Tyler Cruz: Living at home with my parents Part I

June 12, 2007

I love to read people’s experiences on how they earn money online and how they are living from their online income. This time is for Tyler Cruz. I found his experiences at Sitepoint he posted since he began his venture and now after 20 months later he again posted the results:

This Experience is divided in 3 parts.
(His first post) On May 9, 2005:

Hey Everyone,

I decided to make this thread as it acts as both ‘inspiration’ to others, as well as a type of log/diary of my future endeavors.

After graduating high school, I worked at a job here for a little over a year. I then quit it so I could move to Korea for a little adventure. Upon returning, I did not look for another job, and used income from my sites to pay for things I needed.

Around age 20 at that time, my parents started charging me rent. They only wanted $250 a month, but I felt I needed to push myself somewhat, so that I’d be ready to move out eventually. Thus, I incremented my monthly rent by $10 a month (later change to $15 then $20 increments). I did this for over a year, which brings me to where I am today.

I am now 21, and am still living at home. I’m currently paying $500 a month in rent, with $20 increments. I still don’t have a job, and make my living from my websites, which are still growing in revenue.

However, I am now ready to move out. Badly Now, I know a lot of people say to just stay home and save up because it’s so much cheaper, but realize I’ve already been paying rent for a long time now, and it is only going to get more expensive ($20 increment…) I also need to move out for other reasons I won’t be mentioning here.

Last week, I bought my first cellphone. This was to avoid the hassle of changing land lines in the future, as well as convenience. However, it was mainly done to help get used to more monthly bills.

I’ve worked out my budget/costs of living several times, and I believe it to be honest and accurate, if not exceeding what costs of living should be. I have finally chosen a city to move to, which ended up being the same one I’m in now, and have done modest research on living expenses and prices. Later today, I plan on finally phoning a few apartments for the first time, and scheduling some time to look at them. This is a big event for me

So what? What’s the big deal? Well, it’s not a big deal to most people I guess, but it is to me. I am making a living working 30 minutes a day on my sites. I just thought that I’d post this thread, and perhaps follow up on it in the future, to show others that it is possible for a young person to make a living off the web.

I’m not going to college, and I don’t have a job, and I think I may receive some ‘advice’ about how what I’m doing is dangerous. I already understand the dangers. My fullback plan is to tutor English privately, do photo restoration, and even get a part-time job if necessary. I do not expect my sites to fail completely, but even if they do somehow, I accept the risk and will get a ‘normal’ job.

For anyone interested, here are some of my ‘numbers’ for cost of living:

======================================================

USD=$1.00
CDN=$1.20

I’m currently making betwen $1500-$1700 (fairly conservative number) a month Canadian before taxes(average from past 3 months - was much less before then…). For additional income, or backup income, I can do some photo restoration, web development, and English tutoring, which could bring in another $300-$400 CDN or so a month.

I pay 32% in income tax (being self-emplyed hurts!), and so I put away 300 a month into a seperate account titled ‘taxes’ each month, and I put $50 into my retirement fund each month.

I have around $14,000 CDN saved up (I just sold a site, which helped with the majority of that).

Keep in mind that where I live, rent and cost of living is not bad at all.

Current Expenses I’m Already Paying:
————————————

Rent: $500
Cell: $30

Expected Expenses:
————————————

Rent: $520
Utilities (Heat, Water, Hydro): $50
Cell: $30
Internet: $50
food: $300
tv: 50
internet expenses (server/subscriptions/etc): 140
misc expenses (laundry, toilet paper, dish soap, etc): 100
retirement/medical/etc - $350

total: $1590

Author: TylerCruz.com