start creating my own, to try and help myself. If it happens to help other people then so be it, that’s a lovely little bonus.

Second: Etsy. It’s quite easy to make designs. I found I quite enjoyed this because of my hatred of socks. I don’t actually hate socks, but I do find that many socks - supposedly for adults - are plastered with dumb crap or pictures.

Yes, I am the Bah Humbug human of my family.

I started to design a few socks through Printify and linked it to my Etsy account. This was done on the 22nd of October. I’ve spent absolutely no time on Etsy other than sorting this out and creating a store and an account. So I’ll need to find a deeper understanding of it before I feel I can find any success. That will come with time, I’d hope.

Upwork: Upwork is a freelance website. Think of Fiverr but far more professional. I applied for Upwork back in 2018, and got rejected four times I believe. I was trying to get accepted so I could do some freelance article writing and copywriting for products. I have not yet made my application for Upwork yet. (October 23rd). I feel that I am afraid I’ll be rejected again, despite the fact that my skills have grown and I have new ones to offer as well. It still feels like I’m not good enough to succeed with Upwork.

Update 24th October 2022: Upwork appears to have removed their application process and my profile on Upwork is now all set up. I will post my freelancing progress working on Upwork to this website.

This Website: I created this website back in May. I originally intended to use it as a way of chronicling my writing journey, and my road to financial crisis through the stock market. I never did publish the website though.

Not because it wasn’t ready. But because every time I sat down to write in the fictional world I’d pieced together over six years, I just couldn’t do it. The motivation left me. The stories in my head were wondrous and imaginative and emotive. However, whenever I tried to actually write I felt like it was shite.

Now, I have repurposed this website solely to document my financial growth. Or the more probable outcome; my further financial decline!

I have to laugh at that or else I’m screwed. Whatever happens, I intend for it to be documented for others to find and witness. Maybe I’ll succeed, or maybe I’ll fail.

Overall: I have given myself the possibility of four different income streams. I have no knowledge of any of them. I am the worst possible person to be attempting any of this. I have no experience and no idea what my expectations should be. So far I have drained money for these ideas in the last week, and I am almost certain I will have little to show for it.

Now, because I value transparency and desire for this to be open for all to learn from, I am going to show you the services I have used for these.

Premiere Pro: I am currently on their free 7-Day trial. It ends on October 25 and will cost A$31.35 a month after that. This amounts to $34.66NZD currently.

Epidemic Sounds: I am on their free-month. It will begin charging me US$15.00 a month on November 18th. Tis amounts to $26.08NZD currently.

Rawpixel: I bought Rawpixel Premium on the 22nd of October. It was USD$12.99, which came through my account as $23.12NZD.

Videezy: Similar to Rawpixel and Unsplash, except with a focus on video capturings. (Such as raindrops, smoke, leaves blowing in the wind etc).

VidIQ: I paid for their Pro plan, which came through as $17.79NZD.

Printify: I’m using their free plan design s o c k s.

Etsy: The e-commerce store front that I used to sell the designed socks.

Bluehost: The hosting service through which I host this website. I’m on the Choice Plus plan, the cost of which is: US$24.99 a month, which came out to being $51.16NZD.

Note: I attempted to downgrade my Bluehost plan, as I only required one website. However, it was unavailable to me. Should I create any further websites under this plan I will post it here.

Youtube:

Youtube Channel: Ashes of Dreams

First Video uploaded: October 19th

Information: It is a ten hour-long ambient music video. A focus on the rain within a gloomy road in the middle of a forest. I set it to have some low pianist music in the background to help bring about a feeling of relaxation and sleep.

Second Video uploaded: 21st of October

Information: An hour long dive into music therapy. The music starts off tragic and eliciting such an emotion, but as the video continues on the music gradually gets happier, more peaceful. I have tried to capture the road of depression in a video, the gradual and long journey of finding your own happiness.

Total Views to Date (October 23rd): Two. Both my own. I’ve decided to not publicise these videos to my friends and family. I want as few people to know about me doing this as possible. Mostly because I feel I do not have the skill to grow these ideas to be successful, but also because I do not want anything influenced by other people.

Realisations and Findings:

Firstly, it is difficult to grow organically. Yes, given that it has been four days since I uploaded the first video, I’m not overly surprised. But having nothing as of yet is a surprise.

On a related note, despite adjusting the frame size in Premiere Pro, an exported video does not match the resolution I want it to. This leaves my videos with black bars along the sides, which isn’t the end of the world, but it is a pet peeve of mine that it seems to be adjusting it automatically from what I have set it to. I will be looking into changing this and figuring out if there is a way to stop it happening so I get my desired resolution and aspect ratio.

Content Plan for Youtube:

Whilst I currently only have two videos up on Youtube, I am planning on releasing a video every day throughout November. Currently my plan is for one 10-hour video per week, with hour long videos every other day. The reason for this is that an hour long-video takes significantly less time to export. While a 10-hour video appears to take almost twelve-hours to export. I do not blame Premiere Pro for this, as it’s likely due to the hardware of my laptop - which is eight years old at this point.

Every Saturday throughout November: 10 hour msuic video with the intention of easing peoples’ minds so that they will find sleep easier.

Every other day: a one-hour music video with a focus on creating an atmosphere so that listeners may gain peace-of-mind and mental relaxation.

Etsy:

I began Etsy on the 22nd of October 2022. I created five designs of socks originally, but I promptly deleted two of them as I got an idea of what I wanted to create. I attempted to branch out into gloves but Printify did not have any of these options available to me.

Views to date (24th October): 3

Sales to date: 0

Upwork:

As of the 24th of October my Upwork account is all set up and I am ready to start bidding for jobs and attempting freelance work. For anyone interested, I have two skills that I can make use of on Upwork. Website design and content creation.

My freelancing attempts will begin on October 26th.

My Website: hamishmaccoll.com

Well, you’re reading this, and the site is live, as of October 24th 2022. I’m not sure what will happen with this website or where we’ll go. Maybe this will be a fond little memory where I thought everything would go downhill and it turned out alright!

Or maybe in a few months this will all be removed. Time will tell.

As an ending to this, I want to sum up the money spent (including any amount that hasn’t yet gone out) and the money gained. I will be ending every financial overview in this manner.

Money spent so far: 152.81NZD

Money Earned: $0