Tyler Cruz: Living at home with my parents Part II

June 13, 2007

This is a continuity of Tyler Cruz: Living at home with my parents part one. Five month later Tyler posted again what he have done, this is his experiences:

Oct 19, 2005

Hi Everyone,

I’ve decided to make an update on a thread I made originally five months ago. It was called “I’m Doing it Guys” and can be found here:

Tyler Cruz: Living at home with my parents

It garnered 200 replies and I had created it originally to both help inspire others, as well as provide a documentation case/diary on a young web entrepreneur moving out and living entirely off of web publishing.

I’ve made this follow-up as I’ve had a lot of kind people here request it - thanks for all the kind PM’s, e-mails and messages supporting me.

Okay… now.. where do I begin

To start, here’s some photos. The first ‘gallery’ was taken about a month after moving in, and so my place looks different now (more stuff and whatnot) and my balcony was under renovation at that time, etc.

http://www.movie-vault.com/tyler/apartment2/
http://www.movie-vault.com/tyler/tv2/

First off, I’d like to simply say that moving out was the best decision and life choice I ever made. It changed my life completely, and in a great way.

Moneywise, things have been awesome. Upon reading my initial post in that thread a few minutes ago, I was amazed to find out how little I was making! About a week after moving in, I sold a site that cost me $400 to make (I simply hired a guy to make it for me) for $10,000. This was big, as this basically covered 2 years of rent!

I am now making around $4,000 a month (Canadian), not including the sales of sites, but just from advertising income. I have only been working around an hour a day (at most) on my sites, and have been busy with other things… it’s a shame because I’ve lost a lost of the ‘drive’ I used to have.. in fact, I haven’t worked ‘hard’ on my sites for perhaps maybe a year or more. And I believe that if I can find that energy and drive, I could be making $20,000 a month fairly easy.

However, some of it stems from the fact that I’m perfectly happy where I am moneywise right now. I mean.. I totally spend my money freely - I spend soooooo much money it’s not even funny… but it’s great.. I never have to worry about money anymore since I have it.

One big investment I recently made was the purchase of DomainForums.com which cost me in the $xx,xxx range. I have big plans for the site, and plan on making it into my 3rd ‘monster’ site. I’m actually looking for help/moderators/etc. on it (volunteer basis of course) if anyone is interested.

Um.. part of why I haven’t been working ‘hard’ on my sites is that I’ve been really busy working on a lot of personal issues. I got in my first relationship shortly after moving out (which was totally awesome) although that has ended now, but peacefully and we’re still good friends - but that simply whetted my appetite and I’ve been chasing so many girls since then.. heh.. so that is very.. distracting.

Then I’ve also made so many other big changes.. I got contact lenses, got a new haircut for the first time in my life, I just got teeth surgery (implants) a couple days ago *Ack, thats around $6 grand right there*, may be joining MMA (mixed martial arts)..

As far as expenses goes.. I don’t even keep track of anything anymore. I know I spend a lot though. About $150-200 on my cellphone, $400 on food, $600 on rent, $1500 on website investment, $1000 on entertainment (dvds, website subscriptions, poker, etc.) $100 on internet and cable, then there’s income tax money i put away, RRSP/retirement money i put away, etc, etc.

I’m very happy with the money I’m making now, and don’t want to be greedy, but I do have goals. My goal is to make $10,000 a month a year from now.. breaking into the 6 digit a year threshold. I’m close to reaching that now… I just need to get DomainForums.com rolling… I may also be incorporating my network of sites into an LLC. as income tax here is killer, and being self employed and in Canada, my income tax rate will be around 50% next year.. so incorporating will help me legally ease myself from this…

Let’s see… what else am I missing… basically I just wanted to give a follow-up, and let all you up and coming web entrepreneurs know that it’s certainly very feasible to live WELL and comfortably off your sites. I’m 22 and work around an hour a day and am living very comfortably. Life is great (just need a new nice girl now :P)

Author: Tyler Cruz