“Be prepared for the future even if you don’t know what the road ahead looks like.” -Bryce Ward 5/14/2020

As of this writing, I am now twenty years old and with good fortune, I have started working remotely for Stupid Raisins during these uncertain times. Even with the coronavirus locking the world up it doesn’t mean we can’t hope for a better tomorrow. Today I am going to be sharing my goals for the future, my reasoning, and how I plan to reach these goals.

Long Term

Everyone should have an ideal life they want to live and make plans to make that dream a reality. For myself, I have two main long term goals in mind.

1. Buy A Duplex

Currently, I live with on my family’s small farm in Washington. I want to have a place to call my own. I guess that is the dream of every youngster starting off now that I think about it. However, I am going to aim for a duplex. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the housing market a duplex is a property much like an apartment in that the home has two separate living units. The idea is that I can live in one half of the duplex while I rent out the other half. This gives me a place to live and can provide me with an income with little time commitment on my part.

2. Setup Three or More Sources of Income.

This is a bit of a broader goal however it is very important if I wish to have a stable lifestyle and still be flexible. The idea is to have more than one source of income so as to protect oneself from unforeseen economic changes. For example, losing your job at Amazon because a virus has shut down everything. Ideally, this would be a fulltime job, cash investments, and the sale of a product. In my short term goals, I will go over in more detail as to what sources of income I aim to create however I will list out them out for you. Selling an E-book, Monetizing a YouTube/Twitch channel, and investing Capitol into pubic projects.

Short Term

If you wish to accomplish your long term goals you need to break it down into more short term steps. To achieve my long term goals I have broken them down into five short term projects. In future posts, I plan to go into more detail with each project.

1. Write an E-book

In today’s world, many items are becoming easier to produce and share with millions of people. For example books, news, and blogs just like the one your reading now. Thanks to the internet and online retailers like Amazon it’s much easier to write a book and sell it for a small income. For my self, I am writing an E-book called the Short Stories of a Dungeon Master. Being that this is my first time writing a story I decided that my best course of action would be to write a series of short stories vs one long tale. This way I can try out different writing styles and storytelling elements in a much faster way.

2. Build Up The BryceIsTubing Youtube/Twitch Channel

Now you may be thinking. “Really Bryce a YouTube channel that’s how you’re going to make money?” But hear me out. I agree with you that a YouTube channel is not a great source of income on its own however it does have its advantages. For example, because I started the BryceIsTubing gaming channel I have learned how to record, edit, and upload videos. Thanks to this channel I started as just a hobby has helped me to become employed with Stupid Raisins.  Now I want to take it further and grow the channel. I want to learn how people find videos, why do they subscribe, and how do channels monetize themselves.

3. Update BryceWards.com

BryceWards.com has served me well as a starting point for learning to write publicly. However, it is time to bring changes to the website. In the coming months, I want to redesign my website and make the site its own brand. As of right now, my site is focused on sharing my experiences and keeping an online portfolio of my skills. I want to try setting up an online store in addition to my blog. This way my website would pay for itself and I can learn more about the workings of E-commerce.

4. Set Up An Email Newsletter

This goal ties into the updated website project. For this project, I want to build an email list to send my readers updates about the blog and advertise my own products like an e-book perhaps? Plus learning how to set up and properly use an email newsletter could help me in the future when I begin the opening of a new business or impressing future employers. One should always find ways to improve oneself and learn new skills after all!

5. Start Investing

Investing is commonly known as putting your money to work. Similar to having a bank account and the bank pays you interest for leaving your money with them. Investing is much more complex than my example of what I gave with the many different ways and projects you can invest in but it is a good starting point. My end goal with this project is to understand how investing works and make another source of income by lending out my money to various projects.

Thank You

Hey, thank you for reading this week’s post. I know this is much longer than normal but I wanted to get my thoughts out and start planning for my future. Hopefully, with this I can have a clear view of what I want out of my life. Which brings me to this question. What are your plans for the future? Please share down in the comments below. I love reading what your thoughts are with every topic I write about.

Thank you again for your time and for reading this post!

Have a fantastic day!

Sincerely,

-Bryce Ward