How Can You Grow a Residual Income on a Part-Time Basis?

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will likely work an EDJ for the foreseeable future. My goal is to work a day job for the next 8 years and then retire/semi-retire by the time I’m 60. I feel like that’s a reasonable goal.

But, in order to retire/semi-retire when I’m 60 and not put in a claim for OAS (old age security for you non-Canadians) (aside: who the hell decided that 60 was old age? LOL. Because I sure as hell won’t be old at 60!) to avoid a lower payment, I need to have residual income.

Assuming that I have the house paid off and I’m still living in my current situation, I will have some residual income from rental of my house. Part of the house rental income will go to property tax, house insurance, and general house maintenance. But I should have around $500-600 as residual income.

That’s not enough though.

I know I can build up enough income from other things. I just need to decide how I’m going to do it.

If you’re like me, nearing retirement (or maybe not nearing it but thinking about it and planning to retire early), you might be exploring ways you can build up a residual income business without quitting your day job. Not everyone wants to quit their day job.

There are a lot of reasons to keep the day job while you grow your retirement income. Maybe you just like what you do in your day job. Or maybe you like the stability of a check that comes on a certain day of the week each month so you know when you can pay your bills. Perhaps you like to have variety in your work, so working a day job and an online job works better for you. Whatever your reasons are, working a day job and a part-time passive income job is a perfectly viable way to manage your finances.

Anyway, let’s talk about how you can grow a residual income on a part-time basis.

There’s many different things you can do. And, I strongly believe you should not have to choose one. I don’t think you should have to choose a single niche or one way of building your retirement income. Going niche is certainly one way you can do it - if your brain works that way. Mine doesn’t. I get bored easily. So, I’ll be spreading the love around I think.

That being said, I think you can connect them all to appeal to an audience who is interested in multiple niches.

For me, my interest as of late has been in working with women like me - women over 40 who are thinking about a future where they matter more. Where they are more than wife, a mom, an employee. Where they are strong, vibrant women who have diverse interests. Where they can tend to themselves without any guilt.

I know that seems simple and maybe even obvious to some, but for women like me, it’s been a long road to this point in our lives.

So, how can I turn that into a business online that is diverse, yet not in one specific niche?

I’m still working it out but I’m thinking of a few things and I’ll likely narrow it down over the next month or so. These things include:

• niche blogs (yes, multiple; topics could include sexuality, mental health, self-love, relationships)
• ebooks - I’m thinking mostly about non-fiction in the above topics, but is it not probable that women in the this 40+ group might be interested in reading fictional books about women in their 40s with similar circumstances?
• mini-courses - who has time for a 6 month course? Not me. So, maybe an 8 week course that has a minimal cost? I might include bonuses like groups. Facebook is popular for groups but has anyone tried Habitica? It’s a great place for like-minded people to gather in small groups and work on developing habits together. I’ll be writing more about that in the future!
• Medium - yes, I still love the site. I’m thinking it could be a good place to republish articles from blogs as a way of generating a little more income.
• newsletters - I’m thinking of both free and paid newsletters; free, well, it’s obviously for women who just want to get a feel for who I am, what I offer, and whether or not they fit into my community (or just those who don’t have the means to pay for products or services); the paid newsletter/s would offer people first looks at content, one-on-one sessions, maybe a written letter service (because who doesn’t love getting letters/cards to encourage them?) and some other bonuses.

Now here’s the big question:

How much time do I think I actually have?

I ask myself this all the time. There’s so much I want to do. How do I think I am ever going to get it all done?

Obviously, since I work an EDJ and I’m going at this part-time, I can’t be as on top of things as full-timers who work at this passive/residual income thing all day long. But that’s ok.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m going to pick one or two or maybe three things to work on. Maybe a blog and a mini-course and the free newsletter. Just as an example. And then I’m going to build up the content for those things until there’s enough of it to run for at least several months.

I may do 30 blog posts before I even set up the blog. Then, I’ll get the posts loaded up and let them publish on scheduled dates.

I’ll write 30 free newsletter issues and schedule them.

And I’ll build a mini-course with 8-10 weeks of content to send out.

Each part will come out one at a time. As they are released, they’ll connect to the previous part. So, likely the blog first. Then the newsletter, which will be featured on the blog. And then the mini-course, which will be featured in the newsletter and on the blog.

The beauty of this is that there’s no timeline.

I could be working on several different niches at once. One day I might write a blog post for niche A and the next day work on a segment of a mini-course for niche B.

Yes, it will likely take longer than if I focused on one niche at a time. But I’ll stay interested in what I’m doing. And eventually, I’ll have several income streams in several niches going at once.

By the time I retire, I should have residual income streams that can support me and I can retire from the EDJ and just work on the stuff I want to.

Heck, by the time I am 60, I could likely branch out and outsource some of the work, like the writing or the social media promotions.

What do you think?

Could this work?