• Home
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Subscribe By Email
  • Contact Me
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Kieran MacRae

Blogging Daily

Hide Search

Flint Reveals His Business! – My Journey To FIRE

Kieran · 25/06/2018 · 8 Comments

Flint Out Enjoying The SunIt seems unfair of me to preach about living this good life of minimal spending and maximum living without sharing what my business actually is.

Here’s my journey to FIRE.

While I was at university in Glasgow studying for my Physics degree I couldn’t decide what career I might want, a PhD seemed the most tempting path but I wasn’t sure.

But while I was pondering that I was thinking about saving, I saw the advice to always save 10% of your paycheck, I worked out what that would mean from an average salary of £25,000 and wasn’t thrilled.

So I looked at compound interest from the bank and gave a generous 3%, I still wasn’t impressed. Over a 40 year career that would amount to £200,000. Not great.

So I turned to the internet for answers!

Several rabbit holes of Reddit searching later I popped out at Mr Money Mustaches blog.

I knew it!

If you save more than 10% and invest the rest you can get rich, become financially independent and retire early!

You use something called the 4% rule which is essentially where you can withdraw 4% of your saving every year and they should last forever.

Mad Fientist has more information on the 4% rule which I highly recommend reading.

I had no idea how much I’d need but figured £25,000 was an average salary so that’d be fine and boom £625,000 was my goal. It wasn’t set in stone but it was a goal.

I also figured retiring by 30 was a nice age leaving plenty of time for fun activities and when MMM himself retired so I had 9 years to do it.

But It turned out to do that I’d need to save £40,000 a year every year until then. Now with the £14,000 a year that a PhD had in store for me this seemed a bit of a stretch.

So what did I do?

Once again I turned to the internet.

I still had no career in mind so looked at making money online. I looked through various methods and came across day trading the FTSE100. Thought I’d give it a go, spent many months researching, got myself a practice account and it went reasonably well.

Until the total started going down and down and down.

Luckily it was a practise account so nothing was lost. Back to the drawing board.

This was all a bit of a pipe dream so I kept studying and was still working towards a PhD. Then I got a summer job in one of the Univesity labs as an intern looking at laser microscopes.

It was mind-numbingly boring.

Got a paper published at the end but fuck me it was a grind…

I finished uni, me and my fiance eloped, deciding to travel for 9 months instead of having the traditional big wedding. (a post for the future)

This is where the fun starts.

I kept reading various FIRE blogs and noticed a pattern of the retiree’s, a lot of them were talking about how they were still making enough money post-retirement to cover all living expenses, but they’re earning it on their own time doing work they love.

Interesting…

While we were away I came across a Reddit post where I guy was claiming to make $30,000 a month from a bunch of Informational websites he ran. The premise was he’d pick an interest, then create a website with everything you’d need to know about it.

My perfect job! A professional hobbyist!

So I got to work figuring out how to create a website, and how to write a blog. 2 months of faff learning and procrastination later and Flat Calm Living was born, a lifestyle blog centred around meditation, mindfulness, healthy eating, exercise. All interests of mine.

3 months went by and I had a lot of fun. My earnings? A grand total of $1…

Hmmm, maybe not quite right, but I kept going and at the same time came across another Reddit post, , where someone was creating a website from scratch and grow it to $50,000 A MONTH in 12 months using affiliate marketing. (This is an archived version of the post)

Holy shit.

So I read all I could about affiliate marketing (That link is a good place to start), which is where you promote a product on your website, then you get people to visit it and if they click the link and buy something you get a commission. The result of all this learning was that I started DjentHub.com a guitar website that I was going to use to promote guitars and accessories, after another 3 months I’d managed to earn $20…

Moving in the right direction at least, another 3 months brought me up to $50 a month, a nice start, but I learned guitars are a dying niche. It’s going the same way as the grand piano and I didn’t want to invest in that much of an uphill battle so I had to try again.

Me and my wife were home by this point, back in Glasgow and I started Thedozyowl.co.uk, a sleep based website. It’s something everyone needs and always will need so seemed a good start. I didn’t know how I was going to monetise it past pillows and bedding but it was a start, I figured if I kept working with a goal in mind I’d get there eventually.

I decided to give myself a 1-year deadline, I’d get a minimum wage job, work 20-30 hours a week and bust my ass at making this work. I thought if I hit £2000 next August 2017 I’ll go full time, if I don’t I’ll find a “real job”.*

Fast forward to August 2017 – after a year of hard work, learning and uncertainty – and I’d made it! I earned a little over £2000 and handed in my notice to the shoe shop I worked in.

I still had the 4% rule in mind so I thought I’d work my ass off some more and try and get The Dozy Owl to the point where I could sell it then use that to live off, it might take a few more years then I could switch to more fun projects. But after about a month of that, I thought, why bother?

I don’t work to anyone schedule but my own. I get to decide what to work on. I already am financially independent. All selling my sites would do was give me something to retire from.

Why not outsource the grunt work and live off the rest (turned out this is the premise of the 4 hour work week).

And I did!

But the reason I did was that I kept my expenses low and was comfortable with what I had. If I’d grown accustomed to an expensive lifestyle that a career was giving me I may never have made the switch.

Your journey will be different to mine, I don’t even want you to start an online business (though it is fun!), I just want you to learn that if you learn to live on less you can have so much more free time to do the things that matter to you.

With the chance that if you’re committed and hardcore enough to make work will likely end up leading you to make even more money!

I want you to become a Spark and join me as we fight against all the Wet Blankets out there telling us we can’t do it and trying to put us out.

Sound good?

– Flint

*£2000 because online earnings can be up and down, I figured £2000 was enough that if it suddenly halved I’d still be OK.

How Much Time Is Your Lunch Costing You?
I Passed My Driving Test At 24 - Here's Why I'm Glad I Waited
Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. theFIREstarter says

    25/06/2018 at 10:02 pm

    Amazing story!

    Kudos for not following the more well trodden path. Sounds like you hit on a great idea at just the right time as well.

    I wish I’d know about your website before I got a new pillow for last Christmas. It’s ok I suppose but the memory foam one for 45 quid sounds much better!

    Of course my next question is going to be how much are you making nowadays after outsourcing all the grunt work 😉
    I read a story about the sleepololis guy who must have easily been making $100k a month which is insane, but cool!

    No worries if you’d rather not divulge any further info, perfectly understandable.

    Cheers!

    Reply
    • Flint says

      26/06/2018 at 11:06 am

      Hey TFS!

      Ah, sad times! Well if you ever need a replacement you know where to go!

      Always another question 🙂 Sadly I’m not nearly at the level of Sleepopolis (the dream!) but I’m not in a lawsuit either like he was so there’s always a give and take! It varies a lot across the seasons but I’m making between £2-4K a month, and hopefully it should keep growing as my workers keep building it for me. At least that’s the plan!

      Reply
      • theFIREstarter says

        28/06/2018 at 9:09 pm

        That’s awesome, and more than many people make from a “normal” job so the fact that input is now minimal is even better. All about putting up the hard work and risking it up front and now you are reaping the rewards!
        Yea there is no reason why you can’t get bigger as time goes on, seems to be the way websites and SEO rankings work from my experience.

        Will defo come back to the website next time I have any sleep related purchases and chuck an extra bit of income your way 🙂

        Reply
        • Flint says

          28/06/2018 at 9:53 pm

          Thanks I’ll appreciate it 🙂 absolutely is, all about pushing forward until it works, it will eventually!

          Reply
  2. Craig J says

    09/07/2018 at 7:25 pm

    Hey Flint, I’m a 29 year old NHS worker down South here. I’ve just stumbled across your blog, slowly making my way through. I’ll be honest: I don’t like working (well, I don’t like a job!) – and certainly don’t want to spend until I’m 70 doing it. I’ve spent enough time moaning about it (and seeing others moan) on Reddit, and I kept seeing FIRE mentioned.

    Tonight is my first “sit down and see what this really is” night, and yours was the first blog I’ve read (from the UK). Thanks for spelling it out, and good luck on your journey. Stocks and bonds seem quite scary for me, the uninitiated – I look forward to learning some more.

    Reply
    • Flint says

      09/07/2018 at 7:36 pm

      Hi Craig,

      Thanks for stopping by! Really glad to hear you’re interested in FIRE, it’s the first step on what will be a very exciting journey!

      Stocks and shares are definitely the way forward, I’m going to do some more posts about them soon so stick around, and if you have any other questions leave comments on your way through.

      Reply
  3. A Spark says

    28/03/2019 at 1:09 pm

    Hi Flint

    Yours is an inspiring story. I’m a 30 year old corporate office worker and I hate it. So much so that in 2016 I tried to set up an automated online business selling photography courses. However 2.5 years of working on it for a hour a day later it was costing me £50 a month and I stopped. That £50 a month now goes into my S&S ISA and I’ve been spending the energy on EW betting (£2000 tax free made since the middle of Jan).

    I’m keen to give the online business another go, now I feel I’ve recovered from the last attempt. I’m going to start small and self publish all the guides I wrote for my last business though amazon before looking into a new “proper” business. I’ll also look into Merch by Amazon in Q3-Q4.

    The main obstacle I have is time. I don’t feel I can move to part time work until an online business can cover the cost due to mortgage etc.

    Current early retirement age is looking like 47. Would like to get it to 40 or even 35!

    Cheers,

    A Spark

    Reply
    • Kieran says

      28/03/2019 at 2:27 pm

      Hi thanks for commenting! Full disclose I’ve since this post admitted my real name so you can call me Kieran.

      Repurposing your old material is a fantastic idea, a great way to test out the market and out your old work to use.

      Yes I definitely had the advantage of youth when growing my business you definitely want to have it earning consistently before making any leaps.

      And time is always the biggest factor, but if you really can’t make any more time then using the time you have is great and you shouldn’t feel bad about it, forward motion is still just that and how you get where you want.

      Glad to have you reading, I hope you enjoy the posts.

      Kieran

      P.S. This comment was on mobile so apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Announcing The Generally Spooky Podcast
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Press Ups For Sale £1
  • An Unwavering Barrage Of Concentration
  • My Working From Home Routine
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms Of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • privacy tools

Copyright © 2023 · Daily Dish Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Delete Cookies Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Necessary Always Enabled